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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ahnehnois" data-source="post: 6157548" data-attributes="member: 17106">They can be, but are not necessarily. If we were talking about an area where a Medusa has never been and where no one has traveled much, and one shows up, the DC to identify it should be pretty high. However, that is not generally going to be the case.I do not see anything in the RAW that requires us to treat creatures that are real within the D&D world as being more obscure than their legends are in the real world.Ask him what a giraffe is. Does he know that it has a long neck? Does he know that a jellyfish can sting you? Probably yes, even if he lives in the Midwest. People knew these things before the internet. A basilisk is very likely on the same level in a world that has them.There is, however, every reason that any D&D character who had ever lived near a or been to volcano or extraplanar portal leading to the inner planes would know what one is. Character knowledge is likely to be greater than player knowledge regarding D&D-isms.Quite a conceit!For example, are we to believe that if an elder red dragon appears in the distance, a bunch of townsfolk will have no idea what it is, let alone that it breathes fire and is evil? That seems unlikely.Peasants are generally not the chief disseminators of knowledge. All it takes is one adventurer stopping at the local inn with his stories of monsters far and wide for many of them to become common knowledge.And what is your explanation of what happens when a players asks the single question: "What is that thing?". Are we required to ignore the first rule? There is nothing that says that the question cannot relate to monsters or that the second use supersedes the first. I would say this is a simple case of using whichever rules is more favorable or makes more sense.The rules don't say that. They say that a DC 10 Knowledge check can be made untrained, and that one can answer a really easy question with such a check, and that trained characters can answer other questions at higher DCs. Depending on context, the existence of a monster living nearby with a powerful ability can easily be a DC 10 Knowledge (Local) or Gather Info check. The existence of a really powerful monster or common race of monsters not nearby could easily fall under another Knowledge, such as Geography or Planes. Legends could fall under History or bardic knowledge. The rules, as written, promise that if you make the DC 10 + CR check you will get identity and useful information, but there is absolutely nothing in the rules that says that a player cannot identify a pertinent threat without using the DC 10 + CR rule.Well, closer observation. If the statues look like they are terrified and running away or fighting, that kind of suggests that, in a world with petrification magic, they were. Again, it's very easy to rationalize this kind of thing as being a DC 10 or 15 untrained Int or Wis check (which, given a four-character party of non-imbeciles, is pretty easy for at least one to make), let alone Knowledge (Arcana).The bottom line is that given a rational DM, most PCs will have some idea of what their opponents are and what the capabilities of said opponents are most of the time, because PCs are not stupid. Using a selective and narrow reading of the rules to suggest that DMs can deprive players the use of that knowledge is just spiteful.</blockquote>

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