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I don't present it as it appears in the stat block. If it has DR 10/Silver I say something like, you've heard that it is vulnerable to silver.
Ditto. I don't want to get into game mechanics and break the immersion, but something that makes a difference in terms of what matters, game-wise, is what I think the knowledge skill should be worth. I tend to be generous enough with the skill in general that the times when I'm stingy and cautious with giving info don't make the players irate -- they understand that sometimes you need to hold back some mystery in order to make things fun. Just setting the DC high for rare creatures gives the perfect game mechanic reason why they might not get much.
However even though I don't support that knowledge check results should be dependent on what you've just witnessed, I do feel that RD was short changed on his knowledge roll.
Agreed on both counts. I'm against the OP's assertion that the results should change based on what he witnesses. That said, I'm very firmly of the opinion the DM in this example was trying to pass off the obvious as "useful information," possibly as a way to artificially devalue the Knowledge skill. The fact that he mentioned the grapple (obvious at first glance), but then wouldn't let the PC withhold attacks for fear of damaging an engulfed ally ("that's metagaming!") in the same breath, to me smacks of a total dick move. Either tell the player about the engulfing or don't, but don't tell the player enough to guess something useful, and then refuse to allow the player to use it.
That's my only problem with many GMs these days. A lot of them are overly concerned with the rules or with their own personal illusion of power that they forget about their player's fun. It's this ever growing number of jerkwad GMs that what will ultimately doom this hobby.
This type of comment is the type that confirms (in my mind) that the OP was, in fact, over-reacting. It implies that he feels the GM has not only a right but a responsibility to bend/break their rules to give the players what they want just because they want it.
I feel that yielding to such things results in one of two issues.
~Either one player distracts from the game by arguing he should be getting more from his 'invested skills/abilities' and the other players get bored during that time (as well as that one player having an effective power-creep relative to the others.)
~Or, the group as a whole feel entitled to success in every circumstance. This results in players as a group charging into battle against every challenge, even ridiculous odds that they were meant to avoid; and the DM either has to twist rules again just to help them survive or let them die. Too much of that can ruin the fun for everyone.
I will re-iterate. While I might have given more/different info than the GM in question did, I do not believe the GM had a responsibility to give the player what he wanted just because the player feels it would make the game more fun for him. And, I don't think that one GM error falls into "ruins the game for everyone."
I'm starting to feel like Admiral Ackbar here...
The fact that he mentioned the grapple (obvious at first glance), but then wouldn't let the PC withhold attacks for fear of damaging an engulfed ally ("that's metagaming!") in the same breath, to me smacks of a total dick move. Either tell the player about the engulfing or don't, but don't tell the player enough to guess something useful, and then refuse to allow the player to use it.
Ok, this part of the discussion has comfused me for a while. I can't find where RD said that the GM refused to let the player choose his own actions due to "metagaming." That seemed to just creep up from random comments by others. Did I miss something here?
I'm against the OP's assertion that the results should change based on what he witnesses.
I've never made that assertion. I merely stated what happened and asked if I was overreacting or not. If I mad any kind of assertion, it was that successful skill checks should be USEFUL rather than worthless.
Others have made that assertion, or claimed that I have made it when I didn't. I guess they think it's easier to paint me as an "immature poster whining that he didn't get his way" in order to win some imagined (and meaningless) argument rather than help a sincere poster learn from a potentially bad situation.
I can't find where RD said that the GM refused to let the player choose his own actions due to "metagaming." That seemed to just creep up from random comments by others. Did I miss something here?
Page 2, about a fourth of the way down. Wednesday, 6:49 am, Ravingdork said: "Instead, I was forced to "not metagame" and lightning bolt my allies over and over again in order to kill the cloakers attacking them. I'm sure I did more damage to them in the end. Sure makes my 22 intelligence wizard look/feel REALLY stupid."
I can't find where RD said that the GM refused to let the player choose his own actions due to "metagaming." That seemed to just creep up from random comments by others. Did I miss something here?Page 1 or 2. Wednesday, 6:49 am, Ravingdork said: "Instead, I was forced to "not metagame" and lightning bolt my allies over and over again in order to kill the cloakers attacking them. I'm sure I did more damage to them in the end. Sure makes my 22 intelligence wizard look/feel REALLY stupid."
Mind you, this is more indicative of my emotional state at the time than of actual events.
To all of those posters who claim that knowledge check results should be static regardless of circumstances, I ask you this:
Sage A and Sage B see a horrific monster maul their gardener. Upon seeing the creature, they both make knowledge checks to identify the creature and find some useful information that might allow them to save their gardener.
Sage A's check is high enough to learn two pieces of useful information, while Sage B's check nets him three pieces of useful information.
Should A's check be made pointless because B came up with the same check, netting the same info +1 tidbit?
Or should BOTH their checks be made useful as they both come up with different bits of useful information? (After all, not everyone learns the same things or comes to the same conclusions.)
Umm ... you *sure* on that not making the assertion there, buddy?
You're describing 2 successful checks, NEITHER of which reaching the higher DC, yet demanding *more* knowledge gained for having 2 people roll. You'd also previously posited similar results with more characters ==> more bits of info gleaned.
*shakes head in laughter*
Man ... THIS thread ...
Now I *am* totally backing the idea of the "you don't know that! You can't meta-game!" stuff on the GM's side bull! Even if you know JACK about a cloaker, as reasoned by anyone that *thinks* about it (and RD's character) it's fully reasonable to assume you could fry your buddy with a line/AoE effect. So, yeah ... that's just an ass-hat move right there.
To all of those posters who claim that knowledge check results should be static regardless of circumstances, I ask you this:
Sage A and Sage B see a horrific monster maul their gardener. Upon seeing the creature, they both make knowledge checks to identify the creature and find some useful information that might allow them to save their gardener.
Sage A's check is high enough to learn two pieces of useful information, while Sage B's check nets him three pieces of useful information.
Should A's check be made pointless because B came up with the same check, netting the same info +1 tidbit?
Or should BOTH their checks be made useful as they both come up with different bits of useful information? (After all, not everyone learns the same things or comes to the same conclusions.)
Umm ... you *sure* on that not making the assertion there, buddy?
You're describing 2 successful checks, NEITHER of which reaching the higher DC, yet demanding *more* knowledge gained for having 2 people roll. You'd also previously posited similar results with more characters ==> more bits of info gleaned.
*shakes head in laughter*
Man ... THIS thread ...
Now I *am* totally backing the idea of the "you don't know that! You can't meta-game!" stuff on the GM's side bull! Even if you know JACK about a cloaker, as reasoned by anyone that *thinks* about it (and RD's character) it's fully reasonable to assume you could fry your buddy with a line/AoE effect. So, yeah ... that's just an ass-hat move right there.
The assertion that I was trying to make with that post was that people can and do come up with different (and accurate) information when they think about things independently. It doesn't make sense to me for a hundred independent persons to ALWAYS come up with the exact same information with the same checks. It destroys verisimilitude.
Did the whole world go to the same high school and learn all the exact same things or something? Of course not!
The whole "static info" interpretation also leads to strange scenarios such as never being able to learn absolutely everything there is to know about a given creature (because the DCs quickly become impossibly high for even gods).
Honestly, you aren't making sense.
One player can't distract from the game unless the GM let's him. So, this isn't even a factor. As for "getting more from his invested skills/abilities", I don't even know what that means. A player -should- be trying to use his character's abilities - he should be trying to be a hero. Show me any action movie in which the hero is run of the mill and...
I think I see your problem with understanding my comment. I was responding to RD's theory that a GM should "give them some info for fun's sake?" All my suppositions started from the assumption that the GM did exactly that, gave them extra info just for fun's sake. To me, this is like saying "I only missed by 1, you should let my attack hit just for fun's sake." It is attempting to get more than you paid for from your abilities.
If I was unclear, I apologize. I hope my explanation was helpful.
I was responding to RD's theory that a GM should "give them some info for fun's sake?" All my suppositions started from the assumption that the GM did exactly that, gave them extra info just for fun's sake. To me, this is like saying "I only missed by 1, you should let my attack hit just for fun's sake." It is attempting to get more than you paid for from your abilities.
If I was unclear, I apologize. I hope my explanation was helpful.
I must need to work on my textual communication skills. So many misunderstandings today!
I wasn't saying that a GM should give his players freebies when they rightfully failed. I was trying to get across that GMs should make the character abilities fun and useful to have/use, not make them come off as useless and/or as an in-game tool of insulting a player's intelligence.
The assertion that I was trying to make with that post was that people can and do come up with different (and accurate) information when they think about things independently. It doesn't make sense to me for a hundred independent persons to ALWAYS come up with the exact same information with the same checks. It destroys verisimilitude.
Did the whole world go to the same high school or something?
Of course not!
On the other hand, it is equally true that verisimilitude is broken by every piece of info being different. And, some GMs might take these concerns into account (perhaps even the GM in question.) However, this wasn't really the original issue, was it?
Mind you, this is more indicative of my emotional state at the time than of actual events.I can't find where RD said that the GM refused to let the player choose his own actions due to "metagaming." That seemed to just creep up from random comments by others. Did I miss something here?Page 1 or 2. Wednesday, 6:49 am, Ravingdork said: "Instead, I was forced to "not metagame" and lightning bolt my allies over and over again in order to kill the cloakers attacking them. I'm sure I did more damage to them in the end. Sure makes my 22 intelligence wizard look/feel REALLY stupid."
So ... didn't actually happen? Or you got mad at your DM and said, "Well, if I don't know any more than that, I guess I'm too stupid to not lightning bolt my friends?"
On the other hand, it is equally true that verisimilitude is broken by every piece of info being different. And, some GMs might take these concerns into account (perhaps even the GM in question.) However, this wasn't really the original issue, was it?
Which is why I think a middle ground is best.
I recall some posters talking about winging it based on the situation and on who made the check (with their educational backgrounds being a factor and similar such things). I think that's the best way to go. Sometimes there will be overlap (such as when both characters did learn from the same source) and sometimes there won't be (when there is good reason to believe that they could have learned different facts about the same creature--such as from one having previous exposure).
So ... didn't actually happen? Or you got mad at your DM and said, "Well, if I don't know any more than that, I guess I'm too stupid to not lightning bolt my friends?"
I just knew that one was coming.
I cast two lightning bolts on wrapped companions not so much because I was mad at the GM and trying to make a point of how stupid the situation was (If I'm that mad I'll just leave the table for a few minutes), but because it was perceived to be the only real option I had left.
In hindsight, I suppose I could have made aid another grapple checks to help free them, but I didn't think of it at the time (nor did any of the other players/GM voiced the idea aloud had they thought of it).
I wasn't saying that a GM should give his players freebies when they rightfully failed. I was trying to get across that GMs should make the character abilities fun and useful to use, not make them come off as useless and as an in-game tool of insulting a player's intelligence.
If this is the case, and you are really just "stat[ing] what happened and ask[ing] if I was overreacting or not." Then my simply answer would be "yes, a little."
I don't feel that the GMs response by its very nature insulted your intelligence or reduced the fun of the game. By your admission, the game went on and everyone had fun.
I can see how your reaction to it, modified by your expectation that the 22 should give you more, may have reduced your personal level of fun temporarily.
However, I think that being thrust into an "emotional state" equivelant to that of being forced to lightning bolt your bud is a bit of an overreaction.
I thought it was pretty clear. PCs need to have what I call "shine". Those are the moments when the character, usually due to his/her unique qualities, can really stand out and grab the spot light in a way that is not only fun for that character but fun for all the other players to watch.
Making use of a knowledge skill to learn that the creature you see flying about can fly is -not- providing shine. A GM who does this is, in my opinion, pretty aggressively telling the players that the GM doesn't want the players to shine.
I have no problem with PCs shining. I simply feel they must earn it. I have already stated that I would provide more info than the GM stated (as have many others.) But, had the DC been higher (i.e. Cloakers are a unique-to-this-dungeon, virtually-unheard-of threat) then that info would have been fine. The chance for PC failure is what makes the success meaningful.
That is, after all, why game critics include "challenge" as a category for ratings.
The biggest problem seems to be GMs not letting players' hard won skills matter. Whether a rogue not being allowed to pick a lock/find a trap or allow Knowlege (nature) to actually reveal that the fuzzy puppy is really a 600 lb Grizzly having a bad day, the GM must play fair. (Yes, both of the above happened in games!)
I think the biggest problem is that there are GMs who treat DnD like it's a tactical game, not a role playing game.
The biggest cry I hear from the other side is "but it isn't fair to give the players anything resembling an advantage!" And, to be fair, if we're playing a -tactical combat- game, they're right.
But in a role playing game, the goal is to tell a story in an interesting and fun way. Does anybody ever read an action novel and complain that it isn't fair that the hero of the story is, in fact, the hero of the story? No. What people complain about is whether the story is boring or whether the hero is uninteresting.
I quite agree, it is the GM's job to tell a story.
What you do not realize is, that if you do as you suggest, and allow the players to metagame the skill system so that they get as much information as possible in a single round, then what you've done is basically make it extremely difficult for the GM to tell the story.
Most (90% or more) fantasy stories follow a general type of plot. I would be shocked if the APs don't follow the same plot, almost exactly. Here's the classic plot.
A) Heroes (normal guys in wrong place, chosen ones, pro's from Dover) find a bad situation going on.
B) Heroes quest to find out who/what is behind it.
C) Heroes quest to find out the weaknesses of BBEG.
D) Heroes quest to find what they need to exploit weaknesses of BBEG.
E) Heroes quest to kill BBEG.
That's pretty much the plot of all APs and many fantasy stories. Now, the issue is, the way that has been being extolled is, make it fun and everyone gets different information, and never duplicate and never give information they got from seeing when they use their skills.
So, all the players have to do is put 1 rank into each knowledge skill, and every time they run into something or need to know something, they stand in a circle. The guy with the lowest overall skill goes first and says 'I take 20'. Then he get's everything he knows. Now player 2 goes and says 'I take 20', then he get's different things, since player 1 already said A, B, and C (now A, B, and C are no longer useful). At the end, the player with a +18 says 'I take 20, and you can't tell me any of the other 16 things you already told player 1, 2, 3 and 4'.
That is the logical ending place for the idea that all knowledge skill checks have to impart unique non-duplicated useful information.
I will never run a game like that. What I do is, as I said earlier, have them all roll, take the best roll, and dole out the information to all players who rolled. The assumption is that they duplicated some information, but as many people as possible came up with something 'unique' without breaking the rules system.
I quite agree, it is the GM's job to tell a story.That's -not- what I said. The story is created by everyone sitting around the table.
The guy with the lowest overall skill goes first and says 'I take 20'. Then he get's everything he knows.You can't take 20 on knowledge skills.
'I take 10' then.
I'm thinking this is getting over thought.
Much as I'm not a fan of RPGs getting too "gamist," it is a game, and when players spend a resource (in this case, skill ranks) on something, they probably should get something for that price.
The skill description says that you get "useful" knowledge. You can get really simulation oriented and read off long tracts of ecology articles for a monster that don't reveal anything combat related, but impart a lot of knowledge that a naturalist might love to know.
But that's not what players want the skill for. Plus, the skill description, again, says specifically that the skill lets you know about the creatures abilities, defenses, attacks, etc.
So, for me, useful is, well, useful information. If one PC makes a check and learns, say, two useful things, and says before they make the check that they are trying to remember the creature's defenses, I'm going to give them, for example, that the creature has a DR that is overcome by something and that they are immune to X spells.
If another PC makes a check, and gains another two useful bits of information, I'll give them two more useful bits of information, I'm not going to say they can't learn anything more than what the first PC learned.
I have two reasons for this. One, if more than one person takes this skill in the party, why should they be punished for more educated characters in the party? The check represents what the character knows at that moment, but they aren't linking into the internet to download that information as the fight begins, randomly gaining knowledge. If two party members have the same knowledge skill, its likely they have compared notes, and when one member of the party says "everyone, we need silver to kill it," its likely that might trigger something different in the next person making the check . . . "don't forget to keep it from biting you . . . "
Two, making knowledge checks too difficult to make only really serves to dissuade someone from taking the skill. Part of the reason these skills show up from 3rd edition on in fantasy roleplaying is that it didn't really make sense that no character had ever heard about, say, vampires in a setting, but there has to be some way to limit a character saying they know everything about every monster.
Not knowing about a monster's weaknesses or attacks can severely change the difficulty of an encounter. If the GM really doesn't want the PCs to gain too much information on a given monster, its easy for him to rule that a monster is "rare" and thus requires the DC 15 + CR check instead of 5 + or 10 +
So, all the players have to do is put 1 rank into each knowledge skill, and every time they run into something or need to know something, they stand in a circle. The guy with the lowest overall skill goes first and says 'I take 20'. Then he get's everything he knows. Now...
The quoted post above says a lot about you as a GM--that you actually believe a typical roleplayer would act so immaturely about a cooperative roleplaying game. I could never game with you as as my GM as you would never trust me to do the right thing.
If YOUR players commonly do, do stuff like that, than I must apologize, as it then says less about you and volumes about your players. If that is the case, than I'm sorry about the crappy hand you've been dealt.
I see a trend here. People are equating a Knowledge check with the character's ability to "figure out" more information. That's not it.
You are educated in a f ield of study and can answer both simple and complex questions.
Try Again: 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.
Knowledge skill check, by definition, do not impart "more" knowledge than you had. They represent separating what the PLAYER and the CHARACTER know. John Doe, who has read the Bestiary often because he GMs in another game, knows quite well what the abilities of "Cloakers" are. Whizzy, his Wizard, has to deal with what facts come out from the check, which are less than John's memory.
In short, "useful information" is not necessarily "new information".
In the case of the OP, I'd have role-played like "Ah, yes, I recall.. they fly.. so that was not a jump down, they flew in. And grappling is their main attack. They must be Cloakers!"
Although, as others have stated, I would have given more information than the OP's GM for the same roll.
So, all the players have to do is put 1 rank into each knowledge skill, and every time they run into something or need to know something, they stand in a circle. The guy with the lowest overall skill goes first and says 'I take 20'. Then he get's everything he knows. Now...The quoted post above says a lot about you as a GM--that you actually believe a typical roleplayer would act so immaturely about a cooperative roleplaying game. I could never game with you as as my GM as you would never trust me to do the right thing.
If YOUR players commonly do, do stuff like that, than I must apologize, as it then says less about you and volumes about your players. If that is the case, than I'm sorry about the crappy hand you've been dealt.
I have been GMing for about 23 years. Over those years, I've had players do everything under the sun. Up to and including sitting in front of me planning out how to do their rolls to maximize their research by figuring out who has the lowest skill and having them start first, so they can find the easy to find knowledge and leave all the difficult to find to the people with the higher skill.
Basically, I've been the entire gammut from reasonable Roleplayers to immature rollplayers.
You just rolled an '11'. That means you just learned one bit of useful information about a CR 1 creature covered by the knowledge skill you put your skill point in. For many of the characters at the table (who get 2 skill points per level and don't have INT as a prime req), that's a pretty heavy cost for a pretty trivial gain.
Even for those who gain more skill points, the question is "which of the knowledge skills are you going to put that one skill point in?"
The only characters who can really gain from this are characters whose classes give them a lot of skill points (because there are 10 different knowledge skills) and who need a high INT anyway - exactly the characters who should be benefitting from it.
Then just roll. It's an even bet they have a chance of rolling something useful, and either way, per the interpretation you've espoused, any single thing they happen to get (or even two things if they roll high) are things the guy who's going to get 3-4 items can check off as not needing to learn.
So, all the players have to do is put 1 rank into each knowledge skill, and every time they run into something or need to know something, they stand in a circle. The guy with the lowest overall skill goes first and says 'I take 20'. Then he get's everything he knows. Now...The quoted post above says a lot about you as a GM--that you actually believe a typical roleplayer would act so immaturely about a cooperative roleplaying game. I could never game with you as as my GM as you would never trust me to do the right thing.
If YOUR players commonly do, do stuff like that, than I must apologize, as it then says less about you and volumes about your players. If that is the case, than I'm sorry about the crappy hand you've been dealt.
I think it has to do with his idea that it is the GM's job to tell a story. That's not even close to the same thing as a cooperative story.
Players have an annoying habit of zigging left when the GM expects them to zig right. If you don't think of the story as cooperative and those unexpected moments happen enough times, you stop thinking the best of your players.
Wrong. Of course, you don't really know me, or my GM style, so it's just easier rather than reason to insult and belittle me. That really goes toward your own lack of wit and inability to debate well.
In case you didn't realize it, the above was me turning your own methods back on you, so don't bother yelling hypocrite. I knew exactly what I was posting, and was doing so to illustrate the immaturity of your argument. That's a debating technique, btw.
A GMs responsibility is to draft a world and story. It's the players responsibility to roleplay their characters within that framework. The entire thing, GMs world and story along with Player's characters and roleplaying, tell the story. Perhaps you come from a different background gaming, but every RPG I've ever run or played in had those elements in common, a GM who created the world and story framework, and players who then worked within that world and framework to create the story.
Does that mean the players aren't going to zig when the GM expected them to zag? Don't be stupid. Of course they will. That's when it's the GMs responsibility to bolt some more framework on to accomodate the changes. I've never had a world and story end the way I initially planned them. That's one reason why I detest APs. APs lock you into one story, one plot, one way of getting from A to Z. Blech.
I think you're missing the point.
Is a skill point put in, say, Acrobatics, more or less useful than a skill point put in Knowledge when, by putting the skill point in knowledge, you get to use it (-if- the monster is appropriate) to learn that the creature everyone sees flying has the ability to fly?
Uh, what?
I repeat.. the skill is not intended to give necessarily *new* information. That is why re-tries are not allowed. It provides what your character remembers from prior reading/study, which may very well simply confirm what the same character has just seen/experienced.
Useful information is not necessarily new information.
The OP had an opportunity to use his skill. He rolled high enough to get some information, but not all. The basic information given was not as much as I would think appropriate, but it is also not appropriate to say it should all be new information, or even that any of it should be.
Basically, I've been the entire gammut from reasonable Roleplayers to immature rollplayers.
I just wanted to point out (for the sake of others who might read this thread) that there are immature roleplayers and reasonable rollplayers just as readily as the above.
In other words, the adjectives aren't necessarily linked to the nouns in all cases. :P
Basically, I've been the entire gammut from reasonable Roleplayers to immature rollplayers.I just wanted to point out (for the sake of others who might read this thread) that there are immature roleplayers just as readily as there are reasonable rollplayers.
The adjectives aren't necessarily linked to the nouns. :P
Yep, just that most people work better with two ends, not four. :)
I just let my PCs pick what information they'd like to know, one tidbit for every 5 above the DC. I also explain the monster and what it is.
Hit dice. Good saves. Spell-like abilities. Sometimes they don't get anything; they ask for special attacks and a monster has none.
That's what I do.
You already said that, but what you haven't said is anything resembling an answer to the question I asked you.
I think you're missing the point.
Is a skill point put in, say, Acrobatics, more or less useful than a skill point put in Knowledge when, by putting the skill point in knowledge, you get to use it (-if- the monster is appropriate) to learn that the creature everyone sees flying has the ability to fly?
Uh, what?
-- snip --
What you asked is not really a question, it is more of a rhetorical trap, like the famous lawyer's trick question of "Answer yes or no: Have you stopped beating your wife yet".
Your question pre-supposes a few things, like how the value of skills is measured and how the successful use of the Knowledge skill is measured. Your question implies that the value of a skill depends on its successful use when the opportunity arises. Your question further implies that the successful use of the Knowledge skill is negated when it only confirms what has just been observed.
If I roll a high enough Acrobatics check to jump 8 ft, and the ledge I need to reach is 10 ft away, but I make my Reflex save to catch on, has my Acrobatics check utterly failed? Have my skill points in Acrobatics been wasted? If I had forgotten to take a running start (somewhat analogous to waiting until after combat has begun for the Knowledge check), should I be given credit for the extra jump distance retroactively?
I have already agreed with many others that the OP's GM gave less information that I think he should have.
To answer your question: Skills are as useful as the circumstances (including the adventure, the GM, and player ingenuity) allow them to be. A skill point spent on Acrobatics and a skill point spent on Knowledge cannot be compared without knowing the circumstances of the campaign/adventure, because the relative values will be very much dependent upon those details.
I think you missed my original point in all of this, which was that all of the arguments about giving NEW information are based on the same principle as the re-try: that the knowledge check somehow adds more information than you already had. It does not, by definition, as expressed in the re-try entry for the skill.
Skills are as useful as the circumstances (including the adventure, the GM, and player ingenuity) allow them to be.To be more precise, the utility of skills is dependent on the reward for taking those skills as well as the probability of the reward.
No. You are now conflating the success of the skill check with the opportunity to make the skill check, implying that the value of the skill is dependent upon both the chance to use it, and succeeding when that chance occurs.
The utility of the skill is dependent upon the number of opportunities to use it. Success or failure in those attempts is a separate thing.
You may as well say that Masterwork Thieves Tools are worthless unless the GM guarantees that you will succeed at Disable Device every time after you purchase them.
Now, is it more or less likely for a character (who has acrobatics) to be in a situation where they need to jump 12 feet, but their acrobatics skill only allows them to jump 10 feet compared to the situation where the character (who has knowledge:religion) to run into undead?
That's highly dependent upon all the variable factors I mentioned before.
Two different characters making skill rolls is not the same thing as a re-try. You're comparing apples and oranges.
I think you missed my original point in all of this, which was that all of the arguments about giving NEW information are based on the same principle as the re-try: that the knowledge check somehow adds more information than you already had. It does not, by definition, as expressed in the re-try entry for the skill.
What I said was that the expectation of any information gained being NEW information is based on the assumption that Knowledge checks represent "figuring things out" (reasoning). They do not. They represent how much prior knowledge a character has.
Multiple characters making successful rolls of different degrees results, as a previous poster mentioned, in a conversation like the following:
"Ok, so, we all agree these are underground-dwelling aberrations ... Leonardo and Michaelangelo remember they can fly, and Leonardo remembers they grapple."
Fact: Nothing in the skill description says that useful information has to be NEW information for each check.
Opinion: The highest roll gets the most information; the others concur/corroborate the same inforamtion.
Honestly, making this a simple as possible, if someone makes a check, they gain a piece of useful information. Its not really useful if someone else has already figured it out.
Knowledge skill do require a bit of metagaming. In fact, they are kind of the "legal" way to metagame. There is no way that a GM can have a chart of information for every possible topic at various DCs for the PCs to roll against.
On top of that, assuming that two characters with the same check would learn the exact same thing is assuming that there is some kind of universal commonality of facts (i.e. its always better known that the monster's DR is X before anyone ever knows that its immune to fire), or that there is come kind of commonality of education (tutors and sages never train anyone about a monster's spell like abilities before their damage reduction, for example).
I do agree that a character making the check doesn't learn the information when the check is made, but they do remember the information when the check is made. There are tons of factoids that are floating around in my head about various topics, but when I remember things, I do remember them in the context of what triggers the memory.
To make things simple, when I GM, I define "useful" as "useful." If someone has already learned the same information, it doesn't strike me that a given fact would be useful. Maybe I'm too "soft," but it make sense to me.
Knowledge skills are harder to get use out of than most other skills simply because their DCs tend to be higher.
A DC 22 check of many other skills would be an automatic success. For Knowledge checks regarding a creature, you probably won't get to know all the information regarding that creature unless you have a DC 30+ (or even 40+) result.
In fact, for many skills, you will pretty much never need to be able to achieve a result higher than around 25-30, while for Knowledge skills you may very well want to achieve a higher result than that.
Besides, all Knowledge skills are also useful for a whole lot of things besides learning about the monsters you are facing. Such as identifying materials, structural hazards, historical events, organizations, people, religious symbols and rituals, and so on.
...assuming that two characters with the same check would learn the exact same thing is assuming that there is some kind of universal commonality of facts (i.e. its always better known that the monster's DR is X before anyone every knows that its immune to fire), or that there is come kind of commonality of education (tutors and sages never train anyone about a monster's spell like abilities before their damage reduction, for example).
And that is exactly the problem I have with that interpretation.
Lets not forget that we have dice at the table here folks. The fair way to handle this is simple. Quickly count up the "special powers or vulnerabilities" in the stat block. Roll an appropriate die an appropriate number of times, and tell the players what they know. Maybe it's useful, maybe not, such are the vagaries of memory. Roll extra times for every 5 past the DC, rerolling if you get a duplicate result (for a single character; it's entirely possible two characters happen to know the same thing after all).