D&D 5E Abilities....Which check would you use?

Satyrn · Jun 26, 2019

DMMike said:
I was going to mention the information problem, but I thought I'd roll with it. Satyrn - good snark, but given the information we have ("some tracks"), the Fool's book had better be pretty dog-gone big!

Oh, yeah, um . . . *scrambles for a justification to get the DM on board* . . . it's, uh, very well organized by environment (being a compendium written by rangers on their favored terrains) and then further sub-categorized by number of toes, size of print and CR.

And yeah, it's huuuge. The only reason I can lug it around on adventures is because of the bag of holding. And it only just fits inside, leaving room for nothing else but Peterson's Field Guide to Lovecraftian Horrors . . . which I don't remember packing, and have tried to throw away twice.

Beleriphon · Jun 27, 2019

The way I see I'd probably go with some combination.

As for the further discussin about description. When I want a more detailed description from a player I always present as thus: "If your character were in a movie, what would they be doing to X?"

I figure that gives a reasonable enough hint that I want them to tell me what they're doing, and if prompted most people can describe how something should look in a movie.

FrogReaver · Jun 27, 2019

If asked how I try to determine something about animals / animal tracks: I go with the Jurassic Park method. Find dung. Look at it. Smell it. Feel it. Taste it as a last resort.

It may not always be the best approach. But it always gets a laugh!

BookBarbarian · Jun 28, 2019

FrogReaver said:
If asked how I try to determine something about animals / animal tracks: I go with the Jurassic Park method. Find dung. Look at it. Smell it. Feel it. Taste it as a last resort.

It may not always be the best approach. But it always gets a laugh!

You'll never know more about an animal than when you're elbow deep in its dung or even better the source itself.