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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ForceUser" data-source="post: 2058326" data-attributes="member: 2785">In my campaign, the players tend to think before they leap, so if there's a relevant knowledge associated with a creature, object, or situation, they want to make a roll first to possibly pick up information that might be useful in planning their tactics or in making decisions. I don't typically allow players to reference any books except the PHB during play, so if they want to know the capabilities of an iron golem, they need to make a knowledge (arcana) check because I don't allow them to peek in the Monster Manual. When I present a situation or a history to the group and a player asks "Do I know anything about this?" I have him or her make the relevant knowledge check. My answer to a player with no ranks in the relevant knowledge is usually "No, you don't know anything about this."Our games tend to be structured such that players in the know succeed more often and with fewer casualties than players who are ignorant, because knowledge checks are one of only a few ways to gain information about the topic of interest. A group that knows that cold iron is required to pass the damage reduction of an evil outsider will be more successful than a group that has no clue. With regard to background information such as planar knowledge, what I do is create a DM master copy of all the information that makes my cosmology and its denizens unique. A player with 5 ranks in the skill gets a handout derived from the master copy. albeit with only basic information on it (the names of the major planes, the essential structure of the cosmology, and the planar terminology specific to the campaign) as well as some nuts and bolts stuff of note (5 ranks in knowledge [cosmology] gains a character access to the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd level spells in Manual of the Planes, for instance). The idea is that players who want to learn more background information will buy more ranks in the skill, and get more and more detailed handouts. It's a lot of work, but it can be rewarding when a player uses that information to enhances the roleplaying ot to make decisions in-game.</blockquote>

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