Failing One Lore Skill Only to Use Another

[Ravingdork]

It's generally understood that if you fail a check to Recall Knowledge, you can't keep making checks to learn more information with that skill (sorry I couldn't find the source to quote it). But what if you have multiple related lore skills, such as Giant Lore and the more specific Troll Lore? Can you make new checks using the other lore skill after you've failed the other?

[Finoan]

The rule for increasing DC on additional knowledge is in the GM rules for the Recall Knowledge action. It doesn't depend on the skill used. Once you fail a Recall Knowledge check, then you have learned all your character can remember.

[NorrKnekten]

Thats a no. You cannot recall anything more regarding that specific subject, If you want to figure out what disables a troll's regeneration you use the best one available by working with the GM, But once you fail then;

GM Core pg. 54 2.0 wrote:

Once a character has attempted an incredibly hard check or failed a check, further attempts are fruitless—the character has recalled everything they know about the subject.

[Ravingdork]

So I just need a different subject.

Instead of asking about giant specific things, I'll now ask about troll specific things. :P

[Dr. Frank Funkelstein]

In Foundry you can use a nice macro, that shows the GM all skills and lores of the character with the rolled result.
I would suggest to apply the roll to the skill with the best success chance.
And no, after a failure its not "continue with all other options" - you gave it your best shot.

[Claxon]

As a GM, I always simply apply the most appropriate lore or skill when rolling recall knowledge.

If a player fails to recall knowledge on that subject, that can't make any more attempts on that subject until they increase their skill or have some other in game reason that might allow them to learn more (like getting access to a book on the subject).

As for Ravingdork's idea of "switching from giant specific things to troll specific things". That might work depending on what you were trying to learn, but it also might not (and for me probably wont). But it is very dependent on what you were trying to learn. I'm having a hard time imagining how changing your choice of lore you're using would enable it to work. And it definitely won't work for the same question. But I'm not going to say in 100% of cases it doesn't work (but it will require some creativity).

[Ravingdork]

For you naysayers, how on Golarion do your players make use of things like hyperconition or true hypercognition at your table?

[HammerJack]

Hypercognition is more of a spell for "there are a lot of things going on here I want to know about" not "I'm going to expect this spell to surely let me know everything about that one creature."

[Xenocrat]

Yeah, there's AP encounters where you have 3+ types of enemies plus a magical hazard on the field at once. Use hypercognition.

[Claxon]

HammerJack wrote:

Hypercognition is more of a spell for "there are a lot of things going on here I want to know about" not "I'm going to expect this spell to surely let me know everything about that one creature."

Exactly, it's for "I see 3 different creatures in front of me, with 2 different symbols that I think are for different deities and this weird looking book that I think may be bound in human skin, what is going on here?"

[Bluemagetim]

Ravingdork wrote:

For you naysayers, how on Golarion do your players make use of things like hyperconition or true hypercognition at your table?

Here are 5 questions from the player core to ask about a creature plus one more I thought was important for a hypercognition.

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?”
What is its favorite color?

[The Raven Black]

Bluemagetim wrote:

Ravingdork wrote:

For you naysayers, how on Golarion do your players make use of things like hyperconition or true hypercognition at your table?

Here are 5 questions from the player core to ask about a creature plus one more I thought was important for a hypercognition.

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?”
What is its favorite color?

Nothing about its speed ?

[Tridus]

The answers above are pretty much all correct. I just choose to ignore them, hah. In my games, you can try again on a failure. You lost an action and got nothing, that was punishment enough.

That also makes Hypercognition worth casting far more often since the cases when you actually need it are usually against harder enemies where you're more likely to fail.

[Claxon]

Tridus wrote:

The answers above are pretty much all correct. I just choose to ignore them, hah. In my games, you can try again on a failure. You lost an action and got nothing, that was punishment enough.

That also makes Hypercognition worth casting far more often since the cases when you actually need it are usually against harder enemies where you're more likely to fail.

I mean, it's absolutely fine to run the game that way. I agree that losing an action mid combat is kind of punishment enough, but you don't need to run it that way to make hypercognition have a use.

[ScooterScoots]

Lockout out of combat makes sense and is necessary to prevent infinite fishing for info.

Lockout in combat makes much less sense, if you’ve got eyes on the guy what makes you unable to see that he’s not very dexterous and should be fireballed just because you previously recalled that he had some special ability? Why does RK that a troll is weak to fire make you unable to notice he’s a lumbering brute with a low reflex save - that’s not how memory works, and it’s certainly not have actively observing a creature works either!

It often doesn’t make any sense, it screws certain subclasses into unplayability (mastermind rogue especially ), and frankly it just makes any serious investment in RK a fool’s errand. Especially when you often have rarity increases f#~+ing you over even more.

IMO the correct solution is to not apply lockout to any question you could reasonably gain info on just by perceiving the creature. So special abilities might get lockout, but “does this guy have a high AC” doesn’t.

Additionally, lockout should be per question not per creature.

Fix those issues, and RK is in a good place. But with RAW RK I just don’t see what justifies investment beyond maybe untrained improv (which is good for other uses as well). I certainly wouldn’t take any features that key off RK, that s@!*’s only getting used maybe once every couple fights, *if* I even happen to have something that gives me decent RK skill.

[Easl]

Dr. Frank Funkelstein wrote:

In Foundry you can use a nice macro, that shows the GM all skills and lores of the character with the rolled result.

I would suggest to apply the roll to the skill with the best success chance.

Yes our group uses foundry and we pretty much all agree that this is the way it should be done, even for tabletop games. The player makes one roll: the GM looks across all their relevant skills, and uses the best result. That is both rules-wise faster and simpler, and realism-wise much more reasonable: when you try and recall something, you use all your knowledge at once, (in game mechanics terms: every lore skill in parallel). You don't access different bits of your knowledge in serial.

ScooterScoots wrote:

Lockout in combat makes much less sense, if you’ve got eyes on the guy what makes you unable to see that he’s not very dexterous and should be fireballed just because you previously recalled that he had some special ability?

IMO RK isn't necessary and it's not metagaming if your character can notice some obvious attribute about the enemy and draw conclusions from it (like: "he's lumbering. Use spells they try to dodge.") RK is for the resistances, weaknesses, etc. that aren't obvious. But if some caster switches from EA to Frostbite because they're facing a fire elemental, no GM should require a RK check to justify that or to access the enemies' cold weakness.

[pauljathome]

Easl wrote:

Yes our group uses foundry and we pretty much all agree that this is the way it should be done, even for tabletop games. The player makes one roll: the GM looks across all their relevant skills, and uses the best result.

This is absolutely great if you love Crit fails and lying to the players. Oh, and if you like actually ignoring the rules as written.

RK knowledge is a bad gamble and a bad use of resources for most characters in the first place. But if you make the high wisdom low intelligence characters roll without knowing whether it is their expert nature or religion or untrained arcana that is going to be used then any sensible player will just NEVER use RK

[Claxon]

pauljathome wrote:

RK knowledge is a bad gamble and a bad use of resources for most characters in the first place. But if you make the high wisdom low intelligence characters roll without knowing whether it is their expert nature or religion or untrained arcana that is going to be used then any sensible player will just NEVER use RK

I mean, the rules explicitly tell you not to do that kind of thing though.

Recall Knowledge wrote:

You attempt a skill check to try to remember a bit of knowledge regarding a topic related to that skill. Suggest which skill you'd like to use and ask the GM one question. The GM determines the DC. You might need to collaborate with the GM to narrow down the question or skills, and you can decide not to Recall Knowledge before committing to the action if you don't like your options.

I guess I understand your point though, the players should push be more specific about what they want to roll to attempt it and maybe specify "Hey, if it isn't the skills I've been increasing proficiency in that are relevant, I won't spend my action to RK".

[pauljathome]

Claxon wrote:

pauljathome wrote:

RK knowledge is a bad gamble and a bad use of resources for most characters in the first place. But if you make the high wisdom low intelligence characters roll without knowing whether it is their expert nature or religion or untrained arcana that is going to be used then any sensible player will just NEVER use RK

I mean, the rules explicitly tell you not to do that kind of thing though

They do. But the Foundry macro in question does NOT follow those rules. If you look at the discussion above, the macro just rolls ALL knowledges and the GM looks at the results. And so many characters will crit fail a lot as they just rolled an untrained skill

[Tridus]

pauljathome wrote:

Claxon wrote:

pauljathome wrote:

RK knowledge is a bad gamble and a bad use of resources for most characters in the first place. But if you make the high wisdom low intelligence characters roll without knowing whether it is their expert nature or religion or untrained arcana that is going to be used then any sensible player will just NEVER use RK

I mean, the rules explicitly tell you not to do that kind of thing though

They do. But the Foundry macro in question does NOT follow those rules. If you look at the discussion above, the macro just rolls ALL knowledges and the GM looks at the results. And so many characters will crit fail a lot as they just rolled an untrained skill

The macro making it easy to roll everything does not remove the need for the player and GM to first discuss what skills are relevant, and for the GM to tell the player "you're not trained in anything relevant, are you sure you want to do this?"

Since the player can't see the roll, the GM can still do that after the player rolls but before revealing results, when it becomes apparent that the player literally could not possibly have succeeded.

It's a helpful tool, not a replacement for that conversation.

[Easl]

pauljathome wrote:

They do. But the Foundry macro in question does NOT follow those rules. If you look at the discussion above, the macro just rolls ALL knowledges and the GM looks at the results. And so many characters will crit fail a lot as they just rolled an untrained skill

The foundry macro does not follow the rules, but you're wrong about the crit fail part. It doesn't take the worst result or all results simultaneously, the point is the GM can then use the best fit lore or skill to the question without the player knowing which one it is. Because again, in real life, I don't access some limited subset of my memory when trying to recall a fact, I access all of it and whichever bit of my background I got the info from, I get it.

So mechanically, if I have Cavern Lore and Nature, and Cavern Lore would be the best fit, we don't get stuck in some kafkaesque conversation where the player goes "I think I'm going to use Nature" and the GM watches the roll and then thinks "ah, if only he'd said cavern lore, he would've made it." That makes no real life sense; if my character knows some things from cavern lore and some things from nature, he knows that combined set of things all the time, for every question. He doesn't just look in his brain at what he learned from nature and ignores what he learned from cavern lore. And the GM shouldn't have to tell or hint to the player which one skill to use because again, your knowledge base in your brain is always the full composite of all your skills.

And while the conversation mechanic is nice, we personally find this much faster. Particularly in our 4 player game in cases where everone has different skills and lores but they all want to make a check. There's no series of "can I..." questions from players eating up time. We roll, he says Bob learns x. If one person succeeds and the other crit fails, Bob learns x but Alice learns y. Done.

[pauljathome]

Tridus wrote:

It's a helpful tool, not a replacement for that conversation.

But, after I’ve spent an action it’s already too late. So it only works if I use the macro and then the GM decides if I actually spend the action.

In my experience the “conversation” often goes
Me: “what skill should I roll?”
GM: “just roll the macro”
Me: “uh, no. Ok, instead I …”

See Easl’s post above for proof that at least some GMs basically make sure you crit fail A LOT with most characters

[The Raven Black]

When I use the RK action, my PFS GM tells me what skill I should roll. So I already know what kind of creature I am facing.

Goes doubly for my Witch who used every possible way to get Additional Lore about Religion's and Nature's creatures.

[Errenor]

pauljathome wrote:

See Easl’s post above for proof that at least some GMs basically make sure you crit fail A LOT with most characters

Have you actually read the posts? It was more or less clear from the start that the procedure is used to choose THE BEST skill, not the worst as you imply. But above Easl has explicitly described it now, it's clear that's not what you say it is.

[Claxon]

I think Pauljathome's issue that they believe is happening is that a GM is just rolling the macro and not telling the player if they have a relevant knowledge skill for the thing they're attempting to RK on. Thus creating an opportunity for a crit failure (misinformation) or at the very least wasting an action in combat.

And I can't say this is invalid concern. But it's also just a concern about having a s@#*ty GM. Like, the macro to roll all knowledge skills is still valid just to make things quick, and then GM should pick out the relevant skill to determine the result. But before they do so they should talk to the player and say "Hey, based on the creature you don't have any skills you're trained in to identify it, do you still want to proceed?" Also "Hey, nature is the relevant skill (which the player is only trained in, not their Religion skill that they're a master in) do you still want to proceed?". That is an important step that the GM shouldn't step. But the macro isn't the problem.

Outside of combat, and if the GM is willing to ignore any sort of misinformation from crit fails, it definitely makes things faster. You just look for who succeeded at the relevant skill(s).

[pauljathome]

Errenor wrote:

pauljathome wrote:

See Easl’s post above for proof that at least some GMs basically make sure you crit fail A LOT with most characters

Have you actually read the posts? It was more or less clear from the start that the procedure is used to choose THE BEST skill, not the worst as you imply. But above Easl has explicitly described it now, it's clear that's not what you say it is.

Yes I have read his posts. All of them. Maybe I am misinterpreting him but I think that he is saying that if my character is expert in Religion and expert in Nature but untrained in Arcana and untrained in Crafting and untrained in any relevant Lore skill that when I try and identify a construct (I'm deliberately choosing this example as it is NOT particularly hypothetical. Some constructs look like other things so it is a mistake a player can make. And lots of my wisdom or charisma based casters have an Int of 0 or even -1. This example has occurred in practice) he'll

1) Assume that I HAVE spent an action
2) Look at my untrained Lore - Golem, Crafting and Arcana skills, use my Untrained Lore Golem because the DC is a bit lower, look at my result, see that it is a critical failure, and lie to me (even at quite low levels one is often more likely to crit fail than succeed on an untrained skill, by level 5 or so one only succeeds on a 20 and crit fails half the time assuming the stat is 0).

Note - the above is EXACTLY what some GMs I've played with who use this macro do. Maybe that makes them poor GMs. maybe it just means they haven't thought things through, maybe I've just been very unlucky, maybe they think lying on crit fails is absolutely hilarious. But it HAS happened.

If that is NOT what he is saying then
1) I apologize
2) I think he should clarify himself.

I'll quote Easl to show why his posts make me think he would act exactly as I describe above

Easl wrote:

We roll, he says Bob learns x. If one person succeeds and the other crit fails, Bob learns x but Alice learns y. Done.

[Claxon]

pauljathome wrote:

Errenor wrote:

pauljathome wrote:

See Easl’s post above for proof that at least some GMs basically make sure you crit fail A LOT with most characters

Have you actually read the posts? It was more or less clear from the start that the procedure is used to choose THE BEST skill, not the worst as you imply. But above Easl has explicitly described it now, it's clear that's not what you say it is.

Yes I have read his posts. All of them. Maybe I am misinterpreting him but I think that he is saying that if my character is expert in Religion and expert in Nature but untrained in Arcana and untrained in Crafting and untrained in any relevant Lore skill that when I try and identify a construct (I'm deliberately choosing this example as it is NOT particularly hypothetical. Some constructs look like other things so it is a mistake a player can make. And lots of my wisdom or charisma based casters have an Int of 0 or even -1. This example has occurred in practice) he'll

1) Assume that I HAVE spent an action
2) Look at my untrained Lore - Golem, Crafting and Arcana skills, use my Untrained Lore Golem because the DC is a bit lower, look at my result, see that it is a critical failure, and lie to me (even at quite low levels one is often more likely to crit fail than succeed on an untrained skill, by level 5 or so one only succeeds on a 20 and crit fails half the time assuming the stat is 0).

Note - the above is EXACTLY what some GMs I've played with who use this macro do. Maybe that makes them poor GMs. maybe it just means they haven't thought things through, maybe I've just been very unlucky, maybe they think lying on crit fails is absolutely hilarious. But it HAS happened.

If that is NOT what he is saying then
1) I apologize
2) I think he should clarify himself.

I'll quote Easl to show why his posts make me think he would act exactly as I describe above

Easl wrote:

We roll, he says Bob learns x. If one person succeeds and the other crit fails, Bob learns x but Alice learns

...

Yeah, if that's what's happening that's 100% being a bad GM and I would probably quit.

[Errenor]

pauljathome wrote:

Errenor wrote:

pauljathome wrote:

See Easl’s post above for proof that at least some GMs basically make sure you crit fail A LOT with most characters

Have you actually read the posts? It was more or less clear from the start that the procedure is used to choose THE BEST skill, not the worst as you imply. But above Easl has explicitly described it now, it's clear that's not what you say it is.

Yes I have read his posts. All of them.

Ok, I get it. What if the best is also atrociously bad? Good question. I suppose Easl will answer, but I think that the procedure was described on the assumption that a character has some at least trained suitable skill. When you do it mostly by the rules, this is the thing you shouldn't ignore and should use in some way or another: "You might need to collaborate with the GM to narrow down the question or skills, and you can decide not to Recall Knowledge before committing to the action if you don't like your options."

Also his quote you used was definitely about exploration mode, so at least using/not using an action is mostly irrelevant.

[shroudb]

To me, it makes no sense to narrow down what skill you are using.

When you are using Recall Knowledge, you are trying to remember what you know about a subject.

So going "I try to see if I remember anything about this thing I'm looking, but only using what I learned in my Arcana class and not in my Religion class" makes absolutely no sense.

What makes sense is simply "I try to remember what I know about this thing I'm looking at".

---

Given that, the way I use the foundry macro is very simple:
I check what my player's roll give them for the most relevant *for them* skill.

That translates to using the highest modifier out of all applicable skills.

In case of different DCs, that only matters if it would actually make a difference.

Rolling a 32 on the Master Crafting and a 12 on the untrained Golem Lore as an example, even if Golem Lore is 2-4 lower DC, by what logic do you even use the much lower result rather than the actual good one?

---

In physical games, where we don't have the ease of automation of the foundry, I simply check the player's sheet and roll what's best for them for the occasion.

---

There is a SINGLE case where I ask what skill they Recall with:

If they are trying to find out specific things about a situation that has different outcomes based on what they are using:

As an example from a recent session:
Lost in a different plane, my players had the option to figure out stuff about where they were. There it made sense to ask what they were trying to figure out: the ecology, where they are, planar rules, enemies they might encounter, and etc.
Different skills pooled from different reuslt tables for what they would find.

But that's completely different from simply looking at a creature and going "what do I remember about this thing?"

[pauljathome]

shroudb wrote:

What makes sense is simply "I try to remember what I know about this thing I'm looking at".

I agree that is what makes sense in the real world. But we're playing a game where real world logic is sometimes very, very, very far from the game mechanics.

To take the example of Recall Knowledge, it makes absolutely no sense at all in the real world that if you're given a very difficult question about something that you know virtually nothing about you're going to get the wrong answer almost all the time.

For example, I know nothing about the Indian sport of Mallakhamb (never even heard of it until I did a google search for "obscure indian sport"). If you asked me a very simple or very difficult question my answer would be the same "I don't know". I would essentially NEVER get the wrong answer (nor the right answer, for that matter)

From a gaming perspective, for most of my characters I'm NOT going to waste an action to get the wrong answer a significant portion of the time, especially if the GM is being actively malicious and giving me harmful misinformation.

As mostly an aside one thing that makes me even more angry are GMs who will maliciously lie to me and then get upset at my "metagaming" when I ignore the false information because it is obvious to me the player that the GM is lying to me.

From my point of view, if the GM is going to break this particular rule by using this macro in the way that you've described then I'll either
1) Play a character who actually DOES know a lot about everything. Thaumaturge being most likely but a high Int/Wis skill monkey is also a possibility
2) Never ever ever under any circumstances (only a very slight exaggeration) make a knowledge check in combat and always assume my information is very likely wrong.
3) If I'm feeling particularly snarky continually make knowledge checks with my untrained skills so as to know some incorrect fact. Only a good idea if I'm playing a self aware buffoon.

[Tridus]

pauljathome wrote:

3) If I'm feeling particularly snarky continually make knowledge checks with my untrained skills so as to know some incorrect fact. Only a good idea if I'm playing a self aware buffoon.

We did this in PFS once except my character didn't realize they were the buffoon until after the fact. We were trying to solve some cipher with Society, and most of the group was mediocre at it and my Summoner was REALLY bad at it (total modifier of -1). So I didn't roll it at all figuring I'd probably not help.

When the rest of them did it, they eventually came up with two translations and couldn't figure out which one to go with because of the spread in the group.

Then they realized I hadn't attempted it at all and when I explained that I was bad at this, they realized they could use that. So they had me do it, and then just did the opposite of what I came up with... which worked.

Folks that were in that game still talk about it years later because it was such a memorable moment. (Except for my Summoner, who didn't feel great about it. Fortunately something needed yelling at later and he was REALLY good at that.)

[bugleyman]

Bluemagetim wrote:

...

What is its favorite color?

Now that's just OP. ;-)

[shroudb]

pauljathome wrote:

shroudb wrote:

What makes sense is simply "I try to remember what I know about this thing I'm looking at".

I agree that is what makes sense in the real world. But we're playing a game where real world logic is sometimes very, very, very far from the game mechanics.

To take the example of Recall Knowledge, it makes absolutely no sense at all in the real world that if you're given a very difficult question about something that you know virtually nothing about you're going to get the wrong answer almost all the time.

For example, I know nothing about the Indian sport of Mallakhamb (never even heard of it until I did a google search for "obscure indian sport"). If you asked me a very simple or very difficult question my answer would be the same "I don't know". I would essentially NEVER get the wrong answer (nor the right answer, for that matter)

From a gaming perspective, for most of my characters I'm NOT going to waste an action to get the wrong answer a significant portion of the time, especially if the GM is being actively malicious and giving me harmful misinformation.

As mostly an aside one thing that makes me even more angry are GMs who will maliciously lie to me and then get upset at my "metagaming" when I ignore the false information because it is obvious to me the player that the GM is lying to me.

From my point of view, if the GM is going to break this particular rule by using this macro in the way that you've described then I'll either
1) Play a character who actually DOES know a lot about everything. Thaumaturge being most likely but a high Int/Wis skill monkey is also a possibility
2) Never ever ever under any circumstances (only a very slight exaggeration) make a knowledge check in combat and always assume my information is very likely wrong.
3) If I'm feeling particularly snarky continually make knowledge checks with my untrained skills so as to know some incorrect fact. Only a good idea if I'm playing a self aware buffoon.

You misunderstood the way I use the macro.

But also I agree that if you don't feel you have a reasonable chance to succeed based on what your character sees, you shouldn't be "wasting time" trying to wrangle your brain to see if you actually do know something.

If, as an example, I describe a worm like monstrosity breaking rhough the ground, with tentacles and acid dripping from it's mouth, and you have nothing in some relevant Lore/Occult/etc, then yes, you shouldn't be wasing actions trying to recall.

But If you have, let's say Nature, and still not Occult, and you roll, I'm going to use that "good" result from the Nature check to say something like "you know that this is not a natural beast or animal". If you also have Occult, I'm instead going to use the Occult result and say "you know that this is an aberration called X, what do you want to know about it?", and etc.

---

Basically, the way I'm "breaking" RK is in favor of the players, so they don't have to guess what's their best skill is against something that they try to recall, but instead I pick from all of their skills and use their best.

[pauljathome]

Tridus wrote:

Then they realized I hadn't attempted it at all and when I explained that I was bad at this, they realized they could use that. So they had me do it, and then just did the opposite of what I came up with... which worked.

That is a hilarious story.

In fact, it is even realistic. In real life I had a friend who had a TERRIBLE sense of direction. We once got totally lost and made our way out by a series of
“Which way do you think we should go?”
“Left”
“Ok, turn right.”

He was wrong something like 5 times in a row ;-)

[pauljathome]

shroudb wrote:

But If you have, let's say Nature, and still not Occult, and you roll, I'm going to use that "good" result from the Nature check to say something like "you know that this is not a natural beast or animal". If you also have Occult, I'm instead going to use the Occult result and say "you know that this is an aberration called X, what do you want to know about it?", and etc.

Ah, that is more reasonable than what I thought you were doing. That makes sense. All I am risking by rolling is the action.

I’d still use RK much less often than if I knew what skill I had to use ahead of time. I’d pretty much use it only when I had a “free, extra” action that turn. But I would use it.

But to be clear you are still making RK significantly worse than written in one respect in that I am still wasting an action when I don’t have the skill

[Captain Morgan]

Tridus wrote:

The answers above are pretty much all correct. I just choose to ignore them, hah. In my games, you can try again on a failure. You lost an action and got nothing, that was punishment enough.

That also makes Hypercognition worth casting far more often since the cases when you actually need it are usually against harder enemies where you're more likely to fail.

I let people retry on a failed roll, but only if they obtain new information. (Which generally will always happen in combat as monsters use more abilities or whatever.

[Claxon]

shroudb wrote:

To me, it makes no sense to narrow down what skill you are using.

When you are using Recall Knowledge, you are trying to remember what you know about a subject.

So going "I try to see if I remember anything about this thing I'm looking, but only using what I learned in my Arcana class and not in my Religion class" makes absolutely no sense.

What makes sense is simply "I try to remember what I know about this thing I'm looking at".

Yes, but also no.

Yes, from the characters in world perspective absolutely.

But from a game mechanics point of view, we have to choose 1 skill to roll. And from a player point of view, you'd like to know which skill is being rolled, because the rules directly tell us you don't have to commit to the action. Essentially if you as a player realize you don't have a skill with a good bonus relevant to the thing in front of you, you don't have to commit your action (which is nice considering the crit failure potential and wasted action). It's almost like your character can (as a free action) size up the enemy and realize they don't know even the slightest thing about it and choose not to think harder about it.

[Errenor]

Claxon wrote:

But from a game mechanics point of view, we have to choose 1 skill to roll. And from a player point of view, you'd like to know which skill is being rolled, because the rules directly tell us you don't have to commit to the action. Essentially if you as a player realize you don't have a skill with a good bonus relevant to the thing in front of you, you don't have to commit your action (which is nice considering the crit failure potential and wasted action). It's almost like your character can (as a free action) size up the enemy and realize they don't know even the slightest thing about it and choose not to think harder about it.

True. And using this choosing a skill from a list by GM, GM should say: "You have no good skill for this, do you want to continue?" This should solve the problem.

[Claxon]

Agreed, it's really as simple as a GM saying, "Hey, all relevant skills you have are untrained, do you want to proceed?" Or even, "Hey, you are trained in a relevant skill, but only trained (level 15characters), do you want to proceed?"

Like there are very easy ways to avoid creating a problem.

But the scenario being described/imagined here seems like it's trying to shortcut the conversation between the GM and player and forcing the player to commit to RK without knowing which skill is being used (which is pretty explicitly against the rules).

[Tridus]

Claxon wrote:

Agreed, it's really as simple as a GM saying, "Hey, all relevant skills you have are untrained, do you want to proceed?" Or even, "Hey, you are trained in a relevant skill, but only trained (level 15characters), do you want to proceed?"

Like there are very easy ways to avoid creating a problem.

But the scenario being described/imagined here seems like it's trying to shortcut the conversation between the GM and player and forcing the player to commit to RK without knowing which skill is being used (which is pretty explicitly against the rules).

Yeah I don't understand what the problem is here, ultimately, because as you said: this is trivially easy to avoid in the way that action tells you to do anyway.

Like if the GM calls for a Medicine check, a player knows they're not trained in it and thus should probably not try. It's the exact same thing here: you're bad at this so you shouldn't attempt it.

There's no reason to 'gotcha moment' a player by not telling them they can't possibly succeed due to being untrained just so you can waste an action and give them false info. How is that fun for anyone?

Even when using the macro, it's trivially easy for the GM to see the players has no relevant trained skills and couldn't possibly have succeeded since all the info is presented in one clean list. The player won't know what they rolled so the GM can simply say "you have no relevant trained skills, are you sure you want to do this?" If the player says no, discard the results, roll back the action, and carry on. If they say yes, you have the results in front of you and can proceed.

It's an easy problem to avoid unless someone is being deliberately antagonistic.

[Claxon]

Tridus wrote:

It's an easy problem to avoid unless someone is being deliberately antagonistic.

Unfortunately it seems like a lot of people have antagonistic GMs.

[shroudb]

Ughh... My goal is not to bamboozle players but to help them, if they have nothing relevant ofc I'll warn them before they waste their actions.

Edit: although my own personal style is if someone rolls good, even with a different skill than required, to give something based on the character's skills.

[Claxon]

shroudb wrote:

Ughh... My goal is not to bamboozle players but to help them, if they have nothing relevant ofc I'll warn them before they waste their actions.

Edit: although my own personal style is if someone rolls good, even with a different skill than required, to give something based on the character's skills.

I think it's fine to give some sort of information based on applicable skills.

Heck, you could even make a case for Craft(Cooking) or Lore(Cooking) to give you something like "You know that creature is poisonous if consumed" or "People have tried cooking that creature before, but the taste is considered to be bad because it is carnivore and likely to cause parasites". Something like that might be useful, or even just engaging in the world.

But also that is only appropriate outside of combat. Remember, players get to ask a question, what they want to learn about. And in combat, I think that is important to stick to when they're spending an action on it. If they don't have a skill that would provide them with the info they want to know, tell them.

Outside of combat, you can give them interesting tid-bits like the above (although you probably have to make it up).

[Mathmuse]

Recall Knowedge is the most heavingly houseruled action in my Pathfinder games, so nothing I say about it is rules canon. Instead, I embrace practical gameplay about making Recall Knowledge more flavorful and convenient. For example, I ignore the Additional Knowledge rule that further Recall Knowledge checks on the same subject are more difficult. I know that that is unrealistic, because my memories chain together and recalling one fact will lead to another. A character's choice between putting knowledge already learned into action or spending another action for more knowledge provides dramatic tension. And the PCs employing well-informed tactics entertains me.

My interpretation of the rules as written concerning "Can you make new checks using the other lore skill after you've failed the other?" is yes, but the new Lore check cannot reveal anything that would have been answered in the original Recall Knowledge check. For example, once the 2nd-level rogue Binny failed her Nature Roll for identifying a Centipede Swarm. But when another PC's Recall Knowledge check revealed that the centipedes had venom, I let Binny roll a check with Underworld Lore from her Criminal background about the venom's detailed effects on the excuse that some of her fellow criminals poisoned their weapons with centipede venom.

I am more extreme in my current Strength of Thousands campaign set at the Magaambya Academy. I added classwork to the first two modules. A common reward for critical success in passing a class has been training in a related Lore. They also learn the Lore of their Magaambya branches: Cascade Bearers (specializing in magical research), Emerald Boughs (society and spycraft), Rain-Scribes (exploration and logistics), Tempest-Sun Mages (combat and defense), and Uzunjati (diplomacy and storytelling). My PCs have around five lores each. They want to roll on both the primary skill, such as Nature, and on a related lore, such as Forest Lore, because they want to use their lores. So I let them. In fact, my full houserule is that they roll both in the same Recall Knowledge action, so the Additional Knowledge rules would not apply yet. That eliminates the dramatic tension, but it does make these Magaabmya graduates feel knowledgeable.

My wife asks for extra flavor in Recall Knowledge, telling how the character learned the knowledge based on their background and class. The specialization of Lore skills is handy for this. For example, Roshan learned her Architecture Lore in teacher Izem Mezitani's class about sneaking into restricted sites for archeaological research. (The adventure path says, "Izem Mezitani Most Well Known For: having arrest warrants in five different nations and honorary doctorates in three.") Thus, Roshan was able to decipher the lock on a secret door with a Architecture Lore check because Izem had lectured on puzzle locks.

[glass]

Ravingdork wrote:

It's generally understood that if you fail a check to Recall Knowledge, you can't keep making checks to learn more information with that skill (sorry I couldn't find the source to quote it). But what if you have multiple related lore skills, such as Giant Lore and the more specific Troll Lore? Can you make new checks using the other lore skill after you've failed the other?

Like a few other people, I don't make players pick a single skill for RK, so it would never arise. But either way, failure means no more checks.

It's not strictly RAW, but I do allow a further check after a crit-fail (on the grounds that neither the player nor the character knows they've crit failed, so they don't know not to try again).

Ravingdork wrote:

For you naysayers, how on Golarion do your players make use of things like hyperconition or true hypercognition at your table?

It has never come up that I recall (ha!), but I don't see a problem with it. The spell says you make six checks, so you make six checks (even if you fail some). Specific beats general.

Claxon wrote:

But from a game mechanics point of view, we have to choose 1 skill to roll.

Why do we?

In cases like this where the relevant skills are unknown and unknowable until after the check is passed, why can't we pick any or all skills? That's what we do at my table, and it works fine. It may not be spelled out in RAW, but it doesn't contradict it either (unlike your "free-action size up" narrowing down creature keywords AFAIK).

[Claxon]

glass wrote:

Claxon wrote:

But from a game mechanics point of view, we have to choose 1 skill to roll.

Why do we?

In cases like this where the relevant skills are unknown and unknowable until after the check is passed, why can't we pick any or all skills? That's what we do at my table, and it works fine. It may not be spelled out in RAW, but it doesn't contradict it either (unlike your "free-action size up" narrowing down creature keywords AFAIK).

I suppose you could roll multiple skills, but why? Unless you're using a macro it's a waste of time.

And the rules literally say:

Quote:

You attempt a skill check to try to remember a bit of knowledge regarding a topic related to that skill. Suggest which skill you'd like to use and ask the GM one question. The GM determines the DC. You might need to collaborate with the GM to narrow down the question or skills, and you can decide not to Recall Knowledge before committing to the action if you don't like your options.

You don't necessarily have to narrow it down to a single applicable skill, but essentially you do narrow it down to which 1 skill you're going to roll. You have a question. You ask the GM, "hey is this knowledge or lore appropriate" and the GM tells you "No, but I would accept any of the following for that piece of information". Likely you have one applicable skill, or you have one skill that is applicable with the highest bonus.

And there's just no logical way to resolve multiple rolls for the same single roll knowledge action.

[pauljathome]

Tridus wrote:

Yeah I don't understand what the problem is here

The problem is that

1) The Foundry module makes it very, very easy for a GM to ignore the rules
2) At least two GMs in this thread have said that when they use the module they ignore the rules. And I know that I've personally met at least 2 other GMs who use this module and ignore the rules.

[glass]

Claxon wrote:

I suppose you could roll multiple skills, but why? Unless you're using a macro it's a waste of time.

I don't use macros (or VTTs at all). It takes a second or two longer for the player to say for example "any Skill I am at least Trained in" orather than "Arcana", and it takes maybe a fraction of a second longer to look across the PC's list of RK/IM skills and apply whichever yields the best combination of bonus and DC, rather than just rolling a single skill.

Which is still much quicker (and less spoiler-ish) of negotiating over a skill.

Claxon wrote:

And the rules literally say:

Quote:

You attempt a skill check to try to remember a bit of knowledge regarding a topic related to that skill. Suggest which skill you'd like to use and ask the GM one question. The GM determines the DC. You might need to collaborate with the GM to narrow down the question or skills, and you can decide not to Recall Knowledge before committing to the action if you don't like your options.

Okay, maybe my procedure is slighly more in the realm of house rules than I realised (I have not gone through the Remastered version of RK in detail, because I was happy with the procedure established beforehand). Nonetheless, whether or not what I do is strictly RAW, I promise you that it is possible. Because I do it, and it works.

Claxon wrote:

You don't necessarily have to narrow it down to a single applicable skill, but essentially you do narrow it down to which 1 skill you're going to roll.

I, as GM, narrow it down to one skill from those the player has nominated. The player doesn't have to - they can choose "any skill I am at least Trained in" or "any Int-based skill" or "Arcana or Occult" or even "just Religion" if they like.

Claxon wrote:

And there's just no logical way to resolve multiple rolls for the same single roll knowledge action.

I mean, there would be. But that's kinda irrelevant, as I never said "multiple rolls" I said multiple skills (on the player end).

[Tridus]

pauljathome wrote:

Tridus wrote:

Yeah I don't understand what the problem is here

The problem is that

1) The Foundry module makes it very, very easy for a GM to ignore the rules
2) At least two GMs in this thread have said that when they use the module they ignore the rules. And I know that I've personally met at least 2 other GMs who use this module and ignore the rules.

Not really, though. The macro gives you all the relevant skills (or all of them if you don't have something targeted), shows potential modifiers, shows different DCs for subsequent attempts, and packages it all up so you can see it very quickly.

People "ignore the rules" on this because it's one of the most house ruled sections of the game for a reason: the rules aren't very fun. People ignored increasing the DC of subsequent attempts long before the macro, and some people didn't even realize that was a rule until the macro showed it to them. Ditto with failures meaning no more attempts: lots of people very deliberately ignore that, which has nothing to do with the macro at all.

Otherwise, what other rule is being ignored here? The remaster changed the wording of RK to make it clearer that the GM and players are supposed to discuss it before rolling anything. The macro doesn't change that, and the fact that the wording had to be changed to tell people "don't gotcha your players" says that GMs were doing exactly that. Which was going on long before the macro existed.

At the end of the day the macro is just a tool to present information to the GM. It can't stop GMs that are being antagonistic from doing so.

[Kitusser]

Tridus wrote:

pauljathome wrote:

Tridus wrote:

Yeah I don't understand what the problem is here

The problem is that

1) The Foundry module makes it very, very easy for a GM to ignore the rules
2) At least two GMs in this thread have said that when they use the module they ignore the rules. And I know that I've personally met at least 2 other GMs who use this module and ignore the rules.

Not really, though. The macro gives you all the relevant skills (or all of them if you don't have something targeted), shows potential modifiers, shows different DCs for subsequent attempts, and packages it all up so you can see it very quickly.

People "ignore the rules" on this because it's one of the most house ruled sections of the game for a reason: the rules aren't very fun. People ignored increasing the DC of subsequent attempts long before the macro, and some people didn't even realize that was a rule until the macro showed it to them. Ditto with failures meaning no more attempts: lots of people very deliberately ignore that, which has nothing to do with the macro at all.

Otherwise, what other rule is being ignored here? The remaster changed the wording of RK to make it clearer that the GM and players are supposed to discuss it before rolling anything. The macro doesn't change that, and the fact that the wording had to be changed to tell people "don't gotcha your players" says that GMs were doing exactly that. Which was going on long before the macro existed.

At the end of the day the macro is just a tool to present information to the GM. It can't stop GMs that are being antagonistic from doing so.

I've never liked the RK rules in this game, it's like it punishes you for using the skill if you run it RAW, there are so many limitations and downsides that it doesn't feel worth using. The misinformation being a big one, especially against a strong foe who has a rare or unique tag and has some gimmick or weakness that you're trying to find.

I genuinely don't think RK works very well against the rarity system and against high level foes. Plus needing to invest in so many skills just sucks. I like how it works in Lancer where you can just Scan and basically just get all non-secret info on the statblock. I find combat is more fun when people can make informed decisions.

I feel for combat, there should just be a monster knowledge skill that works on every monster, just for RK. There should be skill feats for guaranteed knowledge, or there should just be guaranteed knowledge with different proficiency ranks of the skill when rolling (So like you still roll, but on any result but say a crit fail you get some info). Lore skills would still have lowered DCs, and normal RK skills would also still work for applicable enemies.