| 11 people marked this as a favorite. |
Paizo, I love y'all, but I have to give a bit of a WTF on this one.
Know-It-All is a Bard feat. It's benefit is "when you succeed a check to Recall Knowledge, you gain more information or context. When you critically succeed a check to Recall Knowledge, at the GM's discretion, you may gain even more information or context."
That's... gotta be the least mechanically well-described feat ever. My instant thought is "oh man the table variation on this is going to be off the charts".
On the other hand, there is a Bard feat that lets you Recall Knowledge five times as a single action. That's pretty cool.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
On the other hand, there is a Bard feat that lets you Recall Knowledge five times as a single action. That's pretty cool.
I very much want to do stupid knowledge tricks as a bard. Mostly they involve taking Assurance with Bardic Lore, and then picking up Automatic Knowledge:Bardic Lore once I get Legendary in Occultism, assuming that all works like it did in the Playtest.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Everybody know bards have a mind bordello to store knowledge in.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
I feel like "Know it All" could have just been "improve your degree of success on Recall Knowledge, making crt successes giving ALL THE INFO! YAAAAAYYYYYYY" and it would be WAY less confusing than what you just typed. Also, Recall 5 times with 1 action? WAT?!?
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
John Compton mentioned there being a skill feat that was so vague and up to GM interpretation that he felt the need to ban it for PFS. Maybe this is the one?
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
It's a bard feat, not a skill feat, but it IS pretty vague.
"when you succeed a check to Recall Knowledge, you gain more information or context. When you critically succeed a check to Recall Knowledge, at the GM's discretion, you may gain even more information or context."
Is that the exact text or are you paraphrasing?
It doesn't seem much more vague than the traditional 'a bit of useful information' language used for knowledge skill checks in PF1.
Wait, what's an enigma muse? New muse or a rename of a playtest muse?
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
"when you succeed a check to Recall Knowledge, you gain more information or context. When you critically succeed a check to Recall Knowledge, at the GM's discretion, you may gain even more information or context."Is that the exact text or are you paraphrasing?Exact text is
Know-it-all Feat 8
[bard]
Prerequisites enigma muse
When you succeed at a Knowledge check, you gain additional information or context. When you critically succeed at a Knowledge check, at the GM's discretion you might gain even more additional information or context than normal.
It could have been:
"When you succeed at a Knowledge check, you gain additional information or context. You may continue making Knowledge checks to gain more information as a free action untill you fail or critical fail"
BAM
Know-it-all
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Wait, what's an enigma muse? New muse or a rename of a playtest muse?
I guess it is the Lore muse renamed.
Very odd feat though, especially as Enigma/Lore Bards will rinse most knowledge checks anyway. The wording doesn't help, does the GM just show the player the stat block, there, knock yourself out?
| 7 people marked this as a favorite. |
"when you succeed a check to Recall Knowledge, you gain more information or context. When you critically succeed a check to Recall Knowledge, at the GM's discretion, you may gain even more information or context."Is that the exact text or are you paraphrasing?Exact text is
Know-it-all Feat 8
[bard]
Prerequisites enigma muse
When you succeed at a Knowledge check, you gain additional information or context. When you critically succeed at a Knowledge check, at the GM's discretion you might gain even more additional information or context than normal.
Thanks! So it was the exact text, more or less.
Mamma mia is that ever loosey-goosey! I think it'll be tricky for the DM to keep coming up with actual, bonafide "extra" stuff for the bard's lore checks. I can already see myself subconsciously just shifting the goalposts instead:
DM's internal monologue: "This information is all stuff I probably would have just given out on a success, but because there's a bard with Know-it-all in the party, I'll just designate some portion of it as the 'extra bit' so the bard gets to feel special."
Net actual benefit to the party: zero, but the bard does get to feel special.
It's hard to convince myself this is worth a Class Feat; it seems much more like a Skill Feat.
I mean, I know it's technically possible to generate several discrete pieces of information on every knowledge check and then restrict yourself to only doling out certain pieces according to whether or not a character has a particular Feat. In practice however, it can be tricky to come up with interesting/relevant extra tidbits on the fly, and it's even trickier to not just spill all the beans on a good knowledge check regardless of what Feats a character has.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I feel that the most important distinction is that the feat says Knowledge check, not Recall Knowledge Action. So it has a variety of uses outside of identifying monsters in exploration mode or winning pub trivia.Wait, what's an enigma muse? New muse or a rename of a playtest muse?I guess it is the Lore muse renamed.
Very odd feat though, especially as Enigma/Lore Bards will rinse most knowledge checks anyway. The wording doesn't help, does the GM just show the player the stat block, there, knock yourself out?
Which actually makes it more even fluffy, because it means any new thing that calls for a knowledge check is going to require GM interpretation to decide what extra thing Know-It-Alls get - unless every knowledge check now and forever has a blurb about "know-it-alls also learn..."
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
I mean, I know it's technically possible to generate several discrete pieces of information on every knowledge check and then restrict yourself to only doling out certain pieces according to whether or not a character has a particular Feat. In practice however, it can be tricky to come up with interesting/relevant extra tidbits on the fly, and it's even trickier to not just spill all the beans on a good knowledge check regardless of what Feats a character has.
Now use Know-it-all with Dubious Knowledge. Now you as the DM have to "generate several discrete pieces of information on every knowledge check" AND 'generate several discrete pieces of misinformation on every knowledge check' too...
| 9 people marked this as a favorite. |
Here's my good faith attempt to understand how this is supposed to work.
On checks to like "identify the holy symbol" it doesn't do much, so instead of "It is the holy symbol of Acavna, the Aztlanti goddess of the moon" I might just append "who has been dead since Earthfall".
If it's like "identify a creature" usually tables I've been at limit the amount of information you get from a successful identification. I usually do something like "I will give you the name of the monster, the most pressing thing about it, and will answer one question about the statblock. So something like "It's a Medusa, her gaze can slow you and subsequently petrify you if she focuses" and I will answer questions like "what is her weakest save (will)" or "does she have any other special abilities (can't be flanked, and her snakes will bite you.)"
So someone with the feat just gets to ask an extra question.
| 8 people marked this as a favorite. |
On the other hand, there is a Bard feat that lets you Recall Knowledge five times as a single action. That's pretty cool.I very much want to do stupid knowledge tricks as a bard. Mostly they involve taking Assurance with Bardic Lore, and then picking up Automatic Knowledge:Bardic Lore once I get Legendary in Occultism, assuming that all works like it did in the Playtest.
I wonder if a Rumor-Scientist is doable. Take Dubios Knowledge, put no training in any knowledge skill and dump INT and WIS. You basically try to crit-fail any knowledge check and after that try to counter-check the "facts" you've gotten.
Combine that with the 5-Recalls-per-action feat and have the GM murder you after a session. :D| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
On the other hand, there is a Bard feat that lets you Recall Knowledge five times as a single action. That's pretty cool.I very much want to do stupid knowledge tricks as a bard. Mostly they involve taking Assurance with Bardic Lore, and then picking up Automatic Knowledge:Bardic Lore once I get Legendary in Occultism, assuming that all works like it did in the Playtest.I wonder if a Rumor-Scientist is doable. Take Dubios Knowledge, put no training in any knowledge skill and dump INT and WIS. You basically try to crit-fail any knowledge check and after that try to counter-check the "facts" you've gotten.
Combine that with the 5-Recalls-per-action feat and have the GM murder you after a session. :D
This is great!
| 9 people marked this as a favorite. |
I wonder if a Rumor-Scientist is doable. Take Dubios Knowledge, put no training in any knowledge skill and dump INT and WIS. You basically try to crit-fail any knowledge check and after that try to counter-check the "facts" you've gotten.
Combine that with the 5-Recalls-per-action feat and have the GM murder you after a session. :D
Speaking as a player, I love it
Speaking more realistically as an eternal GM, it's already banned from my table as of right now :P
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Here's my good faith attempt to understand how this is supposed to work.
On checks to like "identify the holy symbol" it doesn't do much, so instead of "It is the holy symbol of Acavna, the Aztlanti goddess of the moon" I might just append "who has been dead since Earthfall".
If it's like "identify a creature" usually tables I've been at limit the amount of information you get from a successful identification. I usually do something like "I will give you the name of the monster, the most pressing thing about it, and will answer one question about the statblock. So something like "It's a Medusa, her gaze can slow you and subsequently petrify you if she focuses" and I will answer questions like "what is her weakest save (will)" or "does she have any other special abilities (can't be flanked, and her snakes will bite you.)"
So someone with the feat just gets to ask an extra question.
This was more or less my thought for monster rolls, because I do the same thing, but it's definitely other random Knowledge checks scattered through an adventure that I'm more concerned about.
I want the Bard to feel like they are getting mileage out of the feat, but at the same time I don't think Paizo is going to provide much in the way of guidelines for how to accomplish that.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
This is in no way "fluff", which refers to non-rules-relevant roleplaying/setting context. This is rules crunch which isn't quite as specific as you would prefer, but is 100% in realm of rules crunch, just as much as normal Knowledge Check rules are. I get that the general trajectory of the rules to be exact and personal psychological quirks can create the expectation and DEMAND for every rules interaction to be 100% predictable, but that is just expectation and the rules not conforming to that is not inherantly wrong.
Personally speaking, I would say if there exists a quantity of info between normal success and Crit, I would give that on a normal check. If there somehow wasn't, I would give the Crit result. On a Crit result I would give additional info beyond Crit. If there isn't any discrete info in Monster itself, I would give tactical advice based on info.
| 10 people marked this as a favorite. |
Which actually makes it more even fluffy, because it means any new thing that calls for a knowledge check is going to require GM interpretation to decide what extra thing Know-It-Alls get - unless every knowledge check now and forever has a blurb about "know-it-alls also learn..."I feel that the most important distinction is that the feat says Knowledge check, not Recall Knowledge Action. So it has a variety of uses outside of identifying monsters in exploration mode or winning pub trivia.Wait, what's an enigma muse? New muse or a rename of a playtest muse?I guess it is the Lore muse renamed.
Very odd feat though, especially as Enigma/Lore Bards will rinse most knowledge checks anyway. The wording doesn't help, does the GM just show the player the stat block, there, knock yourself out?
Since critical success gives "more information or context" exactly, you can give whatever you were holding onto for a critical success. Now if they also critically succeed, you might need more info if you decide to give more, which is discretionary. It's written to ensure you always have what you need if you're uncomfortable making up more, assuming you were ready for a critical success of a normal character.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Crits are Fluff!
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Since critical success gives "more information or context" exactly, you can give whatever you were holding onto for a critical success. Now if they also critically succeed, you might need more info if you decide to give more, which is discretionary. It's written to ensure you always have what you need if you're uncomfortable making up more, assuming you were ready for a critical success of a normal character.
Thanks for weighing in, Mark. And I guess the reason you didn't phrase it as "success=crit success" is so that you could include the bit about getting even more info on a crit (at the DM's discretion) without confusing anyone?
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Would have been simpler/easier to understand if the feat had indicated that when you roll a success on a Knowledge check, you get a critical success instead.
Would have been simpler/easier to understand if the feat had indicated that when you roll a success on a Knowledge check, you get a critical success instead.
Yes, but then you couldn't have the extra clause about getting EVEN MORE on a crit success, right?
Yea, that's probably why it isn't worded as such.
Would have been simpler/easier to understand if the feat had indicated that when you roll a success on a Knowledge check, you get a critical success instead.Yes, but then you couldn't have the extra clause about getting EVEN MORE on a crit success, right?
Actually, it could have. There is at least one ability I've seen that uses the language "if you get a critical failure on [thing], you instead fail. If you get a failure on [thing], you instead [different benefit]".
So similar wording could have been applied to Know-It-All. Still, thank you Mark - good to know that is how the feat works, even if it's worded a bit awkwardly.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I wonder if a Rumor-Scientist is doable. Take Dubios Knowledge, put no training in any knowledge skill and dump INT and WIS. You basically try to crit-fail any knowledge check and after that try to counter-check the "facts" you've gotten.
Combine that with the 5-Recalls-per-action feat and have the GM murder you after a session. :DSpeaking as a player, I love it
Speaking more realistically as an eternal GM, it's already banned from my table as of right now :P
This wouldn't be an issue. When you use the action to make 5 recall knowledge checks, any special abilities or free actions that would normally be triggered when you recall knowledge do not apply.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Would have been simpler/easier to understand if the feat had indicated that when you roll a success on a Knowledge check, you get a critical success instead.Yes, but then you couldn't have the extra clause about getting EVEN MORE on a crit success, right?Actually, it could have. There is at least one ability I've seen that uses the language "if you get a critical failure on [thing], you instead fail. If you get a failure on [thing], you instead [different benefit]".
But then you would get riders that are supposed to require a true critical success.
But then you would get riders that are supposed to require a true critical success.Would have been simpler/easier to understand if the feat had indicated that when you roll a success on a Knowledge check, you get a critical success instead.Yes, but then you couldn't have the extra clause about getting EVEN MORE on a crit success, right?Actually, it could have. There is at least one ability I've seen that uses the language "if you get a critical failure on [thing], you instead fail. If you get a failure on [thing], you instead [different benefit]".
Thanks for backing me up, Mark! :p
I'm pleased I was able to divine the reasoning behind the Feat's wording. :D
Actually, it could have. There is at least one ability I've seen that uses the language "if you get a critical failure on [thing], you instead fail. If you get a failure on [thing], you instead [different benefit]".So similar wording could have been applied to Know-It-All. Still, thank you Mark - good to know that is how the feat works, even if it's worded a bit awkwardly.
You couldn't word it that way, because (as Mark points out) then ANY success would become a critical success and gain the Super-Extra benefit of EVEN MORE knowledge/context.
So if the wording appears a little awkward to you, know that it's awkward for a reason.
You could go with "Any time you roll a check to Recall Knowledge, your degree of success increases by one".
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
You could go with "Any time you roll a check to Recall Knowledge, your degree of success increases by one".
Still wouldn't work. What's above a Crit Success? There's no general rule for a Super Critical Success. Also, your re-wording would turn Failures into Successes, and Crit Fails into Regular Fails (something the current Feat doesn't do). It would be a very different Feat if you worded it that way.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
A bard takes two seconds to think about something, and suddenly math equations are floating in front of him, and he flashes back to an early part of the story and connecting it to something else.
That happens to me all the time.
Wait--I do have a reputation as a know-it-all.
I mean, I know it's technically possible to generate several discrete pieces of information on every knowledge check and then restrict yourself to only doling out certain pieces according to whether or not a character has a particular Feat. In practice however, it can be tricky to come up with interesting/relevant extra tidbits on the fly, and it's even trickier to not just spill all the beans on a good knowledge check regardless of what Feats a character has.Now use Know-it-all with Dubious Knowledge. Now you as the DM have to "generate several discrete pieces of information on every knowledge check" AND 'generate several discrete pieces of misinformation on every knowledge check' too...
Heh heh, I houseruled knowledge checks in Pathfinder 1st Edition to encourage my players to roleplay gathering information, and I am going to get crazy with houserules on knowledge checks in Pathfinder 2nd Edition.
During the playtest chapter In Pale Mountain's Shadow, my wife developed a story-based system for my answers to Recall Knowledge. She told me to tell it in a way that the character would have heard it. Her barbarian rolling about the hobgoblins of Pale Mountain might have overhead a polticial discussion between tribal leaders concerning the hobgoblins. The ranger, in contrast, might have learned about the hobgoblins by scouting the area on previous journeys to the mountains. The alchemist or wizard might have read a book, "Tribal History of the Hobgoblins," that is very detailed but 20 years out of date.
Bards learn songs and folktales. Without Know-It-All, I can make up a stanza from a song that gives the information. With Know-It-All, I can give the bard the history of the song, how the bard Tamsin wrote the song after his travels through the Glistening Forest because he had met the elvish tree farmer Bud. That has potential for a second opinion on the information, clues about what I might have left out.
My wife chose Mind-quake Survivor as the background for her first playtest character, which granted Dubious Knowledge. I have experience answering Recall Knowledge for Dubious Knowledge. Sometimes I simply mirrored the correct information: "It has resistance to fire and resistance to cold." (One resistance is correct.) Sometimes I made up a plausible fact unrelated to the correct fact. But in a few cases, I let the false information hint to the players about what they should look for, "That butterfly carving is an idol of Desna. People often used idols like that to conceal secret doors." Okay, the secret door is not behind the idol, but you players ought to search the room for one. Know-It-All will put the make-believe on steroids. "That butterfly idol represent Desna in the style of the Cinderlands barbarians of Varisia, which explains the flame motif. You realize that several other carvings you passed have the same motif. In addition, since the door to this room also has a flame motif, perhaps it symbolizes that this idol is a door. It would be easy to hide a secret latch in the details, and if you look at the door's design again, I will give you a +2 circumstance bonus on your Perception check."
Knowledge checks outside of monster abilities always tended towards GM discretion anyway. I am fine with how this is presented as a GM and see no issue. It doesn't bother me from a player mindset either and is the sort of ability I know many of my players would LOVE to take with dubious knowledge.
Yes it is not perfectly codified for PFS, yes there will be table variance. But these are knowledge checks, there always is table variance.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
You could go with "Any time you roll a check to Recall Knowledge, your degree of success increases by one".Still wouldn't work. What's above a Crit Success? There's no general rule for a Super Critical Success. Also, your re-wording would turn Failures into Successes, and Crit Fails into Regular Fails (something the current Feat doesn't do). It would be a very different Feat if you worded it that way.
There are actually other abilities that use the terminology "degree of success increases by one", so your first point doesn't apply.
Also, I think you slightly misunderstood Mark - he did not mean that the wording I suggested would cause a regular success to get Know-It-All's crit success benefit - remember, I mentioned there are already other abilities worded that way without having that problem.
Instead, he meant that any other ability you have that triggers from a critical success on knowledge would trigger from Know-It-All. For example, I believe Rangers have a feat that gives them a bonus if they crit succeed Recall Knowledge against a monster - the devs did not want a multiclass bard/ranger to get that effect all the time with Know-It-All.
In any case, that is a point well taken, Mark. I still feel the feat is worded awkwardly, but now I understand why.
You could go with "Any time you roll a check to Recall Knowledge, your degree of success increases by one".Still wouldn't work. What's above a Crit Success? There's no general rule for a Super Critical Success. Also, your re-wording would turn Failures into Successes, and Crit Fails into Regular Fails (something the current Feat doesn't do). It would be a very different Feat if you worded it that way.There are actually other abilities that use the terminology "degree of success increases by one", so your first point doesn't apply.
Also, I think you slightly misunderstood Mark - he did not mean that the wording I suggested would cause a regular success to get Know-It-All's crit success benefit - remember, I mentioned there are already other abilities worded that way without having that problem.
Instead, he meant that any other ability you have that triggers from a critical success on knowledge would trigger from Know-It-All. For example, I believe Rangers have a feat that gives them a bonus if they crit succeed Recall Knowledge against a monster - the devs did not want a multiclass bard/ranger to get that effect all the time with Know-It-All.
In any case, that is a point well taken, Mark. I still feel the feat is worded awkwardly, but now I understand why.
I can tell from your post that you've misunderstood what I wrote. If you care to, I suggest you read my posts again.
In any case, here's the summary version:
What I'm NOT saying: "You could never word any ability like that, because it would just be wrong"
What I AM saying: "If you worded this specific ability like that, it would change how it works; it would no longer be the same feat."
Actually, I was ironically referring to the wording of incapacitation effects from the other thread. :)
Incapacitation effects specifically "reduce the degree of success of your attack roll by one step", with no special wording about Critical Failures, and "increase the degree of success of [the creature's] saving throws by one step", with no special wording about Critical Successes.
So apparently it is valid to have an ability that just increases success by one step across the board, and Critical Successes are still just Critical Successes.
That said, I also wasn't clear enough which of your posts I was replying to - the bit about how I think you had Mark's meaning slightly off was in reply to your reply to me, not your reply to sherlock. Sorry for the confusion. Specifically this bit:
You couldn't word it that way, because (as Mark points out) then ANY success would become a critical success and gain the Super-Extra benefit of EVEN MORE knowledge/context.
That is not true, based on the wording of some other abilities. If you used the wording "When you succeed on a knowledge roll, treat your result as a critical success. When you critically succeed on a knowledge roll, at the GM's discretion you gain even more information or context", that wording would not cause a success to trigger its own critical success ability.
You couldn't word it that way, because (as Mark points out) then ANY success would become a critical success and gain the Super-Extra benefit of EVEN MORE knowledge/context.That is not true, based on the wording of some other abilities.
Can you find an ability that works in the exact same way as this one does (improving a success to a crit success and a crit success to a super crit)? I'm skeptical that there are any, but I'll concede the point if you can produce one.
Let me make sure I am understanding what you mean, first:
You are saying that if you used the wording I posted above, then someone with Know-It-All who rolled a regular success would gain the "even more information or context" benefit of a critical success with Know-It-All, correct?
The problem with that interpretation is the monk's Third Path to Perfection ability, which is worded like such:
[some stuff about choose a save to upgrade and then] "When you roll a critical failure on the chosen type of save, you get a failure instead. When you fail at the chosen type of save against an effect that deals damage, you take half damage."
If your interpretation is correct, then the same logic would apply: A critical failure would upgrade to a failure, and then get the special failure ability of half damage. That would mean that you never take more than half damage from any ability tied to the chosen save and the amount you fail by never matters. If you think that's the correct interpretation I'm willing to be convinced, but that is a really strong ability in that case - for example, for any basic save, if effectively reads "the worst result you can get is a success".
I see what you're saying, and I don't disagree with how it relates to Third Path to Perfection. However, this ability is different in one important aspect:
Third Path to Perfection involves IMPROVING FAILURES. Improvement and Failure run in opposite directions, so you can never end up in the unusual situation of going beyond the four normal categories of success/failure.
This Feat, on the other hand IMPROVES SUCCESS, effectively (but not actually) creating a fifth category of super-critical success.
Do you see the difference and why that changes the way the feat reads? If all successes are crits, and all crits get an extra bonus, that reads very differently from all crit fails are regular fails, and all regular fails are successes.
The former case isn't covered by the general rule that "you can only move one step at a time", because there is no extra category beyond Critical Success. So any success that becomes a Crit Success should also gain the additional benefit of a Crit Success.
Do you see what I'm getting at?
Regardless, if you can find one ability that's worded the way you said and that works exactly like this Feat does (Success=Crit, Crit=extra goodies) then I'll admit I'm wrong.
EDIT: Or alternatively one ability with the wording you suggested that works like this: (Fail=Crit Fail, Crit Fail=extra bad stuff)
Hrm... Except I think my example is more apropos than you think?
TPtP doesn't read "all crit fails are regular fails, and all regular fails are successes"; in fact it very much reads "all crit fails are regular fails and all regular fails get an extra bonus".
For example, consider an ability that did full damage on a failure and no damage on a success - TPtP would give you half damage on a failure, not no damage.
I don't see why it matters if the extra bonus ability is attached at the end of the spectrum or not; my argument is a general rule that "if an ability changes [one result] to [other result] and then has a separate clause that [other result] gets [bonus effect], the ability doesn't cause you to get [bonus effect] on [one result]".
To give another example, let's consider a theoretical version of TPtP that works on the positive end of the spectrum. It is worded like this:
"When you roll a success on the chosen type of save, treat your result as a critical success. When you critically succeed at the chosen save against an effect that deals damage, you instead gain that much life."
By the same logic that the actual version of TPtP doesn't give you half damage on a crit fail, wouldn't this version of TPtP not give you life gain on a regular success?
EDIT: Good debate, by the way. I'm enjoying myself, but I have to go to bed. I'll catch your response tomorrow. :)
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Hrm... Except I think my example is more apropos than you think?
TPtP doesn't read "all crit fails are regular fails, and all regular fails are successes"; in fact it very much reads "all crit fails are regular fails and all regular fails get an extra bonus".
For example, consider an ability that did full damage on a failure and no damage on a success - TPtP would give you half damage on a failure, not no damage.
I don't see why it matters if the extra bonus ability is attached at the end of the spectrum or not; my argument is a general rule that "if an ability changes [one result] to [other result] and then has a separate clause that [other result] gets [bonus effect], the ability doesn't cause you to get [bonus effect] on [one result]".
To give another example, let's consider a theoretical version of TPtP that works on the positive end of the spectrum. It is worded like this:
"When you roll a success on the chosen type of save, treat your result as a critical success. When you critically succeed at the chosen save against an effect that deals damage, you instead gain that much life."
By the same logic that the actual version of TPtP doesn't give you half damage on a crit fail, wouldn't this version of TPtP not give you life gain on a regular success?
Ohhh.... I clearly should have read your post more closely. My bad. Well, I'm uncertain of the correct interpretation. I think it's a reasonable that Third Path to Perfection might give you half-damage on all Failed Saves, even if they would have otherwise been critical failures. I suppose it could go either way, but I imagine there's be a correct answer buried somewhere in the book.
I think it's a reasonable that Third Path to Perfection might give you half-damage on all Failed Saves, even if they would have otherwise been critical failures.
This would be my ruling, if it came up. Y becomes X, and all X's do Z - logically, Y does Z.
Just because Y = crit fail, X = fail and Z = half damage, does nothing to change my understanding of the logical process!
Although Max is right, it is a strong ability. But I still think that's how it works RAW.
You could go with "Any time you roll a check to Recall Knowledge, your degree of success increases by one".Still wouldn't work. What's above a Crit Success? There's no general rule for a Super Critical Success. Also, your re-wording would turn Failures into Successes, and Crit Fails into Regular Fails (something the current Feat doesn't do). It would be a very different Feat if you worded it that way.
I'm aware of that.