Interaction between Organsight and Knowledge is Power

[SuperBidi]

Hi everyone,

I was wondering what you think about the interaction between Organsight and Knowledge is power.

Organsight:"You see the target as though it's dissected and arrayed before you. For the duration, you gain a +2 circumstance bonus on Medicine checks against the target that depend on its organs, but a –2 circumstance penalty on Medicine checks depending on seeing its skin.
When you Cast the Spell, attempt a special Recall Knowledge check using Medicine to spot and discern a vital organ. If you have a Lore skill appropriate to the creature, you can use that skill instead of Medicine. If you succeed, the next time you deal piercing or slashing damage to the target with a Strike or spell, you deal 4d6 additional precision damage. Once on each of your subsequent turns, you can use a single action to attempt the special Recall Knowledge check again. The extra damage isn't cumulative, so making the check more than once before a Strike or spell has no extra benefit."

Knowledge is Power:"Your academic knowledge about a creature allows you to subtly alter your magic to defeat them. When you critically succeed at a Recall Knowledge check about a creature, you can invoke your knowledge to make the creature take a –1 circumstance penalty to either AC and saves against the next attack you make against it, or the next spell you cast that it needs to defend against. The creature takes the same penalty to its attack or DC the next time it attacks against you or causes you to attempt a save against one of its effects.
If you share this information with your allies, they gain the benefits as well. If not used, the bonuses end after 1 minute."

Organsight speaks of a "special Recall Knowledge check". Special can mean a bit of everything so I wonder if, as a GM, you'd allow Knowledge is Power to be triggered by a critical success to the RK check given by Organsight?

[shroudb]

a)Since it specifically calls out that even if "special" it is a Recall Knowledge check.

b)since Knowledge is Power doesn't say that the Recall check needs to be specifically to recognise the creature (as some similar feats/abilities say) but any type of Recall about the creature is ok:

I'd allow it.

If any of the 2 above conditions wasn't ture, I probably wouldn't.

[SuperBidi]

I also have this reading but I sometimes tend to be too focused on RAW compared to the majority of people here.

I quite like this interaction as there's a gish Wizard build that emerges from it. Just grab Devise a Stratagem from Investigator Dedication and if you manage to properly handle your leads you can:
- Free action DaS (you can even grab Know Weaknesses to get a free RK check)
- If it's a success => Organsight
- If it's a success => ranged Strike (you can Strike also if it's not a success but you may prefer another one action spell)
And for the next rounds you can continue with DaS, Organsight and Strike alongside spells (as you now use mostly third actions), fueling Knowledge is Power on top of your nice damage output. When dice are with you, it can be a really nasty build with high damage, nice debuff and spellcasting combined.

[yellowpete]

I take the "special" to mean that it's always its own action – you couldn't for example get a free or subordinate RK from somewhere else (such as Known Weaknesses) and use that one to fuel your Organsight instead of its normal effects.

But, it is still RK even if special, and so abilities of the "when you RK... " kind such as Knowledge is Power ought to work.

[cavernshark]

I've tried an Organsight build before and it's neat when it works but the limiting factor is that it's not actually a buff to you, but a spell cast on the target creature. So in practice unless you're going up against one big thing that's going to last multiple rounds you tend to have a lot of set up to knock something out quickly. And if you are going up against that one big thing, it's probably higher level than you and might even be rare or unique which makes landing the medicine check difficult and the subsequent strike to deliver the persistent damage.

[Trip.H]

cavernshark wrote:

Yeah, the most success I've had with the spell is on an Alchemist (which is a rare synergy for Chirurgeon thanks to the Craft for Med feature).

It's great if you let bomb miss splash damage trigger the Organsight effect. That seems legit RaW, though I suspect an oversight. In that "works on miss" scenario, it becomes a great boss-killer, so long as they don't get dogpiled by the party and die too quickly.

Best when it's a Boss + fodder, as you'll have the time to go for repeat pops (and Organsight lacks the pressure of sustain spells that poof if you skip a round).

Right now I'm comboing all that even further with Witch's Blood in the Water on that Chir Alchemist, but that's a lot of setup in this short-round combat system.

.

One unclear detail about Organsight is if you can use methods of free action Recall Knowledge to do the repeat weak-point attempts.

"Once on each of your subsequent turns, you can use a single action to attempt the special Recall Knowledge check again."

This could be read as a repeat of the normal action cost for RK, or it could be read as a mandate that you can only do the "special" RK if you spend an action.

IMO, the first occurrence of the special RK being a 0A thing that happens when you cast the spell is why this sentence specifies 1A for the repeat RKs.

"When you Cast the Spell, attempt a special Recall Knowledge check using Medicine to spot and discern a vital organ."

In other words, the repeat RK option must list an action cost due to the absence of one prior.

I do not think it is intended to be a mandate that renders 0A RK abilities incompatible.

[shroudb]

Trip.H wrote:

cavernshark wrote:

Yeah, the most success I've had with the spell is on an Alchemist (which is a rare synergy for Chirurgeon thanks to the Craft for Med feature).

It's great if you let bomb miss splash damage trigger the Organsight effect. That seems legit RaW, though I suspect an oversight. In that "works on miss" scenario, it becomes a great boss-killer, so long as they don't get dogpiled by the party and die too quickly.

Best when it's a Boss + fodder, as you'll have the time to go for repeat pops (and Organsight lacks the pressure of sustain spells that poof if you skip a round).

Right now I'm comboing all that even further with Witch's Blood in the Water on that Chir Alchemist, but that's a lot of setup in this short-round combat system.

.

One unclear detail about Organsight is if you can use methods of free action Recall Knowledge to do the repeat weak-point attempts.

"Once on each of your subsequent turns, you can use a single action to attempt the special Recall Knowledge check again."

This could be read as a repeat of the normal action cost for RK, or it could be read as a mandate that you can only do the "special" RK if you spend an action.

IMO, the first occurrence of the special RK being a 0A thing that happens when you cast the spell is why this sentence specifies 1A for the repeat RKs.

"When you Cast the Spell, attempt a special Recall Knowledge check using Medicine to spot and discern a vital organ."

In other words, the repeat RK option must list an action cost due to the absence of one prior.

I do not think it is intended to be a mandate that renders 0A RK abilities incompatible.

Per RAW, you have to use this specific "one action special recall" to get the benefit on subsequent rounds.

"Intention" is in the eye of the beholder, but as far as Raw is considered, there is no wiggle room here since the action cost is indeed specified.

Imo, even for Rai (intention), if it was as you hope there would be no need to specify action cost.

A simple "once per round you can recall knowledge..." Would have been enough.