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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Quickleaf" data-source="post: 7524044" data-attributes="member: 20323">Generally, all that stuff in the MM that's not in the stat block (as well as years of D&D monster lore stored in my head). If they roll high like DC 15+, then I start weaving hints of pertinent stat block info into the lore, but I'll never explicitly say "troll regeneration is prevented by fire damage", for example.I don't just consider the skill and the monster, but a bunch of other information about the character (e.g. background, race, class, story/history). For example, when a grung PC asks about details about grung society/culture or the PC's city-of-origin, I treat that as an auto-success. The PC just knows. And then play carries on.The key to remember about making a roll – including a lore roll – in 5e is that you only bother rolling when the outcome is uncertain, in other words, when there's a chance of failure. What the rules don't tell you is how to adjudicate what a failed lore check means.So, here's an example from actual play: My party made a tentative alliance with a NPC who *seemed* to be the estranged father of the half-elf sorcerer PC; in actuality, the NPC was a deathlock whose identity was concealed with disguise self. The NPC "father" had control over a couple wights who in turn had control over a bunch of zombies; he played this off as learning how to control undead while traveling through an undead-infested jungle. They teamed up to solve a puzzle.  However, through various subtle social moves – e.g. a Deception check to discretely cast identify as a ritual on the NPC while talking, revealing the enchantment effect – the PCs had reason to be suspicious. As they were finishing solving the the puzzle, one of the players – anticipating this "alliance" was about to go south – wanted to recall lore about wights. And several players also dog-piled on that desire to recall lore.Previously while exploring this dungeon they'd encountered a deathlock wight and its zombie servitors. So they knew from that fight that the wight had resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from non-magical sources. I ruled this was an Intelligence (Religion) check because wights are strongly tied to the religious mythology of the adventure. However, before the players rolled, I stipulated that if the check result was below DC 10, then the NPC would be alerted that the PCs were on to him. That deterred several of the "throw away rollers", such that it was just the grung sage druid PC making the check. He rolled a '15' IIRC.I said something like: "You've heard stories of ancient human civilizations in the jungle whose aristocrats and priests voluntarily become undead, their wicked hearts and minds sworn in service to the dark entity that granted them undeath. While human sages and lorebooks refer to them as "wights", grung shamans know them as "desiccated men" and fear them for draining the life-giving waters that grung depend on. The ritual turning them undead makes them hateful of life and refused by the light of day. It is said that the moon was so offended by the sight of these wights crawling from their ruined cities at night that she cursed them to reveal their true forms under her light."What I did here was introduce the basic lore of wights, tied it to deathlocks a bit, and then added a spin on it suitable to the PC's race (grung). I then strongly hinted at their Sunlight Sensitivity, provided what may or may not have been a bit of misinformation about the effect moonlight has on their disguise self, and also very very subtly hinted at the power silver to hurt them (as silver is symbolically connected to the moon in many belief systems).</blockquote>

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