Is the monster lore bonus included in the actual act of identifying a creature, or just in identifying the creature's strengths and weaknesses once you know what it is?
For example, a bearded devil pops up. Does an inquisitor get a monster lore bonus to a knowledge planes roll to actually figure out it is a bearded devil, or does he/she only get the bonus if the party knows it is a bearded devil and is trying to figure out that it is immune to fire, etc.?
Those are not separate things. You make a single Knowledge check when you see the monster; meeting the DC identifies it and gives you one useful piece of information. For every 5 by which that same check exceeded the DC, you get an additional piece of useful information.
ahh thanks, had a group dispute that there was a difference between identifying something and knowing details about it.
It's not related to monster lore, but I could almost see a wizard not really knowing what X monster is by sight, but once you tell him it is X monster he could tell you all sorts of stuff about it.
