Recall Knowledge


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Question: does anyone one have a good wizard build that uses recall knowledge a lot? I'm trying to understand how best to use intelligence, not charisma.

I had a quick check through the wizard guids and on the forums. I'm seeing very mixed comments about it, and little love for it. The build guide down rate and flat out ignore the options that benefit it. Full disclosure I prefer sorcerer, I'm just looking at my options. I'm currently GMing a low level witch who uses it a moderate amount. Perhaps I'm being too nice to him.

From what I can tell Magus /Investigator /Ranger all get to do it for free as part of something they want to do anyway. Those 3 classes plus Scrollmaster all have feats to give +1 circumstance bonus to your next attack on a critical success (to you and allies) MasterMind Rogue can gain a flat footed modifier out of it. So those classes are all good. But not wizards.

From what I can tell the simplest way to get the +1 circumstance bonus for your party is via the Ranger Dedication feat then Monster Hunter This has the advantage that very few concepts will have trouble with the 14 Dex prerequiste, the hunt prey benefits are useful for other things, and its only 2 feats. I guess its a free bonus if you do recal knowledge regularily it may be worth it. But requiring a critical success seems to really devalue it.

The other options all require extra feats. Loremaster is tied in with Bard and therefore a charisma prerequisite that I'm trying to avoid. I wish they would errata that away. Investigator is probably OK if you are a Spell Blender who likes to attack with a bow and saves up slots for the big fight as the Devise a Strategem will pay off for you.

I actually think Dubious Knowledge is good, as you always get some good knowledge, which I consider to be a valuable hint, and it applies to everything. Unmistakable Lore would be good in the right lore category.
Kreighton’s Cognitive Crossover looks good but it locked to one pair of skills.
I don't like Assurance or Automatic knowledge as they are tied to a skill and I want to critically succeed which they never will.
Aside from Super Taster which is mostly not practical in combat, only Second Opinion from a Familiar seems like a good circumstance bonus to recall knowledge.
Hypercognition is useful. I assume you use some of the extra checks to retry at higher difficulty DCs
Obviously Unified Theory is great but that is level 15 now.
Quick Recognition and Clever Counter Spell are other useful options in a related area.
Organ sight might suit some wizards.

Everything here though is Ok but nothing is much of a bonus over just a successful recall knowledge. I mean that is useful but is it enough, for a serious player who may be able to guess the right tactic just from the monster descrption.


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For Cognitive Crossover, I did see a nifty trick regarding it. If you have some kind of "All-lore" like bardic, loremaster, gossip, etc. you can key that to something like Arcana and then you can use that lore for everything and then crossover with Arcana which you boost.


Well, in addition to recall knowledge, there are also all of the extra trained skills that you get from high INT.

4 of the 6 main skills for recall knowledge use intelligence as their ability score: Arcana, Occultism, Society and the various Lore skills. Religion and Nature use wisdom.

As a Rune Witch, I have Discern Secrets. But a Wizard wouldn't have access to get that - even through archetype.


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And of course the usefulness of recall knowledge is dependent on how the table runs it. I don't think you are being Too Nice by having it be valuable to your players.


Onkonk wrote:
For Cognitive Crossover, I did see a nifty trick regarding it. If you have some kind of "All-lore" like bardic, loremaster, gossip, etc. you can key that to something like Arcana and then you can use that lore for everything and then crossover with Arcana which you boost.

Yeah that works as far as it is. The problem is with Loremaster is to get the best feats like Loremaster's Etude you have a Bard prerequiste which locks you into 14 Charisma - which I really don't want to do. Clearly Unmistakable Lore is compulsory here. Also Loremaster doesn't have any extra benefits on a a success like the other archetypes do, so if you are trying to power this option up you need to add other archetypes.


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Imo as long as the creature's low save / weakness / resistance / immunities and level (for the purpose of determining incapacitation) are available after a recall knowledge, then even a normal roll without any rider effects are valuable to a party.


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breithauptclan wrote:
And of course the usefulness of recall knowledge is dependent on how the table runs it. I don't think you are being Too Nice by having it be valuable to your players.

"Success You recall the knowledge accurately or gain a useful clue about your current situation." - CRB p. 239, Recall Knowledge

The first part implies you get the datum chosen before rolling, and if not that the second part says the information has to be useful AND current. So I don't understand these talks of table variation where the GM stiffs the player re: Recall Knowledge. Yes, the GM has the prerogative, but no, that's cheating IMO as much as denying a hit vs. AC.

While I never point out stats, I've always given the data that's the most useful to that PC's tactics (AFAICT and being of the mind that's the kind of stuff they'd study). And none of that "Fire Giants hate cold" (duh) or "heat up their rocks" kind of swindling. More like "Basilisks will turn you to stone (duh), but their blood can revert you back if applied soon enough (OMG, thank you!)"

When I return to PFS, I plan to (and hope to remember to) ask players before the session what kind of stuff their PC prefers to know when rolling RK. I've had players smack themselves for forgetting to Recall Knowledge when they had a safe opportunity to do so (and this includes when facing a generic Fire Giant).

Given all that, I'm not sure that Recall Knowledge needs more validation. And there are many ways to improve it which I find worthwhile (including Dubious Knowledge, which I also love). I don't map out too many Int PCs, but Religion & Nature are default choices for most of my high Wis PCs or 14 Wis w/ lots of skills (so each of my dozens of Rogue ideas). One of my first concepts was an RK-focused Rogue (taking them all), though yeah, I'd ditch that if a GM "cheated" me on its usefulness.


Gortle wrote:
Onkonk wrote:
For Cognitive Crossover, I did see a nifty trick regarding it. If you have some kind of "All-lore" like bardic, loremaster, gossip, etc. you can key that to something like Arcana and then you can use that lore for everything and then crossover with Arcana which you boost.

Yeah that works as far as it is. The problem is with Loremaster is to get the best feats like Loremaster's Etude you have a Bard prerequiste which locks you into 14 Charisma - which I really don't want to do. Clearly Unmistakable Lore is compulsory here. Also Loremaster doesn't have any extra benefits on a a success like the other archetypes do, so if you are trying to power this option up you need to add other archetypes.

Yeah, the dedication should count as the enigma muse for sure. APG errata is out very soon though so maybe they patched that.

Sovereign Court

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Wizards don't have a lot of abilities that really make them good at RK which is a bit odd because being well-read is on theme for them. But they've been overtaken a bit by classes (investigator, thaumaturge) that take this even further, so I don't see wizards getting a lot of help here.

Typically they'll be good at Arcana, maybe Crafting, opportunistically use their good Intelligence for Society and Occultism. Lots of people like good Wisdom so Nature and Religion might be okay, and Religion I think is actually the important one. Because if a wizard is fighting a fiend of some kind, he really needs to know what he's dealing with. A cleric can just spam good damage and be okay, a wizard needs to figure out which element will actually work. Or which of the strong saves is least strong, etc.

---

I'm not a fan of how Paizo did RK, I think they put the bar too high. You tend to be at a disadvantage in multiple ways:
- If you need information, the monster is probably higher level than you, so high DC.
- If you really badly need information, this is maybe a custom variant monster adapted as a miniboss for the adventure and is Rare or Unique so the DC goes even further up.
- Failing the check locks you out of further attempts, which is also a bit steep considering the high DC.

As a consequence, RK is usually hopeless when you need it so why even try it? And that makes combats dumber, because for all you know you're fighting an angry bag of HP.

What would happen if RK was easier? Would that really be bad? I think it would be good. It means RK becomes a viable Third Action™ candidate again, and combats against different monsters are more different because players can anticipate what's coming and try to do something adaptive.

Next home campaign, I'll be using these house rules for RK:

* Uncommon/Rare/Unique DC boosts only count when indirectly researching the monster, such as analyzing tracks or clues left at a murder scene or such. If you're face to face with it, they don't apply, because you're using your knowledge to see how it moves, infer meaning in its scale patterns, coloration etc. Rarity is relative, anything that's scary close to you is relatively not so rare.

* When you get new information about a monster, the locked-out-by-failure and increasing DC for success resets and you can start afresh. This could be finding new clues at a new murder site.

* Each round you're fighting the monster and can witness it doing stuff, also counts as new information. So each round you can start with a fresh RK DC, even if you failed before.

When PF2 just it the shelves we were told RK was a good third action for fighters and rangers with lots of MAP from their earlier attacks. I want that back.

Liberty's Edge

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First RK is a mess. If your GM allows you to get precious advice from it, remember to thank and praise them every time.

Second, IMO RK is too unreliable before lvl 10 and too easy to OP from level 10. Because that is the level when the feats that allow you to roll RK using a single skill come online.

And it is extremely easy to boost RK on a single skill to extreme levels. Especially with the Pathfinder Agent dedication followed by Scrollmaster dedication and lvl 10 Bestiary Scholar.


The Raven Black wrote:

And it is extremely easy to boost RK on a single skill to extreme levels. Especially with the Pathfinder Agent dedication followed by Scrollmaster dedication and lvl 10 Bestiary Scholar.

That sure is a lot of class feats to drop on the ability to know things. I'm not convinced that this is the best use for 5 class feats.


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

You mean 3 class feats, with Pathfinder Agent Dedication being a pretty solid dedication feat for the skill boosts, not just a building block toward recall knowledge?

It's definitely still a major investment and may not be one you want to make, but "5 class feats on the ability to know things" isn't quite an accurate description.


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HammerJack wrote:
You mean 3 class feats

??

Ah, because Scrollmaster is an extension archetype and circumvents having to pay off the Pathfinder Agent archetype first. So yeah, 3 class feats.

Liberty's Edge

TBH such a build would take Thorough Reports to keep on boosting RK. But then, it is a Skill feat.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Wizards actually aren't any good at RK knowledge unless you really invest in it.

They are good at Arcana. Can be decent at one other int skill if they invest in it.

RK is just spread across too many skills, and since intelligence doesn't get you above trained (big pet peeve that makes int the worst stat but I digress) you don't have the skillups to level those skills, so you will be behind by a lot, not to mention medicine/religion and nature, common RK checks, run off wisdom.

Intelligence is good for lores with additional lore, but obviously lores are very specific so most of your checks won't use them unless you campaign REALLY telegraphs what you will be up against.

Kreighton’s Cognitive Crossover doesn't really help as it is only two skills and using an off skill for a lore check has a huge DC penalty.

Also, Unified Theory seems awesome, but reading it it only applies to checks against MAGIC. So it won't do anything when using RK against an enemy.


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Gortle wrote:
Loremaster is tied in with Bard and therefore a charisma prerequisite that I'm trying to avoid. I wish they would errata that away.

Actually the Loremaster dedication says you can ignore any bard requirements! Best route for sure to be good at RK, but as usual a whole archetype (be nice if they would waive the 3 feat requirement on a few of them)

Didn’t realize that either until someone on discord pointed it out.


CaffeinatedNinja wrote:


Also, Unified Theory seems awesome, but reading it it only applies to checks against MAGIC. So it won't do anything when using RK against an enemy.

I can see your point. I just don't believe that is correct. For starters that wording is not in the feat.

You have a narrow reading of the feat from the description text where as the actual mechanical text allows it. As for why the skill of occultism is used to recall knowledge about creatures as well as for magic you'll have to ask the designers. Its not an unbalanced or overpowered ability there are several level 10 class feats that do the same.

Liberty's Edge

TBH I too go with the narrower reading because of the Magical Tradition bit. Identifying creatures is not based on any Magical Tradition.


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The Raven Black wrote:
TBH I too go with the narrower reading because of the Magical Tradition bit. Identifying creatures is not based on any Magical Tradition.

Yep but magical tradition is a good adjective to describe or group the 4 casting skills. So I don't read anything into that.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Gortle wrote:
The Raven Black wrote:
TBH I too go with the narrower reading because of the Magical Tradition bit. Identifying creatures is not based on any Magical Tradition.
Yep but magical tradition is a good adjective to describe or group the 4 casting skills. So I don't read anything into that.

Text of the feat just so we are all on the same page.

You've started to make a meaningful connection about the common underpinnings of the four traditions of magic and magical essences, allowing you to understand them all through an arcane lens. Whenever you use a skill action or a skill feat that requires a Nature, Occultism, or Religion check, depending on the magic tradition, you can use Arcana instead.

I think we can all agree this is NOT clearly written. The first part could be flavor text alone, but the "depending on the magic tradition" part is confusing. If it is meant to make it just for magic checks it could be a LOT clearer but it does seem to be saying that? Maybe?

Liberty's Edge

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" Whenever you use a skill action or a skill feat that requires a Nature, Occultism, or Religion check, you can use Arcana instead."

Vs

" Whenever you use a skill action or a skill feat that requires a Nature, Occultism, or Religion check, depending on the magic tradition, you can use Arcana instead."

So, not any skill action or skill feat, otherwise the former, simpler, wording would have been enough.


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Castilliano wrote:
breithauptclan wrote:
And of course the usefulness of recall knowledge is dependent on how the table runs it. I don't think you are being Too Nice by having it be valuable to your players.

"Success You recall the knowledge accurately or gain a useful clue about your current situation." - CRB p. 239, Recall Knowledge

The first part implies you get the datum chosen before rolling, and if not that the second part says the information has to be useful AND current. So I don't understand these talks of table variation where the GM stiffs the player re: Recall Knowledge. Yes, the GM has the prerogative, but no, that's cheating IMO as much as denying a hit vs. AC.

While I never point out stats, I've always given the data that's the most useful to that PC's tactics (AFAICT and being of the mind that's the kind of stuff they'd study). And none of that "Fire Giants hate cold" (duh) or "heat up their rocks" kind of swindling. More like "Basilisks will turn you to stone (duh), but their blood can revert you back if applied soon enough (OMG, thank you!)"

When I return to PFS, I plan to (and hope to remember to) ask players before the session what kind of stuff their PC prefers to know when rolling RK. I've had players smack themselves for forgetting to Recall Knowledge when they had a safe opportunity to do so (and this includes when facing a generic Fire Giant).

Given all that, I'm not sure that Recall Knowledge needs more validation. And there are many ways to improve it which I find worthwhile (including Dubious Knowledge, which I also love). I don't map out too many Int PCs, but Religion & Nature are default choices for most of my high Wis PCs or 14 Wis w/ lots of skills (so each of my dozens of Rogue ideas). One of my first concepts was an RK-focused Rogue (taking them all), though yeah, I'd ditch that if a GM "cheated" me on its usefulness.

I think one issue is that not every GM is good at assessing what is tactically relevant to a given party, which is especially going to be true with an unfamiliar party like PFS. That also makes your idea of asking the players what they want a good one. Playing a caster I've found asking explicitly for weakest saves or elemental weaknesses to be worth doing with my GM who is more into the roleplay than the war game aspect.

I'm playing a Shisk rune witch with a heavy investment in lores, but the only thing you couldn't do on a wizard would be the Discern Secrets status bonus. An improved familiar is another way to get a circumstance bonus. (Skilled, second opinion, independent.) Scouting will also help you a lot.

Instead of focusing on Recall Knowledge in combat, try to use your familiar, spells, Survey Wildlife, or sneaky allies to get an idea what you're facing. This creates opportunities for the whole party to roll it ahead of time. This greatly increases your odds someone will succeed and will often get you multiple successes for multiple bits of information. And if you do this before daily prep (or have the spell substitution thesis) you can tailor your spell selection to those monsters, which really leans into the wizard niche.


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

As a GM, I have been thinking about shifting the results for RK in combat since the opportunity cost of using it is so high. Giving 1 kinda useful bit of information (often something about saves or a very obvious powerful attack) although no specifics on a fail, false info of the same vagueness on a crit fail, and then specific useful info on a success, or two useful bits of specific info on a crit success.

Narrative I would shape failed checks heavily off of the physical description, so it might be information a n observant player could guess, while for success, I have always tried to give details that really help the party gauge in relationship to their own abilities. I would not count failing as having “identified” a creature for any feat abilities, and hopefully this would keep those abilities interacting so strangely with critical failures.


For a period of time, I used to allow PCs to choose which info they gained from RK. But from experience, about 95% of the time, useful information is about monster defenses - weak save, resistance, weakness, immunity, etc.

Learning a monster's offense doesn't really help unless you gain the info pre-combat. During combat, I found learning a monster's offense to not be helpful for a few reasons. First, there's a big action opportunity cost to use a defensive buff when you could be dishing out damage. Second, many times, PCs don't have the right defensive tool immediately at hand. If the offense info is gained pre-combat however, PCs can purchase/prepare the right defenses and then spend the buff-action cost pre-combat.

However, I found learning a monster's defense helps a lot in-combat. Many PCs have varied attack options, versatile weapons, backup weapons, spells that target different saves, spells that do different elements of damage, etc. Different attack options are usually available, but the PC doesn't have the info on which one bypasses defenses the best.

Right now, when I GM, I default to giving out defense information on in-combat RK, except once in a blue moon when I think the PCs are helped by some other info.


Yeah, Captain Morgan, scouting and Recall Knowledge both make each other more useful. The party could save lots of actions (that often it couldn't have afforded to begin with) plus double-check data.
"Are your sure Flesh Golems hate electricity? How sure?"
And one could switch weapons (which might need backup buffing), and for some builds switching weapons takes lots of actions.

Now the trick is getting good enough info that the Recall Knowledge checks are on the correct monster.
"Eh, Mr. Thief, this is not actually a troll. It's a type of devil."
"Close enough, right?"
"No, very much the opposite."

ETA:
One good reason for scouts to take Craft, so they can draw accurate pictures. Or maybe Perform. :-P


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Unicore wrote:
As a GM, I have been thinking about shifting the results for RK in combat since the opportunity cost of using it is so high.

The opportunity cost can vary widely. An Investigator with Known Weaknesses, for example, will get a free action Recall Knowledge check pretty much every round of combat.

You can also use gold to buy yourself one free action Recall Knowledge check per minute with a Cunning Rune. Getting the item bonus from the potency runes to the check is nice as is the potential +2 circumstance bonus.

I suppose a Wizard could put the rune on a crossbow, but I prefer the idea of using a Cunning melee weapon with Hand of the Apprentice for the better attack bonus. Combining a ranged attack with a Recall Knowledge check seems like a pretty efficient use of a Wizard's third action.


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Gisher wrote:
Unicore wrote:
As a GM, I have been thinking about shifting the results for RK in combat since the opportunity cost of using it is so high.

The opportunity cost can vary widely. An Investigator with Known Weaknesses, for example, will get a free action Recall Knowledge check pretty much every round of combat.

You can also use gold to buy yourself one free action Recall Knowledge check per minute with a Cunning Rune. Getting the item bonus from the potency runes to the check is nice as is the potential +2 circumstance bonus.

I suppose a Wizard could put the rune on a crossbow, but I prefer the idea of using a Cunning melee weapon with Hand of the Apprentice for the better attack bonus. Combining a ranged attack with a Recall Knowledge check seems like a pretty efficient use of a Wizard's third action.

The bigger issue for me is that there are too many abilities that trigger off of a successful RK check for critical failure to emulate success. If failure gives something more like a half success, then a crit failure can look like a failure instead and not cause a bunch of problems with all the RK abilities. Giving PCs too much false knowledge always felt bad to me anyway. But a subtle, “you aren’t sure what this creature is, but it reminds you of …” indicates you have failed, but by how much? It synergizes with the different abilities that interact with RK much better than having CF look like a success.


Unicore wrote:
Gisher wrote:
Unicore wrote:
As a GM, I have been thinking about shifting the results for RK in combat since the opportunity cost of using it is so high.

The opportunity cost can vary widely. An Investigator with Known Weaknesses, for example, will get a free action Recall Knowledge check pretty much every round of combat.

You can also use gold to buy yourself one free action Recall Knowledge check per minute with a Cunning Rune. Getting the item bonus from the potency runes to the check is nice as is the potential +2 circumstance bonus.

I suppose a Wizard could put the rune on a crossbow, but I prefer the idea of using a Cunning melee weapon with Hand of the Apprentice for the better attack bonus. Combining a ranged attack with a Recall Knowledge check seems like a pretty efficient use of a Wizard's third action.

The bigger issue for me is that there are too many abilities that trigger off of a successful RK check for critical failure to emulate success. If failure gives something more like a half success, then a crit failure can look like a failure instead and not cause a bunch of problems with all the RK abilities. Giving PCs too much false knowledge always felt bad to me anyway. But a subtle, “you aren’t sure what this creature is, but it reminds you of …” indicates you have failed, but by how much? It synergizes with the different abilities that interact with RK much better than having CF look like a success.

Oh, that makes sense.

Sovereign Court

Gisher wrote:
Unicore wrote:
As a GM, I have been thinking about shifting the results for RK in combat since the opportunity cost of using it is so high.

The opportunity cost can vary widely. An Investigator with Known Weaknesses, for example, will get a free action Recall Knowledge check pretty much every round of combat.

You can also use gold to buy yourself one free action Recall Knowledge check per minute with a Cunning Rune. Getting the item bonus from the potency runes to the check is nice as is the potential +2 circumstance bonus.

I suppose a Wizard could put the rune on a crossbow, but I prefer the idea of using a Cunning melee weapon with Hand of the Apprentice for the better attack bonus. Combining a ranged attack with a Recall Knowledge check seems like a pretty efficient use of a Wizard's third action.

That's paying the opportunity cost in feats or in choice of property runes, both of which are still opportunity costs.

I might pick up that cunning rune for my magus though, that's a nice find.


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I wasn't suggesting that these were free options - just that the amount and type of cost can vary quite a bit. An Investigator spending just one feat on Known Weaknesses basically gets an extra action, and a chance at bonuses for their entire party, during nearly every round of combat forever. That cost/benefit ratio is very different than the multiple-feat options this thread has come up with for Wizards.

As for the property rune limitations, a Wizard using Hand of the Apprentice could just buy a +1 cunning weapon for this one purpose rather than using their fully tricked-out primary weapon. They can add some striking runes as they level up and the prices become relatively cheap.

Cunning is a nice option for a Magus with the Knowledge is Power feat. The benefits of the feat require a critical success on the check, and the bonuses with Cunning can really help with that.


I wonder if the release of Thaumaturge will come with additional recall knowledge rules/options/clarifications. I did not have much time to look at the playtest but I heard it’s a very recall knowledge heavy class.

Liberty's Edge

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The playtest version was indeed based on RK. IIRC the feedback from surveys will end up in the final version being divorced from RK.

I still hope they will use Dark Archive to tackle the issues that plague RK as much as they can though.

Liberty's Edge

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Found it on the blog post about the playtest survey analysis :

"Our plan is to disentangle Esoteric Antithesis from Recall Knowledge (with a feat, like investigators’, to pick up a free Recall Knowledge if you want that)"


The Raven Black wrote:

Found it on the blog post about the playtest survey analysis :

"Our plan is to disentangle Esoteric Antithesis from Recall Knowledge (with a feat, like investigators’, to pick up a free Recall Knowledge if you want that)"

I think I forgot what I read in that playtest after so long, because I do remember esoteric antithesis and find flaws being directly dependent on a recall knowledge. I don’t know how I erased that from memory and reimagined it as only recall knowledge adjacent.

Good to know though. I should read that playtest analysis.

Liberty's Edge

The Raven Black wrote:

First RK is a mess. If your GM allows you to get precious advice from it, remember to thank and praise them every time.

Second, IMO RK is too unreliable before lvl 10 and too easy to OP from level 10. Because that is the level when the feats that allow you to roll RK using a single skill come online.

And it is extremely easy to boost RK on a single skill to extreme levels. Especially with the Pathfinder Agent dedication followed by Scrollmaster dedication and lvl 10 Bestiary Scholar.

Some numbers here to illustrate the 10th level RK-focused build :

RK DC for a Common 10th level creature : 27

Base proficiency bonus in Society and Arcana : +21

+2 item (Cognitive Mutagen) +2 status (Scroll of Pocket Library) +4 circumstance (Thorough Reports feat enhanced thanks to Scrollmaster dedication)

Total bonus = +29

So, you only fail with a Nat1, which then allows for a new roll thanks to Kreighton's Cognitive Crossover. Which again you can only fail on a Nat1. So 399 chances out of 400 to get a success.

And if you roll 8+ on your first roll, it's a critical success.

That is without even taking into account the once every 10 minutes Loremaster's Etude that allows you to roll twice on your first check.

Significant investment, but also significant returns.


The Raven Black wrote:

+2 item (Cognitive Mutagen) +2 status (Scroll of Pocket Library) +4 circumstance (Thorough Reports feat enhanced thanks to Scrollmaster dedication)

Total bonus = +29

Yeah, that is pretty good.

For comparison: Just being a Rune Witch and putting daily resources into it I have

+2 item (Cognitive Mutagen) +2 status (Pocket Library) +1 circumstance (Second Opinion from Farien and maybe +2 if he does well).

If I had trained Arcana up to Master level at level 7, then the circumstance bonus from Second Opinion would go up to +3. But that would require more build investment than I wanted to spend on it.

Also, instead of Pocket Library I can use Discern Secrets all day to get a +1 status bonus.

So without any care given to recall knowledge, I am about 7 points behind your optimal build. (No mutagen, Discern Secrets instead of Pocket Library, and no Second Opinion)

With my current options and taking specific daily preparations I can get that up to being 3 points behind.

And if I retrained my Arcana skill up to master I would only be 1 point behind.

But that is only for Arcana. I don't have any ability to use Arcana for other knowledge.

So if an individual is specifically going out of their way to boost their ability to know things, why shouldn't they be allowed to use the abilities that they trained for?


And if we were adventuring together, I can create a small pile of the Cognitive Mutagen with Alchemist archetype and if you run out of uses of Pocket Library (or don't feel like spending a level 3 scroll on it) I can cast Discern Secrets on you all day.


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Plus spending KCC on your two best skills kind of seems like a bad idea. Makes more sense to pick a knowledge skill you suck at. A wizard would benefit a lot more from Arcana/Nature to compensate for their low wisdom. Or Arcane/Loremaster so they can use Arcana on everything.

Liberty's Edge

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Bestiary Scholar allows you to identify any non-Society creature with one of the non-Society Knowledge skills. Using KCC on one of those and Society allows me to benefit from KCC no matter the creature I try to identify. I chose Arcana for INT-based (character is an Investigator for the free RK from Known weaknesses) and for using long-duration boosts from Trick Magic Item.

But, yes, other builds and synergies can be quite valuable too.

I did not know about the Witch abilities. I will check those. Thanks for the tips.

Horizon Hunters

Gortle wrote:


The other options all require extra feats. Loremaster is tied in with Bard and therefore a charisma prerequisite that I'm trying to avoid.

I am confused. What does the Loremaster archetype have to do with Charisma?

The only thing I notice is that a player get's a +1 if they have a Bardic Lore.

It seems like a really good way to keep up your non Intellect based recall knowledge skills.


Cylar Nann wrote:
Gortle wrote:


The other options all require extra feats. Loremaster is tied in with Bard and therefore a charisma prerequisite that I'm trying to avoid.

I am confused. What does the Loremaster archetype have to do with Charisma?

The only thing I notice is that a player get's a +1 if they have a Bardic Lore.

It seems like a really good way to keep up your non Intellect based recall knowledge skills.

3 of the Loremaster feats have prerequisite enigma muse


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Gortle wrote:
Cylar Nann wrote:
Gortle wrote:


The other options all require extra feats. Loremaster is tied in with Bard and therefore a charisma prerequisite that I'm trying to avoid.

I am confused. What does the Loremaster archetype have to do with Charisma?

The only thing I notice is that a player get's a +1 if they have a Bardic Lore.

It seems like a really good way to keep up your non Intellect based recall knowledge skills.

3 of the Loremaster feats have prerequisite enigma muse

And the dedication feat says

Quote:
You can take feats in the loremaster's additional feats entry even if you don't meet the enigma muse prerequisite.


breithauptclan wrote:


And the dedication feat says
Quote:
You can take feats in the loremaster's additional feats entry even if you don't meet the enigma muse prerequisite.

Thanks


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To be fair, CaffeinatedNinja said it first.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

I should note that Spellmaster is a super restrictive archetype technically as you have to be a member of the Pathfinder Society. Also, the dedication is essentially a dead feat.

Liberty's Edge

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CaffeinatedNinja wrote:
I should note that Spellmaster is a super restrictive archetype technically as you have to be a member of the Pathfinder Society. Also, the dedication is essentially a dead feat.

I guess you mean Scrollmaster.

In PFS, having access is automatic. In any home game, it is something you should be able to get by working at it (Uncommon). Hardly super restrictive IMO.

And it gives you a +4 Circumstance bonus when Identifying creatures with Thorough Reports. I know of no other way to get such a high Circumstance bonus on these checks at level 6.

Hardly a dead feat for a build specialized in identifying creatures.


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Unicore wrote:

...

The bigger issue for me is that there are too many abilities that trigger off of a successful RK check for critical failure to emulate success. If failure gives something more like a half success, then a crit failure can look like a failure instead and not cause a bunch of problems with all the RK abilities. Giving PCs too much false knowledge always felt bad to me anyway. But a subtle, “you aren’t sure what this creature is, but it reminds you of …” indicates you have failed, but by how much? It synergizes with the different abilities that interact with RK much better than having CF look like a success.

This thread got me really examining other RK-related feats, like Thorough Research.

APG wrote:

Thorough Research

When you succeed at a Recall Knowledge check, you learn an additional fact about the subject. When you critically succeed at a Recall Knowledge check, you can gain even more additional information or context than normal, at the GM’s discretion.

It occurs to me that if you get a CF on a RK check then this feat doesn't activate. So you would only get one piece of information. If you get a success, though, this feat gets you a second piece of information. So you should be able to tell whether you had a CF by the number of pieces of information that you get.


Gisher wrote:
It occurs to me that if you get a CF on a RK check then this feat doesn't activate. So you would only get one piece of information. If you get a success, though, this feat gets you a second piece of information. So you should be able to tell whether you had a CF by the number of pieces of information that you get.

It depends on how metagamist your players are. Some players have no problem playing out a player-known failure in-character. But that is rare.

To compensate for that, there is no reason that you couldn't give out two pieces of incorrect information on a crit fail check.

Liberty's Edge

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breithauptclan wrote:
Gisher wrote:
It occurs to me that if you get a CF on a RK check then this feat doesn't activate. So you would only get one piece of information. If you get a success, though, this feat gets you a second piece of information. So you should be able to tell whether you had a CF by the number of pieces of information that you get.

It depends on how metagamist your players are. Some players have no problem playing out a player-known failure in-character. But that is rare.

To compensate for that, there is no reason that you couldn't give out two pieces of incorrect information on a crit fail check.

The result of a PC investing a feat to get more value out of RK should not be getting even worse results than usual on a crit fail.

Liberty's Edge

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Really, crit fail RK should not have been a thing. Simple failure is enough.

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