Finding monster weaknesses is too hard

[citricking]

To find out anything more than the most basic info about the creature you're facing you need a critical success.

pg. 338:
"On a critical success, the character gets that information plus something more subtle, like a demon’s weakness or the trigger for a reaction. After a success, further uses of Recall Knowledge can yield more information, but you should increase the difficulty each time. Once a character has attempted an extreme-difficulty check or failed a check, further
attempts are fruitless."

Should it really be that hard to find a monsters weakness?

If you are level 12 and have a +5 modifier to the required ability score and are a master in the skill you'll have a +19

With update 1.4 that becomes a medium difficulty task. For level 12 that's 26.

So you need to roll a 17 to get anything useful, a 20% chance for a very invested character. If you fail you can try again, but you need to get a 20.

You are already spending an action, a 70% success rate sounds a lot more reasonable for a very invested character trying to find information like a monsters weakness. That's what it would be if you needed a success to find a weakness. A critical success could give more information, like multiple weaknesses/abilities.

They seemed to design some creatures around having higher hp, but exploitable weakness. They should make it reasonable to find these weaknesses without metagaming.

[Edge93]

To be fair, depending on the monster you might get their weakness on a regular success. As per Recall Knowledge, "A character who succeeds identifies the monster and singles out one of its best known attributes, such as a Troll's weakness to acid and fire or a Manticore's tail spikes". So it does depend on the situation and it will vary by GM but it is possible to get weaknesses on a success.

And although this kind of does and doesn't go against their example, I think it would be reasonable and within the quidelines here to allow it for, say, demons. On a success you remember that they are weak to Cold Iron and Good, since those are the better-known weaknesses most likely since ALL demons have them. But on a crit you recall their specific elemental weakness, which is more unique and varied between fiends.

Just a thought. Agreed that creatures like demons with HP buit around weakness should have it more easily discernible.