D&D 5E Impossible Ability Test

[Salamandyr]

While I'm not certain about this specific case-assuming a vanilla, roughly 16th Century tech world which seems the default D&D standard. A scholar very well may have heard stories of some desert dwelling creature even though he'd personally never ventured there. I think people underestimate the extent to which information, if not always people, moved around in even the ancient world. There was a silk trade during the Roman Empire for instance.

However, while I may quibble with your DM's specific ruling in this case, I think his basic interpretation is sound. Not everything should be knowable just by rolling high enough on the die. I once ran a campaign with two players with very nature savvy characters. They had an encounter with a couple of dinosaurs. One of them, quickly rolled out a 35 on their Knowledge Nature roll and said "MY character identifies it". The other player rolled something almost equally high. I replied "You're pretty sure it's an elephant!" (one found this hilarious, the other was consternated I was "gimping" her character). But in this campaign, tech levels were closer to 10th Century, it a dark age, sword & sorcery world. Neither characters background involved extensive travel, or access to large cities, and archeology wasn't really a thing, so the characters high rolls only allowed them to think of a creature they could reasonably have "heard" of. The consternated player was equally consternated that another player could tell it wasn't an elephant, not because of a roll, but because the character came from an area of the world that had elephants (unlike the two nature savvy characters) and would have definitely seen them in the past.

What it came down to was, in my estmation, none of these characters were equipped to recognize a dinosaur, or to have even heard of the existence of such a thing, until they saw one, no matter how high they rolled on their knowledge nature skill.

 

[S_Dalsgaard]

If I set something at an impossible high DC (sometimes you just don't want the PCs to know something), I would rather tell them flat out, that they don't know it, than have them roll a natural 20 and telling them, that they don't know it anyway. There is no reason to let players make a roll that automatically fails.

 

[Scorpio616]

That background causes this problem. it gives the impression of the player having access to way too much information.

 

[Cernor]

... [Perhaps] he could get a roll at DC 25 with disadvantage if it was a rare desert monster. If, say, the roll was at +7 he'd still have a 2% chance of knowing. Does that seem high or low for a rare desert monster? If he was at +8 he'd haev a 4% chance. Neither of those chances seem particularly out of the ordinary.

That definitely sounds like those odds are a bit out of the ordinary. Giving a DC of 25 and then adding disadvantage on top of that seems a little punitive-- depending on how much the player wants to know, of course.

 

[Umbran]

I have merged the two threads on the same topic. Carry on!

 

[SidSad]

I created two topics by accident, didn't even noticed it until I relogged today. I'm really sorry for that!

Thank you very much for the enlightment!

About looking for help... I understand it seems infantile. But you're assuming too much. The DM asked us to go out and find arguments to prove him wrong. He said it felt right but he's got no time to prove his point now. That's how he rolls. :|

We were having a conversation about it but we came to an impasse. So he encouraged us to look for clues as how to proceed in books and stuff. But since the DMG is not out yet, I figured I should ask experienced players.

You've been very helpful (except for those who hasn't). Thanks for that!

Edit: There are no DM rules in our table. There are either house rules, or the official rules. We all run the game eventually, so we agreed on only applying a house rule after we discussed and agreed upon it. So there's no backstabbing here. The DM apply the rules and decide the minor issues, but this became a big issue in the specific context.

 

[the Jester]

Obviously, different groups will handle this differently, but here's my take on monster knowledge.

The short version: Nope. Probably.

The long version: Perhaps I've missed it, but where exactly in 5e do you find rules for monster knowledge checks?

The closest is making, for instance, an Intelligence (Religion) check to recall a piece of lore about religion, history, arcana or nature. If you have not encountered anything that would give that lore to you in the first place, I see no reason to let you ID a monster with a roll.

Now, say that the monster was a Sacred Jackal or something tied to your faith- then, sure, you have a strong argument that you might know something about it. But if it was an ashworm, you weren't from the desert, and it's not tied to anything on your character sheet? Nope, no check.

Frankly, I think the 3e/4e paradigm of "pcs can just know about monsters with a roll" only serves to reduce the mystery and wonder of a given monster. I've always been very restrictive with monster knowledge checks, but in 5e? I'm not allowing them at all, unless the pc in question has some reason for having the lore in question.

So, at first level, the pc saw a frost salamander rampaging through a village of arctic dwarves, and then, at level 10, they encounter another frost salamander- I'll allow an Int check (perhaps with proficiency bonus) to recall the details they saw if the players forgot them. "Oh yeah, that thing can climb icy surfaces and has a cold aura around it!" But if they've never met one, aren't from an area that they are native to and don't have some other sort of tie to the monster- nope, learn by experience.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

But if they've never met one, aren't from an area that they are native to and don't have some other sort of tie to the monster- nope, learn by experience.

That's a good way to end up with a lot of dead characters.

The general conceit for knowledge checks is that characters actually live in the world, and have far more knowledge about it than just what they come across during gameplay. The check is your random chance that, even if the player doesn't know what something is, maybe the character does. (Likewise, just because the player does know what something is, that doesn't mean the character does.)

Otherwise, if there's no way I know what something is, or what it can do, and then it kills me? That doesn't make for a terribly compelling play experience. (The same goes for mysterious magical phenomena.)

 

[Riley37]

Has your DM ever lived in a desert?

If he went to a desert, and saw a camel for the first time, could he say this?
"Yes, I know what that's called, it's a camel, it can live on less water than a horse, it sometimes spits at people when it's in a bad mood, which is pretty much any time anyone uses one as a riding or pack animal."

If so, then he's living proof that literate people can know about things they haven't yet personally seen.

On another hand, I agree with others, start with the relational issues. Is he making the story more fun by keeping a certain animal mysterious? Is he making the story less fun for the players, by making their build choices - such as backgrounds and skill proficiencies - not actually useful? Who's in charge of resolving disagreements?

 

[the Jester]

That's a good way to end up with a lot of dead characters.

Or ones who are careful about the challenges they choose to take on.

Honestly, you make it sound like D&D has always had the pcs be entitled to know about monsters. That's actually a fairly recent aberration in the rules, coming in with 3e (at least in the main).

The general conceit for knowledge checks is that characters actually live in the world, and have far more knowledge about it than just what they come across during gameplay.

Has your DM ever lived in a desert?

If he went to a desert, and saw a camel for the first time, could he say this?
"Yes, I know what that's called, it's a camel, it can live on less water than a horse, it sometimes spits at people when it's in a bad mood, which is pretty much any time anyone uses one as a riding or pack animal."

If so, then he's living proof that literate people can know about things they haven't yet personally seen.

Think of a world without mass printing of National Geographics, without TV shows that show you what a camel is. A world where most people live and die without traveling further than 20 miles from where they were born. A world where a huge personal library is a couple of dozen books, and a huge one in a public space- a Great Library- contains a few hundred or a thousand, and you don't get to go in there and play with those (INCREDIBLY VALUABLE) books at will just because you live in that city.

Not every setting is like that, of course, but I think it's fair to say that the template for a typical, average D&D setting is Medieval Europe. And that's more or less what I'm describing.

Of course not all settings fall into that template. Some have printing presses, most end up with unbelievably big collections of books in every ruined tower, and of course pcs are generally the exception to the "hardly traveled" rule of thumb. But still, I think you're both vastly overestimating how much information a typical person in a typical D&D setting has access to.

Worse yet, as often as not, much of the information they have should be dead wrong! Have you ever checked out the monsters and people described in ancient sources? They were usually written by the scholars of their time, and you still end up with people whose faces are in their chest and so on.

So, while every DM's style is different on this, I'm pretty firmly set where I am and am happy with the results. Heck, it reminds me of old 1e and 2e and Basic style gaming!

But there's nothing wrong with a group using monster knowledge like crazy. Nothing at all. I don't care for it, but if it works for you, great! However, what we have in this thread is a case of a DM making a judgment call, his players disagreeing, and there being no right and wrong answers. Despite the "there are no DM rulings, only RAW and house rules" that the OP asserts, D&D simply doesn't work that way- especially 5e, since it's re-empowering the DM so strongly.

In this case, did the DM err? Not at all- not by the RAW.

Are the pcs in error to object? Again, no- but they are in error if they assert that he broke some rule or made a house rule. He made a ruling. And an entirely reasonable one, at that.