Welcome to Guidance, Private Sanctuary’s source for tips and techniques for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, written by Everyman Gamer Alexander Augunas. Today, we’re going to be talking about Knowledge checks.
A few months ago, I wrote an article on metagaming that was met with a lot of resistance for various reasons. One of the biggest “controversies” was my opinion on Knowledge checks, in which I flat-out stated that when a GM, I don’t expect my players to limit their personal knowledge during combat. The resulting explosion of comments on Facebook was magical.
Its been a month and a half or so. I think enough time has passed that I can dredge up their conversation again. Players should not be forced to self-limit their knowledge about in-world stuff.
Knowledge is Power. Sort of.
In the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, Knowedge’s primary function is to petition the GM for information. All 10 Knowledges allow players to answer easy questions (DC 10), basic questions (DC 15), or difficult questions (DC 20 to 30). Knowledge can also be used to identify monsters and their special abilities or vulnerabilities. The DC is the creature’s CR, plus 5 (for common monsters), 15 (for rare monsters), or 10 (for general monsters). A successful check gives you to remember one bit of useful information, while every 5 points beyond the DC gives you another bit of useful information.
So, what is a “bit of useful information” in this context? Heck if I know. Most players that I’ve seen run Knowledge typically ask questions to the GM, which the GM answers from the creature’s stat block. For example, my kitsune inquisitor, Yansu, is extremely versed in planar lore. When I encounter a creature that I (as a player) have never seen before (which happens quite frequently in Wrath of the Righteous), I questions of my GM like, “Does this creature have damage reduction?” or “Can this demon possess me?” And ultimately, I’m not playing Knowledge wrong because Knowledge doesn’t actually tell you what you can and can’t learn from it. I’ve had GMs give me entire paragraphs of information for one successful Knowledge check. It is all about personal preference.
And that vagueness is why Knowledge isn’t a very good standard to bottleneck your players by.
Extremes
Let’s stop for a moment and assume that players are never allowed to use any of their in-game knowledge at the table. This means that an elf wouldn’t know a human from a half-orc unless she took ranks in Knowledge (local), because this Knowledge is the one that is used to identify humanoids. Likewise, she couldn’t tell a salmon from a snake, because she doesn’t have Knowledge (nature). Why am I pointing this point? All of the Knowledge skills in the game are trained skills. (My readers have pointed out to me that Knowledge skills can be made untrained if the DC of the check is equal to or less than 10, so much of this argument doesn’t hold sound. What does hold sound, however, is how Knowledge checks interact with identifying creatures with variable CR, such as red dragons and virtually all humanoids. For example, if I encounter a red dragon whelp, the Knowledge DC is likely to be around 18, or 10 + the dragon’s CR. If I encounter an ancient red dragon, however, the DC is closer to 30, meaning that I could identify a young dragon when I saw it, but not an adult. The same is true for humanoids; I can identify a human commoner on-sight, but if my human has a minimum of 6 character levels, all of a sudden his check DC is above 10 and I can’t identify him as a human, as per the rules.)
Furthermore, if you look at Chapter 1 in the Core Rulebook, where each ability score is outlined, you’ll notice something interesting. The only true “ability check” in the game is the Strength check. No other ability check in the game exists except as an untrained skill check. For example, you make a Charisma check instead of a Diplomacy check if you have no ranks in Diplomacy (aka you are untrained). According to the rules, you can’t just “make” an Intelligence check to know something basic. Of all the skills in the game, the only “Intelligence checks” that you can make are Appraise checks and Craft checks.
So, according to the rules I can’t identify monsters without knowledge ranks, so here’s another kicker: are player races considered monsters? Virtually every race in the game has appeared in a Bestiary of some kind, implying that it is a monster. Ratfolk, goblins, orcs, and others have appeared in the Monster Codex. It is easy to say, “Oh, well the core races are so common that they’re seen as people, not monsters,” but what about in Tian Xia, where halflings, dwarves, gnomes, and elves are extremely rare? And to further complicate that question, kitsune, wayangs, tengu, and samsarans are all considered player races in Tian Xia, but they appear in various Bestiaries. Combined with the fact that there is a specific Knowledge for identifying humanoids (local), should I be able to identify a human’s abilities with Knowledge (local)?
So yes, this is an extreme case but I chose it to show how much of a slippery slope the complete removal of player knowledge is. Things get muddled very quickly if your players aren’t able to make their own inferences and use their own brains in the task.
My Brain Belongs to the GM
The most common retort that I get to all of the points that I’ve listed above is this one: “Well, there are some things in my world that I assume that every character knows.” So, where do players get this ‘assumed’ Knowledge from? “I tell them what they know.”
I absolutely HATE this style of GMing, because what it comes down to is a subtle type of railroading, and its not the good type of railroading that we talked about. This is going to be a very general statement, but in my experience GMs who wish to keep player Knowledge out of the game wish to do so as a form of control, to assure that their special, preplanned adventure begin, progress, and end as they’ve envisioned. Telling players that they have to keep their brains out of their player characters is all but removing the player from the equation: at that point, why bother GMing if you’re going to cut a significant amount of the human element out of the game?
Skill Ranks and Knowledge
The other, very real problem of placing a heavy load on Knowledge skills is that relatively speaking, there are a ridiculous number of skills in the game and a comparatively small number of skill ranks available to characters. I’ve talked about skill points before: it basically boils down to the fact that unlike hit points, the skill rank progression is much more reliant on Intelligence than, say, hit points are on Constitution. By relying on skill ranks to justify PC knowledge, you’re basically telling your players that they need to invest in every Knowledge skill in the game, at least a little. That’s not particularly fun for players, as Knowledge skills represent a level of specialized training that your PCs might not feel appropriate for their characters. You’re essentially trading one type of “character-breaking,” (player knowledge) for another (rank metagaming).
Why is PC Knowledge Okay?
So I’ve spent a lot of time talking about why total reliance on Knowledge skills doesn’t work. Let me quickly list some reasons why allowing PCs to use their brains is a good thing for GMs.
- Smarter Tactics: I’m a pretty advanced player, and I’ll be honest — I don’t know half of the enemies in the game based on description alone. If there’s a picture, my knowledge goes up. If there’s a name, my Knowledge goes up even more. But even then, I do not remember hundreds of thousands of words of rules text and special abilities, and I am a fairly advanced Pathfinder player. GMs catch me off-guard all the time and most of my player knowledge is limited to general rules. For example, I know what the incorporeal rules are. I know what devils are generally resistant to. And when I play my characters, I play them accordingly. Likewise, when I GM, I expect my players to know very general bits of information about various monsters. Why? Because those expectations allow for smarter tactics, faster combat gameplay, and generally speaking I can challenge my players more if I assume they at least have something of a clue about what they’re fighting. And if they don’t, that’s where Knowledge checks are useful to my players and me. Combat is the heart of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and it is no fun when you feel as though you’ve been forced to make a subpar tactic because the GM told you that your character didn’t know something when you as a player did.
- Less Knowledge Management: Allowing players to assume they know basic information allows GMs to manage less about those player characters. For example, in Pathfinder Society most players at the table had no ranks in Knowledge (religion), but we were able to assume that we would recognize Nethys’s depiction on an ancient tomb because he is one of the Core 20 Pathfinder Campaign Setting deities. Contrary to popular belief, most players WANT to be in character and will not assume that they know things beyond what is reasonable for their character. And that’s a good thing, because otherwise you’d need to keep detailed notes about every single creature your character faced. Otherwise, your GM might now allow you to recall (without a Knowledge check, anyway) that babau have acidic skin despite having faced one several out-of-game months prior. Knowledge checks are nice, but they don’t count in-game experience either.
- Player Characters are Both Players and Characters: The point of being a PC (a “player” “character”) is that you are a character that is controlled by a player. This is my personal opinion and you’re welcome to object if you like, but one of the major reasons that we call PCs “PCs” is that players are supposed to put themselves into the role of their character. The player’s knowledge, resourcefulness, and daring is one of those traits that allows them to stand out in a world otherwise inhabited by “ordinary” people. Taking away from the player part of the equations starts to take away the point of being controlled by a player. GMs don’t typically restrict player choices. The game has consequences, and if you limit a PC’s ability to act, you’re taking away the agency that makes them PCs to begin with.
I would like to end this article with an anecdote that actually happened the day before I wrote this article. As many know, in Pathfinder Society I play a kitsune named Hirokyu. Hirokyu is a swashbuckling hibachi chef who fights with knives. We played Risen from the Sands part 2 the other day (WARNING! MINOR SPOILERS!), and when we did we encountered a water elemental. After solving its puzzle, we left and because the elemental looked angry, we decided to reset the puzzle. Turns out solving the puzzle incorrectly was one of its planar binding triggers to attack us. Player knowledge helped us solve the puzzle, but it didn’t let us guess that little detail.
Anyway, we fight the elemental and we have it on the ropes. It retreats to a little fountain in the center of the indoor chamber. Its almost dead and I need another panache point, so Hirokyu charges up to it to deliver the final blow.
No one checked how deep the fountain was.
Hirokyu splashes into the six-food pool of water and now has to fight the water elemental on its own terms. Meanwhile, the rest of the party is freaking out because no one bothered to check how deep the water was, and now one of their party members (and friends) is floundering about in a sizable pool of water directly below a water elemental. Hirokyu ultimately survived that encounter (barely; I was reduced to –10 of –12 hit points), but you can bet that what was otherwise a typical encounter will now be unforgettable to the group that I played through the module with.
My ultimate point is that player knowledge is a double-edged sword. Sometimes you recognize the devil for what it is and choose to hold off on casting your fire spells, and sometimes you jump head-first into a six-foot pool of water where a water elemental is hanging out. That’s life. Don’t nerf it.
Alexander “Alex” Augunas has been playing roleplaying games since 2007, which isn’t nearly as long as 90% of his colleagues. Alexander is an active freelancer for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and is best known as the author of the Pact Magic Unbound series by Radiance House. Alex is the owner of Everyman Gaming, LLC and is often stylized as the Everyman Gamer in honor of Guidance’s original home. Alex’s favorite color is blue, his favorite Pathfinder Race/Class combination is kitsune hibachi chef, and so far his most delicious meal has been his shocker lizard teriyaki surprise, which consists of shocker lizard meat wrapped in seaweed and topped with teriyaki sauce and giant spider meat, served with diced dog steaks in a rice pilaf.
Uh…
“You cannot make an untrained Knowledge check with a DC higher than 10. If you have access to an extensive library that covers a specific skill, this limit is removed. The time to make checks using a library, however, increases to 1d4 hours. Particularly complete libraries might even grant a bonus on Knowledge checks in the fields that they cover.”
If Goblins are considered ‘common’ requiring a DC of 5+CR, then creatures like humans are going to be considered common *depending on the region*. So, a humans DC is going to be 5+CR. If they are level 6 or higher, they can’t be identified, but, if they are level 5 or lower, they can be.
Regardless, allowing player knowledge at the table is bad and hurts games. It also encourages players to read bestiaries to learn monster abilities and stats so they can prepare for things ahead of time. I will *not* allow player knowledge at my table if I can help it.
Fixed the bit about untrained Knowledge checks. Never noticed that line before.
I strongly disagree about your opinions on Player Knowledge. I have never had a player try to read a Bestiary at my table to try and learn about what a monster can do and if that happens, that’s a problem with the player, not with allowing PCs to be reasonably intelligent at the table. I consider myself a relatively high-ability player, and I will tell you right now that I couldn’t memorize anything but the most simple monster blocks before hand, and unless you’re willing to scoop out your PCs’ brains with an ice cream scoop, they’re going to come to the table with their own skills and information. That’s part of what makes roleplaying fun, the ability to solve problems by thinking out of the box and devising weird, interesting tactics.
Often when GMs like yourself try to pull out player knowledge, what they’re really trying to do is make encounters artificially harder. “Ooh, wouldn’t it be great if my wizard PC wasted his big spell on this monster’s spell resistance?!” When I GM, I make encounters that are truly difficult and let my PCs use their brains to solve the problem.
saying you should rely on player knowledge is like saying, oh for this strength check do me 50 push ups, or for this dex check juggle these cups – its a ROLE playing game, and these skill are linked to the CHARACTER not the PLAYER. the trick is in playing the character with the inherent weaknesses that a lack of applicable skills fosters.
I never said you should rely on Player Knowledge. I’m effectively arguing that players WITH that Knowledge shouldn’t be punished from having it. The function of Knowledge checks should essentially be, “I’m asking the GM for help in regards to something that my character should know, but my PC doesn’t.”
The problem with your argument is that the title of a player’s character is PLAYER CHARACTER, not just PLAYER and not just CHARACTER. Part of being immersed in a roleplaying game is to actually take a role in the game, and that means putting yourself in the shoes of YOUR character.
I concur with much of Darrell’s argument. The ability in Pathfinder to make Knowledge checks untrained when the DC is 10 or less means that most intelligent creatures will be able to routinely identify humans, elves, half-orcs, snakes, salmon, and so on, without even taking an action to do so. Where I disagree with Darrell is that I use the DC of a baseline example of the creature when it comes to identifying the creature itself. Identifying the tall pointy-eared humanoid sitting at the table as an elf doesn’t get any harder when the elf gains a level.
In some cases I do require characters to roll when they ask something about a common creature, if they’re asking about something very unusual about that creature. Conveniently enough, this tends to happen in situations when the players don’t know the answer out of character. For example, when they heard a gnome NPC who they didn’t believe was a spellcaster used Chill Touch in combat, they asked if there were any gnome alternate racial traits that might give this ability. I required a roll for that, and they rolled high enough to become aware of the possibility that the NPC might also be of the dread gnome subrace instead of having multiclassed.
Right, and this is an example of the Knowledge skill being used appropriately — giving the PCs knowledge that they didn’t already know. Nothing is lamer then when players have to use the Knowledge skill to “unlock” something they already knew. That’s not fun gameplay, that’s arduous at best.
Actually, Initiative is an ability check.
As for Knowledge checks, my biggest pet peeve isn’t that GM’s hold your brain hostage, but that they often simply give out the name and creature type and then ask the player which two questions they’d like answered (based on the result of a knowledge check that succeeded by 5).
If I successfully identify a cockatrice and simply learn that it is a magical creature with no DR or SR, I’m really missing out on what’s important. The questions game ignores what would be commonly known and puts the burden of asking the right question(s) on the player.
As a GM, a successful knowledge check gets name, creature type, and what is commonly told about them in stories, books, and adventurer tales. A higher knowledge check gets you the obscure and fiddly bits.
I typically do something similar to you; I read the PCs the creature’s first paragraph in its description in the Bestiary. Then I give the players a ballpark answer as to how powerful the creature is (this is about as strong as one of you, this monster will be tough for this group, this monster is extremely dangerous, even with all four of you present, etc.), and then allow them to ask their questions. As long as the sentence has a single subject, I’ll typically answer it even if it covers multiple statistics. (For example, “Does this creature have any special defenses?” will net me telling you about both its damage reduction and spell resistance, if it has any.)
The main reason I do this is that the Knowledge skill clearly defines itself as the ability to answer questions about stuff and recall obscure information. Nowhere does Knowledge claim to be a skill that represents the sum of every bit of information that the characters knows, has known, or will ever know.
Alex, you make a number of interesting arguments here. When I read your initial article on this subject I was very surprised to see that someone was actually in support of player metagaming, and my view on players using their own knowledge was very much in line with the majority – don’t allow it. That said, when I read that article I could see your point, and at the very least understood your reasoning, even if I didn’t entirely agree with your conclusion.
Reading through this article, I’m now very tempted to allow my next group to use whatever player knowledge they have to their best advantage, although I will (of course!) have words with anyone I catch Googleing up a critter at the table. The most interesting point that I think you made was the point that many true role-players prefer to limit their own in-character knowledge; certainly it’s something I’ve done an awful lot myself. I never allow this choice to cause a character to die, I don’t want to be a dick, but I have no problem allowing an evoker in the party to throw a fireball at a fire elemental.
Another reason that I find myself considering this option is that player knowledge is an extremely difficult thing to police. We do it all of the time. When was the last time you saw a character fail to remember to stake out a vampires corpse, or fail to stock up on silver weapons when a lycanthrope is rumoured to be nearby? Where do you draw the line? I ignore these things all of the time, putting the character knowledge down to tavern tales and the like; perhaps I should simply extend this reasoning, and ignore those times a player puts away their cold weapon when undead show up.
I replied similarly to Darrell’s comment; players are not allowed to reference Bestiaries or similar products at my table, as I don’t consider that “player knowledge”. I generally condone looking up player abilities in regards to anything save PCs as well. (For example, unless I ask you to look up the rules for riposte parry and dodge for me, don’t go skimming through the book to try and catch me in an error.)
And yes, policing character Knowledge is very difficult and in the long run, that level of micro-management offers very little to the game aside from the GM making some encounters a teensy bit harder, complementing a general feel of ill will from player(s) to GM. When you police PC knowledge, you’re not really running a difficult encounter, you’re making an encounter that might have otherwise been simple artificially difficult. It is a poor tactic to rely on, sort of like adjusting an American football stadium so that one team’s goal is 100 yards away from the start-up line while the other team’s goal is 105 yards away.
Another interesting point comes from the Undead Slayer’s Handbook, by Paizo Publishing. All of the Slayer’s Handbook products include a section called, “Five Things Everyone Knows About X,” where X is the monster that is being hunted. In the Undead Slayer’s Handbook, the book clearly states that all people on Golarion know that negative energy heals the undead while positive energy harms them. There are things that are so rudimentary about certain monsters that you should assume that your character knows them. Creatures made of fire don’t burn. Demons and Devils are heavily associated with brimstone, and therefore acid and fire is a poor choice. And so on.
Ok, so if I were to play at your table, I could play an Int -7 Fighter and use all of my player knowledge about monsters to identify weaknesses and strengths for the party, without every having any background information to even remotely justify the knowledge my character has? It’s an extreme case, to be sure, but I don’t buy that.
That’s clear metagaming and I don’t tolerate it at my table. As players increase in levels and put more and more ranks in Knowledge skills, some things simply become automatic. But players should not be able to use their knowledge unless they have some means of justifying it’s useage; typically, this is done through knowledge checks.