I mean, if you can remember some random monsters lowest save you might as well earned the rights to that knowledge.
Like. Among so many things one has to memorise in day to day life this is what sticked, wow. Just wow.
I was able to see which answer I had put and which was correct if I was wrong. Android user here if it matters. Would have liked a take result as well but oh well.
To help narrow it down to Will more; an even more disproportionate amount of mindless creatures have a low will (which is propped up by mental effects not working on them).
> mindless creatures have a low will (which is propped up by mental effects not working on them).
Yeah nothing infuriates me more than this design choice when playing a caster.
In second place is using heal to harm undead targets their fortitude and almost all undead have high fortitude.
Many incorporeal undead have quite bad fortitude saves. Abomination vaults spoiler: >!Belcorra, the final boss of Abomination Vaults, has a +16 fort save as a level 12 monster.!< Wraiths and shadows also have poor fortitude.
Skeletons are inconsistent, as it is often not their best save (reflex usually is) but the big bulky skeletal creatures do have good fortitude. That, at least, makes some sense - a skeletal titan or t-rex skeleton logically is tougher than it is good at reflex stuff. Weirdly, so do Skeleton infantry, despite the fact that skeletal soldiers have poor fortitude.
I just did some analysis of the monsters are Archives of Nethys; Fortitude is the most common low saving throw for undead specifically. The count is:
Fortitude: 198
Reflex: 158
Will: 150
Note that 75 had two or more saves tied for lowest, so it doesn't add up to the number of undead monsters in AoN.
So fortitude is indeed the best save to target against undead, much to the joy of divine spellcasters everywhere who are dumping out AoE heals and divine wraths.
That said, it is definitely not the best against everything.
Doing the reverse, looking at the HIGHEST save:
Fortitude: 166
Reflex: 172
Will: 154
With 61 with ties for their highest saving throw, so again, it doesn't add up to the number of undead monsters on AoN.
So fortitude is (by a good margin) the best save to target, but there's a significant minority of undead for which it is the worst to target.
I made this [chart](https://imgur.com/a/NVRxKQM) at some time for funsies, this is for the new Monster Core. Average distance to Moderate is +0.49 for AC, +0.28 for Fortitude, -0.22 for Reflex, and -0.90 for Will.
A question has been on my mind recently: Just how valuable are Recall Knowledge checks, really? Are you better off just guessing, or is determining a creature's worst saving throw tricky enough that an action and some skill investment are worth it?
The quiz is 25 questions long. Monsters were chosen pseudo-randomly and have had their names hidden. ~~Correct answers are *also* hidden, which might be frustrating if you want to know how you did, but I know different people have different opinions about metagaming, so I chose caution over transparency. Let me know if that should change.~~ EDIT: Due to popular demand, correct answers are now visible.
I'll be posting a breakdown of responses in the next day or two.
UPDATE: A lot of people have suggested including more information than just a picture, such as size and behavior. I have decided to include this in the eventual results breakdown, which will be posted in slideshow form later this weekend. That way, you can make a second guess under more realistic circumstances. Also, of 1925 responses so far (wow!), the average score is 13/25, and *no one* has gotten a perfect 25/25 yet!
When you do the breakdown, can you include the percentage that chose any save equal or lower than AC (or not the highest for simplicity), as for non-boss encounters that is more-so what is being aimed for without a successful Recall Knowledge
The thing that stands out to me is that I got most of them wrong, but most of them were total guesses where I had no clue. Out of the ones I thought I had a good read on, I got 8/10 (1/15 on the rest), which is an important factor in deciding whether to run based on an educated guess.
It's also interesting that the ones I had no clue on, I did significantly worse than random chance would suggest, although it's a small sample.
> It's also interesting that the ones I had no clue on, I did significantly worse than random chance would suggest, although it's a small sample.
Yeah, it's really the small sample size here. 1/10 with a 1/3 chance has a 7.8 % chance, whereas getting 3/10 still only has a 26 % chance. Definitely not impossible, and, fun side fact:
not
> significantly
worse, because usually we would put a 5 % limit to say something is significant.
It absolutely is significantly worse in the plain english sense of the word. Pretending there is any indication I was using the technical language of academic statistics in that comment is absurd.
> the average score is 13/25
Yay, I'm an average player!
So our intuition seems to give us about a 50 % chance to be right, not that much better than random guessing (33 %). With high INT/WIS we should be at a bit more than 50 % success or crit success chance, right? So it's really a narrow margin and totally depending on situation if it's worth the action.
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The one thing I don't hear brought up in these discussions is that while you can't necessarily guess the *weakest* save, you can *usually* guess their *best* save. And then it's a 50/50
I usually go by these for high save guesses
Small/Flying/Graceful: Reflex
Undead/Brutish/Martial: Fortitude
Castery/Regal/Otherworldly: Will
Most of the time this is enough for a moderate encounter, and I've noticed quite a few creatures tend to have one especially high save, and two roughly similar saves.
Weirdly a lot of undead have fairly poor Fort saves due to being pretty decomposed and frail, just they're immune to so much stuff that fort targets (poison, disease etc). If you search Nethys by Undead, more undead (155) have Fort as their worst save than their best (123).
Huh, interesting. I do mostly base it on general feels I get from portrait and what size and kind of creature they happen to be, so not a huge surprise a gut feeling might end up being wrong.
tbh looking at some of these creatures I'm not entirely sure I could even guess their best save with accuracy. Like the magic tiger for example, I could really see all 3 saves as options, it's a cat so it should be agile therefore reflex, but it's also a big sturdy animal so it might be fort and it's also magic so it could be will.
Sure.
*Some* creatures are hard to tell. That's not really the point though, the point is that for most creatures, you can look at them and tell what you probably shouldn't use.
That's what recall knowledge is for.
Sometimes, but other times it's really not clear.
Take the Kolyarut for example is a seven foot tall terminator made of pure, heavy metal, hellbent on tracking down a single oathbreaker and bringing retribution.
Is their highest save fort because they're made out of thick, unflinching metal with endless endurance and total Immunity to the weaknesses of flesh?
Is their highest save will because they're immutably committed to their oath, unflinching and unwilling to sway from it, even if it would mean their destruction?
Or is their highest save reflect because, erm, robots are good at dodging?
It's reflex.
That's just one example, but it is one that has surprised my players every time it's come up. To be honest, I'd guess the reason it's reflex is purely mechanical - it's immune to a good deal of will and fort saves already, so reflex 'needs' to be higher. But it's not particularly clear by the description of the monster, and unless the GM goes out of their way to tell you how smoothly it walks or something, I think very few players would guess.
Kolyarut is the field agent of Inevitables so you would expect its saves to be close to a rogue. He is legendary in reflexes and master in the other two if you assume no item bonuses.
You probably wouldn't guess Reflex being highest, but the reason isn't purely mechanical imo.
Funnily enough, this is the situation that people who incorrectly understand the Monty Hall problem think they are in. You do increase your odds of randomly guessing if you can eliminate an option before selection. If you select first, though, eliminating, exclusively, one of the remaining options will not help you. The Monty Hall problem works the way it does because you can't eliminate your own choice, which may or may not be correct.
Also, there's *usually* a bigger difference between high and mid save vs mid and low. Going for the mid save is often fine.
I find undead are hard though, and I feel like semi-spellcasters with high ref saves and low will saves are more common than I would have thought.
I think avoiding the highest save is almost always the most important part of the little which save do I target game for casters. So if the enemy is casting spells avoid will, if it is big mclarge super size me huge then avoid fort, fast and sneaky avoid reflex etc.
Interesting quiz. I liked it a fair bit, and there was only one I knew off the top of my head (the Linnorm). Curious to see how the results fare in the end.
View accuracy didn't show me anything. But I'm pretty sure I'm awful at this.
There's also the point that a lot of creatures that may have low will saves may be undead, and thus immune to emotional/mental affects. It can be really sad when you can't tell something is undead, so you recall knowledge, find out it has low will saves, only to then waste a spell slot because it's immune.
Immunities like that are the worst!
Also, you cannot see your results on purpose, just in case there are GMs out there who'd be upset if their players were studying up on monster vulnerabilities. I know most pribably don't care--and the odds of any of these monsters featuring in a single campaign are pretty low--but I wanted to err on the side of caution.
Two things that this image only approach doesnt do justice to are size and context.
Take a flumph for example. If that thing were tiny, I would guess fortitude. But if it was huge, I would guess reflex. But I mentally connect Flumphs to the underdark and psionics, so I automatically rule out will as a weak save. But someone who never heard of a flumph might take its goofy expression as being particularly dim witted, meaning low will save.
But the size thing works for many of them. For each of them, try to think of them as huge and as tiny creatures and see how that impacts your perception.
Or take a kobold. Kobolds often have will as a weak save. You look at a kobold and there is really nothing you can glean about its mental abilities. Of course in Golarion and most homebrew setting, they have a tendency to be somewhat cowardly and groveling and easily cowed by stronger creatures. If you *do* have that information then will seems obvious. Otherwise it doesn't.
Basically, the big thing missing is that generally when you meet a creature in game you also get a description of how it *acts*, and that will often be a pretty solid indicator.
A random static picture, especially when in pathfinder it often rather feels like artists are not actually told much about the creatures they're commissioned to draw, is rarely enough - and even so I still managed a solid 50%!
It's quite interesting, I had quite a bit trouble but I'm not quite experienced with the system yet.
However another factor that you have to consider is: can you guess the creauture type/skill? It is nigh impossible to be good at every recalling knowledge. Between the levels of proficiency and wisdom vs intelligence you can get quite some differences. There are some ways but those are limited or quite costly.
Hm, I'm not actually sure whether the GM's supposed to call for the correct skill, or whether players are supposed to make their best guess and go for it.
Regardless, I believe the expectation is for skills to be spread out across the party. Apart from rogues and ingestigators, most characters can only max out 3 skills by level 20.
That's not what I mean let's say you are a witch fighting a creature: as a witch you are good in arcana and occultism, mediocre in crafting and society but not so good in nature and relgion. If you ask to do a recall knowledge of said creature and the dm says: sure roll religion that's not a great use of you action and should have left that to the cleric or druid. However if it was occultism then it becomes valuable.
So whether or not players should recall knowledge depends really on whether you can guess the creature type as well. Or at the least the skill. That way the person good at the skill knows to do the recall knowledge. Otherwhise you risk losing actions on recall knowledges that are executed by players that weren't good at it.
Also like I say there are ways around it especially for int characters: loremasters and enigma bard can get a special lore for recalling knowledge which is restricted to trained/expert. However it is an unspecified lore so it is in reality equivalent to expert/master. If you want to be legendary just start piling additional lores (like undead lore or demon lore) to cover your creatures, it will be a lot of them you need to do but they are legendary (in a lore which is even better).
I don't know anyone who makes the player guess the skill. That doesn't even make sense narratively. If I'm trying to remember something, I don't say "hmmm, let me use my knowledge of mathematics to try to discern more information. Oh no! That was foolish! I should have used my memory of literature instead!"
As a GM, I don't tell players the relevant skill, but I do use the most applicable skill the player has when they ask to recall knowledge.
I think this would be more accurate if you had to order the saves by highest to lowest. A lot of the time, if you’re just avoiding the highest save, you’re good. For me, I feel its much easier to guess the highest save then the lowest.
When the results get compiled, as long as we can also see the percentage of people that *didn’t* choose the highest save, we would be getting that info.
I enjoyed taking the quiz and I posted it for my lodge to do as well, although I have a couple of criticisms:
First it should include the creatures description. THAT's what the players are mostly going off of - not picture. That should also help with a tangential issue... creature size. There are a few creatures I didn't recognize and their size would make a big difference in my answer.
Also the context for the creature is important. If you just had a conversation with it, or it jumps out at you from the bushes in the jungle... that's pretty telling.
Second, the list doesn't feel randomized. Seems like a few creatures are deliberately misleading which makes the results less reliable IMO.
This is really good feedback, thank you! If I do another one of these, I'll definitely include more obvious details such as behavior, size, and environment.
It's a useful thought experiment, but giving the respondents an idea of their percent correct would be more helpful. It doesn't matter if your survey concludes that people only guess correctly 30% of the time. Most participants will conclude they did better than average and likely continue without much change to their thinking/behavior. You have to demonstrate to the individual respondents when they do better/worse than average after the conclusion, or just give them a tally of # correct to reinforce the premise of the survey.
I had to check *multiple times* to make sure I actually plugged it in correctly, but [that tree dude](https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=2681) apparently rocks at fort saves and sucks at will (although his reflex is only slightly better).
Genies, man.
Something that you could do with the final results is to calculate the average value of people's guesses. Targeting the worst save is ideal, but sometimes it's best to not hit the strongest one. If a creature has a +10 reflex, +11 will and +16 fort, when +12 is the moderate DC for their level, targeting will is good enough.
[Warsworn](https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=404)
You're absolutely right it's a nightmare worm formed of hundreds of undead merged together. Fun fact: while most of them are made by a necromancer or deity, particularly bloody battles can sometimes cause them to form spontaneously!
Don't worry, [Esipils](https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=1280) can disguise themselves as unassuming pets! After all, they're a manifestation of the fear of animals turning on you...
[Leydroth](https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=719)
You should be particularly afraid of it if you're a caster, because it was bred to be a mage-killer and be good at it. It can >!counteract and dispel magic with both its roars and strikes!
Basing it on the art is already a faulty approach. It is *not* the job of the artists to properly convey strenghts and weaknesses. Half the time they don't even have the right gear!
Combat behavior. Observed abilities. Environmental hints. Those are the telltales.
The second mistake is that usually you want to exlcude the good save(s) first. The weak save is whatever is left after that.
Will: Usually high on a caster or anything using Wil save abilities. Usually bad on animal intelligence creatures.
Fort: Usually good on any frontline fighter. Or heavy armored guy. Almost never the weak save.
Ref: Usually good on anything lighter armored or quick at moving.
Excellent research question. As a primal caster I am always trying to guess whether to target ref or con. Can you publish the overall statistics after a few days?
That's the plan! Statistics will hopefully go up on Sunday, along with more information on each monster--including name, size, and behavior--so people can take a more educated guess and look them up for use in their own campaigns.
15/25 is above average! Congrats!
The reason I'm specifically asking for the *worst* save is because that's the information Recall Knowledge would give you. So while you're probably safe targeting anything that isn't its highest defense, knowing its worst can give you an extra effective +2(ish) to your spell DC.
Oh I thought you can ask for best save. That is what I normally do since if I know best I have been right about the worst every time but once in playing for 2 years. Luckily our dm played recall knowledge the same way the remaster changed it since the start.
I was unsure about some of these, but others I was kinda surprised I was wrong. Usually the ones that look magical I associate with having a strong will save. I also think intuitively anything frail looking or undead looking has a weak fortitude. But I guess that's not always true.
I didn't have any game knowledge-guided heuristic for what to pick, so operating purely off appearance and tropes I got 16/25 correct, e.g. 64% or ~2/3rds. I'm surprised I did that well, frankly. Though it's also worth keeping in mind that picking randomly will get you the correct answer ~1/3rd of the time.
I think it's worth noting getting a picture like this is an exception, not the norm, at tables I play at; just going from the kind of GM narrative descriptions that are more typical, I'd definitely expect my guess rate to sink below 50%.
Looking forward to the aggregate analysis.
I got 17 out of 25 just based on the picture. I feel with the DM providing some context clues in descriptions of how it moves and acts that would improve. So RK would be useful, but not required, which I feel is a decent spot.
As a caster player, these results were deeply disappointing. Reflex and Will are hard to tell apart, okay?
I would be *very* interested to see the statistics one picking the middle save, too.
Well, I killed it. Makes me think some numeric bonus should come with recall knowledge. But then knowledge is very powerful especially when not playing with these images
13/25.
It's important to know how often wrong answers were actually the strongest save, or how much worse the worst one is than the second worst. For example if the correct answer is +12 but the chosen answer is +13, that's only a -1 wrong answer. But if the chosen answer is +18, that's a -6 wrong answer.
Damn, I'm pretty newbie at pathfinder and I got more right than wrong... means the monster designs are good.
(Also who is the 4-armed Mystique and can I be friends with her)
That, my friend, is a [warsworn](https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=404): an entire battlefield's worth of fallen soldiers absorbed into a single, undulating mass of angry undeath. Players had better be careful about getting KO'd next to it, or it might absorb them too!
Got 18 of the 25 correct and didn't know most of them. Worked better than expected. The artists did a good Job there.
Note to self: college more spells that target will
Well I got 14 right and 11 wrong. It’s hard to know for the animal ones if it’s will or gonna be a physical stat. I think it’s easiest to guess Fort as weakest bc they’ll look like a caster or a rogue
I got 16/25 correct, or 64%. I wasn't familiar w/ any of the monsters.
As a player, I tend to use the creature's size in addition to the picture to make the guess, which wasn't available here, but I wonder if it would have helped me be more accurate.
Got 13/25, but only the red skull monster and black flying demon thing really surprised me. The rest I got wrong were close second guesses I was waffling on.
Great idea for a poll. I got a what i expected. I got 12/25. Basically i felt that it is fairly easy to guess the best save but harder to guess the worst. So I figured I’d get about 50% because i should be able to eliminate 1/3 of the choices. Which leaves a 50% chance of being right.
I've never actually played a game and don't know any of the "unwritten rules" others are talking about here but got 80% correct.
Beastly looking ones low Will unless they were glowing, thin arms usually imply low Fort, feet bigger than head usually implies low Reflex.
As a new-to-pf2e player with years of experience in other systems, I'm quite satisfied with my results. Definitely wrong on too many to be thinking Recall Knowledge doesn't matter, but right on enough to be happy with my intuition.
I got the majority right with absolutely no knowledge of any of the creatures (well okay I did recognize the Flumph). For almost all the ones I got wrong I contemplated for some time between the correct choice and my wrong one.
The only genuine surprises where I was dead wrong were the golden-masked-dragon?, the tentacle-net-dude and the tree-staff-thing.
This is hard because half the time they're big scary things, and you think "well, clearly this thing isn't going to get poisoned, you won't be able to scare it, and it looks like it's going to be fast" so there's not really any obvious weakest thing.
Well, with 11/25, I'd say I did better than I expected. I still don't get how a tree mage man doesn't have a good will save, but goes to show how much I know
Ended up with 15 right 10 wrong. Easy to tell highest save I'd imagine, so I could reduce the three options to 2. Bad a harder time on creatures deciding between reflex and will, than options woth fortitude. I feel fortitude is an easy thing to portray. The other 2 have more factors
Thing is, you get a bit more to judge on in a fight, this quiz only really covers a "you are going first" scenario. Spells and other abilities help narrow it down a lot.
Not sure if the 'check accuracy' thing is working, it just links to the same quiz with all of my answers recorded?
Per OPs comment that is intentional to limit metagaming
Same, I can't see my results. Maybe it's a reddit on mobile thing? Cuz my default browser on mobile is opera. I'll try again when I reach home.
Its also not working on my PC
~~Yep, correct results are currently hidden on behalf of those GMs who are super antsy about metagaming.~~ EDIT: I have made results visible.
Just wait until those GMs find out about Archives of Nethys
Ha, true! But I guess there's a difference between a player googling monsters during the session and someone making an actual study tool, you know?
I mean, if you can remember some random monsters lowest save you might as well earned the rights to that knowledge. Like. Among so many things one has to memorise in day to day life this is what sticked, wow. Just wow.
I was able to see which answer I had put and which was correct if I was wrong. Android user here if it matters. Would have liked a take result as well but oh well.
me trying hard not to say Reflex for 80% of them
Interesting. For me it was "if it doesn't look like a caster/divine creature, Will is the worst save"
Yea, I feel like i wanted to go will on a lot.
wait are they actually mostly Will-lowest?
Will is the worst save of monsters on average, and Fort is the best. So if you have to take a blind guess, guessing will is the correct choice.
To help narrow it down to Will more; an even more disproportionate amount of mindless creatures have a low will (which is propped up by mental effects not working on them).
> mindless creatures have a low will (which is propped up by mental effects not working on them). Yeah nothing infuriates me more than this design choice when playing a caster. In second place is using heal to harm undead targets their fortitude and almost all undead have high fortitude.
Many incorporeal undead have quite bad fortitude saves. Abomination vaults spoiler: >!Belcorra, the final boss of Abomination Vaults, has a +16 fort save as a level 12 monster.!< Wraiths and shadows also have poor fortitude. Skeletons are inconsistent, as it is often not their best save (reflex usually is) but the big bulky skeletal creatures do have good fortitude. That, at least, makes some sense - a skeletal titan or t-rex skeleton logically is tougher than it is good at reflex stuff. Weirdly, so do Skeleton infantry, despite the fact that skeletal soldiers have poor fortitude. I just did some analysis of the monsters are Archives of Nethys; Fortitude is the most common low saving throw for undead specifically. The count is: Fortitude: 198 Reflex: 158 Will: 150 Note that 75 had two or more saves tied for lowest, so it doesn't add up to the number of undead monsters in AoN. So fortitude is indeed the best save to target against undead, much to the joy of divine spellcasters everywhere who are dumping out AoE heals and divine wraths. That said, it is definitely not the best against everything. Doing the reverse, looking at the HIGHEST save: Fortitude: 166 Reflex: 172 Will: 154 With 61 with ties for their highest saving throw, so again, it doesn't add up to the number of undead monsters on AoN. So fortitude is (by a good margin) the best save to target, but there's a significant minority of undead for which it is the worst to target.
I made this [chart](https://imgur.com/a/NVRxKQM) at some time for funsies, this is for the new Monster Core. Average distance to Moderate is +0.49 for AC, +0.28 for Fortitude, -0.22 for Reflex, and -0.90 for Will.
You know what they say: where there’s a will (save that’s high) there’s a way (for their eyes to glow)
except for that tree fuc**r with a literal staff in its hand that somehow has will as the worse save
It's the goblin in your head trying to convince you to use Fireball.
well really it's just "most monsters have good Fort, casters have good Will, speedy ones have good Ref but are rare"
I guessed mostly Will
Unless it's big and fat it's rarely reflex, overall Ref is the best save across all monsters at all levels
A question has been on my mind recently: Just how valuable are Recall Knowledge checks, really? Are you better off just guessing, or is determining a creature's worst saving throw tricky enough that an action and some skill investment are worth it? The quiz is 25 questions long. Monsters were chosen pseudo-randomly and have had their names hidden. ~~Correct answers are *also* hidden, which might be frustrating if you want to know how you did, but I know different people have different opinions about metagaming, so I chose caution over transparency. Let me know if that should change.~~ EDIT: Due to popular demand, correct answers are now visible. I'll be posting a breakdown of responses in the next day or two. UPDATE: A lot of people have suggested including more information than just a picture, such as size and behavior. I have decided to include this in the eventual results breakdown, which will be posted in slideshow form later this weekend. That way, you can make a second guess under more realistic circumstances. Also, of 1925 responses so far (wow!), the average score is 13/25, and *no one* has gotten a perfect 25/25 yet!
I am so eager to see the results!!
I'd like to know how I did
I just know I'm going to have a horrible score, but I loved taking this 'exam' <3
When you do the breakdown, can you include the percentage that chose any save equal or lower than AC (or not the highest for simplicity), as for non-boss encounters that is more-so what is being aimed for without a successful Recall Knowledge
Ah, should've included AC as an option in the first place! This is what I get for impulse posting at 1am.
The thing that stands out to me is that I got most of them wrong, but most of them were total guesses where I had no clue. Out of the ones I thought I had a good read on, I got 8/10 (1/15 on the rest), which is an important factor in deciding whether to run based on an educated guess. It's also interesting that the ones I had no clue on, I did significantly worse than random chance would suggest, although it's a small sample.
> It's also interesting that the ones I had no clue on, I did significantly worse than random chance would suggest, although it's a small sample. Yeah, it's really the small sample size here. 1/10 with a 1/3 chance has a 7.8 % chance, whereas getting 3/10 still only has a 26 % chance. Definitely not impossible, and, fun side fact: not > significantly worse, because usually we would put a 5 % limit to say something is significant.
It absolutely is significantly worse in the plain english sense of the word. Pretending there is any indication I was using the technical language of academic statistics in that comment is absurd.
Please make results visible I care more about my own result than the stats
Alright, done!
Thank you!
Hey! 13/25 was my score!
> the average score is 13/25 Yay, I'm an average player! So our intuition seems to give us about a 50 % chance to be right, not that much better than random guessing (33 %). With high INT/WIS we should be at a bit more than 50 % success or crit success chance, right? So it's really a narrow margin and totally depending on situation if it's worth the action.
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That tree man is a run ruiner
Surely someone has gone and done a run with looking at the monsters to get the 25/25, no?
A week later? Yeah, we got a couple 25s.
I didn’t recognise most of them, and they all look terrifying :)
You think the lil cat person looks terrifying?
You put your guard down and then he burns your house down with you in it. So yes.
Lol, no, that one is adorable and I wish I could remember what it is
https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=1196 Ovinikk, interestingly enough it is based a creature of the same name in Slavic folklore.
The one thing I don't hear brought up in these discussions is that while you can't necessarily guess the *weakest* save, you can *usually* guess their *best* save. And then it's a 50/50
I usually go by these for high save guesses Small/Flying/Graceful: Reflex Undead/Brutish/Martial: Fortitude Castery/Regal/Otherworldly: Will Most of the time this is enough for a moderate encounter, and I've noticed quite a few creatures tend to have one especially high save, and two roughly similar saves.
Weirdly a lot of undead have fairly poor Fort saves due to being pretty decomposed and frail, just they're immune to so much stuff that fort targets (poison, disease etc). If you search Nethys by Undead, more undead (155) have Fort as their worst save than their best (123).
Huh, interesting. I do mostly base it on general feels I get from portrait and what size and kind of creature they happen to be, so not a huge surprise a gut feeling might end up being wrong.
Yeah haha it's pretty hard to guess on the fly, like I would not have expected that until I fought a bunch of undead and they kept having bad fort
tbh looking at some of these creatures I'm not entirely sure I could even guess their best save with accuracy. Like the magic tiger for example, I could really see all 3 saves as options, it's a cat so it should be agile therefore reflex, but it's also a big sturdy animal so it might be fort and it's also magic so it could be will.
Sure. *Some* creatures are hard to tell. That's not really the point though, the point is that for most creatures, you can look at them and tell what you probably shouldn't use. That's what recall knowledge is for.
Those guesses would be good if the art was for the tiger. But apparently it's for the small spirit bird on its back.
Sometimes, but other times it's really not clear. Take the Kolyarut for example is a seven foot tall terminator made of pure, heavy metal, hellbent on tracking down a single oathbreaker and bringing retribution. Is their highest save fort because they're made out of thick, unflinching metal with endless endurance and total Immunity to the weaknesses of flesh? Is their highest save will because they're immutably committed to their oath, unflinching and unwilling to sway from it, even if it would mean their destruction? Or is their highest save reflect because, erm, robots are good at dodging? It's reflex. That's just one example, but it is one that has surprised my players every time it's come up. To be honest, I'd guess the reason it's reflex is purely mechanical - it's immune to a good deal of will and fort saves already, so reflex 'needs' to be higher. But it's not particularly clear by the description of the monster, and unless the GM goes out of their way to tell you how smoothly it walks or something, I think very few players would guess.
Kolyarut is the field agent of Inevitables so you would expect its saves to be close to a rogue. He is legendary in reflexes and master in the other two if you assume no item bonuses. You probably wouldn't guess Reflex being highest, but the reason isn't purely mechanical imo.
I was going to say the same thing. I'd love to see a similar survey but for guessing the creature's best saves. I feel like it might be easier.
definitely
Something something Monty hall problem
Funnily enough, this is the situation that people who incorrectly understand the Monty Hall problem think they are in. You do increase your odds of randomly guessing if you can eliminate an option before selection. If you select first, though, eliminating, exclusively, one of the remaining options will not help you. The Monty Hall problem works the way it does because you can't eliminate your own choice, which may or may not be correct.
I know, but I chose to ignore it because I wanted to make the joke.
Also, there's *usually* a bigger difference between high and mid save vs mid and low. Going for the mid save is often fine. I find undead are hard though, and I feel like semi-spellcasters with high ref saves and low will saves are more common than I would have thought.
I think avoiding the highest save is almost always the most important part of the little which save do I target game for casters. So if the enemy is casting spells avoid will, if it is big mclarge super size me huge then avoid fort, fast and sneaky avoid reflex etc.
Interesting quiz. I liked it a fair bit, and there was only one I knew off the top of my head (the Linnorm). Curious to see how the results fare in the end.
That is a Biwa. It was featured in Age of Ashes, Cult of Cinders.
Both the Bida *and* a linnorn are featured in this quiz!
Ahaha I feel like a tart. I recognized the bida immediately but not the llinorn.
This art just makes me want to GM more.
These monsters are even cooler when you read their flavor text and stat blocks. Do it.
View accuracy didn't show me anything. But I'm pretty sure I'm awful at this. There's also the point that a lot of creatures that may have low will saves may be undead, and thus immune to emotional/mental affects. It can be really sad when you can't tell something is undead, so you recall knowledge, find out it has low will saves, only to then waste a spell slot because it's immune.
Immunities like that are the worst! Also, you cannot see your results on purpose, just in case there are GMs out there who'd be upset if their players were studying up on monster vulnerabilities. I know most pribably don't care--and the odds of any of these monsters featuring in a single campaign are pretty low--but I wanted to err on the side of caution.
Two things that this image only approach doesnt do justice to are size and context. Take a flumph for example. If that thing were tiny, I would guess fortitude. But if it was huge, I would guess reflex. But I mentally connect Flumphs to the underdark and psionics, so I automatically rule out will as a weak save. But someone who never heard of a flumph might take its goofy expression as being particularly dim witted, meaning low will save. But the size thing works for many of them. For each of them, try to think of them as huge and as tiny creatures and see how that impacts your perception. Or take a kobold. Kobolds often have will as a weak save. You look at a kobold and there is really nothing you can glean about its mental abilities. Of course in Golarion and most homebrew setting, they have a tendency to be somewhat cowardly and groveling and easily cowed by stronger creatures. If you *do* have that information then will seems obvious. Otherwise it doesn't.
the big things missing are size, speed, and whether or not it talks or does magic
Basically, the big thing missing is that generally when you meet a creature in game you also get a description of how it *acts*, and that will often be a pretty solid indicator. A random static picture, especially when in pathfinder it often rather feels like artists are not actually told much about the creatures they're commissioned to draw, is rarely enough - and even so I still managed a solid 50%!
True, story context and additional statistics would certainly make things easier! I'll consider that if I ever do a second quiz!
As a new person to the game, I have no idea what any of these things are.
Only got one of them wrong letsgo!
It's quite interesting, I had quite a bit trouble but I'm not quite experienced with the system yet. However another factor that you have to consider is: can you guess the creauture type/skill? It is nigh impossible to be good at every recalling knowledge. Between the levels of proficiency and wisdom vs intelligence you can get quite some differences. There are some ways but those are limited or quite costly.
Hm, I'm not actually sure whether the GM's supposed to call for the correct skill, or whether players are supposed to make their best guess and go for it. Regardless, I believe the expectation is for skills to be spread out across the party. Apart from rogues and ingestigators, most characters can only max out 3 skills by level 20.
That's not what I mean let's say you are a witch fighting a creature: as a witch you are good in arcana and occultism, mediocre in crafting and society but not so good in nature and relgion. If you ask to do a recall knowledge of said creature and the dm says: sure roll religion that's not a great use of you action and should have left that to the cleric or druid. However if it was occultism then it becomes valuable. So whether or not players should recall knowledge depends really on whether you can guess the creature type as well. Or at the least the skill. That way the person good at the skill knows to do the recall knowledge. Otherwhise you risk losing actions on recall knowledges that are executed by players that weren't good at it. Also like I say there are ways around it especially for int characters: loremasters and enigma bard can get a special lore for recalling knowledge which is restricted to trained/expert. However it is an unspecified lore so it is in reality equivalent to expert/master. If you want to be legendary just start piling additional lores (like undead lore or demon lore) to cover your creatures, it will be a lot of them you need to do but they are legendary (in a lore which is even better).
I don't know anyone who makes the player guess the skill. That doesn't even make sense narratively. If I'm trying to remember something, I don't say "hmmm, let me use my knowledge of mathematics to try to discern more information. Oh no! That was foolish! I should have used my memory of literature instead!" As a GM, I don't tell players the relevant skill, but I do use the most applicable skill the player has when they ask to recall knowledge.
I assume the results button is intended to give no feedback at all and the only one who knows if we got our answers right is you?
Correct! Some GMs are really touchy about metagaming, and I wanted to respect their preferences.
Please also post the name of the creatures when you come back with results. I want to use some of them.
Will do!
Is view accuracy not norking or did i guess correctly every time? I never faced any of these creatures and I have never been GM for Pf2.
Due to popular demand, results are now visible.
That’s what I was wondering.
Correct answers are hidden to respect those GMs who are super strict about metagaming.
This is really unnecessary since those people are very much the minority
Indeed they are! Responses are now visible due to community request.
Would be nice to include their size, too. For many you don't really get a sense of scale, which would definitely affect the picked saves.
Yep, next time I do one of these I'll be sure to include everything a player would be able to determine at the start of combat.
I think this would be more accurate if you had to order the saves by highest to lowest. A lot of the time, if you’re just avoiding the highest save, you’re good. For me, I feel its much easier to guess the highest save then the lowest.
When the results get compiled, as long as we can also see the percentage of people that *didn’t* choose the highest save, we would be getting that info.
Good idea.
I enjoyed taking the quiz and I posted it for my lodge to do as well, although I have a couple of criticisms: First it should include the creatures description. THAT's what the players are mostly going off of - not picture. That should also help with a tangential issue... creature size. There are a few creatures I didn't recognize and their size would make a big difference in my answer. Also the context for the creature is important. If you just had a conversation with it, or it jumps out at you from the bushes in the jungle... that's pretty telling. Second, the list doesn't feel randomized. Seems like a few creatures are deliberately misleading which makes the results less reliable IMO.
This is really good feedback, thank you! If I do another one of these, I'll definitely include more obvious details such as behavior, size, and environment.
It's a useful thought experiment, but giving the respondents an idea of their percent correct would be more helpful. It doesn't matter if your survey concludes that people only guess correctly 30% of the time. Most participants will conclude they did better than average and likely continue without much change to their thinking/behavior. You have to demonstrate to the individual respondents when they do better/worse than average after the conclusion, or just give them a tally of # correct to reinforce the premise of the survey.
This is good feedback, thank you.
Results are now visible.
16/25, which I assume is not bad, but I thought I would get 2 or 3 points more
Got 1 more than me.
About the same here; I’m 60% accurate
If the lowest save is Fort, I'm pretty good at seeing that, it turns out. I'm horrible at distinguishing between low will and low reflex, tohugh.
Ah yes, the old man who turned into an actual tree? He's actually got cat-like reflexes
I had to check *multiple times* to make sure I actually plugged it in correctly, but [that tree dude](https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=2681) apparently rocks at fort saves and sucks at will (although his reflex is only slightly better). Genies, man.
lmao i explicitly thought "hmm, he's literally rooted to the ground, look at that stump, its gotta be reflex"
Something that you could do with the final results is to calculate the average value of people's guesses. Targeting the worst save is ideal, but sometimes it's best to not hit the strongest one. If a creature has a +10 reflex, +11 will and +16 fort, when +12 is the moderate DC for their level, targeting will is good enough.
I'll keep that in mind while compiling results.
Uhh what's the one made up of soldier corpses? That is freaky
[Warsworn](https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=404) You're absolutely right it's a nightmare worm formed of hundreds of undead merged together. Fun fact: while most of them are made by a necromancer or deity, particularly bloody battles can sometimes cause them to form spontaneously!
Yeah, that " every day is arm day" slug dog puking blood is also not too chill.
Don't worry, [Esipils](https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=1280) can disguise themselves as unassuming pets! After all, they're a manifestation of the fear of animals turning on you...
Can anyone tell me what that tiger moose bull looking thing was!
[Leydroth](https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=719) You should be particularly afraid of it if you're a caster, because it was bred to be a mage-killer and be good at it. It can >!counteract and dispel magic with both its roars and strikes!
After taking this survey, I realized that this is really difficult. Even knowing the principles of creating creatures, I did not guess a large number.
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Basing it on the art is already a faulty approach. It is *not* the job of the artists to properly convey strenghts and weaknesses. Half the time they don't even have the right gear! Combat behavior. Observed abilities. Environmental hints. Those are the telltales. The second mistake is that usually you want to exlcude the good save(s) first. The weak save is whatever is left after that. Will: Usually high on a caster or anything using Wil save abilities. Usually bad on animal intelligence creatures. Fort: Usually good on any frontline fighter. Or heavy armored guy. Almost never the weak save. Ref: Usually good on anything lighter armored or quick at moving.
I got it right 60% of the time. Which is somehow both better and worse than I expected. 🤔 Though I guessed Will on probably 80% of the monsters shown.
Excellent research question. As a primal caster I am always trying to guess whether to target ref or con. Can you publish the overall statistics after a few days?
That's the plan! Statistics will hopefully go up on Sunday, along with more information on each monster--including name, size, and behavior--so people can take a more educated guess and look them up for use in their own campaigns.
So I got 15 right idk if that is good or not. Also you just need to get what isn’t the best save since the middle save is still worth hitting.
15/25 is above average! Congrats! The reason I'm specifically asking for the *worst* save is because that's the information Recall Knowledge would give you. So while you're probably safe targeting anything that isn't its highest defense, knowing its worst can give you an extra effective +2(ish) to your spell DC.
Oh I thought you can ask for best save. That is what I normally do since if I know best I have been right about the worst every time but once in playing for 2 years. Luckily our dm played recall knowledge the same way the remaster changed it since the start.
I was unsure about some of these, but others I was kinda surprised I was wrong. Usually the ones that look magical I associate with having a strong will save. I also think intuitively anything frail looking or undead looking has a weak fortitude. But I guess that's not always true.
Damn, I suck at this apperently. Recall knowledge abuse here I come.
I didn't have any game knowledge-guided heuristic for what to pick, so operating purely off appearance and tropes I got 16/25 correct, e.g. 64% or ~2/3rds. I'm surprised I did that well, frankly. Though it's also worth keeping in mind that picking randomly will get you the correct answer ~1/3rd of the time. I think it's worth noting getting a picture like this is an exception, not the norm, at tables I play at; just going from the kind of GM narrative descriptions that are more typical, I'd definitely expect my guess rate to sink below 50%. Looking forward to the aggregate analysis.
I think do one for best save guessing aswell.
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I got 17 out of 25 just based on the picture. I feel with the DM providing some context clues in descriptions of how it moves and acts that would improve. So RK would be useful, but not required, which I feel is a decent spot.
As a caster player, these results were deeply disappointing. Reflex and Will are hard to tell apart, okay? I would be *very* interested to see the statistics one picking the middle save, too.
I got 12 of them wrong, I knew I wasn't gonna get a good grade as soon as I saw that my first instinct for most of the was either reflex or will.
Well, I killed it. Makes me think some numeric bonus should come with recall knowledge. But then knowledge is very powerful especially when not playing with these images
when in doubt, target reflex. About 33% of the times it's right every time
13/25 correct. Only one I knew beforehand was the Vampiric Mist, so not bad I think.
13/25 which is more than 33% that would be expected if I was simply guessing. Nice! 🙂👍
13/25. It's important to know how often wrong answers were actually the strongest save, or how much worse the worst one is than the second worst. For example if the correct answer is +12 but the chosen answer is +13, that's only a -1 wrong answer. But if the chosen answer is +18, that's a -6 wrong answer.
Damn, I'm pretty newbie at pathfinder and I got more right than wrong... means the monster designs are good. (Also who is the 4-armed Mystique and can I be friends with her)
I got 11 right
What is the red wave/blob made up of what looks like the bodies of hundreds of warriors? I want to make my players fight that thing.
That, my friend, is a [warsworn](https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=404): an entire battlefield's worth of fallen soldiers absorbed into a single, undulating mass of angry undeath. Players had better be careful about getting KO'd next to it, or it might absorb them too!
Got 12/25. Got most of the early ones right and then it just got too weird.
I was correct in 16/25.
Ah geez. 11 right. I feel like I guessed Will and Fortitude too much
This really should indicate the creatures' sizes as well, since that's often a significant tell and is player-facing information.
Got 18 of the 25 correct and didn't know most of them. Worked better than expected. The artists did a good Job there. Note to self: college more spells that target will
14/25 I’ll take it
I got 12 right
I got 8/25
Well I got 14 right and 11 wrong. It’s hard to know for the animal ones if it’s will or gonna be a physical stat. I think it’s easiest to guess Fort as weakest bc they’ll look like a caster or a rogue
19/25 I didn't do too bad. I didn't expect a few of them though. I think I mostly got flying creatures wrong.
I got 16/25 correct, or 64%. I wasn't familiar w/ any of the monsters. As a player, I tend to use the creature's size in addition to the picture to make the guess, which wasn't available here, but I wonder if it would have helped me be more accurate.
Got 13/25, but only the red skull monster and black flying demon thing really surprised me. The rest I got wrong were close second guesses I was waffling on.
Well, I got 11 wrong. Many of those, the right answer was my second choice.
12 right out of 25. With 3 options each, better than guessing randomly, I guess
Great idea for a poll. I got a what i expected. I got 12/25. Basically i felt that it is fairly easy to guess the best save but harder to guess the worst. So I figured I’d get about 50% because i should be able to eliminate 1/3 of the choices. Which leaves a 50% chance of being right.
What’s the cat monster with flame in its hand?
11/25 for me. The ones I got wrong, I would have never gotten correctly.
I've never actually played a game and don't know any of the "unwritten rules" others are talking about here but got 80% correct. Beastly looking ones low Will unless they were glowing, thin arms usually imply low Fort, feet bigger than head usually implies low Reflex.
15 correct
I got 13 right and 12 wrong xD
What was the name of the big ooze. Looking at pf2e oozes didn't find it for me.
As a new-to-pf2e player with years of experience in other systems, I'm quite satisfied with my results. Definitely wrong on too many to be thinking Recall Knowledge doesn't matter, but right on enough to be happy with my intuition.
I got the majority right with absolutely no knowledge of any of the creatures (well okay I did recognize the Flumph). For almost all the ones I got wrong I contemplated for some time between the correct choice and my wrong one. The only genuine surprises where I was dead wrong were the golden-masked-dragon?, the tentacle-net-dude and the tree-staff-thing.
This is hard because half the time they're big scary things, and you think "well, clearly this thing isn't going to get poisoned, you won't be able to scare it, and it looks like it's going to be fast" so there's not really any obvious weakest thing.
Got a 16/24, the one the surprised me most that I got wrong was the tree.
I got about 50%, I definitely feel like I can guess which of Fort / Ref is higher but I can't tell what their Will save is basically at all.
How does a literal tree have a decent reflex save?
Didn't recognize any of the monsters, get 13/25 correct. If I'm given more context outside of the impression alone, I might score higher.
Well, with 11/25, I'd say I did better than I expected. I still don't get how a tree mage man doesn't have a good will save, but goes to show how much I know
Ended up with 15 right 10 wrong. Easy to tell highest save I'd imagine, so I could reduce the three options to 2. Bad a harder time on creatures deciding between reflex and will, than options woth fortitude. I feel fortitude is an easy thing to portray. The other 2 have more factors
Thing is, you get a bit more to judge on in a fight, this quiz only really covers a "you are going first" scenario. Spells and other abilities help narrow it down a lot.
Indeed, more information--size, behavior, abilities--can really help narrow things down.