Knowledge Skill (Monsters)

[tburdett]

I've always had a slight problem with the way that Intelligence is handled in the D&D (and other) role playing games.

Occasionally you will have an extremely intelligent player with an average or stupid character, or a player with an average, or less, intelligence playing an extremely intelligent character.

The first scenario doesn't usually penalize the character as much as the second. Yes, you suffer a few penalties to your die rolling and your choices are more limited with regards to the feats and skills that you can choose, but your character benefits from the players intelligence. I understand that some players will role-play this and lessen the problem, but not all players are willing or capable of doing this.

The second scenario usually causes frustration for the party as a whole. It's just not possible to convincingly role-play and control a character who is smarter than you are. It doesn't take many misplaced Fireballs or Lightning Bolts to turn the party against you. Casting Cone of Cold for the fifth time on the creature that everyone else knew was cold immune can also cause some small amount of party displeasure.

I've come up with an idea to handle one aspect of this (in my opinion) problem. This is a very rough draft.

Knowledge Skill (Monster).

Knowledge Skill (Monster) would be an INT based skill. You would gain one skill point per level. You cannot raise this skill in any other way. (I haven't really considered the ramifications of allowing Wish, new Feats, etc to affect this, but my gut feeling is that it would be bad.)

This skill would represent the knowledge that characters gain about creatures as they adventure, as they study ancient scrolls and tomes, as they listen and swap info with fellow adventurers, etc.

The DC for this skill is 10 (or another number if this is too low) + the CR of the creature encountered.

At first level this would give you a 50% chance to know something useful (an immunity, a special quality, a special attack, etc) about a CR 1 creature that you are encountering.

For every (x) points above the DC you gain one additional piece of information. (x = a number that I need help with)

Optionally, a roll of 1 could result in the player "knowing" something that wasn't factual.

Different skills (wilderness lore, etc) or classes could have an additional bonus (synergy or otherwise) for certain monster types. A Ranger would get a bonus for his favored enemies and perhaps animals, druids would get a bonus for animals, plants, etc. Clerics for undead. You get the idea.

The information provided initially would always be about the BASE creature type. If the creature had a template and used a template ability, or had obvious template traits, a separate roll could be allowed to learn something useful about the template. The same goes for half-(x) creatures.

Any feedback, good or back, would be appreciated.

 

[bensei]

That's a very interesting problem. I know what you mean, since I'm a rather newbie to D&D. No idea what a troll exactly is, or how to fight it, etc. My character, on the other hand, is a 99 years old bard, who came around a lot. What I normaly do, e.g. when we hunt a white dragon, is ask my DM: "What do I know about dragons?" He first tells me info he assumes my character knows and then (as a bard) I can also roll bardic knowledge, if my character knows some tales and legends about these monsters.
And´even during a battle other characters who know more about the monster could shout to the wizard: 'Immune to cold!' before taking their actions. A DM would certainly allow this to be a free action.

But I think the other way is even harder to roleplay correctly. A 18 year old barbarian with Int 6, who has never seen a certain type of monster, should not fight too intelligently against it, even if the player knows better.

This leads me to the question: How are the encounter difficulties in the DMG measured? For players (characters) who know how the monsters are functioning, or for players (characters) who do not know this? This certainly can make a huge difference!

 

[tburdett]

That's a very interesting problem. I know what you mean, since I'm a rather newbie to D&D. No idea what a troll exactly is, or how to fight it, etc. My character, on the other hand, is a 99 years old bard, who came around a lot. What I normaly do, e.g. when we hunt a white dragon, is ask my DM: "What do I know about dragons?" He first tells me info he assumes my character knows and then (as a bard) I can also roll bardic knowledge, if my character knows some tales and legends about these monsters.
And´even during a battle other characters who know more about the monster could shout to the wizard: 'Immune to cold!' before taking their actions. A DM would certainly allow this to be a free action.

But I think the other way is even harder to roleplay correctly. A 18 year old barbarian with Int 6, who has never seen a certain type of monster, should not fight too intelligently against it, even if the player knows better.

This leads me to the question: How are the encounter difficulties in the DMG measured? For players (characters) who know how the monsters are functioning, or for players (characters) who do not know this? This certainly can make a huge difference!

That's a good question. I don't think that they take that into account at all. If they did, they would have to assume (IMO) that the information was known, because the other path would lead to abuse and misery for DM's everywhere.

 

[Tonguez]

Spycraft has a Education Mechanic at Level + Int mod

The Education Check basically relates to things which your character would know from their training/background but which the player may not

To use it you ask the DM "so what does Monty the Mage know about Trolls"

DM seats a DC at 10 (because trolls are a common threat in the area) a check is made and Monty succeeds

the DM says "okay Monty has heard that Trolls heal really quickly and only fire can hurt them"

 

[trimeulose]

been there done that

I've already tried this, and it was pretty much as you had it, but you run into some very interesting dilemas.

First of your problem is this, some monsters are more rare than others, and thus less likely to be known.

Take for instance the Locathah or the Formian (worker). They are roughly the same CR as a Hobgoblin or an Orc. Now which do you think the players will know about. Chances are that they will know about hobgoblins and orcs as iff they were next door neighbors. There are more Orcs in their world than Locathans.

Next is location. Using the above example, lets say that the Orcish barbarian hordes are on the other side of the world, and the characters live in a magical underground sea that is frequented by aquatic creatures. The Locathah should be more known.

Now going a step further. The characters still live in an underwater city, but they remain in contact with the rest of the civilized world. The Orcish hordes have a reputation for destroying everything they come across (and they come across a lot), and therefore it is the reason for the city's exsistance. The Locathah are still going to be well known, and the players will not have any first hand knowledge of the Orcs, but they will have heard of the Orcs, and they will known what they look like and how bloodthirsty they can be.

1st example: CR means didly. Almost every character knows of the tarrasque, and knows its a bad mama jama, but they will pretty much never know exactly how many HP or even HD the thing has. They wont know combat tactics, they wont know most of its special attacks or qualities, and they wont know abilities etc.

knowing of and knowing about are two different things. In the end when you encounter a CR24 solitary fallen Angel, you will find it hard to figure out the DC.

 

[Tonguez]

Okay using Bardic Knowledge as a base with a DC = CR+Obsucrity

DC Obscurity of Knowledge -----------------
10 Common, known by at least a substantial minority of the local population.

Example 1 Orcs
Example 2 Loacaths


15 Uncommon but readily available, lots of rumours a few facts
Example 3 Orcs

also Troll vunerability to fire and acid

20 Uncommon but available, known by only a few people in the area.

Example 2 Orcs


25 Obscure, known by few, hard to come by. Mainly vague rumours


30 Extremely obscure, known by very few, possibly forgotten by most who once knew it, possibly known only by those who don't understand the significance of the knowledge.

The Falleng Angel

 

[Al]

The DC for this skill is 10 (or another number if this is too low) + the CR of the creature encountered.

Every 'Monster Lore' I've seen has used this as a mechanic, and I've disagreed with it every time.

Simply put, some monsters will be more famous than others by virtue of myth, story and legend, whereas some of lower CR may be more obscure.

Let me show you and example:
The infamous Red Dragon would be far more famous than (say) the fact that a Grick. However, by this mechanic, the DC for identifying a Grick would be over twenty points lower than identifying a Great Red Wyrm (even though the latter is obvious). Abilities suffer a similar problem: most peasants may have heard of the aforementioned Red Dragon's fiery breath, but the Ethereal Filcher's Ethereal Jaunt would be a mystery.

The other problem is that it is a nonsense with 'scalable' creatures. For example, to take dragons: why it is harder to identify a Great Red Wyrm than a Red Wyrmling? Surely it would be at least as easy to identify the former, not roughly twenty DC points harder?

The only way to solve it would be to add an Obscurity modifier, but then it gets complicated with each monster having to have an effectively separate DC. As such, I think improvising the DC is the only way to make this playable. Had such a skill been there from the start, DCs could have been added to the entries; for now, it seems far too time-consuming for most DMs.

 

[tburdett]

The system that I am proposing does not give the Monster Manual page to the player, it gives them ONE piece of useful information for a basic success. They get one additional piece of information for every (x) number of points above a basic success. (x) still needs to be determined.

The increase in DC for a Great Red Wyrm over a Red Wyrmling represents the fact that as dragons age they gain new and more powerful abilities.

Would you be more comfortable with a skill like this if it only dealt with the least powerful form for each size class of a creature? The more I think about this change, the more I like it.

This would mean that players CAN differentiate between a Blue Wyrmling (Small) and a Very Young Blue dragon (Medium) because they are obviously different sizes, but NOT between Adult, Mature Adult, or Old, or Very Old Blue dragons, as all are Huge sized creatures.

Thanks for the feedback!