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Hey there, I'm a newbie at 2e but as far as I can tell you the best feat for recall knowledge is Dubious Knowledge, it gives you a little of true info and some wrong info if you fail your check, after that is up to how you role play it... In a meta game sense, Gms may be unprepared and is easy to tell what info is the wrong one as they just came up with it at the moment, at the very least is better than wasting your action.
On top of that is a skill feat with little to no prerequisites, hope this help you n.n
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The first things that come to mind is to have a decent intellect and pick up..
Loremaster: Gives you 2+intellect+level in every lore skill.
Untrained Improvisation: Gives you Intellect+Level in every skill at level 7.
This is more effective if your GM lowers the DCs for "having specific lore". If the GM just uses the DC for the lore check=society etc. Looks like most GM's rule as it is the same DC. It would still be quite helpful though.
Without investing in those there are some other options...
-Have one player invest in INT and take Occultism/Society/Arcana
-Have one player invest in WIS and take Religion/Nature
-Have one player invest in INT+WIS and get trained in the above.
In general "I think" most monsters fit in those 5 categories.
Other than that it is pretty much up to the GM to change any rules. In general I just feel recall knowledge is VERY GM dependent. Since
Critical Success: You recall the knowledge accurately and gain additional information or context.
Success: You recall the knowledge accurately or gain a useful clue about your current situation.
Critical Failure: You recall incorrect information or gain an erroneous or misleading clue.
These things are all quite vague. Depending on how generous your GM is recall knowledge can feel great or just feel pointless even on a success.
The very best thing is to talk to your GM and to figure out how recall knowledge checks are working best (or most fair) for your group from a rules perspective because depending on how your GM is handling the action using recall knowledge may be a big advantage for your group or just a near useless waste of actions.
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Is your GM rolling your Recall Knowledge Checks as Secret Checks as intended?
I honestly think that if they aren't then there is a VERY good chance that they are just flat out mishandling them in the first place and might be setting the DC too high because, to be honest, Recall Knowledge DCs really aren't that hard to make even for non-specialized PCs unless they have made a habit out of consistently throwing nothing but extreme encounters (or Uncommon/Rare Creatures) at your party.
Is your GM rolling your Recall Knowledge Checks as Secret Checks as intended?
I honestly think that if they aren't then there is a VERY good chance that they are just flat out mishandling them in the first place and might be setting the DC too high because, to be honest, Recall Knowledge DCs really aren't that hard to make even for non-specialized PCs unless they have made a habit out of consistently throwing nothing but extreme encounters (or Uncommon/Rare Creatures) at your party.
Out of curiosity what are the DCs supposed to be? For a level 5 monster is it supposed to be 15 or 15+level based on simple DC table.
Our group also fails a lot and has led to pretty much everyone skipping them unless there is a specific situation. Or is it supposed to be an untrained DC. As a player I just kind of go along with everything.
Is your GM rolling your Recall Knowledge Checks as Secret Checks as intended?
I honestly think that if they aren't then there is a VERY good chance that they are just flat out mishandling them in the first place and might be setting the DC too high because, to be honest, Recall Knowledge DCs really aren't that hard to make even for non-specialized PCs unless they have made a habit out of consistently throwing nothing but extreme encounters (or Uncommon/Rare Creatures) at your party.
Out of curiosity what are the DCs supposed to be? For a level 5 monster is it supposed to be 15 or 15+level based on simple DC table.
Our group also fails a lot and has led to pretty much everyone skipping them unless there is a specific situation. Or is it supposed to be an untrained DC. As a player I just kind of go along with everything.
The DC is based on Table 10-5: DCs By Level. The DC for a level 5 monster would be 20. +2 if the creature is uncommon, +5 for Rare, +10 for Unique.
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The DC for identifying creatures seems fair to me, my investigator usually has success at them unless I roll really low and I'm playing at level 3, society, arcana and nature are the skills I use the most for it but to be honest I rarely learn something relevant about animals/beast.
Religion is important too if there are undead in your game, sometimes my GM let's me use arcana or even medicine to identify them but that's just house ruling.
The problem may not even be DC, the problem may instead be up to 84% base failure chance if you don't have the relevant skill.
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Well... That's more about party composition, like if there isn't an investigator or int knowledge guy everyone pick two or more knowledges to make sure you have everything covered, if playing society or similar I'd say that @RPGnoremac first post is the solution, Loremaster is really good for recall knowledges but I think it isn't necessary to identify every monster, it helps but is not that critical.
Well... That's more about party composition, like if there isn't an investigator or int knowledge guy everyone pick two or more knowledges to make sure you have everything covered, if playing society or similar I'd say that @RPGnoremac first post is the solution, Loremaster is really good for recall knowledges but I think it isn't necessary to identify every monster, it helps but is not that critical.
And even that is only while assuming that you know or can make an educated guess which skill to use.
For example take a random group where the Fighter has Crafting, the Cleric has Religion and Society, the Wizard has Arcana and Occultism and the the Ranger has Nature. They stumble upon an unknown monster and cant make anything of the moster desciption. This means that 3 of 4 characters will automatically fail or crit fail their check, wasting an action and potentially even providing false information and only one character has a real chance of actually getting useful information (with chances being better if the monster can be assessed with two different skills).
We are seeing a lot of failure in these rolls. Sometimes it is just an unlucky night, and surely throughout the life of the party the numbers will normalise. It doesnt help that particular night and fosters confirmation bias (of which players never fail at maxing out).
I'm thinking of throwing some story related rewards in these to help rolls.
- An item/quest/perk where they choose one lore skill and bump it up to the next proficiency
- A reroll on lore skill once every battle
- Lowering the DC for a specific creature type if they spend time researching the topic (i.e. the hellknight wannabe studies devils, the alchemist plants and oozes, the bard fey).
Having a specialist (investigator) does shake it up, but without a "this is my schtick" character I feel they prefer to use the action to run/attack/whatever instead, due to the recent fights.
I'd like to point out that when it matters most - extreme encounters - this is most likely to fail, and we are double dipping. Not only do they get no info so the deadliness of ignorance remains, but they just lost an action. Things spiral fast in those encounters.
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IME, using the wrong skill is rare because characters, as well as players, should know what kind of creatures their skills identify, and most of those are pretty obvious, to be honest.
I mean, you see a giant lizard, that's almost for sure gonna be either Arcana or Nature, depending on whether it's a Dragon, Beast, or Animal, and if it's instead a giant bear, that's gonna be Nature for sure (though, if a Beast, you could also use Arcana). People with skills other than those won't even try.
There are a few 'gotcha' creatures like a Bone Golem (looks like you'd use Religion, actually Arcana or Crafting), but they're rare.
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And damn I just saw the Secret tag thanks to this thread.
There are many many secret checks in Pathfinder 2, and for myself that dont play with my player's stats before me (they play on paper or phone app) this is a lot of information to keep track.
I am not fond of that "piling more work on the GM" aspect of this system, as much as I understand why it is secret and creates a less meta environment.
I never really thought about it but do GMs normally let players know what they are rolling before hand religion/arcana/etc?
I normally ask what would it be used to recall knowledge? If it is something I am bad at I just do something else.
Do GMs normally have players do "I want to recall knowledge" then force them to roll it if it is an untrained skill they have no chance on?
If a GM played that way I 100% would never try to recall knowledge unless I was an INT character with untrained improvisation or loremaster.
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I never really thought about it but do GMs normally let players know what they are rolling before hand religion/arcana/etc?
....
I'm quite lenient and it is a home game with old friends. I will let them guess a bit at "can I roll arcana, looks like a dragon thing right?" and I will interject and say "roll occultism instead".
It is way, way too much work for me to remember who has the right skills, so if I was rolling for them (which I might try out) I would be giving it away anyway with "uh you do have nature right..no? oh then it's you John who has it, sure". I dont see the point in this dance so I cut straight to it and announce what is to be rolled.
They always choose whether they'd like to roll or not.
After some discussion our GM usually tells us which skill applies if anybody is interested in doing the check. Rolling bad and having wasted an action usually is bad enough in itself, even without playing a guessing game.
Wait, it sounds like some of you are making the players guess which skill to use, and if they're wrong they just fail the check because it's wrong?
I hope I'm misunderstanding...
In my groups, during session 0 part of the discussion is "who is going to cover what bases for Recall Knowledge. And typically you have a high(ish) Wisdom character because you want somebody to be treating wounds anyways, so you have two covered there. Intelligence isn't always a guarantee as there are many options when it comes to the "do stuff the Wizard is expected to do" role. Sorcerer may not have great Int, for example. But between 4 players, which is your standard group, it shouldn't be too hard to get 5 skills trained alongside decent or good stats.
During play, players can make an educated guess based on the descriptions. If it's a humanoid they ought to pretty much know that's Society. If it's rotting or lacks flesh, they ought to have a good idea that's Religion. But they don't declare "I want to recall knowledge using Occultism," they simply say "I want to recall knowledge."
I do have my players roll. I'm a big fan of the Secret trait, but I have enough going on. My players can do the math themselves, and they are game for playing out a failure reasonably so it doesn't mess with things too much.
Anyways I tell them "roll Occultism (or whatever it is). Mostly they've guessed correctly and aren't asking to Recall on a creature they aren't trained about, but if they do, they invariably fail, but they are good about saying "Hey Vush, I don't know anything about that, what can you tell us?" So at most it's a 1 action loss across the whole party.
My players have no problem with Recall Knowledge, but our situation is not typical. Since our adventure path Ironfang Invasion started as a wilderness adventure, everyone was trained in Nature, the most common knowledge check. Two are crafters so they also trained in Crafting. The other knowledge skills, Arcana, Occultism, Religion, and Society, are one each.
The other unusual part is my house rules. We had generous house rules about knowledge in PF1 and we carried that tradition to PF2.
I don't bother with secret rolls, because my players are good about not using metagame knowledge. They are hilarious when roleplaying a belief in false knowledge from a critically-failed knowledge check. I tell them which skill to roll. A player sometimes asks to roll on another skill where they are trained ("I don't know Religion. How about Arcana?") and I might allow it at a higher DC.
Another house rule is that I give a story of useful information. This was my wife's idea, because she wanted knowledge checks to fit the characters' backgrounds. If our ranger rolls to identify a creature, then I tell a story about her mentor telling her about the creature and its attacks. If our rogue/sorcerer rolls to identify a creature, I tell about how he saw the creature at his master's experimental biology lab. If our druid rolls to identify the creature, I tell her what she can identify about its biology and behavior from its similarity to other animals. This gives the player character information that they are likely to use.
A third house rule is that if the party gains new information about the creature, they perform fresh Recall Knowledge checks. If the centipede swarm hit a party member with its venom, then party members can make Knowledge rolls about the venom even if previously they failed their rolls and had not realized that centipedes are venomous.
In interest of fairness I also have creatures make Recall Knowledge (Society) checks to identify the party (well, Recall Knowledge (Nature) for the leshy in the party) if they don't regularly deal with civilized peoples. They often end up ignorant. The halfling rogue/sorcerer once used that ignorance to fool some korreds into thinking he was a fey creature. Korreds are friendlier to other fey.
Archives of Nethys gives the identification skill and DC of creatures in their entries. For example, Centipede Swarm says, "Recall Knowledge - Animal (Nature): DC 18," and Korred says, "Recall Knowledge - Fey (Nature): DC 21," and Tengu Sneak says, "Recall Knowledge - Humanoid (Society): DC 16."
I explained how my players and I handle Recall Knowledge checks, but I should also explain why. The reasons might persuade the GM.
Knowledge adds a tactical element to combat. Combat becomes more than hitting the monster with the PC's favorite attack, it becomes hitting the monster with an attack tailored to its weaknesses. And the players using tactics to defend against its special attacks is more exciting than being hit by the attack with no defense.
Knowledge is also useful outside of combat, such as investigating a mystery or asking around town about a future adventuring location.
For players to use Recall Knowledge actions, the results have to be worth the action. Otherwise, the PCs will instead learn the information through trial and error. Hit the monster with 9 fire damage and see that it lost only 4 hit points? That means Resist fire 5. An attack roll of 21 missed and an attack roll of 24 hit? The AC is 22, 23, or 24. The bear made a grab along with its strike. Obviously, it has grab ability. The players are going to get the information anyway,so why not give it to them in a timely fashion at the low price of one Recall Knowledge action using a trained skill?
During play, players can make an educated guess based on the descriptions. If it's a humanoid they ought to pretty much know that's Society. If it's rotting or lacks flesh, they ought to have a good idea that's Religion. But they don't declare "I want to recall knowledge using Occultism," they simply say "I want to recall knowledge."
While this will most probably work a lot of times, especially for experienced players, there can easily be outliers as Deadmanwalking already mentioned or if the players simply lack experience. For example just during our last session we encountered some Wood Golems and it was the Wizard (Arcana) and Fighter (Crafting) who were "eligible" for meaningful checks, not the party Ranger (Nature), who won initiative and went first.
The problem our group has had with the current RAW iteration of Recall Knowledge (and without some additional guidance how to use it properly) was the combination of the "guessing game" (skill selection + secret check) plus PF2 math at low levels (higher chance for failure i.e. wasting an action for no intel or potentially even wrong intel, especially for the more important enemies who will usually be higher level and or rare) plus dubious gain ("one piece of useful information") which was actively discouraging our players from using Recall Knowledge instead of encouraging it's use.
Shoot fireballs first and worry about fire resistance / immunity later or as I told our GM: If we stick to RAW my Cleric will only ever again try to Recall Knowledge using Religion if we encounter zombies holding signs that read "zombie".
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While this will most probably work a lot of times, especially for experienced players, there can easily be outliers as Deadmanwalking already mentioned or if the players simply lack experience. For example just during our last session we encountered some Wood Golems and it was the Wizard (Arcana) and Fighter (Crafting) who were "eligible" for meaningful checks, not the party Ranger (Nature), who won initiative and went first.
In terms of tricky creatures, sometimes those should cost an action as someone less than ideal tries to figure them out. They're deceptive looking, and that's part of the point.
In terms of lack of real-world experience with the system, this is where I, and I hope most other GMs, would step in and remind people about which creatures are covered by which Skill. That's information that, like the existence of a door that's easily seen but not on the map, the characters would 100% know but is easy for players to miss, and thus the sort of thing a GM needs to step in and remind them of occasionally.
If they mistake them for some sort of fey or plant, then they may still waste an action on wood golems, but they won't mistakenly do it because they misunderstand what creatures are covered by Nature.
Additionally, at GM discretion, the 'wrong' skill can still work, at least partially or at higher DC. I'd certainly allow a successful Nature check to reveal a Wood Golem is flammable, or a successful Religion check to show a Bone Golem isn't undead, whatever it looks like, even if neither reveal what the creature is or much else about it. Of course, I'd instead have them roll the right Skill if they have it, but if they don't...
The problem our group has had with the current RAW iteration of Recall Knowledge (and without some additional guidance how to use it properly) was the combination of the "guessing game" (skill selection + secret check) plus PF2 math at low levels (higher chance for failure i.e. wasting an action for no intel or potentially even wrong intel, especially for the more important enemies who will usually be higher level and or rare) plus dubious gain ("one piece of useful information") which was actively discouraging our players from using Recall Knowledge instead of encouraging it's use.
Shoot fireballs first and worry about fire resistance / immunity later or as I told our GM: If we stick to RAW my Cleric will only ever again try to Recall Knowledge using Religion if we encounter zombies holding signs that read "zombie".
I'd definitely tell someone what Skill it was after they rolled, at the least. That way even a failure on the wrong Skill at least tells you what the right Skill is.
Spellcasters are also pretty incentivized to do Recall Knowledge every turn they don't need to move just by how most spells work (being two actions and all). Cha-based ones less so, but still.
There are also a few different Feats that increase the action economy of Recall Knowledge, which are pretty cool and quite worth it.
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And damn I just saw the Secret tag thanks to this thread.
There are many many secret checks in Pathfinder 2, and for myself that dont play with my player's stats before me (they play on paper or phone app) this is a lot of information to keep track.I am not fond of that "piling more work on the GM" aspect of this system, as much as I understand why it is secret and creates a less meta environment.
I have a cheat sheet for secret rolls in my game. Each time the characters level up, I have them fill out a sheet of paper with their proficiency levels and bonuses for skills likely to be used in secret rolls (one sheet holds all the info for the entire party). They also roll 20d20 and write the results in two columns of ten on this same sheet. I then randomly determine which column to use first, and whether I go up or down, and then whenever a secret roll is called for I simply refer to this sheet and cross off one of the d20 rolls for them and announce the results of the check (if appropriate). I find spending ten minutes or so doing this each time they increase in level saves me a truckload of time during the game.
Does any GM actually ask the players to guess the skill for Recall Knowledge? That makes no sense to me. Have I misinterpreted some comments?
What is the logic about automatically failing a Recall Knowledge when the player guesses the wrong skill? My own visualization is that a Recall Knowledge action is a character searching his memory to uncover relevant information. I don't store my mathematical training, my religious training, my practical home repair experience, my social experience, etc. in different parts of my brain; instead, my memories are all mixed together. Rolling on a particular relevant skill reflects the training and aptitude of the character in the relevant field, not what kind of memory he or she recalls. Thus, my players don't guess the skill. I tell them which one to roll.
It would be like the player saying, "My character makes a running long jump over the crevasse. I roll 26 on my Acrobatics check," and the GM responding, "Long Jump is an Athletics check. You made the wrong roll and fail automatically. Your character falls to his doom."
If the GM wants to keep the relevant skill secret, because the skill reveals something about the creature, then make a secret roll as the rulebook advises.
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Oh the secret rolls... A new thing to 2e, not actually that new but 2e happens to have a lot, my group usually just ignore it with the exception of traps and the likes, we all make our rolls in front of everyone else but keep our PCs in character, is rather rare that our GM rolls in secret.
We usually use the pathbuilder app for our sheets and with screen captures is kinda easy to track our skills or so I hope, I don't like to overburden my GM since I'm the one who suggested him to be the GM.
Also... The only instance in which there may be a confusion or guessing which skill use is when you use a Lore, everything else is almost self explanatory, unless you are kinda new to fantasy role playing in general and as i say our GM let us use other skills if it seems "relevant" enough, like medicine on zombies because they're corpses and stuffs...
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Mmm... Haven't played a ranger but that sounds really frustrating, I see identifying monsters as a plus but not a must, Monster Hunter completely changes that, I dunno... I have never been a fan of ranger but I think that relying on a successful identify creature may be a design error if all other features rely on that check.
It makes sense for a wizard, rogue or investigator but not for a Ranger IMO
Well, 18 is a standard DC for a level 3 monster, and 20 is a standard DC for level 5, so seeing those numbers which aren't particularly high for level 4 fail isn't actually odd, since they're numbers you expect to see be failures with other skills for level appropriate challenges. (The the 20 I'd only expect to fail on something uncommon or something thats a pretty significant threat at your level)
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Haven't played a bard yet but the Investigator kinda manages to hold it's own when it comes to identifying monsters or at least at low level (1-6?), mine had success about... 60-70% of times and the times I failed I still get some info with dubious knowledge as I mentioned above.
But a ranger? It likely can deal with animals and plants but little else.
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Do your ranger and investigator have any invested magical items giving Item bonuses to their knowledge skills? That would help a bit and around this level it's reasonable to have a few of those things floating around (though probably not one for every skill).
The ranger, for example, needs to make a Recall Knowledge check on every monster we meet in order to use Monster Hunter, and all of his other abilities trigger off a successful Monster Hunter check. And there are just way too many knowledge skills to make that work. It's pretty frustrating to have a basic class ability fail in every single encounter.
Mmm... Haven't played a ranger but that sounds really frustrating, I see identifying monsters as a plus but not a must, Monster Hunter completely changes that, I dunno... I have never been a fan of ranger but I think that relying on a successful identify creature may be a design error if all other features rely on that check.
It makes sense for a wizard, rogue or investigator but not for a Ranger IMO
The Monster Hunter ranger feat 1 is a voluntary feat. The ranger in my campaign skipped it, since she planned on spending her later feats on the Snare Specialist line.
The other effects that require a successful Recall Knowledge check from Monster Hunter are Monster Warden ranger feat 2 and Legendary Monster Hunter ranger feat 16. In contrast, Master Monster Hunter ranger feat 10 make proficiency in the Recall Knowledge check easier: "You can use Nature to Recall Knowledge to identify any creature."
Getting the +1 circumstance bonus to your next attack roll from Monster Hunter is difficult. It requires a critical success on the Recall Knowledge check. The main benefit of Monster Hunter is that it gives a Recall Knowledge action as a subordinate action, i.e., for free, whenever the ranger uses Hunt Prey.
Do your ranger and investigator have any invested magical items giving Item bonuses to their knowledge skills? That would help a bit and around this level it's reasonable to have a few of those things floating around (though probably not one for every skill).Ahh, that's the kind of advice they need. What sort of items would those be?
Any of the items that include an Item bonus to the skill. Pendant of the Occult for occultism, Hat of the Magi for Arcana, etc.
And damn I just saw the Secret tag thanks to this thread.
There are many many secret checks in Pathfinder 2....That is an interesting way of going about it. I will bring it up in the next session and see if it flies. However sometimes they like the rolling the die, it feels more real when the guillotine drops. Definitely will have them fill out a cheat stat block.
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Do your ranger and investigator have any invested magical items giving Item bonuses to their knowledge skills? That would help a bit and around this level it's reasonable to have a few of those things floating around (though probably not one for every skill).Ahh, that's the kind of advice they need. What sort of items would those be?
The Thrimble of Revelation gives a bonus to Religion checks, including Recall Knowledge (Religion). However, it is hand-held and burns 5 gp of incense per hour.
Scholarly Journal item 3 gives a +1 item bonus to a Recall Knowledge check on the narrow topic of the journal. It would better to spend the 30 gp for a Scholarly Journal Compendium which covers a topic as broad as all undead or all wildlife in a particular forest.
The weakness of a Scholarly Journal is that the user must read it for 1 minute before making the Recall Knowledge check. However, a ranger can use Hunt Prey on the tracks of a creature. Taking a 1-minute journal-reading break while tracking in order would work to gain that +1 item bonus before making the Monster Hunter Recall Knowledge check via Hunt Prey on the tracks. The limit on the +1 circumstance bonus from Monster Hunter is "your next attack roll." There is no time limit.
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No, there's no issue of secret rolls in our game. The GM flat-out tells us (after some fumbling through the books together, because nobody can remember the new categories) which skill is needed. Then he tells us that a roll of 18 or even 20 is a failure, so we learn nothing.
Er...an 18 should be a success on most things up to level 3. A 20 should be a success on most things up to level 5.
With a 14 in a stat and Trained alone, a 5th level character has a +9 and gets a 20+ half the time. That's decent odds, though not great, but with a 16 and a +1 item it goes to a 60%, and those odds go up for a specialist (who can easily hit a +14 and a 75% chance).
The problem is DC levels and coverage. No character can cover all the needed knowledge skills. As noted, there are at least six of them. No character can cover even half of those with a reasonable chance of success, and you can't leave a Recall Knowledge check up to a single PC, because that ensures that the single roll will be a 4.
Meaningfully, there are only 5 Skills. Crafting is technically on the list, but only barely and has no unique areas of coverage. And they're all based on only two stats. A good Int and you're pretty good at a full three of those Skills (four if you want to count Crafting).
You won't always succeed but the odds aren't bad.
The ranger, for example, needs to make a Recall Knowledge check on every monster we meet in order to use Monster Hunter, and all of his other abilities trigger off a successful Monster Hunter check. And there are just way too many knowledge skills to make that work. It's pretty frustrating to have a basic class ability fail in every single encounter.
Monster Knowledge doesn't really give bonuses at low levels (it only kicks in on a crit). It gives free attempts at Recall Knowledge. Which, to be clear, is great, but it's not an action sink, since the attempts are free.
At high levels it is necessary for bonuses, but you can also use Nature for all recall knowledge checks.
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Do your ranger and investigator have any invested magical items giving Item bonuses to their knowledge skills? That would help a bit and around this level it's reasonable to have a few of those things floating around (though probably not one for every skill).Ahh, that's the kind of advice they need. What sort of items would those be?
For items, a Hat of the Magi is good for Arcana, a Pendant of the Occult works for Occultism, and a Choker of Elocution works for Society.
Religion and Nature are hardest to add an item to at low levels, with the Staff of Providence and Primeval Mistletoe at level 6 as the lowest level options. This evens out by the mid levels, and by level 10 or so, +2 items for all Recall Knowledge Skills are available.
There is also, as Mathmuse mentions, the Scholarly Journal, though that's quite a bit narrower than a whole Skill.
I tell my players what skill to roll for recall knowledge, and would definitely let someone know the skill before they spend the action.
On a successful roll, the players can pick whether to know about offenses, defenses or other. I give them something useful on a success, and several useful facts on a critical success.
If they pick defenses, I usually start by telling them the saving throws (not the actual numbers, but which one is best/worst, or if they're all roughly equal). Offenses gets things like attack of opportunity, or significant 2 or 3 action spells/abilities. Other is for more plot-related or weird abilities, like when shadows create spawns, or other complicated and situational effects.
Regardless of the category of knowledge, a success will almost always give the creature name and family, e.g. it's a sacristan, a type of velstrac, which is in turn a type of fiend.
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Do your ranger and investigator have any invested magical items giving Item bonuses to their knowledge skills? That would help a bit and around this level it's reasonable to have a few of those things floating around (though probably not one for every skill).Ahh, that's the kind of advice they need. What sort of items would those be?For items, a Hat of the Magi is good for Arcana, a Pendant of the Occult works for Occultism, and a Choker of Elocution works for Society.
Religion and Nature are hardest to add an item to at low levels, with the Staff of Providence and Primeval Mistletoe at level 6 as the lowest level options. This evens out by the mid levels, and by level 10 or so, +2 items for all Recall Knowledge Skills are available.
There is also, as Mathmuse mentions, the Scholarly Journal, though that's quite a bit narrower than a whole Skill.
Are there any Nature- or Religion-boosting items that don't occupy a hand?
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Are there any Nature- or Religion-boosting items that don't occupy a hand?
At higher levels, absolutely. Before level 9? Not that I can find.
The High Quality Items variant rule allows items for any skill at level 3, and asking your GM to use that in the absence of full item coverage is a pretty solid idea, but if they don't let you, I think we just need to wait for more books to be released.
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To clarify, that still costs an action since it's tied to Hunt Prey (which is itself an action, and that's the only reason to use Hunt Prey in combat).The ranger, for example, needs to make a Recall Knowledge check on every monster we meet in order to use Monster Hunter, and all of his other abilities trigger off a successful Monster Hunter check. And there are just way too many knowledge skills to make that work. It's pretty frustrating to have a basic class ability fail in every single encounter.Monster Knowledge doesn't really give bonuses at low levels (it only kicks in on a crit). It gives free attempts at Recall Knowledge. Which, to be clear, is great, but it's not an action sink, since the attempts are free.
Um, all three Hunter's Edges--Flurry, Outwit, and Precision--affect only the hunted prey. The ranger in my campaign took Twin Takedown ranger feat 1 and Hunter's Aim ranger feat 2, which can be used only against the hunted prey. I presume lots of ranger feats depend on Hunt Prey.
That ranger usually uses Hunt Prey a few times each combat, since his hunted prey dies quickly and he has to hunt someone else.
And Outwit Flurry gives a +2 circumstance bonus to Recall Knowledge checks against the hunted prey, so it ought to combine well with Monster Hunter.
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To clarify, that still costs an action since it's tied to Hunt Prey (which is itself an action, and that's the only reason to use Hunt Prey in combat).
As Mathmuse notes, Hunt Prey is fundamentally necessary for most of the Ranger's combat Class Features and many of their Feats. You are inevitably doing it anyway.
@mathmuse Outwit looks Hella good.
I was confused and said "Outwit Flurry" rather than "Outwit Hunter's Edge." The ranger in my campaign chose Flurry Hunter's Edge.