Hacking the rules: Monster lore, part 4

Let’s review what I’ve gone over so far:

Argument: The Pathfinder RPG rules for monster lore are counter-intuitive, and don’t deliver a satisfyingly realistic result.

·        The system of using Challenge Rating to set DC’s for monster lore using Knowledge skills is flawed.  Knowledge of a creature should be based on its prevalence in the campaign setting, not on how difficult it is to fight.

·        Obscure, corner-case monsters are as easy to identify as ubiquitous ones.  The Tarrasque should be easier to identify than a ningyo.

·        Creatures that appear in an environment other than their native one should be harder to identify.

·        Knowledge (local) should be able to identify monsters that are local, but not all Humanoids and Monstrous Humanoids.

·        A new Knowledge skill needs to be created that can be used to identify Humanoid and Monstrous Humanoid creatures, since no other 
Knowledge skill seems appropriate for the intended purpose.

What remains to be done is to set the DC’s based on a new formula that replaces Challenge Rating as the basis for calculating DC’s for Knowledge checks.  In creating this new formula, we want to account for the problems listed above, and try to solve them mechanically.  So, let’s re-introduce Frequency to the discussion.

I’ve already discussed how Frequency was a listing in monster stat blocks in earlier editions of Dungeons & Dragons, but it disappeared with the publication of 3^rd Edition, and has not made a return in the Pathfinder RPG.  Frequency wasn’t a particularly useful data point for players, but it gave the GM a reference to determine how often a monster could be encountered.  In fact, the 1^st edition Monster Manual actually listed specific percentages that a monster could be encountered based on its Frequency listing.  For the purposes of this exercise, however, Frequency by itself really isn’t relevant; I run adventure paths, and the Frequency of each monster that appears in that adventure path is 100%.  The monster is already included in the adventure, so the players are going to encounter it.  Frequency really doesn’t help a GM that already knows exactly what monsters are going to be encountered by the players.

BUT we’re not looking to establish population statistics for the flumphs in Golarion.  I don’t care how many flumphs are in the world, and what your chance of encountering one is, because I already know if a flumph is included in the adventure path.  The Frequency is either 100% or 0%.  Our real goal is to determine how much the characters know about those flumphs, and this is where Frequency is going to be a good tool to help us solve this equation.

Frequency in the early editions of the game was divided into four categories: Common, uncommon, rare and very rare.  Each category provided a percentage chance of the monster being encountered by a group of characters.  While Frequency doesn’t tell me specifically how to adjudicate Knowledge checks, I think I can steal it and use it as a framework upon which I will build my new monster lore system.  In fact, I think that Frequency is what will determine the initial Knowledge DC for that monster.  Common monsters should have a low DC, and very rare monsters should have a high DC, with uncommon and rare somewhere in the middle.  Here’s what I started with:

Frequency DC for Knowledge check

Common – DC 5

     Uncommon – DC 10
Rare – DC 20

   Very rare – DC 30

Maybe not perfect, but a good place to start testing.  So far, this goes a long way towards creating a system that bases Knowledge checks on Frequency, not Challenge Rating.  Now, all we need to do is decide what Frequency to assign to each monster.  I started digging to see if I could find some document or publication, however obscure, that help me assign Frequency.

Zilch.  Nada.  Bupkis.  Zero.  I found nothing in any Pathfinder rule book, third party publication or blog posting that addressed this topic.  Left without any aid from the internet, I had two choices: Determine Frequency by personal preference alone, or assign an arbitrary filter that could sort the monsters into Frequency categories.  Not liking the first option at all, I decided on the second. 

Most new editions of D20 games start with a critter book.  A bestiary or a monster manual or a tome of horrors or a necronomicon. Whatever they name it, it’s a collection of monsters that the characters can encounter.  And when a new edition of a D20 game is published, the very first critter book features monsters that are either iconic to fantasy role playing or are familiar to players through mythology and lore.  You will likely see gargoyles and medusae, wights and ghosts, chromatic and metallic dragons, iron and flesh golems, black puddings and ochre jellies, pegasi and ankhegs; all of these creatures have been around since the first edition of Dungeons & Dragons, and have permeated the fantasy RPG body of work for over forty years.  They are iconic.  We recognize them easily because we have seen them frequently during our years of gaming.  And because of that, I realized that I could determine Frequency by what Bestiary the monster is published in.

It’s an arbitrary decision, and not a perfect solution, but it is a metric fuckton better than pulling a frequency for every single monster out of my ass.  And it aligns with the goal of having recognizable monsters be, well, recognizable.  I started with the premise that only a select few monsters would be classified as Common.  These include things like zombies, skeletons, kobolds, trolls, ogres, orcs, gnolls, goblins, hobgoblins, bugbears and maybe a few more that I haven’t figured out yet.  Creatures with a Frequency of Common can be recognized with a DC 5 Knowledge check.  So far, so good.

Next, I decided that any creature published in the first Bestiary that has not already been classified as Common would get a Frequency of Uncommon.  Frost and fire giants, bulettes, chimerae, shadows, basilisks, cockatrices, cyclopes, vrock and glabrezu demons; all of them get the Uncommon designation, and can be identified with a DC 10 Knowledge check.  Now let’s check our solution with examples from the extreme poles.  We will use a troglodyte (CR 1) and an ancient gold dragon (CR 20) as our test subjects.  Under the old rules, the troglodyte could be identified with a DC 11 Knowledge (local) check, since troglodytes have the Humanoid type.  Under our proposed new rules, the same troglodyte could be identified with a DC 10 Knowledge (Humanoids) check.  Not much difference here.

But the rubber meets the road when we get our ancient gold dragon tied down for examination.  Old rules: DC 30 Arcana check.  New rules: DC 10 Arcana check.  Your character sees an enormous flying lizard, breathing fire and casting spells.  Its scales are gold.  Unless she has an Intelligence score of 4, she will know it’s a gold dragon.  It doesn’t matter if she’s a first level fighter or a 20th level wizard.  She knows a dragon when she sees one.This is another nice benefit of this change: We eliminate scaling DC’s for creatures like dragons and elementals dependent on their age or size category.  Have you ever encountered this scenario?

GM: You see an enormous flying lizard, breathing fire and casting spells.  Its scales are gold.

Player: I make a Knowledge (Arcana) check.  I get a 24.

GM: You don’t recognize the creature; the best you can determine is that it looks like a young gold dragon, only it’s much, much bigger.

And that’s all I have to say about that.  Next time, we’ll discuss rare and very rare creatures, how to classify them, and we’ll also jump into the topic of environment.