integrate lore, the bestiary and books

bob_veng

first add the bestiary:
- there doesn't have to be any new graphics, and the text can be short, just two sentences explaining in general it's significant abilities and resistances, so no need for explicit stats, and especially no need for fluff here
- for some more rare monsters, there'd be an additional item in the bestiary detailing it's weak spot - this also doesn't have to be descriptive/fluffy, it can be abstracted ("weak spot known" or "weak spot not known")

now here's the catch: without this knowledge your party can't inflict a critical hit on such less natural or less common creatures (undead, dragons, demons, beholders, elementals, golems, slimes...), so to do so you'd have to:

1. find information about them inside books (some new books would have to be added for this i suppose)
2. have high enough lore to understand the information which gives you a filled bestiary entry for that creature (otherwise, killing the creature, or reading the book without passing the lore check only gives a partial entry which isn't detailing it's weak spot)

or - someone could just tell you about a creature's weak spot, which doesn't require a lore check

other less rare creatures (humanoids, animals...) you can always crit and they get a full entry when you kill the first of their kind

additionally:
a ranger's favored enemy automatically gets the corresponding full entries in the journal
a character who can turn undead provides entries for progressively more powerful undead as they level-up
learning a summoning spell also gives a full entry for that creature
shapeshifting should do it too i guess...

yay!

JuliusBorisov

A enormous task (a "word counter" will be big) but it would be just awesome.

bob_veng

the books would be a problem

but there doesn't have to be a massive amount of fluff for every individual monster

it could just be a story like with existing books and a footnote could state:

"this text contains information about underdark dwellers"

in the log you would get:
bestiary updated: illithid
bestiary updated: beholder

Dee

The bigger task would actually be the bestiary entries themselves--and I'm not sure I like the idea of combat mechanics being dictated by lore; if you've played the game fifteen times, you shouldn't have to hunt down the "Encyclopedia of Golems" in order to score critical hits against them.

bob_veng

you're right about the potential tiresome aspect of this but the books could be more-or-less readily available (shops, temples...) so it would be mostly up to lore, not physically finding the books

what about (very very high) lore giving you an ability to crit against crit-immune bosses? this mechanic would enable this and it would make bards stand out a bit imho

Dee

I'm not opposed to the concept in general, but what you describe is a pretty big deviation from the game's current mechanics. That turns Lore into a combat stat, which is...weird, to say the least.

You could, however, create a mod that does something similar: a book that lets the user "read" it (consuming the book in the process) to gain a permanent attack or damage bonus against a specific enemy type. Give it an Intelligence requirement to "understand" it, and that could give you the combat boost you're looking for.