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Sep 22, 2011 -- 2:16PM, Tony_Vargas wrote:

These guys tend to frustrate me while I am dming, "What that DC is only 13 I rolled a 14!" or "HOW can he FLY and cast ANOTHER spell!" I don't give them specific information for reasons of discovery. Monster might have a ring of flying for example that he prefers to have active always, said ring is a reward if the encounter is defeated successfully.

This is JMHO, but I feel that 4e plays best (especially in combat) with everything 'above board.'  Magic items are easily detected with an Arcana Check, now, and identified durring a short rest, so there's not a lot to be gained by being cagey about where an ability is coming from.  If a monster has a ring that lets it fly, make it obvious - glowy magic light coming from the ring forming into ghosly wings, the NPC rubbing the ring and saying a command word, etc - that he's using it.  In the past, letting PCs puzzle out what items might be magical and how they might work would save them limitted low-level-spell resources, so keeping things mysterious (and frustrating, at times) made sense as part of the challenge.  In 4e, it's more about the cool factor.

And simultaneously anything you want can be considered a non standard or unique item and take a minor custom ritual or side quest to figure out what it does it says so in the players handbook  ... so if that is what you want the arcana check may only give the starting clues... it can be just as much a plot pusher as it sometimes was.