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Message: <blockquote data-quote="hong" data-source="post: 1889301" data-attributes="member: 537">Big claw marks on a tree can be 1) a Huge dragon; 2) a Large dragon; 3) a wyvern; 4) a dire bear; 5) a manticore; 6) an owlbear; 7) a dire boar. That's a potential range in CRs of 4 to 18. Yes, CRs are inaccurate and the real challenge is situation-dependent yadda yadda, but I'm sure you'll agree that a Huge dragon is still a bit more dangerous than a dire animal.So, if I'm part of a 10th level party, what am I supposed to do when told about these claw marks? If the DM gives me this kind of information every time we meet a monster, and it has no bearing on whether the monster is a survivable fight, then it's effectively useless to me. It's just flavour, and while flavour is always nice to have, it won't affect my decision-making process at all. Now you might say that it should be a hint to be cautious and extra-careful, but if the DM has a history of having things we can't defeat pop up, then we're going to be cautious and extra-careful anyway, even without this sort of non-informative information.Conversely, if the DM only gives me this information when the monster would be a tough fight, then we're back to metagaming again.D&D is kinda unique among games in catering to such a huge range of character power. For that reason, it's almost impossible to avoid at least some metagaming, when it comes to creating encounters. The trick is to ensure it's the sort of metagaming that's acceptable to your players.</blockquote>

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