Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="iserith" data-source="post: 6825578" data-attributes="member: 97077">As with any action a player describes for his or her character, you'll have to decide whether it succeeds outright, fails outright, or has an uncertain outcome at which point you can call for an ability check. In order to decide this, it's important in my view to fully understand the character's goal and approach.A typical goal and approach to figuring out what a monster can do is "I draw upon my knowledge of beasts gleaned through many years in the wild to discern this monster's secrets." If it is indeed a natural beast, the DM might call for an Intelligence check with a DC appropriate to the relative obscurity of the monster being faced. This will vary according to the setting, of course. What is common in your setting may be rare in another. But as with any check, you basically can't go wrong with using 10, 15, or 20. Personally, I make iconic D&D creatures a 10, anything else a 15, and stuff I've created myself a 20. I would suggest letting the player ask whether a proficiency they have applies to the check.The real question in my view is what to do if the check fails. I recommend you provide full information on a successful check and partial information on a failed check. Information I typically include is what the monster is called and its strengths and weaknesses. On a failed check, I might just say its name and strengths. Another decent failure condition (in combat) is to have it cost an action instead of being "free" or to impose the frightened condition as the character discovers an unwelcome truth about what he or she faces. Just be sure the player is aware of the stakes prior to the roll. A reasonable failure condition keeps pig piling on recalling lore on monsters to a minimum in my experience.Of course, one of my DM advice posts wouldn't be complete unless I suggested telegraphing the monster's strengths and weakness via description so that players who are paying attention have an opportunity to deduce them without trying to recall lore and proc an Intelligence check.</blockquote>

Verification