D&D 5E knowledge rolls and monsters N Stuff

[ranger69]

A characters knowledge of monsters may not be complete, or indeed accurate.
I don't think that there is a hard and fast rule on this, just take into account the characters background, class, and ability's, and how common the creature is. Under a stressful situation such as combat you could ask the player to roll on disadvantage to remember the weakness of the opponent.

 

[Paraxis]

I haven't written it down before now, just kind of did it in my head but basicly I just use the standard DC chart.

DC 10 = Easy (common monsters) so things that harass the common people, trade routes, and animals hunted
DC 15 = Medium (the default) stuff that would come up in tales or might be studied by bards and scribes
DC 20 = Hard (rarer monsters) things from foreign lands, stuff only epic heroes face
DC 25 = Very Hard (very rare monsters) odd things from other planes, ancient deep dark places, things unseen for ages
DC 30 = Nearly Impossible (unique monsters) things that are one of a kind

I don't announce everyone should roll at the start of a fight, I let them ask for it. When it treated as a group check like perception it is undoubtable that one of them will make the DC. This way the the players that want to be know it all usually ask for it and get to shine.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I would allow some leeway with monster knowledge for the sage background, or to a ranger with common beasts or his/her favored enemies. Perhaps religious lore would help with undead too. There are always new, as of yet undiscovered monsters that will need to be figured out in play. Bringing their firsthand knowledge of such creatures to the world is a good way for the characters to earn fame.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Using the DC value is a good way to go. On a similar note, we see the same problem with druids and wild shape. Some folks seem to think they should have access to all qualified animals shapes. This is where background comes in handy. Just like the OP's example, if your PC grew up in the wilds with a hedge wizard, chances are you have never seen animals that aren't native to that region. I've often heard that all druids are suddenly world travellers who go to zoos, and that background would get old real quick to me as the DM, for a level 1 PC.

 

[steeldragons]

There was an almost identical thread recently on this...hang on...

<rummages through pages of previous posts>...AHA! Well, Sept. is kinda recent in the scheme of things...

I think I'm falling mostly in with everyone else here. The description is the description I give the player. What it looks, sounds, smells like?...that's all done. It's right there...in front of you...ready to rip your head off. You don't need a check for that.

"Common knowledge" is freely given for critters that would be "common": orcs, ogres, goblins...maybe hobgoblins and kobolds depending on the area and characters...a dwarf or gnome is going to know immediately what a kobold is. The Cleric from the big city or halfling fresh out of his farming community...maybe not. A giant is "a giant?!"

Player 1: "Was it a red giant or a blue giant?"
Player 2: "OR grey or purple? What was it wearing?"
Farmer who just crapped his pants when the giant took his cow: "It was BIG!"
All players look annoyed.
Farmer continues: "Kinda dirty. Mangy lookin' like. N' hooooWEE! I smelled it from across the field...was wearing, ya know, normal clothes. Patchy. Leathers...bit o' fur, I think."
Players 1 & 2: "Hill giant."

A troll is a troll. A basilisk? Maybe they'll mistake it for a drake/dragon of some kind until someone turns to stone...and maybe even after.

Other stuff is really kinda dependent on the PC. I would give a modicum of information to a Cleric about an "Angel", i.e. You know from its coloring that it is what's described in the holy writings as being of the order of Planetar vs. a Deva...they are said to (2 or 3 things a planetar can do) or whatever. Mages are gonna know basic things and be able to recognize magical creatures like unicorns, cockatrices, pseudo-dragons and imps, etc... Demons are a bit more difficult since their appearances are all fairly mutable (in my world)...but I generally keep to the book descriptions or some permutation thereof so that a player is going to identify a Type I vs. a Type III, for example.

If it comes to damage resistances, attack forms, special powers or any of that kinda "meta-game knowledge"...that's all going to be figured out from descriptions of the combat or, if the Player has some pre-established reason in the PC's background why they would know, I might have a roll about this particular type of demon...or demons vs. devils...or umber hulks or whatever. If its a cleric who belongs to a church/order of demon-hunters or a ranger who's made their PC around a concept of being a giant-slayer, I'd probably not require a roll. A thief with an interest in magical items/devices may be given free knowledge of magical guardian-type creatures or might be require a roll to see just what/how much she remembers, depends on the critter and how much/hcomplex they are. "I've read about these! It's an evil naga. Don't look it in the eyes!"

Once the party has encountered something, though, I am inclined to just tell them...presuming their PCs have better memories/ pay more attention than the players...most times.

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...-Checks-for-‘Monster-Knowledge’#ixzz3O4D3Tcey

 

[Sailor Moon]

There is a reason a character has stats. This is supposed to help divorce the player from the PC. These act as limitations because anyone can say they know XY and Zed. Saying you aren't having fun unless you know everything is rather childish to be honest, unless there is either an in game reason that you agreed to, or there are game mechanics that allow you to.

You designate the DC's and whether or not the information is accessible. The thing with Pathfinder is the DC's were just too easy to hit. Monsters are supposed to be a mystery until you've fought one, and even then you may not know everything about the next one you come across.

You have to be careful of the metagaming that can go on.

 

[Will Doyle]

I'm with Paraxis here; if a player wants their character to be a monster knowledge specialist, I'd encourage them and allow for knowledge rolls. In a world inhabited by weird monsters, survival knowledge is going to spread among the learned (just like most people in our world are at least roughly aware of which animals are poisonous). Plus, as has been mentioned above, there's lots of scope for potentially dangerous misinformation.

Here in the UK, the papers recently went crazy about false widow spiders: loads of scare stories about how lethal they are, how they're on the rise, and so on - despite them being completely harmless. I could imagine similar tavern rumors spreading about D&D monsters, e.g. "don't look a blink dog in the eyes or it will drive you mad". If you don't tell your player the DC before they roll, they're not going to know if they're getting truth or misinformation. Heck, you could even give them both e.g. DC 15 for correct knowledge with some misinformation, DC 20 for correct knowledge without misinformation.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Back in the day a huge part of our fun was fighting a brand new monster(to us) and having to figure out how to beat it. Who knew to burn trolls? Not us! Not till it just wouldn't die and after chopping it up someone decided to burn it.

Fast forward to our Pathfinder games and it's use of Knowledge rolls (along with a player that specialized in knowledge skills) and every fight began with instant checks to see what a monsters weaknesses were and how best to beat them(ugg). No mystery,no having to figure it out, just slam bam burn trolls got it.

If you notice with Pathfinder, though, they go out of their way to invent new and unpredictable monsters with crazy abilities that you haven't seen before. Emphasis on the unpredictable.

Treants are trees; they're weak to fire. Quickwood looks "like any other ragged oak tree"; it's immune to fire. It's entirely probable that the party will come under attack from a Quickwood, try to blast it with fire, and fail. It's specifically designed to fight player knowledge, and the mechanical defense against that attack is the Knowledge check. That's just one example, but it's indicative of how Pathfinder was designed (in my experience).

What you refer to as "figure it out yourself" play is what others might call "guess and check". It works, but unless the solution is reasonably intuitive (such as plant monsters being weak to fire), it's not terribly fair, and can make for a disappointing gameplay experience. Try to remember that, the first time you tried to burn a troll, there was about an even chance that it would have exploded and killed half of the party. You were guessing, and you had no idea of what the result would be. Now, extend that out to every monster in the game.

Knowledge checks are an important part of the game, as long as enemies behave in a way that would be unpredictable without knowledge checks. If the party dies, and there was no reasonable way that they could have foreseen it, then there is no blame for the failure - nobody actually did anything wrong. And as Yoda said, if you still lose without making any mistakes, then you should play a different game.

 

[the Jester]

How do you handle knowledge checks ect?

Pcs learn about monsters by encountering them, except for those that they'd know about because of the fact that almost everyone knows about them (e.g. everyone recognizes goblins because they are endemic to the area).

Being trained in Arcana will let a pc recognize certain things and know the basics about them (e.g. "it's some kind of golem- they're constructs built by magic and tend to be very hard to damage").

I am really not into monster knowledge checks and really don't go for them.

 

[Gilladian]

Well, assuming I decide to work this into my game.

The information on it in the books is pretty vague. what factors do you guys use in deciding the DC? Do you look at creature rarity? CR? How do you decide what they remember if they make it? What kind of subsystems do you guys use for this?

Seems like it could easily turn into something complicated and messy.

There's no subsystem. I just wing it based on my knowledge of my world. For example, dragon lore is fairly common in this area of the campaign world, as several dragons recently led armies in attacking the kingdom. So many folk have seen or even fought dragons recently. But despite the fact that a lich is an ancient enemy, few people know more than rumor and folklore, much of it wrong.