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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Beginning of the End" data-source="post: 5068017" data-attributes="member: 55271">Making the checks secretly seems like the proper solution. Alternatively, you could just make them passive checks (assume the PCs always Take 10 on these Knowledge checks and you can simply compare the party's highest scores to the Knowledge DC of the monster).OTOH, you shouldn't be making the checks secretly just so you don't have to give info to the players: There are lots of creatures and monsters that it would be logical for the PCs to recognize.On the gripping hand, I think the rules for identifying creatures with monster checks are positively ridiculous. A higher CR shouldn't make it more difficult to recognize a monster. Quite the contrary: The more dangerous a creature is, the more likely for it to be famous far-and-wide. Smaug should not be difficult for the local villagers to recognize.Creature knowledge should be based on the rarity of that information and nothing else. Information can range from the obvious ("that's a humanoid; it's got two arms, two legs, and a head") to the general ("that's a troll-spawn, one of many creatures magically created from troll-stock") to the specific ("that's a blue-speckled troll-spawn; don't hit it with metallic weapons or you'll get hit with a nasty electrical shock") to the esoteric ("blue-speckled troll spawn were created by the Archmage Findallius in the 3rd century RD").In general, I just set a DC identifying the creature by name. Score a little below that and you might be able to draw some broad conclusions about its characteristics from general observation. And for every point or two you score above the DC, I'll start handing out specific mechanical information about its abilities.</blockquote>

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