Is it really so bad for sufficiently high knowledge/lore skill rolls to reveal most, if not all...

It isn't the character that's supposed to learn the stats, but its player that then conveys them in in-universe terms through his character.

Is it really so bad for sufficiently high seduce skill rolls to let you fuck the DM's girlfriend in front of him irl? It rewards heavily sexy characters.

But the player's knowledge should still come from what the character knows, right?

I'm not opposed to players knowing NPC stats, but it'd be tied to some sort of sixth sense sort of ability, not just knowledge/lore... I guess knowledge/lore of appropriate level could transcend into that sort of ability, though.

An alternative would be long time study; I'm totally fine with characters estimating that a T-rex does 4d12+8 bite damage after they threw a few sheep its way or something.

>I'm totally fine with characters estimating that a T-rex does 4d12+8 bite damage
How?

Sorry, I sent that before really thinking about it. I mean I'd give out the damage values because I feel the fighty type, should he be experienced enough, could estimate "hmm, I could last for about a minute against that thing", or some other number.

Is there any problem with players acquiring OOC knowledge and then relaying it IC? Can't you just say that your PC knows more or less how durable (armor and HP) and vicious (attacks and damage) various beasts are, along with their special abilities and tactics, and they can relay that knowledge to others in your party which translates into players being able to see the statblock in question?

The fact that they are an abstraction means that if a PC knows roughly how strong something is, it's perfectly reasonable for the PC's player to see what the abstraction of that strength is. The idea isn't that the character knows that the monster is represented by a set of numbers, but rather that the character's understanding of the monster's strengths and weaknesses is best conveyed to a player by just showing them the numbers OOC rather than a DM trying to bullshit a useful explanation without discussing game mechanics at all.

That said, I personally prefer a general description of a creatures stats and special abilities. I've been in games where it has been done both ways, and I think that passing over a statblock takes players too far out of the game.

You're telling the player something that you then expect them to pretend they don't know. Why the fuck would you do that when you can just not tell them? What's the benefit of doing that?

Why would I tell them to pretend they don't know? The whole point is them knowing the stats and abilities of what they fight as long as they pass a knowledge roll or prepare beforehand.

You as players know the monster has 185 hitpoints.

The character known that the monster is pretty tough, in relation to other monsters they fought depending on where 185 is high in your system. This isn't fucking rocket science.

>That said, I personally prefer a general description of a creatures stats and special abilities.
Sure takes a long time.

No I don't see any problem with this if the roll is good enough.

You can obsfucate the numbers into description to a degree but really what's the point of investing in a knowledge skill if the DM is just going to blue ball you and tell you nothing anyway. DM's seem to have a massive hard on for not telling the players jack shit and think this increases immersion when ironically it does the exact opposite as it's impossible to actually roleplay - i.e make decisions as though you were your character if you don't have enough information to make an informed decision in the first place. Yes a degree of uncertainty is an important aspect but the players will often know so little anyway about what is happening as they can't mind read the DM that that uncertainty always exists irrespective of how much information you tell your players. Not to mention dice are literally a further method of creating uncertainty wired into the game.

Granted I think information you get in the heat of the moment say in combat or just before should be less than information you get if you actively go and do research but overall giving the players lots and lots of true information is almost always better than the alternative.

Whatever happened to that gut instinct of "I could take this guy in a fight"?

>The character known that the monster is pretty tough, in relation to other monsters they fought depending on where 185 is high in your system. This isn't fucking rocket science.
How would you ever say this in a way that makes sense in character?

>It would make more sense if it was phrased in an unabstracted manner such as "the lions bite is very strong, he'd be able to tear through fighters armor in only a few bites"

But "a few bites" IS abstracted, you mong.

"So yeah the Lion Dragon does 5d10 damage with his fangs."
"Hey guys watch out, that Lion Dragon can snap you in half one bite!"

I think it could easily be a knowledge checks, like something like a character who extensively studies monsters and people and has an understanding of how creatures move and fight and using that knowledge and intuition the character can accurately (or as close as possible) gauge an enemies strengths and abilities. Sort of like
>Judging by that man's stance, the way he shifts his center of gravity forward, and how he keeps on the balls of his feet, he likely moves around rapidly while he fights, and with the way he is holding that dagger, lightly but not so light he may lose it, he is skilled in knife fights, possibly swapping his grip around to strike in a variety of ways. His clothes are thick and baggy, but looking closely I can see his limbs must be long and thin, so don't underestimate his reach, I'd gauge he has an extra inch of reach!

I don't have a problem with it but always tie degrees to how much one knows.
Succeeding alone tells you if it appears armored, armed, magical. Basic checkbox stuff.
Further degrees give one detail apiece. It looks like its a creature that charges, there's something a bit more menacing than drool dripping from it's jaws, the spines on it's back jostle and shift in a way that implies they might have some nefarious machinations, the light escaping from it's chest gives you a deep feeling that it's weakness lies behind the ribs.
If they super destroy the roll they can have a rough estimate of Max health and it's Minimum-Maximum damage on it's attack, or gain a bonus to avoiding some effect.

Just don't make it everything or nothing, as that's retarded.

>thinking an extra inch of reach matters

As a gm I let them know the stats if they roll high enough unless it's a unique monster. Something they wouldn't know about. Or if it's something that has variation. A knowlege roll will tell you what powers a vampire has but not what abilities an individual vampire has (str, spells, etc)

It does to a skilled rogue who has deadly poison knives

"Geez this Tyrannosaurus is HUGE, it's going to be much harder to stop this than the dire badger we fought last week"

So say tell him "hmm, you estimate you could last for about a minute against that thing", or some other number.

Huge is a size category, not HP.

"About a minute" is vague as fuck.

>it's Minimum-Maximum damage on it's attack
Why not just say the dice and the bonus?

Players knowing the game rules shit like "Oh, that monster has 10d10+20 hit points" or "Trolls regenerate unless you use fire or acid" is absolutely fine - zero harm comes from players knowing that stuff. Especially because the information that rules stuff represents has in-character representation, such as things with a lot of hit points looking like they are tough bastards, so the player knowing the details gives them a more accurate estimation of what their character can see.

Some DMs get confused though, and think that a player having their character do some particular thing needs to be vetted, and rejected if the player is found to be aware of the outcome - they will stop an experienced player from having their character perform some action in the given scenario that they'd applaud a know-nothing newbie for thinking of. Missing entirely that such a judgement is of what the PLAYER is thinking, rather than what is actually possible for the CHARACTER to be thinking. And the ironic part is all the DMs that fall into this trap insist they are "preventing meta-gaming" when the harsh reality is that they are forcing their players to meta-game, but use the knowledge their character doesn't have to ensure the character makes a poor choice instead of a good one, no matter how obvious it might seem (i.e. "I'll try killing this scary fucking monster I've never seen before with fire because fire kills pretty much everything I've ever heard of that isn't already on fire")

What it really boils down to, in my experience, is that some DMs get that the challenge of the game is not figuring out the monster's statistics through trial and error - it's making your plan to deal with the monster work even though dice, those fickle bastards they are, are involved.

Party Total HP / Monster average damage = Estimated time to doom

But then you have to take into account hit chances, other defenses, etc.

>But then you have to take into account hit chances, other defenses, etc.
What part of monster average damage don't you get? That takes into account all that stuff.

Calculating that is a nightmare against a whole party.

I only find it a pain because it means that I have to write out a ton of stats for my homebrewed enemies or not use them at all.

>Is it really so bad for sufficiently high knowledge/lore skill rolls to reveal most, if not all, of the statistics of a monster?

Nope. I allow checks like that to get varying degrees of monster stats. Exact numbers and abilities, no less. Even if they flunk the roll, then just fighting the monster I will eventually give them stuff like PC, their current hit points, and so forth.

>It rewards heavily educated characters.
That's not the reason I do it though. I do it for the sake of making sure combat doesn't become a slog.

You're asking the GM to simulate the entire encounter beforehand just to throw out an answer to a lore check.

Literally at that point just giving the players the stays is giving out less information.

Id say its reasonable to know tons of info, but not stats.

How much health does a cow have? Whats the constitution of a giraffe? How many attacks does a swarm of rats get? These are basic questions that even experts would guess at because they're abstractions, not real information.

Playing a smart character is its own reward, you just have to apply yourself. Ive got an alchemist in my BoL game who constantly complains he's not given the limelight, but he never deploys his smarts in an interesting way.

>Is it really so bad for sufficiently high knowledge/lore skill rolls to reveal most, if not all, of the statistics of a monster?

I think it's a great idea which should be done.

No, he should totally let you.

Personally, no. In D&D, what does knowing the stats do other than make save or suck spells better? It provides no other benefit than making Wizards (and other INT based spellcasters) an even better class.

>even when every GM subconsciously metagames against the PCs' abilities anyway?
GMs and players are not equals. Stop assuming that the GM and players must operate on completely even playing fields.

This is how it's supposed to be done. Knowledge checks allow your character insights into the monster's abilities, their strengths and weaknesses, and minor details about lore/ecology. Knowledge checks are not for specific stats, there's no reason for a player to need to know this and it breaks immersion to a degree. If the player needs to know the likelihood of hitting on an attack so they can make informed decisions on abilities that sacrifice accuracy for power or such, that kind of thing comes from the initial description of the monster. You don't need to be educated to look at something and realize it's got thick-looking scales or is wearing full plate. Requiring knowledge checks for such obvious things is dumb, and rewarding knowledge checks with specific statistics is pointless.

It went away when you turned out to be wrong anyway because of shit rolls.

Let me tell you something, user. People always care about that extra inch above average.

It's 3-4 seconds of math. I've seen people take more time reading dice.

Your Ale Wench did