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Message: <blockquote data-quote="painandgreed" data-source="post: 3036155" data-attributes="member: 24969">I disagree. It breaks versimillitude to think that a man trained in combat has never been taught how to fight. In a world where there is DR, then people who are expected to come up against it surely would be warned. In a world where there are monsters, it can be expected that there would be many tales of such detailing their weaknesses and how heroes over came them. In a world where adventures sit all night in inns and drink, it makes sence for them to seek and share information. It doesn't make sence for them to know that the armory sells silver and cold iron weapons but for them not to know why unless the go take an elective at the local wizard college.Knowing common description of monsters and even DR vulnerabilites is not Knowledge(Planes). It may be part of that skill, but the skill would be so much more dealing with culture, history, physics, methods of travel, eniromental risks, etc. In a world with versimillitude, it seems likely that such monsters and their vulnerabilties would have been collected into a song or cadence that good trainers would have made every 0th level fighter recite as they do their drills. Just as learning a song is not a rank in preform, learning such tidbits is not a rank of Knowledge(planes). Of course, some teachers are better than others and some students worse than others.At least, that's my take on things. The players are not the characters and they don't know for sure what their characters talked about at night around the fire for the countless hours they have spent on watch together. The players don't know the songs and stories their characters have been told since childhood. They don't know the local gossip and bits of trivia that everybody knows. A large part of this is estimated by metagaming, and by what the players remember and choose to use. Some monsters will be recognizable event though the character has never seen on in real life before. Some knowledge about them has spread into popular culture.How much might be too much is up to the DM. I allow players to use most information they know for the above reasons. I allow some discussion in the heat of battle between players because I would assume that an adventuring party who has lived together for possibly years has discussed strategy and tactics much more than the actual players. Some times, it crosses a line. I don't allow them to look in books for answers, and at some point, I just tell them to stop kibitzing and that I need an plan of action decided upon by the acting player alone. For the most part, I allow all player knowledge as character knowledge. If they wish to keep something from the other players they need to write a note or talk to me as the DM in the other room. If they don't want the other players (and thus characters) to know they might be up to something, they need to be sneaky about it. A well told lie by PC1 to PC2 about being LG, would not offset the countless times PC2 has seen PC1 commit evil acts or say evil things.This is one of the reasons I use a homebrew. If I want to keep things secret from the characters, I keep them secret fromt he players. I also don't like it when they use knowledge about the setting that may not be correct IMC. It's confusing for both of us and they feel cheated (even when I've told them numerous times that things are different to what they are used to). If there is a monster that the PCs would have never heard of or seen, then I make one up.</blockquote>

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