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Message: <blockquote data-quote="N'raac" data-source="post: 6157515" data-attributes="member: 6681948">Your premise is that everyone has already hear the legends of these creatures before encountering them.  If these creatures are rare and mysterious, that is not necessarily so.  They are, according to the D&D RAW (discussed further below).Remove the D&D aspects - let's go talk to a fellow who has never played D&D before.  He probably knows what a werewolf is - that's deepl enough ingrained in our 21st century pop culture for him to know what a werewolf is.  A Basilisk?  Very likely, Joe Average has never heard of one.  Now, maybe he has read Harry Potter - the second book has a Basilisk, IIRC.  Talk to a professor of Greek mythology and tell him how "everyone knows a basilisk turns people to stone".  Just don't pick one you are taking a course on Greek Mythology on - if you want to pass.  The gaze of the mythical basilisk causes death.  It has nothing to do with petrification.That doesn't sound remotely familiar in a D&D context.  It's not too close to Harry Potter's Basilisk either (which petrified, but that was more paralysis than stone statue petrification).A magmin?  That's a D&D specific monster which first appeared in an early D&D module, then got a Monster Book slot.  There is absolutely no reason for someone with no knowledge of D&D to have any knowledge of a magmin. Now, he looks like a heat-damaging creatue, but those don't all ignite their targets, so why shoul this one be different - other than having read about it in the MM.So I come back to that Monster Manual sitting in every peasant cottage so they can look up all these bizarre creatures.Now, the conceit of the Knowledge skill is that higher hit dice = more rare and mysterious.  That's a balance aspect, IMO, such that the ever-growing skill bonuses of the PC's are matched by ever-growing identification DC's.  A village living near a swamp where a coven of Hags dwell might well know a lot about Hags, despite lacking the appropriate knowledge skill.   But that's where the role playing aspect overrides the game aspect.  As well, might they not also be under some misconceptions?  Old wives' tales that provide you with false information should be as, or more, common as true knowlege and understanding.  How many peasants face a Basilisk and live to bring back stories?The rules tell me that "Answering a question within your field of study has a DC of 10 (for really easy questions), 15 (for basic questions), or 20 to 30 (for really tough questions)."  They also tell me that "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.   For every 5 points by which your check result exceeds the DC, you recall another piece of useful information."  These are two separate points in the rule.  One is about a single question, and the other about identifying monsters and their special abilities.  Nowhere is it suggested that one overcomes the other.  They are two different checks for two different things.  By your reasoning, a 10 HD creature cannot have more than three bits of useful information, a 15 HD creature may have no more than two and a 20 HD creature is permitted only one.  If it has 21 HD, it can't have any useful bits of info, since I need a 31 to get one piece of info, and that's more than the 30 you need to answer the most difficult of questions.  So no, I do not believe the rules suggest, in any way, that a check of 30 means you know everything there is to know about the monster.  If it has 21+ HD, it means you have not even the slightest idea what this creature is - you have failed to identify it.IIRC, that's a DC 16, but I'm not going to look it up again.  I am not "suggesting" anything.  I am reading the rules.  They tell me that your ability to identify the Medusa is contingent on a Knowledge check of the appropriate DC.  They tell me that DC is 10 + the monster's HD.  And they tell me that "An untrained Knowledge check is simply an Intelligence check. Without actual training, you know only common knowledge (DC 10 or lower). "  By the RAW, there is no monster whose identity or abilities are common knowledge - the DC is always greater than 10.  This suggests that, perhaps, some monsters should have their base DC lowered.  But that's a modification to the rules.  We were, I thought, discussing the actual rules.  Although, based on your expectations, it seems you are not prepared to abide by the rules as written.Do you know which African nations the Bantu tribe resides in?  How about which US states and Canadian provinces hosted the Sioux and the Mohawk nations?  Can you show me which portions of South and Central America were home to the Incas and which to the Aztecs?  From memory -  no internet searches.  Then why would you expect every peasant to know where a few solitary medusae reside?  They're clearly not commonplace - if they were, their abilities should be common knowledge, and we should have a lot more petrified villages.  How long could a large D& settlement withstand attack by even 20 or 50 Medusae, much less the numbers needed for them to be common knowledge?First, if he lacks the appropriate knowledge skill, then he has no knowledge of Medusae.  Second, if he has the skill and fails the roll, he has no knowledge of Medusae.  That is precisely what the rules say.  Given the need for that knowledge skill, it is clear that, by the books, knowledge of medusae is rare, not commonplace.  Now, if they characters have encountered a Medusa in the past, that would imply at least the opportunity to have gleaned some info.  But if the PC's lack the right skill, or blow the rolls, then any use of their PLAYER knowledge of a Medusa is OOC knowlege being leveraged for in game advantage.  It's no more legitimate than making gunpowder or nitroglycerin because a player has the chemistry knowledge and skills to do so.Offsetting that, if the PLAYER has no clue what a certain beast is or does, but his character has the appropriate skill and makes a good check, he will know the abilities of the creature.  He will know, for example, what a Magmin is and does, and he will know what a &D Basilisk is, as opposed to the Basilisk he saw in a Harry Potter movie or studied in a mythology course.We again come back to play style.  Gygax style pawn play relied on player knowledge - if the players knew the MM, their characters had that knowledge.  If not, then there was no way their players had it.  Those players in the Dungeons of the Slave Lords in 1981 had no way of gathering info on the Magmin - there was no skill roll for their knowledgeable and well studied wizard to know what this unpublished beast could do.  If the objective is for the PC's to succeed or fail on their own merits - on their skills and abilities, and not those of the players - then the rolls have spoken and they know nothing of this strange, scaly creature.How about this - you can use any knowledge you have personally, but if you want to Tumble past the guards, I want to see you drop to a shoulder roll, tumple through three somersaults, then nimbly leap back to your feet.  Don't tell me about your character's +17 roll - we're working with PLAYER skills, just like for Knowledge rolls.And, again, this is not what the rules say.  It is your broad expansion of the rules.  Seeing a field of statues would tend to mean that, at one time, this area was inhabited and the inhabitants built statues.  Players will, however, gravitate to the "petrification" theory.  But what prevents these being some obscure relative of the Gargoyle, or small Stone Golems?I think there's enough fantasy where the hero falls over a cliff, plummets into a river, or otherwise is left for dead because "My Lord, no one could have survived that - your enemy is dead".  Yet, by some combination of luck, skill and toughness, the hero DID survive!I think there are quite a few stories where Conan battles a snake, but I doubt there is a single one where he perishes from a snakebite.  I suspect, in most, he narrowly avoids the serpent's fangs on one or more occasions (the classic "just avoided the monster's strike" which ablative hit points are so often said to suggest).This is the logic expounded in 1e, I believe - did that tiny nick still get some venom injected?  It made a bit more sense in 1e when the likelihood of that venom being injected declined as the hero became higher level and gained more hp.  But then, why is the save the same whether our 100 hp fighter is hale, hearty and in fine form as it is when he is exhausted and has been brutally beaten (ie is down to his last 3 hp)?</blockquote>

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