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It's a feat. It makes you better at the checks, not worse.
It's a feat. It makes you better at the checks, not worse. If you think it's a bad thing that you want to avoid, there's hostility.
This isn't true as it makes you BOTH better AND worse at getting info: you get both the Success result and the Critical Failure result from a Failure roll. IMO, that's BAD and not hostile. It increases my chance for wrong info and makes it so that the good info I get is questionable. I'm sure some like it but I don't.
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That's kind of the point I made there.
It's a skill feat. You take it to be better at that skill action.
If it's being run so that it's detrimental instead of beneficial, that's hostility.
On a failure without Dubious Knowledge, you get nothing (I often throw a little not-very-useful information in there, like the monster's name so I can stop calling it "the thing"). On a failure with Dubious Knowledge, you get "It was either weak or resistant to fire. You're not sure which."
That's objectively better.
Yes, there are people in this thread essentially suggesting that a failure with Dubious Knowledge should become a critical failure. That's very clearly not what it does.
Remember, it says: "...you don’t have any way to differentiate which is which."
You're supposed to know that you got both true and false information. The ambiguity is that you don't know which is which.
(They even added a clarifying example. The topic of this thread?)
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It's a skill feat. You take it to be better at that skill action.
As a level 1 skill feat I tend to prefer to aim low than high. If you are too nice with Dubious Knowledge, for example if it's too easy to tell right from wrong, you are basically treating failures to RK checks as if they were successes. That's way above what a level 1 feat is supposed to do. So I'm fine with having cases here and there where Dubious Knowledge provides zero useful info, as after all it's a failure to the check. I'd be much more wary aboug giving too easily the success info.
When I first GMed Dubious Knowledge on PbP, I gave two pieces of info - one correct, one incorrect - and had the player roll to see which one they “believed more” until one piece of info was proved to be wrong.
Community thoughts?
Yeah, that seems against the spirit of the feat.
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It's a skill feat. You take it to be better at that skill action.As a level 1 skill feat I tend to prefer to aim low than high. If you are too nice with Dubious Knowledge, for example if it's too easy to tell right from wrong, you are basically treating failures to RK checks as if they were successes. That's way above what a level 1 feat is supposed to do. So I'm fine with having cases here and there where Dubious Knowledge provides zero useful info, as after all it's a failure to the check. I'd be much more wary aboug giving too easily the success info.
So don't do that.
It's definitely not supposed to do nothing.
So actually I think we should look at this differently.
This feat changes what failure does. Rather than get no information you get the result of a critical fail and a success but dont know which piece of info is true and which is false.
Theres a fundamental shift in what constitutes failure.
Giving nothing is the same as not having the feat so thats probably not right to do.
Because you are giving something false (crit fail equivalent result) you should also give something true (success equivalent result)
The balance comes in the player not know which is which or at the very least playing their character as if the character doesnt know which is which. I mean essantially the character has bad info and good and believes both are good pieces of info.
This feat is only fun for players who want to roleplay acting on bad info because they are supposed to get it on a fail now and supposed to play on that info as if the character believes it.
Giving nothing is the same as not having the feat so thats probably not right to do.
Because you are giving something false (crit fail equivalent result) you should also give something true (success equivalent result)
Yes. Or as the new version of the feat mentions, you can also do this by giving vague or incomplete information - such as knowing that fire is important, but not if it is a weakness or resistance, or knowing that the creature has a resistance, but not certain of what it is.
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I don't think the player (or the player's character is supposed to believe both things are true. They know they have a source of unreliable information. They know that something about the information should be true and valuable, and that something about the information is misleading and false.
I think if you feel like the most important thing is better for a failure result to feel like a waste of an action for recall knowledge, after a player spends a skill feat (or gets it through another character resource), then there is a good chance that your players are not going to be very satisfied trying to recall knowledge in your campaign, at least not as a combat activity.
These things really are not that hard to make up if you are following the new remastered advice for recalling knowledge. The player is recalling knowledge and asking you a question to which they want an answer.
"What is it?"
"Well you think it might be some kind of a troll or a troll variant, but you are not sure what kind." That is dubious knowledge if the creature is just a regular troll or if it is a specific variant.
"What is its weakest save?"
"Well you have heard that these creatures tend to be weak willed with a stomach of Iron...or was it that the other way around?" This is giving both a true and a false result.
"What would it be doing in this dungeon?"
"Well it definitely wasn't born here, and someone would have had to go to a lot of trouble to get it here." Assuming this is true, you are telling the player that the creature probably has some kind of relationship to something else in the dungeon. If you want your party to know that it might be some kind of bound creature that wants to go home, you could even add in a "It probably isn't happy to be here either."
Overall, I think the reason I like the feat so much as a player and as a GM is because it is a really good way to help your party fail forward with gaining more information about the situation you are facing, which is really what GMs should be doing with recall knowledge as a whole anyway, rather than using it as a boot to punish players for trying to learn about the game they are playing.
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I don't think the player (or the player's character is supposed to believe both things are true.
Why wouldn't they think both are true? It's a secret roll and you can get 2 pieces of information in 2 situations: a crit success and a failure. This means if you get 2 pieces of information, both could be true or one could be wrong. As such, you can't go into it assuming the info is dubious as they don't know what the roll was as it's Secret. It's a reason why I really, really, really dislike the feat.
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So I'm fine with having cases here and there where Dubious Knowledge provides zero useful info, as after all it's a failure to the check.
Man I can't think of many things that would upset my players or annoy me more as a player than deciding to secretly turn off their feats from time to time just on an arbitrary whim.
Just imagine in a critical moment I go to heal an ally and my GM announces my battle medicine doesn't work this combat.
Or I jump out a window expecting to take no damage because I took cat fall but the GM took off a chunk of my HP anyways because 'it's just a level 1 feat'
... Can't really imagine like, approaching GMing with this mindset that you should be intentionally undermining your players like this.
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I don't think the player (or the player's character is supposed to believe both things are true.Why wouldn't they think both are true? It's a secret roll and you can get 2 pieces of information in 2 situations: a crit success and a failure. This means if you get 2 pieces of information, both could be true or one could be wrong. As such, you can't go into it assuming the info is dubious as they don't know what the roll was as it's Secret. It's a reason why I really, really, really dislike the feat.
Because the feat explicitly tells you that you know one is false and one is true, but not which is which. It is in the text of the feat.
When you fail (but don’t critically fail) a Recall Knowledge check using any skill, you learn the correct answer and an erroneous answer, but you don’t have any way to differentiate which is which.
No wonder you hate the feat, your GM is undermining a critical success by making it indistinguishable from a failure. That is not how it is supposed to be played though.
Recall knowledge has the secret trait. Do you tell players they failed after rolling for them? I ask because if you've told them here is the answer and another answer and your telling the player one is false then they know they failed the check triggering dubious knowledge.
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Recall knowledge has the secret trait. Do you tell players they failed after rolling for them? I ask because if you've told them here is the answer and another answer and your telling the player one is false then they know they failed the check triggering dubious knowledge.
And if the player doesn’t have the feat, and they learn nothing, they know they failed too. And if they don’t have the feat and learn 2 pieces of information, then they know they critically succeeded. So why take either of those away from them just because they have the feat? On top of the fact that the rules for feat tell you to tell your player.
"What is its weakest save?"
"Well you have heard that these creatures tend to be weak willed with a stomach of Iron...or was it that the other way around?" This is giving both a true and a false result.
That!
Because you're not giving a true and a false result, you're saying that trolls have high Fortitude and weak Will as the other result is so obviously false there's no point believing it. That's what I want to avoid with Dubious Knowledge: turning it into an automatic success to RK checks.Of course, you can force your player to act as if they don't know the right answer and their character is unable to make basic maths, but that's super unpleasant.
Man I can't think of many things that would upset my players or annoy me more as a player than deciding to secretly turn off their feats from time to time just on an arbitrary whim.
I'm not saying I'd turn it off, I'm just saying that I'd not give them the right information alone like Unicore does. So sometimes the information may not be super usable, but that's just the way the feat works: if you can't tell right from wrong sometimes it's better to not try.
My examples were not meant to be all for the same creature. I just was picking questions players have asked me and example answers I might give. But acknowledge that I wasn’t clear about that.
If I had a player ask for the weakest save against a creature like a Troll, I would not assume that player knows inherently that fortitude is likely its best save and thus I am giving them a free success by saying something like my example above. Maybe you choose reflex instead of fortitude if you think it is a give away answer, but remember, via metagame knowledge, as a player you probably already knew that will was the weak save, so you would never ask that question in the first place, because that would be a waste of an action. Besides, if it is a primal caster, they may not even have a means to target will saves anyway, so the player may have been setting themselves up for frustration asking the question in the first place. You don’t really need to double punish them giving them a useless answer to a question that they might be asking out of inexperience or uncertainty. That is why I would encourage GMs to remember that players only use the recall knowledge action in combat when their characters are built around some aspect of it, or they are struggling to know what to do. As a GM, it should be pretty clear to you which is which and you don’t need to make it your job to punish players for trying to learn aspects of the game that might feel obvious to you.
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If I had a player ask for the weakest save against a creature like a Troll
Actually, that's a perfect example of how Dubious Knowledge can end up being too strong or useless but nothing in between.
Against a Troll, any player who understands the concept of Fortitude, Reflex and Will will know that Fortitude is not their worse save and that it's hard to choose between Reflex and Will. I, as a player, know that trolls are an exception among giants with low Will when most giants have low Reflex, but if I avoid to metagame I'll consider there's a doubt between Reflex and Will.
So if I ask for the Troll's weakest save, as a GM, you are screwed. If you tell me that their weakest save is either Fortitude or Will, I immediately knows it's Will. If you say that it's Reflex or Will, you have given no valuable information.
That's why I dislike Dubious Knowledge. It's hard to come up with believable lies but it's sometimes not even possible to make up one that will be only mildly useful to the player.
And that's why I prefer to keep some freedom and tell the player: "You remember that Trolls have a very weak save, you just don't remember which one." As such, the player has the mildly useful information that if they somehow manage to find which is the actual weak save from Reflex and Will they'll get a massive asset on the Troll. In my opinion, it's much more in line with what Dubious Knowledge is supposed to give than the 2 answers I've spoken about before that are equivalent to give the success information or no information at all.
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I mean the thing about recall knowledge as an action in combat is that, in theory, it is possible that the player could already know everything about the creature in question anyway, so the value of the action to begin with is subjective with a strong chance of uselessness, even on a success or critical success. Its value as an action is directly proportional to how little the player knows already about the creature in question, so you are not really “giving away too much information” trying to make sure any correct information the character might receive is useful as soon as it is learned. Again, the player has made the choice to play a character that has this feat, and they are choosing to spend actions in combat to learn more about the game world by asking questions about the creatures in it: is this behavior you want to encourage or discourage?
I don’t think it is a huge deal to decide that you just don’t like recall knowledge as an action in combat, or the dubious knowledge feat specifically, or how it combines with things like automatic knowledge as long as you are clear with your players about it up front. You run your games how you want (although it is tough when PFS GMs have different expectations for feats, at least society scenarios tend to be brief and you can learn to bring a different character with certain GMs).
But I think it is a good idea for more GMs to interrogate how they help feed players the information that makes adventures and encounters fun, why specific players are tending to ask the questions they are asking and whether the way you are responding to their build choices and tactical choices is coming across as punishing that player, or encouraging to them. It is ok not to have super static “I will always respond this way to player questions” types of mentalities when players might have different needs for having fun and feeling justified acting upon the information and system mastery they are bringing to the game.
Don't be so afraid. It's... very unpleasant in a GM when they are so afraid to give players even a little bit more than they think is enough. More information, more success in combat, more treasure, better outcomes of stories. And then miserliness starts: nope, that is feat is too strong, these attacks are too much, this spell is too powerful... So I forbid that, restrict this, devalue this feat, cut that spell to uselessness, kinetic's auras don't work out of combat because monk's stances don't either, Synesthesia hasn't been reprinted yet so that means devs hate it and I forbid it and so on and so on.
GMs do that since times immemorial. Your GMs were allowing every feat/spell/combos in PF1, D&D3 and others? Because most GMs at some point have to bring the nerf hammer when something goes out of line, not because they are against the player using it but because they want the other players at the table (and themselves also) to have fun, too.
Now there are many reasons to use the nerf hammer. In the case of Dubious Knowledge, my main reason is that I don't want to waste a minute or 2 making believable lies when the player fails an RK check. It's mostly for a gain of time. So either the player's fine with actual dubious knowledge I can make up quickly or we find another solution.If I was the player in question, I would wait until end of session and announce you that "ok, since you don't want to play Dubious, I'm changing it to X" (and that's changing, not "retraining")
I would definitely allow it. If a feat as GM-dependent as Dubious Knowledge is handled in a way you dislike by the GM, it's perfectly legitimate in my opinion to allow a free respec. In that case it's a problem easily solved.
I don’t think it is a huge deal to decide that you just don’t like recall knowledge as an action in combat, or the dubious knowledge feat specifically, or how it combines with things like automatic knowledge as long as you are clear with your players about it up front.
I absolutely love RK checks during combat and tend to give more information than not enough. That's why I consider Diverse Lore to be a big issue (and Dubious Knowledge when played in a way that allows too easily to tell right from wrong) as they completely devalue the investment other characters have made in RK skills and attributes.
I don’t think it is a huge deal to decide that you just don’t like recall knowledge as an action in combat, or the dubious knowledge feat specifically...I absolutely love RK checks during combat and tend to give more information than not enough. That's why I consider Diverse Lore to be a big issue (and Dubious Knowledge when played in a way that allows too easily to tell right from wrong) as they completely devalue the investment other characters have made in RK skills and attributes.
But Dubious knowledge is 1 level 1 skill feat that is accessible by every character that gets a lore skill with their background. It should be almost a default skill feat for any character who wants to recall knowledge, just like battle medicine is for any character who is putting anything into medicine. The Thaumaturge issues are separate, but at least diverse lore does not interact with dubious knowledge, because diverse lore requires a success or critical success, as do almost every class that has features or options to exploit recalling knowledge. Dubious knowledge is just a useful way to make sure that players are not left out in the complete cold when their dice are not rolling great. I just dont think dubious knowledge can really step on anyone's toes since it is available to everyone so easily.
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I don't think the player (or the player's character is supposed to believe both things are true.Why wouldn't they think both are true? It's a secret roll and you can get 2 pieces of information in 2 situations: a crit success and a failure. This means if you get 2 pieces of information, both could be true or one could be wrong. As such, you can't go into it assuming the info is dubious as they don't know what the roll was as it's Secret. It's a reason why I really, really, really dislike the feat.Because the feat explicitly tells you that you know one is false and one is true, but not which is which. It is in the text of the feat.
When you fail (but don’t critically fail) a Recall Knowledge check using any skill, you learn the correct answer and an erroneous answer, but you don’t have any way to differentiate which is which.No wonder you hate the feat, your GM is undermining a critical success by making it indistinguishable from a failure. That is not how it is supposed to be played though.
But the feat doesn't say you know: it tells "you learn the correct answer and an erroneous answer" but it doesn't say you KNOW one is incorrect, just that you can't differentiate between them. Since you don't see a difference between them, that can mean they can both look true. It NEVER says you know you rolled a failure.
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But the feat doesn't say you know: it tells "you learn the correct answer and an erroneous answer" but it doesn't say you KNOW one is incorrect, just that you can't differentiate between them. Since you don't see a difference between them, that can mean they can both look true. It NEVER says you know you rolled a failure.I don't think the player (or the player's character is supposed to believe both things are true.Why wouldn't they think both are true? It's a secret roll and you can get 2 pieces of information in 2 situations: a crit success and a failure. This means if you get 2 pieces of information, both could be true or one could be wrong. As such, you can't go into it assuming the info is dubious as they don't know what the roll was as it's Secret. It's a reason why I really, really, really dislike the feat.Because the feat explicitly tells you that you know one is false and one is true, but not which is which. It is in the text of the feat.
When you fail (but don’t critically fail) a Recall Knowledge check using any skill, you learn the correct answer and an erroneous answer, but you don’t have any way to differentiate which is which.No wonder you hate the feat, your GM is undermining a critical success by making it indistinguishable from a failure. That is not how it is supposed to be played though.
I don't know how to read "you don't know which is which," without assuming that you are looking at two things that are not the same, you are just not sure how they are different. Like if you see twins, and you don't know which is which, that never means that you assume both are the same person, or one is an illusion. It feels like a very hostile reading of the feat to assume that it just invalidates critical successes.
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But Dubious knowledge is 1 level 1 skill feat that is accessible by every character that gets a lore skill with their background. It should be almost a default skill feat for any character who wants to recall knowledge
I've nearly never seen anyone taking it (I don't count Thaumaturges that don't have the choice). It doesn't really look like a default feat for characters who like to RK, its name actually suggest otherwise: If you have Dubious Knowledge you are not really knowledgeable.
I see it more as a feat if you don't want to invest in RK but still want to get some pieces of information. After all it turns failures into something else, if you properly invest in RK checks you should not experience failures very often (I personally rarely invest in failure effects in domains my character is supposed to be good at because I tend to succeed at these checks).
So I highly disagree with you.
I don't know how to read "you don't know which is which," without assuming that you are looking at two things that are not the same, you are just not sure how they are different. Like if you see twins, and you don't know which is which, that never means that you assume both are the same person, or one is an illusion. It feels like a very hostile reading of the feat to assume that it just invalidates critical successes.
I've personally read it like Graystone as a feat that sometimes invalidate critical successes (depending on how the GM gives the information, sometimes it's overt that it's a failure, sometimes it's not). Which is another reason why you shouldn't take it on an actual RK specialized character. And there's really nothing in the game that suggest you should be overt about giving right or wrong information, it's actually the whole point of secret checks.
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I mean "this feat is terrible if you read it this way" when there is no specific language in the feat to tell you to read it that way, and then saying no one takes it who reads it this way, might be a good indicator your interpretation of the text is too bad to be true.
I have many conversations about secret checks with my tables because we have some folks that really dislike them. The thing about recall knowledge is that you know when you get a critical success and failure without this feat. There is no "did I get something else?" If the primary purpose of a feat is to remove your own critical success result in exchange for barely useful information on a failure, then I think the feat would have a bit more of an obligation to explain that is what it does.
Making Recall knowledge checks secret was a design choice I understand and don't personally mind, but it is an area that quickly becomes hostile GMing without care. RAW, it is the success and critical failure results of recalling knowledge that are indeterminant (already a huge problem with class features that require success or better to activate abilities). If dubious knowledge is supposed to make your character assume every failure is actually a critical success there are much clearer ways to express that.
EDIT:
Also, the added sentence at the end of the feat, that is the impetus of this whole thread makes zero sense if the GM is supposed to make a failure result look and feel like a critical success result, only with a false piece of information.
Like how do you even respond to a question like "what is the creature's weakest save" in a way that could be either a critical success or a dubious failure? That is adding a much bigger cognitive load to the GM than is necessary or intended.
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I mean "this feat is terrible if you read it this way" when there is no specific language in the feat to tell you to read it that way, and then saying no one takes it who reads it this way, might be a good indicator your interpretation of the text is too bad to be true.
Terrible is the expected level of power of a level 1 skill feat, so it's exactly where it should be.
If the primary purpose of a feat is to remove your own critical success result in exchange for barely useful information on a failure, then I think the feat would have a bit more of an obligation to explain that is what it does.
On a character who's bad at RK checks, it's very clearly an improvement. On a character who's good at RK checks... well, the feat name shows an intent in my opinion.
Also, the way I play it, Dubious Knowledge is an excellent feat for characters who are rather bad at RK checks but not crippling bad. Like a Thaumaturge without Divers Lore. In case of failure, you get a bit of information. Sure, it's hard to get the right information but it's not nothing, depending on the situation it can be a lifesaver. In combat, I agree that it's dubious, but outside combat when you have quite some time to check it can be nearly as good as the right answer. "You have heard this name... this was about the bank robbery on Main Street, but you don't remember who it was." It's nearly as good as knowing it's a bank employee, you'll just waste a bit of time checking policers and thieves.
Like how do you even respond to a question like "what is the creature's weakest save" in a way that could be either a critical success or a dubious failure? That is adding a much bigger cognitive load to the GM than is necessary or intended.
Simple (about the Troll): (in case of failure) The creature's Reflex saves are as bad as it's Will saves or (in case of critical success) the creature's Will saves are really bad and it's Reflex saves are surprisingly fine.
Like how do you even respond to a question like "what is the creature's weakest save" in a way that could be either a critical success or a dubious failure? That is adding a much bigger cognitive load to the GM than is necessary or intended.
Pretty simple: something like 'it's ref is the lowest save but it gets a bonus vs magic'. Either can be true or both can be. It's 0% extra "cognitive load" as you have to give the exact same amount of info: if the Dm doesn't want extra work, they don't allow the feat.
I mean "this feat is terrible if you read it this way" when there is no specific language in the feat to tell you to read it that way, and then saying no one takes it who reads it this way, might be a good indicator your interpretation of the text is too bad to be true.
IMO, that's the way it reads: full stop. It's not reading it one way or another. Again, it never says you know your secret roll was a failure, only that you can't tell that your false info from true info.
To be honest, even if I would except it the way you want to read it, it's still pretty horrible IMO. It's pretty bad and I'd never pick it.
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I think this feat is there for players who want to play the kind of character that thinks they know a lot of things and it just turns out not all of it is actually true. Its a flavor pick and Baarogue's goblin.. I mean gnome wizard is exactly that kind of character.
What they "know" doesn't have to always be true because they are going to have fun roleplaying on false info.
It makes no sense to pick this feat up if a player is trying to just get the benefit of the good piece of info they receive and ignore the bad piece cause they know its bad.
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I think this feat is there for players who want to play the kind of character that thinks they know a lot of things and it just turns out not all of it is actually true. Its a flavor pick and Baarogue's goblin.. I mean gnome wizard is exactly that kind of character.
What they "know" doesn't have to always be true because they are going to have fun roleplaying on false info.
It makes no sense to pick this feat up if a player is trying to just get the benefit of the good piece of info they receive and ignore the bad piece cause they know its bad.
Again, true as far as it goes. Metagaming it and having the feat give only accurate information on a failed RK check is not good.
However, I don't need to take a feat in order to have my character spout off a bunch of false information in a confident manner. If I am paying a feat for it, I should get the benefits that the feat lists.
I think this feat is there for players who want to play the kind of character that thinks they know a lot of things and it just turns out not all of it is actually true. Its a flavor pick and Baarogue's goblin.. I mean gnome wizard is exactly that kind of character.
What they "know" doesn't have to always be true because they are going to have fun roleplaying on false info.
It makes no sense to pick this feat up if a player is trying to just get the benefit of the good piece of info they receive and ignore the bad piece cause they know its bad.
Again, true as far as it goes. Metagaming it and having the feat give only accurate information on a failed RK check is not good.
However, I don't need to take a feat in order to have my character spout off a bunch of false information in a confident manner. If I am paying a feat for it, I should get the benefits that the feat lists.
Yeah, that benefit is that the result of a failure changes. Normally you give out no info, nothing to go off of in any direction right or wrong.
But as Superbidi has pointed out this is a level 1 feat so that benefit should be a minor one. If you got a success on a failure and could just ignore the bad info because its clearly to the player bad and the player knows only part of the info is true that would mean its no different than a success?What balances the fact that you get something true on a failure at all is that you also get what you normally would on a critical failure and cant tell the difference. The character gets two pieces of info and shouldn't know which is false. The player might know right off the bat though. The whole point of RK is that the character does or doesn't know things and the point of dubious knowledge at least as I read it is that character gets to know things on a fail some things true and some things not true but they take the good with the bad because without the feat they wouldn't get anything.
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I'll agree that it is a difficult and challenging feat to navigate.
Either extreme is incorrect. If a failure result gives you known good information, that is too much. If a failure result gives you nothing useful, that is too little.
This is compounded by the old wording that only listed the option of giving two pieces of information. Dubious Knowledge failure and Critical Success are the only two options that do that.
Which is why the new wording with the option of giving partial or incomplete information is useful. The player may quickly deduce that they failed the check, but they still get more information than nothing (no Dubious Knowledge feat) but less information than known good knowledge (Success result of RK).
Nit-picking the details of how that incomplete information is worded by saying that it has to conform to the specific wording listed in the example seems overly restrictive.
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I personally don't have a bone to pick against secret checks generally, but I don't think anyone would argue that they are perfectly implemented in PF2 and that is why they have to have tons of GM fiat advice around them in play.
With recall knowledge specifically, saying that "preserving the secret check" is why the DUBIOUS KNOWLEDGE of a failed result is supposed to read like a critical success, even though neither the feat itself, nor the advice for GMs on giving feed back on a critical success look anything like each other, is adding in text that isn't there. Dubious Knowledge doesn't say "give false additional information or context, or answer a second question falsely," it advises you to give 2 answers to the same question or that last sentence, which looks like it has a typo in it so is currently unclear.
Players know when they get critical successes and regular failures on recall knowledge checks. Dubious knowledge modifies the result of a failure, but it doesn't say "give feedback as if the result was a critical success," and playing it that way is hostile to your players.
Yes, a player picking the Dubious knowledge feat is opting in for additional false information, and the GM shouldn't deny that aspect of the feat, but the GM isn't under an obligation to make it feel equally true as the correct information, nor can the GM assume that every player is going to instantly know enough about every creature to make certain information obvious to them or not. It is perfectly fine to say "They either have a really low Reflex or a really low will save" in response to a player with this feat if they are recalling knowledge about a troll, for example if you feel like the player would see right through "fort or will. They did roll a failure, and a troll's reflex save is lower than average for their level, so you are not giving them nothing. If the player hadn't realized it was likely the troll had a high Fort save, it probably the kinder advice to give the player. In the end, the best way to respond to recall knowledge generally is to subjectively try to understand why the player is asking the question they are asking and to try to help them use that information in a way that is useful to them. The only thing dubious knowledge is really supposed to change about that situation is that failure is no longer a blank wall, but an uncertain path that has been narrowed between 2 choices, hence the clear language about the character not knowing which is which.
What do you all think of the following example for lets say forrest trolls.
After seeing the things wounds close up in the first round someone in the party uses RK asking Do I know how to kill this thing?
They have dubious Knowledge and after the secret check they failed on the roll.
I wouldnt tell them they failed the roll.
I would say torches, you read or heard somewhere that they don't like torches. You think it was because of they are afraid of bright lights.
Torches are a step in the right direction but not because of the light they shed. An element of truth and an element that's bad.
With this i have given the player a roll play hook to be wrong about and still wind up helping the party with what they share but its not obvious how it helps at first (The whole situation assumes no one is metagaming. Fire would be pretty obvious for a standard troll and no RK would be needed if they are playing as if their characters know what the player knows)
I think that is a fine response, but if the creature was instead a shadow, and that was the information you gave them on a critical success, I'd say you are being too stingy with the information on a critical success result.
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But as Superbidi has pointed out this is a level 1 feat so that benefit should be a minor one.
I mean, other level 1 feats include things like titan wrestler, battle medicine, or demoralizing glare that are potentially essential to making certain builds work. Plus there are other potentially high impact options like bon mot, cat fall, or even quick jump.
Even the best possible version of dubious knowledge probably doesn't go on this list. So I feel like both the claim that first level feats should suck and that it's potentially overpowered are misplaced.
I think that is a fine response, but if the creature was instead a shadow, and that was the information you gave them on a critical success, I'd say you are being too stingy with the information on a critical success result.
For a shadow with a crit success on RK? same question do I know how to kill this thing?
Crit Success: You remember word for word from religious texts of these creatures hunted by undead slayers. These warriors would bathe themselves in magical light when encountering the undead creatures to weaken their somewhat intangible state. Holy spirit and vitality attacks do well against them but light based spells harm them the most. I would want this to feel as good as criting on an attack.
Success: you know from your religious teachings that light harms these creatures.
Dubious Knowledge Fail: You remember a conversation you once had with a paladin from lastwall you met in a tavern. you were both drunk at the time but you believe he said they cant see you if you cast magical light on them. (magical light is key but there is a misleading element to how the character believes it should be used)
Crit Fail: you have seen warriors face these before when you were young all of them went to battle with torches in hand. (here the information is misleading enough for a crit fail. Although a torch might not hurt to have against a shadow if its not magical light it wont help you kill it)
So you are right I would describe a crit success very differently from a dubious failure. The player will know from the context that they failed. What I try to do is give the player a misleading hook to play off of though because otherwise I dont think dubious knowledge is doing its thing. Its still a fail, you get something useful out of it because of the feat but it also comes with a negative. Players that pick up dubious knowledge though I think accept that cost and want to rollplay it for fun.
I will note the dubious failure took longer for me to come up with then the other outcomes.
...oh man, and here I'd thought the MEANING of that feat was actually really obvious, just its LAST SENTENCE was worded so horribly I can't tell what they meant to convey by it.
The easiest way to think of it, is any situation where you know something is ONE of two things, but not WHICH. Doesn't even have to be DUBIOUS knowledge; yesterday I took an online quiz of locating the provinces of Canada (I'm Canadian), and I have never been able to remember which is Nova Scotia and which is New Brunswick. I got that question wrong yesterday (because I was just guessing), and I'd gotten it wrong half the time when I was a teenager and my family was doing a road trip through the area, and I'd gotten it wrong half the time in grade 2 when we had a quiz on that stuff. But if you say "maritime province that's adjacent to Quebec", I'm not going to be randomly guessing from all provinces in Canada; I know it's ONE of those two, just not WHICH.
I honestly don't get how anything thinks "the GM gives you two pieces of information, one of which is OBVIOUSLY false" is how it's supposed to go. That's how it can go WRONG, sure, but that's like saying "whenever I use the toaster the bread always comes out super-burnt, thus toast is the worst possible form of bread and I don't know why it even exists" instead of realizing your toaster is on the wrong setting.
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With recall knowledge specifically, saying that "preserving the secret check" is why the DUBIOUS KNOWLEDGE of a failed result is supposed to read like a critical success, even though neither the feat itself, nor the advice for GMs on giving feed back on a critical success look anything like each other, is adding in text that isn't there. Dubious Knowledge doesn't say "give false additional information or context, or answer a second question falsely," it advises you to give 2 answers to the same question or that last sentence, which looks like it has a typo in it so is currently unclear.
RK checks are Secret checks. You don't know the result of Secret checks, so you don't know if you have rolled a Success, Failure, Critical Success or Critical Failure to your RK check. The RK skill tells you to give additional information in case of a Critical Success but it doesn't say that Critical Successes should be told appart from other results. If you try to isolate them, it is metagaming. I prefer to say that there's no blame in there, the line between metagaming and not metagaming is different from people to people, I'm just pointing out that you are extracting information you shouldn't have from the way the GM phrases their answer.
As such, Dubious Knowledge giving you information on a failure doesn't have to be any different from all the other results. Nothing in Dubious Knowledge states that the player should, in that case, know they have rolled a failure. So if the GM phrases the failures like Critical Successes it's perfectly in line with the rules.
Also, Dubious Knowledge states: "you don’t have any way to differentiate which is which". So if you start determining what piece of information is correct and what piece of information is wrong, then you are looking for a "way to differentiate which is which". Again, it looks like it's against RAI. As such, the GM using the same phrasing than Critical Successes so you stop looking for a "way to differentiate which is which" can also be seen as a reminder that you shouldn't metagame.
From this conversation, I realize the expectations are very different for Dubious Knowledge. I'm very much in line with Baarogue's Gnoblin example: For me, Dubious Knowledge is not a feat you take to be better at RK checks, it's a feat allowing you to play this kind of characters who are always babbling about everything, giving tons of proper and erroneous information. So when a player takes Dubious Knowledge in an attempt to turn failures to RK checks into successes, I get defensive.
I mean, other level 1 feats include things like titan wrestler, battle medicine, or demoralizing glare that are potentially essential to making certain builds work. Plus there are other potentially high impact options like bon mot, cat fall, or even quick jump.
Even the best possible version of dubious knowledge probably doesn't go on this list. So I feel like both the claim that first level feats should suck and that it's potentially overpowered are misplaced.
I think we'll have to agree to disagree on that: For me, the best possible version of Dubious Knowledge is a degree of magnitude above all these feats. But I like RK checks and a lot of my characters are good at it. As such, a feat that could potentially turn failures into successes is definitely out of line to me. I know a lot of person consider RK checks bad and not worth any investment, that certainly paint Dubious Knowledge in a very different light.
This is an interesting conversation that has really helped me think more about some issues I have been having in some play situations. If my responses have been long or exceedingly enthusiastic, it is because I think recalling knowledge (and more largely how GMs give players information about the game and the game world) are one of the most important factors in making role playing games fun. I am invested in the topic.
Stepping back from Dubious knowledge for a moment, recall knowledge is and isn’t a secret check. Telling players that they should not be able to extrapolate at all how well their character trusts their result on a recall knowledge check flies in the face of the actual check. If you learn nothing, you know you failed. If you learn a lot, you have critically succeeded. Recall knowledge being a secret check allows players to occasionally get a false piece of information but otherwise be a reliable way for players to assert agency in the process of learning more about the game world and their character’s place in it. If a player critically succeeds on a recall knowledge check, and the GMs response to their question feels like it could be a success or a critical failure, the GM is not giving enough information to the player and is undermining the players good roll, the players trust in the GM (over time) and the player’s trust in the game system and the value of spending actions on recalling knowledge. If the results of a recall knowledge check were always supposed to feel like they were secret and unknowable to the player, there would be no critical success entry for the activity.
So generally, for recall knowledge, the check is only secret to create a little bit of tension between the possibility that the player critically failed when they think they got a regular success.
Now we can look at dubious knowledge. What is the purpose of the feat? What elements of the recall knowledge check is it supposed to modify?
The reason I reject any answer about dubious knowledge affecting critical success, is because there is no way to read the text of the feat, respond to a player’s question after a failed result in a manner that satisfies the conditions of the feat, and have that response be mistakable for a critical success without showing that you are being way too restrictive and uncooperative with the information that you are giving out on a critical success. And I think this becomes fairly obvious when you try to put it in practice. If the feat is changing the information the GM gives you on a critical success, it is being misapplied, and if the GM is trying to turn failed results into critical success results but with a deceptively false bit of information, they are not doing what the feat calls for, which is providing two possible answers to the question asked, one true one false, or however we’re going to parse the last sentence (but that should never look like a critical success or a success on the check).
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When I first GMed Dubious Knowledge on PbP, I gave two pieces of info - one correct, one incorrect - and had the player roll to see which one they “believed more” until one piece of info was proved to be wrong.
Community thoughts?
This is how I've always run it and didn't even consider that the rules could even be interpreted another way.
On one hand it had the unfortunate side effect of letting the player know that they EITHER had a Crit Success for a normal Failure as they are getting two pieces of information but that never really shook out to meaning much at all.
The discussion here is interesting for sure but I think I'm going to continue with this interpretation since once you start splitting hairs to run it otherwise you end up in a murky swamp of not being certain what the intent is and trying to give muddled answers rather than simply providing two data points that the PC believes, one being correct and the other being meaningfully inaccurate.
I am invested in the topic.
I am, too :)
And I absolutely disagree with all your post.Telling players that they should not be able to extrapolate at all how well their character trusts their result on a recall knowledge check flies in the face of the actual check.
I think there's an issue here, that comes from a very specific way of reading Recall Knowledge.
Let's say I speak about the Dominion of the Black and one player asks: What do I know about the Dominion of the Black? That is their question and it's the one I'll answer. The answer will be long and as such the difference between a Critical Success, a Success, a Critical Failure and a Dubious Failure will be hard to tell as I'll provide lots of information. Of course, I can just make a one sentence answer so my player can tell Critical Successes from Critical Failures, but I'm not sure they'll be happy. People prefer to have long, roleplay-oriented answers.
And then there's creature identification. Creature identification says: "A character who successfully identifies a creature learns one of its best-known attributes—such as a hydra's head regrowth (and the fact that it can be stopped by acid or fire) or a manticore's tail spikes. On a critical success, the character also learns something subtler, like a weakness that's not obvious or the trigger for one of the creature's reactions."
So there's no question asked in that case, you just choose as a GM what information you give. It's true that, per strict RAW, you are supposed to give a single piece of information. I must admit I tend to be nice with my players providing often more information (especially if the creature has no "best-known attribute" and as such giving a single piece of information would feel cheap). Once again, it'll be hard for the player to determine if it's a Critical Success, a Success, a Critical Failure or a Dubious Failure.
Also, when you make an RK check, you consider that it's what your character thinks. You are not supposed to metagame to isolate the kind of success you have made, your character is supposed to be convinced of all their knowledge. As a matter of fact, when I roll a critical failure to a public RK checks, I play it despite knowing clearly it's wrong information. It's also part of the fun (if it doesn't happen too often).
And I have the feeling that's also what you experience around your tables but I may be wrong.
I think that the issue I (and more realistically the players at my table who despise secret checks) have with the logic of: "When you make a RK check, you consider that it's what your character thinks," is that it is removing agency unnecessarily from the player because it could just as easily be the case that "when you make a RK check, the result is what your character has heard about this topic." Deciding for the player that what they have heard has to impact how they react to that information creates a moment of hostile tension at the table between player and GM.
So for your Dominion of the Black situation, it is not that I don't think a success wouldn't get several sentences of a response, but if the player cant tell that I am giving them additional information beyond whatever I would tell them otherwise on a critical success, I am not giving them enough, or good enough additional information for there to be a reason for a critical success on recall knowledge to exist as an option. And I think there is a fundamental flaw in the system design if the player is intended to be completely clueless about whether they critically failed or critically succeeded a recall knowledge check. That kind of thinking is what drives some players to hate secret checks and ask, "why even bother rolling dice?" So if I am making up so much information on a critical failure that the player is confused into thinking that they might have critically succeeded their recall knowledge check about the Dominion of the Black, I have taken things too far.
I think our fundamental difference on this topic really boils down to whether the mystique of "the secret check" and whatever that represents in our games is more important than preserving players faith in using recall knowledge as a tool for proactively engaging in the role playing game experience.
I have played with many players who just stop recalling knowledge at all (even when the plot clearly expects the players to get more information than the italics text of the adventure gives them) when GMs try to take too active a role in limiting and obfuscating knowledge that helps bring the adventure to life. If you as a player can publicly roll a recall knowledge check, critically fail it, and then role play a satisfying and not catastrophic outcome from your interpretation of that roll, then why is occasionally getting (not-so-)dubious knowledge from a failed secret recall knowledge check that you see through as a player any different?
Again, I do not think the GM should be using dubious knowledge to just turn failed RK checks into immediate successes. I think the intention of the feat as written is to turn a dead-end failed result into an either/or result or maybe a "hotter/colder" type of clue (based upon how you read that last sentence of the feat), and it absolutely should not be undermining what a player would learn from a critical success.
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The Stealth check of Sneak is a secret check.
That doesn't mean that I can't figure out what result I got. If the enemies start or continue shooting arrows at me after I sneak to a different location, then I can be pretty sure that I failed the Stealth check.
Why should Recall Knowledge or Dubious Knowledge be different? At least as far as the Secret part of the action goes. Let's not go so far as to say that if the player ever figures out what knowledge is accurate that the secret check mechanics didn't work. That would be like saying that the enemies have to not shoot at my hidden character because otherwise I would know whether I succeeded at the Stealth check or not.
The Stealth check of Sneak is a secret check.
That doesn't mean that I can't figure out what result I got. If the enemies start or continue shooting arrows at me after I sneak to a different location, then I can be pretty sure that I failed the Stealth check.
Why should Recall Knowledge or Dubious Knowledge be different? At least as far as the Secret part of the action goes. Let's not go so far as to say that if the player ever figures out what knowledge is accurate that the secret check mechanics didn't work. That would be like saying that the enemies have to not shoot at my hidden character because otherwise I would know whether I succeeded at the Stealth check or not.
This doesn't really track though: an enemy could attack you no matter what you rolled for various reasons not tied to the roll. For instance, the monster Seeks and succeeds then attacks the player doesn't know that it was that roll that succeeded vs his roll failing. Or they might pick a square and attempt an attack and target a hidden creature vs you. As such, I do see it like Dubious Knowledge, but not in the way you did.
Take Recall Knowledge once, with a player asking “Is it highly vulnerable or resistant to anything?” [one of the suggested question under the action]: the answer of 'you don't recall any' could be a success or a failure.
Sure. There are plenty of ways that the Stealth check could play out and be valid.
One way that isn't valid is to treat the secrecy of the Secret check as sacrosanct and bend or break other rules as a result.
So GMs really don't need to work too hard making sure that the players can't tell the result of the Secret RK roll based on what quantity of information they get. The secrecy of the Secret check isn't the most important part of Recall Knowledge.