Which monsters are common knowledge to PCs?

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Here's how I handle this with a bunch of experienced players, most of whom know most of the creatures in the MM:

I have a Knowledge (adventuring) skill that is a class skill for all classes. A Knowledge(adventuring) check against DC (15 + the CR of the monster) allows the character to remember the basic description, strengths, and weaknesses of the monster.

The other knowledge skills can be used similarly, but each applies to different sets of creatures, e.g. Knowledge (arcana) applies to magical beasts, aberrations, and dragons; Knowledge (religion) applies to undead; Knowledge (local) applies to local humanoids, flora, and fauna, etc.

 

[Sejs]

(going off the MM only, atm)

Humanoid types -Orcs, -Goblins, -Hobgoblins, -Bugbears, -Kobolds, -Ogres, -Giants, -Trolls, -Centaurs, -Gnolls. If they basically have the same needs as normal people (Food, Shelter, Etc), folks probably know about them. Details would probably be fuzzy, trolls heal fast and fear fire, but acid isn't common, so people may not know of a troll's vulnerability to it. They'd likely group all goblinoids (goblin, hobgoblin, bugbear) together as the same race: Goblin. Orcs are the green-grey skinned barbarians.. people wouldn't necessarily know anything about their religeon. Giants are, well, giants. Gnolls.. well, they're dog-men. Maybe throw it a soup bone and it'll leave you alone. Lizardmen would probably fancy sunning themselves on a rock.


Evil Outsiders would tend to all be lumped to gether as Demons, reguardless of their actual type: -Demons, -Devils, -Slaadi (probably seen as evil, reguardless of alignment), -Yugoloth. Also, a good number of non-outsiders would probably be tagged as 'demons' reguardless of the truth behind it: -dopplegangers, -hell hounds, -arachnae, -ettercaps, -rakshaza, -vargouille as examples. Even phase spiders would probably be thought of as "demon spiders.. they can walk thru walls, and drag you off to the underworld!". To most people, if it's from a Bad Metaphysical Place, doesn't like you, and is, or seems magical.. it's a Demon. Even if a person doesn't know about initially, they'd probably give it the appelation demon if they encountered one.


Dragons would be known about, but their individual tendancies wouldn't necessarily be known by the common man. "What do you mean? All dragons breathe fire, eat virgins, and are hypnotised by beautiful music. It's in all the stories." Alignment by color wouldn't necessarily be common knowledge. Dragon-like creatures, hydra for example, or wyverns, would also be tagged as 'dragons'. Just another kind.


Fey would probably be known about by the layman. Again, lots of stories about pixies fixing shoes, leaving out a bowl of milk and a breadcrust for house brownies, the sad story of the soldier who fell in love with the dryad and became a tree when he died of a broken heart.. that sorta thing.


Heraldric critters: griffons, hippogriff, dragonne, pegasus, unicorn.. people would recognise the shape of them (you see a picture of one every time a servant of Duke Balthor comes into town), but their abilities and habbits would be unknown. If it has wings it flies, if it has an eagle's head it probably sees well, if it has lion parts it would probably fancy a steak and roar.


Celestials would work under a similar aegis to Demons. If it's from a Good Metaphysical Place, likes you, and is or seems magical, it's a Celestial (or Angel if you prefer). Again, type and ability wouldn't necessarily be known, and similar creatures would be grouped with celestials by misake. Lammasu and Lillend would likely be mistaken for celestials were they encountered.


The various types of Undead would probably get jumbles up. If it's corporeal and eats flesh (zombie, ghoul, wight, ghast) it's a Zombie, if it's corporeal and drinks blood (vampire, vampire spawn) it's a Vampire, if it's incorporeal (allip, spectre, shadow, wraith, ghost) it's a Ghost. If you're not from an appropriately-cultured area, you've probably never heard of a mummy. No matter where you're from, you probably don't know anything about liches. They're powerful spellcasters who made themselves immortal somehow, but that's all you know. Real world type example of this~ Methuselah from the bible was said to have lived 969 years, and perished in the Flood. Maybe he was a lich, we don't know.. he was some guy, and he lived a really long time, and didn't exhibit any 'undead like' traits. Other, strange types of undead (devourers, nightshades, etc) are likely to be just totally unknown, or, following an above guideline.. thought to be Demons.


Animals, Beasts, and Magical Beasts.. some would be known about. The closer it is to a normal animal, the more common knowledge it would be. Dire animals.. yeah, they're just normal animals only bigger. Ankheg are probably just thought of as big bugs. Winter Wolves may be thought of as vengeful winter spirits, the teeth of the storm,.. rather then actuall flesh and blood creatures. Odd or reclusive creatures.. darkmantles, digesters, ythrak, krenshar, grey renders.. would probably be totally unknown to the average person.


Certain types of Lycanthropes would probably be known about,.. werewolves for example,.. and they'd probably all be seen as evil. Their vulnerability to silver would be known, but not necessarily something everyone prepares for. Alternatly, because of lycanthrope legends, maybe weapons of blessed silver are thought of as a cure-all for all types of evil creatures. Werewolf? Blessed silver will fix his wagon. Vampire? Blessed silver will steer you straight. Marauding Tentacled Thing Making Men Go Insane, And Eatting Peoples Brains? Blessed silver will do the trick... uh... -you- go fight it.


Elementals, and elemental-type creatures like Xorn, Genies, or Azer, would probably be thought of as Spirits, very similar in type to how people would think of Fey. Black haired, red skinned woman with eyes like embers? Well she's a fire spirit. Squat little tripod creature that is mollofied when you give it your whetstone to gnaw on? Well that's an earth spirit. Tiny little glowing figure with wings like a dragonfly and a voice like tinkeling bells? Air spirit. Towering figure made of earth and stone? Another earth spirit.. maybe it'd like a whetstone to eat. Slender woman with vibrant green eyes and skin like ash-bark? She's a spirit of the woods.


Ooze? Nuh uh. Rare. Wierd. Dangerous. Uncommon. Normal people would have no reason to know about them.


Golems. People would probably know about Golems.. sorta. They'd know that golems are inanimate objects brought to life by magic. To the average person, there'd be no difference between a Stone Golem, and a statue brought to life with the animate object spell. It's hard to hurt a stone statue by swinging a sword at it, it's hard to hurt a stone golem by swinging a sword at it. Same difference. The one execption would be Flesh Golems would would probably be mistaken for undead.


Other types of creatures, people probably would not know a single thing about. They wouldn't know what an Aboleth does, or what a Xill looks like, or that a Gibbering Mouther has a real taste for opera. This blank space coveres alot of creatures. Mind Flayers, Ravid, Digester, Cloaker, Chuul, the list goes on and on.


Hope this was of some assistance.

^_^

 

[The Sigil]

A few more thoughts...

Certain races/classes should have a knowledge of their (traditional) foes and/or allies.

Obvious example: A ranger will be able to recognize his favored enemies.

Subtler examples:
A character should be able to recognize a creature if he speaks a language named after that creature and possibly other creatures in the same "family" (e.g., a charater that speaks Goblin should be able to recognize Goblins and might recognize hobgoblins or bugbears, though a character who speaks Ignan will not recognize an Azer as Ignan is not named after Azers).

Dwarves, with their racial bonuses against giants should be able to identify giants.

Elves and gnomes might have the ability to identify fey.

Basically, follow the rule of "common sense." Look at your campaign culture and figure out the kinds of things that the common man in each region sees. If it's something the common man would see all the time (e.g., denizens of a town on the frontier besieged by orcs will know what orcs look like).

--The Sigil

 

[Sanackranib]

what would they know

they would know perhaps what a few creatures are ie: goblins, kobolds, orcs, skeletons and zombies but they might not know their weaknesses. the discribe every encounter advice was very sound, as was the misinformation on weaknesses. go forth and bring joy to your players as they dicscover YOUR world for the first time.

 

[Particle_Man]

exciting ignorance

The excitement of not knowing is why I deliberately have not looked in the MM2 or BOVD.

And our DM has certainly thrown us for a loop with
things from those books!

 

[Kershek]

Here is our house rule on Knowledge Monster (subtype). We've been using it a lot in our games and it helps us separate player knowledge from character knowledge. Due to the large amount of knowledge skills, it would take a wizard, rogue or bard to become knowledgeable in a wide variety of monsters (as it should be). Personally, I feel that having only one Knowledge (Monster Lore) skill with no subtypes makes it too easy to max out, considering how many different kinds of monsters there are in D&D.

Knowledge Monster (subtype):
Each Knowledge skill would be like the list of "favored enemy" of the Ranger class. So "Knowledge Monster (Animal)", "Knowledge Monster (Beast)", "Knowledge Monster (Undead)", etc...
The skill would give you the chance to know about the monster based on the roll and DM discretion. The DC would be 10+ the CR (+DM mod for low light, bad view, etc…). If you make the roll you would know very basic (or legendary) information about the monster. Making it by +5 points would let you know its name, something about its attacks (energy drain, poison, etc...), feats, and/or spell like powers. Making it by +10, you would know its attacks and weakness (ie DM reading many bits from the Monster Manual). A +2 synergy bonus would be given if you had fought it before. In class for all classes. It requires book time and the ability to read and/or training.

Note that Knowledge Monster (Undead) supercedes Knowledge Undead.

 

[clark411]

I'd consider it in some respects to be a variation of Knowledge (Local). I like the idea of each character having a Knowledge (Local) skill for the town of their childhood / pre-adventuring days.

If a village is pestered by Grig raiding parties that constantly steal eggs from the farmers, then that village will have a particularly high knowledge of the little Grig buggers. Similarly any frontier settlement on the edge of orcan tribal lands will have knowledge of them. As others have said, the doozies that are most interesting and best for stories (Dragons, Vampires, Werewolves) should be known of in part in every locality.

If you figure who knows what based on where, then the how much of the what known can be determined by set DC's. If interactions with Grigs are something an area experiences almost daily, then the DC should be low and the information fairly accurate. If the knowledge is based on local oral histories decades or centuries old, then the DC should be higher and the information hazy.

A setup for this then looks like:
Town of Redensholm: Grig Knowledge DC 10, Dragon 10, Nymm DC 18, Unique Monster in Area 25.

This system is favorable because it keeps players from becoming seemingly bottomless repositories of information without any logical reason for such being the case (I say this as a person who plays a wizard with points in every Knowledge available in our campaign). Instead of players simply spinning through their rolodex memories for information on Slaad, they have to either have a history with them or make an effort to acquaint themselves with those who do, which leads to lovely plot hooks. Chicken Farmer Mcgoo will gladly tell you everything you want to know about Grigs- the mayor of Redensholm may reluctantly give tell about the Nymm found in the woods at night.

 

[Sanackranib]

knowledge

Here is our house rule on Knowledge Monster (subtype). We've been using it a lot in our games and it helps us separate player knowledge from character knowledge. Due to the large amount of knowledge skills, it would take a wizard, rogue or bard to become knowledgeable in a wide variety of monsters (as it should be). Personally, I feel that having only one Knowledge (Monster Lore) skill with no subtypes makes it too easy to max out, considering how many different kinds of monsters there are in D&D.

Knowledge Monster (subtype):
Each Knowledge skill would be like the list of "favored enemy" of the Ranger class. So "Knowledge Monster (Animal)", "Knowledge Monster (Beast)", "Knowledge Monster (Undead)", etc...
The skill would give you the chance to know about the monster based on the roll and DM discretion. The DC would be 10+ the CR (+DM mod for low light, bad view, etc…). If you make the roll you would know very basic (or legendary) information about the monster. Making it by +5 points would let you know its name, something about its attacks (energy drain, poison, etc...), feats, and/or spell like powers. Making it by +10, you would know its attacks and weakness (ie DM reading many bits from the Monster Manual). A +2 synergy bonus would be given if you had fought it before. In class for all classes. It requires book time and the ability to read and/or training.

Note that Knowledge Monster (Undead) supercedes Knowledge Undead.

what an absolutely intrigueing idea. I have never considered this but it makes perfect sence. obviously your group has used it for some time. I think I will incorporate it in my own game. thanks for the COOL post

 

[s/LaSH]

Secrecy. Because first impressions... last. (tm)

Thats my opinion, at any rate. And if the PCs have no knowledge, you can pull some twists on them... trolls that are vulnerable to electricity or daylight, intelligent oozes, stuff like that, just because it's cool. Heck, you can do that anyway, being the Almighty DM and all.

My players didn't know too much about the non-historic bestiary of D&D, and so when it came time to throw in some Other Things they were pleasantly surprised. Fortunately, my campaign doesn't lend itself to the old Underdark stereotypes, because Drizzt has just spoiled all the surprises there... that means I have to try something else, and it's working.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

1) Don't worry about making a list. It will be fun for them to discover the monsters on there own.

ok, I'm gonna break from the pack here. These characters live in this world, and they are of adventuring classes. With the exception of a few classes, they have had older, more expereinced mentors, a great interest in the outside world, etc. Unless you are deliberately running an "unlikely adventurer" campaign, or transporting characters to another world, what people are proposing is like spelling out the description of a jellyfish and saying "you can't know that creature has poison, you've never encountered it!" I am not of an adventuring class and am poorly traveled, but I know big jellyfish are probably poisoness, wolves can track me by scent, and a lot of things can see better in the dark than I can. I even know that bats have blindsight, some sea predators have a sort of electricity sense and snakes detect heat. and I'm, what, a low level commoner?

The current campaign I run is of 1st levelers going the farthest from their home they ever have. When they encounter something weird, I'll describe it, then ask for checks on knowlege nature from the druid or knowlege arcana from the cleric. If there was a bard, she would always get a shot too. The checks are not terrifically difficult and there is a sliding scale of info given out. The players enjoy that they are somewhat provincial and world wide knowlege is not assumed, but when the druid sees a water elemental, he has a good chance of understanding the concept.

Kahuna Burger