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I would much rather know about a wendigo's ability to abduct someone on the wind if it's grabbing you at the start of its turn than the fact that its Will save is its worst.
I dunno, one of those seems like a thing you can infer by generally looking at it, and the other will get you killed.
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Knowing lowest saves wasn't actually part of the rules in PF1 either. The rule was "you get a piece of useful information".
It became common practice for the players to ask questions, to guide to GM to knowing what the players might find useful. Like a wizard asking about weak saves. But it was never a rule that the players had a right to demand specific pieces of information.
PF2 gives you fewer pieces of information, but the amount of special defenses monsters have has also gone down drastically. You don't necessarily need quite so many pieces of information to find a gap in their immunities anymore.
I find that in actual play, I don't always need to RK on new monsters. Much of the time it's "well, you look fiendish so I'm just gonna try my holy lance". If we run into difficulty, I can still RK to find out what special material/weapon type the fighter needs to overcome their resistance.
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Knowing lowest saves wasn't actually part of the rules in PF1 either. The rule was "you get a piece of useful information".
It became common practice for the players to ask questions, to guide to GM to knowing what the players might find useful. Like a wizard asking about weak saves. But it was never a rule that the players had a right to demand specific pieces of information.
PF2 gives you fewer pieces of information, but the amount of special defenses monsters have has also gone down drastically. You don't necessarily need quite so many pieces of information to find a gap in their immunities anymore.
I find that in actual play, I don't always need to RK on new monsters. Much of the time it's "well, you look fiendish so I'm just gonna try my holy lance". If we run into difficulty, I can still RK to find out what special material/weapon type the fighter needs to overcome their resistance.
I agree with you.
Damage reduction is no more something you can easily work around. In PF1, there were spells like Aligned Weapon, and different abilities to go through an enemy DR. Now... changing your weapon often has a high cost in terms of damage and as such isn't a really potent move, archers no more have dozens of arrows of each material.Monsters also have way less resistances/immunities and most of them make sense. It's over the time where every outsider had half a dozen resistances and immunities coming from nowhere.
Saves are now logical, too. The time where an undead brute was having high Will and low Fortitude is over.
But abilities are now way more important. There is no need to bend the rules to create a valid hit and runner or skirmisher. Reactions are also very strong and knowing a reaction trigger can really make a fight easier.
Even if Recall Knowledge gives less information there is less information to collect and a single bit of information can give an important edge.
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I think one of that one of the reasons that 'Named' individuals have been given the Unique trait is so that in an online compendium they can more easily filtered out.
Both sides of the argument are definitely valid. A unique orc is not as unknowable than a the "Great Ooze of the Dark Tapestry Sea". It also isn't hard to imagine knowing some special/unique ability about a specific ability named orc isn't necessarily any more difficult to imagine than identifying such an ability on a serpentfolk, when those abilities themselves might both be quite unrelated to their ancestry.
Honestly, it might be nice to see the rarity traits flagged on specific creature abilities, when relevant, to help specify how difficult it would be to know about them. And I guess part of why people may be frustrated is how Rarity already is being used for a couple reason (rarity, in sense of not common in an areas, as well as rarity in restricted for potential game balance/storyline reasons). To be honest, I'd imagine that while some people would likely balk, I could imagine for Named human NPCs placing both the Common and Unique tags on them. Unique reflecting that it is a unique instance of an otherwise Common creature. It might confuse some, but in a way I think it would be clearer why the unique was there, and would give GMs a more viable reason to allow most of the abilities to be accessed via the other rarity tag. (but does leave the GM the latitude to make some details harder to know)
I have to laugh though as well, because were you to use a chromatic dragon as an example. I might imagine in some worlds they might be considered Rare (or at least uncommon) but I would also imagine that it would be DC10 common knowledge to know that they generally have a breath weapon. I.e. in some cases, the level of the creature should not be making a Knowledge Check DC higher for certain abilities, if you ask me. This is because those abilities are legendary (although granted not specifically in the game sense) and epic and undoubtedly the topic of numerous common tales. Actually, I think I have a better trait for such abilities, or creatures; Call it Iconic. Iconic abilities should be easy to know their name (and potentially general concept) although perhaps specifics, like amount of damage, etc. might remain difficult (Add level to DC for these details) due to sifting through so much incorrect information that is also readily available as well.
As to the suggestion of giving a free recall knowledge check at the start of the encounter. I'll admit I like the general idea, but wouldn't want to invalidate the value of spending an action later on subsequent checks. The thought that came to me quickly, although requires quite a few rolls, would be to roll twice for everyone who sees the creatures. Take the lowest value and make that a free RK check for them and give them one or two pieces of information. (potentially, if they actually passed both rolls give them even more). Successes and failures received from these free checks don't prevent someone from trying a future RK check in the encounter to gather additional information if they choose to.
If encountering the same creatures, I'd hope GMs would give them the information they had before for free (or at a minimum rather easily). If it came down to it, for instance, at a minimum I'd think encountering the same sort of Rare Creatures, if they used a RK, if they would have passed a common check, I'd make sure I confirmed what items they knew before that appeared to still apply, even if they would have failed the Rare check.
And it seems quite reasonable that the GM should try to give out usable information the players would want to know. And yes, another factor would be things that I think would be something that would be likely known. Honestly, I'd probably only give the lowest save if that was the information they were requesting. I think listing one of their special abilities would be higher on my list of things to give, in large part because it seems more story driven information.
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The Unique need needs to be fixed ASAP it makes the Mastermind Rogue unplayable in a Pathfinder Adventure Path. When you use the level by DC and add the unique tag rule, you can only ID a creature by rolling a NAT 20.
No change needed, Unique makes aspects of that specific creature Unique, it doesn’t make the whole of the creature/person Unique.
A Unique Manticore is still a Manticore.
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The Unique need needs to be fixed ASAP it makes the Mastermind Rogue unplayable in a Pathfinder Adventure Path. When you use the level by DC and add the unique tag rule, you can only ID a creature by rolling a NAT 20.No change needed, Unique makes aspects of that specific creature Unique, it doesn’t make the whole of the creature/person Unique.
A Unique Manticore is still a Manticore.
Correct, identifying that unique creature as a manticore is the same DC as any other non-unique manticore. However, what you might not find out is that this unique manticore has been the subject of magical experiments and has a higher intelligence and charisma, and has become a sorcerer.
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The Mastermind rogue has bigger problems than the Unique tag, like repeated attempts against different versions of the same creature.
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I agree that that's how it *should* play... but is that how it *does* play? I mean, is that what the rules as written actually do? That's not the impression I'd gotten from what I'd read of them.
For that matter, I rather like the hack that I heard where common features got RK checks based on the lowest-level creature of that type - so if you're looking at a 10th-level ghost wizard, then the things that are explicitly part of the ghost template just require the RK check of a 4th-level ghost commoner. It would make sense... but I'm pretty sure it doesn't work that way.
I agree that that's how it *should* play... but is that how it *does* play? I mean, is that what the rules as written actually do? That's not the impression I'd gotten from what I'd read of them.
For that matter, I rather like the hack that I heard where common features got RK checks based on the lowest-level creature of that type - so if you're looking at a 10th-level ghost wizard, then the things that are explicitly part of the ghost template just require the RK check of a 4th-level ghost commoner. It would make sense... but I'm pretty sure it doesn't work that way.
It's what the GMG does say, yes.