D&D 5E How to Handle Monster Knowledge Checks

[iserith]

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.)

I've probably posted one somewhere, but I wouldn't know where it is.

Basically, if the question a player asks is something the character could DO by taking action in the game world, he or she should take the action instead. (Fictional action not necessarily "mechanical" action.) Asking a question is sort of like cheating in that it's a way to avoid a potential consequence for an action the character takes. It's playing in the "metagame" instead of playing in the game which is safer. It stops the narrative from moving forward until the questions are resolved.

If the question is about a rule or some other issue that cannot be answered by the character taking action in the game world, then that's fine. Otherwise, per the basic conversation of the game, the player should describe her or her character's actions.

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.

The first thing I do when I choose a monster to use is look at its stat block to figure out what things to include in the environment that speak to its special nature. A mezzoloth in my game would almost certainly appear in a place filled with an acidic, poisonous mist or be seen to emerge from a vat of acid to attack. Some other clues might be provided prior to the PCs getting to the mezzoloth's lair. You won't find yourself in a situation where you didn't have a chance to figure this out other than trial and error. That's a "gotcha" in my view and I'm not okay with it.

Further, if a character has no appropriate skill, language, race, proficiency, backstory, etc. that would suggest knowing something about mezzoloths, that means nothing to me UNLESS the player states he or she would like to have the character attempt to recall lore about the fiend. At THAT point, I can say the character automatically fails to do so. But otherwise, I have no right as DM in my view to say what a character believes or how he or she acts, nor judge the player as "immature" or whatever when he or she chooses to use spells other than acid splash or poison spray on the mezzoloth for no apparent reason.

 

[robus]

Did somebody want this? http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?453707-How-to-Adjudicate-Actions-in-D-amp-D-5e

Iserith - bung it in your footer!

 

[Horwath]

I would put this DC by tiers of play

CR 1-4, DC 10
CR 5-10, DC 15
CR 11-16, DC 20
CR 17-20, DC 25

on pass check PC knows the name and some general features of the monster. Pass DC by 5 and he know everything about average specimen of that monster.

Some monsters are iconic and well known or well known to characters race/background: add advantage on the roll.

Some monsters are nearly forgotten or very secretive: add disadvantage to the roll.

 

[CapnZapp]

I would put this DC by tiers of play

CR 1-4, DC 10
CR 5-10, DC 15
CR 11-16, DC 20
CR 17-20, DC 25

Thank you for your suggestion

Just a minor note: those are tiers of PC levels, not tiers of Challenge Ratings.

CRs go all the way up to 30. If I rejig your table accordingly, I get very very similar results to my own suggestion (DC 15 as base, with +5 for paragon and +10 for epic CR), with CR 1-4 as the main exception. But do you have any rationale for that? Low CR doesn't necessarily mean well-known critter; there are several low-CR monsters I'd call very obscure.

 

[Saeviomagy]

I think the main problem I have with monster knowledge checks is this:

For any other action a character can take, you can put the huge variance in success or failure down to external factors. If I'm terrible at melee combat and I hit, the other guy tripped on a broken paver. If I'm good at climbing and I fail, then I was attacked by a nesting bird. Something out of control of the character. This helps make characters seem competent, whereas blaming success and failure on the character tends to make them seem like incompetent idiots.

But there's no such outside factor for knowledge checks. If I roll and I fail, then my character didn't know, regardless of his intellect and training.

That might make sense for something obscure. But if I fail to recall information on goblins, or don't recognize a bear, then it's back to painting the character as an idiot.

Given that, setting low level creatures at DC 10 seems ridiculous.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

I think the main problem I have with monster knowledge checks is this:

For any other action a character can take, you can put the huge variance in success or failure down to external factors. If I'm terrible at melee combat and I hit, the other guy tripped on a broken paver. If I'm good at climbing and I fail, then I was attacked by a nesting bird. Something out of control of the character. This helps make characters seem competent, whereas blaming success and failure on the character tends to make them seem like incompetent idiots.

But there's no such outside factor for knowledge checks. If I roll and I fail, then my character didn't know, regardless of his intellect and training.

That might make sense for something obscure. But if I fail to recall information on goblins, or don't recognize a bear, then it's back to painting the character as an idiot.

Given that, setting low level creatures at DC 10 seems ridiculous.

I definitely agree that giving characters a chance at failing things that make them look like idiots to fail, such as answering "...is that a bear?" when there is a bear in sight, is a thing that shouldn't be done.

That's a large part of why I don't roll dice for anything if failure would not be interesting. Extending how literally everyone (hopefully, at least) doesn't call for dice rolls to avoid tripping every time a character walks somewhere to many other activities.

It's also why I think that, assuming insistence upon monster knowledge ever involving dice rolls, there should be a fairly extensive list of monster facts for which their is no check.

As for setting DCs, I think there is a trend suggesting that the people that believe a roll should be made are also opposed to those rolls being easy for untrained characters to succeed at, so they set the DC for even the basics high enough that you need a decent modifier to the check in order to get noticeably better odds than a coin toss. I theorize that it is the fault of 3.X - being the first edition to assign specific DCs for important activities, and setting those DCs at values that required significant skill point investment and/or prodigious ability scores to reliably reach (i.e. the most basic of locks or traps being DC 20, so you had to invest as heavily as possible in the related skills to even approach a coin toss), and people thinking that's just how things should be because that's how "the pros" made it.

 

[SkidAce]

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

Quoted for fantasticness!

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I think a good way to set DCs is to think how many average people in the world would know something. DC 5 means 80%, DC 10 means 55%, etc. A lot of time that means dropping at least 5 points off of whatever DC first comes to mind if you have experience with a previous edition. I also like to use a rewired version of the DMG's auto success. If the DC is 5 less than your Intelligence, and you are proficient in the skill and don't have disadvantage, you are assumed to know the information. Even if you aren't proficient, you might automatically know certain DC 5 and DC 10 facts just because of your character's Background, class, or backstory.

 

[SkidAce]

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.

I kinda agree with you in principle. However.

As DM how would you react to a character with no background on the subject, pulling out a crossbow bolt and blessing it in order to kill a rakshasa*, a creature they had done no research on, or had never encountered?



(in the contex of when rakshasa could be instantly killed that way)

 

[iserith]

I kinda agree with you in principle. However.

As DM how would you react to a character with no background on the subject, pulling out a crossbow bolt and blessing it in order to kill a rakshasa*, a creature they had done no research on, or had never encountered?

(in the contex of when rakshasa could be instantly killed that way)

I would react by describing the result of the adventurer's actions. If I wanted not knowing this weakness or discovering it in some way to be part of the challenge, then it's my mistake that I didn't make the weakness a blessed dart.