Cormacolinde
First Post
Here's how I do this kind of stuff as a DM.
I work on the assumption that as they fight an enemy, their knowledge of the enemy improves. Also, as they increase in level, their knowledge of the world also increases. So the first time they encounter a type of creature, I'm very generic: "short green-skinned humanoid". No information about powers, defenses or abilities, but I do mention the armor type they're wearing which helps them identify high AC creatures.
As the fight goes on, I then tend to zero in more on their stats: "This enemy's reflexes don't seem very high compared to their armor", or "You had little trouble hitting their will in the last few attacks". I also identify the powers used by the enemies by their name AND general effect so they can learn to counter it in subsequent encounters. Usually after a fight has gone on for a while I'll just give them the values they need to hit. They've usually figured out after 4 rounds on their own that the boss has say an AC of 30 or 31. There's no need to try fooling them.
Regarding health, I have about 4 levels of description I go buy:
- "he's taken some damage" when above half
- "he's bloodied" when a creature gets below half health
- "he's taken quite a bit of damage" when they're below a quarter
- And when they're at a level where any single attack will finish off the enemy, I do funny stuff like "your attacked just chopped off an arm/ear/etc, he lost an eye and is bleeding profusely, etc" so they know the enemy is almost dead.
As they re-encounter the same type of enemies, I use descriptions but also I'll juggle their memory saying they look similar to some encountered before, "they have the same gear as those guys you met last time who floored the wizard with that cool move" or something like that.
I work on the assumption that as they fight an enemy, their knowledge of the enemy improves. Also, as they increase in level, their knowledge of the world also increases. So the first time they encounter a type of creature, I'm very generic: "short green-skinned humanoid". No information about powers, defenses or abilities, but I do mention the armor type they're wearing which helps them identify high AC creatures.
As the fight goes on, I then tend to zero in more on their stats: "This enemy's reflexes don't seem very high compared to their armor", or "You had little trouble hitting their will in the last few attacks". I also identify the powers used by the enemies by their name AND general effect so they can learn to counter it in subsequent encounters. Usually after a fight has gone on for a while I'll just give them the values they need to hit. They've usually figured out after 4 rounds on their own that the boss has say an AC of 30 or 31. There's no need to try fooling them.
Regarding health, I have about 4 levels of description I go buy:
- "he's taken some damage" when above half
- "he's bloodied" when a creature gets below half health
- "he's taken quite a bit of damage" when they're below a quarter
- And when they're at a level where any single attack will finish off the enemy, I do funny stuff like "your attacked just chopped off an arm/ear/etc, he lost an eye and is bleeding profusely, etc" so they know the enemy is almost dead.
As they re-encounter the same type of enemies, I use descriptions but also I'll juggle their memory saying they look similar to some encountered before, "they have the same gear as those guys you met last time who floored the wizard with that cool move" or something like that.
