What's an 'auto aid'? Is that a bard thing I don't know about?
If you have a +9 bonus, you can't fail on a DC 10 Aid Another check.
My two cents: Of course you can Aid Another on a Knowledge check (assuming you have ranks in it, if the DC is too high to make untrained).
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Ok so the rules do not explicitly state that you cannot aid another on a knowledge check. However, the rules do say "The GM might impose
further restrictions to aiding another on a case-by-case
basis as well."
My understanding is that a knowledge check is what your character happens to know about something off the top of his/her/its head. Not what the groups collective knowledge is.
The person who rolls the highest on a knowledge check already knows whatever the person who rolled lower knows and is not helped by their input.
I do allow aid another on gather information which can often yield similar information to the players.
As far as I know the only check which says you cannot use aid another on is UMD.
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3) Does it matter? Say for Gather Information at the start of the adventure (the most common roll).
That'd be fine.
But more importantly - when would they NOT be able to aid?
When they couldn't conceivably pool their mental resources, e.g.
- standing in front of an NPC and not in a position to discuss the relevant topic- to identify a humanoid monster and its powers or vulnerabilities in the heat of battle. Especially in a situation when some of the potential 'aiders' are flat-footed.
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Example 1:
picking a scene from a popular movie (popular with me anyway).
in the Mummy, during a fight with undead, someone is reading the book of the dead, and can't remember the word for "the stork!" - and shouts out the question... remember? (am I aiding you?)Example 2:
Policeman: "Where are you going in such a hurry?"
Paniced man behind the wheel: "the Hospital!"
Policeman: "Which one?"
P.M.B.T.W.: "Ah-ah..." points up street...
Woman in labor from backseat: "Barns Jewish on 15th!"
Policeman: "follow me."
What are these examples of?
Have you encountered judges in PFS who do NOT allow Aid Another on Knowledge Checks?
To be honest, I don't see it happen very often. Why? Because if you have multiple people who are trained in a particular Knowledge skill, you're quite possibly better off (from a probability standpoint) having multiple people roll instead of aiding each other. For instance, in your example you're off having the wizard and the bard both rolling about half the time so it's basically a toss-up (unless you have metagame knowledge that suggests that the DC is between 21 and 25, say).
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Aid Another
You can help someone achieve success on a skill check by making the same kind of skill check in a cooperative effort. If you roll a 10 or higher on your check, the character you're helping gets a +2 bonus on his or her check. (You can't take 10 on a skill check to aid another.) In many cases, a character's help won't be beneficial, or only a limited number of characters can help at once.In cases where the skill restricts who can achieve certain results, such as trying to open a lock using Disable Device, you can't aid another to grant a bonus to a task that your character couldn't achieve alone. The GM might impose further restrictions to aiding another on a case-by-case basis as well.
Things of note:
- You can't take 10 on to aid another.
- If you want to aid another on a trained only skill, you have to be able to capable of achieving success alone.
- GMs can restrict aid another for any skill at any time based off of their judgement. See: "or only a limited number of characters can help at once" which could be "limited" to zero, and, "The GM might impose further restrictions to aiding another on a case-by-case basis"
Personally I don not allow aid another on knowledge checks. What other players can do is make their own knowledge checks and get different pieces of information than others who succeeded on their check (effectively the same as aid another). This also lets everyone take 10 as long as they aren't in a stressful situation (unless they're a bard).
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You need to have a board jockey to clarify the very vague take 10 rules out of the book. Expect table variation.
Whether you can aid another is up to the DM, especially one something as odd as a knowledge check.
How many people can aid another is up to the dm. They could cap it at 1 if they allow it.
Whether people can retroactively aid another instead of making their own check is also a bit of a dm's call. Who's making it and who's the helper is something some dm's like to know ahead of time.
Please consider this:
"...if you have multiple people who are trained in a particular Knowledge skill, you're quite possibly better off (from a probability standpoint) having multiple people roll instead of aiding each other." Is not true. It will have you fail simple things more often in fact.
You read my exception about situations where you have metagame knowledge that the DC is in a certain range, right? If you're sure the DC is "simple", then of course you're better off not rolling (and you probably don't even have to Aid Another). I thought that was obvious.
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IMHO: The only time you would want to NOT T10 & Aid is when you are Meta-gaming. "This check is hard, we should all roll so one of us might roll a 20...".
This is a very intersting statement. I would say it is the opposite. You only want to T10 & Aid another if you Meta Game and think you succeed.
Average 'roll' if two characters try to roll a d20 = 13.8
Max. 'roll' if one character tries to T10 and the other to aid = 12
So mathematically you are worse of (on average) to take 10 followed by aid
UNLESS you know that T10 + 2 will likely give you 100% success compensating for the inferior mathemathics as rolling D20 twice has a chance of failure if 1 isn't enough to succeed.
Nosig - I know that you are one of the rare people who T10 KNOWING they will fail. But mathematically without any other information T10 and a single helper is inferior - unless you can guess that you have a good chance.
Edit: Was working on the math and took Nosig's statement out of context as I applied it on the original example of knowledge 9 and 9. There is a threshold by which the best memeber needs to be better when this can turn the other way round.
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Here is another reason not always to allow aiding in knowledge checks.
CRB writes:
Action: Usually none. In most cases, a knowledge check doesn't take an action (but see untrained below).
I surely would say that aid another is an action - as such you can only aid if the knowledge check itself is preformed in a way that makes it into an action.
Example: The group is in a cavern and finds an inscription needing a knowledge check.
Character A takes out his Pathfinder chronicle to study it (1 minute time). It now is an action. This time allows others to find out information that might aid and I likely would allow it.
But the rules themselve say - knowledge usually (not always !!) are not an action. I see this as usualle (not always !!) that you can't aid.
Off course you often have the option to roleplay it in a way that allows an aid and no problems here. But this needs to be an active decision by the group.
In the end it is playstyle.
Do they like to try each seperate - and in this case I hand out the DC10 information to the one lowest, DC15 to the next and so on
or
Do you prefer to have someone leading the information gathering and it is always this character who gets all info and you help to ensure the amound of info is maximized.
Nothing wrong in either way of playing.
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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Knowledge (whatever) to identify a critter is a free action, but not an immediate action. Aid another is a standard action. (CRB: page 197. "You can also use this standard action to help a friend in other ways, such as when he is affected by a spell, or to assist another character's skill check.")
If your wizard wants to poll the rest of the party to find out what everybody knows about the ravenous rhododendron chewing on his arm, asking for Aid Another rolls, he'll need to wait until everybody else has a turn, uses up their standard actions, and then make his Knowledge (plants) roll the next round.
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Knowledge (whatever) to identify a critter is a free action, but not an immediate action. Aid another is a standard action. (CRB: page 197. "You can also use this standard action to help a friend in other ways, such as when he is affected by a spell, or to assist another character's skill check.")
If your wizard wants to poll the rest of the party to find out what everybody knows about the ravenous rhododendron chewing on his arm, asking for Aid Another rolls, he'll need to wait until everybody else has a turn, uses up their standard actions, and then make his Knowledge (plants) roll the next round.
Chris, could another party member do an Aid Another for an 7th level Lore Warden using their "Know Thy Enemy" ability? It is a Knowledge (monster) check, but is a standard action.
And what about at 14th level, when it can be done as a swift action instead of a standard action?
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I would ask you to reconsider your stance on aid another and knowledge checks.
I see no reason to reconsider it.
For that matter, I'm pretty strict on aiding another.
- I ask players to declare they are aiding another or checking themselves before any numbers are thrown around.
- After someone rolls a skill check or declares the result via taking ten, I no longer allow an aid another (i.e. no retroactively aiding).
- I usually ask the party to tell me who's doing the talking before we start a diplomatic encounter. The person(s) making the check need to do the majority of the talking. If you don't like to talk but want to be the face, we can just roll dice, but you lose out on getting an arbitrary circumstance bonus based on your dialogue.
- I let players know that if they aid another on a diplomacy check and fail by 5 or more (i.e. 5 or less), they actually provide a -2 penalty to the person making the check. This is an extension of the diplomacy rule of failing by 5 or more and is a gray enough area that you're welcome to disagree with me here. From a legal standpoint consider it a circumstance penalty. If you're the type of character that can't reliably get a 6 on a diplomacy check, you shouldn't be part of the conversation.
- Usually for disable device, I only allow one person to aid if they have the skill. Too many hands causes problems.
- Appraise is also something I don't think I'd normally let others aid on. Of course, usually you're better off having more than one person make the check (of which is one of the very very few I roll in secret).
Some other skills that it doesn't usually make sense to aid another on:
- Acrobatics
- Handle Animal
- Sense Motive
- Perception
- Ride
- Stealth
- Swim
Some where it may not be obvious:
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Acrobatics
-Alley OOP. this is the entire point of the guy standing there throwing people around.
Handle Animal
my cat not only appreciates two people petting him at once he DEMANDS it. I've also seen one person pushing a donkey while the other was trying to push it. (the one behind got a 1)
Sense Motive
gotta agree there.
Perception
Definitely, unless they've already seen it.
Ride
"Ease back on the reins a bit, stop bouncing around, and for gods sake, wash the dragon entrails off of you, you're scaring the poor thing"
Stealth
HEY EVERYONE! LOOK AT ME ! "go bob go..."
Swim
Cross chest carry.
As far as I can tell you can aid on the Know check if the GM allows it. For monster ID or something under pressure probably not. For a check when there is time to pool our collective memories sure.
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Here is a relevant feat - Collective Recollection. Isn't be all - end all, but thought it was relevant to the discussion.
This is a subject that I'm going to have to admit is going to have to be relented to the GM. Like evil spells (which at least there's a current ruling on those), it's a soft spot for some.
I don't think the feat stops you from doing it out of combat just we now (sadly, again as a feat/item) have a method for combat memory jogging.
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Here is a relevant feat - Collective Recollection. Isn't be all - end all, but thought it was relevant to the discussion.
This is a subject that I'm going to have to admit is going to have to be relented to the GM. Like evil spells (which at least there's a current ruling on those), it's a soft spot for some.
Ah! so now it's a Teamwork feat, which means that NOW we actually CAN'T "jog each other’s memories to remember essential facts" without this feat.
Sort of like Potion Sponge.
Sigh.
I think I am just going to switch over to playing CORE from now on.
Take a closer look at the feat. It makes it a free action it doesn't mean you can't normally do that as a standard action when you're standing around the bar packing up what you might need for your trip into the werewoods.
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Ah! so now it's a Teamwork feat, which means that NOW we actually CAN'T "jog each other’s memories to remember essential facts" without this feat.
It does two things, allows a player to use aid another as a free action
(normally they would need to use a standard to aid, which is why many times when players get knowledge checks to ID monster for free they can't be aided because I've never seen a player actually spend actions on it.)
It also allows both people to know the information which means that the person with the info doesn't need to speak the information.
Remember when players start shouting out monster vulnerabilities in combat the monster can probably hear them and if they're intelligent use that to their advantage.
I missed that but BNW has the right of it. Same a Ensemble allowing aid as an immediate action it doesn't prevent you from aiding on perform just makes it faster.
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My opinion on Aiding Knowledge checks:
I don't generally allow it (certainly not for in-combat know checks for monsters) RAW (under Retry?): No. The check represents what you know, and thinking about a topic a second time doesn’t let you know something that you never learned in the first place.
Since it represents 'what you know' then aid other is not possible.
Now, it could be easily argued that people working together can better recall information, or perhaps piece together bits of individual to build up better collective knowledge. I'd argue though that is 'Research' not 'knowledge' but it's a fine line and pedantic. :)
That is where the context is important - and there are various examples in PFS where Knowledge skills are used for research (Blackcros Connection for one) and aid other is used.
Unfortunately the same is true for a number of skills Including Perception.
So, IMO
Perception to 'spot things' = no aid other.
Perception to 'find things' (eg searching a room) = yes to aid other.