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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 5090153" data-attributes="member: 82106">My experience is that players pretty quickly figure what is and isn't a minion. I don't tell them in so many words, but I do often describe a given monster as looking inexperienced or with poor equipment. As for monster knowledge checks, I don't think they're spoon feeding anyone. They're a bit of a reward for having knowledge skills, a way for those skills to contribute to combat. Its reasonable to keep a bit of information vague or leave out some details that the PCs might not know about, but also remember that these checks are far from being passed automatically.Lets consider a case: A level 1 PC runs into a zombie. He's a cleric, so his wisdom is 18 (+4) and he's got Religion training (+5), so his check is at +9. Its a heroic tier monster so his check is 4+ to know its a zombie, that zombies are mindless and usually attack, and that zombies are undead. On a 9+ he knows that they have a slam attack that does moderately high damage and that they like to grab things and hold on. On a 14+ he knows they're immune to disease and poison, resistant to necrotic damage and vulnerable to radiant damage.Now, the same PC faced with an Eladrin Fey Knight may well have NO plus to his check. On a 15+ he knows its an Eladrin Fey Knight. On a 20 he knows powers, which means he knows the Knight uses a longsword, can tangle people up using it, can teleport, and a couple other minor things. He has no chance to know anything else.Really, the information can be fairly generalized as well. Nothing says that knowing the 'powers' of a creature means you have to give the player the stat block entry for every power. Same with resist/vuln and even in the case of the most basic info the keywords and a name to attach to the thing is enough.</blockquote>

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