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I was looking at possible skill feats to take at 8th level, and came across Consult the Spirits in the APG. At first I thought it would be cool, but then I came across this:
"Spend 10 minutes and attempt a check to Recall Knowledge with the chosen skill; the DC is determined by the GM (usually a very high DC for the level of the highest-level creature you might encounter in the area)."
Since I don't want to spoil myself by looking at the adventure I'm actually playing, I'll look at part 3 of Extinction Curse because that's kind of close to my character's situation. Let's say I'm 9th level, and I want to Consult the Spirits before entering the Wellspring Tower. My Nature check would be about +19 (+15 proficiency, +3 Wis, +1 item). The highest-level creature in the area is 10th level, which would normally be DC 27, but it gets +5 because of the "very hard" DC modifier for a 32. So I'm down to about 40% chance of getting a single-word answer to a single question about the nearby environment. If I was instead looking at the Liferoot Stone, the highest-level creature is 12th which would give me DC 35 which is a 25% chance. And that's a thing I can do once per day.
Does that really seem right for a Master-level skill feat? To me, it would seem much more reasonable to use a fixed DC, maybe 30 (since that's the typical "Master" DC). That would mean that when you first get the feat you have a reasonable chance to succeed, and as you gain levels you will be more and more likely to both succeed and crit (which gives you three questions instead of one).
That would still be significantly inferior to Commune and Commune with Nature, because you're still limited to one or three questions about purely local affairs.
A character could easily have a few higher modifier to make the odds more favorable, and even with the odds you express the effect is still - if you ask the right question - gaining knowledge that you otherwise wouldn't be able to gain, or would need to spend more time or take more risk to gain by another method.
So it seems fine to me. Especially because the DC is not guaranteed to be as high as you are expecting because it's GM-set, not explicitly determined in only one possible way (i.e. an area might have it's DC set based on what it is "normal" to find in the area, not the highest-level creature that happens to be wandering through or hypothetically found in the area because it matches the typical habitat).
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Well, "the area" for Consult The Spirits is only stuff within 100 feet of you. I don't think I'd base the DC on anything outside that radius. So unless that higher level creature is within 100 feet of you, I wouldn't use it for the DC.
thenobledrake wrote: A character could easily have a few higher modifier to make the odds more favorable, How? The skill bonus I used is based on:
9th level
Master proficiency
+1 item bonus
Wis +3
I could have Wis +4 at 9th level, but the earliest non-mutagen item bonus
of +2 or higher I can find are druid's vestment at level 10.
Quote: and even with the odds you express the effect is still - if you ask the right question - gaining knowledge that you otherwise wouldn't be able to gain, or would need to spend more time or take more risk to gain by another method. If this was something anyone could do, I can see your point. But this is something that requires master proficiency and a skill feat, and can only be done once per day. Something requiring that sort of investment should at least be reliable.
Quote: So it seems fine to me. Especially because the DC is not guaranteed to be as high as you are expecting because it's GM-set, not explicitly determined in only one possible way The feat says "usually". To me, that means "this is what the DC is unless you have a good reason to set it to something else". There's a trapped spirit here that wants to break free? The DC might be a little lower. The current occupants have tortured the local spirits, making them angry at everyone and everything? Maybe increase the DC. But unless there's something like that going on, the DC's going to be very close to what it says in the feat.
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Staffan Johansson wrote: How?
I could have Wis +4 at 9th level, but the earliest non-mutagen item bonus
of +2 or higher I can find are druid's vestment at level 10.
Yes, that's how.
Staffan Johansson wrote: Something requiring that sort of investment should at least be reliable. And it is just about as reliable as anything else in the game that allows for information gathering. Like I already said, it's not a big deal that the odds are a little low because you can get info with this feat that you otherwise could not get.
Example: you could have a spirit show up and answer "are there secret doors here?" and you've just saved yourself the trouble of spending time searching the entire area and then still not being sure if you didn't find any because there aren't any or because you missed them.
Staffan Johansson wrote: The feat says "usually". To me, that means "this is what the DC is unless you have a good reason to set it to something else". And to me it means that's a good place to start with the DC - but the "determined by the GM" part will always carry more weight than the "usually" part.
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thenobledrake wrote: Staffan Johansson wrote: How?
I could have Wis +4 at 9th level, but the earliest non-mutagen item bonus
of +2 or higher I can find are druid's vestment at level 10.
Yes, that's how. OK, so I could have one more point. Does that alter my main complaint? No. Further, should anything skill-based be balanced around the absolute maximum commitment? Absolutely not. I utterly reject that idea (and I believe that the DC chart goes up by about five too many points on its way to level 20). Someone who is a Master at something should be able to do that sort of thing with ease.
Quote: Staffan Johansson wrote: Something requiring that sort of investment should at least be reliable. And it is just about as reliable as anything else in the game that allows for information gathering. Like I already said, it's not a big deal that the odds are a little low because you can get info with this feat that you otherwise could not get.
Most other information-gathering abilities use fixed DCs, such as Track or Gather Information. Further, they generally don't add a completely arbitrary "very hard" DC modifier.
Quote: Example: you could have a spirit show up and answer "are there secret doors here?" and you've just saved yourself the trouble of spending time searching the entire area and then still not being sure if you didn't find any because there aren't any or because you missed them. Except the ability is too unreliable for that. With my example, I have a 40% chance of success... which means I have a 15% chance to critically fail. So even if I can get a hold of a spirit, there's about a 25% chance that the spirit is lying to me.
Is that really something that's worth a master-level skill feat? On the same level as automatically foiling special senses when sneaking? Or being able to wall jump? Or treating four people at once with Medicine?
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber
Divination effects are really powerful, and compared to other divination effects in the game Consult the Spirits is comparable.
There was definitely a concerted effort to make divination less game breaking.
Considering that Consult the Spirits has no use cost and ten minutes of free time is really easy to come by in this edition; it's not the most powerful feat in the world but it's potential use is very high. Also don't forget the Aid action! At that level hitting the DC 30 crit success for Aid shouldn't be hard, and that's a potential extra +3 on the check, bringing you to 55% chance of success and only 5% chance of bad information.
Staffan Johansson wrote: Is that really something that's worth a master-level skill feat? Yes, because the feat gives a character the ability to learn things they literally couldn't learn otherwise if the roll goes well and the question asked is one of a variety of things that a player would probably realize they could ask.
it doesn't need the same odds of success as other similar investment level actions because it's result is, without question, more potent than the majority of those.
Lets figure out the max a player could have at lvl 9 and work from there
19 Wis for +4, 9+6 from lvl and master, +2 item (lvl 9 is where all the +2's start though I am having a hard time finding any items that grant a nature bonus),+1 Status from heroism, +3 from Aid another crit for a total of 25 so 5% crit fail, 20% fail, 45% success, 30% crit success.
So 75% chance of Success or better if totally maxxed and can find/make a magic item to get +2 nature. At no cost. That's pretty good for a 10 min use time.
Now it's not likely you will have all these bonuses likely only +19 to 22 but if this is a "signature" of the character you will build toward it.
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Timeshadow wrote: Lets figure out the max a player could have at lvl 9 and work from there
19 Wis for +4, 9+6 from lvl and master, +2 item (lvl 9 is where all the +2's start though I am having a hard time finding any items that grant a nature bonus),+1 Status from heroism, +3 from Aid another crit for a total of 25 so 5% crit fail, 20% fail, 45% success, 30% crit success.
So 75% chance of Success or better if totally maxxed and can find/make a magic item to get +2 nature. At no cost. That's pretty good for a 10 min use time.
Now it's not likely you will have all these bonuses likely only +19 to 22 but if this is a "signature" of the character you will build toward it.
That's not "no cost". You were expending a 3rd level spell slot in there. And a critical success on Aid is not all that likely given that you are the one who's good at this – it's not likely that the party will have two people who are heavily focused on the same skill. So the Aid bonus will likely be +1. And the lowest-level non-consumable item I found that gives a generic bonus to Nature is the druid vestments at level 10.
And like you said, that's the absolute max you could hit at level 9. That's not a good place around which to balance skill use.
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber
To be fair, the heroism is only a +1; it's still 70% chance of success without.
And Aid is really easy to hit. At level 9, if you are trained in Nature and have a +2 Wisdom, which isn't high at that level, you have a +13; that means you need only a 7 to give a +1 (60% chance of success) and only a 17 to give the +2 (65% chance of success).
MaxAstro wrote: To be fair, the heroism is only a +1; it's still 70% chance of success without.
And Aid is really easy to hit. At level 9, if you are trained in Nature and have a +2 Wisdom, which isn't high at that level, you have a +13; that means you need only a 7 to give a +1 (60% chance of success) and only a 17 to give the +2 (65% chance of success).
Ageless patience if you're an (half) elf, +2.
A bard with Inspire competence easily hits the +3 (+22 perf at lvl 9).
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