D&D 5E How to Handle Monster Knowledge Checks

[Jester David]

If a player knows about a fictional monster for a game, it would seem reasonable that a character would know about the actual monster that actually eats people and as an adventurer is their job to know about. When the bards come to the inn to entertain, stories of dragons would be like Star Wars and gnolls and hobgoblins like episodes of Breaking Bad. It would be hard to believe that even the average person wouldn't have a huge amount of general monster knowledge.

Which is great so long as the intelligent characters are played by experienced players and the dumb superstitious characters are played by novice players.
And provided the frequency of monsters is proportionate to their rarity.

I've always seen monster knowledge checks as a way to prevent meta-gaming. It's an unbiased way of determining whether the character does or does not know something.

Before knowledge checks, it was always tempting to play a character who knew everything that the player knows, because there was no objective way to measure that. You could play a character who knew less, but you were actively choosing to increase the chance of TPK based on your preference for one story element over another.

With knowledge checks, you don't have to worry about that. It becomes a pure trade-off in character utility, whether you'd rather know about religious stuff or know how to tell when someone is lying. If your character doesn't know it, then your character doesn't know it, and you know how to play that. It also introduces the possibility that the character might know something that the player doesn't, in which case you will also know how to play that.

In theory yes. In play, my players just throw down dice at the start of a fight and say "what do we know about it?"
It'd be a little better in 5e than 3e and 4e, as skills are more restrained, but there's still the possibility of a great roll revealing everything and eliminating some of the mystery and trial-and-error of a monster.

 

[Jester David]

Honestly... I think one of the best things 5e did was to not include detailed rules for this in the core rules. So DMs who are willing can say "make an Intelligence check" while DMs who hate the mechanic can shrug and tell the players "nope."

 

[The Crimson Binome]

In theory yes. In play, my players just throw down dice at the start of a fight and say "what do we know about it?"
It'd be a little better in 5e than 3e and 4e, as skills are more restrained, but there's still the possibility of a great roll revealing everything and eliminating some of the mystery and trial-and-error of a monster.

As mentioned, you only roll the dice when the outcome is uncertain. If there's no way that anyone could possibly know about this mysterious creature, then the outcome is certain and no roll is allowed.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

If a player knows about a fictional monster for a game, it would seem reasonable that a character would know about the actual monster that actually eats people and as an adventurer is their job to know about.

It really depends on how common these creatures are in the world. If there's one lich that has ever existed, and nobody has ever survived an encounter with it, then it's unlikely that anyone would know what it is or what it can do.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Depending on the setting, with folks like Volo running around and the rise of adventurers, I feel like such a book would sell extremely well and the knowledge therein could be quite common amongst veteran adventurers. YMMV. You could make it rare and award it like a treasure.

If I were a Rakshasa, I would flood the market with these. The information on Rakshasas would be all wrong of course.

 

[MechaPilot]

How do you handle them?

I usually decide beforehand what most people "know" about the monster in question. That "knowledge" is automatically available to PCs. It is not however, guaranteed to be correct; most people "know" things about monsters from the myths that have been passed down to them.

For example, most people in my homebrew setting of Tenesia know that vampires are killed by sunlight. They are not. They lose all of their supernatural powers and are much easier to kill because of it, but they don't ash out like so many vampires do in other setting.

If a player wishes to try her luck at making a roll, she can attempt a check. A 15+ gets you the common knowledge, but corrected. A 20+ gets you all the facts.

 

[Olfan]

I usually don't bother with rolls for common things. Stuff one hears in the process of growing up is easy to know: goblins are tricky, orcs charge fast, ogres are immensely strong, or even that basilisks turn you to stone.

For less common knowledge, I let any player roll on any one knowledge check they care to, and provide info based on the skill. A player rolling on Religion or History may find out based on the ancient legends that elves are immune to a ghoul's paralyze. An Investigation roll will reveal that logically a red dragon is immune to fire or that slashing damage can split some oozes.

This way I feel splits up the interesting and relevant data between all the skills but also gives everyone a chance to shine, incentivizing the party to diversify their knowledge. It also helps make the information gleaned fit into the game thematically, because I've always hated using them as a Scan ability.

Just my two cents.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I like to make an Intelligence (skill) role on my side of the screen when the party first encounters a creature. I'm not sure how I'm finally going to end up doing it, but provisionally I've been allowing about 2 rolls per party (everyone gets to apply their own mod to the result of one die or another). To shake it up I'll just decide which roll applies to who.

I set the basic DC first, based entirely on how rare or obscure I feel the monster is in the world. (The CR thing in 3e bugged me--dragons have high CR, but are well-known creatures.) I generally have one value to know what the creature is, and then for every 5 points higher you get more information about it. I don't think I've ever set the basic "what is this?" value higher than 20, but I have used a good number of 20s for aberrations and such.

If the players ask me in particular, I will sometimes allow them to make rolls to determine specifics.

I often use this particular monster-skill association:

Arcana: Aberrations, constructs, elementals
History: Humanoids, dragons, giants, monstrosities
Nature: Beasts, plants, fey, oozes
Religion: Celestials, fiends, undead

I entertain proposals for using different skills, and I'm generally a pushover in that respect.

I also allow languages known to substitute as skills for the purposes of granting proficiency bonus, and would also likely allow background related information (a solider in a nation warring against hobgoblins gets his proficiency bonus to know things about them).

Once characters learn information in-character they are assumed to remember it. If the player completely forgot something their character learned, I'd probably allow them to make a roll to have their character remember it.

I like players to keep their personal knowledge and their character knowledge separate--it increases world immersion and adds to the value of character creation choices. So far, my players have all been completely fine with that. In fact, they seem to enjoy it. Some of them are new enough not to know much about the monsters, but even the experienced players seem excited to ask "what do I know about this creature?" rather than just trying to apply their player knowledge to it.

 

[Psikerlord#]

Honestly... I think one of the best things 5e did was to not include detailed rules for this in the core rules. So DMs who are willing can say "make an Intelligence check" while DMs who hate the mechanic can shrug and tell the players "nope."

This ^.

Personally if a player knows stuff from MM - cool, they're enthusiastic, reward: their character knows it too. Course the MM is just a guide... and I regularly tweak monsters/create my own.

If someone wants to make a lore check, cool, roll and off we go.

Sometimes I will prompt a lore check -their PC just seeing the monster may prompt a memory or whatever. Roll. Off we go.

 

[Kalshane]

If a player knows about a fictional monster for a game, it would seem reasonable that a character would know about the actual monster that actually eats people and as an adventurer is their job to know about. When the bards come to the inn to entertain, stories of dragons would be like Star Wars and gnolls and hobgoblins like episodes of Breaking Bad. It would be hard to believe that even the average person wouldn't have a huge amount of general monster knowledge.

Considering how bad the presentation of science, legal procedure, technology and other assorted fields can be on television, I don't see this as an argument for everyone knowing the truth about every monster. Quite the opposite, really.