Monster Knowledge checks (4e D&D)

[DNH]

I run a game of 4e D&D using FG2 and I have a little bit of a problem with the Monster Knowledge checks. In short, no bugger uses them! VTTs are brilliant for many reasons but one thing they (can) completely destroy is player knowledge of what is attacking them. Tokens on the map are named and any player can see that by hovering over it. So when a player sees the name "Goblin Raider" or "Orc Drudge", they don't want to know anything more. I have *never* had a player ask to make a monster knowledge check.

There must be ways around this. I know a couple of them myself. You don't actually have to have the name of the monster showing - type anything in the chatline and drag it over to the token or the CT entry, or else type directly into the CT entry. That's okay but what if you have 16 combatants to rename? And what do you put in there anyway - "Large, ugly, green-skinned brute with tusks"? "Monster 1"?

I guess what I am asking here is what you guys do. Do you leave things as they are, let the players know all too easily what they are going up against, and write off the monster knowledge checks? Do you edit your encounters beforehand? Is there a secret hidden option I am not currently aware of to suppress the tooltipping of the monster's name on the map? (That would be the best solution imo, btw). Or something else I haven't thought of?

Cheers.

[Oberoten]

Lowest common denominator. IE : Human, Orc, Elf. They don't have a stamp on their forehead telling what their profession is.

[DNH]

Agreed. But you would still have to go through and rename them all. I guess I am looking for a magic bullet from the coders out there.

[joshuha]

In the Savage Worlds ruleset I programmed a little control you cycle though that shows the name as the monster name with full defensive stats on the player tracker, 'Unknown' with no stats, and another case with the name but no stats. Somethings similar could probably be done for 4e_jpg.

[Moon Wizard]

Joshuha, that's a good idea.

I was already thinking of something similar where the GM could have 2 names for each entry (identified and unidentified); but I think that the idea of using a simple "unknown" is simpler to code and manage. There's a chance I could even pop that into v2.0 of my ruleset.

To answer the original question, my players use knowledge checks all the time. They want to know what powers, resistances and vulnerabilities that the creatures that they face have. Luckily, they haven't bothered to memorize the MM, so letting them know the name doesn't matter.

Personally, I setup battles using the encounters book on the right side which allow you to rename creatures before they are added to the combat tracker. So the "Ice Troll" in one of my last fights was entered as "Big Hairy White Thing" instead. Then, when I added the encounter to the tracker, it was already done. And, the characters were surprised when they were slowed as the creatures closed in.

It also helps for adding tokens (if your creatures don't already have tokens). You can just assign the token once in the encounter entry, and change the encounter entry to how many of that creature should be added.

Cheers,
JPG

[Foen]

The RMC ruleset has two names for each NPC, an identified name and an unidentified name ('appears as'). This seemed like a good idea at the time, but it is less useful in the heat of the moment as it causes the GM more work (RMC doesn't have encounters), so Joshuha's suggestion probably makes good sense.

Stuart