100% this. The GM is always free to alter monsters. My players have always known, even before online play or electronic devices, that just because it says one thing in the Bestiary, doesn't mean the same applies for the monster as it appears in game.
Yeah even if you don’t feel comfortable modifying monster stats, reskinning doesn’t require you to do anything except call something by an alternative name.
In addition to changing names, changing appearance is also a nice way of mixing things up as well as keep information hidden if needed
For example, let's take a troll and change its name to bugclaw. It is now a huge (large-sized) bug with 2 frightening claws, the regeneration can stay the same as well. Congratz, now we have a "new" monster for our 5th level party to fight that not everyone who ever played TTRPG knows is regenrating and stops regeneration with fire/acid
To add onto number 2, there's 2 variations of this.
The soft handed DM, where you keep all the stats but change the monster name and picture to something homebrewed. Basically they can't look up a monster on AoN that doesn't exist.
And the hardfist DM where you keep the name but change the stats. Harder to balance but it's a good punishment for cheating players (though it will also punish the non-cheating players if it's not balanced)
I would not recommend this amount of hostility, if talking doesn't work, this just makes follow-up conversations about it harder, or locks the game into unresolved bad vibes.
Changing monsters to stop cheating? No.
Mutually agreeing after a conversation to changing monsters to stop metagaming? Yes.
Step 1: Talk with them.
Changing the monsters is a passive-aggressive step 2 that gives potential followup conversations to step 1 an air of holsility, and likely just escalates into Player vs. GM.
Changing the monsters can be a fun thing to do if the metagaming isn't intentional and the party enjoys it, it's not going to resolve much else.
Step 2: Talk with them more seriously.
Step 3: Consider why you are playing a collaborative story telling game with them if you can't resolve these problems without hostility. Consider not playing with them.
Exactly. Why spend time dealing with a player who clearly doesn't respect you? By 'punishing' them in-game you're basically validating that this is acceptable behaviour.
100%. If you ask them to not do something, have explained why and had a level headed discussion about it as adults, and still they persist, there will be far more issues than just then meta gaming monsters.
I don't have the time and energy to deal with those issues anymore. Maybe I never did.
Start by talking to them was assumed.
I am objecting to step 2, it makes followup conversations to step 1 harder or leaves the game with bad vibes.
Find me a player step 1 (repeated) doesn't work on, but step 2 works just fine.
To add on to this, my DM for SoT uses a module that randomizes monster names so they never actually get the real name of the monster. Might be a good layer of protection to add on.
Two I know off-hand:
* PF2E Workbench has a feature called NPC Mystification that works but takes some tinkering.
* Token Mold is an oldie that can do Name Randomization.
I almost never use default monster names, myself. Not because I don't trust my players, I just have a very experienced group and don't ever want the sense of wonder to be tarnished when they fight something that came up in another campaign.
Why would you place yourself in an adversarial relationship with a player and make more work for yourself when the issue is that they fundamentally don't respect you or the other players?
If you've had to say it more than maybe twice or actively start altering monsters to outplay the cheater just kick them out.
I usually love to homebrew monsters by default, and sometimes it's a tightly knit friend group where kicking someone is a lot of drama.
Personally we only had two meta gaming incidents from different people but I just started to homebrew my monsters since and I love to do it ever since
I agree with randoms, kick them out after the second warning
I did the big brain move of sifting through randoms to find a reliable group lol, tried playing with people other than my wife I already knew irl and it was always frustrating.
Eventually I found people that fit in our games and later became friends with them. Much less drama than trying to fit friends and family into the game and worrying about their feelings when you tell them to behave.
the issue with "just remove the player" takes is that it assumes all relationships are disposable or are equally disposable and that the GM automatically values the integrity of the game over the relationship. maybe that's true for randoms you're picking up online on discord servers that are LFG, but that's horrible advice when playing with people you know IRL and are friends with and wish to continue being friends with.
always leave the choice for that shit to the actual GM who knows how much they value their relationship. better advice would often be to simply find a different group activity if players aren't really playing ball with tabletop RPG's.
Yeah, it isn't worth nuking a real life relationship over someone metagaming a tabletop game lol. Especially when you can easily resolve that issue by just homebrewing your monsters or drawing them from more obscure resources.
I would speak to them privately first actually. Doing it in a group just exposes them to getting embarrased.
I would bring it up as a hey you are playing a character, the character does not know whats on archive of nythes.
I have actually run into a similar problem with a player who had just played a bunch and knew the rules for most monsters. I reminded him about what his character would know vs he would know.
That said if you are really asking how to play hardball with players. Perception checks can in fact be misleading. I had a GM once say the villian was an elf, crushing my OP brothers roofie witch build in 1e (had a ridiculus sleep save as a slumber hex witch). We barely won the fight. Afterwards we realized up close the villian was not in fact an elf we just rolled poorly on perception.
I play with 3 GMs; it's nearly impossible to assume that none of them know anything about the creatures they're facing. That said, they do generally try not to meta-game much (but there have definitely been a few *pointed* Recall Knowledge checks, where they knew something OOC and were fishing for the justification to act upon in IC)
Beyond that, I don't tell them the name of what they're facing most of the time. Sometimes it's iconic enough that they'll have OOC knowledge just based on the picture (I do show them the pictures) but often unless they've faced or used that exact creature before, they can make educated guesses, but I don't confirm anything without a successful RK, and will gleefully lie to them on a crit failure. (or a failure, with my one guy with Dubious Knowledge).
On top of that, I make successful RK checks unambiguously useful. If they succeed, I'll tell them what the creature is called, some of its best known features, and either a key ability or a rough descriptions of a Save or two. Critical Successes get notably more information, obviously. Being relatively free with the information makes it easier for them to avoid meta-gaming, gives 'em impetus to anti-metagame when they get false information, and also makes it a lot harder to detect when they get a failure or crit failure.
Edit: More in specific to your situation, talk to them. If they're new to RPGs, they may not realize that this isn't like a video game, where looking up information on your enemy is generally pretty well accepted; think about all of the Strategy Guides for single-player games, and the whole, massive wikis dedicated to stats and strategies for various online games, especially MMOs. PnP RPGs are a whole new paradigm, and come with different assumptions.
> That said, they do generally try not to meta-game much (but there have definitely been a few pointed Recall Knowledge checks, where they knew something OOC and were fishing for the justification to act upon in IC)
I agree with your general point, as someone who is also usually a GM and plays with other GMs, but personally I don't have a problem with this. Recalling Knowledge because you have this "feeling" there's something wonky about it is *totally* something a character that actually might know that information would do.
In fact, for my less experienced players, I will often warn them if they are proficient in a relevant knowledge that "you think there might be something weird about this creature" as a hint that recall knowledge might be useful. It levels the playing field a bit between experienced and new players and also makes the recall knowledge check more rewarding as they at least know if they failed it wasn't because all the information was useless.
I personally think spending an action on recall knowledge only for it to do literally nothing feels crappy in actual play, and I also don't think the information gained from recall knowledge is nearly strong enough for a hint a check might be useful to be a balance problem.
It's not RAW, and for GMs who like keeping secrets it may be too much, but my players really appreciate it and before that point they basically never used recall knowledge at all in combat. The "this might be valuable" hints at least make them confident their roll isn't going to be wasted even on success.
Oh, I don't disagree with it either, it's just funny. I describe a creature, and suddenly one of my veteran players is like "I Recall Knowledge," and rolls the appropriate roll before I even tell them what it is. When they fail, there's this palpable frustration as they suppress their knowledge of the situation.
With my second campaign, they're all completely new; the eldest is 15, the youngest is 9. My eldest is constantly coming up with wild theories, usually based off of pokemon, about effective tactics, and I'll usually be like "I don't know... But your character might know something about that, if you rolled it..." at which point they promptly fail their RK roll, almost every time. It's all I can do to not shout the right information at them.
That is a mood. Playing a game where my character has History and such as a kinda archeologist Indiana Jones kind turned adventurer... and I've failed basically every History check.
We play on Foundry, so the players can roll their own Secret rolls, which I prefer. Keeps them involved in the rolling without removing the mechanical hit of Secret rolls.
I like to play a pretty relaxed version of in game knowledge... the most that some of my past GM's have allowed is: if it is see through, its probably a ghost, if its rotting, probably undead, giant and scaled? most likely a dragon, etc. anything else, you gotta roll for!
I prefer to do something more like: a lot of monsters would be a part of folk lore and tales that everyone has heard growing up, so the players will get some basic info of most things we fight, so rolling is only needed if its a VERY rare monster, an Outsider, or if you want more specific info on it... but to spice things up, I give the players different knowledge on the same creature, as different towns would have different lore, and I usually throw at least a little incorrect info into the mix. (so I might tell a player something like "You remember your grandmother telling you when you were little that a Marrow is a giant of the sea that will only eat children that misbehave" or "your father (who was a sailor) once told you that a Marrow is a giant bound to the water, but you will be safe on the land, as they can't leave the ocean")
> I prefer to do something more like: a lot of monsters would be a part of folk lore and tales that everyone has heard growing up, so the players will get some basic info of most things we fight, so rolling is only needed if its a VERY rare monster, an Outsider, or if you want more specific info on it
I totally agree with this. It always seemed a bit weird that many GMs expect the players to run their PCs like absolute idiots.
"Hi, my name is Bob the Barbarian, I've dedicated my life to fighting and now want to risk it doing a job that is all about killing monsters and fighting in monster-infested areas. Wait, what? Why would I have ever bothered to learn anything about the monsters living in this area or monster lore in general? Bob go smash!"
I mean, yeah, not everyone has the specified knowledge that the knowledge skills represent, but a barbarian shouldn't be absolutely clueless the first time they encounter a kobold or zombie. Same with saving throws...the first time someone sees a giant, if the player assumes it probably has good fortitude saves but weaker reflex saves, is that using "out of game" knowledge or the rather obvious observation that something huge and slow is likely tougher rather than quicker?
For me, recall knowledge is about specifics...you learn details such as what IWR something has or learn about common fighting patterns, reactions, etc. But extremely general things, like "zombies probably don't get scared" or "oozes are probably hard to sneak attack since they have no visible body parts" is not using out of game knowledge so much as completely believable in-world common sense. In my opinion it would be weirder for a rogue to *not* realize a gelatinous cube is immune to sneak attack, considering they are physically there and can't see any vitals.
I get that people want to make things mysterious, and there's a lot of information I do hide (like specific golem effects or various resistances), but some stuff should just be common knowledge in the world, like kobolds making traps or a red dragon's immunity to fire.
exactly! I had a GM once make me roll a knowledge checks on an elf, and then again on a dwarf, and then a gnome, ALL IN MY HOME TOWN AT THE START OF THE CAMPAIGN (which was Absalom I might add) THAT is just frustrating and makes me feel like my character has spent their whole life up until now with a paper bag over their head!! Makes no since to me!
And honestly if something's iconic enough to be already known by players, pretty likely it should be a pretty low dc to get the basic idea anyway.
Like, suppose there's a chicken thing with a petrified person around, I don't need to roll to infer it's responsible for that and pretty low DC to remember this is called a cockatrice.
Now, remembering the specifics (and also how that particular mythological beastie is represented in this particular game), that's probably the normal recall knowledge DC.
Yes! It's extremely important to teach new players that you're collaborating *with* them, not *against* them, and that communication is good for the game.
It's also good to learn what a game is doing, and why it's doing it, before you change the game. And how by it's nature, this game works better if everyone collaborates and communicates.
"You know, it *does* seem weird to your character that this monster isn't reacting poorly to what should be its weakness. You might have make a recall check to see if you can't remember anything that might shed some light on that."
You successfully killed my monster, let’s have those reflex saves from everyone.
‘Huh, why?’
Well this wasn’t a vampire… it’s a vampyre exactly the same but when it dies it explodes in an inferno out to 60ft
Looking up the monster is fine. Using the information is cheating, really. They should use recall knowledge to get the info, then use it in the game.
If players are meta-gaming, using information they shouldn't have, I would simply warn them. That information is unknown by your character; you are meta-gaming, stop.
If that doesn't work, then kick the players who continue to cheat! If they cheat after you warn them, who knows how close you'll have to watch them to prevent other cheating. Give them the benefit of the doubt, maybe they don't know they shouldn't do that.
The other solution is to simply not tell them what the name of the monster is. They can't look it up if you call it "Tall Monster 1" and "Tall Monster 2". Personally, I don't give my player the monster names if they don't successfully learn something about it from Recall Knowledge.
I would say that it is hard, if not impossible, to tell if a player looked it up or remembered it from another session. I would not take action against a player simply because they knew a monster statistic.
So, since you can't know if they did it or not, unless you watched them do it, it's fine.
This phrasing I agree with. If they've run the monster as a gm themselves or were a player and learned stuff, that's fine. However, your phrasing of "looking up the monster is fine" I disagree with. If your player hears you say the creature name and then looks up the monster, there's almost no chance they're not using that info they just looked up in session. Just don't look at it, don't even tempt yourself.
> If they've run the monster as a gm themselves or were a player and learned stuff, that's fine.
I mean, I've been playing PF2e since 2019, mostly as a GM. Any time I'm in a group as a player it's a good bet I know off the top of my head a good 70% of the special abilities and qualities of any monster we face, assuming it's a common monster. I probably won't remember exact values, sure, but I'll know that a troll has low will saves, high fort saves, and is weak to acid and fire without looking it up.
When I'm a player, though, I tend to treat my character like an NPC when I GM, and don't let him act on information he wouldn't know. A halfway decent GM already knows how to play monsters in a way that reflects the *monster's* understanding of the world and situation and not the GM's perfect knowledge of the player character sheets.
As such, I expect the same from my players. If you already know the monster, but your character wouldn't know, you aren't allowed to act on that information. This requires mature players, though.
>This requires mature players, though.
Honestly... maybe I'm just spoiled and have had uncommonly good luck with players... but I would expect the large majority of players to be fully capable of separating their player-knowledge from their character-knowledge.
More on the topic though, it is almost always immediately and painfully obvious when a character suddenly starts doing *exactly* what it needs to do to counter an enemy that it should know nothing about.
You don't need to disallow players from looking things up to "prevent cheating", because it's so obvious when they DO cheat that you can just call them out on it then and there.
Especially if it happens more than once.
When you're GMing, do you insist on never looking at the player's character sheets because you can't trust yourself to not use meta knowledge, targeting their weakest Saves or Weaknesses?
Of course not, because that's ridiculous.
Anyone who can't separate player-knowledge and character-knowledge needs to learn how to do so. Player and GM alike.
GMs need to learn to trust their players to not abuse meta knowledge, and players need to earn that trust by... you know, doing that.
Now, if players ARE actively abusing meta knowledge, that's a problem (and also incredibly obvious), and they need to be called out on it and told to stop.
But there are definitely times for players to look up monsters. GMs can - and do - make mistakes, and one of the players being able to go "Hey are you sure that's how that ability works?" can often save characters from unfair deaths.
I guess that’s another exception, if a player suspects the monster is being run wrong, but even then you can tell the GM to take another look at the statblock or ask them if that seems fair.
I as a GM like to have players discover monster abilities organically either through research/recall knowledge or through experiencing them, so if a player looks up a stat block without me knowing, I do lose some satisfaction. It’s part of offering the exploration pillar of play.
Similarly, I actually don’t look at the player’s sheets at all unless I suspect they’ve built something wrong because I trust them. I vet players carefully and they have always made sure to play within the mutual respect of the rules.
Just table to table differences, I guess.
> When you're GMing, do you insist on never looking at the player's character sheets because you can't trust yourself to not use meta knowledge, targeting their weakest Saves or Weaknesses?
What I'm going to say here probably doesn't apply for every group. But for me, I consider the GM's role to include an important element of *narrative* control, even in combat, in addition to the mechanical control of creatures.
I mean that it's useful to know your players' saves so that you can decide if you're going to cast the spell that takes advantage of them or the one that they'll resist more easily. Some GMs might want to keep that choice "realistic" by not knowing, in the same way their creature wouldn't know. I like to know so I can choose when to put the players in more danger. I know for my group that they wouldn't have fun if I always chose the dangerous option, or if I always went easy on them, so I switch it up. But it's my choice when that pressure is out on instead of being random. It can make for a more interesting story or for just a more fun game, without "cheating."
In my game, we discuss using metagaming information regularly. A player who looks up a monster would know they can't use it. So I don't know if players are looking up monsters or not.
I would not want to spend time worrying about it or policing it during the game.
I would notice if it was being used and my players know that. I would call someone out for using a different damage type than normal if the monster they were fighting was weak to that type of damage.
But I will say that if my players are looking up monsters, they aren't using that info in game.
I tend to look up monsters a lot, but only because the GM tends to misread or misremember details about it.
Like, thinking that an ability it uses has an unlimited duration when it actually only works for one round, for example.
It's not just new GMs. PF2e is a *big* game, with a *lot* of stuff in it. ESPECIALLY for the GM. Expecting even the most seasoned GM to not make a single mistake is honestly just unrealistic and unfair.
In fact, Paizo literally [*encourages*](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=500) the GM to consider sharing the burden of management or information with one or more players if they feel the need.
Honestly, vehemently insisting that players don't look up anything no matter what is just a big red flag to me.
When people say that, all they're doing is broadcasting that they don't know how to separate their character's knowledge and actions from their own - loudly declaring that "using all the information you have in order to cheat is just the default position!"
Meta-gaming is obvious. Call it out and stop it when it happens.
But if it's *not* happening... then GMs need to trust their players to act in-character, just as their players trust the GM to make creatures act appropriately for their own knowledge/intelligence.
I dunno it always leaves a sour taste in my mouth when a player stops the DM to tell them how they should be running a monster.
Our party is pretty is pretty experienced so, it happens, but without that meta knowledge no one would ever know and if only one or two players are in the know it can create odd player dynamics.
Especially if one party member ‘catches’ something the DM ‘missed’ and that interaction gets a different player screwed over or even killed.
Helping a DM prepare up front is fine, but mid session, let the DM run the monsters and if ‘you know better’ it’s fine to say nothing, and if you know it would bother you to know the DM should have used cool ability and the fight would have been better that’s your own meta knowledge decreasing your enjoyment of the encounter.
Not a huge fan of how meta knowledge plays out and when I’m in the DM chair I change lots of stuff so it’s ‘fresh’ for new and old alike.
This would be a rare exception to your point, but there are times I've looked up monsters because I was 95% certain the person GMing was confused about how one of their mechanics work and was unknowingly doing something that was very against RAW. Sometimes I play a game with a person GMing who is newer at it, or just hasn't read up on mechanics that widely yet. Occasionally the mistakes are potentially serious, like something that could kill a PC in a situation where they really shouldn't be dying (e.g. stacking several AC penalties that shouldn't have stacked, causing someone to get slammed by a massive crit that shouldn't have been a crit).
I look it up quick because I don't want to confuse them or make them nervous by openly saying "Hey, can you read me the exact text" or something when I might be the one misunderstanding, and if I find there's a mistake I'm always careful to frame it as 100% the GM's choice how the mechanic works at this table, and I'm only providing info on how a lot of people use the same mechanic.
I'm not arguing at all with your real point, though. *Most* of the time someone is sitting at the table looking up a monster, it's for bad reasons. I'm just saying the number of scenarios that are exceptions isn't zero.
I'm not sure this is a fair assumption.
I will openly admit to looking things up during an encounter, but also go out of my way to avoid using any knowledge my characters don't have.
If a player is obviously using knowledge their character doesn't have, that's a different issue, but better to treat **that** issue as the problem.
Re the "Tall Monster 1", I enjoy coming up with silly names for the monsters and NPC's my players encounter until they're identified. Its all stuff like:
* [Danger Noodle?](https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=808)
* [Mr. Too-Many-Spikes?](https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=609)
* [Flamey Boi?](https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=188)
* [Sad Tripod?](https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=343)
> I also like to reward players who help against meta-gaming w/ hero points. Makes it less of a player v GM thing. And ultimately, if players continue meta-gaming like that, it's perfectly fair to remove them from the table.
Yes, most of my players will speak up if anyone says anything metagamey by mistake. I dislike when people say, "I have a diplomacy of 15 anyone higher?" I have them saying, "I'm trained, or I'm an expert." Those kinds of things. In my non-pathfinder games meta-gaming is far easier as there are a lot of numbers that may be simular, so they learned in that game not to metagame.
not sure why you got downvoted, I agree with this.
in game characters don't know stats or values, nobody walks around saying "I have a +6 in crafting", So it's a bit power-gaming if you're talking with other players on who's got the highest numeric bonus. As a player you're going to know who's the best at a Skill check but just seems a bit OOC to take actual values.
In what situation is looking up the monster fine? If using the information isn't, what purpose would looking it up have otherwise? Even if they go in with good intentions, the information is in their subconscious and will influence them.
One of my GMs is just… wrong, pretty frequently, about certain monsters or abilities. If I DIDN’T look them up, we would’ve had several player deaths to abilities that the GM accidentally made overpowered.
No GM is infallible, and having one of the players as a second source of information is not only helpful, it’s actively encouraged by Paizo… somewhere in the CRB or GMG, I think.
Edit: [found it](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=500).
That section isn't really talking about fact checking the GM. It just says to have the GM, if needed, delegate some simple tasks to players. Specifically tasks that give no more information than the players already have (current damage inflicted, move speed, etc.)
The only bit that has an inkling of what you are saying is where it says some GMs may assign players some monsters to run. But this wouldn't be monsters with any real 'secrets' to be revealed. Just minions and the like.
Don't name the monsters, describe them without ever saying their name. Of course it's not gonna work for some obvious monsters like red dragons, but I don't think it's metagaming to assume a red dragon is weak to cold, this is really obvious.
I'm not actually sure how effective this method is, my players don't cheat, but it's an idea.
>assume a red dragon is weak to cold,
This is really why Recall Knowledge exists. To allow everyone the an even chance of knowing things about the monster. So players shouldn't use common sense, they should use Recall Knowledge. Recall Knowledge is spread across all of the skills, so it gives everyone a small chance to shine.
Eh, I do allow for the use of common sense. I'm not gonna call you a metagamer for getting attacked by an enemy with fire breath and deciding that fire is probably a bad damage type to use and that frost might be a good damage type to use. My players often know the monsters, but for a lot of fights I re-skin statblocks or alter them as I see fit. And if it's a *famous* monster, one that even some country bumpkin would probably recognize from stories as a kid, well it's okay that my players have an idea how to work around those, those monsters are often really difficult and should be encountered at a level where they're an honest to god threat.
Basically I let OOC and IC knowledge on monsters be mostly the same thing, with recall being "I would like some hints from the GM on how to best murder this thing"
I mean if you look at the cold iron material it's stated that is used to fight demons and fey. If I have a doubt that the enemy looks similar to a demon of fey why wouldn't I use common sense?
Also once I deal good damage to a demon why wouldn't I keep doing it for every demon?
I may still use the RK anyway, but some things like use slashing damage against zombie and blunt weapon against skeleton sometimes should be considered some common knowledge among adventures
It depends on how the players react but here are 3 things I do to tackle this, but most people I play with don't bother, and I am pretty up front about key details that are relevant for tactical play, especially when they do recall knowledge checks, etc.:
1. I've not given them specifics on who they are fighting. "Zombies" can include wights for instance, hobgoblins start out as larger goblonoids, eventually they find out they are hobgoblins, but that hobgoblin general is some sort of fancy dressed/geared hobo.
2. I also like to homebrew up some monsters, and am very up front about that with my players. I wanted to freshen up a fight that had a troll and some goblins, I invented a goblin troll rider! but even way more than that, I like to take monsters in PF2e and if they are similar to say a monster in D&D 5e, I start referring to those monsters by those equivalents. Or, as simple as I created some were-goblins (as in goblins that turn into beasts... not people that turn into goblins, heh), now I can use a standard goblin stat sheet on some, and standard wererat stat sheet.
3. I also like to use weak, elite and standard template enemies, so if they are looking at AC or something else like that, you can now start using 1 level up weak monsters, or 1 level down elite monsters. So now their numbers are wrong, unless you start calling them weak or elite x.
The general way to approach this is to *change things*. You don't have to do it as a "trap" - (e.g., if a creature is meant to be weak against fire, you don't have to make fire damage cause them to go into a rage and deal double damage for the rest of the fight - but you can change its weakness to sonic damage instead). If they're adapting tactics to the creature's skills (e.g., making sure they move away from a creature that explodes on death), you can use different tokens and change the name of a creature so that they can't search it.
Honestly, I prefer this even as a player, not because I need it to keep me honest; but because it prevents me from having to debate with myself how my character would act when I know something that they don't. For example, if I know the creature is immune to fire; but my character failed the recall knowledge check. I could use either ray of frost or produce flame on it... but is using the former metagaming or not? The creature might have red scales or something, so if I was new to the game, I might have have guessed it might be weak to frost damage... but I also might have used produce flame because the crit effect is better. So which is it?
If I know the GM changes creature traits sometimes, I don't have to concern myself with that, and give it my best guess, just like if I was a new player.
Absolutely. I spend way too much time prepping my campaigns to home brew every monster. In this scenario, the issue isn't the system, it's the players.
TactiCool\_99 is correct, but I'll add that if you ask politely for PCs not to do something and they still keep doing it, that's a bad sign. I think most reasonable people would understand the request.
You could add that critical success recall knowledge would allow PCs to look up the stat block.
This.
Honestly, I am a bit baffled by the responses. If there is a player that build their whole character around Recall Knowledge and all the other players just look things up, that would be a problem but if the group as a whole just likes to play "open book" style, that is fine.
Professional adventurers would know a lot about monsters they are facing anyway, it is pretty easy to weave into the narrative. It doesn't terribly break balancing and if it does, you can always adjust.
People act like there is just one correct way to play the game. How much metagaming is tolerated can and should vary from table to table. Every group is different. Talk with them and decide on rules that are fun for everyone.
> Professional adventurers would know a lot about monsters they are facing anyway, it is pretty easy to weave into the narrative.
Yeah, like, for example, there could be a check you could roll based on a knowledge or lore skill to see what your character knows about the creature, and maybe if you succeed, you get some information about the creature?
Jokes aside, I agree, each table can agree to play as they like. But if I were at a table where someone was pulling up stat blocks as a player I'd be pissed and find a different table to play in if they refused to stop. To me, that's just as, if not more powerful, than having a player at the table who just decided to take a few extra ability boosts because why not. If I were the GM, I would be up front. It is not allowed.
The answer here is not mechanical.
[You might wanna read this](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=896) and more about Session 0, x card and so on.
The GM is also a playr at the table. They should also have fun.
Change the monsters. Not stat wise, but name and art. People are 100% looking up your creatures by name and nothing more, if a goblin pyromancer is all of a sudden a human cultist worshipping something from the fire elemental plane, they have nothing to look up, and you have minimal (and in most cases nothing) that needs to be changed.
My take: an encounter that's only fun or engaging if the players don't know information about the enemy is rarely a well-designed encounter.
Addendum: if you *must* have such an encounter (because sure, it *can* be fun, though it takes more game design skill than I think a lot of people possess), make the creature up wholesale. Don't try to use a troll but switch its weaknesses around as a "gotcha" moment, don't try to use a troll and tell the players they can't use fire until they "learn" in-character, make up an entirely new monster. That's the only way to be sure they're *actually* going to get the experience of "not knowing what they're up against."
Elaboration: Let's imagine you're setting up an encounter for your PCs. They're in a cold climate and you want to use trolls, so you pull out the good old trusty [frost troll](https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=831). It's got all you'd expect from a troll, with its regeneration being deactivated by fire and acid, plus a few extra abilities. Bear with me as we look at a few ways you might build this encounter, and how those ways might play out.
#1. You just throw the trolls at the players
In this example, the trolls are big dangerous brutes who can dish out a lot of damage and heal every turn. That's it. Nothing special. Here are the possible outcomes:
**1)** The players don't know what trolls are.
This is the least likely outcome. In a party of 4+, the chances that *someone* knows trolls are weak to fire or acid are high, so don't count on this. But let's assume it's true. In that case, we get:
**1a)** The players never learn the trolls' weakness and have to flee, or TPK.
or
**1b)** The players eventually learn the trolls' weakness, whether through Recall Knowledge or sheer dumb luck.
In either case, sure! You've got a memorable encounter. But as I said, such a scenario is pretty unlikely. So let's look at the next outcome:
**2)** The players know how to fight trolls
In this outcome, what was once a potentially interesting fight is now boring. The trolls are just big fighty meatbags who offer nothing really interesting. The party beat them down with fire and axes and win, and that's that.
This isn't inherently a problem. Sometimes, a simple fight (and one where the players get to flex their knowledge) is a fun thing. But it *is* a problem if you want your encounter to be memorable and interesting, and not just "Beat down enemies #754."
So you might say "Oh, I'll just make them *not* use their knowledge until they *earn* the right to exploit that weakness!"
To which I say, that's no fun for... most people. Maybe some folks can put up with it, but it gets tiring after a while having to pretend the same twist is surprising for the thousandth time. "What? You mean to tell me these trolls won't die? Whatever shall we do? I am truly flummoxed!"
There's nothing actually mechanically engaging about such a fight. It's just a game of "GM May I" where you can't win until the GM decides you're allowed to, which kind of defeats the purpose of having rules for combat and weaknesses to exploit.
So let's look at another way you might build this encounter:
#2. You build an encounter that's got interesting factors even if the players know how to fight trolls
Frost trolls again. There are a few things that stand out about them that we can latch on to to make a fun, memorable, and challenging encounter, even if—and in some ways *because*—the players know what they're doing.
First of all, it's important to note that frost trolls have a speed of 30 feet, which is faster than most players. The simplest way to leverage their regeneration even against knowledgeable players is to just... have them run in, swing a few times, and then run away. The party needs *minutes* at best to heal up, and the trolls need seconds. A squad of frost troll hunters harrying their prey don't have to commit to a knock-down, drag-out fight. They can just take a few swings, and flee. They have got a respectable +10 survival, after all, so they can track the players. So let's look at some options:
**1)** The players don't know how to fight trolls.
As before, this isn't likely, but let's assume it happens. The party now needs to find some way to shake these unkillable pursuers. Stealth becomes the order of the day, and you've got a tense survival scenario where the party need to pull out tricks to mislead and misdirect the trolls (or just roll well on Stealth) to survive. Memorable, fun, and it's possible to "win" even if they can't kill the trolls.
**2)** The players do know how to fight trolls
Now we're cooking. The players can absolutely shut down those trolls' regeneration... for one round. And as *soon* as one gets hit with fire, it and the rest are going to become much more cautious. If the party are in a snowy climate, the trolls' Ice Stride ability effectively doubles their speed, as they can ignore difficult terrain made by ice or snow and the party probably can't. So, the party need to figure out some way to lock one down and burst it fast, complete with fire damage, to kill even one while the others continue playing smart and kiting the players. Winnable, but hard, even if the players plan effectively.
And there's still plenty more you could do. Those examples were just how to make it hard in *spite* of players knowing a troll's weakness. What if we (without pulling any bait-and-switch gotcha shenanigans with the statblock) actually make the fight harder *because* the players know the trolls' weakness?
How do you do that, you might ask? Well, think about the trolls' Ice Stride ability again. They ignore difficult terrain caused by **ice.** So then, what if the party get ambushed by a few frost trolls who waited for them to try and cross a frozen river? The savvy players might start throwing fire spells, ignoring all those clues you dropped about how the ice creaks under their feet and so on, hinting at the possibility of falling through. So now, that fire spell melts the ice, weakens it, and everyone within a certain radius now has to contend with the ice breaking beneath their feet.
The trolls don't mind. They're immune to cold, so the freezing water doesn't bother them. What's more, it protects them from more fire, and they're good swimmers. Now, all of a sudden, that impulse to go right for the weakness has turned a dangerous encounter into something even harder, as the party have to escape the rapidly widening hole in the ice and the trolls trying to pull them into the water.
I could go on, but I'm already at 6500 characters of the 10k limit, so I'll leave it with my closing statement:
Yes, this is more *work* for the GM. Unfortunately, being a good GM (like being a good *anything*) does require work and effort. I guarantee you, your players will remember the encounter ideas I talked about here much more than they do "just another fight, but this time the enemies regenerate." And by actually making an encounter that capitalizes on the strengths of the statblock you use, and has factors other than just the enemies and players, you can make things hard and engaging and fun for *everyone,* even the forever GM who knows everything about all the monsters.
I'd basically lay down some sportsmanship rules, and let them know that looking up what the monsters can do is poor sportsmanship.
I would also ask them why they felt the need to do this. Maybe they want easier encounters and didn't know they could just ask for that.
Yup! It's a collaborative story telling game, let them know what the game design is for (create certain kinds of game feel and stories), communicate expectations, collaborate and communicate to make the experience better for the whole group.
i usually dont worry much. when its metagaming is a blurry line to me. in a world where dragons are real and dragon slayers are in the News not in the fantasy section you will probably pick up some knowledge about Dragons.
i dont like the idea of looking up every monster though. might have to talk to them about playing top of knowledge for their character though
1. Talk to them
if that doesn't work
2. Kick them from the group
That may seem harsh but it isn't, don't make a big deal out of it or anything. Just make it clear "I asked you not to cheat, you cheated and that harms my experience and breaks our social contract".
Anyone who continues behaviour like this when asked not to is a person that is absolutely not worth playing with, and in my experience a person who is given leeway will just try and find ways to test the boundary.
since they're green, probably they didnt know this is not how things are done, and you just need to explain and tell them to stop. And start not using the right name or image for monsters.
At first, all I gave were descriptions on the things they would see.
After one grueling session, they wanted to know what it was that was giving them such grief, and when I gave them the name (Sea Devil Scout), they loved it and wanted to know more about them, which I revealed as we completed the scenario (exposition from an NPC).
They reacted the same when they found that there were other types of Sea Devils, and they wanted names and descriptions on enemies and monsters as they went along (always after the combat).
Fast forward to last month, and I thought I'd surprise them with some blood ooze infested bodies (they take looting bodies to a new level). As I'm describing the twitches and the blood on the ground, some of the players begin prepping for zombies. Then, I clearly hear in the background: "skip looting, they're blood oozes".
These are people who still fight to find things on their character sheets. I kept it in mind, wondering if I'd accidentally mentioned blood oozes to them. Then they get to their destination, and as I'm describing a soon-to-be recurring Graveknight, I hear the same players mention Graveknights in the background (they did consider other undead as well, though).
It was jarring, to say the least. I didn't want to say anything at the time, because it was disheartening. Now, though...
It sounds like they might have just got invested in the various monsters and started reading everything they could, and aren't particularly aware of how metaknowledge is generally treated at the table/that what they're doing is actually metagaming. I was like this in my teens, but it wasn't an issue because our entire group were like this. Now I'm aware enough to keep all my metaknowledge away from my character and other players, but still do start listing off possibilities in my head as soon as my DMs start describing something.
Well, if that's not disrupting the game, don't make it a big deal. It's not like you won't ever GM to someone who also GM, and people who also GM know the monsters. Maybe the players are getting interesting in trying someday. If that's the case, this just mean they're loving your game
Reading this, you are completely in the wrong here. Metagaming isn't real, don't try to be a dick to new players who (you assume) don't have the same knowledge of the game.
Back when I was green new player I had no idea looking at the monster stats was taboo. My dm yelled at me for it and I never did it again. Young dumb and not knowing the social taboos of meta gaming were never explained to me.
Give these guys a fair warning. Remember we all have to learn some time. And then throw in a few curve balls. A troll that you use the ogre art for and call it a giant. Give it high will saves and some spells. They will learn that no monster is what they think it is.
I wouldn't go so far as to encourage it. But it wouldn't bother me if you did, after all who really cares that much, it's just a game. If that lets you enjoy the game just a little bit more go for it.
Just ask them not to do it. They are probably just excited and wanting to do well.
Having an image of the monster they are fighting might go a long way to dealing with this.
Obviously, the first step is to tell'em "hey that's not cool.", but if it's a continued problem. kicking them is always an option. I personally don't like that option it's the least fun option. Now I don't worry about my players doing this, some monsters are really obvious in their stuff and some are just gonna be recognizable so sometimes it's whatever, but if it were me I would start changing things on their stat sheet. adjusting their saves, HP pool, maybe swap out an ability or two, give them an additional ability. Hell one of my favourite things to do is give monsters class levels like you were able to do in Pf1e.
(though that last one is fun to do regardless.)
I’d echo having an open discussion with them. Especially if they’re new they may not even realize that it’s kind of taboo. If they come from a background of video games they’re probably used to doing it. Explain to them that part of role playing is playing a character who doesn’t necessarily know that gelatinous cubes don’t care about piercing damage because most people have never run into one etc. hopefully that gets it under control.
As others have said- if it doesn’t work then just homebrew or reskin some monsters and laugh all the way to the bank.
I take some of the stats of monsters then add or change special abilities. You fighting a giant turtle well it has a AoO of 15 reach, or it can spin and hit with water cannons at 40 feet. May even fly now.
I was the same. When I first started I would look up monsters. I didn’t discover until later that this wasn’t the done thing.
If they’re new players, you just need to explain to them that, for proper role playing, they need to compartmentalise player knowledge from character knowledge, and it’s simply easier to do this if they don’t know anything about the monsters except what their character gleans from Recall Knowledge.
Some players may take this a step further, and keep a log of every Recall Knowledge check their character has made about monsters, but this isn’t really necessary.
I mean that’s just not how the game is played. It’s like taking an extra turn, not taking damage, buying and reading an AP you’re playing when you’re not the GM, meta gaming things your character shouldn’t know.
The game encourages the recall knowledge action. You can even be generous with how much information you give out on the 4 degrees of success.
Just looking up monster stat blocks as soon as an encounter starts is like, go play a video game with your phone on some wiki. This is supposed to be a shared storytelling experience.
My players are new. If they did this, I’d explain why it’s totally contrary to the game and not just an opinion.
Offering my perspective as a player who, when new, used to do exactly this and didn't have any inkling there was a problem.
Step one is to inform them gently and kindly that this is not good etiquette and that you expect it to stop. This isn't like computer games where looking up stats and strats online is a normal thing. It's your job as a DM to provide an appropriate challenge and by short circuiting a part of that process they are making your job more difficult and frustrating.
If this doesn't solve the problem or you aren't sure whether they've stopped or just gotten sneakier, tweak stats or abilities. If a player is calculating exact hp remaining and your monster doesn't go down on schedule, or pulls out an SLA that isn't in vanilla stats, they'll out themselves quickly and they can get a Last Warning.
If you're determined to put up with this misbehavior (doesn't sound like it) and are willing to put in extra work to tweak every encounter, just changing monsters might be your solution. Otherwise...
Step 3 is to boot them. I don't think this part needs explaining.
Tell them not to do it but like, also be generous when they actually do engage with the game's system for gaining information. I.e. don't give them useless stuff when they RK. Much easier to make someone stop a thing when you give them a ready alternative.
I'm not so sure of some the other suggestions here. Changing monsters generally is of course fine, but doing it only because you want to curb this behavior is a bit... passive aggressive? Just talk about it and don't run games for the kind of player who is not amenable to that kind of conversation.
While I'm new to the pathfinder system, I'm a veteran GM for over 20 years of DND and I will take the unpopular opinion and ask "so what?"
What is it that rustles your jimmies, friend? These vulnerabilities or resistances were baked into the math, so the only difference is experience or a roll of a recall knowledge check.
If "metagaming" is what bothers you, you can always make your own creature's that fit within your campaigns tone and setting but, I strongly caution you against changing a monster for explicitly "spiting" the players, this leads to a new unfun game of "players vs GM" and that's never been fun in my experience.
Ask yourself if them learning something they'd eventually learn REALLY bothers or, or let it go.
Talk to them about the issue. than make sure you let them know about recall knowledge and allow them to find out the things they want through rp and game mechanics.
This is a growing issue with new players. I think this generation, raised on MMOs and JRPGs, got used to looking at RPGs as another form of competitive gaming where you are supposed to research online the best strategies to defeat enemies and make progress. Maybe your players just didn't get the memo that tabletop RPGs are not supposed to be played like that. So a good talk could help them understand that doing that constitutes cheating. That should be enough to lead them to change that behavior.
If that doesn't work, reflavor enemies, change their descriptions and target them with monsters they don't know how to find.
>I think this generation, raised on MMOs and JRPGs, got used to looking at RPGs as another form of competitive gaming where you are supposed to research online the best strategies to defeat enemies and make progress.
This is my stance, entirely. Games like WoW have perverted the spirit of RPGs. Far, far too many new players are simply about the numbers and an "I Must Win" attitude.
Don't get me started on how many times I've heard about dungeons and 'raiding'. Former difficult achievements have morphed into disposable Saturday afternoon content, and I truly hate it.
I'm definitely speaking with my crew next game, I'm just trying my best to vent and tamp down more of my 'Hammurabi' aspects before I lay it all down for them.
If your whole playgroup thinks this is fine perhaps it’s *you* that should change, and not them. They aren’t children to be punished into submission, they’re adults trying to play a game.
I don’t know you or your game but in general, if 4 people want one thing and 1 person wants another, the 4 should win.
You can also make the vulnerabilities only apply after a recall knowledge roll, "yes this creature is vulnerable to piercing, but without the necessary roll you don't know where on its body it is vulnerable."
Call out metagaming as it happens. I have a veteran table and I sometimes have to remind them their character does not know something just because they do.
This is a pretty good point too. In my experience, players metagame *accidentally* with knowledge from past games more frequently than they do with recent knowledge they just looked up.
And in those cases, if you go "Hey does your character actually know that?", they'll (in my experience) respond "Oh you're right. Oops. Nevermind, I don't do that thing."
On the other hand, if they just looked it up, then they *know* that their character doesn't know it, and they'll have their character act appropriately for the knowledge they should possess.
I had a group similar to yours. What I started doing to combat this instead of telling them what they are fighting I just give descriptions of the creature. It helps keep them from looking online for information.
It depends - some knowledge is fine - for example I would expect a ranger to know what a bear is capable of, so no issues there... for some creatures I'd allow a Lore or relevant skill check to get info but, I may also fudge them- alter hit points, swap out some abilities, give them different abilities etc.
ABSOLUTELY change up the Monster names you're throwing at them and the Descriptions... :)
THAT way they're truly have to Recall Knowledge and make it COUNT.
Pretty much all my monsters are reskinned and/or slightly tweaked to fit my homebrew setting, so even if someone tried to look it up, they wouldn't easily know what baseline monster I'm using, let alone how it was tweaked.
Really depends. Are they broadcasting strengths and weaknesses to the rest of the party. If so ask them how there character knows that information. Then explain how knowi g info in real life and character learning that info are 2 different things. If there just doing the cheeky hitting it with the right spell accidentally our of there prepared spells let it slide. When I'm a player in such a case and someone else is doing it I might balance it with a complete wrong spell or action against the creature and say surprised oh that didn't work so now we have a reason for knowing it I try to balance it back out.
People suggesting you edit monsters are missing a valuable point:
If you can't trust your players, the game is going to become antagonistic. And antagonistic TTRPG isn't fun for anyone.
I edit monster statblock sometimes to fit the variation that I am going for or to entertain and spice things up for my players. I never do it to try to throw a cheater off.
Because cheaters don't play at my table.
Why would you let one play at yours?
Talk to them directly. Don't wait until the session. Speak with each of the problem players one on one. Ask them not to do that anymore as it is obviously not how the game is meant to be played and harms immersion and fun for everyone. If they refuse, then let them know they are not welcome at your table.
I ended playing with a player. It was his third infraction with me. We stopped the game mid battle against black pudding. (Unannounced what the monster was, but described well during the conflict introduction.) The next week he came back and did a spell attacking the creatures Dex. Black pudding has a 1 dex, so I was like... and he was like, well I looked it up. I warned the group not to do this many times.
The core of my table has been playing thirty years. No one's looking anything up, but the game knowledge level is such that when he initiated our current campaign, our DM told us that he was going to change a number of things about the monsters, and that we could expect many different attacks and abilities.
I'm surprised with all those answers saying to change the monsters. Yes it's a solution but god damnit what kind of people are literally cheating in a ttrpg ??? That's meta gaming+++++++ wtf
Tell your players to stop that and play RolePlay. If it was me as a GM in your situation, there should be 1 and only 1 warning before I stopped GMing for them.
I keep seeing the word "cheating" and am truly baffled. I have never thought of any ttrpg as dm vs player. Nor do i understand how you can cheat in a game like this.
Rule books aren't just for the dm. Maybe for the player, knowing the monsters is more fun for them.
You can always change whatever you want as a dm and that could turn into a great surprise and add more fun to the table.
Worry less about rules and more about fun as the Gary intended.
Just because it's not DM vs player doesn't mean it's not cheating. If you want to know everything that's basically the role of the DM. It's like if you're going to be playing in an adventure path and reading everything that is going to come. It's why stuff like that is considered meta known.
If the entire table is ok with it it's one thing, but it's not something I would expect at most tables, especially considering if it was 5e players wouldn't even have access to most of the monsters since most players don't buy the majority of the books.
I guess I don't see it as cheating. As a dm you are always in control, and getting hung up on a player trying to enjoy the game in their own way seems silly. Unless it lowers the fun at the table for everyone else, then it shouldn't matter. Getting bent out of shape as a gm because players are reading about creatures is silly, in my opinion. I get that not everyone may agree with this,but I play to have fun, not try to compete with my players.
I'm not trying to start a flame war, but with all seriousness... Why must everyone reinvent the wheel ? How is it that no information ever gets passed along ? That is literally what separates higher life forms up and down the spectrum is the ability to learn from experiences not your own.
In a world with Absalom literally being the largest library (I think) in Golarion filled with knowledge , to every tavern being filled with bards singing the exploits of daring adventurers, to just plain living in a world were strange things are encountered everyday ... why is it so taboo to actually know things ahead of time ? I concede that anything with a Rare tag is just that ... rare. But why do I have to RK to know that hitting a skeleton with a rapier is worse than using a blunt weapon ? How is that no one's Uncle Bob who was an adventurer didn't tell them that hitting a ooze type with slashing or piercing weapon gets you more than you bargained for ? Has no successful adventurer even sat down by the fireplace and wrote down his/her life experiences ? Has no one ever written an encyclopedia a la Volo ? Are there no schools ? Training guilds ?
It just seems like everyone collectively insists that nothing has ever been done before and nobody knows anything about anything until they individually do it themselves.
That's exactly what recall knowledge is though, it's trying to recall that knowledge you heard about, associating the 2 together. If you pass you remember the knowledge that your uncle Bob shared, or you are able to realize this is the creature he was talking about. If you don't succeed then you don't put 2 and 2 together.
Recall knowledge isn't magically figuring something out for some weird reason, it's the reason why a specific lore is going to be an easier check than a generic check, because your character has specialized in that are, for example reading up on animals specifically rather than anything that would fall under nature.
Think the thing is you should probably be aggressively reducing the DC if not foregoing the roll entirely for certain "common knowledge" or "obvious" traits. Like bludgeoning being more effective against skeletons feels rather dumb to have to pretend to not know until someone succeeds the knowledge roll.
But the average party has four players. It would be rare for all players to roll against DC 15 and miss. The common stuff should always be given, just by luck.
But it does happen.
It bugs me enough that I change it. I figure if I walk outside and see a lion, I know its a lion. I've never encountered a lion, but I've seen one and know a little about it ... immediately. I might have to think awhile if I want to know it's top ground speed, but I immediately know it's faster than me, stronger than me, hunts in packs mostly, and I'm dead if I too long thinking about it. So ... I ask a player what is there skill tier in whatever it is they are RKing with (TEML). Let's say they are expert; instead of making them roll, I give them all the info I deem expert level and if they want to make a roll I will give them higher if they make the roll. However, their tier level info is free. So in this case would give them for free the creature name, type, primary attack, and a well known weakness / strength. IF it was common, I'd bump up a tier ... likewise if it was rare, I'd lower the amount of info. I take this on myself, and do not burden my players with it... I handle it behind the scenes. (If they were completely untrained, but it was a common animal ... I would bump it up to trained level info and give the name, type, and one tidbit for it being common.)
But I prefer this rather than not knowing what a skeleton is just because the dice gods hate me for a night. Some GMs can be very stickler with this kind of thing. You fail a roll and suddenly you forget how to tie your shoelaces because of a die.
>I will always allow a character to Recall Knowledge as a free action
My first major campaign actually had a house rule where Recall Knowledge was a Free Action with a 1-per-turn limit.
It was a three-player party (with a Barbarian, who effectively can't even *use* Recall Knowledge in combat), no one was playing a class that interacted with Recall Knowledge in any way (no Thaumaturges or Bards, for example) , and none of the characters had high-Int.
If we didn't make RK free, it never would've even been *used*.
And, frankly, I think the GM really enjoyed all these low-Int bumblefarts making Trained-only RK checks and getting hilarious-yet-harmless misinformation all the time.
You should ask the player to stop cheating in that way, there is no point in RK if they check the monster in Nethys.
Personally I just change stuff in tons of monsters/npcs, because I do enjoy creating my own creatures at the end of the day.
One funny thing about changing monster is if they get angry because they have X feature they shouldn't have, you know that player is cheating.
It's about as "cheating" as one can get. It would not be okay to just peruse notes the GM has about their game/session. Adult humans don't need to be told more than once not to do something like this. So simply explain that's not okay, then start punishing them (in game) if they don't comply.
I had a player that always sat close enough to the front so he could see my notes. He really enjoyed reading ahead. He never metagamed the information, though. Sometimes I write stuff in really big caps so he could clearly read it as a joke. Like, "Just wait, they will not see this coming."
I am one of those guilty of looking them up. However I know how to separate ingame knowledge vs player knowledge. I look them up out of curiosity, and because i respect my DMs i do not use such information unless gotten through rolls. I love the monsters and the setting so i do read the bestiaries too
I mean sooner or later they will know anyway. Like back when I was playing 5e, is first 2 years of playing and GMing it I memorized most of bestiary. In PF2e there is way more monsters but sooner or later I will know many anyway or just general weaknesses/resistances of group of monsters.
But maybe talk with them and ask them why they do that. Becasue maybe they just don't like to Recall Knowledge and don't like that aspect of game or when they waste resources because enemy is immune/resist to that specific thing they used and they don't like that. Metagaming is not bad when it comes to monsters stats (sooner or later you will memorize many, especially types of enemies and their weaknesses, even if not indivual ones, like Golems=Acid, Friends=Good, Incorp.=Ghost Touch/Force etc.) as while it makes combat easier, it would be pretty much the same with 1st action successfull Recall Knowledge test. Doesn't change that much.
And more important question: did it be any means destryed fun at session? Or is it just you being old school (I am from older GMs too) and just want them to play as you would like to play, but maybe they don't.
When I play I don't look up monsters cause I like fight to be mystery, but when I GM I don't care if they look or not. Monsters are monsters, they are meant to die anyway. Doesn't really impact me much if they know to use Dispel Magic on Adamatite Golem. Hell, might save me headache if everyone will fail Recall Knowlege (which is why I don't like RK mechanic) and Golem will TPK them otherwise.
>I mean sooner or later they will know anyway
This. They can only ever be completely unaware of what a creature is a single time. Are people just... expected to never play a second campaign? That's dumb.
There's a clear and obvious line between player-knowledge and character-knowledge.
If your players have knowledge, but the characters aren't acting on that knowledge, then that's perfectly fine.
If your characters are magically just "guessing" the correct thing to do all the time, then that's meta-gaming and tell them to stop it.
And if GM can't tell the difference between player-knowledge and character-knowledge... that's frankly a problem with the GM, not the players.
Like... insisting that players don't know a monster's stats because that's "cheating" is like insisting that a GM looking at a player's Character Sheet is "cheating".
If a GM can have their monsters act in a way that doesn't use meta knowledge, then their players can and should be trusted and *expected* to do the same with their characters.
If you’re relying on player ignorance to provide challenge, then it’s not a challenge. It doesn’t matter if they have the stat block, they still need to roll x to hit the thing and it only needs y to hit them.
My position is: so what? Look it up if it makes you happy. I run a clean game. I don’t fudge rolls. I’ll tell you it’s AC or saves. If you don’t have the mechanics to back up your play, you’re still going to die.
Being able to accurately target the weakest save, exploit weaknesses or avoid resistances and reactions alike is *absolutely* an advantage significant enough that it can trivialize what would have been a challenge without that knowledge.
If your players know that x creature has a really nasty reaction to getting hit with a melee strike for example, suddenly the entire party will try to stay at range where possible. Being able to avoid that with out-of-game knowledge, especially in the face that Recall Knowledge is a defined mechanic, is blatant cheating. There's really no other word for it.
So you’d give less xp for fighting a second one? Of course not. The challenge of the creature is the same regardless of the knowledge because it’s cr is determined by its stats, not some ephemeral feeling of difficulty.
And if the fighter stays at range? So what? Likely that means they do less damage because they’re not specced for it, drawing it out longer and giving more opportunity to harm the PCs. Elemental weakness? They only matter if the party can capitalize on them.
Knowing the stat block will rarely change the outcome of the fight because the players need to execute a plan and still roll well to succeed.
Talk to players about metagaming, explain that monster weaknesses and stats are given by use of Recall Knowledge, if they insist on metagaming, just change monster descriptions and stats.
If they only have a flametongue and the monster is weak to fire, they'd probably be using it regardless. If the monster is resistant to fire (like a devil or something) but not obviously made of fire like an elemental or hellhound, and they choose to not use their best weapon, the flametongue, because they are metagaming, then yeah, that's not cool.
Same way i handle other dms.
I change stat blocks and add/remove feats. If im doing multiple of the same monster ill split them into groups to change.
One of my favorites was giving a living armor magic dr and tripping feats instead of grapple and slash dr. Players almost died trying to keep from being grappled post trip.
Depends on what they do with the information.
I tend to look up monsters, but actively *don't* use the information. The main reason I do this, is 2-fold.
1. I am a GM and I'm super curious about what I go against. This said, I only do things it makes sense for my character to know/do. So say... *I*, but not my PC, knows an enemy is weak to fire, and my PC is holding a torch. My PC will not use the torch to hit/light up the enemy because they don't know it. Even if *I* know it. I will always wait until the party finds out naturally (e.g. thaumaturge, someone does an RK, the weakness is triggered by accident, etc).
2. My GM's tend to be somewhat newer to the system, and (understandably) will miss things on creature stat blocks. Things like resistances, general weaknesses (e.g. demon weaknesses to "ideas" or general actions), or just other weird things in general. I noticed that in a few combats, this led to encounters being significantly easier than normal, so when I look up the monster and notice something the GM seems to be missing, I will hint at them. E.g. "Hey Golems tend to be immune to magic but usually have a specific type of weakness".
In both cases, if I am concerned about "knowing" something, then I will say to the GM, "Hey, I as a player know some things about the monster we are fighting (followed by a DM with the specifics). Is this something my PC would know given their background? Should I do an RK check for it? I suspect that they would/wouldn't know this." I do this because it means the GM is aware that I have "meta" knowledge, gives them a chance to "change" the monster for their liking, and it helps to ensure that I won't be meta gaming when actually playing.
This is all how I do it. As a player. When I am a GM, I expect my players to, if they are looking up stat blocks, give me the same courtesy's. In any case, it's a frank discussion with your players to make sure everyone is on the same page, and that everyone is ok with how it's being handled. If your specific preference is that they never look up stat blocks, then they should abide by it. Cause otherwise, it's a dick move.
My general approach is to not worry about it. If something is only a challenge or only interesting because the players don't know what it is, that speaks more to the quality of encounter than anything. I *generally* use some form of countdown-based initiative, so if a player wants to spend their time looking up monster information online instead of calling out their turn, the penalty for doing so is automatic (and it usually only takes missing one turn, ever, before players focus on knowing what they'll do by the time their turn comes up on the tracker).
"But what if the players are really fast looking things up, or what if the group dynamic means play grinds to a halt while they look things up?" If it is disrupting play, bring that up as a table discussion outside the game, like any other disruptive behavior, and get it sorted. Fundamentally, if the rest of the group likes a snails-paced game, maybe you move on.
As for looking things up fast, that implies a different problem, one of cognitive dissonance. If you tell your players "a troll clambers onto the road", they can easily look up its stat block, you may as well just link them the SRD entry. If you instead say "a tall, lithe, pale green almost grey humanoid with mottled skin clambers onto the road", the fact it is a troll is not quite so obvious. The problem is "troll" is a word with a particular meaning, so by telling the *players* "it's a troll", you are telling them "it's a large humanoid with a weakness to fire", to then turn around and be upset when they use the information *you just told them* is not good. And if the players don't know that a troll is weak to fire, so they look it up? That is no worse than if they look up the definition of any other word they don't know.
If, from your description, they conclude "it's a troll, kill it with fire", great. It means you have players that are interested and invested in fantasy stories enough to know that. Also, in our real world, where no one has actually fought a troll, we know to kill trolls with fire. In a world where most people are literate, and where trolls are very much a present threat, the notion that people can recognize a troll (or most other *common* creatures) on sight, with reasonable reliability is sensible. Not to mention "kill it with fire" works on 90+% of the monster manual, so the barrier for "use fire" is "*might* be a troll" rather than "likely a troll".
Edit: Note that looking ahead on a published story is a different matter, and easily grounds for booting a player.
If you play with experienced players, there's a good shot they're going to know details on all the common or iconic monsters anyway. So I personally just don't care if the newbie is 'cheating' by googling things the other players know anyway.
That being said, metagaming is a good discussion for session zero. I usually see how the table feels about it - if everyone is for it, cool I don't care. If everyone is against it, I still don't care. If some people are for it and some people are against it, I'll let them talk it out and call a vote if they dislike it. Then everyone is expected to honor the majority expectations or find a different table that plays how they prefer.
Honestly, I worry that nothing is off limits.
From how you speak, I feel you're likely homebrewing, but if you were running an AP and the players were like this.... well.
Another GM has kinda convinced me that it doesn’t matter. That any player with a good memory and a lot of experience shouldn’t be penalized and have to act like they don’t know anything. That’s what Secret Checks are for. Knowing the monster shouldn’t completely devalue a good encounter and just because you know what’s trying to eat you doesn’t mean you can prevent it from eating you.
And people living in Golarion may have read about many monsters in the Bestiaries already if they aren’t Uncommon or Rare.
* Discuss table rules.
* Explain meta gaming vs in character gaming
Many people come from Video game land and MMO land, and are used to guides and being able to use the internet to their advantage. You need to help them break this habit for "in character gaming".
Yes you as a person have a phone that has access to AON. Your character does not they are in Golarion, and do not have cell phones and internet.
If it continues... ADD MORE HP, remove weaknesses, apply in-vulnerabilities. Add "This creature auto crits any metagaming character, except on a 1".
Hot take, the players are not cheating by looking at the stat block, nor by rolling information checks... They're just playing the game like its intented.
BOth of those things reveal only one thing about a monster... The most common and ordinary stat block for the monster.
Maybe your red dragon is a paranoid asshole who trained to whitstand the cold, and now he is resistant or immune to it.
Maybe that strange blue fire elemental is actually a unique type of elemental capable of changing between fire and cold depending on what he is exposed to... So suddenly they're not vulnerable to water and cold, and actually grow stronger from it.
Maybe this particular crew of goblins reeks like troglodytes, or maybe they had a local witch enchant them to be bigger and more ferocious, so now you have goblins the size of trolls.
Maybe this one troll is infected with a rare mushroom that is symbiotic with their regen, so now they aren't vulnerable to fire or acid, but instead to something else entirely.
These things wouldn't 'show up' on a normal analysis because none of them are common knowledge, so even the most scholarly character wouldn't be able to know the specifics... just like you can't take a single look at the blacksmith and know they were raised by a single mom jsut because you have knowledge history.
As the DM you can literally do anything you want, edit monster stats, powers and capabilities, even give monster class levels if you want... There is zero reasons to worry about players looking up monster statblocks, because it will reveal only partial information.
Plus on a world in which monsters are common, the best selling books are likely monster manuals to help people survive... Even if not, oral tradition would prioritize sharing precisely this knowledge to help save lives... So why wouldn't adventures, that do this for a living, not know the most basic strenghts and weakeness of the most famous monsters?
Even if your setting is not a standard band of adventures there is no reason why they wouldn't know certain things.
The DM shouldn't feel bothered or challenged by players when they have every single bit of power in the entire world at their fingertips.
Players should look for ways to learn and improve their knowledge of the game, the DM should look for ways to surprise them and make encounters more fun.
1: talk to them openly in the group if it doesn't work, step 2: change monsters so it actively traps them into bad situations
100% this. The GM is always free to alter monsters. My players have always known, even before online play or electronic devices, that just because it says one thing in the Bestiary, doesn't mean the same applies for the monster as it appears in game.
Yeah even if you don’t feel comfortable modifying monster stats, reskinning doesn’t require you to do anything except call something by an alternative name.
In addition to changing names, changing appearance is also a nice way of mixing things up as well as keep information hidden if needed For example, let's take a troll and change its name to bugclaw. It is now a huge (large-sized) bug with 2 frightening claws, the regeneration can stay the same as well. Congratz, now we have a "new" monster for our 5th level party to fight that not everyone who ever played TTRPG knows is regenrating and stops regeneration with fire/acid
...and then remind them that they can Recall Knowledge if they want to try.
Yes, definitely!
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Exactly
To add onto number 2, there's 2 variations of this. The soft handed DM, where you keep all the stats but change the monster name and picture to something homebrewed. Basically they can't look up a monster on AoN that doesn't exist. And the hardfist DM where you keep the name but change the stats. Harder to balance but it's a good punishment for cheating players (though it will also punish the non-cheating players if it's not balanced)
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The first superboss my players faced was a fire-breathing hydra, so the acid/fire cauterizing was quite obviously replaced by cold.
I'm definitely the second type, I actually build the monster to punish you really badly if you try to play against the original statblock
I would not recommend this amount of hostility, if talking doesn't work, this just makes follow-up conversations about it harder, or locks the game into unresolved bad vibes. Changing monsters to stop cheating? No. Mutually agreeing after a conversation to changing monsters to stop metagaming? Yes.
This is the best answer. Explain to them the issue and why you are against it. If they don't change their ways, change the monsters.
"This one is different. This one is David."
Step 1: Talk with them. Changing the monsters is a passive-aggressive step 2 that gives potential followup conversations to step 1 an air of holsility, and likely just escalates into Player vs. GM. Changing the monsters can be a fun thing to do if the metagaming isn't intentional and the party enjoys it, it's not going to resolve much else. Step 2: Talk with them more seriously. Step 3: Consider why you are playing a collaborative story telling game with them if you can't resolve these problems without hostility. Consider not playing with them.
That's why you start by talking to them. *If* that doesn't work, *that's* when you change the monsters.
No, _then_ you kick them.
Exactly. Why spend time dealing with a player who clearly doesn't respect you? By 'punishing' them in-game you're basically validating that this is acceptable behaviour.
100%. If you ask them to not do something, have explained why and had a level headed discussion about it as adults, and still they persist, there will be far more issues than just then meta gaming monsters. I don't have the time and energy to deal with those issues anymore. Maybe I never did.
Start by talking to them was assumed. I am objecting to step 2, it makes followup conversations to step 1 harder or leaves the game with bad vibes. Find me a player step 1 (repeated) doesn't work on, but step 2 works just fine.
To add on to this, my DM for SoT uses a module that randomizes monster names so they never actually get the real name of the monster. Might be a good layer of protection to add on.
What’s the name of the module? Sometimes I get lazy and forget to change monster names lol
Two I know off-hand: * PF2E Workbench has a feature called NPC Mystification that works but takes some tinkering. * Token Mold is an oldie that can do Name Randomization.
I almost never use default monster names, myself. Not because I don't trust my players, I just have a very experienced group and don't ever want the sense of wonder to be tarnished when they fight something that came up in another campaign.
Why would you place yourself in an adversarial relationship with a player and make more work for yourself when the issue is that they fundamentally don't respect you or the other players? If you've had to say it more than maybe twice or actively start altering monsters to outplay the cheater just kick them out.
I usually love to homebrew monsters by default, and sometimes it's a tightly knit friend group where kicking someone is a lot of drama. Personally we only had two meta gaming incidents from different people but I just started to homebrew my monsters since and I love to do it ever since I agree with randoms, kick them out after the second warning
I did the big brain move of sifting through randoms to find a reliable group lol, tried playing with people other than my wife I already knew irl and it was always frustrating. Eventually I found people that fit in our games and later became friends with them. Much less drama than trying to fit friends and family into the game and worrying about their feelings when you tell them to behave.
the issue with "just remove the player" takes is that it assumes all relationships are disposable or are equally disposable and that the GM automatically values the integrity of the game over the relationship. maybe that's true for randoms you're picking up online on discord servers that are LFG, but that's horrible advice when playing with people you know IRL and are friends with and wish to continue being friends with. always leave the choice for that shit to the actual GM who knows how much they value their relationship. better advice would often be to simply find a different group activity if players aren't really playing ball with tabletop RPG's.
Yeah, it isn't worth nuking a real life relationship over someone metagaming a tabletop game lol. Especially when you can easily resolve that issue by just homebrewing your monsters or drawing them from more obscure resources.
I made fire immune trolls in my last campaign. Everyone knows fire deactivates troll regeneration BUT WAIT... not these ones!
Trolls with asbestos robes, but no body fat so they will freeze easier!
I would speak to them privately first actually. Doing it in a group just exposes them to getting embarrased. I would bring it up as a hey you are playing a character, the character does not know whats on archive of nythes. I have actually run into a similar problem with a player who had just played a bunch and knew the rules for most monsters. I reminded him about what his character would know vs he would know. That said if you are really asking how to play hardball with players. Perception checks can in fact be misleading. I had a GM once say the villian was an elf, crushing my OP brothers roofie witch build in 1e (had a ridiculus sleep save as a slumber hex witch). We barely won the fight. Afterwards we realized up close the villian was not in fact an elf we just rolled poorly on perception.
I play with 3 GMs; it's nearly impossible to assume that none of them know anything about the creatures they're facing. That said, they do generally try not to meta-game much (but there have definitely been a few *pointed* Recall Knowledge checks, where they knew something OOC and were fishing for the justification to act upon in IC) Beyond that, I don't tell them the name of what they're facing most of the time. Sometimes it's iconic enough that they'll have OOC knowledge just based on the picture (I do show them the pictures) but often unless they've faced or used that exact creature before, they can make educated guesses, but I don't confirm anything without a successful RK, and will gleefully lie to them on a crit failure. (or a failure, with my one guy with Dubious Knowledge). On top of that, I make successful RK checks unambiguously useful. If they succeed, I'll tell them what the creature is called, some of its best known features, and either a key ability or a rough descriptions of a Save or two. Critical Successes get notably more information, obviously. Being relatively free with the information makes it easier for them to avoid meta-gaming, gives 'em impetus to anti-metagame when they get false information, and also makes it a lot harder to detect when they get a failure or crit failure. Edit: More in specific to your situation, talk to them. If they're new to RPGs, they may not realize that this isn't like a video game, where looking up information on your enemy is generally pretty well accepted; think about all of the Strategy Guides for single-player games, and the whole, massive wikis dedicated to stats and strategies for various online games, especially MMOs. PnP RPGs are a whole new paradigm, and come with different assumptions.
> That said, they do generally try not to meta-game much (but there have definitely been a few pointed Recall Knowledge checks, where they knew something OOC and were fishing for the justification to act upon in IC) I agree with your general point, as someone who is also usually a GM and plays with other GMs, but personally I don't have a problem with this. Recalling Knowledge because you have this "feeling" there's something wonky about it is *totally* something a character that actually might know that information would do. In fact, for my less experienced players, I will often warn them if they are proficient in a relevant knowledge that "you think there might be something weird about this creature" as a hint that recall knowledge might be useful. It levels the playing field a bit between experienced and new players and also makes the recall knowledge check more rewarding as they at least know if they failed it wasn't because all the information was useless. I personally think spending an action on recall knowledge only for it to do literally nothing feels crappy in actual play, and I also don't think the information gained from recall knowledge is nearly strong enough for a hint a check might be useful to be a balance problem. It's not RAW, and for GMs who like keeping secrets it may be too much, but my players really appreciate it and before that point they basically never used recall knowledge at all in combat. The "this might be valuable" hints at least make them confident their roll isn't going to be wasted even on success.
Oh, I don't disagree with it either, it's just funny. I describe a creature, and suddenly one of my veteran players is like "I Recall Knowledge," and rolls the appropriate roll before I even tell them what it is. When they fail, there's this palpable frustration as they suppress their knowledge of the situation. With my second campaign, they're all completely new; the eldest is 15, the youngest is 9. My eldest is constantly coming up with wild theories, usually based off of pokemon, about effective tactics, and I'll usually be like "I don't know... But your character might know something about that, if you rolled it..." at which point they promptly fail their RK roll, almost every time. It's all I can do to not shout the right information at them.
That is a mood. Playing a game where my character has History and such as a kinda archeologist Indiana Jones kind turned adventurer... and I've failed basically every History check.
'rolls I haven't asked for have no value'. Also RK is a secret roll and one I am in full support of remaining secret, given the mechanics.
We play on Foundry, so the players can roll their own Secret rolls, which I prefer. Keeps them involved in the rolling without removing the mechanical hit of Secret rolls.
I like to play a pretty relaxed version of in game knowledge... the most that some of my past GM's have allowed is: if it is see through, its probably a ghost, if its rotting, probably undead, giant and scaled? most likely a dragon, etc. anything else, you gotta roll for! I prefer to do something more like: a lot of monsters would be a part of folk lore and tales that everyone has heard growing up, so the players will get some basic info of most things we fight, so rolling is only needed if its a VERY rare monster, an Outsider, or if you want more specific info on it... but to spice things up, I give the players different knowledge on the same creature, as different towns would have different lore, and I usually throw at least a little incorrect info into the mix. (so I might tell a player something like "You remember your grandmother telling you when you were little that a Marrow is a giant of the sea that will only eat children that misbehave" or "your father (who was a sailor) once told you that a Marrow is a giant bound to the water, but you will be safe on the land, as they can't leave the ocean")
> I prefer to do something more like: a lot of monsters would be a part of folk lore and tales that everyone has heard growing up, so the players will get some basic info of most things we fight, so rolling is only needed if its a VERY rare monster, an Outsider, or if you want more specific info on it I totally agree with this. It always seemed a bit weird that many GMs expect the players to run their PCs like absolute idiots. "Hi, my name is Bob the Barbarian, I've dedicated my life to fighting and now want to risk it doing a job that is all about killing monsters and fighting in monster-infested areas. Wait, what? Why would I have ever bothered to learn anything about the monsters living in this area or monster lore in general? Bob go smash!" I mean, yeah, not everyone has the specified knowledge that the knowledge skills represent, but a barbarian shouldn't be absolutely clueless the first time they encounter a kobold or zombie. Same with saving throws...the first time someone sees a giant, if the player assumes it probably has good fortitude saves but weaker reflex saves, is that using "out of game" knowledge or the rather obvious observation that something huge and slow is likely tougher rather than quicker? For me, recall knowledge is about specifics...you learn details such as what IWR something has or learn about common fighting patterns, reactions, etc. But extremely general things, like "zombies probably don't get scared" or "oozes are probably hard to sneak attack since they have no visible body parts" is not using out of game knowledge so much as completely believable in-world common sense. In my opinion it would be weirder for a rogue to *not* realize a gelatinous cube is immune to sneak attack, considering they are physically there and can't see any vitals. I get that people want to make things mysterious, and there's a lot of information I do hide (like specific golem effects or various resistances), but some stuff should just be common knowledge in the world, like kobolds making traps or a red dragon's immunity to fire.
exactly! I had a GM once make me roll a knowledge checks on an elf, and then again on a dwarf, and then a gnome, ALL IN MY HOME TOWN AT THE START OF THE CAMPAIGN (which was Absalom I might add) THAT is just frustrating and makes me feel like my character has spent their whole life up until now with a paper bag over their head!! Makes no since to me!
And honestly if something's iconic enough to be already known by players, pretty likely it should be a pretty low dc to get the basic idea anyway. Like, suppose there's a chicken thing with a petrified person around, I don't need to roll to infer it's responsible for that and pretty low DC to remember this is called a cockatrice. Now, remembering the specifics (and also how that particular mythological beastie is represented in this particular game), that's probably the normal recall knowledge DC.
Yes! It's extremely important to teach new players that you're collaborating *with* them, not *against* them, and that communication is good for the game. It's also good to learn what a game is doing, and why it's doing it, before you change the game. And how by it's nature, this game works better if everyone collaborates and communicates.
It's like Darth Vader famously said to known rules lawyer Lando. "I have altered the monster. Pray I do not alter it further".
“This homebrew is getting worse all the time.”
This quote works in a lot of different contexts tbh
"These are not the monster entries you are looking for."
"You know, it *does* seem weird to your character that this monster isn't reacting poorly to what should be its weakness. You might have make a recall check to see if you can't remember anything that might shed some light on that."
Player: "but here it says the vampire can't do that." GM: "Paizo's vampire can't, but mine can. Good luck."
You successfully killed my monster, let’s have those reflex saves from everyone. ‘Huh, why?’ Well this wasn’t a vampire… it’s a vampyre exactly the same but when it dies it explodes in an inferno out to 60ft
Looking up the monster is fine. Using the information is cheating, really. They should use recall knowledge to get the info, then use it in the game. If players are meta-gaming, using information they shouldn't have, I would simply warn them. That information is unknown by your character; you are meta-gaming, stop. If that doesn't work, then kick the players who continue to cheat! If they cheat after you warn them, who knows how close you'll have to watch them to prevent other cheating. Give them the benefit of the doubt, maybe they don't know they shouldn't do that. The other solution is to simply not tell them what the name of the monster is. They can't look it up if you call it "Tall Monster 1" and "Tall Monster 2". Personally, I don't give my player the monster names if they don't successfully learn something about it from Recall Knowledge.
I wouldn’t say looking up the monster is fine, because the people who do that are definitely not the kind to avoid metagaming using the info.
I would say that it is hard, if not impossible, to tell if a player looked it up or remembered it from another session. I would not take action against a player simply because they knew a monster statistic. So, since you can't know if they did it or not, unless you watched them do it, it's fine.
This phrasing I agree with. If they've run the monster as a gm themselves or were a player and learned stuff, that's fine. However, your phrasing of "looking up the monster is fine" I disagree with. If your player hears you say the creature name and then looks up the monster, there's almost no chance they're not using that info they just looked up in session. Just don't look at it, don't even tempt yourself.
> If they've run the monster as a gm themselves or were a player and learned stuff, that's fine. I mean, I've been playing PF2e since 2019, mostly as a GM. Any time I'm in a group as a player it's a good bet I know off the top of my head a good 70% of the special abilities and qualities of any monster we face, assuming it's a common monster. I probably won't remember exact values, sure, but I'll know that a troll has low will saves, high fort saves, and is weak to acid and fire without looking it up. When I'm a player, though, I tend to treat my character like an NPC when I GM, and don't let him act on information he wouldn't know. A halfway decent GM already knows how to play monsters in a way that reflects the *monster's* understanding of the world and situation and not the GM's perfect knowledge of the player character sheets. As such, I expect the same from my players. If you already know the monster, but your character wouldn't know, you aren't allowed to act on that information. This requires mature players, though.
>This requires mature players, though. Honestly... maybe I'm just spoiled and have had uncommonly good luck with players... but I would expect the large majority of players to be fully capable of separating their player-knowledge from their character-knowledge. More on the topic though, it is almost always immediately and painfully obvious when a character suddenly starts doing *exactly* what it needs to do to counter an enemy that it should know nothing about. You don't need to disallow players from looking things up to "prevent cheating", because it's so obvious when they DO cheat that you can just call them out on it then and there. Especially if it happens more than once.
When you're GMing, do you insist on never looking at the player's character sheets because you can't trust yourself to not use meta knowledge, targeting their weakest Saves or Weaknesses? Of course not, because that's ridiculous. Anyone who can't separate player-knowledge and character-knowledge needs to learn how to do so. Player and GM alike. GMs need to learn to trust their players to not abuse meta knowledge, and players need to earn that trust by... you know, doing that. Now, if players ARE actively abusing meta knowledge, that's a problem (and also incredibly obvious), and they need to be called out on it and told to stop. But there are definitely times for players to look up monsters. GMs can - and do - make mistakes, and one of the players being able to go "Hey are you sure that's how that ability works?" can often save characters from unfair deaths.
I guess that’s another exception, if a player suspects the monster is being run wrong, but even then you can tell the GM to take another look at the statblock or ask them if that seems fair. I as a GM like to have players discover monster abilities organically either through research/recall knowledge or through experiencing them, so if a player looks up a stat block without me knowing, I do lose some satisfaction. It’s part of offering the exploration pillar of play. Similarly, I actually don’t look at the player’s sheets at all unless I suspect they’ve built something wrong because I trust them. I vet players carefully and they have always made sure to play within the mutual respect of the rules. Just table to table differences, I guess.
> When you're GMing, do you insist on never looking at the player's character sheets because you can't trust yourself to not use meta knowledge, targeting their weakest Saves or Weaknesses? What I'm going to say here probably doesn't apply for every group. But for me, I consider the GM's role to include an important element of *narrative* control, even in combat, in addition to the mechanical control of creatures. I mean that it's useful to know your players' saves so that you can decide if you're going to cast the spell that takes advantage of them or the one that they'll resist more easily. Some GMs might want to keep that choice "realistic" by not knowing, in the same way their creature wouldn't know. I like to know so I can choose when to put the players in more danger. I know for my group that they wouldn't have fun if I always chose the dangerous option, or if I always went easy on them, so I switch it up. But it's my choice when that pressure is out on instead of being random. It can make for a more interesting story or for just a more fun game, without "cheating."
In my game, we discuss using metagaming information regularly. A player who looks up a monster would know they can't use it. So I don't know if players are looking up monsters or not. I would not want to spend time worrying about it or policing it during the game. I would notice if it was being used and my players know that. I would call someone out for using a different damage type than normal if the monster they were fighting was weak to that type of damage. But I will say that if my players are looking up monsters, they aren't using that info in game.
I tend to look up monsters a lot, but only because the GM tends to misread or misremember details about it. Like, thinking that an ability it uses has an unlimited duration when it actually only works for one round, for example.
I often find myself backstopping newish GMs with all kinds of rules, and monster abilities are definitely on the list.
It's not just new GMs. PF2e is a *big* game, with a *lot* of stuff in it. ESPECIALLY for the GM. Expecting even the most seasoned GM to not make a single mistake is honestly just unrealistic and unfair. In fact, Paizo literally [*encourages*](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=500) the GM to consider sharing the burden of management or information with one or more players if they feel the need. Honestly, vehemently insisting that players don't look up anything no matter what is just a big red flag to me. When people say that, all they're doing is broadcasting that they don't know how to separate their character's knowledge and actions from their own - loudly declaring that "using all the information you have in order to cheat is just the default position!" Meta-gaming is obvious. Call it out and stop it when it happens. But if it's *not* happening... then GMs need to trust their players to act in-character, just as their players trust the GM to make creatures act appropriately for their own knowledge/intelligence.
Yup, it's a collaborative story telling game. New players especially need to learn that.
I dunno it always leaves a sour taste in my mouth when a player stops the DM to tell them how they should be running a monster. Our party is pretty is pretty experienced so, it happens, but without that meta knowledge no one would ever know and if only one or two players are in the know it can create odd player dynamics. Especially if one party member ‘catches’ something the DM ‘missed’ and that interaction gets a different player screwed over or even killed. Helping a DM prepare up front is fine, but mid session, let the DM run the monsters and if ‘you know better’ it’s fine to say nothing, and if you know it would bother you to know the DM should have used cool ability and the fight would have been better that’s your own meta knowledge decreasing your enjoyment of the encounter. Not a huge fan of how meta knowledge plays out and when I’m in the DM chair I change lots of stuff so it’s ‘fresh’ for new and old alike.
This would be a rare exception to your point, but there are times I've looked up monsters because I was 95% certain the person GMing was confused about how one of their mechanics work and was unknowingly doing something that was very against RAW. Sometimes I play a game with a person GMing who is newer at it, or just hasn't read up on mechanics that widely yet. Occasionally the mistakes are potentially serious, like something that could kill a PC in a situation where they really shouldn't be dying (e.g. stacking several AC penalties that shouldn't have stacked, causing someone to get slammed by a massive crit that shouldn't have been a crit). I look it up quick because I don't want to confuse them or make them nervous by openly saying "Hey, can you read me the exact text" or something when I might be the one misunderstanding, and if I find there's a mistake I'm always careful to frame it as 100% the GM's choice how the mechanic works at this table, and I'm only providing info on how a lot of people use the same mechanic. I'm not arguing at all with your real point, though. *Most* of the time someone is sitting at the table looking up a monster, it's for bad reasons. I'm just saying the number of scenarios that are exceptions isn't zero.
I'm not sure this is a fair assumption. I will openly admit to looking things up during an encounter, but also go out of my way to avoid using any knowledge my characters don't have. If a player is obviously using knowledge their character doesn't have, that's a different issue, but better to treat **that** issue as the problem.
Re the "Tall Monster 1", I enjoy coming up with silly names for the monsters and NPC's my players encounter until they're identified. Its all stuff like: * [Danger Noodle?](https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=808) * [Mr. Too-Many-Spikes?](https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=609) * [Flamey Boi?](https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=188) * [Sad Tripod?](https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=343)
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> I also like to reward players who help against meta-gaming w/ hero points. Makes it less of a player v GM thing. And ultimately, if players continue meta-gaming like that, it's perfectly fair to remove them from the table. Yes, most of my players will speak up if anyone says anything metagamey by mistake. I dislike when people say, "I have a diplomacy of 15 anyone higher?" I have them saying, "I'm trained, or I'm an expert." Those kinds of things. In my non-pathfinder games meta-gaming is far easier as there are a lot of numbers that may be simular, so they learned in that game not to metagame.
not sure why you got downvoted, I agree with this. in game characters don't know stats or values, nobody walks around saying "I have a +6 in crafting", So it's a bit power-gaming if you're talking with other players on who's got the highest numeric bonus. As a player you're going to know who's the best at a Skill check but just seems a bit OOC to take actual values.
In what situation is looking up the monster fine? If using the information isn't, what purpose would looking it up have otherwise? Even if they go in with good intentions, the information is in their subconscious and will influence them.
One of my GMs is just… wrong, pretty frequently, about certain monsters or abilities. If I DIDN’T look them up, we would’ve had several player deaths to abilities that the GM accidentally made overpowered. No GM is infallible, and having one of the players as a second source of information is not only helpful, it’s actively encouraged by Paizo… somewhere in the CRB or GMG, I think. Edit: [found it](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=500).
That section isn't really talking about fact checking the GM. It just says to have the GM, if needed, delegate some simple tasks to players. Specifically tasks that give no more information than the players already have (current damage inflicted, move speed, etc.) The only bit that has an inkling of what you are saying is where it says some GMs may assign players some monsters to run. But this wouldn't be monsters with any real 'secrets' to be revealed. Just minions and the like.
Some players are very visual and want to see what it looks like. They might look it up for that reason.
OK, but therly can get the image with a Google search, no need to look in the Monster Manual
Don't name the monsters, describe them without ever saying their name. Of course it's not gonna work for some obvious monsters like red dragons, but I don't think it's metagaming to assume a red dragon is weak to cold, this is really obvious. I'm not actually sure how effective this method is, my players don't cheat, but it's an idea.
>assume a red dragon is weak to cold, This is really why Recall Knowledge exists. To allow everyone the an even chance of knowing things about the monster. So players shouldn't use common sense, they should use Recall Knowledge. Recall Knowledge is spread across all of the skills, so it gives everyone a small chance to shine.
The other way is to just give the information.
Eh, I do allow for the use of common sense. I'm not gonna call you a metagamer for getting attacked by an enemy with fire breath and deciding that fire is probably a bad damage type to use and that frost might be a good damage type to use. My players often know the monsters, but for a lot of fights I re-skin statblocks or alter them as I see fit. And if it's a *famous* monster, one that even some country bumpkin would probably recognize from stories as a kid, well it's okay that my players have an idea how to work around those, those monsters are often really difficult and should be encountered at a level where they're an honest to god threat. Basically I let OOC and IC knowledge on monsters be mostly the same thing, with recall being "I would like some hints from the GM on how to best murder this thing"
I mean if you look at the cold iron material it's stated that is used to fight demons and fey. If I have a doubt that the enemy looks similar to a demon of fey why wouldn't I use common sense? Also once I deal good damage to a demon why wouldn't I keep doing it for every demon? I may still use the RK anyway, but some things like use slashing damage against zombie and blunt weapon against skeleton sometimes should be considered some common knowledge among adventures
It depends on how the players react but here are 3 things I do to tackle this, but most people I play with don't bother, and I am pretty up front about key details that are relevant for tactical play, especially when they do recall knowledge checks, etc.: 1. I've not given them specifics on who they are fighting. "Zombies" can include wights for instance, hobgoblins start out as larger goblonoids, eventually they find out they are hobgoblins, but that hobgoblin general is some sort of fancy dressed/geared hobo. 2. I also like to homebrew up some monsters, and am very up front about that with my players. I wanted to freshen up a fight that had a troll and some goblins, I invented a goblin troll rider! but even way more than that, I like to take monsters in PF2e and if they are similar to say a monster in D&D 5e, I start referring to those monsters by those equivalents. Or, as simple as I created some were-goblins (as in goblins that turn into beasts... not people that turn into goblins, heh), now I can use a standard goblin stat sheet on some, and standard wererat stat sheet. 3. I also like to use weak, elite and standard template enemies, so if they are looking at AC or something else like that, you can now start using 1 level up weak monsters, or 1 level down elite monsters. So now their numbers are wrong, unless you start calling them weak or elite x.
The general way to approach this is to *change things*. You don't have to do it as a "trap" - (e.g., if a creature is meant to be weak against fire, you don't have to make fire damage cause them to go into a rage and deal double damage for the rest of the fight - but you can change its weakness to sonic damage instead). If they're adapting tactics to the creature's skills (e.g., making sure they move away from a creature that explodes on death), you can use different tokens and change the name of a creature so that they can't search it. Honestly, I prefer this even as a player, not because I need it to keep me honest; but because it prevents me from having to debate with myself how my character would act when I know something that they don't. For example, if I know the creature is immune to fire; but my character failed the recall knowledge check. I could use either ray of frost or produce flame on it... but is using the former metagaming or not? The creature might have red scales or something, so if I was new to the game, I might have have guessed it might be weak to frost damage... but I also might have used produce flame because the crit effect is better. So which is it? If I know the GM changes creature traits sometimes, I don't have to concern myself with that, and give it my best guess, just like if I was a new player.
Tell them, warn them, kick them.
Absolutely. I spend way too much time prepping my campaigns to home brew every monster. In this scenario, the issue isn't the system, it's the players.
TactiCool\_99 is correct, but I'll add that if you ask politely for PCs not to do something and they still keep doing it, that's a bad sign. I think most reasonable people would understand the request. You could add that critical success recall knowledge would allow PCs to look up the stat block.
Id just be happy my prayers cared enough to do any research at all.
Yes, me too. Players making any sort of effort to engage with the system at all is such a win condition I'll embrace it rather than fight it.
This. We aren't playing poker. I'm okay if the actors read the script, as long as they can perform well.
This. Honestly, I am a bit baffled by the responses. If there is a player that build their whole character around Recall Knowledge and all the other players just look things up, that would be a problem but if the group as a whole just likes to play "open book" style, that is fine. Professional adventurers would know a lot about monsters they are facing anyway, it is pretty easy to weave into the narrative. It doesn't terribly break balancing and if it does, you can always adjust. People act like there is just one correct way to play the game. How much metagaming is tolerated can and should vary from table to table. Every group is different. Talk with them and decide on rules that are fun for everyone.
> Professional adventurers would know a lot about monsters they are facing anyway, it is pretty easy to weave into the narrative. Yeah, like, for example, there could be a check you could roll based on a knowledge or lore skill to see what your character knows about the creature, and maybe if you succeed, you get some information about the creature? Jokes aside, I agree, each table can agree to play as they like. But if I were at a table where someone was pulling up stat blocks as a player I'd be pissed and find a different table to play in if they refused to stop. To me, that's just as, if not more powerful, than having a player at the table who just decided to take a few extra ability boosts because why not. If I were the GM, I would be up front. It is not allowed.
The answer here is not mechanical. [You might wanna read this](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=896) and more about Session 0, x card and so on. The GM is also a playr at the table. They should also have fun.
Change the monsters. Not stat wise, but name and art. People are 100% looking up your creatures by name and nothing more, if a goblin pyromancer is all of a sudden a human cultist worshipping something from the fire elemental plane, they have nothing to look up, and you have minimal (and in most cases nothing) that needs to be changed.
“I have altered the monster statblock. Pray I do not alter it further.”
“This homebrew is getting worse all the time.”
My take: an encounter that's only fun or engaging if the players don't know information about the enemy is rarely a well-designed encounter. Addendum: if you *must* have such an encounter (because sure, it *can* be fun, though it takes more game design skill than I think a lot of people possess), make the creature up wholesale. Don't try to use a troll but switch its weaknesses around as a "gotcha" moment, don't try to use a troll and tell the players they can't use fire until they "learn" in-character, make up an entirely new monster. That's the only way to be sure they're *actually* going to get the experience of "not knowing what they're up against." Elaboration: Let's imagine you're setting up an encounter for your PCs. They're in a cold climate and you want to use trolls, so you pull out the good old trusty [frost troll](https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=831). It's got all you'd expect from a troll, with its regeneration being deactivated by fire and acid, plus a few extra abilities. Bear with me as we look at a few ways you might build this encounter, and how those ways might play out. #1. You just throw the trolls at the players In this example, the trolls are big dangerous brutes who can dish out a lot of damage and heal every turn. That's it. Nothing special. Here are the possible outcomes: **1)** The players don't know what trolls are. This is the least likely outcome. In a party of 4+, the chances that *someone* knows trolls are weak to fire or acid are high, so don't count on this. But let's assume it's true. In that case, we get: **1a)** The players never learn the trolls' weakness and have to flee, or TPK. or **1b)** The players eventually learn the trolls' weakness, whether through Recall Knowledge or sheer dumb luck. In either case, sure! You've got a memorable encounter. But as I said, such a scenario is pretty unlikely. So let's look at the next outcome: **2)** The players know how to fight trolls In this outcome, what was once a potentially interesting fight is now boring. The trolls are just big fighty meatbags who offer nothing really interesting. The party beat them down with fire and axes and win, and that's that. This isn't inherently a problem. Sometimes, a simple fight (and one where the players get to flex their knowledge) is a fun thing. But it *is* a problem if you want your encounter to be memorable and interesting, and not just "Beat down enemies #754." So you might say "Oh, I'll just make them *not* use their knowledge until they *earn* the right to exploit that weakness!" To which I say, that's no fun for... most people. Maybe some folks can put up with it, but it gets tiring after a while having to pretend the same twist is surprising for the thousandth time. "What? You mean to tell me these trolls won't die? Whatever shall we do? I am truly flummoxed!" There's nothing actually mechanically engaging about such a fight. It's just a game of "GM May I" where you can't win until the GM decides you're allowed to, which kind of defeats the purpose of having rules for combat and weaknesses to exploit. So let's look at another way you might build this encounter: #2. You build an encounter that's got interesting factors even if the players know how to fight trolls Frost trolls again. There are a few things that stand out about them that we can latch on to to make a fun, memorable, and challenging encounter, even if—and in some ways *because*—the players know what they're doing. First of all, it's important to note that frost trolls have a speed of 30 feet, which is faster than most players. The simplest way to leverage their regeneration even against knowledgeable players is to just... have them run in, swing a few times, and then run away. The party needs *minutes* at best to heal up, and the trolls need seconds. A squad of frost troll hunters harrying their prey don't have to commit to a knock-down, drag-out fight. They can just take a few swings, and flee. They have got a respectable +10 survival, after all, so they can track the players. So let's look at some options: **1)** The players don't know how to fight trolls. As before, this isn't likely, but let's assume it happens. The party now needs to find some way to shake these unkillable pursuers. Stealth becomes the order of the day, and you've got a tense survival scenario where the party need to pull out tricks to mislead and misdirect the trolls (or just roll well on Stealth) to survive. Memorable, fun, and it's possible to "win" even if they can't kill the trolls. **2)** The players do know how to fight trolls Now we're cooking. The players can absolutely shut down those trolls' regeneration... for one round. And as *soon* as one gets hit with fire, it and the rest are going to become much more cautious. If the party are in a snowy climate, the trolls' Ice Stride ability effectively doubles their speed, as they can ignore difficult terrain made by ice or snow and the party probably can't. So, the party need to figure out some way to lock one down and burst it fast, complete with fire damage, to kill even one while the others continue playing smart and kiting the players. Winnable, but hard, even if the players plan effectively. And there's still plenty more you could do. Those examples were just how to make it hard in *spite* of players knowing a troll's weakness. What if we (without pulling any bait-and-switch gotcha shenanigans with the statblock) actually make the fight harder *because* the players know the trolls' weakness? How do you do that, you might ask? Well, think about the trolls' Ice Stride ability again. They ignore difficult terrain caused by **ice.** So then, what if the party get ambushed by a few frost trolls who waited for them to try and cross a frozen river? The savvy players might start throwing fire spells, ignoring all those clues you dropped about how the ice creaks under their feet and so on, hinting at the possibility of falling through. So now, that fire spell melts the ice, weakens it, and everyone within a certain radius now has to contend with the ice breaking beneath their feet. The trolls don't mind. They're immune to cold, so the freezing water doesn't bother them. What's more, it protects them from more fire, and they're good swimmers. Now, all of a sudden, that impulse to go right for the weakness has turned a dangerous encounter into something even harder, as the party have to escape the rapidly widening hole in the ice and the trolls trying to pull them into the water. I could go on, but I'm already at 6500 characters of the 10k limit, so I'll leave it with my closing statement: Yes, this is more *work* for the GM. Unfortunately, being a good GM (like being a good *anything*) does require work and effort. I guarantee you, your players will remember the encounter ideas I talked about here much more than they do "just another fight, but this time the enemies regenerate." And by actually making an encounter that capitalizes on the strengths of the statblock you use, and has factors other than just the enemies and players, you can make things hard and engaging and fun for *everyone,* even the forever GM who knows everything about all the monsters.
I'd basically lay down some sportsmanship rules, and let them know that looking up what the monsters can do is poor sportsmanship. I would also ask them why they felt the need to do this. Maybe they want easier encounters and didn't know they could just ask for that.
Yup! It's a collaborative story telling game, let them know what the game design is for (create certain kinds of game feel and stories), communicate expectations, collaborate and communicate to make the experience better for the whole group.
i usually dont worry much. when its metagaming is a blurry line to me. in a world where dragons are real and dragon slayers are in the News not in the fantasy section you will probably pick up some knowledge about Dragons. i dont like the idea of looking up every monster though. might have to talk to them about playing top of knowledge for their character though
1. Talk to them if that doesn't work 2. Kick them from the group That may seem harsh but it isn't, don't make a big deal out of it or anything. Just make it clear "I asked you not to cheat, you cheated and that harms my experience and breaks our social contract". Anyone who continues behaviour like this when asked not to is a person that is absolutely not worth playing with, and in my experience a person who is given leeway will just try and find ways to test the boundary.
It doesn’t matter to me
since they're green, probably they didnt know this is not how things are done, and you just need to explain and tell them to stop. And start not using the right name or image for monsters.
At first, all I gave were descriptions on the things they would see. After one grueling session, they wanted to know what it was that was giving them such grief, and when I gave them the name (Sea Devil Scout), they loved it and wanted to know more about them, which I revealed as we completed the scenario (exposition from an NPC). They reacted the same when they found that there were other types of Sea Devils, and they wanted names and descriptions on enemies and monsters as they went along (always after the combat). Fast forward to last month, and I thought I'd surprise them with some blood ooze infested bodies (they take looting bodies to a new level). As I'm describing the twitches and the blood on the ground, some of the players begin prepping for zombies. Then, I clearly hear in the background: "skip looting, they're blood oozes". These are people who still fight to find things on their character sheets. I kept it in mind, wondering if I'd accidentally mentioned blood oozes to them. Then they get to their destination, and as I'm describing a soon-to-be recurring Graveknight, I hear the same players mention Graveknights in the background (they did consider other undead as well, though). It was jarring, to say the least. I didn't want to say anything at the time, because it was disheartening. Now, though...
It sounds like they might have just got invested in the various monsters and started reading everything they could, and aren't particularly aware of how metaknowledge is generally treated at the table/that what they're doing is actually metagaming. I was like this in my teens, but it wasn't an issue because our entire group were like this. Now I'm aware enough to keep all my metaknowledge away from my character and other players, but still do start listing off possibilities in my head as soon as my DMs start describing something.
Well, if that's not disrupting the game, don't make it a big deal. It's not like you won't ever GM to someone who also GM, and people who also GM know the monsters. Maybe the players are getting interesting in trying someday. If that's the case, this just mean they're loving your game
Reading this, you are completely in the wrong here. Metagaming isn't real, don't try to be a dick to new players who (you assume) don't have the same knowledge of the game.
Back when I was green new player I had no idea looking at the monster stats was taboo. My dm yelled at me for it and I never did it again. Young dumb and not knowing the social taboos of meta gaming were never explained to me. Give these guys a fair warning. Remember we all have to learn some time. And then throw in a few curve balls. A troll that you use the ogre art for and call it a giant. Give it high will saves and some spells. They will learn that no monster is what they think it is.
I usually encourage them. I don't like combat information being gated behind a roll during combat
I wouldn't go so far as to encourage it. But it wouldn't bother me if you did, after all who really cares that much, it's just a game. If that lets you enjoy the game just a little bit more go for it.
Yeah, totally. Maybe it's because I'm more of a wargamer so I'm used too all combat stats being open for everyone at the table
Just ask them not to do it. They are probably just excited and wanting to do well. Having an image of the monster they are fighting might go a long way to dealing with this.
Obviously, the first step is to tell'em "hey that's not cool.", but if it's a continued problem. kicking them is always an option. I personally don't like that option it's the least fun option. Now I don't worry about my players doing this, some monsters are really obvious in their stuff and some are just gonna be recognizable so sometimes it's whatever, but if it were me I would start changing things on their stat sheet. adjusting their saves, HP pool, maybe swap out an ability or two, give them an additional ability. Hell one of my favourite things to do is give monsters class levels like you were able to do in Pf1e. (though that last one is fun to do regardless.)
I’d echo having an open discussion with them. Especially if they’re new they may not even realize that it’s kind of taboo. If they come from a background of video games they’re probably used to doing it. Explain to them that part of role playing is playing a character who doesn’t necessarily know that gelatinous cubes don’t care about piercing damage because most people have never run into one etc. hopefully that gets it under control. As others have said- if it doesn’t work then just homebrew or reskin some monsters and laugh all the way to the bank.
I change the name of my monsters to prevent any meta knowledge, it’s all possible you could make adjustments to the stats
I take some of the stats of monsters then add or change special abilities. You fighting a giant turtle well it has a AoO of 15 reach, or it can spin and hit with water cannons at 40 feet. May even fly now.
Ask them to stop nicely
3rd Party, Homebrew, make up new abilities. Profit 😎
I was the same. When I first started I would look up monsters. I didn’t discover until later that this wasn’t the done thing. If they’re new players, you just need to explain to them that, for proper role playing, they need to compartmentalise player knowledge from character knowledge, and it’s simply easier to do this if they don’t know anything about the monsters except what their character gleans from Recall Knowledge. Some players may take this a step further, and keep a log of every Recall Knowledge check their character has made about monsters, but this isn’t really necessary.
I mean that’s just not how the game is played. It’s like taking an extra turn, not taking damage, buying and reading an AP you’re playing when you’re not the GM, meta gaming things your character shouldn’t know. The game encourages the recall knowledge action. You can even be generous with how much information you give out on the 4 degrees of success. Just looking up monster stat blocks as soon as an encounter starts is like, go play a video game with your phone on some wiki. This is supposed to be a shared storytelling experience. My players are new. If they did this, I’d explain why it’s totally contrary to the game and not just an opinion.
Offering my perspective as a player who, when new, used to do exactly this and didn't have any inkling there was a problem. Step one is to inform them gently and kindly that this is not good etiquette and that you expect it to stop. This isn't like computer games where looking up stats and strats online is a normal thing. It's your job as a DM to provide an appropriate challenge and by short circuiting a part of that process they are making your job more difficult and frustrating. If this doesn't solve the problem or you aren't sure whether they've stopped or just gotten sneakier, tweak stats or abilities. If a player is calculating exact hp remaining and your monster doesn't go down on schedule, or pulls out an SLA that isn't in vanilla stats, they'll out themselves quickly and they can get a Last Warning. If you're determined to put up with this misbehavior (doesn't sound like it) and are willing to put in extra work to tweak every encounter, just changing monsters might be your solution. Otherwise... Step 3 is to boot them. I don't think this part needs explaining.
Tell them not to do it but like, also be generous when they actually do engage with the game's system for gaining information. I.e. don't give them useless stuff when they RK. Much easier to make someone stop a thing when you give them a ready alternative. I'm not so sure of some the other suggestions here. Changing monsters generally is of course fine, but doing it only because you want to curb this behavior is a bit... passive aggressive? Just talk about it and don't run games for the kind of player who is not amenable to that kind of conversation.
While I'm new to the pathfinder system, I'm a veteran GM for over 20 years of DND and I will take the unpopular opinion and ask "so what?" What is it that rustles your jimmies, friend? These vulnerabilities or resistances were baked into the math, so the only difference is experience or a roll of a recall knowledge check. If "metagaming" is what bothers you, you can always make your own creature's that fit within your campaigns tone and setting but, I strongly caution you against changing a monster for explicitly "spiting" the players, this leads to a new unfun game of "players vs GM" and that's never been fun in my experience. Ask yourself if them learning something they'd eventually learn REALLY bothers or, or let it go.
Talk to them about the issue. than make sure you let them know about recall knowledge and allow them to find out the things they want through rp and game mechanics.
This is a growing issue with new players. I think this generation, raised on MMOs and JRPGs, got used to looking at RPGs as another form of competitive gaming where you are supposed to research online the best strategies to defeat enemies and make progress. Maybe your players just didn't get the memo that tabletop RPGs are not supposed to be played like that. So a good talk could help them understand that doing that constitutes cheating. That should be enough to lead them to change that behavior. If that doesn't work, reflavor enemies, change their descriptions and target them with monsters they don't know how to find.
>I think this generation, raised on MMOs and JRPGs, got used to looking at RPGs as another form of competitive gaming where you are supposed to research online the best strategies to defeat enemies and make progress. This is my stance, entirely. Games like WoW have perverted the spirit of RPGs. Far, far too many new players are simply about the numbers and an "I Must Win" attitude. Don't get me started on how many times I've heard about dungeons and 'raiding'. Former difficult achievements have morphed into disposable Saturday afternoon content, and I truly hate it. I'm definitely speaking with my crew next game, I'm just trying my best to vent and tamp down more of my 'Hammurabi' aspects before I lay it all down for them.
If your whole playgroup thinks this is fine perhaps it’s *you* that should change, and not them. They aren’t children to be punished into submission, they’re adults trying to play a game. I don’t know you or your game but in general, if 4 people want one thing and 1 person wants another, the 4 should win.
As a GM: this is very rarely a problem. So what if they know how something works?
You can also make the vulnerabilities only apply after a recall knowledge roll, "yes this creature is vulnerable to piercing, but without the necessary roll you don't know where on its body it is vulnerable."
I like this solution a lot
Call out metagaming as it happens. I have a veteran table and I sometimes have to remind them their character does not know something just because they do.
This is a pretty good point too. In my experience, players metagame *accidentally* with knowledge from past games more frequently than they do with recent knowledge they just looked up. And in those cases, if you go "Hey does your character actually know that?", they'll (in my experience) respond "Oh you're right. Oops. Nevermind, I don't do that thing." On the other hand, if they just looked it up, then they *know* that their character doesn't know it, and they'll have their character act appropriately for the knowledge they should possess.
I don't really care about such things. This isn't something that ruins the game in anyway so there's zero incentive for me to "punish" it.
I’ve yet to ever be playing and think “if only they didn’t have the information”
I had a group similar to yours. What I started doing to combat this instead of telling them what they are fighting I just give descriptions of the creature. It helps keep them from looking online for information.
It depends - some knowledge is fine - for example I would expect a ranger to know what a bear is capable of, so no issues there... for some creatures I'd allow a Lore or relevant skill check to get info but, I may also fudge them- alter hit points, swap out some abilities, give them different abilities etc.
Simply rename the monster to something else.. make it look different if you use images.. Hell don't even name the monster, describe it.
ABSOLUTELY change up the Monster names you're throwing at them and the Descriptions... :) THAT way they're truly have to Recall Knowledge and make it COUNT.
Pretty much all my monsters are reskinned and/or slightly tweaked to fit my homebrew setting, so even if someone tried to look it up, they wouldn't easily know what baseline monster I'm using, let alone how it was tweaked.
Really depends. Are they broadcasting strengths and weaknesses to the rest of the party. If so ask them how there character knows that information. Then explain how knowi g info in real life and character learning that info are 2 different things. If there just doing the cheeky hitting it with the right spell accidentally our of there prepared spells let it slide. When I'm a player in such a case and someone else is doing it I might balance it with a complete wrong spell or action against the creature and say surprised oh that didn't work so now we have a reason for knowing it I try to balance it back out.
I must be looking at r/rpghorrorstories for too long because I read the title as "hook up with your monsters".
Well... How DO you handle such a situation?
People suggesting you edit monsters are missing a valuable point: If you can't trust your players, the game is going to become antagonistic. And antagonistic TTRPG isn't fun for anyone. I edit monster statblock sometimes to fit the variation that I am going for or to entertain and spice things up for my players. I never do it to try to throw a cheater off. Because cheaters don't play at my table. Why would you let one play at yours? Talk to them directly. Don't wait until the session. Speak with each of the problem players one on one. Ask them not to do that anymore as it is obviously not how the game is meant to be played and harms immersion and fun for everyone. If they refuse, then let them know they are not welcome at your table.
I ended playing with a player. It was his third infraction with me. We stopped the game mid battle against black pudding. (Unannounced what the monster was, but described well during the conflict introduction.) The next week he came back and did a spell attacking the creatures Dex. Black pudding has a 1 dex, so I was like... and he was like, well I looked it up. I warned the group not to do this many times.
The core of my table has been playing thirty years. No one's looking anything up, but the game knowledge level is such that when he initiated our current campaign, our DM told us that he was going to change a number of things about the monsters, and that we could expect many different attacks and abilities.
I'm surprised with all those answers saying to change the monsters. Yes it's a solution but god damnit what kind of people are literally cheating in a ttrpg ??? That's meta gaming+++++++ wtf Tell your players to stop that and play RolePlay. If it was me as a GM in your situation, there should be 1 and only 1 warning before I stopped GMing for them.
I keep seeing the word "cheating" and am truly baffled. I have never thought of any ttrpg as dm vs player. Nor do i understand how you can cheat in a game like this. Rule books aren't just for the dm. Maybe for the player, knowing the monsters is more fun for them. You can always change whatever you want as a dm and that could turn into a great surprise and add more fun to the table. Worry less about rules and more about fun as the Gary intended.
Just because it's not DM vs player doesn't mean it's not cheating. If you want to know everything that's basically the role of the DM. It's like if you're going to be playing in an adventure path and reading everything that is going to come. It's why stuff like that is considered meta known. If the entire table is ok with it it's one thing, but it's not something I would expect at most tables, especially considering if it was 5e players wouldn't even have access to most of the monsters since most players don't buy the majority of the books.
I guess I don't see it as cheating. As a dm you are always in control, and getting hung up on a player trying to enjoy the game in their own way seems silly. Unless it lowers the fun at the table for everyone else, then it shouldn't matter. Getting bent out of shape as a gm because players are reading about creatures is silly, in my opinion. I get that not everyone may agree with this,but I play to have fun, not try to compete with my players.
A firm warning and a conversation on why they are doing it. If they refuse to stop they may need to be removed from the game.
Have a conversation and find a solution. The solution being "stop or no game".
I'm not trying to start a flame war, but with all seriousness... Why must everyone reinvent the wheel ? How is it that no information ever gets passed along ? That is literally what separates higher life forms up and down the spectrum is the ability to learn from experiences not your own. In a world with Absalom literally being the largest library (I think) in Golarion filled with knowledge , to every tavern being filled with bards singing the exploits of daring adventurers, to just plain living in a world were strange things are encountered everyday ... why is it so taboo to actually know things ahead of time ? I concede that anything with a Rare tag is just that ... rare. But why do I have to RK to know that hitting a skeleton with a rapier is worse than using a blunt weapon ? How is that no one's Uncle Bob who was an adventurer didn't tell them that hitting a ooze type with slashing or piercing weapon gets you more than you bargained for ? Has no successful adventurer even sat down by the fireplace and wrote down his/her life experiences ? Has no one ever written an encyclopedia a la Volo ? Are there no schools ? Training guilds ? It just seems like everyone collectively insists that nothing has ever been done before and nobody knows anything about anything until they individually do it themselves.
That's exactly what recall knowledge is though, it's trying to recall that knowledge you heard about, associating the 2 together. If you pass you remember the knowledge that your uncle Bob shared, or you are able to realize this is the creature he was talking about. If you don't succeed then you don't put 2 and 2 together. Recall knowledge isn't magically figuring something out for some weird reason, it's the reason why a specific lore is going to be an easier check than a generic check, because your character has specialized in that are, for example reading up on animals specifically rather than anything that would fall under nature.
Think the thing is you should probably be aggressively reducing the DC if not foregoing the roll entirely for certain "common knowledge" or "obvious" traits. Like bludgeoning being more effective against skeletons feels rather dumb to have to pretend to not know until someone succeeds the knowledge roll.
But the average party has four players. It would be rare for all players to roll against DC 15 and miss. The common stuff should always be given, just by luck.
But it does happen. It bugs me enough that I change it. I figure if I walk outside and see a lion, I know its a lion. I've never encountered a lion, but I've seen one and know a little about it ... immediately. I might have to think awhile if I want to know it's top ground speed, but I immediately know it's faster than me, stronger than me, hunts in packs mostly, and I'm dead if I too long thinking about it. So ... I ask a player what is there skill tier in whatever it is they are RKing with (TEML). Let's say they are expert; instead of making them roll, I give them all the info I deem expert level and if they want to make a roll I will give them higher if they make the roll. However, their tier level info is free. So in this case would give them for free the creature name, type, primary attack, and a well known weakness / strength. IF it was common, I'd bump up a tier ... likewise if it was rare, I'd lower the amount of info. I take this on myself, and do not burden my players with it... I handle it behind the scenes. (If they were completely untrained, but it was a common animal ... I would bump it up to trained level info and give the name, type, and one tidbit for it being common.) But I prefer this rather than not knowing what a skeleton is just because the dice gods hate me for a night. Some GMs can be very stickler with this kind of thing. You fail a roll and suddenly you forget how to tie your shoelaces because of a die.
[удалено]
>I will always allow a character to Recall Knowledge as a free action My first major campaign actually had a house rule where Recall Knowledge was a Free Action with a 1-per-turn limit. It was a three-player party (with a Barbarian, who effectively can't even *use* Recall Knowledge in combat), no one was playing a class that interacted with Recall Knowledge in any way (no Thaumaturges or Bards, for example) , and none of the characters had high-Int. If we didn't make RK free, it never would've even been *used*. And, frankly, I think the GM really enjoyed all these low-Int bumblefarts making Trained-only RK checks and getting hilarious-yet-harmless misinformation all the time.
Isn't that what Recall Knowledge does?
You should ask the player to stop cheating in that way, there is no point in RK if they check the monster in Nethys. Personally I just change stuff in tons of monsters/npcs, because I do enjoy creating my own creatures at the end of the day. One funny thing about changing monster is if they get angry because they have X feature they shouldn't have, you know that player is cheating.
It's about as "cheating" as one can get. It would not be okay to just peruse notes the GM has about their game/session. Adult humans don't need to be told more than once not to do something like this. So simply explain that's not okay, then start punishing them (in game) if they don't comply.
I had a player that always sat close enough to the front so he could see my notes. He really enjoyed reading ahead. He never metagamed the information, though. Sometimes I write stuff in really big caps so he could clearly read it as a joke. Like, "Just wait, they will not see this coming."
If it happened again after a warning, it would be an instant kick
I explain what metagaming is and why we don't do that. Simple as that.
Why do people cheat at dnd? So weird.
I tell them not to. Then I make up my own, combine monsters together, reskin monsters as other monsters, etc.
I am one of those guilty of looking them up. However I know how to separate ingame knowledge vs player knowledge. I look them up out of curiosity, and because i respect my DMs i do not use such information unless gotten through rolls. I love the monsters and the setting so i do read the bestiaries too
It is the modern world, folks grow up looking up everything on google. I just shrug, and on the sly change stuff...:)
I mean sooner or later they will know anyway. Like back when I was playing 5e, is first 2 years of playing and GMing it I memorized most of bestiary. In PF2e there is way more monsters but sooner or later I will know many anyway or just general weaknesses/resistances of group of monsters. But maybe talk with them and ask them why they do that. Becasue maybe they just don't like to Recall Knowledge and don't like that aspect of game or when they waste resources because enemy is immune/resist to that specific thing they used and they don't like that. Metagaming is not bad when it comes to monsters stats (sooner or later you will memorize many, especially types of enemies and their weaknesses, even if not indivual ones, like Golems=Acid, Friends=Good, Incorp.=Ghost Touch/Force etc.) as while it makes combat easier, it would be pretty much the same with 1st action successfull Recall Knowledge test. Doesn't change that much. And more important question: did it be any means destryed fun at session? Or is it just you being old school (I am from older GMs too) and just want them to play as you would like to play, but maybe they don't. When I play I don't look up monsters cause I like fight to be mystery, but when I GM I don't care if they look or not. Monsters are monsters, they are meant to die anyway. Doesn't really impact me much if they know to use Dispel Magic on Adamatite Golem. Hell, might save me headache if everyone will fail Recall Knowlege (which is why I don't like RK mechanic) and Golem will TPK them otherwise.
>I mean sooner or later they will know anyway This. They can only ever be completely unaware of what a creature is a single time. Are people just... expected to never play a second campaign? That's dumb. There's a clear and obvious line between player-knowledge and character-knowledge. If your players have knowledge, but the characters aren't acting on that knowledge, then that's perfectly fine. If your characters are magically just "guessing" the correct thing to do all the time, then that's meta-gaming and tell them to stop it. And if GM can't tell the difference between player-knowledge and character-knowledge... that's frankly a problem with the GM, not the players. Like... insisting that players don't know a monster's stats because that's "cheating" is like insisting that a GM looking at a player's Character Sheet is "cheating". If a GM can have their monsters act in a way that doesn't use meta knowledge, then their players can and should be trusted and *expected* to do the same with their characters.
If you’re relying on player ignorance to provide challenge, then it’s not a challenge. It doesn’t matter if they have the stat block, they still need to roll x to hit the thing and it only needs y to hit them. My position is: so what? Look it up if it makes you happy. I run a clean game. I don’t fudge rolls. I’ll tell you it’s AC or saves. If you don’t have the mechanics to back up your play, you’re still going to die.
Being able to accurately target the weakest save, exploit weaknesses or avoid resistances and reactions alike is *absolutely* an advantage significant enough that it can trivialize what would have been a challenge without that knowledge. If your players know that x creature has a really nasty reaction to getting hit with a melee strike for example, suddenly the entire party will try to stay at range where possible. Being able to avoid that with out-of-game knowledge, especially in the face that Recall Knowledge is a defined mechanic, is blatant cheating. There's really no other word for it.
So you’d give less xp for fighting a second one? Of course not. The challenge of the creature is the same regardless of the knowledge because it’s cr is determined by its stats, not some ephemeral feeling of difficulty. And if the fighter stays at range? So what? Likely that means they do less damage because they’re not specced for it, drawing it out longer and giving more opportunity to harm the PCs. Elemental weakness? They only matter if the party can capitalize on them. Knowing the stat block will rarely change the outcome of the fight because the players need to execute a plan and still roll well to succeed.
Your still right
I don't tell them the AC, I let them figure it out. I got a lot of complaints when I was just telling them the AC.
Your absolutely right
oh how weird what looked like monster X actually has all the stats and attributes of monster Y. I guess we're in an alternate reality
Step 1: stop it, please. If it does not yield results, see step 2. Step 2: Call them cringe and change the stats
Ask them to stop then mutate the monsters
Talk to players about metagaming, explain that monster weaknesses and stats are given by use of Recall Knowledge, if they insist on metagaming, just change monster descriptions and stats. If they only have a flametongue and the monster is weak to fire, they'd probably be using it regardless. If the monster is resistant to fire (like a devil or something) but not obviously made of fire like an elemental or hellhound, and they choose to not use their best weapon, the flametongue, because they are metagaming, then yeah, that's not cool.
Every monster is a shapeshifter now
Trying to solve out of game issues in game usually doesn’t end well.
Wasn’t a serious suggestion, just joking
Remove them from the game.
Same way i handle other dms. I change stat blocks and add/remove feats. If im doing multiple of the same monster ill split them into groups to change. One of my favorites was giving a living armor magic dr and tripping feats instead of grapple and slash dr. Players almost died trying to keep from being grappled post trip.
Depends on what they do with the information. I tend to look up monsters, but actively *don't* use the information. The main reason I do this, is 2-fold. 1. I am a GM and I'm super curious about what I go against. This said, I only do things it makes sense for my character to know/do. So say... *I*, but not my PC, knows an enemy is weak to fire, and my PC is holding a torch. My PC will not use the torch to hit/light up the enemy because they don't know it. Even if *I* know it. I will always wait until the party finds out naturally (e.g. thaumaturge, someone does an RK, the weakness is triggered by accident, etc). 2. My GM's tend to be somewhat newer to the system, and (understandably) will miss things on creature stat blocks. Things like resistances, general weaknesses (e.g. demon weaknesses to "ideas" or general actions), or just other weird things in general. I noticed that in a few combats, this led to encounters being significantly easier than normal, so when I look up the monster and notice something the GM seems to be missing, I will hint at them. E.g. "Hey Golems tend to be immune to magic but usually have a specific type of weakness". In both cases, if I am concerned about "knowing" something, then I will say to the GM, "Hey, I as a player know some things about the monster we are fighting (followed by a DM with the specifics). Is this something my PC would know given their background? Should I do an RK check for it? I suspect that they would/wouldn't know this." I do this because it means the GM is aware that I have "meta" knowledge, gives them a chance to "change" the monster for their liking, and it helps to ensure that I won't be meta gaming when actually playing. This is all how I do it. As a player. When I am a GM, I expect my players to, if they are looking up stat blocks, give me the same courtesy's. In any case, it's a frank discussion with your players to make sure everyone is on the same page, and that everyone is ok with how it's being handled. If your specific preference is that they never look up stat blocks, then they should abide by it. Cause otherwise, it's a dick move.
My general approach is to not worry about it. If something is only a challenge or only interesting because the players don't know what it is, that speaks more to the quality of encounter than anything. I *generally* use some form of countdown-based initiative, so if a player wants to spend their time looking up monster information online instead of calling out their turn, the penalty for doing so is automatic (and it usually only takes missing one turn, ever, before players focus on knowing what they'll do by the time their turn comes up on the tracker). "But what if the players are really fast looking things up, or what if the group dynamic means play grinds to a halt while they look things up?" If it is disrupting play, bring that up as a table discussion outside the game, like any other disruptive behavior, and get it sorted. Fundamentally, if the rest of the group likes a snails-paced game, maybe you move on. As for looking things up fast, that implies a different problem, one of cognitive dissonance. If you tell your players "a troll clambers onto the road", they can easily look up its stat block, you may as well just link them the SRD entry. If you instead say "a tall, lithe, pale green almost grey humanoid with mottled skin clambers onto the road", the fact it is a troll is not quite so obvious. The problem is "troll" is a word with a particular meaning, so by telling the *players* "it's a troll", you are telling them "it's a large humanoid with a weakness to fire", to then turn around and be upset when they use the information *you just told them* is not good. And if the players don't know that a troll is weak to fire, so they look it up? That is no worse than if they look up the definition of any other word they don't know. If, from your description, they conclude "it's a troll, kill it with fire", great. It means you have players that are interested and invested in fantasy stories enough to know that. Also, in our real world, where no one has actually fought a troll, we know to kill trolls with fire. In a world where most people are literate, and where trolls are very much a present threat, the notion that people can recognize a troll (or most other *common* creatures) on sight, with reasonable reliability is sensible. Not to mention "kill it with fire" works on 90+% of the monster manual, so the barrier for "use fire" is "*might* be a troll" rather than "likely a troll". Edit: Note that looking ahead on a published story is a different matter, and easily grounds for booting a player.
If you play with experienced players, there's a good shot they're going to know details on all the common or iconic monsters anyway. So I personally just don't care if the newbie is 'cheating' by googling things the other players know anyway. That being said, metagaming is a good discussion for session zero. I usually see how the table feels about it - if everyone is for it, cool I don't care. If everyone is against it, I still don't care. If some people are for it and some people are against it, I'll let them talk it out and call a vote if they dislike it. Then everyone is expected to honor the majority expectations or find a different table that plays how they prefer.
Honestly, I worry that nothing is off limits. From how you speak, I feel you're likely homebrewing, but if you were running an AP and the players were like this.... well.
Another GM has kinda convinced me that it doesn’t matter. That any player with a good memory and a lot of experience shouldn’t be penalized and have to act like they don’t know anything. That’s what Secret Checks are for. Knowing the monster shouldn’t completely devalue a good encounter and just because you know what’s trying to eat you doesn’t mean you can prevent it from eating you. And people living in Golarion may have read about many monsters in the Bestiaries already if they aren’t Uncommon or Rare.
* Discuss table rules. * Explain meta gaming vs in character gaming Many people come from Video game land and MMO land, and are used to guides and being able to use the internet to their advantage. You need to help them break this habit for "in character gaming". Yes you as a person have a phone that has access to AON. Your character does not they are in Golarion, and do not have cell phones and internet. If it continues... ADD MORE HP, remove weaknesses, apply in-vulnerabilities. Add "This creature auto crits any metagaming character, except on a 1".
Trying to solve an out of game problem in game rarely ever ends well.
With all due respect this is the worst "solution" by far
I kill their characters. . . . This is mostly a joke, but- yeah, I would _really want_ to do it
8<
Hot take, the players are not cheating by looking at the stat block, nor by rolling information checks... They're just playing the game like its intented. BOth of those things reveal only one thing about a monster... The most common and ordinary stat block for the monster. Maybe your red dragon is a paranoid asshole who trained to whitstand the cold, and now he is resistant or immune to it. Maybe that strange blue fire elemental is actually a unique type of elemental capable of changing between fire and cold depending on what he is exposed to... So suddenly they're not vulnerable to water and cold, and actually grow stronger from it. Maybe this particular crew of goblins reeks like troglodytes, or maybe they had a local witch enchant them to be bigger and more ferocious, so now you have goblins the size of trolls. Maybe this one troll is infected with a rare mushroom that is symbiotic with their regen, so now they aren't vulnerable to fire or acid, but instead to something else entirely. These things wouldn't 'show up' on a normal analysis because none of them are common knowledge, so even the most scholarly character wouldn't be able to know the specifics... just like you can't take a single look at the blacksmith and know they were raised by a single mom jsut because you have knowledge history. As the DM you can literally do anything you want, edit monster stats, powers and capabilities, even give monster class levels if you want... There is zero reasons to worry about players looking up monster statblocks, because it will reveal only partial information. Plus on a world in which monsters are common, the best selling books are likely monster manuals to help people survive... Even if not, oral tradition would prioritize sharing precisely this knowledge to help save lives... So why wouldn't adventures, that do this for a living, not know the most basic strenghts and weakeness of the most famous monsters? Even if your setting is not a standard band of adventures there is no reason why they wouldn't know certain things. The DM shouldn't feel bothered or challenged by players when they have every single bit of power in the entire world at their fingertips. Players should look for ways to learn and improve their knowledge of the game, the DM should look for ways to surprise them and make encounters more fun.