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If a party encounters a monster that is not stock from the books, how would you handle that information via knowledge checks?

As an example, let's say they're facing off against a hill giant with a couple levels of fighter and increased physical stats. First off, would the DC be based on the monster's current HD, or the HD of the base creature? What happens if the party rolls in between those numbers? (Well, it sure looks like a hill giant, but you can't be sure?) Certainly I wouldn't expect the players to find out *that it has fighter levels in particular*, but if the monster is using unusual weaponry and armaments how would that rank in the scale of useful information? Similarly, if the monster is, say, 4 points over the standard strength of a monster of its type, would that be something the player should be able to tell from a Knowledge check? Should it be one of the first pieces of information given? Should you exhaust the base creature's abilities before getting into that? Is all of this just GM discretion?

My team is running into a real problem with Inside Lucrehold. Since all of the henchmen are Draugr Captains, there is a very high chance (every attempt so far) of there being one at the Temple of Besmara location. Now, the Draugr Captain is immune to the Swashbuckling trait, and the location Temple of Besmara gives all checks "the Pirate or Swashbuckling trait". So, is the Draugr Captain sitting at the Temple of Besmara just completely invulnerable? Even if you chase the villain to that location, you have at best a 50/50 shot of encountering it before the Captain, and encountering the captain makes you pitch your hand unless you have armor to absorb the 27 damage you're about to take.

It just seems like it can't be the spirit of the game that there exists henchman that is literally impossible to hurt. I think this is an unintended effect of the two cards in tandem. Thoughts?

As a Musketeer, Lirianne can take a power feat for the ability to discard a weapon in order to defeat a barrier with the Cache, Lock, or Skirmish trait. So, what happens when Lirianne encounters the Enemy Ship henchman? It is a barrier with the Skirmish trait. Similar powers state that it allows you to succeed at a check to defeat the thing it's letting you defeat, in which case this would not be a question, as there is no check to defeat the Enemy Ship, but Lirianne's power skips that phrase and simply allows you to defeat.

Therefore, where you would summon a random ship and make a check against the ship, reading Lirianne's power it seems I could just discard a gun and defeat the barrier without even bothering to see what the ship was (forgoing plunder and the ability to seize anything). Thoughts?