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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Blackbrrd" data-source="post: 5090310" data-attributes="member: 63962">My take on it is that a minion is such an inferior unit compared to a normal mob that it should be visually obvious. You can of course have a mob trying to look like a minion and it would probably be a bluff vs perception if it did.I think the knowledge checks gives too much information to the players. If my players started rolling knowledge checks for every mob every encounter it would probably slow down to a crawl.I like giving my players info that is visually quite apparent, but I usually give the information after the first or second time they see it in action. For instance: you do a fire-attack vs a fire resistant mob and I will tell you it took a bit less than full damage. If you damage it with fire a second time I will tell you it has fire resistance 5. One of the first time for instance a goblin uses the shifty ability I describe the game technical details of it. There is after all less than 6 seconds from you are aware of the creatures until you actually have to decide what to do. Knowledge checks is something I would let the players use in advance, or if scouting mobs out.I will tell my players what mobs are heavily armored (good ac), which ones are barely standing still (good reflex) and which ones are hulking brutes (good fort). I am not quite sure if a good will defense has any visual clues. I will give clues about Elites - about how tough they look, or higher level mobs. Solo's usually have their own distinct look and no additional information from me have been necessary.Giving players information about what their characters can percept isn't the same as telling the players what abilities to use. It's quite the opposite. The players need to react and exploit the weaknesses and avoid their strengths. A tactical player* will do this, while a less tactical player will just ignore the feedback his character is getting.*It might be worthwhile to mention that there are plenty of role playing reasons not to act on what the DM has described. Your character might be less perceptive than others or so focused on a single goal that he will ignore anything else. This usually enhances the game a lot and makes it easier for me as a DM to give out information without unbalancing the game. Personally I dislike it strongly when there is some game-mechanical effect that isn't described. There is no way to react intelligently to it - neither as a player or character. With the information as a player I can decide what my character knows.[offtopic]I think that using sentences like "other lamo spoon feeding suggestions" that KarinsDad is using, and words like "BadWrongFun" that Hellzon is using is just going to take this discussion right down the drain. It is not constructive at all. I am getting a bit tired when people ridicules somebody for having another opinion. Respect others opinions. Dnd is a game and there is certainly more than one way to play it and no "right" way to play it.[/offtopic]</blockquote>

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