Without googling: What is the Schmidt Pain Scale value for a porcupine's quills? How much pressure (pounds per square inch) does a jackal bite with? How long does it take for you to die once stung by a box jelly?
D&D 5E How to Handle Monster Knowledge Checks
Without googling: What is the Schmidt Pain Scale value for a porcupine's quills? How much pressure (pounds per square inch) does a jackal bite with? How long does it take for you to die once stung by a box jelly?
AaronOfBarbaria
Adventurer
You've apparently missed where [MENTION=6778085]Chocolategravy[/MENTION] said "general knowledge", as you are asking for specific knowledge.
General knowledge of the things you are asking would be more along the lines of: Without googling, how does a porcupine defend itself? Should you be worried about a jackal's bite? Can a box jelly's sting kill you?
All of which you have proven at least yourself to know the answers to by using that general information to formulate questions for specifics.
Are you suggesting that knowing you must have fire or acid to kill a troll is "general knowledge"?
In any case, I think the key is to simply change things up for veteran players. Ghouls don't paralyze, they cause levels of exhaustion with every hit. Trolls don't regenerate except with fire or acid, they can only be killed if stabbed through the heart with a stake made from their own thigh bone. Lycanthropes aren't injured by silver weapons, they are subject to spells that affect animals. Zombie are vulnerable to spleen shots. Like that.
In addition to changing things, create folklore -- much of it false or only orbiting the truth. People in our own primitive era believed a lot of strange things about animals (and some of those strange things inform our D&D creatures) and in a world where the fantastic is real they would believe even weirder things. Make them learn by doing or seek out experts.
Finally, use one off monsters. Most of the creatures of myth are not an example of a type of creature, they the only creature of that type. Maybe there is A Gorgon, or A Chimera. Make it a legend and the PCs will have respect for it even if they know it throws spikes from its tail or it's stare causes death.
Ilbranteloth
Explorer
I would say yes. Just as much as people in our world know that a rattlesnake is poisonous. We might not all be able to tell the difference between a coral snake and a king snake, but we probably know they may be dangerous as well. I suspect most people that can't identify a particular snake will probably treat them as if they are potentially venomous.
I definitely recommend tweaking monsters, particularly the ones that would be less well known. Also, there's no reason to tell players specifically what they are fighting. My players tend to refer to corporeal undead as skeletons or zombies. It might be a wight, or some other variation of those types, but essentially it's a walking skeleton or a walking corpse.
But something else that comes to mind is to ask what difference does it make? For example, if your players really didn't know that trolls could only be killed by fire or acid, that might be an interesting encounter the first time they meet one, but otherwise it won't matter. Why does that initial encounter matter?
To me, I think the only time that it makes a difference is if the creature is so difficult to kill that it requires a quest to determine its weakness and figure out how to defeat it. I know that in the description of many of the towns and cities of the Realms they have silver arrows in their armories to fight lycanthropes.
Which ultimately leads back to the point that if it doesn't really matter, then why worry about it? If a player has read the MM and knows a special weakness, so be it. If it's important that the encounter have a unique weakness that must be discovered, then change it.
I have cave trolls that aren't particularly vulnerable to fire or acid, but will turn to stone in sunlight. Nothing new, and in regions where they might be encountered the locals know this. Otherwise it just becomes a tougher monster to put down for good.
AaronOfBarbaria
Adventurer
Among those peoples likely to encounter a troll, absolutely. Whether it is the villagers near the Trollclaw Woods that have passed this vitally important - because troll attacks are actually normal occurrences in their area - bit of knowledge down by oral tradition, or it is people who have stepped into the profession of adventurer (barring that the character concept at hand precludes having actually prepared for life as an adventurer).
And further I am suggesting that knowing fire or acid kills a troll isn't as relevant to what a character is actually doing as one might think, and taking effort to determine whether a given character does know that or not can distract from other important considerations such as A) does the character know this particular creature is or isn't a troll? and, my favorite to remember, B) does a person actually have to know that they are facing a troll and that fire will be useful in killing it, or can they be facing an unknown monster and be attacking it with fire because - generally speaking - fire is dangerous?
As long as you are meaning that in the way of adding more variety so that things are less likely to become stale, I agree. If you are meaning that in the way of trying to keep players in the dark about what is going on and completely neutralize any benefit that "I've been playing this game a long time" might have, I think that is one of the worst courses of action to take.
How long one has been playing D&D in general is less important than how long they have been playing in this setting/campaign. I think that surprising players is important. it adds value through tension and makes the world in which they play seem new and fresh. I think rote activity of any sort is boring and uninspired. In this way i think it is important to have adventures take place in note just different locales and environments, but ones the players will find interesting and new. Similarly, I think using new and interesting opponents, or old opponents with new and interesting twists, serves a valuable purpose. Of course, YMMV.
Sword of Spirit
Legend
I guess the credit for me not really having these problems really does go to my players, who willingly regulate their character knowledge. If they didn't think their character knew about trolls and fire they would be the ones who would make the decision of whether fire makes sense in that scenario or not, and if they were uncertain about whether their character knew about trolls and fire, they would ask.
I need to run some sort of player appreciation special session or something.
AaronOfBarbaria
Adventurer
I find it odd that you quoted me to make the post that you have made here, as my post is about it being good for a DM to let players regulate their character knowledge - specifically bringing up a scenario in which the DM trying to step in and regulate for the player results in the amusing while frustrating exchange along the lines of
DM: "You can't do that, your character doesn't know that fire kills trolls"
Player: "...what do trolls have to do with anything? All I said is that my character jabs the monster that encroached upon our camp with a burning log from the fire he was just tending. Doesn't matter what the monster is or isn't or what my character knows or doesn't know about trolls."
Because the DM has gotten distracted by worrying why the player picked a particular action for their character, when that almost never actually matters.
iserith
Magic Wordsmith
My players regulate what their characters believe and how they act. If they say they believe fire hurts trolls or simply declare an action to attack a troll with a fire bolt spell, then that's fine by me because that is their role in this game, not the DM's. What a player establishes a character believes, however, is not necessarily true, so making assumptions without verifying those assumptions with actions is risky.
If a player asks me what his or her character believes about troll vulnerabilities, I shrug and I ask him or her to tell me - it's not on me to say what a character believes. (I then tell him or her to please stop asking questions and DO something.) If a player declares an action to recall lore about a particular monster, I adjudicate it as with any other action declaration, possibly asking for an ability check. A failed check still leaves the player in the same position: The character can believe and act how the player wants. It's just the player has no confirmation as to the veracity of those beliefs.
As to how I generally run things since I wrote the original topic nearly two years ago, generally I have it be that a successful attempt to recall lore results in giving the player what they sought for their goal (usually specific, valuable information) whereas a failed check results in recalling something interesting, but perhaps not immediately useful.
And, of course, no matter what, I'm always telegraphing the monster's resistances, vulnerabilities, immunities, and notable traits and attacks. The troll roars at the brazier and kicks it across the room, sending the hot coals flying, or takes a noticeably circuitous route to get at the wizard so as to avoid the campfire, for example. Any player paying attention should have a reasonable chance of inferring that the troll is especially fearful of open flame. Failing to make this effort to telegraph threats makes it a "gotcha" and I'm not okay with that.
Sword of Spirit
Legend
I was just quoting you for the good example of the sorts of problems that might come up when the DM has to worry about whether or not their players are regulating their knowledge, and doesn't have to worry about if their characters do regulate that knowledge.
The situation I find myself in that seems different than a lot of others is that I do care that the players play their characters with appropriate knowledge, and that in general I am the one who decides what is appropriate knowledge in my setting, but that the characters are willing and able to regulate their character knowledge according to those assumptions for themselves, so there isn't a hassle over it.
I really enjoy the more or less default accumulated lore of D&D, and don't like to change it, so the methodology of changing lore so the players don't know the truth doesn't appeal at all to me. At the same time, it breaks my immersion significantly, and reduces the immersive significance of chosen ability scores, skills, and other knowledge granting traits, when monster knowledge is based on what the player knows out of character rather than what the character knows, (it's no different than combat skills or Strength to me), so not having a wall between OOC and IC knowledge doesn't appeal to me either.
You've mentioned this technique before and I find it an interesting concept. Do you have a play example or something you've written that would illustrate how you do this better? (Not in relation to knowledge, just the general concept.)
As I a player I like to occasionally find myself in those situations. It's not an unpleasant gotcha for me unless it was pulled off poorly. I generally GM the exact same way I want my GMs to do it. This might not be exactly the same as how particular players would like it, but then again I'm an introvert who enjoys spending my recreation time with people as similar to myself as possible, so I'm not concerned so much about appealing to everyone.
On the other hand, some of the telegraphing you're talking about is proper descriptive framework. But if there is no way to tell from looking at it that a mezzoloth is immune to acid, and no player has an appropriate skill, language, race, proficiency, backstory, etc, that would allow them to know that, then I'll let players waste their acid attacks on it until they figure it out. It provides a greater sense of player agency for me, and a greater sense of accomplishment and acquired power (knowledge is power) when they finally learn what they did wrong and don't do it in the future.
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