Hypercognition spell advice

[Atalius]

I've got a character who has a 10 Int and doesn't plan on putting any more points into it at level ups. I do have Clever Improviser however. As I continue leveling up can I use Hypercognition with some decent success or do I need a high INT to use it? Nobody on our team has a high INT and one area where we could definitely use this spell is against some bosses we are not sure about.

[HammerJack]

Having intelligence to help would definitely get better results out of the spell. If you want to get a good idea of target DCs, though, you can always compare your expected skill bonus against the level-based DC chart on page 503 as a baseine (difficulty may go up for rarer targets, etc).

Between the higher difficulty of a high level target, and the DC of Recall Knowledge increasing for each extra check on the same monster (see page 506), though, I think that "Boss Monster" is probably the hardest application to use that spell well for with low intelligence.

[Siro]

This may be an area where your team may still suffer. Having only your level added to a 'Recall Knowledge' check makes it very unlikely you will roll a success, and the difficultly to recall more information only grows the more info you are able to gleam. Lets look at the average DC of a 'Recall Knowledge' check at Level 7 {when you can start adding your full level to the check}. An average DC is 23, meaning you will need to roll a 16 or higher to get anything, assuming the creature itself is not 'Uncommon' or 'Rare' which increases the DC. It also means you are decently likely to crit fail the check and gain incorrect information. This number get worse the higher level you go/ the higher level monster. {Note, this is also assuming you are using a skill based on Int, there are 'Recall Knowledge' based skills that are based on Wis, which can increase your bonus.}

Hypercognition as also been debated {slightly}, in wither it allows to avoid the 'Once a character has attempted an incredibly hard check or failed a check, further attempts are fruitless—the character has recalled everything they know about the subject." {page 506 core rulebook} part of the 'Recall Knowledge", however I believe it does not, as there is no mention it does. Given that is the case, and the DC problem, your going to most likely fail at attempt one, and waste the spell. {assuming you are only using it for one type of check. You can still trying 'Recall Knowledge' on other stuff.

If it has become a real problem, you may wish to look into the 'Dubious Knowledge' skill feat. You will get a bit of wrong and a bit of correct info on a failed 'Recall Knowledge' check. Depending on DM {as is for most cases involving 'Recall Knowledge'} the wrong info may be tested and discarded fairly easily, leaving you with at least some info on the creature. {note, does not work on a crit fail.}

[SuperBidi]

I second Siro. Recall Knowledge checks are extremely hard to do. If you only succeed on a 13, it means that 25% of the information you'll get will be wrong ones.
So, it may be a concept, the Bard who's getting tons of information about monsters with half of them being wrong, but I'm not sure it helps enough to use any resource (action/spell slot) on it.
I'd personally not roll a Recall Knowledge check during combat without a maxed bonus, unless I have a third action to waste.