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There sure is a whole lot of assertions going on here that just plain ignore the fact that RK is a Secret Check and the Player should NEVER know what the die rolled or where it falls on the SF/F/S/CS spectrum.
"You don't recall any" is pretty much a perfect response for every result other than a CS depending on the truth of the matter and it falls short for a CS only because it doesn't provide any additional bonus info the PC should be given in such circumstances.
There sure is a whole lot of assertions going on here that just plain ignore the fact that RK is a Secret Check and the Player should NEVER know what the die rolled or where it falls on the SF/F/S/CS spectrum.
My assertion is that NEVER knowing what the die rolled is very much different than NEVER knowing where the results fall on the SF/F/S/CS spectrum. You appear to be conflating the two.
I illustrated the difference with the Sneak check. The player may very well never know what the die rolled. But they do fairly quickly learn what the degree of success is.
Ok i think we got to something easier to discuss.
Either or VS good with bad
and these two different approaches allow for different player knowledge to be exercised
Player can act on knowing one is false VS player should act as though character believes both good and bad are true.
The first has no consequence for a dubious fail when dealing with player known information the character wouldn't know.
The second asks the player to accept the consequence of a fail along with the benefit of a fail under dubious knowledge and roll play it.
I feel the second actually plays out the spirit of the feat and the first sidesteps it completely when the player wants just the benefit of the feat.
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They learn that information because of the consequences of the action they are taking, that information isn't revealed to them until they take the course of action itself.
It's perfectly acceptable to discover your bad info is bad after trying to leverage it but doubting the memory of your PC after they performed an RK because you (the player) think that information is faulty is metagaming and a big part of why the entire reason Secret Checks were implemented.
Learning after the fact and when you act upon the results of it to discover is completely normal and expected but knowing the results of your check before being able to test it or act on it is metagame trash behavior. If as a GM you tell your Rogue who did a SC RK on a Skeleton that they are Weak against Piercing damage and they pull out a Light Mace afterward ignoring the check then both the GM and Player will have failed at collaborative storytelling and working on even footing at the table.
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Nah, you're not listening though, you haven't since the first page of this thread so it's not worth debating you.
I'll just say this though, you're injecting your own personal perception of how you FEEL things should be run instead of actually reading or following the printed guidance.
No matter what the GM proides to the PC the player should usually never be able to determine if the info that was given came from a CS/S/F/CF and I really can't think of any better example for how a vague statement can be offered that better showcases how that can be true than responding to a question about Weakness with "You don't recall" as it could be true and it has no weaknesses, it could be false and they DO have one, and it ALSO qualifies for the general you get no useful information if they DO have a Weakness which is required on a Failure.
If you look back to my response to Unicore's question on a crit success for a shadow I gave what I might say to a player for each degree of success or fail. A player can tell when they crit succeed from the description.
Thats the thing, it is a secret check and even still players will know when the information they get is good or bad sometimes just because players knows stuff. Either or dubious fails give them info they probably know is true and info they probably know is bad, why would they ever say you know what? today im going to act on the info i know is bad.
When you give info that is bad and info that is good and the character believes both are true the feats negative is not being sidestepped resulting in successes alone on fail.
What I hope a player is there to do is play the character based on what the character knows and RK determines what the character knows. This is precisely why a critical fail or a dubious fail should be understood as something the character thinks they know even when its not all true.
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My players would be furious if they thought that their GM thought “you don’t know whether the creature has any resistances or weaknesses” is an equally good response to a success or a failure for a check against a creature with no resistances. That is exactly the kind of attitude that they describe as “hostile GMing” that results from GMs getting too caught up in the secret mess (an auto correct fail for secretness too good to erase) of the check and not the value of undertaking the activity in the first place. They have many stories about playing with GMs like that in the past and that is why they hate secret checks and why they no longer play with those GMs.
I think that is unfortunate because they now hate secret checks across the board when there can be fun times to use secret checks. “Players should never be able to trust the information they learn from recalling knowledge,” is a very short road away from “players should just not use recall knowledge.” Whereas I think, “occasionally, recall knowledge can lead you astray, but far more often it helps you feel more immersed in the game and game world, and enables you to make better and more fun decisions about your characters future actions,” is a much better target to shoot for when deciding to make a check secret.
There sure is a whole lot of assertions going on here that just plain ignore the fact that RK is a Secret Check and the Player should NEVER know what the die rolled or where it falls on the SF/F/S/CS spectrum.
I mean, you won't know what number your die landed on, but pretty definitionally you're going to have a good guess what degree of success you landed on, because there are discrete outcomes for each. A crit fail presenting itself as a false success is the only time the outcome tries to misdirect you.
The important part about secret checks is that the roll is hidden. Going further than that is definitely taking some liberties as a GM (which is fine if that's your thing).
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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.
Good example, bad conclusion.
If I Hide with my Rogue the GM won't tell me anything. When I'll start shooting at an enemy, it's the moment the GM will tell me if they are Off Guard or not. Secret checks are meant to be Secret, you don't know the result until you act on it but obviously once you act on it (by moving while you think you are stealthy) the world is supposed to react accordingly.
So obviously, when you cast a Fire spell at the enemy with a Fire weakness the GM is supposed to tell you that the enemy doesn't seem to take extra damage and it's the moment when you realize you have critically failed your RK check. But not before.
Shroudb gave the proper quote, you shouldn't know the result and you have absolutely no reason to blame the GM if you somehow can't tell what you rolled from their answer.
They have many stories about playing with GMs like that in the past and that is why they hate secret checks and why they no longer play with those GMs.
I rarely do Secret checks, especially when the check originates from the player, but I expect players to play on their erroneous knowledge. If a player rolls a critical failure and ignores what I tell them because of that I'll go back to Secret checks very quickly. Similarly, I expect the player to play on both results of Dubious Knowledge equally (the player has the right to consider their character has flawed knowledge, but I don't want them to play both pieces of knowledge differently).
As a side note, I never had any issue with RK checks made by my players. I have issues with Dubious Knowledge, though, but that's very specific and it's mostly because it's a burden to play as you need to make up tons of false information.
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.
Good example, bad conclusion.
If I Hide with my Rogue the GM won't tell me anything. When I'll start shooting at an enemy, it's the moment the GM will tell me if they are Off Guard or not.
And if the Sneak is the last action of your turn? And then the enemies get a turn.
Are those enemies required to not shoot at you because if they did then you would know the result of your Sneak action too early?
While the player has no cause to complain if they can't tell the roll result from a Recall Knowledge response - if they can, that isn't a horrible thing. Especially if they figure it out by trying one of the pieces of information that they got and seeing what happened.
If a GM is bad at using secret checks, he simply shouldn't use them. Not use the trait as an excuse to obfuscate information that the players actually succeed with their rolls on getting.
Hey, I wouldn't mind if failed Stealth checks had to be played by the enemies as though they were successful Stealth checks just so that I don't know the results of the roll.
Hey, I wouldn't mind if failed Stealth checks had to be played by the enemies as though they were successful Stealth checks just so that I don't know the results of the roll.
You would likely be much less amenable to the idea if instead all of your successful Stealth checks were inexplicably treated as failed Stealth checks by those enemies for the sole purpose and reason being to prevent you from knowing the result of the check.
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I think I missed something. Didn't Superbidi say the world would react accordingly to the result?
So extending that, if enemies see your leg sticking out of the bush you failed to hide in they can choose to fill that bush with arrows. Its the player that wouldnt realize they failed the check and that they have leg showing. Right? the player cant go oh i didn't hide well enough and pull their characters leg in to now be hidden properly and get the result of a success.
The same with Rk. The character doesnt know what they think they know is incorrect even though the player does.
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if enemies see your leg sticking out of the bush you failed to hide in they can choose to fill that bush with arrows. Its the player that wouldnt realize they failed the check and that they have leg showing. Right? the player cant go oh i didn't hide well enough and pull their characters leg in to now be hidden properly and get the result of a success.
Exactly. The player shouldn't metagame with the failed result knowledge and spend another action on Sneak or Hide in order to try and do it better.
But at the same time, if the character did succeed at the check and there is no leg sticking out, the enemies can't omnisciently know what square the character is in anyway and start shooting.
The player shouldn't treat a failed check as though it is known to be a failure. But a GM shouldn't treat a successful check as though it was a failure.
The same with Rk. The character doesnt know what they think they know is incorrect even though the player does.
So extrapolating that back to RK, if the character does roll a success, then they do get to be confident in their knowledge.
The feeling that I get from some of the posts on this thread, it feels the GM wants the player to still be uncertain about the quality of their knowledge recalled no matter what the degree of success is - for the sole reason of keeping the sanctity of the Secret tag intact.
But a success roll does in fact mean that the character does actually know the information that they know. There is no reason that the player shouldn't be confident that the character knows it accurately. If success and critical success results on a Recall Knowledge check still isn't actionable by the character, then the GM is playing as though those successful results are the same as failing the check.
if enemies see your leg sticking out of the bush you failed to hide in they can choose to fill that bush with arrows. Its the player that wouldnt realize they failed the check and that they have leg showing. Right? the player cant go oh i didn't hide well enough and pull their characters leg in to now be hidden properly and get the result of a success.Exactly. The player shouldn't metagame with the failed result knowledge and spend another action on Sneak or Hide in order to try and do it better.
But at the same time, if the character did succeed at the check and there is no leg sticking out, the enemies can't omnisciently know what square the character is in anyway and start shooting.
The player shouldn't treat a failed check as though it is known to be a failure. But a GM shouldn't treat a successful check as though it was a failure.
The same with Rk. The character doesnt know what they think they know is incorrect even though the player does.So extrapolating that back to RK, if the character does roll a success, then they do get to be confident in their knowledge.
The feeling that I get from some of the posts on this thread, it feels the GM wants the player to still be uncertain about the quality of their knowledge recalled no matter what the degree of success is - for the sole reason of keeping the sanctity of the Secret tag intact.
But a success roll does in fact mean that the character does actually know the information that they know. There is no reason that the player shouldn't be confident that the character knows it accurately. If success and critical success results on a Recall Knowledge check still isn't actionable by the character, then the GM is playing as though those successful results are the same as failing the check.
Ok so this where i got lost. I thought the idea was that the check needed to be secret so that the player is always confident in their knowledge even when that knowledge is not correct because they crit failed or dubious failed. The character at least should act as though the dubious fail info is completely correct because to do otherwise is to see your leg sticking out and pull it back in the bush so to speak.
I dont really care about the check being secret if my players are not metagaming as Superbidi mentioned. but it does build into immersion even if it takes more effort on my part so i do like it for that as Uncore mentioned.
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No where in the rules for the feat or in secret checks does it say “the player believes everything.” In fact the feat specifies the player should not be sure which piece of information is correct and which is false, which you can’t do if you think they are both true.
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Without Dubious Knowledge, the character should pretty much always be confident of the information that they get. The two success results give known good information. Failure result gives nothing (which, I would point out is pretty obviously different than the other results). Crit Failure is supposed to be treated as good information.
With Dubious Knowledge, the name, flavor, and rules text of the feat all indicate that the player gets information that they can't be confident in. Not 'no information', and not 'fully usable information'.
But after getting that feat, the GM doesn't need to try and obfuscate success result. Letting the player deduce that they failed the check isn't a problem. It happens with plenty of other secret checks too.
The game state at that point means that success and crit success results the character is still confident in their knowledge. Critical Failure the character is also still confident in their bad knowledge. On a regular fail result the character will get ... well, dubious knowledge ... that they aren't confident in. Either two pieces of information where they know that only one of them is true, or some vague or incomplete information that gets them thinking in the right direction, but isn't really actionable without risk of getting it wrong.
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I think I don't disagree at the conceptual level.
Where I see it break down is in application.
And i spelled it out with the two categories of giving information before, Either or VS Good with Bad.
When you give either or and the player just acts on the option they know is true ignoring the bad option then for all intents and purposes the dubious fail looks the same as a success.
When you give good and bad info and the player is supposed to take them both as true for their character the dubious fail actually isnt as good as a success.
When you give either or and the player just acts on the option they know is true ignoring the bad option then for all intents and purposes the dubious fail looks the same as a success.
Yes, that is a problem. But that is a player problem, not a rules problem.
We don't need to promote bad interpretations of how RK is supposed to work because some players metagame.
When you give good and bad info and the player is supposed to take them both as true for their character the dubious fail actually isnt as good as a success.
That is a rules problem. As Unicore pointed out, Dubious Knowledge does explicitly say that the character knows that some of their information is bad.
And yes, I think we are mostly in agreement on this. If I am understanding what you wrote, then I feel like I am just restating it. Not disagreeing with it.
I think I don't disagree at the conceptual level.
Where I see it break down is in application.
And i spelled it out with the two categories of giving information before, Either or VS Good with Bad.When you give either or and the player just acts on the option they know is true ignoring the bad option then for all intents and purposes the dubious fail looks the same as a success.
When you give good and bad info and the player is supposed to take them both as true for their character the dubious fail actually isnt as good as a success.
But we're not talking about bad players metagaming.
We're talking about GMs altering roll results to keep things obfuscated while the result shouldn't be so.The example given above which started the controversy is pretty simple:
Against a creature without a weakness or a resistance, the roll is a success:
if a GM says "you don't recall any" that leaves it to the player that his character "doesn't know". While the action clearly states that the Success result gives player something that his character truly, factually, knows (as Quoted by the rule text above). Which would be "You know it doesn't have any"
"You don't recall having" =/= "You recall not having any"
It's like if someone is asking you "2+2=?" and the "correct" answer, given by the GM, after your character does the math, is "not 7".
I agree that the character when being told what they know the answer should be one that conveys they know it.
On this point though I thought the character "knows" what they get back even from the GN if they get back something not true -that was my hang up. I agree with you on the below.You dont know of any weakness is an answer for a normal Fail since it provides no information at all about the monster.
You know there is no weakness is a success because you know something about the monster, that it in fact has no weakness. Its not a very satisfying success but it is one.
When you give either or and the player just acts on the option they know is true ignoring the bad option then for all intents and purposes the dubious fail looks the same as a success.Yes, that is a problem. But that is a player problem, not a rules problem.
We don't need to promote bad interpretations of how RK is supposed to work because some players metagame.
When you give good and bad info and the player is supposed to take them both as true for their character the dubious fail actually isnt as good as a success.That is a rules problem. As Unicore pointed out, Dubious Knowledge does explicitly say that the character knows that some of their information is bad.
And yes, I think we are mostly in agreement on this. If I am understanding what you wrote, then I feel like I am just restating it. Not disagreeing with it.
I have to think more on your response. I might be missing something that you and Unicore are seeing. Just not clicking for me yet.
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I have to think more on your response. I might be missing something that you and Unicore are seeing. Just not clicking for me yet.
I'm not entirely sure what you are pondering on. But if it is the explicit rules statement that some of the Dubious Knowledge is known to the character to be inaccurate, it is based in this:
you learn the correct answer and an erroneous answer,
That definitely doesn't say that you learn two pieces of information and believe both of them to be correct. The character who has Dubious Knowledge knows that some of their information is questionable. Not all of their knowledge, but some of it.
So when the roll fails and the player gets two pieces of information, it isn't metagaming for the player to know that one of those is erroneous. That is literally what the feat says that the player gets.
I have to think more on your response. I might be missing something that you and Unicore are seeing. Just not clicking for me yet.I'm not entirely sure what you are pondering on. But if it is the explicit rules statement that some of the Dubious Knowledge is known to the character to be inaccurate, it is based in this:
you learn the correct answer and an erroneous answer,That definitely doesn't say that you learn two pieces of information and believe both of them to be correct. The character who has Dubious Knowledge knows that some of their information is questionable. Not all of their knowledge, but some of it.
So when the roll fails and the player gets two pieces of information, it isn't metagaming for the player to know that one of those is erroneous. That is literally what the feat says that the player gets.
Actually yeah I wanted to go back to the feat description and not the one on Archives of Nethys when I had the time to check my book.
Looking at the book.You’re a treasure trove of information, but not all of it comes
from reputable sources. 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. This can occur as
not knowing something is significant, but not whether it’s
good or bad.
Ok so the pieces of info was my bad, coming from the archives version of the description that used the term bits of true and erroneous knowledge.
This is the good with the bad approach and is no longer what the feat says. So i was out of date.
Using the remaster description we give two answers to the question asked like you said. This is the either or version of the feat and it is what I believe completely sidesteps the wrong answer. Players are going to choose to act on the answer they know is correct every time. Why wouldnt they and would you want to be in the position of telling them to do otherwise? I wouldnt. This feat makes successes on failure unless the player doesnt actually know the difference.
I actually prefer the good with bad approach on archives as it lets the feat offer something true but tempers it with something not true. That method allows you to give the player a roleplay hook off of bad info while still getting something helpful from a fail which is what I think players who pick this feat actually want out of it.
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Why are players asking questions they already know the answer to?
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So I decided to get an outside perspective, and asked a friend who's unfamiliar with Pathfinder, and I don't know if she's ever even played a TTRPG before. I'm including here our conversation, so you can see what information she was working from.
me: So, basic background: for a bunch of checks (including the relevant one), there's four degrees of possible success: critical failure, "normal" failure, "normal" success, and critical success.
There's a thing you can do called Recall Knowledge, where you try to see what you know about something; and the GM rolls the dice for you in secret, so you don't know what the result was.
Critical failure for Recall Knowledge is "you get a piece of false information", normal failure is "you don't get any information", normal success is "you get a piece of true information", and critical success is "you get two pieces of true information".
That's what there is by default.
Then there's an option you can choose to take for your character, called Dubious Knowledge. Lemme type it out....
"You're a treasure trove of information, but not all of it comes from reputable sources. 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. This can occur as not knowing something is significant, but not whether it's good or bad."
(We're pretty sure that the last sentence has a typo in it; there's a bunch of those throughout the book, because it needed to be rushed due to reasons which would take too long to explain here.)
So, that being said, what do you think it means? What kind of information would somebody get, if this would apply?
Don't worry about getting a rules interpretation precise; I'm asking for how this would be interpreted by someone with zero background knowledge.
her: So dubious knowledge would come across to the player like a critical success? Since u get from their perspective 2 pieces of information?
me: The player knows they have Dubious Knowledge, and they also know the normal rules for Recall Knowledge.
her: Maybe I need an example of the type of information u would get for the recall types…
me: There's a bunch of example questions (for normal Recall Knowledge), I'll copy out the ones from the first section which is about creatures:
"Can it be reasoned with?" "What environments does it live in?" "What's its most notable offensive ability?" "Is it highly vulnerable or resistant to anything?" "Are any of its defenses weak?"
her: So I might be totally missing the mark but a dubious knowledge to something like “can it be reasoned with” could be something like “yes. But watch out”
And like no idea if yes is true or false or the watch out but there’s no context of what to watch out for???
Or hm my roommate just made a suggestion… u know the rhyme that goes something like red on black friend friend of jack, red on yellow kill a fellow - for kingsnakes (not venomous) and coral snakes (extremely venomous).. would this be like remembering that the colors are important but not remembering which one applies to u live or die??
me: lol I have no real idea how it's MEANT to be; I really hope this is one that'll get clarified in the next errata pass.
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Why are players asking questions they already know the answer to?
I would say because character knowledge is not the same as player knowledge. With that question, experienced players just dont need RK unless there's a mechanical benefit tied to it from feats or class features. or players that just like to look things up and have their own copies of the books dont need to RK. Why RK when you remember what that monsters weaknesses are or just looked it up at the start of the fight?
"but you don’t have any way to differentiate which is which" is important here. The character is not supposed to know which answer is correct and which is erroneous. This makes both equally true as far as the character is concerned. or equally false if you prefer.
Whatever two answers the GM gives the player needs to give them equal weight, and if the player doesnt without outside factors weighing in then the player is playing their character as if the character does know which is which.
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I agree that Dubious Knowledge is a terrible feat, I ban it on my tables, but allowing someone to pick it up and then straight up refuse its benefits is not what a GM should do.
I concur.
Frankly, I don't understand how this provides any meaningful benefit worthy of a feat (even if it's just a skill feat), but I can certainly see how I would loathe to figure out how to respond.
There are definitely widely varying table expectations for when recall knowledge checks are necessary and how much they should impact player character decision making.
The thing that informs my handling of RK as a GM is that it already costs an action to do in combat, and trying to police metagaming knowledge is 0% fun for me as a GM. I’d much, much, much rather players get an easy win from a combat encounter that contained context clues that were too easy for them to solve, and then adjust the kinds of creatures I use later on to provide new and unique threats, than I would feel compelled to run an adventure “as is” and try to force the players to change the way they want to approach the game. If it is one Player trying to dominate the tactical decision making of other players, telling them what to do because they (the player) know about the creature, but have no reason for their character to have that information, then I deal with the disruptive behavior of trying to control other players characters, and I possibly have smart monsters target the character that seems to be acting as the leader, directing the rest of the party.
But if a player tells me their fighter pulls out alchemist fire after knocking a troll down to 0 hit points, without anyone in the party making a recheck about it, I just let that happen, and make a mental note to mix things up better in my encounters in the future. I don’t need to decide what makes playing RPGs fun for other people and telling a player “your character wouldn’t do that,” is one of the fastest ways I’ve seen players disengage from the game and get in arguments at the table. The entire purpose of secret checks in the first place is to reduce the need for players to have to separate player knowledge from character knowledge. When that distinction is mostly cosmetic and unimportant to the story or the game, I don’t use secret checks. I have been working on variant rules to get around using secret checks with my players that just hate them because of dice rolling and knowing how your dice are rolling reasons, but I have actually seen a shift in attitude from those players towards strategic use of secret checks for moments of particular tension, as long as later in the session I share what the dice rolled.
From this perspective, dubious knowledge as an either/or, about things the player really doesn’t know has been a lot of fun. If it feeds into the occasional easy guess, then, oh well, or maybe even good! People generally like it when they can solve a puzzle correctly now and again. If they are getting all of them right, then I start changing the clues I give to make it a little more challenging. But really only if it is so close to every time that it is jumping out to me and the other players at the table. Many of my most memorable monsters have been creatures I slightly modified from their bestiary stats for narrative reasons to make them more unique. That can be as easy as giving a monster a cool bit of loot they use in the encounter, or having the sickly, willful troll who has been developing a psychic power, or learning wizardry from a found spellbook. I find worrying in advance about players abusing recall knowledge is much more likely to make it a useless activity for the less experienced players who need the extra assistance of clues and advice to tactically engage with the game than it helps prevent the behaviors people are worried about.
Typing all that out, and reading all of everyone’s thoughts about this, I think there really is no reason to have recall knowledge be a secret check in combat, even RAW. Like you can make it a secret check RAW in combat if you want to, but it is just as rules supported to not make spending an action in combat to RK result in false information that leads your players to wasting even more actions (and possibly limited resources) following bad, or even harmful advice. As a GM you can always choose for critical failures to just be no information. I think a whole lot of players would benefit immensely from not being so afraid of trying to learn more information about creatures they are fighting, and once players start figuring out how much resistances and high saves can shut your party down but weaknesses and low saves can basically drop a creature’s effectively level, that is when you as a GM can start really throwing more difficult, complex, and more creative encounters at your party.
There are definitely widely varying table expectations for when recall knowledge checks are necessary and how much they should impact player character decision making.
The thing that informs my handling of RK as a GM is that it already costs an action to do in combat, and trying to police metagaming knowledge is 0% fun for me as a GM. I’d much, much, much rather players get an easy win from a combat encounter that contained context clues that were too easy for them to solve, and then adjust the kinds of creatures I use later on to provide new and unique threats, than I would feel compelled to run an adventure “as is” and try to force the players to change the way they want to approach the game. If it is one Player trying to dominate the tactical decision making of other players, telling them what to do because they (the player) know about the creature, but have no reason for their character to have that information, then I deal with the disruptive behavior of trying to control other players characters, and I possibly have smart monsters target the character that seems to be acting as the leader, directing the rest of the party.
But if a player tells me their fighter pulls out alchemist fire after knocking a troll down to 0 hit points, without anyone in the party making a recheck about it, I just let that happen, and make a mental note to mix things up better in my encounters in the future. I don’t need to decide what makes playing RPGs fun for other people and telling a player “your character wouldn’t do that,” is one of the fastest ways I’ve seen players disengage from the game and get in arguments at the table. The entire purpose of secret checks in the first place is to reduce the need for players to have to separate player knowledge from character knowledge. When that distinction is mostly cosmetic and unimportant to the story or the game, I don’t use secret checks. I have been working on variant rules to get around using secret checks with my players that just hate them because of dice rolling and...
I agree whole heartedly with the sentiment. And I have that player that enjoys showing how much they already know about the game, will look things up, tell everyone else what they should do because they get excited, always have a plan, and wants the team as a whole to win because of it. I dont want to police that but it does make the game less fun for the rest when that player doesn't respect the fact that the others are enjoying learning things as they come in the game. I ask that each player gets the spotlight for their turn, but if they do want advice on what to do they can elicit it from the team. For that one player I suggest being good at the skills that let them RK on different topics so that their character can legit know the things they as a player already know. When it comes from in game checks on skills and feats the character has everyone in the party sees it as in game abilities giving the party an edge rather than someone just spoiling the game.
If anything these conversations have given me the feeling that if any player at my table wants dubious knowledge I would want to have a conversation with them as to what they expect out of it. That then would inform how I run it. Whether thats raw or not doesn't matter as much as making it work for the table. Luckily not a bridge I had to cross this campaign so far.
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The horror story I have regarding Recall Knowledge: New player to PF2 but lots of experience with PF1. Kept complaining that all of the enemies have "bulls***" abilities, like 'This enemy gets to swing twice without applying MAP. I don't get do do that, why should enemies?'
No, pointing out that Double Slice is actually a feat that PCs can get didn't help. Neither did mentioning that Recall Knowledge exists for the purpose of informing player and character what "bulls***" abilities an enemy has.
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"You don't recall any" is pretty much a perfect response for every result other than a CS depending on the truth of the matter and it falls short for a CS only because it doesn't provide any additional bonus info the PC should be given in such circumstances.
I’m a forever-GM, desperate to play, and I’d still quit a game if I found out the GM was pulling that.
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The greatest problem with Dubious Knowledge is not for players that specifically choose to take the feat.
It is for players who choose to play a Thaumaturge and get saddled with the feat even when they hate it and would never have taken it if given the choice.
And then you need to beg the GM just so you are allowed to not get one of your core class features.
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It is for players who choose to play a Thaumaturge and get saddled with the feat even when they hate it and would never have taken it if given the choice.
And then you need to beg the GM just so you are allowed to not get one of your core class features.
Honestly, I've banned Dubious Knowledge at my tables. I'm fairly sure it's the only Common option in PF2 that I've ever disallowed. Pre-remaster I house ruled Recall Knowledge to no info on a failure, and no info and a lockout for the encounter on a crit failure, because I hated coming up with lies, and I've kept that in place after switching to the Remaster.
I've not had a Thaumaturge PC yet, but if I had a player strongly invested in playing one, it might be me as the GM begging the player to let me change one of their core class features.
Dubious Knowledge is a lot easier to arbitrate in encounters, around questions that are yes or no, or have a very small set of possible answers, and don't require the GM to make up elaborate stories around.
It definitely gets more complicated with out of combat recalling knowledge where the players are expecting longer-winded responses, but (an a lot depends here on how you read that last sentence) a looser "doesn't have to be 1 fact and one fiction about the topic, but one bit of uncertain information" will make that a lot easier. It would be nice if more Adventures included some potential false bits of information to include about the topics that are most likely to come up in play, perhaps as a side bar, or in the post script material at the end of the adventure.
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I don't see a need to hide a regular failure from the players. The feat says you don't know which is which, not that you don't know that one of the info bits is false. That suggests that the player is expected to be told that they failed and must figure out which info is false.