Again, that has a lot to do with us being highly urbanized. In general, we don't live where the snakes are anymore. Fewer encounters means fewer bites means fewer fatalities...means fewer people aware of the facts about which snakes to avoid, etc.
The ethics of ... death
- Thread starter Greenfield
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Again, that has a lot to do with us being highly urbanized. In general, we don't live where the snakes are anymore. Fewer encounters means fewer bites means fewer fatalities...means fewer people aware of the facts about which snakes to avoid, etc.
I have Animal Control on my cell phone...
Ahnehnois
First Post
In some rpgs, particularly skill-based ones, Knowledge is a skill on the same level as, say, Guns. This makes more sense, really. And I don't see that Knowledge is a limited focus of game activity. My players probably roll around the same number of Knowledge checks that they do attack rolls or saving throws. It's pretty useful to know stuff in most D&D games.
You missed the part where the DM controls his success or failure. The DM decides what rolls to make, what modifiers apply, and what the results mean. A player who chooses to speak eloquently or otherwise take useful actions can influence how the DM adjudicates the rules. None of which is particularly eyebrow-raising; that's D&D 101: you control your character's actions.
Nothing. None of them need a trained only clause. There's no reason an untrained character can't attempt to sail, cook, or make a living at some profession. Or try to build something. Or perform. Or know useful facts.
If you're doing a modern rpg, it may be that an untrained character can't use a computer or fly a plane. If you're doing magic skill-based, it may be that an untrained character can't do magic. Magic and technology are the only two big examples that I can think of where trained-only is reasonable.
Yes, assuming the PCs have no morals and nothing bad ever comes of taking prisoners. Practically speaking, no, doing this is not a good idea.
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The rest of this stuff is hyperbolic and repetitive and isn't worth continuing.
Useful? Sure. Not so much if every character knows the strengths and weaknesses of every monster by default, though. And I'm interested in other posters who see Knowledge checks being as frequent as attacks or saves. That's not been my experience, but that's only one experience.
To me, the rules make many of those decisions or, at a minimum, provide the framework for their adjudication. I consider a player who makes an eloquent speech on behalf of his 8 CHA character who has spent precisely zero skill points on any form of social or interaction skill to be poorly role playing his character, and more deserving of an xp penalty for that than of any bonus to his skill roll.
So one might be an expert at matters arcane (high ranks in spellcraft and arcana) but unable to cast the simplest of spells, despite possessing all relevant knowledge of how they are cast? Seems a disconnect there. He's just a polyglot and picks up new languages with no investment of skill points? Disable device seems like a D&D technology skill (while some basic computer knowledge is similar to driving in the 21st century). Anyone with a great CHA is an animal trainer? Sleight of hand is on the cusp, but I can see this requiring some basic training. Spellcraft is that Magic Basic Training, so seems reasonable. Similar for Use Magic Device, although that depends on how one envisions their use working.
And if there is no reason anyone can't effectively undertake these various skills, why can't they use a longbow, or a hand crossbow effectively (or as effectively as their BAB allows)? How much harder can it be to fire a smaller crossbow than the standard one virtually everyone can use?
Yet it seems it was a good idea for that Noble, wasn't it?
To the moral issues, I commented on those immediately after, but you chose to ignore that aspect of my post. If all it takes is an unwilling sacrifice, I could see many religions using worshippers of opposing deities in this manner.
The idea I do like from your various comments is modifying Local Knowledge to provide a knowledge check on indigenous species, either in addition to or probably in replacement of humanoids. In fact, perhaps humanoids should be "common knowledge" - are there any that are all that rare? There is quite a list, but we could always move the less common to other categories - perhaps "underdark humanoids" move to Dungeoneering, some of the on the line ones get reclassified as Monstrous, etc. If we took the very logical step of setting DC's by monster, rather than by HD, we could define some as common knowledge, and also reclassify others and/or place them on more than one list (I note 'humanoid' includes 'vampire'). We could indicate some are not restricted to "trained" users, despite having a DC above 10.
That would be a default, though. Really, each campaign setting should have its own DC's and "common" rules. The Zeitgeist world has a lot more Fey involvement, and a lot less planar incursions, which would suggest the former are better known and the latter more of a mystery.
Finally, the prospect of someone with misinformation, rather than just not knowing, merits consideration. [Now, what did Bree-yark mean, again?]
Ahnehnois
First Post
Monster identification is not exactly the main use of Knowledge skills. And creating a ridiculous overstatement of my point repeatedly does not make it any more true.
Ouch. I assume you also assign XP penalties to low-Int characters who make good tactical decisions and low-Wis characters who pay attention to what the DM says is happening.
Feel free to criticize the D&D magic system, but leave me out of it.
Borderline. Not much in the way of technology unless you're steampunking it up. Anyone can disable the wheel to a carriage.
In the Western world. There are still a significant number of people who have never used one. But yes, some technology skills should not be trained only if the technology is user-friendly enough or if they are sufficiently ubiquitous.
A modestly effective one, yes. Ranks quickly outstrip ability scores, so even an uncharismatic trainer quickly surpasses an amateur. But the amateur can try, and might succeed. Some people are just good with animals.
Moreover, encouraging people to try things leads to a more interesting game.
They can. It's only a flat -4 nonproficiency penalty. Which is exactly the difference between a first level character's maxed skill an an untrained check.
Given that he ultimately got himself killed anyway (in part because of him having different morals from the PCs), apparently not. But yes, a rich guy bringing along a prisoner with a large caravan with guards makes sense, moreso than an adventuring party that often needs to move quickly and quietly.
You kind of missed the point. Killing is wrong. An unwilling sacrifice is clearly evil. A willing sacrifice is still arguably evil, and there aren't too many of those. The noble was from a mildly lawful evil culture where executing people for this purpose was accepted. I hope to create a thorny moral question for PCs seeking resurrection, not make them jump through logistical hoops. That's what I mean by making it difficult.
Yes, it should.
The rule don't say much on this topic, but there's some room to improve them.
To me, the whole discussion started with the assertions that a knowledge check provided lots of detail about any given monster, and that pretty much everyone in the D&D world would have a pretty solid familiarity of the dangers of most, if not all, monsters and typically know them by sight. Pretty much everyone would know a bodak, medusa or basilisk on sight, for example. If that is a ridiculous overstatement of your point, I welcome you clarifying it.
First off, I never said I was assigning a penalty. I said that such a penalty was more deserved than a skill bonus when the player of an 8 CHA character with no social skills role plays an eloquent speech on the part of that character. More so if such speeches are routine. I can only assume the character is a stutterer, a spitter or some such, because he seems to suffer no problems with his charisma or persuasiveness otherwise.
And yes, I think it is appropriate for people to play the character they chose to build. If you dump WIS, CHA and INT, then you should be playing an unpersuasive, imperceptive dunce. You chose not to spend your character resources on common sense, genius or persuasiveness, so play the brute you designed.
The player who stutters and is a wallflower, but put stats into CHA, and skill points into interaction skills to build a suave, persuasive character, should not have those advantages overridden by a player who is a persuasive orator. The ‘face’ character does not get a bonus to combat abilities because his player deftly demonstrates brilliant defensive and offensive fencing skills.
You choose the character you want to play, and work with that character’s resources. Designing an 8 INT, 8 CHA brute, then playing him as a tactical genius beloved by all is, at least to me, poor role playing. If you want to be a brilliant tactician and a leader of men, don’t give your character an 8 INT and an 8 CHA so you can pump his STR and CON up higher.
I’m not the one suggesting everyone should be able to attempt everything (or at least, not with the possibility of success), am I?
If you want a character who can cast spells, you take levels in a spellcasting class, or a feat that provides some limited casting ability. If you want one who knows a lot about the theory of spellcasting, you take spellcraft (and if you don’t, you know nothing about it). If you want a character who knows a little bit about everything, and can answer DC 11+ questions, that is easily done by taking a rank in each Knowledge skill – you sacrifice other skill ranks you might have taken to be good at this unusual area. Character building is about actualizing your vision of the character, within the constraints of the character building options available to you.
Sure – take an axe to it. But Disable Device allows you to sabotage it so it will work well for a while, and presumably not be obviously tampered with when the carriage driver returns. I don’t believe “just anyone” can do that. Or more to the point, I have no objection to restricting such an ability to those who have been trained, rather than setting the DC at 30 because “it shouldn’t be easy for just anyone to do this”.
I would parse that into the game by having some people take ranks in Handle Animal, not by making Handle Animal usable untrained for those purposes. There is no requirement “trained” mean formal training – it’s just shorthand for “took at least one rank in it”.
I find needing to find less obvious ways to solve a problem because we lack the skill in the obvious one can make for a very interesting game as well. I don’t find the need to set DC’s on tasks anyone trained should be fairly competent at a level that someone with a +5 needs to roll 18+ so that high stat untrained character can’t routinely accomplish it as well makes for a better game.
As I said, magic to overcome the difficulty keeping a prisoner quiet seems quite likely in a world where it carries such advantages. But the moral issue is the more interesting one.
You seem to waffle above from “clearly evil” to “mildly evil” above. No question, taking a life is an evil act by definition, at least in isolation. So would a Good cleric ever consider casting this spell?
How thorny a moral question is it? Although taking a life is clearly evil in isolation, we accept it in many circumstances – Paladins would be unplayable otherwise. If a culture has accepted, as an example, that capital punishment is appropriate in some circumstances, is it “more evil” to use that life taken for the purpose of returning an innocent to life, or is it “more evil” to refrain from using this necessarily evil act to deliver what good it might be capable of doing? American Indian culture uses all of the animal, or as much as possible, as waste would be offensive to the animal killed.
Will the adventurer who is happy making a career out of killing people and taking their stuff really balk at taking an enemy life to return life to a friend? “Well, I have no problem slaughtering a village full of Goblins so we can use the land they held for our own agriculture – that’s just our manifest destiny, and they’re all evil Goblins anyway. And no one should begrudge me helping myself to their possessions afterwards – that’s just a fair wage for a fair day’s work! But kill one of those goblins to return the life of a boy taken from us by a wagon accident? That’s just WRONG!”
As you say willing sacrifices are few and far between. That requirement would accomplish your originally stated goal of making raising the dead a rare and momentous event. If I can kill someone for the privilege of returning, that just limits the willingness of Good persons to use it. And, in the typical D&D setting, how much would it really limit it? Would, say, worshippers of one deity balk at sacrificing worshippers of an enemy deity (oh, excuse me, when we’re opposed to their religion, they’re “cultists”, not “worshippers”).
Oddly, this issue seems remarkably in keeping with the thread title, despite being unrelated to the OP’s comments.
Ahnehnois
First Post
I would say that most parties know some information about most monsters they are likely to encounter. Remove those qualifiers, and it becomes a ridiculous overstatement.
Given core rules, a party of four characters, and an on-CR monster, one party member is fairly likely to have the appropriate Knowledge skill maxed. If the DM does not allow untrained Knowledge, the players likely have taken one rank in every worthwhile Knowledge, as min/max guides recommend, to circumvent that. The odds of a character failing a trained skill check against a DC of 10 + CR are small. If the characters' level and CR are the same, the three skill points over their level, their Int mod, any other bonuses they have, and their die roll put together merely need to equal 10. If the trained character fails or if no one is trained, the party has three or four chances to roll well. I assume that if the check is made, a death attack will be part of the first level of information revealed regardless of how you parse it. I assume that if one character makes this conclusion, he can quickly relay it to others as a free action.
Thus, a party of four level 6 characters that spot a Medusa that is greater than 30 ft. away from them will almost certainly realize that it has a gaze attack they should avoid before they get within range. Thus, it is not fair to assume that a party of characters exposed to it will all have to make saving throws against it. If it sneaks up on them or if they are exceptionally ignorant, this could happen, but is not all that likely. Most SoDs other than the (non-core) banshee are close range or touch range, most SoD monsters are limited in mobility and intelligence and several SoDs can be avoided by averting one's eyes. This is important in mitigating the overall threat levels of SoDs, and not everyone in this thread is willing to account for that.
My assumptions regarding knowledge checks, DCs, and interpretations shift this scenario incrementally in the PCs' favor in most cases.
Either way, I think this conclusion is entirely reasonable, and does not indicate that every single person has access to detailed cryptozoological information.
In general, players should do that. I see no problem, however, with a player doing something clever on occasion. If the roll justifies it, he gets rewarded. If not...nothing ventured, nothing gained. In any case, I think it's for the player himself to decide what his character could reasonably think. How many great stories have unimpressive people making one key insight or saying one trenchant phrase? Heck, that's a JRR Tolkien special!
I think it's simply a consistent enforcement of the heart of the d20 system: your bonus is how good you are, the DC is how hard the task is. If you beat the DC, you accomplish the task. The bonus and DC numbers determine the chance of that happening. I think that is perfectly adequate and does not need an exception for trained only skills. Even given the conceit of trained only skills, I think Knowledge skills are some of the least appropriate skills. As any ENWorlder knows, people can recall a lot of random factoids even outside of their expertise.
Ahnehnois
First Post
It's never come up that I can recall. Not a lot of PC deaths since I instituted this policy. If it did, it would be interesting.
All fair points. I am a pacifist and my players know this, so they likely interpret the rule in that context. I would describe capital punishment as evil, period, in a D&D context. A paladin can kill an opponent in combat who represents an active threat, but I would never consider it a permissible act to kill a sentient creature that cannot defend itself.
However, all characters can perform evil acts. Some people might indeed be willing to justify the restoration of a great hero, even at great cost, if they believe it serves the greater good. Sacrificing a mindless or evil creature to restore such a hero is arguably less evil than your typical evil cultist sacrificing someone for personal power or something. That's where I'm waffling.
Some will, some won't. I could imagine that if a good character was the one being resurrected, he might refuse to come back. I could also imagine the party sacrificing a bear and moving on. (Though I place a lot higher value of the life of an animal than most people, and druids are a large part of my world).
I would. I allow unwilling sacrifices because of the interesting implications. I'd rather have a resurrection happen and be interesting than tell players they can't do it because no one of their level is willing to commit suicide. I also was thinking this way because the idea is from Heroes of Horror.
Another DM wants to do this with willing sacrifices only, that's great for him.
I say it limits the willingness of non-evil persons to use it. Which is most people.
And, on a world level, it limits the number of total resurrections. Every time someone dies, there's one less person living. Even if he gets raised, there's still one less person living. It's a sort of "Law of Conservation of Souls". This has important thematic implications in my world.
Or would elves balk at sacrificing humans? Or would rich people balk at sacrificing poor people? So many social issues to explore!
Totally. I don't think I've ever discussed my resurrection policy on ENW at length before.
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One of the interesting points of unforeseen consequence in the rule set is the roll is against HD and not CR. Therefore really weird extra-planar entities are easier -- on a equal CR level -- to ID than large/dire/advanced versions of regular terrestrial creatures. Since the ratio of HD:CR generally depends on the creature type, the party is likely to be able to spit out the name, major attack avenues and special defences on a creature from the 333 and a third level of the Abyss, but look at the colossal trapdoor spider and not be able to comprehend anything about it.
