Knowledge skills - how they can be worthless

[James McMurray]

I run it the same as Elder-Basilisk, and I try to make sure that the knowledge I give the party is useful. There's no way to be sure you give the palyer the information he was trying for though, and its sily to even try.

I do think that almost people in a fantasy world would know the basics of vampires, dragons, and werewolves. Heck, we live in a world where they don't even exist* and we know tons about them. The information may be skewed though. For instance, a character that has no knowledge (arcana) would know that dragons breathe fire, but wouldn't be able to tell about colors and other breath types.

* I hope we don't have any true believers around here just looking for an excuse to flame a nonbeliever.

 

[Amal Shukup]

I would generally take the HD of the weakest form of the creature in order to set the DC. So the DC to know things about red dragons would be set by a wyrmling red dragon. (Of course, if you got a DC high enough for the great wyrm form, I'd give you some useful information specific to great wyrm red dragons).

I completely agree.

Actually, IMC if a character rolled high enough to beat the DC for a Great Wyrm, I'd probably give them information specific to that particular Great Wyrm. I mean really... How many can there be?

Perhaps scraps of an old legend revealing a particular weakness or tendency: "you recall stories of 'Arrrghknightchew the Vile', and how he surrounded himself with an army of his half-dragon children, and dabbled in the sorcerous arts - particularly those magics designed to cloud the senses and enslave the mind..."

I don't skimp on the Knowledge Skills: too few of my players even take them, so I try to give the guys who invest in 'non-combat' skills a little extra over the simple meta-gamers.

A'Mal

 

[Lord Pendragon]

This same problem also comes up with Bardic Knowledge. I once rolled a 30 on a bardic knowledge check regarding a symbol my PC discovered. I was told "this symbol was once used by orcs long, long ago" but not told about the specific orc band in the region that had taken the symbol as their own (and which we later fought that very same session). I was very upset that even with a high roll, I was basically given nothing useful at all.

IMO, it boils down to some DMs not wanting to give out information before they're ready. Information usually weakens an encounter significantly, and the DM may feel like he's spent too much time designing the encounter for the knowledge guy to ruin the challenge with one die roll.

If it becomes a common issue, I suggest you talk with your DM about it. Either the DM should be willing to provide useful information with good rolls, or you should be allowed to trade out your knowledge skills for something that will actually be useful.

 

[Pielorinho]

Elder-Basilisk, that's certainly an interesting approach, but I'm still not sure I find it satisfying. Suppose that I invent a race of invisible, gaseous 1 HD creatures that live in the Negative Energy Plane and attack en masse. According to the rules, a character is likelier to know more about this newly invented race than they are to know about trolls, genies, or even horses, assuming they have one point in each of the appropriate skills.

The trick as the DM is to give out information that is helpful, interesting, and plausibly-known. Sometimes you set the DC higher than the book sets it at -- A Knowledge: Planes check for the gaseous clouds above might be 25 or higher IMC. Sometimes you set it lower: knowing that some Djinn can grant wishes might be a DC 5 check, possible to make untrained, IMC. Everyone knows the story of Aladdin, right?

Information can also be given out in an unusual manner. Someone makes a knowledge: planes check high enough that you want to give them information about an air elemental. You say, "You remember reading an account of the battle at Stormridge, in which the elvish armies brought hippogryph-riders against the hobgoblin forces. The hobgoblins summoned vicious wind-spirits, who quickly formed into whirlwinds that plucked the riders off the backs of their mounts and threw them to their deaths. These creatures you're facing now could well be the same sort of wind spirit." It's sometimes hard to come up with snippets like this on the run, but it's a lot more fun if you can think of something like this.

Daniel

 

[DarkMaster]

The trick as the DM is to give out information that is helpful, interesting, and plausibly-known. Sometimes you set the DC higher than the book sets it at -- A Knowledge: Planes check for the gaseous clouds above might be 25 or higher IMC. Sometimes you set it lower: knowing that some Djinn can grant wishes might be a DC 5 check, possible to make untrained, IMC. Everyone knows the story of Aladdin, right?

Daniel

Careful, in our world everybody knows the story of Aladdin, I am not sure the inhabitant of FR for example know it.
Pielorinho, I hope this one won't degenerate in another debate between what the PC and the player know and how we often mixes them.

 

[Pielorinho]

Careful, in our world everybody knows the story of Aladdin, I am not sure the inhabitant of FR for example know it.
Pielorinho, I hope this one won't degenerate in another debate between what the PC and the player know and how we often mixes them.

IMC=In My Campaign. Sorry if that abbreviation in my post wasn't clear.

Daniel

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Elder-Basilisk, that's certainly an interesting approach, but I'm still not sure I find it satisfying. Suppose that I invent a race of invisible, gaseous 1 HD creatures that live in the Negative Energy Plane and attack en masse. According to the rules, a character is likelier to know more about this newly invented race than they are to know about trolls, genies, or even horses, assuming they have one point in each of the appropriate skills.

I can see your point there but that's not a problem unique to my approach. On the other hand, since the creatures attack en masse that seems to imply there's a lot of them so maybe it's reasonable that anyone who knows about the negative energy plane knows about them.

Really the difficulty is that tracking the DC of the knowledge check with monster HD doesn't always work. If elves vanished over 1000 years ago in your campaign, they're still DC 11. If beholders rule the cities of your campaign, they're still a fairly high DC. (And they're still Knowledge Dungeoneering instead of Knowledge (Local)). Assigning an ad-hoc knowledge DC modifier or a circumstance bonus to the roll for each race might be a way of bringing the results more in line with what you'd expect. (And that seems to be essentially what you're doing) But that circumvents the system rather than using it.

The trick as the DM is to give out information that is helpful, interesting, and plausibly-known. Sometimes you set the DC higher than the book sets it at -- A Knowledge: Planes check for the gaseous clouds above might be 25 or higher IMC. Sometimes you set it lower: knowing that some Djinn can grant wishes might be a DC 5 check, possible to make untrained, IMC. Everyone knows the story of Aladdin, right?

Regardless of the IC/OoC knowledge question, I think this is reasonable. Every world and every culture has sets of stories similar to the Alladin story. OTOH, DC 25 for the gaseous clouds seems unreasonably high for their just being DM created (what this has to do with DC is beyond me) invisible (again, it doesn't seem reasonable to increase the invisible stalker or pixie DC because they're invisible) and on the negative energy plane (why is that more difficult than any other plane). Maybe they're never before encountered creatures but that would make them just as difficult to analyze if they were humanoid yak folk from the mountains yonder on the prime material plane.

Information can also be given out in an unusual manner. Someone makes a knowledge: planes check high enough that you want to give them information about an air elemental. You say, "You remember reading an account of the battle at Stormridge, in which the elvish armies brought hippogryph-riders against the hobgoblin forces. The hobgoblins summoned vicious wind-spirits, who quickly formed into whirlwinds that plucked the riders off the backs of their mounts and threw them to their deaths. These creatures you're facing now could well be the same sort of wind spirit." It's sometimes hard to come up with snippets like this on the run, but it's a lot more fun if you can think of something like this.

Seems reasonable.

What about this? Do you let players ask for specific bits of information? For instance, the party finds itself face to face with a group of Ossyluths and a Hamatula. The wizard looks at them and asks, "Do I know how strong these guys' spell resistance is? Knowledge Planes DC 25." Personally, I think that's a perfectly reasonable way of using the knowledge skills. If he made the DC, I'd be willing to tell him whether "you know that less experienced wizards have difficulty effecting them with spells but you think that your skill will overcome them three times out of four" or "These are the kind of creatures your master warned you about when he advised you to steady how to penetrate spell resistance; since you ignored him, you think you'd be lucky to effect the spiky one with one spell out of three."

 

[Pielorinho]

Last things first: absolutely they can request specific bits of information, although in the example you give, I wouldn't give them stats on what the odds of penetrating SR would be, other than (maybe) to say, "You can probably affect them," or, "you probably can't affect them."

As for the DM-created creatures, the fact that they're DM-created wouldn't be relevant, but the invisilbity etc. was to suggest that they hadn't been casually observed. I'd give a high DC because perhaps one obscure sage somewhere recorded tales of such creatures from a captured negative energy creature; a PC with a high-enough planes knowledge might've read the tale. Of course, if it were an entirely new creature, the check might simply be impossible: you can't have read about something if nothing's been written about it.

I agree that what I suggest circumvents the system; in this case, I really don't like the rules, and so I've replaced them with a campaign-specific system in which I give out information according to how common or famous a creature is In My Campaign.

Daniel

 

[Vlos]

Can't really add more than the above stated, but thought of something while reading the thread.

First I have the Monstronomican, and thought that the lore section under each monster was very very cool. But obviously not every monster book is going to give that.

Second, what seems to be at issue here is what information is given to the player. The reason I see there being a problem is there are no guidelines what the DC is based on.

I like the suggestion above that you base it on the HD of the creature, but what about knowledge that is not about a specific creature/being.

Maybe we (as a community) could come up with DC checks and what types of information would be revealed. This would not be for specific creatures but more general guidelines.

Listed below are types of knowledge Checks. Lets assume that the DC's are for those that have the specific knowledge skill. We can then also come up with modifiers for each. (For example having related skill increases the DC by 50%).


DC of knowledge of Creatures:
- 1/2 HD of creature:
--- Player learns it's base type (undead/construct/etc)
- HD of Base Type creature
- HD of Specific creature:
- 2xHD of creature:
--- Player Learns all information of creature
- 3xHD of creature:
--- Player Learns all information of Specific Creature including habits/traits.




DC's for knowledge of Areas(each would probably have sub DC's)
[This could be done two different ways, First we have each area listed and each has its own SUB DC's, second we have DC's for what is revealed then have the area's modify the DC.

- Populated Area (City/Town)
--- Who is the Leader (DC 5)
- Historic Area (Old Battle)
--- Who is the Leader (DC 15)
- Wilderness Area(Mountain Range)
--- Who is the Leader (DC 10)
- Lost Area(Lost City)
--- Who is the Leader (DC 30)

Who is the Ruler/Leader (DC 10)
- Populated Area (City/Town) -5
- Historic Area (Old Battle) (+10)
- Wilderness Area(Mountain Range) (+5)
- Lost Area(Lost City) (+20)



DC's of knowledge of Items:
- Common Item (Crossbow)
- Uncommon Item (Trebucet)
- Magic Item
- Artifact
- Religous Symbol
- Clan/Nation Symbol




Any thoughts? Bad Idea? Good Idea?

 

[Pielorinho]

Second, what seems to be at issue here is what information is given to the player. The reason I see there being a problem is there are no guidelines what the DC is based on.

I like the suggestion above that you base it on the HD of the creature, but what about knowledge that is not about a specific creature/being.

Actually, from the SRD:

In many cases, you can use this skill to identify monsters and their special powers or vulnerabilities. In general, the DC of such a check equals 10 + the monster’s HD. A successful check allows you to remember a bit of useful information about that monster.

Daniel