So I am playing an eldritch knight fighter in a campaign and part of his backstory is that his family and village were murdered by a group of rogue air genasi pirates, this happened 2 years prior in game to the campaign starting where we did session 1.
I had asked my DM that if my character came across one or some air genasi would he be able to recognize them if a roll was made.
I agree with them on them saying it will be a straight INT roll but then said if it HAD to be any other type of dice roll it would be INSIGHT. Which doesn't make any sense to me because insight is all about body language, deception and lies.
Hopefully some veteran DMs can clear this up for me as I don't know what to do.
Personally as a DM I would go with straight int or history but many low intelligence animals can recognise individuals even after a long absence (eg migrating birds having the same mate) so there is some logic to wisdom.
The gameplay in D&D is the DM describes the environment, the players decide what they want to do and the DM decides what happens, using dice if the outcome would be uncertain. You might say something like wouldn't history or straight int be better? But if after that they still think it is insight that is the end of the matter.
Mmm, Insight would only be the sound choice if you were interacting with someone you suspected either was one of these pirates, an accomplice of theirs, or knew them and were trying to glean from watching them for any signs of lying, discomfort around you, or anxiousness. For trying to recognize someone, that would still fall somewhat more into an Intelligence check. We can surmise this from what is written about Intelligence skills which is Intelligence measures mental acuity, accuracy of recall, and the ability to reason.
Depending on how you're trying to recall, History would work if you were trying to recall specifically the event itself. Investigation would also work if you were analyzing someone and trying to pick out details on them or about them and compare that to your memory; otherwise, a straight Intelligence check still would suffice if you were trying to recall a face or faces from the event in question, though that could still fall into a History check depending on how it is worded/played.
Memory recall is also heavily tied to senses like touch, taste, and smell, so Perception might also be loosely argued for, smelling the scent of a particular cologne or smoke leaf, or the rhythmic taps of a peg leg limp, but I would argue it would be an INT based Perception roll as opposed to Wisdom.
Insight makes sense to me, but rather than recalling their face I'd describe it as identifying their behavior as the kind of person who might murder a whole village.
But honestly as a DM if I'm bringing in a character from your backstory, I'm just going to tell you it's from your backstory. What is the payoff if you fail your check and just go on about your business? Not everything needs to be locked behind a roll.
This is why in movies you often have evil factions leave some kind of calling card or easily recognizable symbol, so the main character can later notice a tattoo on guy #6 and proceed to plan his revenge. Notice that 0% of those movies try to produce tension by having a scene where the character is trying to remember if guy #6's tattoo is the same symbol left scraped on the front door of his ruined home. There's enough tension in that kind of storyline that you don't need to manufacture more via a roll.
So I am playing an eldritch knight fighter in a campaign and part of his backstory is that his family and village were murdered by a group of rogue air genasi pirates, this happened 2 years prior in game to the campaign starting where we did session 1.
I had asked my DM that if my character came across one or some air genasi would he be able to recognize them if a roll was made.
I agree with them on them saying it will be a straight INT roll but then said if it HAD to be any other type of dice roll it would be INSIGHT. Which doesn't make any sense to me because insight is all about body language, deception and lies.
Hopefully some veteran DMs can clear this up for me as I don't know what to do.
Personally as a DM I would go with straight int or history but many low intelligence animals can recognise individuals even after a long absence (eg migrating birds having the same mate) so there is some logic to wisdom.
The gameplay in D&D is the DM describes the environment, the players decide what they want to do and the DM decides what happens, using dice if the outcome would be uncertain. You might say something like wouldn't history or straight int be better? But if after that they still think it is insight that is the end of the matter.
Mmm, Insight would only be the sound choice if you were interacting with someone you suspected either was one of these pirates, an accomplice of theirs, or knew them and were trying to glean from watching them for any signs of lying, discomfort around you, or anxiousness. For trying to recognize someone, that would still fall somewhat more into an Intelligence check. We can surmise this from what is written about Intelligence skills which is Intelligence measures mental acuity, accuracy of recall, and the ability to reason.
Depending on how you're trying to recall, History would work if you were trying to recall specifically the event itself. Investigation would also work if you were analyzing someone and trying to pick out details on them or about them and compare that to your memory; otherwise, a straight Intelligence check still would suffice if you were trying to recall a face or faces from the event in question, though that could still fall into a History check depending on how it is worded/played.
Memory recall is also heavily tied to senses like touch, taste, and smell, so Perception might also be loosely argued for, smelling the scent of a particular cologne or smoke leaf, or the rhythmic taps of a peg leg limp, but I would argue it would be an INT based Perception roll as opposed to Wisdom.
Insight makes sense to me, but rather than recalling their face I'd describe it as identifying their behavior as the kind of person who might murder a whole village.
But honestly as a DM if I'm bringing in a character from your backstory, I'm just going to tell you it's from your backstory. What is the payoff if you fail your check and just go on about your business? Not everything needs to be locked behind a roll.
This is why in movies you often have evil factions leave some kind of calling card or easily recognizable symbol, so the main character can later notice a tattoo on guy #6 and proceed to plan his revenge. Notice that 0% of those movies try to produce tension by having a scene where the character is trying to remember if guy #6's tattoo is the same symbol left scraped on the front door of his ruined home. There's enough tension in that kind of storyline that you don't need to manufacture more via a roll.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm