Recalling knowledge can be fun

[graystone]

Unicore wrote:

I just think that it is important that examples be situationally contextualized instead of just tied to specific monsters.

For the most part, I was talking about generalized examples maybe divided into difficulty adjustment [like here are some examples of Incredibly easy answers, and some Very easy ones, ect to Incredibly hard]. The only time I think specifics would be a good idea would be if a monster had something unusual or particularly easy/hard to know.

[SuperBidi]

Temperans wrote:

Oh look, Golem antimagic is just like one of the examples from the book. Something that golems are known for. Yet that is the reason why recall is being seen as consistent?

Recall Knowledge is not consistent. It has nothing to do with the rules, but with the monsters. For some monsters, Recall Knowledge is extremely strong (Golem, Basilisk), for others it's useless (Orc Warrior) and for others there are interesting information that are difficult to assess without having both GM and player knowledge.

Now, among GMs, Recall Knowledge is consistent. When you face a Golem or a Basilisk you always get the most important information, when you face an Orc Warrior you always get nothing, and when you face a monster with potentially interesting information you sometimes get them and sometimes not.
And there's no rules that will change that positively. You can't get better information on a Golem than Golem Antimagic, you can't get an interesting information on an Orc Warrior and whatever rules you come up with you will always have random information about a monster with more or less interesting stuff because determining what information is useful would ask you to have at the same time GM and player knowledge (unless the GM gives all the information about the monster).

I've seen Recall Knowledge played in many different ways. And in general, the more thought the GM was putting into it and the less interesting were the recalled information. So I really like the rules as they are right now (even if I agree that they are not crystal clear). In my opinion, GMs are in the best position to determine what information is useful, because they have the best knowledge of the monster and an important part of the player knowledge.

[thenobledrake]

SuperBidi wrote:

..when you face an Orc Warrior you always get nothing...

That's not entirely true. And should be almost entirely false, actually.

Orc Warriors have plenty of things it might be considered cool, from the players perspective, even if not actually helpful to learn by recalling knowledge about them; which tribe they seem are a member of, their ferocity trait, that they have attack of opportunity, or even some details about the "necksplitter" style of sword they prefer and why (that it meshes well with a combat style of swing hard, swing often, and swing at everything you can).

And if the book provided GMs with more obvious insight into why Recall Knowledge exists, rather than just show an example of what it does, you might not be operating under your current bad assumption that there's no use in using it against an orc warrior (or other similarly 'simple' creatures).

[graystone]

thenobledrake wrote:

SuperBidi wrote:

..when you face an Orc Warrior you always get nothing...

That's not entirely true. And should be almost entirely false, actually.

Actually, you're both right: you both looked at "useful" but came to different conclusions what that means. For myself, if I'm in a life or death situation I personally don't find that the orc if from the neck biter tribe to be that useful. Now in a different situation, that might be useful but at the moment it's not helping with a rabid orc chewing on your arm. The DM might think it's an important clue for a future social encounter though, so useful is in the eye of the beholder.

[thenobledrake]

graystone wrote:

...useful is in the eye of the beholder.

Right, which is why advice for GMs to give something useful to the current situation, not just in a general sense, would be important.

But really, at this point I feel like no matter what I say on the matter you're going to respond with something else that makes me think you expect GMs to be working toward some purpose that isn't actually the same purpose as their players are working towards, and thus are sticking with some interpretation that benefits them but doesn't do much for their players. So I'm going to bow out of the conversation.

[Temperans]

That is not what Graystone has been saying thou?

[SuperBidi]

thenobledrake wrote:

SuperBidi wrote:

..when you face an Orc Warrior you always get nothing...

That's not entirely true. And should be almost entirely false, actually.

In my previous post, I was focusing on combat. Out of combat Recall Knowledge is very different than in combat Recall Knowledge for one very big reason: You don't care to spend one action outside combat to Recall Knowledge.

thenobledrake wrote:

And if the book provided GMs with more obvious insight into why Recall Knowledge exists, rather than just show an example of what it does, you might not be operating under your current bad assumption that there's no use in using it against an orc warrior (or other similarly 'simple' creatures).

Once again I disagree. During combat, I don't care of the tribe of the Orc Warrior, it's useless information because that's not what I'm expecting for an information at this very moment. I want something that allows me to kill the Orc Warrior. The only thing I'd see is attack of opportunity (I consider Orc Ferocity as a given because it's an Orc the same way I consider Negative Healing as a given for any Undead creature). But it's anyway super limited, and if the Orc Warrior already made one before I make the check, there's no useful information the GM can provide.

Anyway, I consider that as a specificity of Recall Knowledge, not a problem with the GM (or the guidelines the GM got). If there's no important information, the GM won't make up one. That's why I don't think there's really a need for more guidelines, as GMs tend to understand what information they need to give.
Now, for beginners, it may be useful. I'm no beginner, so I can hardly put myself at their position.

[Ubertron_X]

The problem with vague rules is that while providing maximum flexibility they usually also require additional effort in order to establish the GM & player social contract and to match expectations, which in between all existing GM and player types probably is the most difficult thing to do.

For example, players could generally be interested in weaknesses, resistances and saves as useful information, however the GM does consider actions and reactions as useful information that he is handing out in case of successful RK.

This is of course no unsolvable discrepancy, however sorting out these and other topics caused by vague ruling usually at least takes some time and effort, especially when not playing in a fixed group, and if not sorted out may easily lead to a bad play experience.

As such I am both for rules being vague enough for a multitude of reasons (edge cases, flexibility, no one-sided entitlement etc.) and rules being a little more precise (or in this case more flashed out) for ease of establishing a common understanding of what is possible under said rule, especially if said rule is covering a most common occurance.

[andreww]

Verdyn wrote:

SuperBidi wrote:

The rules don't need to be clear and precise when everyone knows when and how to use them.

My experience is that Recall Knowledge works more or less the same whatever GM you play with. And I play PFS.

I suspect that PFS GMs get more guidance from Paizo with regards to running certain rules than the rest of us do. After all, the entire goal of PFS is for a consistent drop in experience for the players. The GM is just there as a way to provide that experience.

Bwhahahahahahaha..

erm, no, not at all.

[andreww]

The-Magic-Sword wrote:

I run it RAW, which is to say when you declare you're recalling knowledge, I need to know what piece of information you're recalling, which means what information you might get on a successful check depends entirely on what you ask me. Critical Successes give additional information beyond that of course and hyper-cognition/true hyper-cognition, could pretty much let you lay out a statblock on the spot.

Recall Knowledge can also allows the party to gain useful information and context, this can result in knowledge that will allow them more control over the various situations they find themselves in through world lore, or it can result in material rewards, like helping them to discover additional rooms with treasure, or optional boss fights with cool rewards.

If you want to talk about RAW this is certainly not it.

See CRB pg 506

Quote:

A character who successfully identifies a creature learns one of its best-known attributes—such as a troll’s regeneration (and the fact that it can be stopped by acid or fire) or a manticore’s tail spikes. On a critical success, the character also learns something subtler, like a demon’s weakness or the trigger for one of the creature’s reactions.

[Unicore]

It is good for people to share stories of how they have handled this game mechanic. I think it is also important to listen to players and make sure that they are really having fun with the way it is being handled. I think it is fairly easy as a GM to decide that there is one right way to handle recalling knowledge in combat, because there is our initial reading of the rules and the interpretation of how effective it should be as a combat action.

But as we see, people do interpret it differently and because it handles one of the central pillars of any RPG (the flow of information from the GM to the player) a lot of people will run it the way they want to run it regardless of what the rules say.

In that regard let’s talk about Orc Warriors from a personal perspective: how would I handle a player choosing to recall knowledge on an orc warrior.

First of all, it can be pretty presumptive to just assume a green humanoid enemy in front of you is an orc warrior, and if you are assumiing you have a right to assume your character can look at the enemy and identify what it is with no previous experience with the creature some GMs are going to say you are meta gaming and some class features like the mastermind racket become automatic successes because they get their bonus from successfully identifying the creature. Not gaining additional information about it.

Second, maybe this is not the first orc the character has encountered, so they might have seen before a similar creature take damage that should have killed it but it kept fighting for far too long. Does the character mechanically know how the ability works just from seeing it one time? You can decide “yes” as a GM if you want to, but you are making pretty arbitrary choices about what constitutes common knowledge based off your experience as a player or GM, not off of the world you are participating in building.

I think mathmuse presents a very fine suggestion for you can make sharing mechanical information you want players to have also fit in to the narraative world building you are trying to do. Maybe some players will try to recall knowledge about a creature before combat or after combat, I think that is fine and as a GM, I am as giving with information then as I can be. My players sometimes choose to study the corpse of a defeated enemy to learn additional information, and this is a great time to let them develop even further information about the relationship of the creature to the narrative of the adventure. You can even give context clues that might open up new mysteries for the party to solve, even as they gain more information about a central plot.

The important thing to remember as a GM is that players generally don’t recall knowledge unless they think there is more information they would like to have about a current situation and there is a chance their character might already know it. If they are making that choice and you, as the GM, say “No, you have all the information I am going to give you,” you could be contributing to a sense of GM hostility that your players may never talk about to your face.

[Temperans]

Also, lets be honest.

Beginner GMs will stumble a lot. Even with GM guides, its hard to apply what they say without having experience. Not to mention that having to go check what those guides say every time until you remember is just inconvenient. Not to mention getting used to juggling everything.

Recall Knowledge as written is fine if you know about GMing. But as someone that is new it can be quite daunting.

[SuperBidi]

Unicore wrote:

First of all, it can be pretty presumptive to just assume a green humanoid enemy in front of you is an orc warrior, and if you are assumiing you have a right to assume your character can look at the enemy and identify what it is with no previous experience with the creature some GMs are going to say you are meta gaming and some class features like the mastermind racket become automatic successes because they get their bonus from successfully identifying the creature. Not gaining additional information about it.

Identifying an orc shouldn't need a roll. I don't want to end up in a game where my character is unable to know what an orc, a human or an elf is, or where I can't consider that a skeleton has Negative Healing unless the GM tells me so.

Now, identifying an Orc Warrior, with the specific stat block of the Orc Warrior, that should need a roll. There's a difference between knowing the general creature type and race and the actual creature you are fighting.

[Unicore]

I am not arguing against the GM giving information to the players that their characters should know, I am saying that you are essentially just giving the players an opportunity to investigate their enemy before the encounter begins, essentially giving them a free recall knowledge check before the game begins, and making assumptions about the world and what the characters know about it that the players might not share.

Thus if you feel like players should just know that orcs have a ferocity ability, but you don't actively share that information, you are signing off on some players getting free recall knowledge checks and not others.

Edit: Also some GMs will not be thrilled to see your character that has spent their entire live living in one small village that has never had a negative interaction with an orc just knowing off the top of their head that they have to attack an orc for a second time in the same round it went to 0 to really put it down. These are expectations that should be talked about between players and GMs and if the GM assumes players will have x knowledge of aspects of the game, it is probably best to be intentional about how you share them rather than just make assumptions that will cause newer players to make mistakes.

[SuperBidi]

Unicore wrote:

Thus if you feel like players should just know that orcs have a ferocity ability, but you don't actively share that information, you are signing off on some players getting free recall knowledge checks and not others.

I disagree.

First, on paper, you don't know that the orc in front of you has Ferocity, you just know that it's so common among orcs that you can expect it.
Second, beginners have less knowledge than experienced players and you can't do anything about it. Yes, an experience player knows the exact shape of a Cone and can position his character so the enemy can't get his character inside one, an experienced player knows about Attacks of Opportunity and an experienced player knows about Ferocity.
The only way for a beginner to know the game as much as an experienced player is to play. Unless you start intervening every time the beginner plays to explain them every detail of the game, you have to accept that a beginner will learn through mistakes.

Unicore wrote:

Also some GMs will not be thrilled to see your character that has spent their entire live living in one small village that has never had a negative interaction with an orc just knowing off the top of their head that they have to attack an orc for a second time in the same round it went to 0 to really put it down.

That's another issue. I am the one playing my character. I may play it badly but I'm the only one to choose if my character knows about Orc Ferocity.

Now, the GM and I can have a conversation. But the more you want the player and the character to have vastly different knowledge and the more you put metagame at the center of the table. Because every time I could act on my knowledge but I shouldn't, you create metagame discussions, either internal thoughts, as I'll have to act without my knowledge, as I may be frustrated to make deliberate mistakes, and actual discussions because the GM may decide I'm acting out of metagaming.

I once had a GM accusing me of metagaming because I made the right move at the right moment. It's an extremely frustrating conversation to have. Especially when the only reason was: I had this spell prepared and I thought it would be a good spell at that moment, I had absolutely no idea the monster was having a specific weakness to it. Luck happens...

The best way to handle metagaming is just to ignore it.

[thenobledrake]

SuperBidi wrote:

In my previous post, I was focusing on combat.

Context clues in your post suggest that you need to be reminded: Not all Encounters are combat.

So the information you consider "non-combat" could still be relevant to spend an Action on, because Actions get spent in Encounters of all types, not just combat.

andreww wrote:

If you want to talk about RAW this is certainly not it.

Actually, it kind of is, since page CRB pg 239 gives a different view to the player (and this is the part of Recall Knowledge that really gets on my nerves; that how a person believes it works greatly depends on whether they've just read the action itself, or also flipped nearly 300 pages later in the book to a section that isn't even directly referenced by what appears to be a complete action description, into a section that can easily appear to be information you'll only need if you're actually going to GM but is also, secretly, the full details to how an action on page 239 actually works.)

SuperBidi wrote:

Identifying an orc shouldn't need a roll.

On that, you, I, and the rules basically agree, since there's a clause for basic information not needing a roll in the book.

I just also agree with Unicore that there's a difference between a character knowing "that's an orc" and "orcs are known for their ferocity" and telling the player what the Ferocity feature means.

And one last thing I want to address:

SuperBidi wrote:

...and if the Orc Warrior already made one before I make the check, there's no useful information the GM can provide.

Is not unique to the creatures you've declared to not have any useful information for a GM to provide in the first place. There's also a whole lot less useful information for the GM to provide on a golem if other actions have already revealed it to you too, so it's really inconsistent to bring this up like it's some kind of relevant point towards proving the earlier (wildly off target) claim that GMs will not ever have any information to relay on some creatures.

Temperans wrote:

But as someone that is new it can be quite daunting.

My experiences thus far suggest it is less daunting for new GMs than it is for many GMs that are already very experienced, but weren't expecting to ever change the way they determine what information they relay to players. Though I suppose an argument could be made that it's not because my friend that just started GMing a few months ago read and understood the Recall Knowledge info by himself, but because prior to that he had a few examples of me adjudicating Recall Knowledge to use as guidance, that is why the only thing he stumbles with is another friend of ours always dog-piling the roll (because she is used to her other GM that doesn't mind that behavior, and she's very slow to realize that critical failures will give bad information so she probably shouldn't be rolling just because she is able to when her character isn't good at the skill needed) and so he's always on the spot to make up bad info and doesn't really want to (so the rest of us players make it up instead, but that has clearly resulted in our friend getting the crit fails thinking we're just making up jokes about why the roll was bad).

[thenobledrake]

SuperBidi wrote:

Second, beginners have less knowledge than experienced players and you can't do anything about it.

Well, no... you can teach them during play.

If you couldn't, it'd be really confusing how people who had played more had become more knowledgeable in the first place.

[Unicore]

SuperBidi wrote:

Unicore wrote:

Thus if you feel like players should just know that orcs have a ferocity ability, but you don't actively share that information, you are signing off on some players getting free recall knowledge checks and not others.

I disagree.

First, on paper, you don't know that the orc in front of you has Ferocity, you just know that it's so common among orcs that you can expect it.
Second, beginners have less knowledge than experienced players and you can't do anything about it. Yes, an experience player knows the exact shape of a Cone and can position his character so the enemy can't get his character inside one, an experienced player knows about Attacks of Opportunity and an experienced player knows about Ferocity.
The only way for a beginner to know the game as much as an experienced player is to play. Unless you start intervening every time the beginner plays to explain them every detail of the game, you have to accept that a beginner will learn through mistakes.

Unicore wrote:

Also some GMs will not be thrilled to see your character that has spent their entire live living in one small village that has never had a negative interaction with an orc just knowing off the top of their head that they have to attack an orc for a second time in the same round it went to 0 to really put it down.

That's another issue. I am the one playing my character. I may play it badly but I'm the only one to choose if my character knows about Orc Ferocity.

Now, the GM and I can have a conversation. But the more you want the player and the character to have vastly different knowledge and the more you put metagame at the center of the table. Because every time I could act on my knowledge but I shouldn't, you create metagame discussions, either internal thoughts, as I'll have to act without my knowledge, as I may be frustrated to make deliberate mistakes, and actual discussions because the GM may decide I'm acting out of metagaming.

I once had a GM accusing me of metagaming because I made...

I don't disagree that your ideas can work at your table with your group, but I think it is dangerous to say "This is just how the game has to be played, because it is how I learned it, and now I get mad at GMs that don't just have the same assumptions that I do without talking to them about it before hand."

I think it is important for GMs to think about how they will feel about the use of potential metagaming knowledge and to talk to players about it. At my table I don't really mind players thinking they have meta knowledge of encounters and monsters, but I do make it clear that I change things in my long term campaigns when I run published material and that metaknowledge can lead to bad decision making if you can't confirm your ideas in the setting. Then I make the changes I want to make for the sake of the story I want to tell and I don't worry at all about players acting on meta knowledge.

[Unicore]

SuperBidi wrote:

Unicore wrote:

Thus if you feel like players should just know that orcs have a ferocity ability, but you don't actively share that information, you are signing off on some players getting free recall knowledge checks and not others.

I disagree.

First, on paper, you don't know that the orc in front of you has Ferocity, you just know that it's so common among orcs that you can expect it.
Second, beginners have less knowledge than experienced players and you can't do anything about it. Yes, an experience player knows the exact shape of a Cone and can position his character so the enemy can't get his character inside one, an experienced player knows about Attacks of Opportunity and an experienced player knows about Ferocity.
The only way for a beginner to know the game as much as an experienced player is to play. Unless you start intervening every time the beginner plays to explain them every detail of the game, you have to accept that a beginner will learn through mistakes.

Who is the "you" that just knows this information? A player? A character? I think it can lead to some hard feelings and bad assumptions if we just decide that being an experienced player means learning the metaknowledge of the game enough to skip out on spending actions that less experienced players spend actions on.

That is a really good way to get PF2 labeled as a game that is too difficult for new players to learn, because GMs should just assume a specific level of metaknowledge of all players and bear no responsibility for helping players learn that metaknowledge. Keep in mind, I am not really talking about metagaming knowledge of statistics here. I am talking about larger table expectations like:

Does this GM want players interacting with encounters and monsters beyond just trying to murder them as efficiently as possible or else face getting killed themselves?
Do my players feel like I am playing monsters too challengingly or too easily?
Does it feel like I am playing a story telling game with lots of information being revealed slowly to help me feel like my character is a part of a great story being told?
Is this game boring because I want to be playing a game where I get to focus on all of these cool mechanical elements of my character and I am just going to forget this NPC's name in 30 seconds anyway so you might as well call them guard 1 and guard 2, or better yet define them by the weapons they are carrying so I can be thinking about the statistics of those weapons and how they are likely to be using them in combat before any hostilities have even begun?

Each table really does develop its own expectations and proceeding into each table with the assumption that everyone will want to do it the way I want to do it or they are not very good at playing role playing games is a good way to end up with hurt feelings and a bad play experience.

[SuperBidi]

Unicore wrote:

Who is the "you" that just knows this information? A player? A character? I think it can lead to some hard feelings and bad assumptions if we just decide that being an experienced player means learning the metaknowledge of the game enough to skip out on spending actions that less experienced players spend actions on.

Undeads have Negative Healing, Dragons have Breath Weapons, Incorporeal creatures can only be affected by Ghost Touch weapons and Force/Positive effects, Animals have low Will save, Outsiders have high resistance to magic. I know all of that because I'm an experienced player. You can't ask a beginner to have that level of knowledge of the game.

Now, you can start every combat by making a 10-minute speech on all the abilities that a certain type of creature has, may have, or could have, but that gonna be a bit boring.

So, the only thing you have to accept is that experienced players will use their knowledge, up to a limit that they will set, unless you want to spend half of your games discussing about each and every action to determine if they are metagamed ones or not.

[thenobledrake]

Hooray for false-equivalencies, I guess?

Don't know how pointing out a relevant detail to a player (that maybe doesn't know it, even if an "experienced player", because their experience differs) when it is relevant takes more than a few seconds.

It's as simple as the following:

Player: "I'm going to cast [cone area effect spell]."
GM (or other experienced player): "Where?"
Player: [indicates desired targets]
GM (or other experienced player): "If you place the cone here [indicates change, if the player didn't already figure out the best placement] to maximize targets/minimize friendly fire."

That's like 5-10 seconds, and "a 10-minute speech." And the same thing holds true with the GM actually saying other things, instead of just assuming a player will figure it out over time or already knows it because of how long they've been playing.

[The-Magic-Sword]

andreww wrote:

The-Magic-Sword wrote:

I run it RAW, which is to say when you declare you're recalling knowledge, I need to know what piece of information you're recalling, which means what information you might get on a successful check depends entirely on what you ask me. Critical Successes give additional information beyond that of course and hyper-cognition/true hyper-cognition, could pretty much let you lay out a statblock on the spot.

Recall Knowledge can also allows the party to gain useful information and context, this can result in knowledge that will allow them more control over the various situations they find themselves in through world lore, or it can result in material rewards, like helping them to discover additional rooms with treasure, or optional boss fights with cool rewards.

If you want to talk about RAW this is certainly not it.

See CRB pg 506

Quote:

A character who successfully identifies a creature learns one of its best-known attributes—such as a troll’s regeneration (and the fact that it can be stopped by acid or fire) or a manticore’s tail spikes. On a critical success, the character also learns something subtler, like a demon’s weakness or the trigger for one of the creature’s reactions.

We aren't discussing creature identification, if you already know that the Orc is an Orc, you don't need to identify it since its already identified, the text concerning its best known quality is to instruct the GM to add extra useful information when the player asks 'what is this.'

If you need to know how good a run of the mill Orc's reflexes are, thats a regular recall knowledge from the skills section

"You attempt a skill check to try to remember a bit of knowledge regarding a topic related to that skill. The GM determines the DCs for such checks and which skills apply"

"Critical Success You recall the knowledge accurately and gain additional information or context.
Success You recall the knowledge accurately or gain a useful clue about your current situation.
Critical Failure You recall incorrect information or gain an erroneous or misleading clue."

Emphasis mine, 'bit' and 'the' here is in reference to a specific piece of knowledge asked for by the player attempting to recall it. Further when it mentions that its a bit of information, its regarding a topic, and then it gives examples of topics and what skill they might be, and mentions the kind of creature being a determinant of topic, which makes it different than the 'bit' emphasized earlier.

As supporting evidence, I submit the spell Hypercognition how else would this spell and the corresponding class feats make any sense, are you just poking the DM to come up with six random pieces of information?

[Mathmuse]

thenobledrake wrote:

SuperBidi wrote:

..when you face an Orc Warrior you always get nothing...

That's not entirely true. And should be almost entirely false, actually.

I'm with thenobledrake here. Giving nothing on a successful Recall Knowledge check because the creature is boring would be the GM misunderstanding the check. Even a creature with no special abilities has AC, HP, speed, saving throws, trained skills, and languages. And "No resistances nor weaknesses" is also useful information.

The skald Kirii in my PF1 Iron Gods campaign once rolled Knowledge(dungeoneering) on a chuul simply to learn which languages it spoke. It had grabbed the fighter Kheld. Kirii wanted to negotiate for Kheld's release rather than fight it. She succeeded, but Kheld was miffed at her tactics.

The original example of a useless Recall Knowledge check in this thread had been on an Ogre Warrior, a creature 3 with no special abilities. An Orc Warrior has Attack of Opportunity and Ferocity. My characters prefer to learn about Attack of Opportunity ability before it is demonstrated. Orc warriors often ride Megafauna Mounts, too. A megafauna mount would be obvious, but a successful Recall Knowledge could reveal the mount's abilities instead of the orc's abilities if the orc's abilities have already been revealed.

Unicore wrote:

In that regard let’s talk about Orc Warriors from a personal perspective: how would I handle a player choosing to recall knowledge on an orc warrior.

My PF2 Ironfang Invasion party encountered only one orc in their adventures, the orc playtest inventor Arkus. Instead, my thoughts turn to my Iron Gods campaign, Irong Gods among Scientists. Numeria, the setting of that campaign, had orc tribes, and the party had a chance of encountering one, but didn't. What if they did?

Let me re-imagine the PF1 characters in PF2 and give them backgrounds. The dwarf gunslinger Boffin was a smith, so give her Artisan background. The strix skald was born in the Shudderwood of northern Ustalav under divine omens, so she gets Blessed background. The half-elf magus Elric Jones has Archeologist background, of course. The human fighter Kheld had been a caravan guard; however, his backstory of his family being refugees from Sarkoris, AKA the Worldwound, seems more characteristic. His background is Refugee. Human bloodrager Val Baine ran the Foundry Tavern for her father, so her background is Barkeep.

The 4th-level party was crossing grassy plains on their journey from Torch to Scrapwall. Most PCs rode summoned mounts, but Kirii was flying and scouting ahead (PF2 strix PCs cannot fly at 4th level, though 2nd-level PF2 strix kinmates can. Nevertheless, by GM fiat Kirii can still fly).

Suppose Kirii spots an orc riding a dire wolf. She dives down to avoid being spotted and reports to the party. The party switches to Avoid Notice exploration activity and stealthily approaches a rise to see for themselves. We switch to encounter mode and everyone takes a Recall Knowledge action as part of their turns.

Boffin is not trained in Society and fails her roll.

Kirii succeeds in her Recall Knowledge check. She was on a journey of discovery due to her Blessed background, so I describe how she had encountered an orc tribe in western Numeria before she reached Torch. They were curious about her exotic species and seemed friendly to her. These orcs were cattle herders, including cowboys to handle the cattle, warriors to protect the tribe, and other support roles such as cook and tanner. Both cowboys and warriors ride dire wolves. The warriors carry combat weapons, such as a necksplitter, and wear a breastplate for AC 18. The cowboys carry lassos and wear leather armor, also for AC 18. The orc in front of the party carries a lasso and wears leather; therefore, he is a cowboy rather than a warrior.

Elric succeeds in his Recall Knowledge check after Kirii explains that the orc looks like a cowboy. As an archeologist, he read up on the orc tribes of Numeria. Some tribes were raiders, some were herders, and some were both. This is the times of the year when the orcs would drive their herds to market on the Seven Daggers River. They are very wary of rustlers, unfriendly to strangers, and fight with Ferocity that lets them stay on their feet when wounded. And most spoke only Orcish, which no-one in the party could speak.

Kheld succeeds in his Recall Knowledge check, because Refugee background trained him in Society and gave him the Streetwise feat. He knows which orc tribes live in these plains, and that cowboy must be in the Green Horn herder tribe. An orc cowboy is a minor threat, merely able to entangle a creature with the lasso, +6 to hit, but that lets the dire wolf grab and worry the target for 1d10+2 damage (DC 20 basic Fortitude save). Nevertheless, the party could defeat the pair readily.

Val succeeds in her Recall Knowledge check. She recalls tavern conversations with a half-orc smith in Torch who used to work at the Seven Daggers River cattle market. The orc herding tribes from the plains went to the river for green grass but would exchange a few old cattle for manufactured goods. They disliked humans; thus, the half-orc would head out of town to make the trade. Not that the tribesmen liked half-orcs, but he at least knew Orcish and proper orcish trade protocol. Val could use her Diplomacy to trade, DC 20 due to the language barrier, but failure would lead to a fight.

The party decides to keep their distance and depart at a hustle. The orc cowboy and the warriors he could beckon would ignore them if they left. I would award 40 xp for avoiding an unnecessary fight.

The fun part is that that that series of Recall Knowledge checks and the debate about the party response would feel like a minor encounter.

In the actual game, Kirii spotted a Numerian Bloodbrush while scouting and the party avoided it.

[Mathmuse]

The-Magic-Sword wrote:

"You attempt a skill check to try to remember a bit of knowledge regarding a topic related to that skill. The GM determines the DCs for such checks and which skills apply"

I hate that phrasing in Recall Knowledge. In information theory a "bit" has a precise meaning. It is the information stored as a single 0 or 1 in computer memory. It is the answer to a yes-or-no question that has a 50-50 chance of going either way. Thus, the phrasing feels like a misuse of precise jargon to me.

A character Striking a creature gains on average one bit of information about the creature's AC, in addition to having a chance of damaging the creature. If Recall Knowledge gave just one yes-or-no bit of knowledge, it would not be worth using.

[Cyouni]

SuperBidi wrote:

Unicore wrote:

Who is the "you" that just knows this information? A player? A character? I think it can lead to some hard feelings and bad assumptions if we just decide that being an experienced player means learning the metaknowledge of the game enough to skip out on spending actions that less experienced players spend actions on.

Undeads have Negative Healing, Dragons have Breath Weapons, Incorporeal creatures can only be affected by Ghost Touch weapons and Force/Positive effects, Animals have low Will save, Outsiders have high resistance to magic. I know all of that because I'm an experienced player. You can't ask a beginner to have that level of knowledge of the game.

One of those is not even correct. Similarly, some of those are also situationally incorrect.

Spoiler:

Animals do not universally have low Will, it's around 50/50 with Reflex. This was even the focus of a discussion a while back on the Pathfinder subreddit with a person who was insistent that they should have Will low enough that they should autofail Will saves.

Dragons do not all have breath weapons. It's very common among dragons, but some have a different effect instead.

Creatures like Shadows can also be affected by things shedding magical light, and technically with high enough damage you don't need that.

You're making a great case as to why those shouldn't be used.

[The-Magic-Sword]

Mathmuse wrote:

The-Magic-Sword wrote:

"You attempt a skill check to try to remember a bit of knowledge regarding a topic related to that skill. The GM determines the DCs for such checks and which skills apply"

I hate that phrasing in Recall Knowledge. In information theory a "bit" has a precise meaning. It is the information stored as a single 0 or 1 in computer memory. It is the answer to a yes-or-no question that has a 50-50 chance of going either way. Thus, the phrasing feels like a misuse of precise jargon to me.

A character Striking a creature gains on average one bit of information about the creature's AC, in addition to having a chance of damaging the creature. If Recall Knowledge gave just one yes-or-no bit of knowledge, it would not be worth using.

To be fair, that is a mindbogglingly specific usage of the word 'bit' when the most common usage is "a small amount or piece of something." To the point where your post reads as satire. Especially since I'm pretty sure that's the etymology of your own usage anyway.

[Temperans]

I would like to remind everyone that recall has 2 seperate sections. 1 for general recall and 1 for creature identification. It seems like people half forgot in this whole "what to give about an orc warrior?".

General recall has plenty of examples of what it can give. But it doesn't give any examples of what would be easy/hard. It does give examples of what fits different proficiency.

Creature identification has only 1 example of what it gives. It also has no example of what would ne easy/hard. Also no examples of what different proficiencies would give.

[Mathmuse]

The-Magic-Sword wrote:

Mathmuse wrote:

The-Magic-Sword wrote:

"You attempt a skill check to try to remember a bit of knowledge regarding a topic related to that skill. The GM determines the DCs for such checks and which skills apply"

I hate that phrasing in Recall Knowledge. In information theory a "bit" has a precise meaning. It is the information stored as a single 0 or 1 in computer memory. It is the answer to a yes-or-no question that has a 50-50 chance of going either way. Thus, the phrasing feels like a misuse of precise jargon to me.

A character Striking a creature gains on average one bit of information about the creature's AC, in addition to having a chance of damaging the creature. If Recall Knowledge gave just one yes-or-no bit of knowledge, it would not be worth using.

To be fair, that is a mindbogglingly specific usage of the word 'bit' when the most common usage is "a small amount or piece of something." To the point where your post reads as satire. Especially since I'm pretty sure that's the etymology of your own usage anyway.

The word bit was in common use in my previous jobs in cryptology and data analysis. The etymology of the word is a contraction of "binary digit." See Bit in Wikipedia. When I see the word bit near the words information, knowledge, or data, my brain defaults to the definition from my work.

Yes, it is jargon, so I would expect most people to interpret "bit of knowledge" as "A small portion, degree, or amount" as per the Free Dictionary entry. That word is derived from the word "bite," so a bit is as much as a person takes in one bite.

[thenobledrake]

Temperans wrote:

I would like to remind everyone that recall has 2 seperate sections. 1 for general recall and 1 for creature identification. It seems like people half forgot in this whole "what to give about an orc warrior?".

General recall has plenty of examples of what it can give. But it doesn't give any examples of what would be easy/hard. It does give examples of what fits different proficiency.

Creature identification has only 1 example of what it gives. It also has no example of what would ne easy/hard. Also no examples of what different proficiencies would give.

You're kind of misstating what the difficulties shown in the skill chapter having the same name as proficiency levels do means, as you're implying it's that you have the proficiency level that enables you to get the result listed - the reality is that the results aren't specific to the proficiency level, but the DC is named the same as the proficiency level that is likely to have good odds of success.

I.e. you don't actually have to be a Master of the relevant skill in order to Recall the hierarchy of a genie noble court. You just need to roll a total of 30+ (or 21+ and be a natural 20 on the ddie), which if you do happen to be a Master in the skill is pretty likely to happen since proficiency alone gives you +13 or more depending on your level.

And it's not actually 2 sections, split cleanly between two different purposes, it's 2 sections which are both presented as relevant to every use of Recall Knowledge, with a subsection on creature identification, and some (in my opinion glaring) inconsistencies between the 2 sections.

[thenobledrake]

Bit, for a long time, referred to low-value coinage.

So a "bit of knowledge" can easily be using that meaning, too, rather than a more jargonized meaning.

It's important to remember that context guides us to which definition to use for a word, rather than try to force our more familiar definition into a new context for it.

[Temperans]

thenobledrake wrote:

Temperans wrote:

I would like to remind everyone that recall has 2 seperate sections. 1 for general recall and 1 for creature identification. It seems like people half forgot in this whole "what to give about an orc warrior?".

General recall has plenty of examples of what it can give. But it doesn't give any examples of what would be easy/hard. It does give examples of what fits different proficiency.

Creature identification has only 1 example of what it gives. It also has no example of what would ne easy/hard. Also no examples of what different proficiencies would give.

You're kind of misstating what the difficulties shown in the skill chapter having the same name as proficiency levels do means, as you're implying it's that you have the proficiency level that enables you to get the result listed - the reality is that the results aren't specific to the proficiency level, but the DC is named the same as the proficiency level that is likely to have good odds of success.

I.e. you don't actually have to be a Master of the relevant skill in order to Recall the hierarchy of a genie noble court. You just need to roll a total of 30+ (or 21+ and be a natural 20 on the ddie), which if you do happen to be a Master in the skill is pretty likely to happen since proficiency alone gives you +13 or more depending on your level.

And it's not actually 2 sections, split cleanly between two different purposes, it's 2 sections which are both presented as relevant to every use of Recall Knowledge, with a subsection on creature identification, and some (in my opinion glaring) inconsistencies between the 2 sections.

You interpret it to mean anyone can recall that information. I interpret it to mean this is the proficiency you need to get results like this one. So even more variation on what GMs do because of inconsistent wording.

Also you can clearly see the difference between the generic recall knowledge information and the identify creature information. Creature identification being a small subsection actually makes things even worse because its supposed to be a huge part of play. But its treated like its inconsequential by the very book.

Also I was not talking about the sections based on page numbers but their content. Recall knowledge being split into two seperate parts (200 page difference) actually makes it feel disconnected and creates needless page flipping.

[thenobledrake]

Temperans wrote:

You interpret it to mean anyone can recall that information. I interpret it to mean this is the proficiency you need to get results like this one. So even more variation on what GMs do because of inconsistent wording.

I want to thank you first for highlighting what I was talking about previously when it comes to the effects of making something a table and the way people take in that information, because just the authors putting the words "untrained" through "legendary" instead of "trivial" to "near-impossible" or something like that has caused you to interpret the book as saying something it actually says close to the opposite of:

Simple DCs, p. 503, Pathfinder Core Rulebook wrote:

The easiest method is to select a simple DC from Table 10–4 by estimating which proficiency rank best matches the task (that rank is usually not required to succeed at the task).

(emphasis added)

[Temperans]

thenobledrake wrote:

Temperans wrote:

You interpret it to mean anyone can recall that information. I interpret it to mean this is the proficiency you need to get results like this one. So even more variation on what GMs do because of inconsistent wording.

I want to thank you first for highlighting what I was talking about previously when it comes to the effects of making something a table and the way people take in that information, because just the authors putting the words "untrained" through "legendary" instead of "trivial" to "near-impossible" or something like that has caused you to interpret the book as saying something it actually says close to the opposite of:

Simple DCs, p. 503, Pathfinder Core Rulebook wrote:

The easiest method is to select a simple DC from Table 10–4 by estimating which proficiency rank best matches the task (that rank is usually not required to succeed at the task).

(emphasis added)

Excuse me what? We are talking about the rules for Recall Knowledge not for Simple DCs. If they meant to say that those examples used Simple DCs then they failed to show it. Which goes exactly to our point of not enough or clear explanations.

Using proficiency to describe Simple DCs just confuses the entire thing. Now its not just "is this a procificiency lock?", but also "am I supposed to use Simple DCs for this?".

The whole "usually this proficiency isn't required" makes it even worse as now multiple different rules could be used with no explanation.

Not to mention that this is yet another section that you need to go search. We have gone from page 238, to page 505, to page 503, maybe page 504 to confirm minimum requirement, to what ever page the info is on this book. Or whatever page it is one the Adventure rule. All with no real examples as to how the rules work besides the small guide in Recall Knowledge section 1 and 2.

[thenobledrake]

Temperans wrote:

Excuse me what? We are talking about the rules for Recall Knowledge not for Simple DCs.

All skill actions show a little chart, Recall Knowledge included, which provides examples of what Simple DC might be set for what result or situation of that action.

That's established by the front of the Skill Section containing this section, which references the other section I quoted previously.

Temperans wrote:

If they meant to say that those examples used Simple DCs then they failed to show it. Which goes exactly to our point of not enough or clear explanations.

Eh, not really. Once someone has missed a section of the rules and arrived at a conclusion that doesn't match it, it's really hard to accurately gauge if it's that the section wasn't presented properly and clearly or if a person just unintentionally skipped it and, because we're societally taught that mistakes are terrible, can't accept the explanation that the book is clear enough and they just missed something as valid, supposing instead that it must be the book's fault (when it's no one's fault).

Temperans wrote:

Using proficiency to describe Simple DCs just confuses the entire thing. Now its not just "is this a procificiency lock?", but also "am I supposed to use Simple DCs for this?".

I agree, they should have used other terms or no terms at all for the simple DCs. However, actions that have proficiency locks are very clear about it by listing it as a requirement (such as when hazards list a proficiency level in parenthesis following the DC for a particular skill that can disarm the hazard), or by listing the action in a section of the book labeled "Trained Actions."

That the charts which say all the simple DC names exist outside the Trained Actions sections also helps to show they aren't intended as required to produce the results next to them.

Temperans wrote:

The whole "usually this proficiency isn't required" makes it even worse as now multiple different rules could be used with no explanation.

Not to mention that this is yet another section that you need to go search. We have gone from page 238, to page 505, to page 503, maybe page 504 to confirm minimum requirement, to what ever page the info is on this book. Or whatever page it is one the Adventure rule. All with no real examples as to how the rules work besides the small guide in Recall Knowledge section 1 and 2.

Now you're really getting into the exact details of why I had a reaction of a full eye roll, head tilted back, exasperated sigh, deep breath, and lastly an uttered expletive when I realized that despite not mentioning it, nor even hinting at it, on the page where Recall Knowledge results categories are described, it was 100% by-the-book that you can't keep trying to get information on a topic if you fail a Recall Knowledge check.

And then I remembered that the rules try to frame it as though a player would not know they have bad information if they critically fail the check, but by the rules it's the only time they can both know something and not be able to know anything else, so all it takes to confirm bad information has been gained is to try and Recall more - and I cursed again. Then made some house-rules (which boil down to most of the page 500-ish section on Recall Knowledge not counting at all, since that's the part of the rules most players would never realize is even there until it "gotcha"'ed them during play).

[Unicore]

GMs also need to be careful relying on the DCs presented in the archives of Nethys. These things are guidelines based upon the rarity of the information being sought. As a GM you have to put a little thought into things you want to be common knowledge or not. Generally speaking, for the reasons the noble drake mentions, recall knowledge is an activity that requires learning additional information before you can try again. Setting DCs equal to other tasks that can be repeated indefinitely will make recalling knowledge something that will become too difficult for anyone but specialized characters.

The reason I recommend not letting this happen is because backstory and background information are good things for characters to have and interact with often in play. That shouldn’t only happen through NPC exposition or else you are really discouraging players from seeing their character as a part of the story.

[Cyder]

My problem is the rules don't really support a lot of what is being suggested here. The fact there are feats such as battle assessment exists kind of invalidate most of what is being suggest here. Battle assessment would be 100% redundant if Recall Knowledge worked the way suggested here. It seems to suggest the opposite. Any rule that relies on a super positive or generous interpretation is not reliable to build a character for PFS around.

PF2e in most of it rules removes ambiguity but for whatever reason Recall Knowledge has been left vague. Without the Battle Assessment feat the interpretations in this thread seem reasonable bit Battle Assessment seems to imply that is not the intention of the base action for Recall Knowledge else the feat would be basically redundant.

[The-Magic-Sword]

Cyder wrote:

My problem is the rules don't really support a lot of what is being suggested here. The fact there are feats such as battle assessment exists kind of invalidate most of what is being suggest here. Battle assessment would be 100% redundant if Recall Knowledge worked the way suggested here. It seems to suggest the opposite. Any rule that relies on a super positive or generous interpretation is not reliable to build a character for PFS around.

PF2e in most of it rules removes ambiguity but for whatever reason Recall Knowledge has been left vague. Without the Battle Assessment feat the interpretations in this thread seem reasonable bit Battle Assessment seems to imply that is not the intention of the base action for Recall Knowledge else the feat would be basically redundant.

Battle Assessment uses a perception check rather than a recall knowledge, sets the DC according to the enemies skill, and limits the information to the listed items. Its a specific feature with benefits and drawbacks relative to Recall Knowledge, its presence doesn't invalidate any of what we're discussing, its just a feature-specific process Rogues that don't have good recall knowledge, but do have good perception can use. Its also more or less likely to work relative to the stealth/deception dc of the foe relative to their level DC, uncommon/rare tags, and etc.

[Mathmuse]

The-Magic-Sword wrote:

Cyder wrote:

My problem is the rules don't really support a lot of what is being suggested here. The fact there are feats such as battle assessment exists kind of invalidate most of what is being suggest here. Battle assessment would be 100% redundant if Recall Knowledge worked the way suggested here. It seems to suggest the opposite. Any rule that relies on a super positive or generous interpretation is not reliable to build a character for PFS around.

PF2e in most of it rules removes ambiguity but for whatever reason Recall Knowledge has been left vague. Without the Battle Assessment feat the interpretations in this thread seem reasonable bit Battle Assessment seems to imply that is not the intention of the base action for Recall Knowledge else the feat would be basically redundant.

Battle Assessment uses a perception check rather than a recall knowledge, sets the DC according to the enemies skill, and limits the information to the listed items. Its a specific feature with benefits and drawbacks relative to Recall Knowledge, its presence doesn't invalidate any of what we're discussing, its just a feature-specific process Rogues that don't have good recall knowledge, but do have good perception can use. Its also more or less likely to work relative to the stealth/deception dc of the foe relative to their level DC, uncommon/rare tags, and etc.

I wonder whether Cyder is talking about my houserules. The two main advantages of Battle Assessment are its use of Perception rather than a knowledge skill, such as Arcana, Crafting, Nature, Occultism, Religion, and Society, and that it can give an assessment of a single unique individual rather than of a species in general. However, it also gives a solid example of how much information the assessment is supposed to provide:

Battle Assessment wrote:

Critical Success The GM chooses two of the following pieces of information about the enemy to tell you: which of the enemy’s weaknesses is highest, which of the enemy’s saving throws has the lowest modifier, one immunity the enemy has, or which of the enemy’s resistances is highest. If the event of a tie, the GM should pick one at random.

Success The GM chooses one piece of information from the above list to tell you about the enemy.
Critical Failure The GM gives you false information (the GM makes up the information).

Thus, on a successful Battle Assessment of a Mummy Guardian, Stealth-based assessment DC 21, the GM would say, "The mummy guardian has weakness fire 5," or "Its reflex save is only +10," or "It is immune to death effects." That is about one third the information that I give under my houserules. I would give all its saves or its complete list of immunities.

My players would be interested in the weakness to fire, but also in the mummy's Despair aura and its Mummy Rot infection. Battle Assessment does not provide a summary of Despair and Mummy Rot abilities, but Recall Knowledge Religion DC 22 would. "Anyone within 30 feet of the mummy is frightened 1," matches the amount of information given by Battle Assessment, but adding, "... and paralyzed for 1 round if they fail a DC 22 will save," would be too much information for a mere success.

My minimal story for Recall Knowledge Religion by an artisan or criminal would be, "You once saw a beautiful ancient necklace stolen from a tomb. The daring thief gave it to a cleric to pay for both Remove Curse and Remove Disease to cure the deadly Mummy Rot he caught from the mummy guardian's punches."

[Unicore]

Cyder wrote:

My problem is the rules don't really support a lot of what is being suggested here. The fact there are feats such as battle assessment exists kind of invalidate most of what is being suggest here. Battle assessment would be 100% redundant if Recall Knowledge worked the way suggested here. It seems to suggest the opposite. Any rule that relies on a super positive or generous interpretation is not reliable to build a character for PFS around.

PF2e in most of it rules removes ambiguity but for whatever reason Recall Knowledge has been left vague. Without the Battle Assessment feat the interpretations in this thread seem reasonable bit Battle Assessment seems to imply that is not the intention of the base action for Recall Knowledge else the feat would be basically redundant.

I think it is important to remember that this thread is not about running recall knowledge the “right way” and debating what that is, it is about making sure that recalling knowledge is a fun mechanic at your table. People have suggest multiple house rules for how to run it, and as we have been discussing, the RAW is open ended enough to make for a lot of table variation. Even in PFS I see it run very differently by different GMs and I don’t see a lot of outrage about that.

So if battle assessment feels like it needs protection at your table, my suggestion is making sure the recalled knowledge in combat action is more about identifying the possible objectives the creature has in this encounter, which will usually relate to special attacks and defenses, but also how it will use them in this fight, rather than specific numbers.

[Perpdepog]

Also, Battle Assessment uses a different check than most Recall Knowledge actions, so it still has value. Granted, it's on a rogue, and if there is one class that doesn't have to worry about dropping off in skill proficiency it's the rogue, but nevertheless, that is a difference

[GM 7thGate]

Recall Knowledge was my biggest disappointment in Pathfinder 2e. It was too weak in PF1, and got worse most of the time in PF2. No matter how knowledgeable, how many times you fought them, or how focused a character could be, it was impossible to actually know everything about any monster unless you had a very lenient GM that would choose to interpret "a bit of information" as a significant portion of the stat block.

PF2 made this worse by tightening the math and making it basically impossible to pass by 30 or 40 points ever, removing the ability for a lore focused character to at least pull 7 or 8 pieces of information at a time. Then it got turned into an action, so something that was already weak got an action economy problem tacked on.

The best implementation I've seen was the Pathfinder: Kingmaker video game. It blocked out the whole stat block into 4 chunks with some descriptive information. Every +5 over DC uncovered about a quarter of the information in the stat block. If you could hit DC +20 on a recall knowledge check, you got to read the whole stat block. I want it to work much more like that than what we ended up getting.

[Arachnofiend]

Perpdepog wrote:

Also, Battle Assessment uses a different check than most Recall Knowledge actions, so it still has value. Granted, it's on a rogue, and if there is one class that doesn't have to worry about dropping off in skill proficiency it's the rogue, but nevertheless, that is a difference

Battle Assessment running off of Perception can be huge for your stat array; you may want to raise wisdom for will saves anyways so it leaves Intelligence as an ignorable attribute, allowing your character to fulfill that niche without serious investment.

[Unicore]

Another thing really worth thinking about as a GM, is how to arbitrate allowing retries after gaining additional information. This is another loose mechanical element, but that gives you a lot of flexibility.

Something I see in published Materials fairly often is to have a hard modifier to the DC for first trying to recall obscure information, but to have bits of additional information that can start giving clues about an important topic and start slowly lowering the DC of the check, as well as granting an opportunity to make another check.

I do this with out of combat plot knowledge, but I also do it with monsters the players are fighting. If they see a monster use a big power, I might lower the DC for a second check. My players know this and so if they have questions about a creature that they can't seem to figure out, they often ask if they have gotten enough info to try again.

[Unicore]

GM 7thGate wrote:

Recall Knowledge was my biggest disappointment in Pathfinder 2e. It was too weak in PF1, and got worse most of the time in PF2. No matter how knowledgeable, how many times you fought them, or how focused a character could be, it was impossible to actually know everything about any monster unless you had a very lenient GM that would choose to interpret "a bit of information" as a significant portion of the stat block.

PF2 made this worse by tightening the math and making it basically impossible to pass by 30 or 40 points ever, removing the ability for a lore focused character to at least pull 7 or 8 pieces of information at a time. Then it got turned into an action, so something that was already weak got an action economy problem tacked on.

The best implementation I've seen was the Pathfinder: Kingmaker video game. It blocked out the whole stat block into 4 chunks with some descriptive information. Every +5 over DC uncovered about a quarter of the information in the stat block. If you could hit DC +20 on a recall knowledge check, you got to read the whole stat block. I want it to work much more like that than what we ended up getting.

I think this perspective is one that makes disappointment with the PF2 recall knowledge system pretty inevitable. If you are accustom to the idea that "real" success on recalling knowledge means beating the DC by an absurd number, and that in the parlance of PF2, "real" valuable information is only given on a critical success, then the action is almost never going to succeed for you.

That is why I really like Mathmuse's suggestion to treat a recall knowledge check like an opportunity to tell a 1 paragraph story about the topic the player asked about. Honestly, I recommend trying to this regardless of the tier of success the player has, but to use the tier of success to frame how much game changing new information to put into that story. For a critical failure, you want the players to feel like the information is new and game changing, but probably not in the way they think it is. For a failure, you maybe want to remind them of things you feel like their character really ought to know about the situation, but not feed new information into the loop. For a success, you want to make sure that you are working 1 really solid game changing new piece of information into the story, and then when the player does get that critical success, you want to make sure they feel like they really hit the lottery, focusing on giving the player enough information to feel like they just rolled that natural 20 and are not just receiving the recap of facts that they should already know, which is what can happen when you get to focused on x results = y specific fact about a creature or situation.

[Mathmuse]

Unicore wrote:

That is why I really like Mathmuse's suggestion to treat a recall knowledge check like an opportunity to tell a 1 paragraph story about the topic the player asked about.

I read this sentence aloud to my wife, who invented this system. She replied that Recall Knowledge as written to give a single number, such as Reflex save +12, breaks the story. The number is a game mechanic, not a fantasy element, so it pulls the player out of the fantasy world.

[Unicore]

Mathmuse wrote:

Unicore wrote:

That is why I really like Mathmuse's suggestion to treat a recall knowledge check like an opportunity to tell a 1 paragraph story about the topic the player asked about.

I read this sentence aloud to my wife, who invented this system. She replied that Recall Knowledge as written to give a single number, such as Reflex save +12, breaks the story. The number is a game mechanic, not a fantasy element, so it pulls the player out of the fantasy world.

Please tell your wife that there is a Unicorn on the internet thankful for her brilliant idea.

[Alchemic_Genius]

I didn't realize until now that I was doing the paragraph thing already, but I'm certainly gonna be more consistent about it now

[Unicore]

I think it is a wise time to resurrect this thread, as I had high hopes that the Dark Archive Book was going to include a lot of GM information about recalling knowledge, but from all the advanced discussions I have seen so far, it seems like there are some specific skill feats tied to Occultism, but not really a general discussion about incorporating the skill into play.

Having gotten a chance to be a player in a lot more games of 2E in the last year, as well as continuing to GM for 3 tables pretty consistently in this time, I can say that as a player, I definitely notice when GMs are tight lipped with recalling knowledge and when they are employing something like the the paragraph method of giving out information.

I have very much enjoyed games where GMs employ the paragraph method and when I find GMs that do so, I am much more likely to value the recall knowledge action and build characters around it. As a GM, I very much enjoy seeing players build characters that seek to interact more with the world (whether I am running a pre-written adventure or my own homebrew).

A new thing that I feel like is worth bringing up, now that I have thought more about it, is that there is a lot more to recall knowledge than just "in combat" vs "out of combat" recalling knowledge.

NobleDrake pointed out that there is encounter recalling of knowledge, and there is non-encounter recalling of knowledge, but I think that it is important (and would still like to see more done within published material) to separate out Exploration recalling of knowledge and Downtime Recalling of knowledge.

Overall, downtime recalling of knowledge feels like it gets the most love as a "research" Downtime activity, and some APs (Abomination vaults for one example) does a fair bit with both exploration and down time, but I feel like GMs need a lot more help understanding Exploration activities generally and how exploration time works before the investigate exploration activity is something that players will ever consciously do, or know how to do.

I find, as a GM, that players want to be able to switch exploration activities very quickly and want the ability to be doing investigate activities along side other activities even though they don't really express that is what they are doing. But they do ask questions that are very clearly investigating the new room, while expecting to still be detecting magic, or raising a shield, and some times this is difficult to parse out.

Having this kind of stuff in published materials (like what players who investigate in a room with x skill can learn about plot points), is really awesome to include, but probably needs a little more direction with how much time these investigations should take, and it would be cool for some of it to tie to other aspects of the dungeon site, or have things that can clearly be studied more in downtime research to gain additional insights about creatures in the dungeon, environmental features of the dungeon, treasure, and plot points that are useful to the party.

I know we will never get a GMG 2, and I am not sure a game book is the best place for it, rather than maybe like a pamphlet insert to battle maps or digital supplements, but I would still like to see Paizo do more with recalling knowledge advice and with building up some examples of the non-combat encounters outlined in the GMG.

[WWHsmackdown]

My personal rule is to give weakest save and weaknesses on a success. On a crit I give that and special abilities. Without it, I feel spending incorrect save spells for a caster feels too punishing without recourse. Any feats that codify rules like this I ban bc I'm making it a base game feature (except the coming thaumaturge finding weaknesses).

[Unicore]

WWHsmackdown wrote:

My personal rule is to give weakest save and weaknesses on a success. On a crit I give that and special abilities. Without it, I feel spending incorrect save spells for a caster feels too punishing without recourse. Any feats that codify rules like this I ban bc I'm making it a base game feature (except the coming thaumaturge finding weaknesses).

What about if you have a party of martials? Or the casters are down to cantrips and the enemy has a particular weakness that could change the whole approach of the party to the encounter?