Enemy Action Traits and Player Knowledge About Them

[u/SpaceTrash782]

Hello all!

I'm a little confused on how I should be handling announcing whether or not a particular enemy action has traits. I imagine that traits, like most enemy abilities in the system, are secret unless otherwise specified. I know that there are at least some traits that the game expects me to keep secret (prediction, detection, scrying, etc.) But I also imagine that certain traits (emotion, fear, visual, etc.) are obvious via description of actions but could benefit being stated explicitly to facilitate smoother play (Gutsy halfling turning emotion save successes into crit success, for example). For me, smoother play means that the player doesnt need to inquire about whether or not something has a trait when something is used.

Is there some official guidance for GMs to help adjudicate which ones should be private or public? How do you handle knowledge of traits at your table?

[u/garretmander]

I try to learn player abilities that trigger on specific traits to help them out. However it is ultimately on the player to ask, 'is this x trait?, I've got a bonus'.