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Not long ago, I made a comment on Reddit saying that Assurance (Monster Lore) from Tip of the Tongue is worthless against anything at or above level because it's a broad, non-specific lore that shouldn't be getting a lowered DC. There was disagreement with this, which I could not find anything supporting my argument. I could have swore there was a general agreement in these forums or even explicit rules that lores like Bardic Lore and Esoteric Lore do not get lowered DCs but I couldnt find anything. Is there anything supporting my claim or did I completely imagine this?
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DC adjustments are entirely within GM purview so strictly speaking yeah you could if you want adjust DCs for someone using a lore like monster or bardic... but the fact that they work so broadly kind of definitionally contradicts the idea that they're specific, doesn't it?
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DC adjustments are entirely within GM purview so strictly speaking yeah you could if you want adjust DCs for someone using a lore like monster or bardic... but the fact that they work so broadly kind of definitionally contradicts the idea that they're specific, doesn't it?
I think something like this needs to be clarified and not left to GM discretion if they're giving out a class feature that's almost completely useless then.
In my experience, if I'm ever fighting anything that could be identified with Assurance, I've already encountered that type of creature plenty of times before and RK is a waste of game time. A slayer's check against their quarry in particular would always fail when using Assurance using a standard DC.
That or they need to clarify that broad lores still get a bare minimum lowered DC of -2.
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Not long ago, I made a comment on Reddit saying that Assurance (Monster Lore) from Tip of the Tongue is worthless against anything at or above level because it's a broad, non-specific lore that shouldn't be getting a lowered DC. There was disagreement with this, which I could not find anything supporting my argument. I could have swore there was a general agreement in these forums or even explicit rules that lores like Bardic Lore and Esoteric Lore do not get lowered DCs but I couldnt find anything. Is there anything supporting my claim or did I completely imagine this?
Not that I know of, either for or against.
In the case of "Monster Lore", I would personally give a lowered DC against individual creatures that have been particularly monster-like in their actions. Whether that's "terrorizing the populace openly" or "mysterious disappearances have been happening near the old mill", once it reaches the point where you expect Geralt to be called in to deal with it or a consultation from Van Helsing, it gets a -2 to DC from me.
For Bardic Lore, it's anything where it seems like there would be a song or play about that individual.
For Esoteric Lore... that's vague and strong enough that it's going to be pretty rare that I'd give it- it'd have to be something that matches that particular Thaumaturge's individual brand of nonsense especially well. But I generally expect Thaumaturge characters to provide a little personalized context for what they're doing in-world that's being abstracted by the general mechanics.
Now, I don't expect the occasional small reduction in DC to make Tip of the Tongue relevant at rolling about a specific quarry. But if you're fighting a demon, something like recalling that most demons have a weakness related to their "sin" is fair game because that's something any expert would be expected to know.
EDIT:
"Your encyclopedic knowledge of monsters allows you to quickly recall basic information."
I feel like folks are ignoring the flavor text here? It's for basic information. "What can you tell me about demons?" Those are creatures, so it's fair game. The DC isn't especially high for basic information about them. A Slayer with a few levels being able to rattle off an answer without needing to roll or even spend an action is absolutely on-brand.
DC adjustments are entirely within GM purview so strictly speaking yeah you could if you want adjust DCs for someone using a lore like monster or bardic... but the fact that they work so broadly kind of definitionally contradicts the idea that they're specific, doesn't it?
That's always been my stance. Despite being lore skills, they're broader than even the classic knowledge skills.
If I'm the GM, absolutely no DC adjustment to make it easier on players to succeed using these broad lore skills.
I think you can't really get more specific than a lore that's used to identify monsters specifically, but that's me I guess.
But anyways, I feel the problem isn't the DCs, but rather that's this is yet another class with an universal lore skill that's used to RK creatures. I feel like we are getting one of those every year lately. I think this class needs a more interesting way of RK than this personally.
For example, Mark Quarry allowing you to ask questions about your quarry without a check. Assurance and Automatic Knowledge are already giving you "free" information, so making that part of Mark Quarry is IMO more seamless and unique than yet another Esoteric Lore rip-off.
I think you can't really get more specific than a lore that's used to identify monsters specifically, but that's me I guess.Monster Lore > Fiend Lore > Demon Lore > Balor Lore....there are plenty more specific tiers of lore.
Monster Lore is a class feature, so it kinda makes sense to consider it a stronger lore than any regular lore you get from a background.
Plus, RK is bad anyways so the whole thing about specific or not specific lores is honestly kinda bad as wel.
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I think you can't really get more specific than a lore that's used to identify monsters specifically, but that's me I guess.Monster Lore > Fiend Lore > Demon Lore > Balor Lore....there are plenty more specific tiers of lore.Monster Lore is a class feature, so it kinda makes sense to consider it a stronger lore than any regular lore you get from a background.
Plus, RK is bad anyways so the whole thing about specific or not specific lores is honestly kinda bad as wel.
Nah.
But also if they want it to explicitly count as a "specific lore for DC adjustment" they could literally just include that in the ability description. And could also go so far to say what they thought the appropriate adjustment was.
As it sits, even if a GM did agree it counted as a specific lore, the adjustment is up to the GM.
If a player really wanted to fight with me on it, I might give them a -1 to the DC for Monster Lore.
But the truth is, I see it as unspecific as Arcane or Nature or Religion. Those abilities all cover creatures in addition to other stuff. Monster Lore (and Bardic Lore, and Esoteric Lore) cover all creatures (and some more limited other stuff). They're not specific at all IMO.
Anyways, the whole idea for DC adjustments was to give the player something for spending a skill selection and or increase on these lore skills (that otherwise generally do nothing). Nobody really takes them for mechanical benefits, because there aren't really any to be found (outside of very specific cases, like taking Demon lore in a campaign all about fighting demons). Usually people end up with a lore from their background. Rarely have I seen someone spend a proficiency increase or even a normal skill selection on a lore skill, because there's almost no incentive to do so. The class provided lore skills are good, and also often don't cost much to obtain. And generally scale for free.
So no. I don't see any reason to make them any better than they already are. You get to recall knowledge against all creatures with a single skill.
Yes, generally speaking because of the systems of PF2 that means that assurance is generally a bad choice. That is true for pretty much all of your normal skills. I suggest not taking it, or any feats/abilities that provide that kind of benefit.
Plus, RK is bad anyways so the whole thing about specific or not specific lores is honestly kinda bad as wel.....You think recall knowledge is bad???
The way it's implemented in the rules is kind of bad, and most people end up house ruling it (sometimes not even realizing they're doing so) to make it less bad.
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The way it's implemented in the rules is kind of bad, and most people end up house ruling it (sometimes not even realizing they're doing so) to make it less bad.Plus, RK is bad anyways so the whole thing about specific or not specific lores is honestly kinda bad as wel.....You think recall knowledge is bad???
Ok, if that's what exequiel meant, I agree. I thought they meant it was bad to use in general.
Plus, RK is bad anyways so the whole thing about specific or not specific lores is honestly kinda bad as wel.....You think recall knowledge is bad???
In most situations it is.
If you are a martial it doesn't really matter if the enemy is weak to fire or cold damage because you can't deal either of them (at best you can deal two types of physical damage), and if you use Athletics maneuvers like grapple or trip the actions you are spending to RK could be used to attempt either of them and see for yourself. If you attempt to trip a foe, roll a 10, and still fail, its likely that the foe has a high Reflex save so you should switch to grapple. If you are a spontaneous caster its pretty much the same since you can't switch the spells you know on the fly, and for prepared casters it only matters if you know ahead of time what you are going to fight against, which is a thing that you'll notice most people are going to agree doesn't happen frequently due to all the discourse around Mark Quarry.
And that's ignoring the fact that normally RK requires you spend either tons of skill increases into multiple skills that don't even share the same attribute or skill feats to take campaign-specific Additional Lores, or that you can't make RK more than once without increasing the DC.
The only character I can think that universally wants a way to RK (other than thaumaturge, though this one already gets an innate way to do it) are bomber alchemists since they can switch the damage they deal on the fly, plus proc multiple instances of persistent damage through their bombs each turn. For everyone else RK is highly situational and in most cases you really aren't going to get information that's going to work unless you had a way to RK way before battle, and only if you play a specific class or build.
Edit: There's even proof that Paizo seems to agree with me, since recently it has become really common for classes to come bundled with a lore skill of some sorts, like the commander with Warfare Lore and the necromancer with undead lore. They know RK is a hassle and try to make it as easy as possible for people to be decent at it.
Ok, if that's what exequiel meant, I agree. I thought they meant it was bad to use in general.The way it's implemented in the rules is kind of bad, and most people end up house ruling it (sometimes not even realizing they're doing so) to make it less bad.Plus, RK is bad anyways so the whole thing about specific or not specific lores is honestly kinda bad as wel.....You think recall knowledge is bad???
Well, it is if you don't house rule into a better spot.
The only character I can think that universally wants a way to RK (other than thaumaturge, though this one already gets an innate way to do it) are bomber alchemists since they can switch the damage they deal on the fly, plus proc multiple instances of persistent damage through their bombs each turn. For everyone else RK is highly situational and in most cases you really aren't going to get information that's going to work unless you had a way to RK way before battle, and only if you play a specific class or build.
I would say casters benefit from it the most, but only on a couple items:
1) Learning the weakest save2) Learning any weaknesses
3) Learning any resistances
Whether prepared or spontaneous, you hopefully have access to spells that target fort, reflex, and will available to your character. Allowing you to do different things to the target. And hopefully you also have different energy/damage types available to you throughout those spells as well. (However actually doing this well takes a fair amount of system mastery.)
I would say learning what the enemy is most vulnerable to (with save) and which damage type they resist are important features, to help you avoid wasting spells that are unlikely to be effective. But outside of that, there's not much to gain.
Martial characters generally lack the capacity to substantially change how they can attack. At best switching between certain maneuvers.
I mean, I'd argue the "you have to learn spells to target all saves and types of damage" is another problem in and of itself (more so when a martial can choose to bonk and its going to bonk equally as good regardless of target, while a caster's already lower accuracy is more dependant on the target than on their skill to sling spells), but at that point this discussion is going to evolve into a "why Paizo hates casters" threads and we have millions of those already.
I'd actually argue the other way around funnily enough.
The main tool martial characters have is to bonk.
Regardless of whether or not the monster has low, moderate, high, or extreme AC martial characters are primarily going to bonk. They don't have too many other tools at their disposal.
It does create a higher barrier to be successful though. But it goes hand in hand with why casters don't get items to increase the DC of their spells or increase their spell attack rolls. Because casters are intended to choose the weakest from among those.
I suppose they could have gone with a simple generic "magic defense stat" and not have fort, reflex, or will saves and lumped it into one. Then you could make the value higher, and then also give casters those item bonuses. Of course then you basically just have martial attack vs NPC magic defense as a paradigm.
I'm not sure one is better or worse necessarily. But playing a caster does mean more work to make sure you're not "shooting yourself in the foot" by targeting high saves or hitting them with damage they resist.
I guess something I'd be interested to see is a very general comparison of martial to hit vs monster AC (by CR, with high low and median AC values) compared caster save DC vs monster save value (by CR, with high low and median save value).
In order for the current paradigm to be "fair" I would expect that the median attack roll required would be slightly lower than the required save roll (for their weakest save_. Meaning that monsters need to roll higher values to save (using their weakest save) against the spell DC compared to what martial characters need to roll to successfully attack. And we also technically need to look at expected damage per round. And factor in limited use (spell slots) vs unlimited use (martial attacks).
All of which honestly gets very complicated.
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DC adjustments are entirely within GM purview so strictly speaking yeah you could if you want adjust DCs for someone using a lore like monster or bardic... but the fact that they work so broadly kind of definitionally contradicts the idea that they're specific, doesn't it?I think something like this needs to be clarified and not left to GM discretion if they're giving out a class feature that's almost completely useless then.
In my experience, if I'm ever fighting anything that could be identified with Assurance, I've already encountered that type of creature plenty of times before and RK is a waste of game time. A slayer's check against their quarry in particular would always fail when using Assurance using a standard DC.
I agree with you: The only things that Assurance will work on are very easy. A pack of a LOT of creatures? Assurance is likely to identify them. Want to know generic information about dragons? Assurance should work because that's such a generally known topic that the DC by RAW be easier (or even a simple DC).
But against anything you'd really want to use it on, its not very useful on a generic lore like this. The only case I've seen it come in handy is as part of Gnome Obsession, because you can turn that into much more specific lores when you know what you're about to be doing and with the -5 applied Assurance is significantly more reliable. Also true for the oddball cases where you can use it to do something like Piloting/Sailing Lore or very specific research lores.
But just as something thrown as part of the class feature? I mean, that's effectively flavour that you know basic stuff about monsters reliably and gives you a mechanic to back that up. Assuming your GM understands that basic knowledge about well known classes of monsters should be relatively easy.
That or they need to clarify that broad lores still get a bare minimum lowered DC of -2.
Or that they don't get it. A clarification would be nice either way, but it's not a slam dunk case that a "literally every possible subject lore" gets any DC reduction for being specific, since by definition that's not even remotely specific.
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RK isn't just for you and your build, it's for the party and all its options. It's for choosing Whetstones, ammo, Versatile weapons, etc.
As well figure out which damage works best, I've had success asking about temperament to determine if we even need to fight or can parlay, feed, or back away safely.
Note I'm the one who posted the other thread denigrating Monster Lore as it is, so while I support RK, I don't think Slayer's RK ability works. The math's too poor and thematically it's unnecessary (and hopefully mechanically too!).