Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Nid_Food 03-13-07, 11:01 AM	I'm not entirely sure how to handle this idea my PCs came up with and was looking for advice or even experience in a similar situation. The group is around level 16 and is currently 6 PCs and 1 cohort. The situation: After a battle that involved a Marilith, one of the PCs came up with the idea of recording the different monsters the group has battled and write down any weaknesses they found, primarily the DR. Said PC loves to use lots of divinations to get answers to his questions, but I suppose asking sages or other adventurers could also get them the info. How do I handle this? A good portion of the difficulty of higher CR monsters is their damage reduction. If DR is bypassed easily, the encounter becomes almost trivial without me throwing large numbers of nasties at the PCs. Also, it essentially renders knowledge checks useless, as they'll have their handy-dandy book with them. Or at least, the knowledge checks will be pointless once that enemy has been categorized. However, it's a great idea on the PCs part to write things down. They are also asking that their PCs remember the weaknesses of anything they've fought before and discovered the weaknesses to (either by trial & error, or divination). Again, this really renders knowledge checks pointless if after you've learned once that a Marilith is weak to milk & cookies, they claim they shouldn't have to learn it again. Thoughts? Ideas? Thanks.
mike_beavers 03-13-07, 12:52 PM	i think its clever of the players. dont punish them necessarily for thinking. You can always add classes to a beastie to alter if you want to so the info may not always be as useful.
StormKnight 03-13-07, 01:24 PM	Maybe I'm missing something, but it kinds of sounds like you are saying that after they fight a werewolf and find out that silver hurts it, they want to know in the future that silver hurts werewolves. If they have learned this in game...why wouldn't they know it later? Am I just not getting what you are asking?
mcnoo 03-13-07, 01:33 PM	At least they're dealing with in in character rather than outright meta gaming. I believe variation is the key here, either don't let them get too familiar with everything you can use, use combinations of monsters that need different things to bypass DR or if they really are tearing through things too easily, well done them, send things of 1CR higher at them, they should get a better challenge out of it, and they'll get the tasty extra XP they've earned.
Kouk 03-13-07, 01:39 PM	I think it's a fine idea. They are free to compile a book on various monsters but unless they are going to whip it out every time a fight starts and search through it (after it gets fairly full I would say it takes at least 10 rounds, unless you make a new book every time you have a monster to add they will not be in alphabetical order), they will still need knowledge checks for some things. But a monster such as a marilith is pretty unique in appearance, I think any information they learn about it they would be able to remember. Considering how many different monsters adventurers usually face I guess you could call for a Knowledge (maybe Int or Wis) check to remember, with a good bonus to it like +5. I think it is perfectly fair for a PC with any kind of decent Intelligence to assume that more than one kind of animal shapechanger might be vulnerable to silver in the same way that a werewolf was. Personally I would let them just remember whatever they found out first-hand, but with things they divined through spells or asking would only grant something like a +2 Knowledge circumstance bonus (the circumstance being they specifically researched a particular monster). The Knowledge Skill doesn't represent a psychic ability to just "know" things, it is basically a skill for "remembering" things a character has learned or heard about in the past, so research would be something you have to remember. After they compile a nice book though, maybe they can publish it and retire. Maybe name it something alliterative, like the "Beast Book" or, "Villain Volumes".
shadowoftreefrog 03-13-07, 02:00 PM	The book is a nice idea on their part, however you can't let them make it overpowering. As far as asking other people for information when they're creating the book well not everybody wants to talk about everything, and if they're level 16ish they should be higher level than most people they run into, meaning that most people they run into may be able to tell them about goblins or kobolds or whatever but not about the big baddies your characters will be facing. The people they talk to may have bad info as well, "Well when I was a child my mother told me that vampires hate broccoli, yeah broccoli, kills em if they eat it." furthermore..... if they don't know exactly ahead of time what they're running into then they might not be carrying the proper weapons to defeat the damage reduction, even if they know they need cold steel or whatever. some other things you could throw their way if they try to be jerks about the book. Who carries the book? Where do they keep it? What if it gets wet? How many pages is it? if its more than a page or two it may take some time to look up the appropriate monster, and someone sitting there reading is a easy target (I'd say -4 ac, and maybe even an attack of oppurtunity on them, since they're reading a book and not paying attention to combat) Does the book include a description of a monster or does it just say "Titans are weak against lawfull weapons" if it doesn't include an extended description how are they to know that what they are fighting is indeed a titan. If it does include extended descriptions then it takes even longer to find the bad guys in the book (Imagine carrying a monster manual with you and trying to look up a werewolf while one is trying to gnaw on your skull) and it goes on from there.... However it is a pretty good idea on their part, maybe just let them create it and give them a bonus on their knowledge checks if they have a round or two to to flip through it, also the act of creating and asking will expand their knowledge some. Edit: I see some people have chimed in with some of this stuff while I was composing my post.
Nid_Food 03-13-07, 02:06 PM	Maybe I'm missing something, but it kinds of sounds like you are saying that after they fight a werewolf and find out that silver hurts it, they want to know in the future that silver hurts werewolves. If they have learned this in game...why wouldn't they know it later? I took Calculus in college. After a couple months, I could only do simple Calc problems. Today, I think I can do a simple derivation and that's it. I spent months learning something, but because I haven't used it since the class, I've forgotten it. I would also think that applies here, or rather, that knowledge checks apply here. I'm not so much concerned with "common" DR knowledge. Lycanthropes and Silver, Skeletons and Bludgeoning...etc. I have no problem with them knowing that without a check. My concern is rarer monsters -- demons, devils, liches...etc. Things they don't fight every day, but of course they're lugging around cold iron/silver/adamantine weapons in various ways for just such an occasion. It is a very inventive idea and I don't want to punish them for it. I am doing my best to be inventive with encounters. As of yet, it's not like they've waded through swarm after swarm of demons, it's been a mix of just about everything so that the group is challenged in different ways. In reality, bumping up the CR of monsters by 1 or 2 isn't going to cut it. An extra dozen HP doesn't matter much when they cut straight through DR. The group's main fighters are a Half-Orc Barbarian (Greataxe) and Dwarven Fighter/Barbarian (Dwarven Waraxe), and those two are quite the hammer and anvil. They want to write the book because to be honest, their knowledge skillset sucks. Even with the modest +5 suggested, the only one with any Knowledge(planes) would still have needed a 20 to know about the Marilith's weaknesses. They want the ability to see a monster and flip to page "M" to see what they need to do to beat it.
Kouk 03-13-07, 02:16 PM	They want to write the book because to be honest, their knowledge skillset sucks. Even with the modest +5 suggested, the only one with any Knowledge(planes) would still have needed a 20 to know about the Marilith's weaknesses. They want the ability to see a monster and flip to page "M" to see what they need to do to beat it. The Knowledge skills exist to represent the characters' time spent learning things. A book should only really give a bonus the way a library does, unless they spend the time to look up the monster and call out the weaknesses to the party (which may make the caller a target). If they don't train Knowledge skills then they aren't really "learning" anything, just smashing things randomly until they find what weapon seems to work. A bonus to knowledge checks of even the usual +2 still would show that the book is useful and a good idea, just that their characters' heads can't contain that kind of information. It's good that they're thinking, but they are trying to circumvent the rules. You can have the players actually write out every bit of information they learn in a notebook. After awhile of that they will get impatient at the time spent (it should take days of in-game time to research things anyhow) especially when all they can get is random bits of information based off of NPC skill check results. What kind of divination magic would they be using anyway? Having the book give a +2 circ bonus still will reward them for having a good idea, it just can't fix that their characters' brains can't hold much information.
Nid_Food 03-13-07, 02:27 PM	What kind of divination magic would they be using anyway? 4th level cleric spell -- Divination. The casting time makes it useless in combat of course, but they'll take their time (if able to) to ask lots of questions from the cleric's diety.
Grod_The_Giant 03-13-07, 03:34 PM	Maybe name it something alliterative, like the "Beast Book" or, "Villain Volumes". The Monster Book of Monsters
Kouk 03-14-07, 02:35 AM	4th level cleric spell -- Divination. The casting time makes it useless in combat of course, but they'll take their time (if able to) to ask lots of questions from the cleric's diety. Ah, but they are NOT asking their deity, they are asking you. SRD says: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Similar to augury but more powerful, a divination spell can provide you with a useful piece of advice in reply to a question concerning a specific goal, event, or activity that is to occur within one week. The advice can be as simple as a short phrase, or it might take the form of a cryptic rhyme or omen. If your party doesn’t act on the information, the conditions may change so that the information is no longer useful. The base chance for a correct divination is 70% + 1% per caster level, to a maximum of 90%. If the dice roll fails, you know the spell failed, unless specific magic yielding false information is at work. As with augury, multiple divinations about the same topic by the same caster use the same dice result as the first divination spell and yield the same answer each time. Material Component: Incense and a sacrificial offering appropriate to your religion, together worth at least 25 gp. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The SRD omits the example given in the PHB about the PC question, "Will we do well if we venture into the ruined temple of Erythnul?" and then the response to that is "Ready oil and open flame light your way to wealth." The DM gave that answer because he planned for there to be a troll guarding a pile of coins there, so he gave the hint that fire would help get the party money. The spell works on a "specific goal, event or activity" that occurs within one week from the casting. Even if they know exactly what monster they are fighting (within one week from the casting) for them to ask the Divination "How do we defeat a Marilith?" I can't see them getting more than an obtuse answer along the lines of "Blessed iron strikes true, to defeat the evil before you." That doesn't account for any other kinds of monsters that are with her, and maybe the spell goes along the lines of "Strike with iron, not with spell, if the foe you wish to fell" because Mariliths have spell resistance and DR against fire and acid, and immunity to electricity and poison. Divination only works for one week in the future so you can't retroactively ask "what would have been the best thing to use on this creature?" or ask "how does one defeat a Marilith?" because that question isn't about the future it is just asking for a general fact or strategy. To compile a book based on Divinations they would have to get the spell to tell them weaknesses of all sorts of monsters they will face "What would be the best way to defeat the next monster we fight this week?" and do that constantly for "the next after that" etc and then write down the weaknesses that match the monster.
Nid_Food 03-14-07, 08:13 AM	They haven't tried to divine anything in the past. The example is helpful, but I'm not the best with coming up with cryptic sayings on the fly. They've already mentioned researching what they've battled to learn the weaknesses -- they plan on writing a description of the monster, what powers they witnessed it using and any weaknesses they may have witnessed...etc. I know when they do go to research it, they're not going to go to Average Joe the Sage, but they'll ask around for a specialist, so I can't really justify feeding them false information. So, I expect the research in game to be where the bulk of their information will come from. They'll pay someone to do it, because none of them can actually do it themselves. They're a smart group. One player even suggested that, instead of making an actual book, to keep the papers loose and place all of them in a Handy Haversack. Then, whatever paper they need will be right on top ("I want to get the Marilith paper") at the cost of a move action. Beats flipping through a book. He said he wouldn't do that as it'd be a little powerful.
runestar 03-14-07, 08:25 AM	One way would be to use summon monster spells and use those creatures as lab subjects to see what works and what doesn't. They have to be quick though, since the spell's duration really isn't all that long. But you should have enough time to at least ferret out their dr, resistances and immunities, as well as any innate SLAs. Even after the players know a monster's conventional weaknesses and strengths, this does not necessarily mean they have an advantage. Sure, they may know that red dragons are vulnerable to cold, but the red dragon can just as easily use magic to grant it cold resistance/immunity. Or give the marilith stoneskin. Is the wartroll vulnerable to acid? Slap on the half-black dragon template. You can always adjust a monster's tactics and protections to run contrary to what the player's have discovered. It may even become a crux for them if they become too dependent on it.:P
cog_n_taz 03-14-07, 08:29 AM	It's a good idea, let them. Also, allow me to tell you that DR is a trivial part of how sickeningly powerful high level monsters are. If you have trouble making them a challenge/meat grinder, check out fantastic beasts and how to use them on the monster's lair forum (currently page 2), written by yours truly.
Sereno 03-14-07, 08:52 AM	I took Calculus in college. After a couple months, I could only do simple Calc problems. Today, I think I can do a simple derivation and that's it. I spent months learning something, but because I haven't used it since the class, I've forgotten it. I would also think that applies here, or rather, that knowledge checks apply here. Remembering what beats DR is a lot more like playing Trivial Pursuit than remembering how to do differential equations; one is simply recalling a fact and the other is actually a thinking process.
Nid_Food 03-14-07, 09:11 AM	Remembering what beats DR is a lot more like playing Trivial Pursuit than remembering how to do differential equations; one is simply recalling a fact and the other is actually a thinking process. Replace Calculus with History, Geography or any other subject where the bulk of it is recalling facts and the same holds true to some extent, at least with me.
Cricket_God 03-14-07, 10:02 AM	I think that if they take the time to make a book that lists all the monsters that they have met and gives an accurate enough description that they can be recognized on sight then they should be able to. However, If they run into a monster and they want to use the book then don't make doing so a free action. Even with pictures they have to remove the book from their pack, open it, and flip through the pages to find the one that gives the monster's description, then read the description and give their verdict to the party. Doing this would take the average person more than 6 seconds.
Sereno 03-14-07, 11:51 AM	Replace Calculus with History, Geography or any other subject where the bulk of it is recalling facts and the same holds true to some extent, at least with me. I also tend to think that you'd have better memory "imprinting" if your very life was in danger. Maybe you forget some history facts, or where the capital of Uzbekistan is, but I doubt you'd forget what type of sword you were holding when you *finally* managed to damage that marilith. Personally, I'd always give them a couple of "freebie" memory recalls on creatures the *players* remember that they've fought (even if they can't remember all of the details), and I'd give them bonuses to their Knowledge checks if they wrote the information down in a book. Another thing to consider is that game time and PC time can be vastly different. You might have fought the battle with the marilith two years ago, in real world time, but it's only been 6 months for the PCs. Don't forget, if they've got a book that valuable, someone is going to want it ... and maybe not just a copy they could purchase....
Gottwick 03-14-07, 02:06 PM	They are also asking that their PCs remember the weaknesses of anything they've fought before and discovered the weaknesses to (either by trial & error, or divination). Again, this really renders knowledge checks pointless if after you've learned once that a Marilith is weak to milk & cookies, they claim they shouldn't have to learn it again. I agree with the players. If something threatened my life and we killed it with X, I can't imagine anything I would want to remember more than that. Besides, there are hundreds if not thousands of monsters for you to use. How many mariliths are they going to encounter?!
EscherEnigma 03-14-07, 02:14 PM	Hrm... am I the only one that thinks a mundane book like that wouldn't be too horribly useful? If they don't do the research themselves, then they would have to read the book to retain knowledge from it, and that would be represented by an increase in their knowledge skills. If they compile it themselves, then they're limited by their own knowledge checks (made perhaps with a bonus for doing research). If they compile it based off their experiences, then it only covers a very small subset of creatures. And yeah, if the book isn't organized it's going to take a while to find anything in it. And if it IS alphabetical... well, they still need to make a knowledge check just to know the name of the best. So all-in-all, I don't think it's an auto we-win button for them. Now, what WOULD be useful would be a custom magic item that, when used upon a monster, makes a knowledege check and starts reciting information. Perhaps a magic book of monster lore, crafted by an arch sage. Probably hella expensive, but might be useful.
Sereno 03-14-07, 03:47 PM	Hrm... am I the only one that thinks a mundane book like that wouldn't be too horribly useful? I think it's a good idea when the players are more forgetful than the PCs they're playing. It's one of the reasons that I take a lot of notes (in an Adventurer's Journal format) when I'm a player. I know that *I* don't have as good a memory, week to week, as my PC would, especially when sometimes several real-world weeks passes for me and only a half-a-day for my character.
TRCEttin 03-14-07, 06:06 PM	Don't forget to name it the Monster Manual. (good thinking, though!) EDIT: Oh yeah, you can also consider introducing the book in a later campaign to a different group of players as an item that provides some small bonuses (+2 circumstance, say) on a few Knowledge checks when used to figure out the abilities of monsters. Bardic knowledge and similar checks could reveal information about the group that wrote it in the first place. Just a thought.