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A little help understanding what skill is used and who decides that when taking the recall knowledge activity hardly feels like shackling people to textualism, and yet the table variance on it is pretty wild and I have seen it cause a lot of hard feelings in PFS and disappointment/character rebuilding in longer campaigns when the players idea of a cool class feature/feat doesn't work anything like they imagined it.
Being asked as a player, what skill would you like to use, and then being told, that skill isn't helpful, after you spent an action to recall knowledge can feel pretty frustrating, especially when the roll was secret, so you don't really know if the GM rolled badly for you and is telling you that as a result of a failed check, or you picked the wrong skill and rolled a natural 20. Then you have to ask yourself, is it worth spending another action next round to try again? Will the GM increase the DC? Even if I learned nothing because I picked the wrong skill?
What is being asked for in this thread is not a set list of bullet points unlocked with set DCs. It is asking for the designers to spend more time talking about the role of this activity in relationship to how the game works, because it is a much bigger part of the game than a lot of players realize when they first start playing, AND it keeps getting expanded upon in additional game material without additional discussion about how the different choices a GM can make about how to arbitrate it can change so much of their player's experiences.
Characters understand things about their world. Who decides that and how is a huge part of the role playing part of this game. Recall Knowledge is one of the only default activities in the game to define this relationship. It is probably as important to the game as having set rules for how to attack an enemy. Maybe it doesn't need as much space as the combat mechanics, but it would be kind of the developers to help make this integral part of the game more transparent and easier to navigate if they can.
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It seems to me that Recall Knowledge is trying to fulfill two different roles that call for different DCs.
Take learning about the Ghost Mage as an example. Let's say a Level 8 party encounters a Level 10 Ghost Mage and wants to know its weaknesses. (Note that the Bestiary also contains a Level 4 Ghost Commoner.)
-Character A is a Ranger with the Level 1 class feat Monster Hunter. This lets the Ranger attempt a free Recall Knowledge against a creature as part of their Hunt Prey action. If this critically succeeds, the ranger and allies get a +1 circumstance bonus against their next attack on the creature. This effect seems to call for the LEVEL-based DC, as it makes the
-Character B is a Wizard who wants to find weaknesses of the Ghost Mage. He tries to Recall Knowledge on the Ghost Mage for this purpose. The key information to learn is that they have resistance against all damage, with perhaps 1 or more ways to bypass that resistance. Now... does the GM use a Level 10 DC for this check? But the Level 4 Ghost Commoner has the same ability. So does this call for a Level 4 check? Within the universe, it doesn't make sense that the Ghost Mage's DC should be higher simply because its level is higher.
Lastly, on repeat checks...
I have an Investigator player in my party who has a class feat that lets him Recall Knowledge as part of Devise a Stratagem. When he critically succeeds on such a check, he gets a +1 bonus similar to the Ranger's Monster Hunter feat. I am rolling a secret check for him EVERY time he uses it, even if he failed previously against a particular creature, because it feels like the ability is too weak if I don't. It also feels like my house rule is "within the lore," because the +1 bonus is a temporary one-time boost and they are looking for momentary advantages, which (to my mind) is different from permanent weaknesses of a creature.
I second the OP's suggestion and hope that these questions get answered! I appreciate the allowance for GM fiat, but when it leads to widely divergent outcomes that affect players' build plans as the OP pointed out, this desperately calls for clarification.
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RK could sure use a facelift. But there are so many problems with all the feats and features around it that try to make it workable for PCs that I think the Thaumaturge's ability should be divorced from it.
In a way, it feels like what DEX-to-damage was to PF1. Jumping through so many hoops to make it real but then it becomes overpowered.
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I don't agree with basically handing people the name of the creature for free. I would do that in some circumstances ("you can see they're orcs") but not others ("It looks... well not alive anyway...") where the identity of the creature is a key component of a mystery adventure.
Unless you are fighting some explicitly unique creature, or are doing a Cthulu home brew, withholding names isn't giving you what you think it is.. Forcing playings to fight nameless creatures isn't part of the adventure. Giving things a name is part of the narrative process. The names are fuel for the story telling and the imagination of the player. Fantasy novels don't have heroes attacking things with the reader having no clue as to what heroes are fighting. The idea of making players walk around deft dumb and blind is a hold over from AD&D and needs to be retired.
What I suspect is that GMs are worried about players meta-gaming with the name, i.e. looking up the creature in a reference. That's a different issue. If players want to cheat, that needs to be handled a different way. Just tell the players what they are fighting.
Hold on, that's NOT what I was saying.
Imagine this scene: someone's been killing people and you've finally cornered them and they're pretty cardaverous. Does the GM just say "it's a ghoul" or "it's a flesh golem"?
I'm very much on board with the idea that the ultimate goal of a mystery is to reveal it. But you don't want to reveal it right at the start immediately, either. Recall Knowledge should be playing a role in gradually peeling back the curtain.