09-21-2015, 10:00 AM
This is not related to FF exactly and is more of a general roleplay question
For context our group is lvl 5- Consisting of Hunter, Aegis (Tank), Sorcerer and Hexblade
My group was playing a game yesterday and we realized that NOONE chose to specialize in the Face skills (we don't do the talking so much) and Knowledge checks were left vastly bare (we have a few of the- I want to know about this monster- skills, but none of the -Oh look at the lovely architecture- skills)
SO
We end up needing to obtain information on a situation. There is a concealed dungeon in a tower and bla bla bla we go in and there is a pile of ash, some black goo on a table and scorch marks around. My character is a bounty hunter and I extrapolate some information via an AMAZING survival/tracking role (it was over 30 and I did NOT take 20- I was pretty proud of this moment) and found out that: 3 peopleish things *appeared* in this area (ie did NOT use the stairs) they did something and a 4th peopleish thing *appeared* the 3 grabbed 4th and put him on a table, then moved him to the wall, something happened and ashes.
With that information we find out that none of the 3 people are people we have met (feet tracks don't match), that black goo is demon blood, that the 3 did some sorta summoning to get 4th and 4th was killed by a holy weapon. (Various minor spellcrafting, heal and some Knowledge planes/religion)
Awesome! We were moving along. And when I heard "It is demon blood." I thought/said "Oh Blood Biography!"
-so out of character I will admit that I am a little older than my group and have several years more experience with the table top RPG-ing and even with PF I have a couple more years of experience. So this is TOTALLY one of those things where the experienced player knows something that would help, but is not exactly in game information-
And the other players look at me and I go back to my in character self: my guy turns to the sorcerer who I constantly call a *necromancer* and I am suspicious of magic BUT he has been a good friend to me and used his magic to fight spiders and evil and save me from said spidery evil so hey I am LEARNING! "Divine the origins of this creature."
He replies that he does not know how to do that, which is totally cool, as a player I don't expect him to know this spell it is SUPER situational and wouldn't be something I would expect a sorcerer to spend the resource of Spell Known on (unless they were using a blood motif)
As the conversation progresses I suggest a scroll could be purchased that has the appropriate magic for the task and then the sorcerer/player asks: "Would my character know that this spell exists? It isn't the magic that I specialize in and it isn't of a level I can cast"
And I sorta paused... I don't really know. My argument was that we could extrapolate into the real world that I don't know much about aliens, but I know that people believe aliens exist and if I needed to learn more about aliens I could go to a library or google search so more information could be obtained... and re-inserting this into the fantasy world- you might believe there is a spell for everything and thus finding the spell best suited to this might just mean consulting an expert?
Any thoughts? How much about magic would a character be expected to know?
For context our group is lvl 5- Consisting of Hunter, Aegis (Tank), Sorcerer and Hexblade
My group was playing a game yesterday and we realized that NOONE chose to specialize in the Face skills (we don't do the talking so much) and Knowledge checks were left vastly bare (we have a few of the- I want to know about this monster- skills, but none of the -Oh look at the lovely architecture- skills)
SO
We end up needing to obtain information on a situation. There is a concealed dungeon in a tower and bla bla bla we go in and there is a pile of ash, some black goo on a table and scorch marks around. My character is a bounty hunter and I extrapolate some information via an AMAZING survival/tracking role (it was over 30 and I did NOT take 20- I was pretty proud of this moment) and found out that: 3 peopleish things *appeared* in this area (ie did NOT use the stairs) they did something and a 4th peopleish thing *appeared* the 3 grabbed 4th and put him on a table, then moved him to the wall, something happened and ashes.
With that information we find out that none of the 3 people are people we have met (feet tracks don't match), that black goo is demon blood, that the 3 did some sorta summoning to get 4th and 4th was killed by a holy weapon. (Various minor spellcrafting, heal and some Knowledge planes/religion)
Awesome! We were moving along. And when I heard "It is demon blood." I thought/said "Oh Blood Biography!"
-so out of character I will admit that I am a little older than my group and have several years more experience with the table top RPG-ing and even with PF I have a couple more years of experience. So this is TOTALLY one of those things where the experienced player knows something that would help, but is not exactly in game information-
And the other players look at me and I go back to my in character self: my guy turns to the sorcerer who I constantly call a *necromancer* and I am suspicious of magic BUT he has been a good friend to me and used his magic to fight spiders and evil and save me from said spidery evil so hey I am LEARNING! "Divine the origins of this creature."
He replies that he does not know how to do that, which is totally cool, as a player I don't expect him to know this spell it is SUPER situational and wouldn't be something I would expect a sorcerer to spend the resource of Spell Known on (unless they were using a blood motif)
As the conversation progresses I suggest a scroll could be purchased that has the appropriate magic for the task and then the sorcerer/player asks: "Would my character know that this spell exists? It isn't the magic that I specialize in and it isn't of a level I can cast"
And I sorta paused... I don't really know. My argument was that we could extrapolate into the real world that I don't know much about aliens, but I know that people believe aliens exist and if I needed to learn more about aliens I could go to a library or google search so more information could be obtained... and re-inserting this into the fantasy world- you might believe there is a spell for everything and thus finding the spell best suited to this might just mean consulting an expert?
Any thoughts? How much about magic would a character be expected to know?