I always give my PCs the skill to roll for RK. I am also very forgiving in allowing Lores to be used. For instance, I let the PCs roll an Underworld Lore for Wererats (Riddleport has a whole wererat guild). Now for a Lore isn't a good fit, they might be at the normal DC, but it is still an opportunity for a PC to roll that might not have before.
I have also trained my players to know that I like knowledge checks so they better be well rounded.
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And the players of the investigator and bard chose those classes for the express purpose of 'making every monster knowledge check in the game.' So the fact that it isn't happening is causing some frustration.
There might be some issue of expectations then.
PF2 is a failure focused game. You are, by design, not supposed to be able to reliably do things that aren't considered easy for a character of your training and ability without outside help. As a result, having the correct ability scores for your skill and having access to as many bonuses as possible is very important.
Someone who hasn't pumped their Wisdom and/or is running thin on skill increases having trouble recalling knowledge with wisdom-skills is working as designed.
For the DCs, at level 1, assuming trained plus a 14 in the appropriate skill, a PC needs to roll a 10 or better to succeed at a recall knowledge for an on level creature.
By level 5, assuming this same PC invests zero resources in that skill, the number to hit creeps all the way up to...11. At level 10, the number to hit is a 13 and at level 15 with a roll of 16 or higher. So even by mid levels you still have a 40% of success on an on-level creature with no investment of resources since level 1. If you raise the skill to expert, it stays at 40% or higher until level 18.
If this is a wizard with maxed out Int and Arcana, at level 1 they need an 8. By level 5, that goes DOWN to 7. By 10, it is down to 6 and stays at 6 until level 18. And that is assuming she isn't sporting a Hat of the Magi or other +1 to arcana.
So even a modest investment in a Recall Knowledge skill can be successful for most of your adventuring career.
I think some of the other complaints come from a misapplication of the rule.
Success You recall the knowledge accurately or gain a useful clue about your current situation.
So the complaint that the GM doesn't give you anything useful is on the GM not the rules. As the GM if the player asks for weaknesses and Resistances and the monster has none, then the GM should give them another option.
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Yeah recall knowledge checks are odd. If I was a GM I would give out useful information that will help in the fight. Even if a player wanted a save I would also let them know something that is actually help the party a lot.
It really is just so hit and miss. Using an action getting a success and finding out something that doesnt change the groups tactics at all just isnt fun.
It is bad enough getting a failure but getting a success and finding out "no resistances" really makes players rethink using an action on it.
It is nice to know about those recall knowledge items though, I really wish Paizo streamlined skill items. I really dont enjoy looking through all the items trying to find them.
The weapons/armor runes are so great I just feel skills could have been similar. Was looking for deception/intimidate/performance items and it was rough.
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Personally, I don't think giving out specific numbers is usually appropriate, but a general summary indicating which Saves are likely high or low, any Weaknesses or widely applicable Resistances, and other important stuff like Regeneration and how to turn it off, should probably be standard.
Our GM usually tells us which skill is relevant, unless there are very specific shenanigans involved (like a shapechanger or illusion magic). So it's more like "roll arcana", "roll religion". When we succeed, he gives us a useful clue, not in a "metagamey" way but more RP. He might tell us "you remember they have a very thick skin that needs a specific metal to pierce" or "Unlike other angels, you remember this one is immune to fire" or "You remember something about this monster being much less nimble than it looks".
Its ironic that most people consider INT to be one of the least useful stats in PF2. Wizards got a lot of hate because they have INT as a casting stat and it's considered less useful than CHA. It's true that Charisma has a lot of in-combat and out of combat uses, but still you cannot just ignore INT and then claim Recall Knowledge rolls are hard, it's the same as ignoring CHA and trying to demoralize.
Regular characters with no bonus skill bumps can have 2 expert and 1 master skill at level 7, 3 master and 1 legendary at level 15. Most wizards will invest at least in arcana, probably in occultism and crafting, maybe in society. That goes a long way towards covering the basics. If there's a cleric or a druid in the group, he'll usually at least partially cover religion and nature.
Of course, the rolls won't always succeed, but that's what happens in PF2, you cannot pile up bonuses to get autosuccesses like in PF1. However, a level 10 wizard with master arcana will have +21 on his roll before any item bonus, and need a 27 to succeed. That's 75% chance to get a useful clue.
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A problem is that the default DCs are set up so that staying at Trained, you will fall behind on recalling knowledge (and other things). This is one area where I think the DC should just be set to 14+level, modified by rarity, and investing in the skill means you'll also be able to confidently know things about uncommon or rare creatures.
You actually keep up pretty well with behind-level Skill items and decent stats.
With a starting 14, raised at 5th and 10th, and behind-level items (so a +1 item by 9th or so, and a +2 by 15th), you do pretty okay. I mean, you need an 10 on the die at 1st for on-level Recall Knowledge (+5 bonus, DC 15), and that stays at 10 up through 11th level. It's then 11+ from 12th through 17th or so, and falls to 12+ only at 18th level or higher (dropping back to 11+ at 20th if you raised the stat to 20).
If it's a stat you're actually focused on, those numbers are all a fair bit better too, of course. An Int-based character like a Wizard or Investigator is, with no more than the below level items suggested above, managing a 9+ at most levels, and never worse than a 10+
So yeah, you technically fall behind if you don't invest Skill Ranks, but if you put in even a modicum of effort, it's not falling behind very far or very fast.
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And it costs an action. So Recall Knowledge is always going to be an action cost, regardless of how it's employed.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.
It is not an additional action on top of what you'd already be doing, though. It is essentially a free action pinned to your turn.
There is no action cost if you are getting to do an extra thing attached to an action you had to do anyway. If you didn't have to Hunt Prey that would be one thing, but that's not how the class works.
The problem seems to be that idea you have I bolded, Which is fundamentally and irrevocably wrong. Similarly, if your Investigator takes Known Weakness they get a free knowledge check attached to an action they already had to use for their fundamental combat mechanic.
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Its ironic that most people consider INT to be one of the least useful stats in PF2. Wizards got a lot of hate because they have INT as a casting stat and it's considered less useful than CHA. It's true that Charisma has a lot of in-combat and out of combat uses, but still you cannot just ignore INT and then claim Recall Knowledge rolls are hard, it's the same as ignoring CHA and trying to demoralize
Skill Increases are more useful than INT for Recall Knowledge because Trained only gets you so far at high levels (see above comments). That's why Investigators and Mastermind Rogues are both better than Wizards at Recall Knowledge even excluding class features. Even Regular Rogues can be better at RK than wizards if they want to.
If INT increased proficiency rank, then it'd be a different story.
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Personally, I don't think giving out specific numbers is usually appropriate...You'e certainly not alone. So my question to you, is why not? GMs give out all kinds of numbers, players are aware of all kinds of numbers. Why are you drawing a line in the sand on what the player can be aware of via Recall check?
I don't mind the PCs finding out numbers in play (ie: roll an 18 and miss, roll a 19 and hit...now they know it has AC 19), that represents them getting a very precise idea of how tough (or fast, or whatever) the individual creature in question is by seeing it in action, but Recall Knowledge is primarily stuff like book learning or secondhand accounts. It's something you can know without ever having met a member of the species in question, and certainly without seeing them in action personally...and while the player knowing numbers can easily be an expression of in-world knowledge, the character doesn't actually know numbers like that, and the knowledge in question is thus pretty much impossible to put into those books and secondhand accounts.
I mean, let's use swordsmanship as an example. An expert swordsman can judge the skill level of another swordsman they are actually fighting, or see fighting, a lot more precisely than they can judge that of a swordsman they've only heard of, and cannot readily describe the level of skill such a swordsman has to others beyond very imprecise terms like 'a master' or 'about as good as I am'. Likewise, it's a lot easier to judge the precise degree of strength or durability of something you are in the midst of fighting than something you just see standing there.
So, basically, I think specific numbers are way more precise than Recall Knowledge should usually be. A critical success is a bit of an exception, and might actually provide some specific numbers, though I'd usually have it give other more useful information rather than precision of that sort. Still, it's possible.
Listing specific numbers also tends to be immersion breaking, but that's actually a secondary consideration for me personally. I just don't find that degree of precision to be a realistic degree of knowledge for a character to possess from having read about the creature in books or heard stories about them (a critical success might involve having met and seen a similar creature in action previously, or something similarly precise, hence the possibility of more precise information).
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8
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I don't think there's any issue with giving specific numbers per se. I've played in games where the GM tells the players the AC they need to hit before they attack. I'm playing games right now on Roll20 where enemy hit point bars are visible. I've not noticed it causing any problems.
However, I do think AC and HP are kind of boring and uninteresting elements to share with a player on a Recall Knowledge check.
I think a good, meaningful Recall Knowledge check is one that alters the player's strategy or approach to combat. In my experience, AC and HP are the default things players attack, usually with their best weapon--e.g. Fighters gonna fight. I can only think of a handful of situations where knowing the enemy's AC and HP are going to change that.
On the other hand, things like Weaknesses, Resistances, and Immunities often push a player out of default Strike mode. Learning about a particularly nasty special attack can push players to fight more aggressively or defensively, or to focus their attacks on a particular threat. Knowing what spells the monster can cast gives the players insight into how it fights, and how to counter those moves.
Saves of course are a little different, given that monsters often have a weak save and a strong save, and knowing that can help spellcasters pick which spell to use, but even then I'd probably keep the info I give the players relative rather than specific.
Thinking about it now though, I do think I might experiment with telling players what the enemy's level is on a successful recall knowledge check.
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Yay! This thread about Recall Knowledge will definitely be useful for my future investigator build - DOT.
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I don't think there's any issue with giving specific numbers per se. I've played in games where the GM tells the players the AC they need to hit before they attack. I'm playing games right now on Roll20 where enemy hit point bars are visible. I've not noticed it causing any problems.
I also like making HP bars visible in Roll20. It lets the players know which enemies look wounded (which is something their characters would definitely know) in an organic fashion (that is, the players know it without having to ask me).
But unless the GM is including HP totals in that bar, that isn't exactly numeric information. I myself prefer to express information using words instead of numbers numbers, because a PC wouldn't know what "120 hit points" or "23 AC" means in-context. Not using explicit game terminology all of the time can enhance immersion.
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Yeah I also don't give out numbers. Also, I don't really think AC is all that useful information to begin with - if you have a big hammer you're going to hit that nail anyway.
I think for quite some monsters, the most useful information can be something that the players don't even know to ask for; "oh no we're being approached by a mean-looking lizard, what is it's AC?" "typical for a solo monster at your level". What you didn't know that you should have asked was how do you un-petrify someone that got stoned by the basilisk.
What I don't really get is why it's so hard to have a RK skill. I mean, if you're making a wizard with maxed intelligence, why wouldn't you take all Int-based skills? And if you're a cleric with maxed wisdom, why not take all Wid-based skills that you can get?
I pretty often use the [ancestry] lore feat just to get to enough skills trained to make sure I snag all the ones I have strong ability scores for.
And if you're a cleric with maxed wisdom, why not take all Wid-based skills that you can get?
Because you are a cleric of of a deity that does not care about Nature much?
I mean, a cleric of Gozreh is most likely to have Religion, Nature and probably also Survival, however the same can't possibly be said about clerics of Abadar, Iomedae or Torag.
Its ironic that most people consider INT to be one of the least useful stats in PF2. Wizards got a lot of hate because they have INT as a casting stat and it's considered less useful than CHA. It's true that Charisma has a lot of in-combat and out of combat uses, but still you cannot just ignore INT and then claim Recall Knowledge rolls are hard, it's the same as ignoring CHA and trying to demoralizeSkill Increases are more useful than INT for Recall Knowledge because Trained only gets you so far at high levels (see above comments). That's why Investigators and Mastermind Rogues are both better than Wizards at Recall Knowledge even excluding class features. Even Regular Rogues can be better at RK than wizards if they want to.
If INT increased proficiency rank, then it'd be a different story.
They're not better if the wizard invests the same amount of skill ranks in it. Rogues and Investigators can spread out their skills much more and get more skill feats but a 20 int wizard can go (and should go) legendary in arcana, outperforming everyone who doesn't have 20 int and the same skill rank.
But anyway, I wasn't defending the wizard but just saying that INT could be an interesting stat by itself (like for the investigator or the mastermind rogue).
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I also like making HP bars visible in Roll20. It lets the players know which enemies look wounded (which is something their characters would definitely know) in an organic fashion (that is, the players know it without having to ask me).
I'd like to have that in my games, I usually just attack a single enemy and then move to another (and tell my party to do so too) so I know it has taken a lot of damage, but knowing if it is about one or two more hits of dying would be helpful, perhaps too much.
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I don't really think giving specific numbers is an issue, I just don't find it all that interesting or even all that useful. When it comes to saves, knowing what's high/low/mid is usually plenty. I don't think you end up losing all that much information between "that ooze is bulky but slow as molasses and is unlikely to dodge your spells or attacks" and "That ooze has 165 hp, 14 AC and +6 reflex".
Another thing I like to do is let players look at/reference the monster's statblock once they've identified it and fought it a few times, maybe spent some time researching that creature or that type of creature.
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So first off, thank you for answering my question. I picked your post out because, as suggested, I thought you might provide an answer that might be representative. As such, my response is not directed at you, per se, but at exploring the mind set that you're explaining.
So you don't mind players having precise numbers, after all, it's unavoidable.
You're quite welcome. And I don't know how representative my answer is, really. I just know it's why I do things the way I do.
You know, that is never really discussed in the rules.
Sure, it can theoretically be first hand knowledge, in fact I noted that as one explanation for a critical success. But in most games, just by virtue of PCs starting off at 1st level, there's no plausible way for them to have a lot of experience with too many things above 5th level or so, and even if they start higher, once they've gained a few levels the same thing kicks in (ie: you started at 5th level, how many 12th level things could you really have met?). So, in practice, the vast majority of Recall Knowledge checks are not based on first hand experience.
There's nothing that preludes the knowledge from simply being first hand knowledge from past encounters. In fact, the rules go on to say,
For example, you might assess the skill of an acrobat using AcrobaticsFor me, this reads like your own skill as a basis for assessing someone else's skill. You know, like knowing how fast someone's fast ball was based on how fast your own fast all is or your own experience hitting fast balls. At least in the Arobatics acknowledge, it doesn't seem like it has to be second hand knowledge.
That example is pretty clearly assessing them based on your first hand experience with your own abilities rather than theirs, which is a slightly different thing, and IMO seems to indicate you'd need to see them be acrobatic first (something not required by most Recall Knowledge checks).
While it's certainly true that the PC's concept of specifics is not going to mirror the players knowledge in terms of a number, I can't say there's any reason why the PC's knowledge would be any less actionable or specific to the PC. If we go with the I-read-it-in-a-book scenario, I see no reason why the book couldn't say "armor like a dragon/bugbear/kobold"? Why couldn't an entry say, "This creature runs like a gazelle and has the strength of five men. But is its mind is easily controlled, like that of any Commoner."? After all, the Recall check can give knowledge of any of a creatures abilities, so there has to be some specific knowledge available.
The thing about that is that none of those measurements actually equates to a specific number very well. So you should give the player the bit in quotes, or some approximation, rather than trying to translate it into a number directly.
I absolutely tell players things like "Their highest Save is Reflex, and their lowest is Will." or "They have very high AC but less than impressive Saves." or similar things, because you're right that those can in fact be known in-character (if phrased differently)...but specific numbers? Not so much.
I mean, for the statement above, what kind of gazelle is the creature as fast as? How did the writer know? Are we sure they weren't being poetic rather than precise in that description? And who quantifies 'any Commoner' as a measure of Will? How did they quantify it, and how did they get enough subjects to test?
Also, frankly, knowing comparative statements like I tend to give is all you need for good tactics. The numbers are superfluous.
I think this approach overlooks the reality that people in this world, would have comparison's that many would understand, or, the information would be presented based on common standards e.g. this person has the skill fo the legendary Ramos; these creatures have armor like plate mail, this creature's fireball was as good as any 5th level wizard, etc.
Has everyone met Ramos? If not, using that phrase in a book or story isn't very precise, is it? 'Armor like plate mail' is a wonderful description...except plate mail worn by who? Ordinary plate mail in PF2 ranges in AC between 16 and 44 depending on who is wearing it. So that's not very precise either.
For spells specifically, the comparison is a bit more reasonable, and actually, referring to what level spellcaster a monster is, is one of the few times I might give an actual number, as that's more easily quantified in-world.
While I 100% agree that seeing a creature in action should convey a TON of actionable information, neither PF1 and PF2 have a system which covers a PC's ability to asses this information outside of seeing die rolls and modifiers. A lot of GMs won't give out AC or stats. If you've ever played with a GM who rolls behind a screen, it's like you're fighting blind. As a player, you have no idea of what you're fighting on any visceral level. But that's an aside.
I'll note here that the specific rules of Secret Checks and how those work strongly indicate that non-Secret checks in PF2 should have their mechanics transparent to the players, and that the example of play bears this out. That's not true in all games, but it pretty clearly is in PF2.
Again, I think this is a common generalization that isn't really accurate. The best way to explain this is in sports. If I play in a sports league, I become familiar with the players in that league. If a kew player comes along and a scouting report says, this guy hits as hard as Tom from Team Alpha, or runs as fast as Sam from Team Delta. That is very specific information. And while I don't think of it as a number, if I were a PC, the only way my player could understand what I knew, would be to give the player a number.
Right, but there's no common standard like that which is standardized across Golarion and applies to everything. Saying 'hits as hard as Tom' is a meaningless statement for people who don't know how hard Tom hits, and there's no 'Tom' that everyone in Golarion can use as a benchmark. If the PCs got a specific description directly from someone like a former party member (now NPC) who can share things with them in specific terms like this, I'd absolutely give them some numbers. But that's not usually the case with a Recall Knowledge check.
While I hear what you're saying, I think you're overlooking the fact that the precision from sharing a number is a by product of the game having to use numbers to convey information. The game has no other language or means to convey what a PC would understand about the information it has, without using a number. To put it another way, the PC's knowledge doesn't have to be number-precise for it to still be just as actionable as a number for the player.
Sure it does. To use my above example "The creature's highest Save is Reflex and it's lowest is Will." is a very informative statement that uses no specific numbers. So is "It has very high AC for it's level." or "It has high resistance to physical damage, but silver gets through it."
You can honestly convey almost any information of tactical, rather than statistical, relevance just by using comparatives like 'high' or 'low' or 'mediocre'.
But I can recognize why players would see it from your perspective. We are so used to dealing with precision from numbers, it would be hard to imagine a 9th century crusader hearing a story about a hippo and getting anything useful from it.
I mean, I don't know precise numbers on the bite force of a hippo, but the important part about the bite force is 'really high numbers, don't get bitten'. The specific bite force is kind of not relevant, honestly.
And that's exactly the kind of info I give players.
I guess I feel like there's a larger contingent of players that fall into this category. The idea that telling someone the creatures HPs or AC right out the gate, somehow lessens the immersion. I know in AD&D, you knew nothing and had no way of learning anything. Plus, the GM always rolled behind he screen. So I think the paradigm is players fighting blind and that mindset is still at the foundation.
I don't think that's the system's intention, at least not with a successful Recall Knowledge check. I do think that some GMs metagame in a weirdly wrong direction, keeping information secret from players even when it would be obvious to their characters (saying roughly how wounded enemies are should be standard, for instance...that's pretty obvious in-universe), but that's a GMing mistake rather than an issue specific to any one system.
For me, I think it depends on what you want Recall checks to accomplish. When Paizo says they should provided "useful" information, but then they dramatically increases the cost of obtaining that information, then it should be a lot more definitive and consistent than what we got in PF1. In my experience in PF2, it's not.
I think Recall Knowledge should absolutely be useful and worth an action. I work hard to make it so. But I don't, fundamentally, think that giving precise numbers is really necessary to do that.
I feel like Paizo wants to compel players to make these checks, but has overlooked how not fun the system works out because the information isn't reliably beneficial. I also find it odd/telling that they've tacked on combat bonuses for the classes that can make these checks for free. It's like admitting that the information may not result in anything useful, so we'll give you mechanical bonus. But that's not available to the average PC. I don't get it.
I think the intention is very much to leave it in the GM's hands how beneficial the information is. And that the reason for the Feats giving additional bonuses (which, I'll note, tend to be pretty minor) is for circumstances where you really don't need Recall Knowledge in the first place. I mean, fighting Bandit #7, after having already made a Society check on Bandits #1 to #6, Known Weaknesses wouldn't be very useful if it didn't do something beyond the check.
No matter how generous you are with Recall Knowledge, there will always be times when the information has already been provided and getting to make the check is just not useful. Hence the bonuses.
Or, I suppose it makes sense if the mechanical bonus is needed to incentivize PCs to use these feats and make these checks so it won't be all Wizards?? Or maybe its a way to make sure the PCs have multiple ways to get this info? Or, they really want to keep Recall checks locked down to a few Classes?
I think it's intended to allow non-spellcasters to get in on the action, basically. The action economy is such that spellcasters can Recall Knowledge very freely, but martial characters often have issues (in particular, those martials who need to spend actions activating their main combat trick...so Rangers and Investigators, the ones who get Feats that do this). Adding Feats to make some thematically appropriate martials overcome that hurdle seems a solid call to me.
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Again, thank you for the response. Also, please don't read my response as accusing you of doing any of these things. I'm speaking to a general "you".
Understood.
Whether that's true or not, isn't something we'll find in the rulebooks. However, it's clear that Recall checks don't require experience with the creature, but can rely just on specific knowledge in an area
Yes. That's rather my point in many ways. Recall Knowledge is based on your general knowledge of the field in question, so it doesn't necessarily involve personal experience, and thus I find it unrealistic if it's too overly specific, as numbers are.
This translates to someone who knows how to craft, being able to discern things about a construct.
Indeed. But that doesn't mean they can do so with the kind of impossible precision numbers indicate. There are no indications that their knowledge allows them to calculate "I have exactly a 65% chance of damaging that golem if I attack."
That's way more specific than an understanding of golems and how they work would provide.
If by "first hand knowledge, you mean experience directly with the monster, sure. But in PF2, Paizo has opened the door for direct and specific knowledge in different areas to provide a basis for Recall on monsters. So Crafting can provide knowledge on the poisons a creature might have and that would have to be based on actual knowledge about poisons. So I would have to disagree that lack of direct monster experience mandates the knowledge is less precise for the PC. And again, PC precision is not the same as player precision.
Sure, but none of this, at least to me, justifies knowing the precise percentage chance of X vs. a specific monster. It justifies knowing some stuff, but in that much detail? I really don't think so.
Exactly.
While it may be different at some level, it still is a Recall check on a monster that should provide useful and actionable information. Saying "this creature is Acrobatic" doesn't convey anything. Even saying the creature is "Trained, Expert, etc" may be of no use. However, saying "based on your own abilities, you suspect the modifier to be equal to yours, one or two higher/lower" Is no in the ballpark of useful. Saying "it's modifier is +10" is useful if you're asking about its Acrobatic ability using Acrobatics.
Saying 'it's better than you by a fair bit' or 'it's right around as good as you' is, in fact pretty useful and detailed information, and is exactly the sort of thing I'd provide. You don't need to give specific numbers to impart useful information.
The point I'm trying to make is that the number is how you translate it to the player. The probability of hitting someone isn't 1d20+X, in real life. But that's the scale the game uses and sharing the modifier tells us the likelihood, something the PC would be intuitively be aware of, but can only be conveyed to the player via the game's metrics. Again, there's this pervasive attitude that if the PC doesn't think of it in numbers, then the player can't have numbers.
And I think knowing the precise percentage chance you succeed at X, which is exactly what giving specific numbers represents, is a level of specificity well beyond what Recall Knowledge should generally provide.
I have no objection to PCs knowing numbers when they actually do have a good reason to know their exact percentage chance of success (many static DCs fall under this heading, as does the PCs fighting each other, or fighting another example of a creature they just fought)...but knowing that level of detail from a Recall Knowledge check is pretty absurd.
I mean, think about it. Do you know your exact chances of hitting Mike Tyson in a boxing match? Or of him knocking you out? I'll bet not even if you're a boxer and have seen him box. Recall Knowledge is a lot less info than watching a full boxing match and yet you expect it to provide more precise analysis? That makes no sense to me.
I think you're nitpicking examples. Whether its Ramos or ruffians from the Lake District, or whatever, there would be standards in Golarion that people would use. The rules aren't going to be able to delineate every aspect of life and knowledge for PCs. We assume they know how to cook, how to tel what time of day it is, and whether they know the amount of warm clothing to suffice during the winter, despite not having a thermometer. All this is done without any digital information.
And plate mail provides the same comparative benefit for anyone. The fact that the actual AC differs depending on who is wearing it is a construct of proficiency, and has no bearing on the properties of the material itself. An encyclopedia might say a "5th level fighter with Common agility wearing Chainmail." Or something much briefer that conveys the same information to the PC.
I'm not nitpicking, I'm pointing out that just about every example I can think of has the same issue, which is that it's not actually standardized or specific in any real way.
Sure, you can say 'skin as tough as plate mail', but the way to convey that info to players in a believable fashion is 'high AC for its level', not a specific number. In-universe, people don't talk about, or even have a direct conception of, 'being 5th level' as a thing distinct from 'being 6th level'. They know rough bands of power, sure, but it's not that precise and thus cannot be used for in-universe comparisons, which are what Recall Knowledge gives you,
Just because the game doesn't provide it doesn't mean it wouldn't arise naturally in a society that has existed for eons, especially when their lives depend on it. Native people in the arctic have lost of different ways to describe snow. This is undoubtedly very precise and specific information and learned by children. If it were a game, you'd probably need to give players numbers to convey the actual benefit to the PC.
No culture in the real world has ever had standardized terminology like this for the combat prowess of people or creatures, and many have been every bit as violent as Golarion, if on a less epic scale. I see no reason to assume they have somehow managed this kind of thing when no real world culture ever has.
Nor has the culture existed for eons. The world has, but just about every single culture has died or changed drastically in that period of time.
It's informative if you can actually target the weak Save. If you can't, then it is of no use. What you want to know is how likely you will succeed against the Save you can target. So what may be "useful" to one group or player isn't going to be useful to another and that's exasperated by the convention of not sharing numbers.
I strongly disagree. If you can only target one Save, the specific number isn't useful since you don't have other options, except maybe AC, and knowing a Save is high tells you to probably target AC instead if you can (since high Saves are gonna be higher). If you can target two Saves (say, Fortitude and Reflex) that info tells you Fort is lower, and should thus be your target of choice.
The information I used as an example tells you an exact Save hierarchy and that's universally useful if anyone targets any Save at all. It's also merely one example of useful info, and not the one I'd give a party who doesn't target Saves. You can tailor what info you give to PCs, and should always strive to give them something they can use. As a GM, you can do that pretty readily.
You really can't. There's no conveying AC or hit points via high/low/mediocre, without giving out a number as a starting point. There's no way to convey all the intuitive knowledge the PC would use to defeat a monster without translating it to a number the PC can use to make a decision. Sure, you can sometimes give useful information, but that is going to be somewhat random and doesn't guarantee you're giving out actionable information. And if it isn't actionable, then it can't be useful.
Again, this kind of information is easily actionable. I know because my players act on it. Knowing how to get through a Resistance, for example, is easily actionable even if you don't know the amount of said Resistance.
It's not info you can spend 10 minutes mathematically analyzing for the perfect mathematical choice of tactics, but it doesn't need to be to be useful. It just needs to provide the info necessary to make good decisions, and the information I provide absolutely does that.
Is the same true of everyone who gives out non-math info on monsters? Of course not, some people absolutely give out useless info (including some people who give out numbers...giving out a precise Will Save is useless if nobody targets Will), but you seem to be saying that you need to give out numbers or the info isn't useful, and that's just objectively not correct.
But if I am using Athletics with Recall to see if I can grapple or shover or trip a Hippo, you haven't told me anything. Even saying it's hard/low/mediocre isn't really helpful as I have no idea what you mean by that when it comes to rolling a d20. If you say, its got an Athletic modifier of +20, then I am informed. Then, I know what my PC is seeing. I don't think it undermines the game at all to provide that info.
Now, I can see someone claiming that it undermine their immersion, however, that seems arbitrary to me. Lots of things are immersion breaking, like rolling a die...any die.
High/low/mediocre absolutely provides information on this, though. You know, assuming you know that you're good at grappling, whether your chance is good, bad, or okay. That's generally more than enough to make a tactical decision without knowing the specific numerical odds of success.
I think Paizo is definitely of the mindset that giving out a number is "metagaming," never mind how totally arbitrary that is.
Knowing the enemy's specific stats? Yeah, they do seem to think that. And it's not arbitrary at all. Specific stats are much more precise than people generally know things in-universe and I see no reason that wouldn't be true. It makes good in-universe sense. It's not an arbitrary distinction just because it's one you don't like it.
I have to disagree. The game could provide instruction on that, and it doesn't. Are players suppose to know the Init order of all combatants? It's unavoidable in practice, but do the rules instruct GMs to share this information specifically? I've definitely seen GMs on the forums talk about withholding that info. Paizo could at least provide a rule that makes it clear (if there isn't one). I've even heard of GMs not letting players know their own hit points...lol.
I mean, the fact that they don't specifically tell you to tell players things doesn't mean they intend for you to leave players in the dark, it means that they intend for that to be up to the GM, like a lot of other things in PF2.
As for the HP thing, that's specifically against the rules. Players explicitly keep track of their own HP and conditions in PF2, which means they know them.
Which, imo and ime, is severely inconsistent and hampered by the mindset that a player can't be given a number....despite the fact that the game is all about numbers and they are everywhere.
I mean, I'm not sure how 'this is up to the GM', as a philosophy, can be hampered by leaving it up to the GM. Much as I personally don't give out numbers, nothing prevents doing so if the GM wishes.
Again, none of this is directed at you as an individual or GM. I think many others share your mindset or something close to it. And yes, I have run into GMs that will share numbers, but I would say it's not the majority, so I'm trying to give peopel another perspecive.
And ultimately, it really comes down to what you want Recall to do in the game. I've said that before, but I think that's at the heart of this. How useful is it really suppose to be? Rarely, Infrequently? Occasionally? Consistently? Crucial?
The thing about that is that I don't think you need to provide numbers for Recall Knowledge to be consistently useful. It can be very useful indeed without doing that at all.
Without a baseline, we can't really know if there is a problem in the implementation or the paradigm. I think it's broken. I thougth it was broken in PF1 and even more so with it costing an action in PF2. Recall checks were part of nearly every battle in PF1. In PFS, I'm seeing them like 1% of the actions in combat, outside of class freebies. I know...because I'm tracking actions in my PbP games.
I mean, some of that is just the nature of combats and how many enemy types and actions there are. 4 characters with three actions each is 12 actions a turn. A three round fight is thus 36 actions. If fighting a single type of foe, a single Recall Knowledge check is all that's probably useful there, and we're already down to less than 3% of actions. If the next fight is with the same type of enemy, or a simple enemy like human bandits, suddenly we're down to less than 1.5% even if Recall Knowledge is immensely useful.
Really, what you should be tracking is the number of battles that involve Recall Knowledge, not percentage of actions. If every battle involves them, that's still gonna be less than 5% of actions, but it's also every battle.
Ignoring 'free' Recall Knowledge checks ala Known Weaknesses entirely is also a mistake. I'm currently running an AoA game with an Investigator, and at 1st level he didn't have Known Weaknesses, so people did Recall Knowledge quite a lot as an action. Now that he has that Feat, though, they do that a lot less for the good and simple reason that he's gonna do it anyway. It's not that the checks aren't useful or they wouldn't do them if they weren't free...but they are free for him and he has every Recall Knowledge skill Trained, so they often just leave it to him.
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This discussion really became interesting about recall knowledge. Honestly it is just a hot topic. In our PFS games and our campaign it is rarely used.
I think it really is up to the GM to make them actually useful/worthy of an action. Certain players of course would like different things.
I mean last week a player did recall knowledge and asked the player "what do you want to know?" He just asked for the save and that is all we got... not very fun or useful.
In my opinion I feel that the GM should at least give something that will make us play differently. Like their attack patterns/special abilities/reactions/resistances+weaknessess.
By RAW I guess we did receive "one useful piece of information" but in every 5e/PF1 I have never used an action and felt such mixed feeling before. Yes failures are bad but when you get a success it should feel worth it.
Its ironic that most people consider INT to be one of the least useful stats in PF2. Wizards got a lot of hate because they have INT as a casting stat and it's considered less useful than CHA. It's true that Charisma has a lot of in-combat and out of combat uses, but still you cannot just ignore INT and then claim Recall Knowledge rolls are hard, it's the same as ignoring CHA and trying to demoralize.
While fair, I don't think that really ends up saving Int in the long run.
For a Wizard or Investigator it's not a big deal because you're incentivized to invest in Int anyways, it's part of your class kit so there's inevitably going to be synergy there.
But for a Barbarian or Ranger or Fighter (etc), I think the system does a better job incentivizing you to not bother investing in those skills than it does incentivizing you to shift points into Int.
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Again, you're conflating PC knowledge with player knowledge and arbiitrarily deciding that the nature of the PC knowledge can't be translated to numbers for the players. General knowledge can be very specific and precise. I am not a mechanics and I know exactly how many cylinders most cars have and I can probably tell you their aprox CC displacement. There's no reason why PCs wouldn't have general knowledge that's precise or lets them operate with precision.
How many cylinders a car has is not really equivalent to 'exact maximum speed of this specific car, not knowing anything about how it's been maintained, what custom mods have been installed, or anything else but the model', though.
The latter is the kind of info you'd need for the equivalent of precise numbers. And that's with machines, which are much easier to codify in that way than a living being.
Athletes and other trained professionals absolutely make "impossible" calculations based on their intuitive understanding. And there's nothing impossible about the precision the numbers bring. Humans are capable of far greater precision than the 5% increments you get from a d20. Again, you're conflating PC knowledge with player knowledge. A person may not think "65%" but they intuitively know what the comparative difficulty is between many options or the comparative strength or value between various things. Just because someone doesn't formalize a number doesn't mean that aren't operating with the level of precision that exceeds a d20.
In a fight? No they're really not. Fights are enormously confusing and chaotic and knowing odds with anything like that level of clarity is basically impossible.
More structured contests? Sure, you can know those odds much more easily, at least potentially, but those are usually covered by specific DCs, which is something players already get to know in PF2.
Honestly, go watch World Series of Poker. The professional players can tell you to the decimal place the odds of a player having certain hands based on what's been played, or they can tell you the odds of winning a hand based on what they have. They do this in their head, real time, as they play the game.
Poker is a math game with very specific percentage possibilities for every hand. Of course professionals know what those percentages are.
MMA fighting would be a better comparison for the kind of things we're talking here, and MMA fighter absolutely do not have that kind of precise percentage based knowledge of their chances against each other, because they can't, there are just so many more variables in a fight than a hand of poker.
Based on what? Carpenters have all kinds of intuitive knowledge on how to brace things or support beams or whatever. They aren't using equations, but if they were being translated to a game, that knowledge would represent actual confidence intervals much more precise than low/medium/high.
Sure, but that's the sort of thing that would be a static DC in PF2, which is to say something that the rules already indicate you know the chance of. Fighting something is a much more volatile process and much harder to gauge specific odds of success in.
Sure we're not going to 100% agree on what can be known and to what degree. I think it also depends on what we are talking about.
Since this isn't really about you doing it wrong, or me trying to convince you to change your style, I'll cut this short and say my point is that SOME of the Recall checks would involve numbers as opposed to NONE of it involving numbers. Or rather that it can't involve sharing a number. I'm not saying that every check has to involve a number, I'm saying that Paizo specifically allowing or advocating the use of numbers would provide consistent benefit when there is no other special information.
I mean, I already said that I thought specific numbers would be fine under some circumstances (specifically, level of spellcasting, or other stuff on a critical success). As for Paizo saying this...I mean, I'd be fine with it, but this kind of forum discussion doesn't seem likely to effect their actual policies in that regard one way or the other.
This is all PFS, so random GMs and random players and no default playing style. I went back and actually searched the data:
4 different scenarios
12 combat encounters
400+ actions.ZERO Recall Knowledge checks as an action. Zero.
Interesting. That's still a pretty small sample size, but it's indicative of a real problem. Possibly one restricted to PFS (where they're worried about table variation in how useful it'll be), but a real one nonetheless.
I'd suggest going on the PFS forum specifically and suggesting official guidelines for that game on the kind of info you get. That's a reasonable suggestion that the people on the Organized Play team might listen to, while the design team for the core game are more likely to stick with 'that's up to the GM'.
Only one of the scenarios has involved an Investigator, and he didn't always succeed at Recall checks. Nevertheless, no one attempts to make a check. No one. I would say 98% of the PFS1 battles I've been in involved someone using Recall K, unless it was some common humanoid.
Yeah, it's a definite drop in number of encounters using it. This extreme a drop may be an outlier, though. I've certainly seen groups use Recall Knowledge in games I've both run and witnessed. I think the problem might have more to do with the intersection of PF2 and PFS than PF2 in general, as I note above.
Most Rangers I've played with don't have MH and evne if they did, that likelihood it would succeed is "low". So no one is relying on a low level Ranger to make a check. And playing a Ranger with MH, when I have succeeded, the information has been worthless. As Mathmuse pointed out, it was info that twas already obvious from actual combat. I can already see a creature has Resistance 5 as soon as I hit it.
I mean, knowing how to get through Resistance is useful, and not generally provided by just hitting it. That doesn't mean more guidelines for PFS wouldn't be good, but there is some incentive already.
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Whether that's true or not, isn't something we'll find in the rulebooks
I snagged this comment because it goes to something that is kind my annoyance with the message boards—that being an over-reliance on "RAW." Now, with regards to org play, I get it. You have to be almost fanatically devoted to the written text since there is no relationship between the players at the table, no gameplay developed understanding of the game style.
However, in home games, that should somewhat go out the window. ALL the rules are suggestive. If you find something just doesn't work for you, change it. Don't let the rules dictate or ruin a good story. I don't have a lot of house rules, but I have a few. One of them is a more liberal use of Recall Knowledge because I want it to be something the players feel is worthwhile to invest in. The whole game (at least not mine) is not about winning combat, but when it does break out, smart characters should have the opportunity to use their tools (brains) to help the party succeed as much as the strong characters (brawn) bash the bad guy with their weapons.
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It may not be helpful in that specific fight, but knowing a weakness will allow the party to prepare for it in future fights. If a party cannot take advantage of a weakness, it isn't a fault of the system. It's up to the party to use that knowledge. It is actionable because the party can do something to take advantage of that, either now or in the future.
Future fights are irrelevant when you are dead.
We just fought a level 10 Clay Golem with our level 8 group. Our Wizard used and succeeded at Recall Knowledge (Arcana). The first info we were given by our (inexperienced) GM was that the Golem is susceptable to the Disintegrate spell.
Our experienced players chuckled and a friendly banter ensued, asking our GM if we could also have 3 instant level ups in order to use this info. The GM quickly realized that the info was worthless at this point of time and instead provided the info that the Golem was weak to water and ice magic.
Due to a lot of bad rolls on behalf of the players it was a much tougher than expected fight and we were spared a TPK only because of this info.
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Doubling Rings actually solve the issue of underpowered backup weapons, assuming your main weapon is one-handed. They're a potentially good investment even for people who don't two-weapon fight.
For special material weapons, you need one of the right grade, but it's still solid.
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I think that if this is what Paizo intends, the system is a failure. Successful Recall checks have minimal impact. In many cases, the information isn't actionable. Knowing the creature has Weakness to silver is meaningless if no one has silver weapons.
Using that logic, virtually no information is going to be meaningful for you and therefore the rule is useless and you shouldn't use it.
I, OTOH, find the mechanic works fine, though I admit I tend to tweak how I implement it a bit in my games. Like any other rule, I think Paizo gave me the basics for a system that with my tweaks works just fine. Since I consider all rules to be optional, I'm perfectly fine with it.
The subject of Recall Knowledge seems to come up again and again, usually by people who hate it (or at least dislike it enough to post about it). To them I say, just don't use it. Its a rule that doesn't work for you. So stop beating your head against that brick wall.
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Doubling Rings have their own share of issues:Doubling Rings actually solve the issue of underpowered backup weapons, assuming your main weapon is one-handed. They're a potentially good investment even for people who don't two-weapon fight.
For special material weapons, you need one of the right grade, but it's still solid.
- You typically pick up all the downsides of two-weapon fighting with needing two separate draw actions and not having a free hand.
- You can't make good use of property runes without the greater rings, which are kinda expensive when you initially really want them.
- Precious material weapons are still really expensive, even without needing runes on each.
- Finally, remember you can't use the rings with throwing attacks (runes fade when the weapon leaves your hand).
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I would want people to post about things that they think don't work, and to keep posting about them. It would be really arrogant of Paizo to believe the whole Recall thing can't be improved.
They might be arrogant in your opinion, but does not make it universal, or even the majority opinion for that matter. The few hyper-passionate people complaining on the message boards is rarely a good dateset from which to make design decisions, especially unsolicited ones. For those few, there are at least as many that feel the rules as presented are just fine and don't require major retooling. I would guess that is as valuable as the contrary. Not to mention, most of the rules were stringently playtested and we've now had two rounds of errata so if they agreed there was a problem with the Recall Knowledge rules, they've had ample opportunity to address it.
The rules were not intended to be as rigidly applied as they are in org play. They say as much right at the outset*. It has always gone against the idea of using what rules that support your preferred play style and change or throw out the rest. If you expect the rules to always be perfectly tailored to your preference, you are going to be disappointed at least on occasion, if not often.
*The First Rule
The first rule of Pathfinder is that this game is yours. Use it to tell the stories you want to tell, be the character you want to be, and share exciting adventures with friends. If any other rule gets in the way of your fun, as long as your group agrees, you can alter or ignore it to fit your story. The true goal of Pathfinder is for everyone to enjoy themselves.
I don't really see the point in trying to gatekeep discussion the way you're trying to though, TwilightKnight.
You can disagree with N N 959 without any of that.
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If I were in Paizo's shoes, I would want people to post about things that they think don't work, and to keep posting about them. It would be really arrogant of Paizo to believe the whole Recall thing can't be improved.
I don't think this is Paizo's attitude at all. With any of their rules. But, in terms of the actual rules, things like this still just aren't going to change.
The game is out, with the Recall Knowledge rules as they are. Changing them would go a fair bit beyond the general scope of errata Paizo releases. For that reason, they're not gonna be changed. The designers at Paizo may, or may not, believe that all sorts of things in PF2, including this, were mistakes...but we're past the point where most of them can be realistically changed even if they think it is, so trying to get them to do so is not especially useful. They don't do the sort of thing you're asking for, so, like ordering a steak at a Chinese restaurant, it's just not gonna happen.
Which is a large part of why I suggested going to the Organized Play forum (and thus team) and suggesting they provide more guidelines on Recall Knowledge. Because they do that sort of thing when a rule is too subject to table variation (as this one probably is). It's a strategy that might actually work to get you the guidelines you seem to want, whereas complaining about the base rules never will.
Changing them would go a fair bit beyond the general scope of errata Paizo releases
While I don't necessarily agree that RK needs to change, it's worth pointing out that both of the erratas we've had so far have made some pretty significant changes to how certain rules function and they've even outright added new class features to the Alchemist both times.
So I'm not sure anything is really beyond the scope right now. Paizo's shown a willingness to make some pretty fundamental adjustments with their updates.
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Changing them would go a fair bit beyond the general scope of errata Paizo releasesWhile I don't necessarily agree that RK needs to change, it's worth pointing out that both of the erratas we've had so far have made some pretty significant changes to how certain rules function and they've even outright added new class features to the Alchemist both times.
So I'm not sure anything is really beyond the scope right now. Paizo's shown a willingness to make some pretty fundamental adjustments with their updates.
Changing the rules related to a single class is a much smaller change to the system than changing a fundamental skill usage available to a large percentage of skills in the game. The only sweeping rules change was in regards to items and storage, and that's still a lot lower impact than a Recall Knowledge change would be.
I'd certainly be happy to be proved wrong, but it seems really unlikely to me that a change to Recall Knowledge is gonna happen.