D&D 5E Recalling lore about creatures... what does it entail?

[77IM]

I'm super easy with monster lore. At DC 10, you get the general gist of the monster -- all the common knowledge. For every 5 points after that, you get one resistance/immunity/super-nasty-power/other "gotcha" ability. Somewhere around DC 10 + CR, I'll just let you look at the monster's stat block if you want.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

I know exactly what you mean, and I agree with you about 1e's modularity (and special cases!) that made it easy to remove and replace parts. Yet I can't agree about 5e. So much in 5e is stitched together in sophisticated ways or cross-balanced. Features appeal to underlying principles that cut across multiple classes.

I think I get what you are saying, and I think I agree in that regard; 5e does seem to have a lot of wording that ties things together. I guess the way I see 5's "modularity" is more in how easy it is to change/ignore/modify something and not have that change be likely to completely derail an entire aspect of the rules (e.g. "missile combat" or "movement" or something). There will be a sort of 'ripple effect' that will bounce around a couple of the areas that the 'specific wording ties into', but nothing so expansive as to really muck things up.

If something is changed, a handful of things that 'tie into' that thing you changed will need to be adjusted...but owing to 5e's bounded accuracy baseline, and their very wise move to remove "magical expectations" for levels, those changes someone would need to make are relatively straightforward and painless. Usually a simple matter of just slapping on a Condition, maybe a specific DC check, or even just applying an Adv/Disad roll.

5e isn't as "open ended" as 1e, but it's far better than 3.x/PF/4e is....imnsho.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Rya.Reisender]

I tend to prefer my players not knowing anything about the monsters, but just like their characters get to know them by fighting them. That's why I keep monsters stats static (for example same type always same HP, unless it's a leader / commander), but also don't just outright reveal something in regards to the stats.

It's much more fun if the players figure out for example resistances by attacking and noticing it doesn't work rather than them just rolling e.g. "Arcana" or something and then I just outright tell them.

I do allow recalling lore if my players ask for it. What I do is the following:

I collect all the info available and categorize them into three levels (from easy to know to hard to know - I also sort out things I don't want to reveal). Then I decide how common the monster is:
Common: DC5 - Know name and basic info, DC10 - Know a bit more, DC15 - Know all the info I want to reveal
Uncommon: DC10 - Know name and basic info, DC15 - Know a bit more, DC20 - Know all the info I want to reveal

I don't put a lot of math or rocket science into it, usually I just quickly go by feeling.

Sometimes I don't even require a roll at all. For example a player who earlier read a book about a creature will just outright identify it (and what he knows I'll leave to the memory of that player).