Hacking the Rules: Monster lore, part 5

So far, we’ve determined the DC’s for common and uncommon monsters, and determined that any creature published in the first Pathfinder Bestiary will be classified as either common or uncommon.  We’ve seen that creatures like dragons and elementals are now more easily identified because of their frequency.  What remains is to set the DC for rare and very rare creatures, and figure out how to classify their Frequency.

Continuing with the idea that we can sort monster Frequency by Bestiary publication, my next decision was to give any creature in the Bestiary 2 a Frequency of rare.  Bestiary 2 was pretty much all of the legacy monsters that couldn’t fit in Bestiary 1.  Some of the creatures were still iconic, but not as iconic as those in the first Bestiary.  After crunching some numbers, I realized that there just weren’t enough monsters with a Frequency of rare, so I expanded my classification to all monsters published in Bestiary 2 and Bestiary 3.  In my proposed new system, rare creatures can be identified with a DC 20 Knowledge check.  So, let’s take this baby for a drive and see how she handles:

Once again, we will examine the extremes to see how the system performs.  Our test subjects for this round will be a hippocampus (CR 1) and a nightwave (CR 20).  On the low end of the spectrum, the hippocampus could be identified using the old rules with a DC 11 Knowledge (Arcana) check.  Using the new rules, the DC increases to 20.  At the top of the food chain, the nightwave is a DC 30 Knowledge (Religion) check, whereas under the new rules, the DC decreases to 20.  Just to double-check, let’s have a look at a middle-range monster, like the behemoth hippopotamus, weighing in at a Challenge Rating of 10.  Old rules: DC 20 Knowledge (Nature).  New Rules: DC 20 Knowledge (Nature).  The median result is identical and the variance at either extreme is equal at +/- 10.  So far, it’s still skewing towards easier DC’s.  But that will change once we get to very rare monsters.

I have some thoughts about very rare beasties.  The ‘very rare’ classification implies that most people have never even heard of such creatures, let alone seen one.  Because they are so very rare, precious little is known about them.  Only the most erudite of scholars could identify one, and even rarer is the scholar that could tell you about their abilities.  Very rare monsters should evoke a sense of mystery, of something alien that very few intelligent beings have ever come across.  “What the fuck is that?!?” should be the reaction of most characters, turning hopefully to the group wizard.  Who responds with “I have no fucking idea.”

This is not to say that very rare creatures are unidentifiable; there should be a chance of success, even if it is exceedingly small.  Setting a DC of 30 seems like a good target number.  A first-level character with a rank in Knowledge and an 18 Intelligence would still have no chance to figure out a very rare creature.  And that fits in with the overall vision I have for monster lore.  A character with only a small amount of learning in a Knowledge skill should not be able to identify a very rare creature, regardless of its Challenge Rating.  As that character gains experience and continues their studies (i.e. takes more ranks in their Knowledge skill), the chances of success improve incrementally until they reach a reasonable chance for success (i.e. greater than 50%) at around 10^th to 12^th level.  By that time, if our character has maxed out their ranks in the relevant Knowledge skill, they have become that erudite scholar, capable of recognizing even the most esoteric of creatures.

We still have a lot of monsters left, all of whom must fall into the very rare category.  We’ve used Bestiary 1, 2 and 3 for our common, uncommon and rare categories, so now everything else falls into the very rare box.  This includes all creatures from Bestiary 4, 5 and 6 and also any creature that was included in an adventure path bestiary.  We also should include any monster from a third-party publication, such as the Tome of Horrors (Frog God Games) or the Midgard Bestiary (Kobold Press).  That seems like a lot of monsters.  Maybe the majority of them.  Maybe a large majority.  Let’s check it out to see if that impression is correct.

I’m going to use the Mummy’s Mask adventure path as our sample.  If I reference the source book for each monster encountered in the adventure path, I find that 28.5% of all monsters come from Bestiary 1, 42.1% are drawn from Bestiary 2 or 3, and the balance (29.4%) come from other publications.  Therefore, our fear that most creatures will fall into the very rare category is unfounded.  The distribution works out somewhat evenly.

A consequence of the decision to set the DC at 30 is that monster lore checks for very rare creatures become harder.  A lot harder, especially at low CR’s.  We gather up a troodon (CR 1) and a lotus tree (CR 20) as our lab rats.  Troodon – old rules DC 11 (Nature).  New rules DC 30 (Nature).  Ouch!  For our lotus tree, the old rules yield a DC 30 Knowledge (Nature), while the new rules produce the same result.  So, for most very rare creatures, it becomes harder to identify them, and in low-CR cases, much harder. 

But if we loop back to common and uncommon monsters, the reverse is true.  Low-CR creatures remain at pretty much the same DC, and high-CR creatures become much easier to identify.  As a whole, the new system appears balanced with respect to the old. 

We have an alternate rule system that is balanced, and keeps the same chances for success at monster lore checks, but redistributes them from Challenge Rating to Frequency.  Our design goal was to base monster lore checks on the Frequency of the creature, which I believe we have done.  Some checks are harder, others are easier and our chances of success are based on how pervasive the creature is in the campaign setting instead of how hard it is to fight.  Achievement unlocked!

Next time, we’re going to add some layers of complexity to the system.  We need to talk about environment and how it affects Knowledge checks.  We also need to tackle monster templates, and variant versions of monsters.  And we need to discuss the metaverse.  Ah yes, the metaverse…