Secret checks and critical Recall Knowledge failures seem cumbersome; why are these the default?

[Colette Brunel]

I appreciate Paizo deliberately letting a GM turn secret checks into non-secret checks, though the default nevertheless seems clunky. A GM already has plenty on their metaphorical plate to manage. If a GM wants to do secret checks, then they have to keep track of the skill modifiers of all PCs' potentially secret skills (or manually prompting for skill modifiers, which can sometimes defeat the point of a secret check), also keep track of any PCs' relevant fortune-trait rerolls, and then manually make the secret rolls themselves. When the GM is the bottleneck of a session's gameplay flow, this can be on the slower side, no?

Similarly, critical Recall Knowledge failures likewise seem on the more cumbersome side. It is easy enough for the GM to tell the truth on a success, or to add a little extra detail on a critical success. Coming up with a plausible lie, though? That is much tougher for many a GM. And certainly, it can be particularly tricky when everyone in the party makes a Recall Knowledge check, some people succeed (or critically succeed), and some people critically fail; now the GM has to come up with both a truth and a lie, while making them sound equally plausible.

There are skill feats that can alleviate critical Recall Knowledge failures, but they are limited in scope. Unmistakable Lore affects only Lore skills, and Student of the Canon has a somewhat narrow field.

It would have been nice to have an option for critical Recall Knowledge failures that does not ask the GM to come up with a masterful bamboozlement on the spot.

[Alyran]

I think this is a rule that relies heavily on having players that are willing to not metagame. If they're willing to just roll with what you tell them, even if they know you're lying to them (due to a crit fail), then it's a really fun rule that can lead to some ridiculous situations. If your players are metagame heavy, it might be better to house rule anything related to this kind of stuff out, just to make everyone's experiences better (unless you're *very* confident in your on-the-spot improv skills).

[Edge93]

For secret checks, they're the default because GMs may not think about doing it without I being pointed out but may realize it's actually a very useful tool when it is. I myself am one such example. And I can say from experience that the game flows WAY smoother when players don't know whether they succeed or failed in such a scenario. Makes things proceed more naturally, less metagaming or even pressure to avoid metagaming. And secret checks are typically to avoid knowledge of the result, not of the check itself. That said, if there's a check you're concealing from a player you likely know it's coming ahead of time and can ask for the modifier at a more innocuous time.

As for crit fails, well, it really comes down to improvisation and how the GM does things. I've only seen a few crit fails on knowledge, but about half of those I used to make an encounter more interesting while the other half I used for good jokes. Improvisation is easily a GM's most important tool, and this is just one place it comes into play. And if inspiration fails to strike for good original false info, it doesn't take a lot of on-the-spot genius to state the opposite of a truth related to the check.

[The Gleeful Grognard]

It is fine imo.

Just write down the relevant skill modifiers along side AC. It doesn't take up much space and you can make a pretty simple table.

Otherwise you can ask for their modifier. Most of the time a secret roll is to keep the player from knowing the result. Not to keep them from being aware you are rolling.

As for the GM being unable to make up a plausible untruth on the spot, the GMs job is bluffing and invention O.o, if a skill usage forces new GMs to improve I am fine with that.
I have never seen it be an issue before though.

[PossibleCabbage]

I figure when it comes to fantasy creatures, you'd be surprised what constitutes a plausible lie. Like "Vampires are harmed by garlic" really makes very little sense, but it has endured as a thing people believed about vampires.

I mean, a good one is "it is vulnerable to wolfsbane" since wolfsbane is also poisonous to humans, and most everyone else.

[Paradozen]

You can always add a vulnerability or move one around. Or a resistance. Examples:

"You recall that Lemures are evil spirits weak to cold iron"
"Bullette's hide is nigh impenetrable, it resists all but adamantine blows"
"A zombie is typically exceptionally flammable, to its own detriment"
"The Jiang Shi can only be put to rest by the wood of a cherry tree"
"Common troll regeneration can only be stopped if you freeze the regenerating cells"
"The flesh golem is prone to falling apart if electrified."

All are plausible from a character standpoint, many are plausible from a player's view, but all are wrong in PF1 (I still don't have the full bestiary for PF2, just the bits on the Archives of Nethys). Some will require players to not metagame, depending on how familiar the players are with the PF stats.

[Richard Crawford]

To give GMs the tools to tell the stories they want to tell.