There is a vague piece of lore that would help the party if someone could recall it. The best Knowledge skill in the group is a +5 but a couple others have the skill too. So each one of them could try on DC 10 and if successful give the one player a +2 per to help them figure it out?
I suppose this represents brainstorming, exchanging ideas and such to come to the right information? Is there a maximum? Could a room full of scholars therefore automatically succeed at an incredibly hard check if there were enough of them. If the DC were 30 your typical sage wouldnt ahve a chance but have 10 of his buddies all just making a DC10 and suddenly its very very likely.
Yes, that's how it works for aid another for any skill check. The GM can limit the number of people who can effectively aid in a particular skill of course. There are only so many people that can help lift a portcullis for example.
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Consulting an actual book on the subject (a Pathfinder Chronicle, for instance) doesn't usually get you more than a +2 bonus, so I don't think assistance from people who know less than you do can give more than a general +2 circumstance bonus in total.
Even though it's DC 10, in order to aid another you must be able to make the same check, so it would still be trained only.
It's a +2 bonus for every person who successfully lends a hand.
Aid AnotherYou 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.
In many cases, a character's help won't be beneficial, or only a limited number of characters can help at once.
There's no hard maximum, but the GM is specifically directed to decide whether and when a character can meaningfully contribute to Aid Another.
For 99% of Knowledge checks made outside of combat, I'd allow Aid Another to apply for any number of contributors, so long as said contributors can make the check (i.e., the DC is 10 or less, or the contributor has a rank in the skill or some other ability that lets them make such checks untrained). It would be a pretty unusual circumstance that would make me deviate from that.
Consulting an actual book on the subject (a Pathfinder Chronicle, for instance) doesn't usually get you more than a +2 bonus, so I don't think assistance from people who know less than you do can give more than a general +2 circumstance bonus in total.
Even though it's DC 10, in order to aid another you must be able to make the same check, so it would still be trained only.
Aid Another is an untyped bonus, not a circumstance bonus. They stack. And it makes sense; while a person may know less than you do about dungeoneering, that doesn't mean that the person with the higher score knows everything that the people with the lower scores know. It means that they have a different total amount of knowledge on the subject. Without the ability to Aid Another with multiple people, the entire concept of collaborative brainstorming would be useless.
Unlimited stacking, that's the RAW.
But that gets weird. Put 100 people with a knowledge skill into a room and there is literally nothing they don't know and nothing they can't figure out. Ever. Instantly. If the real world worked that way, the Manhattan Project would have taken about 6 seconds rather than the 6 years it actually took (and they had over 100,000 people making lots and lots of Aid Another checks). But that's the RAW.
I do suggest GMs consider limiting the number of contributors aiding a skill check.
Unlimited stacking, that's the RAW.
But that gets weird. Put 100 people with a knowledge skill into a room and there is literally nothing they don't know and nothing they can't figure out. Ever. Instantly. If the real world worked that way, the Manhattan Project would have taken about 6 seconds rather than the 6 years it actually took (and they had over 100,000 people making lots and lots of Aid Another checks). But that's the RAW.
I do suggest GMs consider limiting the number of contributors aiding a skill check.
Well, with science... asking the right question is the most challenging part.