Bullshit monsters, and using them in games

[A Man In Black]

The only major differences is that you shouldn't climb trees vs black bears (they climb, other bears don't via size); grizzlies are the only ones to attack camps; and brown bears are more common. The difference between the strength of a brown and grizzly bear is so minimal of importance, as to why would you care?

I grew up where there are bears, too. All human-acclimated bears will also attack camps if you leave food where it's accessible (especially if they're human-acclimated), and identifying bears is of some importance because they act differently and pose different threats under different circumstances. Plus, I know well enough to know that my offhand knowledge is patchy as hell; I misremembered whether bears pose a rabies threat.

I know this not because I grew up where there are bears, but because I grew up where there are bears and I learned about basic outdoor safety, which includes managing predators. That's ranks in Knowledge (nature). My sister (who detests camping) couldn't tell you any of the things I knew offhand, and would probably have answered at least one of the questions with confidence and completely incorrectly. Woodsmen are going to know a bit about avoiding or intimidating bears, but a farmer is going to know that a bear killed one of his dogs but not much beyond that.

Plus, a bear isn't CR 20 in your world. You and three more of you have a reasonable chance against a bear, if armed. That is a fight you could conceivably win. There has never existed a CR 20 apex predator in the history of Earth. The very biggest, nastiest, and most capable predators in the real world cap out around CR 9-10. You can't really use that as an example, though, because in the real world the predators of those levels are also vanishingly rare, if not extinct or near-conjectural.

[tzor]

If you went hiking in Oregon and got jumped by a bear, would you know if it was a black bear, a brown bear, or a grizzly?

Yes. It's a matter of "Oh shit" to "Holy Shit" to "Oh my fucking God shit" but that is only because there is that much of a difference between them, especially in terms of size.

Basically black bears are like mean nasty football players. They are also mostly vegitarians. THe brown bear breaks even the notion of grossly overweight football players and are just ficking huge. The grizzly is a fucking giant, standing 8' on its hind legs and weighing over a thousand pounds.

[Crissa]

Your reaction to a bear, black, brown, or grizzly, should be the same. Don't run. Stand. If attacked, drop prone. Don't fight back.

But you should know that if you live there.

If you don't, you don't.

But the argument was what primitive people knew about the dangers around them, and making high-CR things not even recognizable as the base rules state are dumb.

-Crissa

[A Man In Black]

Your reaction to a bear, black, brown, or grizzly, should be the same. Don't run. Stand. If attacked, drop prone. Don't fight back.

But you should know that if you live there.

If you don't, you don't.

Yes, because this is completely a pissing contest about who knows more about bears.

But the argument was what primitive people knew about the dangers around them, and making high-CR things not even recognizable as the base rules state are dumb.

Any CR-based identification system isn't going to produce reasonable results if it's near-impossible to even tell what something dangerous is just by looking at it, assuming the creature in question is an animal-style or person-style creature and not a magical creation, one-off, or alien. But beyond that, you really should need to have some sort of expertise to know anything relevant.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Knowing who badass people are should be Knowledge (history, local, or nobility). And, yeah, more badass people should be easier to identify. It's a decent reason for sending lower-level or foreign heroes to stop a threat.

[Cynic]

so... in the land of the african white rhino, it is thought that the powdered horn is an aphrodisiac.

In India - there are tales of boys who milked tigresses because it supposedly could cure a person. that's still thought so.

this is all national lore for both locales. but it's actually not true.

I also hear the purpose of the ninja is to flip out and kill people.

this is part of the problem with knowledge animal being ridiculous or idiotic.

[Red Archon]

Knowledge check to determine wheter your character knows a monster or not is totally a feasible mechanic. Currently, commoners won't know that they're being attacked by a dragon, even if one is exactly like in the tales every one of them heard as a kid. I propose a solution: give monsters a feature: "When rolling a Knowledge (Arcana) check to identify Gold Dragon, the character rolling receives a +10 bonus to the roll." I mean, what the fuck. The idea is OK. the DC's are fucked. Why not go for the obvious fix?

[hogarth]

Why not go for the obvious fix?

I thought the obvious (albeit time-consuming) fix was to assign every monster a rarity, like they used to have in AD&D.

[PhaedrusXY]

Why not go for the obvious fix?

I thought the obvious (albeit time-consuming) fix was to assign every monster a rarity, like they used to have in AD&D.

That's basically what I'm suggesting here. I was inspired by this thread originally, but then couldn't find it. So I started another one there. I'll repost it here, but since it is basically off-topic I'm happy to start a new thread if the OP wants.



The knowledge skill works as described in the PHB, except when identifying creatures we're going to use the following system for determining DCs:

1) Assign the creature a rarity. This is how frequently the creature can be expected to be encountered in the region where it normally lives. The DC is 10 for very common, 15 for somewhat common, 20 for occasionally encountered, 25 for rarely encountered, and 30 (or more) for very rarely encountered.

2) Modify this DC based on how familiar the person making the check is with this creature's home region, based on where they are from, and what they've encountered or studied in the past. This modifier can be 0 (from the same region, or have at least studied that region), +5 (the creature is from an "adjacent" region to the identifier's home region), or +10 (the creature and identifier are from regions very "remote" from each other). If a creature is particularly "famous" or "legendary", you might also modify the DC by -5 (local fame) or -10 (world wide, or even multiversal, fame).

3) Lower the DC based on how dangerous the creature being identified is. Divide the creature's CR by 2, and subtract this from the DC. This cannot lower the DC by more than 10, regardless of the CR of the creature being identified. I think this modifier should be based on an adult version of the creature, in the case of creatures whose CRs dramatically vary with age (like dragons).


Then we make the check, and measure relative success.

If you beat the DC by:
0-4 You know the creature's type, what plane it is from, and anything that is a signature ability for that creature (breathe weapon for dragons, Feed for barghests, etc). You also know if its CR is above, below, or about the same as your character level. If the CRs are different by 4 or more for the base creature, the DM should tell you that, also. If the creature is a humanoid or something that commonly takes levels in classes to gain more power, you should also know this. Of course, you won't know whether this creature has class levels.
5 to 9 You know if it has a subtype and any other resistances or immunities.
10+ You know what other abilities the creature has (basically you know everything in the basic monster's stat block).
15+ You know about this specific creature (if applicable). For example, you might recognize "Bob the wizard-slaying dragon", who is known to make extensive use of the Antimagic Field spell, and has trained in ways to prevent other creatures from fleeing from him (has Improved Trip and the Snatch feat).

Retry: You may make one retry after you've seen a creature use a special ability of some kind. Being bathed in acid by a black dragon's breathe has a way of jogging your memory.


You might want to limit the "cheese" that people can use if you go with this system, particularly for the "beat the DC by 15+". I certainly wouldn't allow spells like "Guidance of the Avatar" in a game where I used that. But that spell should probably be banned in pretty much all games, IMO (even though I've used it in several ).


Examples:

1) Bob the farmer sees a big, giant, red lizard fly overhead (a red dragon). The DC is 15 (Dragons are fairly common in Bob's world. He's from Dragonlance.) - 7 (CR 15/2: adult red dragons are really freakin' scary, and are things that tales are retold of endlessly), with no familiarity penalty (Bob lives near a volcano), for a total DC of 8. So Bob can take 10 and identify the thing as a red dragon, unless he is in combat with it (or more likely running away in terror from it's frightful presence). He can't tell you anything useful about how to fight a dragon, though.

2) Fizban the fabulous, the local hedge wizard, also sees the dragon. He is level 5, and has 8 ranks in Knowledge: Arcana, and he's studied about dragons. His Int mod is +4, so he has a +12 to ID the dragon, and no familiarity penalty. He can take 10 (beating the DC by 10) and tell you that red dragons are creatures of fire, that they have a terrible breathe weapon composed of it, but that they are also especially vulnerable to cold-based attacks.

3) His master, Archmage Yoda, would say "Oh yeah, that's old Scar. He's an arrogant bastard who loves to mix things up in melee, but has a pitiful selection of spells. He does know "Resist Elements", though. So you probably shouldn't use a Cone of Cold against him, though.

[Red Archon]

Excellent. Sounds viable.

[TarkisFlux]

Aside from the familiarity modifiers, which I might steal, that looks really similar to this thing I finally got around to posting last week. So I certainly support that implementation of monster identification. And if you're going to do palette swapping at all, you need a straightforward and semi-powerful way to learn things about them so you aren't just playing a guessing game anytime you come across something. I think you should probably go farther and drop the idea of knowledge skills as a measure of what you know entirely (at least in a level based system where the limits of your knowledge are tied to your level), and that doing so also solves the issues of ranchers not recognizing and knowing something about the manticores stealing their sheep, but that's a different rant.

[PhaedrusXY]

Yeah, I'd looked over your skills book. I don't agree with the base DC for identifying something going up with its CR, though, for the reasons outlined in this thread. People in general know more about really dangerous stuff than they do harmless things. In a world where you were actually in danger from this kind of stuff, instead of just finding it interesting to watch on Wild Kingdom, I think that would only be more true. After all, do you think bushmen in Africa know more about elephants, or the sparrows that clean their backs?

I did just blatantly rip off your idea of letting them reroll once they'd seen the monster do something, though, including your quip about acid being breathed in your face being likely to jog your memory. I hope you don't mind. Plagiarism is the greatest form of flatter, right?

[TarkisFlux]

Yeah, those reasons are fair, I just don't think the alternate formulation offers a substantial benefit. Rare creatures (like Pit Fiends) from Far Away (another plane) are going to have basically the same DC in either framework. Every other example I tossed at it did similar things (which is not to suggest that I did all of them or didn't just pick bad trials). It seemed to me like the CR decrease seemed to wash with the rarity assignment, as the more rare creatures tend to be higher CR anyway. It just looked like more work for a very similar benefit. Especially since any weird outliers could be resolved with a familiarity bonus (which I'm stealing) or just straight up factual knowledge without needing to make a check. So I certainly think that bushmen in Africa know more about the elephants, but I think that's a straight up background bonus rather than something they need to roll a die for. Since I'm all about giving people knowledge that makes sense for their backgrounds for free, I get to skip half of the issues you're trying to resolve with this multi-step DC process (and instead deal with a different set).

And, yes, highest form of flattery and all that. Since I'm going to steal your familiarity modifiers, I think it's a fair trade even

[Judging__Eagle]

I'd suggest to go for a simpler system Phaedrus. You want as few layers and steps in starting a mini-game, as you can possibly have. A single dice roll is ideal; and looking at how attacks[/i] are each resolved in a 3 dice roll maximum (check for miss/hit/crit threat, 'maybe' roll to confirm, roll damage).

[hogarth]

I'd suggest to go for a simpler system Phaedrus. You want as few layers and steps in starting a mini-game, as you can possibly have. A single dice roll is ideal[.]

His system has a single roll. It boils down to "d20 + Know + regional bonus vs. rarity DC - infamy bonus".

[Judging__Eagle]

That's still several 'steps'; as in, stuff that you need to add every time you make the check.

[PhaedrusXY]

I'd suggest to go for a simpler system Phaedrus. You want as few layers and steps in starting a mini-game, as you can possibly have. A single dice roll is ideal[.]

His system has a single roll. It boils down to "d20 + Know + regional bonus vs. rarity DC - infamy bonus".

Right. From the PCs perspective, it works pretty much exactly like the current knowledge system, except I actually defined what they learn based on how much they beat the DC by, instead of having it be up to DM whim, which it totally fucking is in the current system.

The DM is the one who actually has to do all the "work" in calculating the DC in the first place, but I don't think it should be more than a brief consideration on his part, either. And since the DM pretty much always has foreknowledge of what "monsters" his PCs are going to encounter, he can do this before the game even starts. (I think random encounter tables are bullshit, and am going to ignore the fact that they exist.)

[hogarth]

That's still several 'steps'; as in, stuff that you need to add every time you make the check.

If that's your benchmark for a complicated system, then every single 3.X skill check fails because they all have possible bonuses or penalties that might apply.

Perhaps you would rather have a colourful ball to play with instead. But maybe that would still be too complicated for you.

[Judging__Eagle]

Uh, right. You're not getting it, as a DM, I will have to be doing that work. I have to deal with enough as it is; if my number of mental processes needed to determine a task go up, then I'm not going to do it, unless it adds enough to the game.

Having players make climb, jump, intimidate, hide, move silently checks in combat is fine; and putting in a situation where the PCs really will try sneaking up on a sleeping giant are reasonable.

But making a check take more work is the complete opposite of reasonable, unless the increased complexity is allowing things that weren't allowed before. Like some sort of gradient in terms of what can, or cannot happen.

Having a "new change" involve the DM, who has the most of their attention chewed up with enough, getting more time costs, isn't really a good idea.

Then again, I'm a very big fan of "not knowing" what the next encounter will be, when I DM. There's a bunch, and I choose a random one each time; and then figure out how they fit into the current adventure.

My own adventure format tends to be the use of CR's-only DMG monster tables. I don't use the chosen monsters, but I do use the CRs and amounts as a guideline for what the next encounter will be. Multiple rolls are made by the players at the start of the session (and recorded by me; the players know full well that I'm not choosing the power or amount of monsters that they face, instead I focus on making sure that a good 'flavor' of monster shows up in the next encounter.

So, when approaching a city in Hades; their first encounter is... a bunch of Nightmares, who they bribe to go away with some minor magic items.

Next is a Hamatula. He's the head guard that admits the PCs to the city for a bit of the old Baksheesh.

Then a bunch of Dretches, and then a Celestial Charger; I folded them together and made the Unicorn a slave that the Dretches were trying to sell to the PCs.

The Mayor was a Nalfeshnee; and their job was to shut down a Retriever that's maruading at a nearby Basalt Quarry.

All of that was random generated to a degree. I wanted fiendish stuff; and for the most part I got it just using the random monster charts. I use index cards that have the monster charts re-printed, and with the format of stuff like "2 CR 6 [Outsiders], and 1 CR 8 [Outsider]" to give me some idea for the encounter; then I pull out one of the three-four monster books and get the encounter started.

[Ice9]

It's just a quick calculation though - it probably takes less time than flipping to the right page for the monster.

An idea I had - which may be a bit unwieldy to do on the fly, so not ideal for everyone - is to separate identifying a monster with knowing about a monster, and to incorporate false information for "common knowledge" checks.


Common Knowledge
Common knowledge isn't even a skill, you just roll d20+Level+Wisdom, maybe with a small bonus/penalty for certain backgrounds. The difficult is determined by Rarity - Fame. There are two steps:
1) Identify the monster. On a success, you identify it (but no details). On a close failure, you just get the group (such as "Dragon" or "Intelligent Undead"). On a bad failure, you misidentify it as something similar looking.

2) Get information about it. You can do this without a specific monster - if you hear there's a vampire in the castle, for instance, you can try to remember facts about vampires. This would be an entry for each monster that had both true and false information - the higher you roll, the more of it is true. If you only know the general group, that's going to be less useful - "Dragon" has facts like "Breathes Fire", "Can Burrow through Sand", "Harmed by Holy Water", and "Poison Sting", even without getting into the false crap.


Actual Knowledge
Works the same way, but is actual skills. You roll purely against Rarity, and failure just gets you lack of results, not false results.

[IGTN]

Alternately, just make monster identification automatic for common things that aren't disguised in any way.

A knowledge skill tells an albino red dragon from a white dragon, to use the classic dick example, or an Eye of Fear and Flame from a Lich. But even without making the check you can guess that a skeletal undead that looks like it's using magic is a lich, or the white-scaled dragon is a white dragon, or that the large furry thing with giant paws is a bear.

[God_of_Awesome]

I'd throw a suggestion. An Obscurity scale.

Monsters and facts about these monsters have Obscurity ratings which you must beat to know anything about them.

IE, that giant red lizard? Well, it's obviously a dragon. That's not very obscure. Everyone fucking knows that. You can reasonably give that an Obscurity of 8. Other facts about the dragon go on a progressively higher scale of obscurity. Of course, locals who live near the dragon get circumstance bonuses. The fact that it's a red dragon and it breathe fire in particular is known to them automatically.

Everyone knows about orcs. Not very obscure. Not everyone knows about orogs. Hell, if a creature looks reasonably like another, you could even say the locals don't those aren't orcs. Just like they can't tell the difference between a dragon and a hydra.

[Red Archon]

Judging Eagle: If you don't like the complexity of editing every monster, I suppose the best method is just to give arbitrary bonuses to knowledge skills when identifying monsters. Pull them out of your hat as appropriate. I think I'd do that. If my players didn't basically know every monster by heart by the time I finish describing them and aren't afraid to use that off character information in a heartbeat.