Knowledge checks remove mystery?

[Turtlejay]

A lot of good advice. For myself, I assume that one of the reasons they became adventurers in the first place was because of all the stories they heard in their youth. And that after becoming adventurers they actively seek out such knowledge. Of course, that may not apply to everyone in the party, but it should to most. (And I hate it when a GM says that you don't recognise the most common monsters in the world because you've never seen one yourself. Blah!)

. . .Just like I hated that 3.5 Druids could only shapechange into things they had seen. Sure, you have a Knowledge (Nature) score that gods would envy, but you have never acutally *seen* a penguin. Sorry...

I had thought that the check was just a static DC? Do they really increase each tier? I have never made it out of Heroic. It would be nice if the DC incorporated the monster's level, 10+the level of the monster sounds better than just a flat 15 or whatever it is.

Jay