The rules about Identifying Spells speak of Recall Knowledge checks. Recognize Spell doesn't use the same language but I think the intent is for Recognize Spell to be a check to Identify a Spell. In my opinion it is supposed to work together, even if I can see how a RAW case can be made that Recognize Spell is no check to Identify Spells.
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Do you have two reactions to even use both reactions?
The answer is no, you don't.
Incorrect, a character of sufficient level could have the Quick Recognition feat which allows you to recognize a spell as a free action once a round, instead of as a reaction.
So you could have a situation where you attempt to recognize a spell and Kreighton's Cognitive Crossover could be applicable, if you decided that recognizing a spell was a subset of recall knowledge checks.
By RAW, they're separate things. They're recall knowledge and recognize a spell. But honestly I'd consider letting it work, because it's going to take additional investment to make possible in the first place and because I don't think it's going to break anything to let them try a different skill to succeed.
If you accept that identify a spell and recognize a spell are really functionally the same parts of the rules and recognize details mechanically how the action works and identify is talking more generally than that would be the link to back up allowing KCC to work.
I suggest people read the identify a spell section of the rules and recognize a spell section of the rules and decide on their own if they should be the same or different. If you decide they are the same, then KCC can work, but you'll need quick recognition to have enough actions to do it.
Help me out here; in what situations would both of these meaningfully apply to the same check, even if it was legal? If a spell is cast using the Arcane Tradition, then Recognize Spell demands that the secret check be made with the Arcana skill and no alternative, right? Pivoting to a different skill doesn't help here, because no other skill would apply.
Recall Knowledge, on the other hand, requires that the player pick a Skill for the GM to roll on. This means you might pick wrongly, in which case Crossover helps you out. This is IMO why it references Recall Knowledge specifically: to mitigate the repercussions of choosing incorrectly.
- Jee
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Help me out here; in what situations would both of these meaningfully apply to the same check, even if it was legal? If a spell is cast using the Arcane Tradition, then Recognize Spell demands that the secret check be made with the Arcana skill and no alternative, right? Pivoting to a different skill doesn't help here, because no other skill would apply.
Recall Knowledge, on the other hand, requires that the player pick a Skill for the GM to roll on. This means you might pick wrongly, in which case Crossover helps you out. This is IMO why it references Recall Knowledge specifically: to mitigate the repercussions of choosing incorrectly.
- Jee
Depends on if the GM is going to outright say what the spell's tradition is. At tables where this doesn't happen, and the player has to choose/guess the tradition, then I would disagree with this interpretation. Of course, if tables do outright state tradition, then I'd agree with this concept.
**EDIT** This would also work regardless if you were Legendary in Arcane and took the Unified Theory feat, since this lets you bypass the specific skill restriction, but honestly by that point it's super niche.
Pivoting to a different skill doesn't help here, because no other skill would apply.
Normally it wouldn't, but that's why you have KCC.
Pivoting to a different skill doesn't help here, because no other skill would apply.Normally it wouldn't, but that's why you have KCC.
Let's say you're trying to Recognize Spell, and the spell is Dominate, cast by an Occult spellcaster. This denotes that for Recognize Spell to work, you must succeed at an Occult check.
Now, Recognize Spell is notably not a Recall Knowledge check, it's also not even an Identify a Spell check. It's a unique secret check made against the Spell DC of the creature that tells you what spell it is if you Succeed, and maybe gives you a bonus if you're targeted/affected by it on a Critical Success. So on that ground alone, KCC doesn't work.
But let's say that the feat is a Recall Knowledge or Identify Spell check. The issue then becomes that the spell was cast as an Occult spell, and the feat specifies that only the relevant tradition-based checks (Occult in this case) will give you any relevant information. So, if you make an Occult check, and fail, KCC wouldn't trigger since other tradition checks are irrelevant in regards to the feat.
It would work with the general use of Identifying Spells or Recalling Knowledge, but not with the feat, it's too specific of an angle for it to work.
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You're right that Recognize isn't Recall Knowledge, but in that case KCC is irrelevant because it never triggers in the first place.
But the fact that it's an Occult related ability doesn't matter, letting you roll a different skill is the whole point of KCC. Your second skill could be Basket Weaving Lore for all it matters.
You're right that Recognize isn't Recall Knowledge, but in that case KCC is irrelevant because it never triggers in the first place.
But the fact that it's an Occult related ability doesn't matter, letting you roll a different skill is the whole point of KCC. Your second skill could be Basket Weaving Lore for all it matters.
There's a video from Mark Seifter about KCC: You need the second skill to be relevant to get information. If you use Basket Weaving Lore you'll get information about baskets and not the spell.
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There's a video from Mark Seifter about KCC: You need the second skill to be relevant to get information. If you use Basket Weaving Lore you'll get information about baskets and not the spell.You're right that Recognize isn't Recall Knowledge, but in that case KCC is irrelevant because it never triggers in the first place.
But the fact that it's an Occult related ability doesn't matter, letting you roll a different skill is the whole point of KCC. Your second skill could be Basket Weaving Lore for all it matters.
Do you think you could find that video? Not saying that's not the case, but it seems like the whole point of KCC is that you create some nebulous connection from a knowledge that would normally not be relevant.
Oh I see. KCC isn't about "I chose wrong, choose again". It's "I'm going to make this Religion Check using Basket Weaving Lore, but its going to pretend like it's still a Religion Check." That is way better.
But even so, the simplest resolution here is that Recognize Spell does not mechanically include a Recall Knowledge check. The RAW doesn't say it is, and the choice of skill is made for you. There is no reason to assume it does other than personal projection.
- Jee
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For me, I'm trying to understand what the difference between Identifying a Spell and Recognize a spell is. Because Identifying a spell is explicitly a Recall Knowledge check.
Sometimes you need to identify a spell, especially if its effects are not obvious right away. If you notice a spell being cast, and you have prepared that spell or have it in your repertoire, you automatically know what the spell is, including the level to which it is heightened.
If you want to identify a spell but don’t have it prepared or in your repertoire, you must spend an action on your turn to attempt to identify it using Recall Knowledge. You typically notice a spell being cast by seeing its visual manifestations or hearing its verbal casting components. Identifying long-lasting spells that are already in place requires using Identify Magic instead of Recall Knowledge because you don’t have the advantage of watching the spell being cast.
Actually....reading again I'm realizing that Identify a Spell is automatic if prepared or in your repertoire, but if not you must spend an action on your turn.
While Recognize Spell is a feat, that provides an ability to do it as a reaction and calls out that you "identify" the spell.
Recognize Spell
Feat 1
General Secret Skill
Source Core Rulebook pg. 265 4.0
Prerequisites trained in Arcana, Nature, Occultism, or Religion
Trigger A creature within line of sight casts a spell that you don’t have prepared or in your spell repertoire, or a trap or similar object casts such a spell. You must be aware of the casting.
If you are trained in the appropriate skill for the spell’s tradition and it’s a common spell of 2nd level or lower, you automatically identify it (you still roll to attempt to get a critical success, but can’t get a worse result than success). The highest level of spell you automatically identify increases to 4 if you’re an expert, 6 if you’re a master, and 10 if you’re legendary. The GM rolls a secret Arcana, Nature, Occultism, or Religion check, whichever corresponds to the tradition of the spell being cast. If you’re not trained in the skill, you can’t get a result better than failure.Critical Success You correctly recognize the spell and gain a +1 circumstance bonus to your saving throw or your AC against it.
Success You correctly recognize the spell.
Failure You fail to recognize the spell.
Critical Failure You misidentify the spell as another spell entirely, of the GM’s choice.
As I read this further, I think Recognize Spell is basically a special subset of the Identify Spell action you could take. The difference being that you can do it as a reaction and automatically identify more spells based on your proficiency in the relevant skill.
So...now I'm personally convinced this works.
Yeah this is on point. The main reason I made this post was because I was finding it hard to reconcile that Identifying a spell on your turn is a single action to Recall Knowledge but Recognize Spell isn't when the basic premise behind both is that you are identifying a spell that you see/saw.Oh I see. KCC isn't about "I chose wrong, choose again". It's "I'm going to make this Religion Check using Basket Weaving Lore, but its going to pretend like it's still a Religion Check." That is way better.
But even so, the simplest resolution here is that Recognize Spell does not mechanically include a Recall Knowledge check. The RAW doesn't say it is, and the choice of skill is made for you. There is no reason to assume it does other than personal projection.
- Jee
They could be thematically different on the basis of lack-of-choice. The processing of "Recalling Knowledge" is pro-active and so includes a choice. The process of instantly recognizing something is reactive - you don't consciously think about it; you just know. And the Model for that is the GM auto-rolling your skill.
In other words, "Recalling" and "Recognizing" could thought of as mutually exclusive subsets of "knowing". And therefore the mechanics modeling each are discrete from each other.
- Jee
For me, I'm trying to understand what the difference between Identifying a Spell and Recognize a spell is. Because Identifying a spell is explicitly a Recall Knowledge check.
Yes, but the references to "identify" you quoted aren't capitalized. That's a dead give away that the word is being used in disambiguation from mechanical interaction.
In other words, I am asserting that while Recognize Spell identifies a spell it doesn't Identify a Spell.
- Jee
For me, I'm trying to understand what the difference between Identifying a Spell and Recognize a spell is. Because Identifying a spell is explicitly a Recall Knowledge check.Yes, but the references to "identify" you quoted aren't capitalized. That's a dead give away that the word is being used in disambiguation from mechanical interaction.
In other words, I am asserting that while Recognize Spell identifies a spell it doesn't Identify a Spell.
- Jee
That is certainly an argument you are free to make.
But you'll have to pardon me for not finding it convincing.
For me, I'm trying to understand what the difference between Identifying a Spell and Recognize a spell is. Because Identifying a spell is explicitly a Recall Knowledge check.Yes, but the references to "identify" you quoted aren't capitalized. That's a dead give away that the word is being used in disambiguation from mechanical interaction.
In other words, I am asserting that while Recognize Spell identifies a spell it doesn't Identify a Spell.
- Jee
That is certainly an argument you are free to make.
But you'll have to pardon me for not finding it convincing.
The problem is that Recognize Spell outright calls it for what it is: If the idea is that it's supposed to just use existing rules, it could have just said to make a Recall Knowledge check to Identify the Spell. But it doesn't. It says that it's a secret check using the relevant skill for the relevant tradition. Do Recall Knowledge or Identify the Spell say those same things? No. Even if it did, that doesn't make them identical, because there are plenty of rules in game that use secret checks with relevant skills against relevant things, such as Perception against Deception or Stealth DC, for example.
It's the reasoning behind saying Battle Medicine isn't Treat Wounds, even though it uses the same DCs and Healing provided by it.
You're right that Recognize isn't Recall Knowledge, but in that case KCC is irrelevant because it never triggers in the first place.
But the fact that it's an Occult related ability doesn't matter, letting you roll a different skill is the whole point of KCC. Your second skill could be Basket Weaving Lore for all it matters.
It does, though, because if you didn't choose Occult as one of your two abilities for the feat, you couldn't use the feat with it. Just as well, I wouldn't find a GM being able to give any relevant information even with a Critical Success if you substituted Basket Weaving Lore for it outside of "This isn't Basket Weaving."
So I have a question for those that say Recognize a spell doesn't work with KCC. Let's suppose you're right because it doesn't explicitly say it's a Recall Knowledge check.
However, identify a spell does. So on your turn you spend an action to Identify a Spell, you can use KCC right?
So what's the difference between Identify a Spell and Recognize a spell?
To me the only substantial difference is that recognize a spell can be done as a reaction, meaning you don't have to wait until your turn to identify it and you can use an action type other than your 3 main actions for a turn. That's what the benefit/difference is to me.
It's not as though Recognize a Spell is something anyone can do. It does actually require you to invest in a Skill feat.
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That was kind of the point. You should read a post before responding to it so quickly. I should've made that more clear.I didn't even read it the first time, obviously.Read the 2nd last line of my post again.Do you have two reactions to even use both reactions?
The answer is no, you don't.
I will tell my dyslexia that next time.
So I have a question for those that say Recognize a spell doesn't work with KCC. Let's suppose you're right because it doesn't explicitly say it's a Recall Knowledge check.
However, identify a spell does. So on your turn you spend an action to Identify a Spell, you can use KCC right? So what's the difference between Identify a Spell and Recognize a spell?
You mean why would the designers restrict you from using KCC with one but not the other? Perhaps KCC in intended to be used only when a faced with a possible incorrect skill choice. Identify a Spell uses a Recall Knowledge check, which requires the player pick a skill for the GM to roll. They might choose wrong. KCC can save them from this (regardless of which interpretation you're going with).
In Recognize Spell, however, the correct skill is auto-chosen for you. You cannot choose wrong. You may not make the check, but it won't be because you picked the wrong Skill to test your knowledge on. KCC could save you from this well, but given that it's not specifically called out as a Recall Knowledge check perhaps the designers decided that not having to risk choosing the wrong skill was already good enough, and that it shouldn't combo with the other 50+ effects that beef up a player's Recall Knowledge skillz. Maybe the fact that it's a Reaction (or an auto-success in some cases) factored into that calculus as well.
I can't say for sure what the reason is but since ID and RS are mechanically different, its entirely logical that the designers would intended one to combo with KCC and the other to not. All I do know is that the RAW currently supports that intention. I am more than happy to change my mind on this, but that will likely require errata or an example so egregious that it convinces me the RAW is in error.
- Jee
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Have you ever had someone talking to you and then after you're just like "Wait what did you say again?" Imagine that with reading, where you read something and then literally forgot what you just read without realizing it.
I wasn't trying to gain sympathy. At first I was just trying to be cheeky as I saw it as not really that important to the discussion at hand, not literally saying I didn't read it. Then you decided to look for a win in a thread where everyone has been saying your theory was wrong (which it is btw), and I, now a bit annoyed, was trying to explained in a sarcastic way that sometimes people misread things for reasons that you may not fully understand.
I didn't maliciously misread things, and if I had noticed that I misread I wouldn't have posted it because it doesn't contribute to the discussion. There's really no reason for you to be so upset about that post. Just focus on the main thread and stop trying to bully someone for making a simple mistake.
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Typically GMs will tell the player which skill to use. However I think it might be better for the GM to not tell the player, and then pick the applicable skill with the highest bonus for them and make the secret check. This means players have to decide to use the action before knowing which skills apply, and may or may not have the appropriate skills, which prevents cases like these:
Player: "I want to recall knowledge on the thing"
GM: "That would need arcana or crafing"
Player: "Oh never mind I'm not trained in those, I'll do something else."
Instead it would be like this:
Player: "I want to recall knowledge on the statue thing"
GM: "Ok I'll make the secret check"
GM rolls Arcana since it's higher than crafting
GM: "With your knowledge of arcane magic you can identify it as a stone golem."
Typically GMs will tell the player which skill to use. However I think it might be better for the GM to not tell the player, and then pick the applicable skill with the highest bonus for them and make the secret check. This means players have to decide to use the action before knowing which skills apply, and may or may not have the appropriate skills, which prevents cases like these:
Player: "I want to recall knowledge on the thing"
GM: "That would need arcana or crafing"
Player: "Oh never mind I'm not trained in those, I'll do something else."Instead it would be like this:
Player: "I want to recall knowledge on the statue thing"
GM: "Ok I'll make the secret check"
GM rolls Arcana since it's higher than crafting
GM: "With your knowledge of arcane magic you can identify it as a stone golem."
You made a mistake in your example, it should be:
Player: "I want to recall knowledge on the statue thing"
GM: "Ok I'll make the secret check"
GM rolls whatever as you pointed out that the character is not trained in the applicable skills and as such can't succeed at the check.
GM: "With your lack of knowledge of arcane magic or crafting you get completely wrong information about the creature."
What you suggest pushes too much to metagame the situation and punishes beginners who don't know by heart what skill is related to what monster type. It's in my opinion the worst way of handling it.
Identify a Spell uses a Recall Knowledge check, which requires the player pick a skill for the GM to roll. They might choose wrong.What?! No, they can't, because GM should tell which skills are applicable, and then a player decides which skill to use (and maybe mildly suggest some additional alternative skill) and whether to even do RK. Do some GMs really use this stupid guessing game?
I certainly do. A successful check can really take the teeth out of some enemies / hazards. And the RAW seems to support this, from CRB, p.505:
"As noted in the action’s description, a character might attempt to Recall Knowledge using a different skill than the ones listed as the default options. If the skill is highly applicable, like using Medicine to identify a medicinal tonic, you probably don’t need to adjust the DC. If its relevance is a stretch, adjust the DC upward as described in Adjusting Difficulty."
And I wield ^that^ power fairly liberally. If a player tries to use Society on a Fire Elemental, the DC will be very hard and a Success might reveal the language it speaks or its Int modifier or the Smoke Vision ability, because those are the kinds of things that might come into play in everyday Elemental society. It's not a total waste, but it might not have been the wisest choice (or maybe it was! you never know what kinds of knowledge will come in handy).
IMO, it's empowering for the player to make their own logical choices when engaging in proactive focus. If they know which Skills are definitely applicable ahead of time, they will choose the one with the largest bonus every single time with zero thought. Which is fine, if they've previously succeeded at the same check and want more info.
Their REactive focus, however, should be more intuitive. Hence the auto-choice of Recognize Spell.
- Jee
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What do you think that the line "an agile mind can glean clues leading to the truth, even from the most unlikely of sources." means if it isn't an indication that the rerolling skill does not need to be related to the check or original skill? If you want to call that flavor text we can put it aside and address only the mechanics text which states "You immediately reattempt the triggering check using the other chosen skill." Do you think that the rerolling skill changes the DC or nature of the Recall Knowledge check? There should be no difference regardless between a critical success for the original skill and the reroll skill as they are both crit successes. If you want it not to work with an "irrelevant" skill then you adjust the DC upwards according to the "Alternative Skills" section for Recall Knowledge. The point of KCC is that it is a "cheat" feat that allows you to bend the more general rules regarding Recall Knowledge. If it worked the way you say it does, why would it not say it works that way? There are a number of feats which state that the GM ultimately determines what the outcome may be or if something is relevant. KCC does not state this.It does, though, because if you didn't choose Occult as one of your two abilities for the feat, you couldn't use the feat with it. Just as well, I wouldn't find a GM being able to give any relevant information even with a Critical Success if you substituted Basket Weaving Lore for it outside of "This isn't Basket Weaving."You're right that Recognize isn't Recall Knowledge, but in that case KCC is irrelevant because it never triggers in the first place.
But the fact that it's an Occult related ability doesn't matter, letting you roll a different skill is the whole point of KCC. Your second skill could be Basket Weaving Lore for all it matters.
Show me a GM that will make Basket Weaving Lore relevant to identifying the weaknesses and abilities of a creature that is not an Animated Basket, and I will make sure to blacklist them with the label "insane" attached to it.
KCC isn't supposed to be a workaround of intended rules, it's supposed to let you Recall Knowledge about a subject with a different skill if you failed a Recall Knowledge check the first time as a Reaction. That's it. It doesn't let you circumvent the means of which you can acquire such information outside of what it says it does. It doesn't make Basket Weaving Lore give useful information against a Dragon, even if you critically succeed, because a Dragon has nothing to do with Basket Weaving.
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I don't think the player should have to choose which Recall Knowledge skill to draw upon (or gamble as one noted above). It's not like the PCs' minds are partitioned and indexed that way. They're taking a moment to ascertain with their full mind, not review one's specific notebooks.
In that vein, I roll whichever skill has the most likely chance of success, which is usually the highest of course, but with differing DCs it might be a secondary skill instead. This might be altered by the player wanting a specific type of information, like social data rather than physiological or combat data.
And it seems that KCC can lean into ridiculous territory, which I'm kind of fine with given its cost. Basket Weaving Lore would remain a poor choice, if only because then you're getting basket-themed knowledge, like how a precious basket in the court of Minkai had once been destroyed by a spell described similarly to the one you're seeing cast right now. Seems describing the energy type there might be useful cuz' yeah, the feat implies you're getting something.
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KCC isn't supposed to be a workaround of intended rules
I mean it's a workaround so much as any feat is a workaround of 'intended rules', whatever that means.
Forcing both skills to be relevant to the check before you can use it makes it a woefully terrible feat with an extremely narrow subset of applications, because many (most?) things don't have multiple potential RK options in the first place.
And you're certainly not gaining knowledge from "unlikely sources" if you're just using the skill you'd roll anyways to learn about that thing in the first place.
So we're interpreting a feat to work in a way that both contradicts its text and renders it so hyperspecific as to be almost useless.
Pretty obviously a bad ruling.
I don't think the player should have to choose which Recall Knowledge skill to draw upon (or gamble as one noted above). It's not like the PCs' minds are partitioned and indexed that way. They're taking a moment to ascertain with their full mind, not review one's specific notebooks.
Yes that's certainly a popular take. That moment you speak of is 2 seconds long tho. Rarely is the full mind brought to bear in that amount of time. IMO it's much more likely that you'll see a certain need in the heat of the moment and your brain will start its search in whatever vein that need represents.
Someone rolling Society against a Fire Elemental might be doing so because they believe if they can get to its social motivation, then they can stop it. And the only kind of person who would do that is one who prefers talk to violence (and therefore who dumped everything in Society/Diplomacy) so that skill would be a plausible choice.
Remember I'm only speaking of the 1-Action Activity here. Rolling Skill Checks for Research or other such abstractions is a whole different ballgame. And if you DO have time to bring your whole mind to bear (such as during Exploration), then you can roll ALL the Skills if you want so yes, at that point you might as well tell them which one is the most useful.
KCC isn't supposed to be a workaround of intended rulesI mean it's a workaround so much as any feat is a workaround of 'intended rules', whatever that means.
Forcing both skills to be relevant to the check before you can use it makes it a woefully terrible feat with an extremely narrow subset of applications, because many (most?) things don't have multiple potential RK options in the first place.
And you're certainly not gaining knowledge from "unlikely sources" if you're just using the skill you'd roll anyways to learn about that thing in the first place.
So we're interpreting a feat to work in a way that both contradicts its text and renders it so hyperspecific as to be almost useless.
Pretty obviously a bad ruling.
Right, so using it beyond that is where I draw the line. Basket Weaving Lore isn't relevant to identifying Demons. Saying the feat makes it relevant when it otherwise wouldn't be relevant with any other Recall Knowledge checks makes the feat TGTBT.
Now, if the feat was used with, say, Esoteric Lore, a Lore skill specifically designed to identify creatures, such as Demons, that's a different story, and I would actually give relevant information for the check. Even Bardic Lore would be helpful enough, since that's actually basically considered a general, all-around knowledge option. But Basket Weaving? GTFO with that nonsense.
Plenty of creatures have multiple relevant Recall Knowledge skills, so saying it makes it even worse because the skill has to be relevant isn't really that much of a drawback. The skill wasn't designed to work with every skill anyway, otherwise it wouldn't force you to stick with 2 Recall Knowledge-based skills. Why not just work with all of them if it's so niche and underpowered already?
Using flavor text to define how a thing works doesn't really matter if the rules don't expand upon it in any way. If we really used flavor text to its logical conclusion, a lot of abilities would lose functionality compared to abilities that would gain it, and the game breaks in many unintended ways.
I've interpreted the feat to not allow shenanigans. If you like shenanigans in your game, that's up to you. But in either of my tables, I would be instantly shot down if I tried to do those shenanigans, and rightfully so, because that's what this feat is; a pile of shenanigans.
Show me a GM that will make Basket Weaving Lore relevant to identifying the weaknesses and abilities of a creature that is not an Animated Basket, and I will make sure to blacklist them with the label "insane" attached to it.
KCC isn't supposed to be a workaround of intended rules, it's supposed to let you Recall Knowledge about a subject with a different skill if you failed a Recall Knowledge check the first time as a Reaction. That's it. It doesn't let you circumvent the means of which you can acquire such information outside of what it says it does. It doesn't make Basket Weaving Lore give useful information against a Dragon, even if you critically succeed, because a Dragon has nothing to do with Basket Weaving.
You still haven't engaged in what the flavor text implies. I also don't understand why you are saying a crit success changes nothing. Wouldn't you just adjust the DC of the skill check to make a crit success impossible if it is unrelated? Like it says in RK. You are just repeating that something is not intended to work in a certain way but not actually presenting a counter-argument to what Squiggit and I are saying
From the text of Recall Knowledge:
Wouldn't you instead appeal that the DM should not allow the...You attempt a skill check to try to remember a bit of knowledge regarding a topic related to that skill. The GM determines the DCs for such checks and which skills apply.
Critical Success You recall the knowledge accurately and gain additional information or context.
Success You recall the knowledge accurately or gain a useful clue about your current situation.
Critical Failure You recall incorrect information or gain an erroneous or misleading clue.The following skills can be used to Recall Knowledge, getting information about the listed topics. In some cases, you can get the GM's permission to use a different but related skill, usually against a higher DC than normal.
Because I don't need to. Flavor text is what it is, and has no bearing on what mechanically happens. You retry the check using the other selected skill as a Reaction. This is what happens mechanically. It doesn't otherwise change the rules for Recall Knowledge, which requires using a topic related to the skill, and it doesn't let you circumvent obvious restrictions set forth by the activity. If it did, it would actually say that it does this mechanically, as this is a significant change in Recall Knowledge mechanics, and it does not say this mechanically. Adding in bits from flavor text does nothing to change the ability mechanically.
You also pointed out the flaw in your own argument: In Recall Knowledge, the activity says it has to be a related skill twice within its write-up, both in the flavor text (which you claim is relevant to discern how an ability works), and in the mechanical write-up for trying to use a different knowledge check (which is relevant since that's a key mechanic for KCC to function). So then the question becomes: At what point is Basket Weaving relevant in identifying Demons and their abilities? It's obvious that a skill that's not relevant means you don't glean any information, which means you can't possibly get any result higher than a Failure, nor any result lower than a Failure, because there's no information to glean in regards to that particular skill.
The funny thing is, I actually brought that up as a counterargument, saying that the chosen Lore skill (Basket Weaving) isn't relevant to identifying the creature, so using it for KCC does nothing helpful, but it was dismissed because of flavor text somehow taking precedent over it. Because "unlikely sources" means you can take the ramblings of some homeless Basket Weaver as gospel, apply it to your Lore skill, and say that it's accurate and relevant to identifying the creature because [reasons]. KCC is already a niche feat, only a step above Armor Assist, so the idea that it's not relevant enough doesn't really matter when other niche feats already exist.
But hey, if everyone takes Additional Lore (Basket Weaving), and then takes KCC 3 times, they can use Basket Weaving Lore to identify everything in the game at Legendary proficiency! Oh, and you can just take Dubious Knowledge too, so even if you fail twice (both the original and the KCC check), you can still get 2 relevant pieces of information automatically! Brilliant!
Since characters don't even get enough Legendary Proficiency boosts to match the capacity to be Legendary in 6 Recall Knowledge skills (not including Investigators or Rogues here), that obviously falls under TGTBT.
You can't take a feat multiple times unless the feat states you can. If you think that my interpretation of the feat would break the game this should abate that fear.
Flavor can matter when determining the intent of the writer. The name of the feat and the flavor text suggest that Cognitive crossover relates the two skills, making them interchangeable. All good if you don't want to discuss RAI and just RAW but I'm just curious on what you thought was the intent at the time of writing.
KCC does not state that you take the Recall Knowledge action again. It states you re-attempt the triggering check (which is RK). Only the Recall Knowledge action states in its body (not even in a Requirements field) that the skill must be related. When you re-attempt a check, are you supposed to re-evaluated the check and determine whether it relates or adjust the DC? What relates two things? Could the DM say that because you have Cognitive Crossover the skills are interchangeable in the topics they relate to?
Just shooting the shit because I'm really just arguing about intent at this point. I agree that the relates text would mean that you could violate the body of RK with the other skill but does KCC relate them? Relates is not a rigorously defined game term so I don't think the writer would've wanted to write that into KCC.
I was mostly being sarcastic, but I did have to double check KCC's Special entry, because for some reason I thought it was indeed one of those "can take multiple times" ones. Good thing it didn't have it, otherwise Basket Weaving could be the secret to understanding everything.
Even the intent doesn't make sense. "Unlikely sources" is too nebulous to mean that an unrelated skill would be effective, such as Society on a Construct, or Crafting on a Humanoid. At best, Society would tell you if the Construct was made in the image of someone, or Crafting telling you what sort of gear the Humanoid is using, but it wouldn't otherwise provide any other useful information.
I would say that yes, because the nature of the check has been changed from being relevant to the topic, to being not so relevant (or even irrelevant), so the DC would consequently be adjusted. As for the feat letting you ignore any adjustments, again, it doesn't specify with text such as "at the same DC" as it would with other abilities or effects, so giving it the ability to ignore DC adjustments is giving it more than what it says it does, which is a re-attempt with a different skill. A GM is certainly welcome to do so, but when done with things like Basket Weaving Lore, I'd probably not be a player at that table for very long, if for any further duration at all.
"Relate" doesn't need to be a defined game term to express the obvious intent, especially since we already have in-game tables that basically tell us what is or isn't related that based on the creature type attempting to be identified, and that's largely because what is or isn't related is going to be based on the GM when not following the tables. Again, if a GM decides Basket Weaving Lore is relevant to identifying Demons, then they can allow it, but in my experience, no sane GM would.