[Rasorow]

While I agree with you as far as you took players reading the Monster Manual... the problem is DMs dont generally make allowances for what characters would know that players dont. For example my characters universally have been ranger/clerics with undead as the favored enemy. Not one DM has bothered to ever explained the effect of weapons (sharp vs blunt) on skeletons a common undead that my character would have studied at some point either as a ranger to kill them more effectively or as a cleric as part of basic religion class. So as a player, I read the Monster Manual and had to decide for myself what the character would know.

As a DM my solution was to customize the monsters so the characters never quite knew what they were facing though I never strayed to far from the generalities in the book. The key is the book is only a guide... House Rules are invited - as long as the DM disclosing them in the beginning and sticks to them.

Rasorow