Let's FIX RECALL KNOWLEDGE in Pathfinder 2e (The Rules Lawyer)
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 24 июл 2024
- Recall Knowledge is too weak for players, and too unclear for game masters in Pathfinder 2e. Let's fix it!
===========================
As requested, a written summary of my houserules with regard to recalling knowledge about a creature:
(Keep a list of everyone's knowledge skill bonuses behind the GM screen.)
1. PC Recalls Knowledge on X, and may ask a specific question about it (i.e., does it have a weakness)? Rolls d20
2. GM applies one or more of that PC's skills to the d20 roll.
DC X for the question they answered (can be Simple DC or a Level-based DC appropriate to that question)
Level-based DC based on creature's Level, to completely identify the creature
Additionally:
-You can repeat a failed R.K. in combat, but not outside combat.
-PCs with R.K. feats like Monster Hunter, etc.: use the Level-based DC of the monster.
===========================
ADDITION: I also like this suggestion from a commenter on Reddit - "If a PC was Investigating as their exploration activity, they get one free Recall Knowledge at the start of combat."
0:00 Introduction
3:21 The Recall Knowledge action
5:31 Overview of the problems
6:56 #1: Using one skill
11:50 Problem situation
13:28 #2: Conflating IDing with asking questions
15:52 #3: DC fixed by level
18:35 #4: Repeat attempts hard or impossible
22:33 #5: The Critical Failure effect
25:52 #6: Unthematic weakening of core abilities
30:57 Dubious Knowledge
32:38 Learning the relative level of a creature
33:23 SUMMARY of house rules
37:03 Coming up!
Here is the Paizo thread I mention in the video:
paizo.com/threads/rzs43haa?Th...
Dreamy Flashback by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. creativecommons.org/licenses/...
Source: incompetech.com/music/royalty-...
Artist: incompetech.com/
===========================
LIKE & SUBSCRIBE! I'm a lawyer who teaches and runs tabletop RPGs (Pathfinder, D&D, Starfinder) for kids and teens, making videos and hosting events related to TTRPGs and board games.
JOIN THE DISCORD to join our community and The Endless Tale Tavern PF2e campaign! / discord
SUPPORT THE RULES LAWYER PATREON!
/ theruleslawyer
For extended-form actual plays, SUBSCRIBE to my other channel, "RULES LAWYER DISCORD COMMUNITY CHANNEL" :
/ @theruleslawyerliveplay
Follow me on TWITTER at: / theruleslawyer1
LEARN PATHFINDER 2E! From The Rules Lawyer:
BEGINNER BOX Demonstration + Review: • REVIEW + DEMONSTRATION...
It's Easy to Learn! A First Combat: • Pathfinder 2nd Edition...
Character Creation - A Breakdown: • Understand Character C...
A Second Combat: • Martials and clerics a...
Tactics & Strategies to Beat Pathfinder 2e's Tough Fights, Part 1: • This Ain't D&D: Tactic...
Tactics & Strategies, Part 2: • Let's Test the "Illusi...
All Pathfinder 2e rules are FREE!
2e.aonprd.com/
pf2easy.com/
Pick up your Pathfinder 2e book on Amazon using my affiliate links below. As an Amazon Affliate, I earn from qualifying purchases which helps me continue doing what I love!
Pathfinder 2e Core Rulebook: amzn.to/3BiFCSj
Pathfinder 2e Beginner Box: amzn.to/3eVsUBB 
Игры
On a crit fail, you learn something inaccurate, but as soon as it's proven inaccurate the GM also provides the name of the person you learned the wrong detail from and where they live
I love the idea of a cleric finding this massive tome, opening it, and the only contents are "DO NOT CONFUSE THE BONE DEVIL WITH THE UNDEAD!"
And you KNOW that the cleric licks their finger before turning pages.
>A spooky incorporeal creature floats through a wall and casts a spell at your party.
"What is this thing, GM?"
>Rolls, success!
"It's a ghost mage. What you know about it is that it is incorporeal and can cast magic."
"No *duh,* GM."
That GM is doing their party a disservice. In that case I'd ask the player what additional info they wanted: strongest save, weakest save, defenses, offensive abilities, etc. and give them one. Further successes with recall knowledge can yield more information.
@@xczechr Agreed. I'd even hazard a guess that the GM is from a WOTC source, where wanting information about a monster is extremely frowned upon.
"It's a level 10 ghost mage, with powerful spells." Because it could have been "a level 4 ghost mage apprentice", that can cast magic missile as its big whammy! Or maybe a Spectre Mage, or just a straight-up Mage who (spell, item, power, whatever) was able to move incorporeally for a moment. ID'ing the creature is very useful.
In this context, the parts are more valuable than the whole. As a DM, I'd either ask if they want insight on how ghosts work, or how that person worked, or how mages work. A team that already faced ghosts two billion times can just assume how ghosts work, in their case it's more useful if they can identify who the ghost was, what kinds of spells they may cast and how potent those will be, what faction they may have belonged to and what values they might uphold.
A bit late to the party, but for anyone wondering, PF2e actually goes out of its way to make sure this doesn't happen!
According to the rules on Recall Knowledge: *"You might know basic information about something without needing to attempt a check, but Recall Knowledge requires you to stop and think for a moment so you can recollect more specific facts and apply them."*
So for the example given, the character would already know that the creature is able to pass through walls and cast spells; depending on the GM they might also be able to infer that the creature passes through the wall because it's incorporeal (rather than having a Burrow speed, or moving through as the one-off effect of a spell) based on context clues like whether the wall is disturbed or whatnot. So maybe one piece of information will be that the creature is incorporeal, the fact that it can cast spells definitely shouldn't be something the GM uses as one of the tidbits they give out!
You know, we're starting to take all these Anti Recall Knowledge videos personally!
If you want a war... you'll get one!
Haha, Recall Knowledge vs. Rules Lawyer, how fitting!
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG It's truly a battle for the ages
I typically run it by
1. Telling them the skill im asking for(normally 2-3 skills)
2. Asking them what they are trying to find out
3. Allowing as many attempts as they want. (They are in combat, actions are valuable, it seems like a fair trade)
having not even realized exactly how the RAW rules for recall knowledge I've gotta give props to my DM. he's always allowed me to say "I want to recall knowledge on it, thinking about it's resistances and weaknesses" and has let me know whether it seems "more occult" or "equally arcane and occult" and stuff like that when i have multiple applicable skills. maybe giving a bit much, but it's still hard to get a success against stronger foes.
As requested, a written summary of my houserules with regard to recalling knowledge about a creature:
(Keep a list of everyone's knowledge skill bonuses behind the GM screen.)
1. PC Recalls Knowledge on X, and may ask a specific question about it (i.e., does it have a weakness)? Rolls d20
2. GM applies one or more of that PC's skills to the d20 roll.
DC X for the question they answered (can be Simple DC or a Level-based DC appropriate to that question)
Level-based DC based on creature's Level, to completely identify the creature
Additionally:
-You can repeat a failed R.K. in combat, but not outside combat.
-PCs with R.K. feats like Monster Hunter, etc.: use the Level-based DC of the monster.
ADDITION: I also like this suggestion from a commenter on Reddit - "If a PC was Investigating as their exploration activity, they get one free Recall Knowledge at the start of combat."
I would even allow recall knowledge as an initiative check if it fits
This is a nice video, the only problem with your explaination is that I believe you can redo the initial recall as often as you like by RAW. The recall knowledge action itself does not give you a limit like make an impression or demoralize has. The additional knowledge rule on on thebother hand, is a seperate but connected rule as I see it. It only states that after an initial succes subsequent roles are at higher difficulty and if you fail during said roles it will exhaust your knowledge. It does not state what you can do or not do after an initial failure.
Besides, it is quite difficult to get additional knowledge if you do not have starting/baseline knowledge. Besides this, a critical failure does give you "knowledge", so how would a character know that their knowledge is exhausted (unless you see failure and critical failure as different in this sense)?
As in game reason you can give that trying to remember somthing while a dragon opens his mouth with something glowing inside may not do favors on your concentration
So, they're fighting a plant creature and are wondering if it's weak to fire. they roll a d20, you add modifiers and compare it to a DC. if they hit the Simple DC, you give them an answer to the fire question and if they hit the Level Based DC, you completely ID the creature? What does "completely ID" mean here? Sorry I'm still a bit confused. Thanks for the video.
@@mrmanifestoI think "completely ID" would be giving them the name of the creature as well as the info that was asked about
Great video man. This is a pretty important topic. RK was literally one of the main things that made me leave a table. Played a spellcaster and the GM was obscenely stingy about RK, and got a serious kick out of giving false information that was truly detrimental on critical fails. It was so skewed towards being useless at best and horribly punishing at worst, that I just stopped making knowledge checks altogether. And flying totally blind in every fight as a spell caster is very un-fun. Also made the adventure boring. Every room was just a sack of hitpoints with different shaped fangs. We knew nothing about what we were fighting. The world building was awful without knowledge checks.
I tend to be very generous with knowledge checks at my table. A GM I play under once said that withholding information from the players is, more often than not, counter productive for everyone involved. To make tactical choices, players need information to form their tactics around. Give them information. And often times one of the easiest ways to help add flavor and occasion to the combat is to give players the fine details of what horrible things their current opponent is capable of and known for. I can show you the picture of the night hag and you can just go beat it up as if it were a bear in the woods. And you'll never know why it was here in the first place. Or I could tell you night hags like to manipulate your dreams, give you nightmares, and steal souls to sell off for greater power. And that it probably has 2 friends nearby that wont take this lightly. PLEASE. PLEASE make knowledge checks players. I want to give you all the juicy details. It's half the fun of being GM.
@Minandreas I totally agree. As a long-time (30+ years) GM, I want to share all the cool things. And since PF2e literally has a "tell me the cool things, please!" button, I want the players to push it. Especially since I tend to homebrew (read "75% steal from adjacent game systems") most foes the players face, they will want to know that *this* Stone Giant ("Hey, GM, what's with the Giant's weird tattoos?") can make the very rocks around them explode into shrapnel clouds!
"I want to preface that by saying that people who come from other... RPG systems... should not houserule PF2e willy-nilly!"
It's okay, you can say 5e :P
I hedge by default because hm, maybe there are other systems that the statement could apply to, including old-school D&D. But you're right in that this does address the *vast* majority of habitual houserulers!
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG I mean, that's why you're a lawyer. You're not making defamatory statements willy-nilly.
I think pathfinder combat for newbies especially is already difficult. I think encouraging recall knowledge as an alternative to say making an extra attack by giving the players a decent amount of practical information is good practice, especially for newer players who need all the help they can get being encouraged to invest in feats/gameplay that alters more than their attacks or spells.
Yeah, the notoriously high DCs for RK on unique or higher level bosses are really not fun imo. I like your approach of having a more gradual success structure, where even a comparably low result gives you information that you would have gotten about a weaker or more common creature of the same type.
I also never even considered that the player would have to choose the skill blindly, taking it instead to be obvious that the secret check would automatically be made with whatever gave them the best chance of success. Otherwise it's just a catch 22, they would need to recall knowledge in order to know what to recall knowledge about. That's just strange, unfun and not at all how trying to recognize something works generally.
In defense of RAW, they do say to "adjust the DC downward, perhaps even drastically, for especially famous or notorious monsters". So in the example TRL gives, knowing that "big red dragon breaths fire" would probably be a very low DC, perhaps even comically low like DC 5-10 or something. Meanwhile, if the monster is a high level demon that's never been seen on the material plane before, the DC would be much higher and you would likely have to design the encounter so that the players are mostly forced to flee initially and do research on what it is they're up against.
That's a pretty minor nitpick compared to the huge number of excellent points this video makes. I would like to see recall knowledge strengthened/made easier in general. The example given just wasn't the best.
My way to encourage players to use recall knowledge was to introduce them to fighting with golems. Those baddies are really, really tough if you don't know what works on them. Plus, if some of the players rolls really bad at RK, I just give them some weird, funny or painfully obvious hint. Like when they fought female fire elememental and ranger rolled natural 2 on d20: "You noticed she is REALLY hot". Or fighting with wargs on nat 1: "you see it has four paws". So my players even when they botch the roll, they get something in return and they don't feel they wasted precious action.
Yes, giving painfully obvious info or ludicrous info is a great signal that they've feeled and a moment of levity at the table. And yes, golems are a *great* way to encourage the use of R.K.!
can confirm, we had fights against this creatures for a particular section of our game and we would be death on arrival if we didn't know its weakness beforehand (one of them was a +3 encounter and it was critical that we had that advantage, thank your smart boys in party, knowledge IS a weapon).
This is a difficult topic. Thank you for covering it.
I usually have players roll RK publicly. They will typically know if they fail or critically fail. I give them false and somewhat comical information on a critical failure and allow the player to choose how to act on that information.
Also, I give different information based on what skill the player uses. A Society check against a Sea Hag might remind the player of stories or folklore about the creature and their ability to grant bargains. A Nature check might reveal their coven spells. An Occult check might reveal their Dread Gaze ability.
I also let players RK as much as they won't without penalty.
I played an Investigator with Known Weakness. I didn't mind that the bonus was only a +1 because I basically got it for free on an action that I would do anyway.
Ok, that's my 2 cents.
Good stuff. There is no "one right way" to run it as long as it's fun, and feels worth it and competitive with other one-action actions.
Would need a way to prevent "I RK again" on the same thing over and over meanwhile
Known Weakness and Pursue a Lead were the two biggest reasons I quit playing my investigator. It's so annoying getting an automatic recall knowledge every turn. I gotta get DM arbitration every turn after my first action before I can do my second action. It sucks. I would just skip RK checks because it was annnoying. I also ended up getting bored of maintaining my leads. Not a fun mechanic. My rogue is better.
This was a really useful deep-dive for me. I still haven't played much 2e, but when I do, it's in the organized play format, so "house rules" are technically not allowed. I'm always interested in best practices and clarification like this. Great work, thank you very much. I would love to see something like this about Exploration Mode!
Homebrew videos are always a gamble, but I think your expertise really shows here.
Really appreciate you digging into this topic! Helped to cement my own thoughts on the topic. :)
Some good stuff here.
I’ve been allowing my players to choose what skill they want to use for RK checks, and provide information based on the skill used.
ie. If they are fighting a dragon, an arcana check would talk the most about their magical nature, but a religion check may reveal information about world views and tactics/abilities that may revolve around that, and so on. The DC might be a little higher or lower, depending on the information.
If it wasn’t apparent, I like to mix in some lore into the information gathered.
For instance, one of my groups recently came across a group of Gugs, and discovered their odd wariness of ghouls, on top of some crunchy bits.
I was working on a RK knowledge rewrite myself, where there’s a new metacurrency called knowledge points. You earn them with a success, or 2x on a crit. You can do a 3 action version to double results. Crit fails prevent you from trying again on that target.
Then, I am aiming to codify what PCs can spend these knowledge points on. One very valuable use I want to test is “Anticipate Tactics”, costing 2KP, and gives players the ability to ask the GM what the creature will do next. Enables a loremaster/tactician style of play.
Unused KPs in an encounter are converted to more “exploration mode” information at the end of the encounter, so you would still get useful information.
Still need to do the legwork on how that interfaces with recall knowledge feats.
Sounds useful. Keep us posted on how those work! When you get a chance to see the vid, lemme know what you think about my proposals as well!
If you ever finished this work, I'd be interested in seeing it. And in knowing how ti actually played at the table. How often are RK checks being made, are "KPs" easy to get, easy to track, and easy to use?
Thanks, this really helped me out. Keep up all the good work!
Another problem I have with Recall Knowledge RAW is feats like Magus’s Analysis that trigger on a successful Recall Knowledge check. If the player isn’t able to know whether or not they succeeded or Crit-failed(since they don’t know the difference based on the info the GM gives them), how do they or the GM know if that Feat will trigger or not?
Cause if it doesn’t trigger, they’ll know they Crit-Failed.
Good to hear this before GMing my first PF sesh tonight. Thanks!
You covered this very well. I've never seen it talked about. I run into the same issues as you described when I play D&D 5e when players want to learn about a monster or other aspect of the game.
Thank you. I agree the GM should be interpreting an reinterpreting the rules in a way that makes them functional at their table. Nice video. Looking forward to the exploration mode video.
Great video, you make alot of good points and fixes.
I find that many issues like this can be discovered and resolved by talking it out with the players. Any time a game mechanic is causing disappointment to this degree of, "Well, I'll just avoid doing that again forever" just talk it out and come up with something that makes it fun and useful.
What a fun and astute deep dive into approaches for Recall Knowledge
Great job Ronald, this is an articulate analysis of the Recall Knowledge (RK) rules and how to fix them. I imagine your career has gotten you used to some ambiguous laws written as a feature, rather than a bug, to allow for open interpretation of some laws. Copyright laws, I hear, can be fairly ambiguous to accommodate the variety of situations it covers.
From your video, I love, LOVE, the idea of rolling once and comparing it to both the creature DC to identify and a GM picked DC for a topic. I don’t know how I would roll that up into my system but I want to play with that idea.
The way I run it at my table. I try to encourage RK rolls so I have buffed it quite a bit. You can reroll as much as you like in combat. RK can get you 4 pieces of information;
Damage Block: Resistances, immunities, weaknesses they get all at once for one roll. This is the most often called for piece of information, so I just threw them all together to make the first RK roll impactful.
1-2 aspects of Defense information: Saving throw array, special defense moves/tactics, etc.
1-2 aspects of Offense information: special moves, abilities, creature’s strategy, etc.
or a contextual clue or hint: an insignia that suggests the enemy works for or against the evil baron; behavior that suggests the enemy is just hungry and will leave if this isn’t an easy meal, will fight to the death, will flee at sign of trouble, is intelligent and can be reasoned with, etc. I like having a set of contextual clues that ties each enemy they face to the greater narrative or the area. Forces me as a GM to make each encounter tie to the story and not “just an encounter”.
Crit fail gets them no information
Fail gets them one contextual clue or hint
Success gets 1 of any chosen piece of information plus a contextual clue/hint
Crit success gets 2 of any chosen piece of information plus a very revealing contextual clue/hint
Dubious knowledge I haven’t worked with yet, oddly no one at my tables have taken it yet… but I love the comment from "shem / Itamar Curiel" on here, that is great advice.
Keep up the great work! You are one of my favorite PF2e RUclipsrs :)
FINALLY!! I am so glad you’re on this topic this week, I have been adjusting my own HB for Recall Knowledge and I’m making progress but still a bit unsatisfied.
What does HB mean?
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG Homebrew, I think
I have a bard with bardic lore and it has been so incredibly helpful at letting us know why weird stuff is happening, and what things enemies are resistant to. We had a boss fight and I had a crit success of bardic lore so the dm just told us everything. I love it so much I made a mastermind rogue in the other game I’m playing, and I’m gonna take the loremaster archetype so I can be even better at it. It’s a great though underrated action (I mainly took bardic lore as a bard because no one else in the party would do it lol). HOWEVER, I do think how good recall knowledge is is GM dependent and the wording is a little vague in the actual rules. GMs should be willing to do it.
Also my DM always tells me which skill to use for recall knowledge.
Also when failures have happened, I think we just get nothing, not fake info (though I don’t think we’ve had a crit failure yet so idk how that would be handled).
Been a while since I recalled a video this good!
I tell my party a list of skills or lores they can use to recall knowledge. When the party succeeds, I give them some information on lore for the creature and a choice of any one mechanical piece of information (lowest save, highest weakness, resistances, etc.). On a crit success, I'll add deeper lore and allow two mechanical choices. That PC has then recalled all the knowledge they can. Subsequent checks rolled by other PCs follow the same rules, but require a +2 DC each time. On a failure or critical failure, no information is recalled and no changes to DC occur for any PC. The check may be freely rolled again by anyone.
I find this works great and do something very similar myself.
Thank you very from from someone who is brand new to PF2e and will be DMing this weekend!
This may sound strange, but I recommend using rules closer to pathinder 1st edition in this case. The way I like to run this is:
- If the check reaches 10 they know the type of creature, if the plyer used the wrong skill they can retry with the correct one immediately without wasting an action
- Lower the check. If the check succeeds give the players general information about the thing, like its name and characteristics. If the player succeeds by more than the bare minimum you reveal a weakness or a strength for every 2 to 5 (depending on rarity) points they surpassed the check by. Don't allow repeat checks, as they aren't needed when using this rule.
- If not in combat recall knowledge should bsically be free actions
- No secret rolls. I know when I don't know crap about something. If the player critically misses and you tell them fake information they already know that something is wrong. To make things fun you can give them a piece of actual true information, as maybe they heard incomplete information about the monster
Thank you sir, this was very helpful. I'm building my own game system and hadn't thought about in battle lore checks, again thank you.
Thanks! You make some good points here - we'll probably adopt these houserules in our games going forward.
One thing I feel might need some additional guidance is for setting the scope of valid questions that players can pose when they use Recall Knowledge. It doesn't seem reasonable to ask "what damage type is this creature most weak to" if you don't actually know what sort of creature it is - it's Recall Knowledge, not Make Intuitive Leap or Read GM's Mind.
The Ghost Mage seems like a good example - the player has inferred or learned that the creature they're fighting is incorporeal, and so they ask "how can we damage incorporeal creatures?" If you really don't know what you're facing, you might need to attempt the check to simply identify the creature first (or maybe its broad type, like "it's some sort of demon") before you can start asking questions about the known weaknesses of such creatures.
This vid was a while ago, but I usually allow identifying a creature AND asking a question for a single success
on my table I do it like this:
- if the PC is trained in a skill that is related to the monster, and he wants to use recall knowledge to know more about it, I will tell him for example "as you are trained in religion you know this creature is some kind of undead, roll the religion recall knowledge check". That covers the issue of players wasting actions using the wrong skill.
- When the PC is successful in Recall Knowledge I tell him what the creature is and a brief description about it. Also, they can make 2 questions about anything on the creature's sheet. If it is a critical success they can ask 4 questions instead of 2.
I think it is simple and good enough to serve as a viable option in combat.
I’ve lurked on PF2E ever since it’s first play tests showed years ago, but never actually got o play.
I’ve always imagined that Recall Knowledge could be a DM reward for getting into the roleplay of the game. So for example, giving details about previous actions or behaviors of an enemy that gives circumstance bonuses.
For example, a bandit attacks and you RK, and the DM tells you on a Success “The bandit has a sneer as if a braggart before striking.” and on a Crit Success “The bandit flourishes his sword before he strikes.”
Then giving circumstance bonuses to a character’s AC or Reflex against the bandit’s first strike. Success could be till the start of your next turn and Crit Success fir a few turns.
Or better, with that knowledge, you gain a circumstance bonus to a Ready reaction.
For example, with the bandit, you can Ready a reaction to Raise Shield when the bandit strikes (whether you or another). It increases that AC bonus for that Raise a Shield by an additional 1. Or by successfully RK the bandit now has a -1 circ status to AC from a Ready reaction you use till the start of its turn. So you know the bandit flourished their sword before they strike, so you Ready a Disarm strike against them.
Or a Hag you recall knowledge on. You notice a hideous cackle before she casts a spell. The character gets a circumstance bonus to saves against that spell.
I just imagine that RK would be fun to a player being told things that they can counter play against to make combat feel more dynamic.
Or it’s a bad idea and a reason I’m not qualified to play the game.
Love this idea
I skimmed the top few comments, but... Please move the camera a bit so you face is the middle of the screen. Thank you. Your insight on game design and spirit of the rule/law is amazing. keep up the great work.
I tend to give characters a general grouping of knowledge from the idea that adventurers exist, and they talk. This is in general things like; giant flying lizards are resistant to the energy matching their scale color, weird monsters that's wounds seal need to be hit with fire, multi headed things need to burn, transparent things need to be hit with magical sources.
Then I allow multiple rolls for a separate reasons, when you look at something you can see certain things about it that may show what it can or can't do, on top of your knowledge banks.
And I have it tiered, so there is a basic check level for the monster type, then another for the class of monster, and then another for the unique part of it. Ghost mage may go low DC to know it is a ghost, mid for knowing the spellcasting part, and then high for its performed attack if applicable.
The GM that is currently running the campaign I'm in and I both agree that it's bad practice to "announce" what skill (especially knowledge) a player is using when trying to find information about something. We agree that it takes away from the verisimilitude of the session and, also, we agree with the statement that a player will "recall all of their skills at once" when performing a knowledge check. We believe that it should be up to the GM to determine what skill to roll against, whether that roll is done by the player or the GM in secret. It's the GM's job to run the game, let them do it!
I also throw in the occasional free check for *specific* knowledge related to an interaction, such as figuring out if the reason their attack didn't do much damage is damage *type* DR (slashing, piercing, etc), or material based DR (like 10/admantium).
I know the video itself says not to homebrew but an interesting idea came to me and I kinda wanted to gauge reactions on. What if recall knowledge gave the players multiple yes/no questions they could ask to learn specific info on the monster? simple in execution, and it will make the power of recall knowledge consistent from table to table without a lengthy rules description of exactly how much info the players get.
Here's an example of how this could be implemented:
crit success: as success, and you gain a +1 circumstance bonus to checks and DCs against the type of creature until the start of your next turn.
success: you may ask 3 yes/no questions about the creature and gain one piece of info the GM thinks is relevant to your situation.
fail: You may ask 2 yes/no questions about the creature.
crit fail: no effect
this keeps the power level of recall knowledge consistent across tables (which would be a godsend for society play) and allows for lots of flexibility in the info you get. You can be as specific (is the creature resistant or immune to fire) or as general (does the creature have any energy resistances, weaknesses, or immunities?) as you like, and can even spend multiple questions honing in on info a la "hot and cold".
This even makes dubious knowledge easy to implement, just make it give an extra question for each tier, but on a crit fail the GM says its a fail but gives the opposite answer on one of the 3 (was 2) questions, way easier on the GM and way less varaible. Hell a player could even ask the same question twice to ensure they're getting good info.
When I first saw RK I thought it's fun in RAW.
But as I've learned more about PF2e and mostly about 3 action economy I start not to like it.
I like the idea of the RK but I don't like the mechanics and how it reflects the "reality in game".
Also it's theoretically "punishing" new players as they don't know much about system and monsters, but the veterans won't even use RK for most cases as they know that for example Skeletons are weak to Bludgeon damage, Trolls have Regeneration canceled by Acid and Fire etc.
1-3 are in fact addressed in RAW:
1: "General skill actions are skill actions that can be used with multiple different skills. When you use a general skill action, you might use your modifier from any skill that lists it as one of the skill’s actions, depending on the situation." p. 234
2: "You might know basic information about something without needing to attempt a check, but Recall Knowledge requires you to stop and think for a moment so you can recollect more specific facts and apply them. You might even need to spend time investigating first."
pp. 238-239
3: "Remember that all of these are guidelines, and you can adjust them as necessary to suit the situation." p. 504
4 and 5 are about epistemology, not game rules. If you want to argue with metaphysics, you can take it up with a philosopher.
I'm willing to concede that having temporary mechanical effects tied to a critical success on a recall knowledge check is an issue - with the caveat that those small, temporary, rare bonuses are meant to be small, temporary, and rare. You're not supposed to depend on them. You're not supposed to build your entire strategy around getting lucky.
For the first problem another solution the gm say as result, after the religion check, that the monster is not a undead. So at least you get as a result knowing it's not the monster type you imagined.
I think that's a good solution
Yeah we also homebrewed this but it is great for a 1st action for a caster, followed by two action spell.
In PF1e, every character i made and played improved my abilities as a DM and game designer.
i made a Lore Warden / Student of War with the Kirin Style martial art. The 1st round of combat for me was generally making 3 knowlege checkx to gain a huge statistical advantage in the fight, and learn anything and everything i could use.
I liked the playstyle so much that i use it's benefits more in later versions of D&D.
To emphasize recognizing foes through interaction, homebrew a skill action reaction to new information entering the field. When the monster demonstrates a special ability (or when more goblins enter the battle), allow PCs with relevant RK skills to use their reaction to nullify previous RK fails (if any) while boosting RK roll results during their next turn. This boost should use the crit fails are fails, successes are crits model.
I don't know why the bestiary/classes/skills didn't have RK examples.
I think it sucks to roll RK to figure something out... when you could test it immediately after.
Like, "I want to know if the dragon has any resistances!"
Rolls and fails, "You don't seem to remember if it does."
Casts fireball, "it seems really effective!"
"... Gee, thanks GM. 🤨"
That's a good point. I think a reason R.K. is underused is that it's better to try to stab something than to recall whether you can stab it! Lol. Hence the idea of giving a "2 for 1" deal in my houserule.
Hi Ronal! First of all, I love your videos, keep doing this amazing work. My group has talked about how bad is the talismans. They are too much specific in its use, have just one use and sometimes are expensives. Most of time the players prefer use their actions to diferent things rather than interact and activate a talisman. I realy liked to know what you think aboute them. Are they realy a bad choice of itens in combat? Or they could be useful somehow? Thanks!
11:37 that's how our GM goes about it, if you succeed on the wrong check, you know enough about the topic to recognise that you're out of your field
My personal Houserule:
1. Players can ask question what them want to know about creature. Most of time they doesn't want to check lore behind it or ability of creture, them more intrested on AC, Saves, HP or Level of creature. And AC is open info after first attacks.
2. Most time I'm not give an "false info" on critical failure. It's not so simple to provide truth-like info on the fly.
3. NEVER increase RK DC.
Also, I'm thinking about giving Free-RK roll or Reaction on initiative roll to check RK about enemies,
I love the tips! Have you compared recall knowledge to the Bard's Combat Reading? It seems as through there's several half-hearted fixes for Recall Knowledge - hopefully we'll get to a point where it's fun and worth using!
Ah! You prompted me to look at. Yeah, it looks like the way many players *want* Recall Knowledge to work. At first glance my houserules would seem to invalidate, but Combat Reading does allow you to use Occultism for everything so that's good. Maybe with my houserules I'd buff it a bit to account for the fact that I allow PCs to get the questions in C.R. answered by default (e.g., get +1 pieces of the listed pieces of information).
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG to clarify, I meant to say that it seems like there were several attempts (by Paizo!) to fix Recall Knowledge. I love watching your stuff and keep putting out great content!
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG Can you clarify, like *specifically* how Combat Reading and RK would work, knowing about both now?
Admittedly, I am new to PF2e, but I really like the way that the live-play group "Narrative Declaration" does it, where the player specifies what skill, lore, feature, or part about their backstory lets them know about the creature/hazard/whatever, and then giving them knowledge about it if they succeed the relevant check.
How I would run the bone devil is: You remember your undead lore professor beating it into your head that "just because something is made of bones doesn't make it undead"! Here are some common bone creatures, and here are some helpful tidbits about them. This guy is immune to fire. Ok, now class, let's return to the actual undead.
I think this is both flavor friendly, as there is a specific way each character learned about each enemy, you don't just magically learn it from getting the T instead of U on your skill, and mechanics friendly, as you can learn about specific aspects of the enemy. A fighter who trained at the Academy of Blades could tell that an enemy is nowhere near agile enough to catch them offguard if they're moving (low reflex save, no attack of opportunity), even if that enemy isn't a type that they studied. Similarly, a cleric who devoted their life to Sarenrae might not be able to tell about the reflex save or attack of opportunity, but mught be able to discover a weakness to fire damage or something
Is there the equivalent of Insight in PF? I could see a system where the player can first make an optional public insight-style check to discern the creature type (with a DC based on the rarity of the creature), and then chooses which skill to use for the secret recall knowledge check (all as one action)
Dubious Knowledge is my favorite skill feat. It's also a GM's least favorite skill feat.
Also, Recall Knowledge being so up to interpretation makes it difficult in Society play.
for every 3 trained skills they have that might apply, roll an additional dice.
for every expert level skill among those 3 roll an additional dice.
etc.
One thing I like with Dubious Knowledge, if the player is asking specifically for a damage vulnerability/resistance: “You know that this creature is either resistant or vulnerable to XXX damage, but you’re not sure which.”
Did an Exploration video ever drop? Searching your channel hinted at no such thing, but I'd love that.
I like this video I have made a character there only run on recall knowledge. Bardic Lore + Unmistakable Lore + Dubious Knowledge is hilarious I always know something true about a subject.
IDK I think that we're not specific enough with regard to "most well-known" piece of information about a creature. We seem to be thinking the most well-known piece of information is the trait shared among all creatures with a specific trait and not the specific creature. Like, we know ghost commoners and ghost mages are ghosts, so we shouldn't be giving information about ghosts in general, rather we should be giving the most "well-known" piece of information specific to a particular creature, either the ghost mage or the ghost commoner.
One thing that's helped Recall Knowledge that is within the core rules is the Investigate exploration activity which lets players focus on Recall Knowledge for their out-of-combat activity before initiative is rolled. What I allow players to do that I feel is within the rules is Recall Knowledge on potential enemies before going into Initiative unless the players are surprised. There are specific archetype feats like Investigate Haunting that allow for out-of-combat rolls on Spirits to give guidance towards the interpretation that the Investigate exploration activity helps players save an action towards RK on potential combatants.
A GM could even let a player Investigating roll Initiative with their Recall Knowledge skill though that is going to House Rule territory since RK is normally a secret check and Initiative is a public roll but I don't think it's a large stretch and helps with saving an action that feels more appealing to players.
I do believe I am within the minority (at least from my last RK discussion on Reddit) that I feel that since RK is a secret check that the interpretation when a player says they use a RK action, the GM just picks the best skill for the player to roll secretly on that check. The player doesn't have to state the skill to attempt. It helps address the "gameyness" of the 1 skill problem you mentioned. Their character is just "Recalling Knowledge" and you can help determine the best skill and it feels more natural when they misidentify a creature when it wasn't just "They used the wrong skill"
I like the idea of free Recall Knowledge when initiative is rolled and they were Investigating!
I looked up Investigate Haunting and that's true. But it's a bit annoying that the imply something that isn't hinted at at all in previous materials: even the Gamemastery Guide's tip on running the Investigate exploration activity makes no mention of this free R.K. check.
I do *not* think you're in the minority in wanting people to access all their relevant skills for an R.K. check, and for Investigate. Though as written, in the CRB both *do* point to using 1 skill (hence it is a houserule)
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG I do still have them roll 1 skill secretly for the check. The difference is the player doesn't need to guess which skill to use very similar to your suggestion in the video. They state they use the Recall Knowledge action and I secretly roll using the most applicable skill/lore for them. This helps protect information like the creature being demonically corrupted and so Religion is being rolled. If the Religion check is successful then the character managed to realize the creature has the demon trait but no meta knowledge from Religion being rolled.
If using the RK skill for initiative, it's going to be public and they would know the skill being used for sure in that case, but for the general RK action, I've been running it as the player just says they use the RK action in general and not having to state the specific skill. That being said, I do also have a houserule that players can't critically fail a RK check if they are rolling untrained. I like to think a character untrained in a skill will generally get the sense the knowledge is beyond them rather than presume something incorrect with certainty. Like a farmer claiming they know clockwork technology.
Our group uses recall knowledge like it’s shown in Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous, if you suceed you get your choice of one stat off the stat block, and if you fail you get nothing
I feel the like the solution to this problem should be to tag all creatures with 1 "lore" tag, which determine what lore skill can be used to recall knowledge about them. There should be a free action to look at the creature and asses it's general "category" which the tells the player what lore check applies. Then, PC's who are trained in that lore skill can attempt a recall knowledge check against the creature using the appropriate lore skill. Finally, there is a "scale of understanding" for the creature, which goes unknown -> familiar -> understood. Unknown means the PC knows nothing about the creature. Familiar means they know some things about it (AC? Max HP? Special actions?), and finally understood means they know the full stat block. Creatures start at unknown, and successful recall knowledge rolls bump this up one level, crits bump it up 2 levels and a failure means it doesn't move up. Players can keep a track of this state for each creature type they encounter, so they can RP going forwards in the game.
So i have a crazy idea for a change to recall knowledge, you could do something similar to stages of a disease or poisons
So something like
Stage 1 - name and lore fluff
Stage 2 - Saving throws, it's best, medium and worst
Etc.
The action successes could be
Critical success - You increase your knowledge stage by 2
Success - You increase your knowledge stage by 1
Failure - nothing
Critical failure - the next Recall knowledge action you used against this creature has a -2 circumstance penalty
Dubious knowledge could then be changed to something like
When you fail, but do not critically fail a Recall knowledge check, you can choose to increase your knowledge stage by 1, however due to the dubious nature of where you gain this knowledge in the first place you are unsure on the veracity of of your sources, you take a -2 circumstance penalty to your next recall knowlegde check
i don't know if this this would work, what do people think?
This rule is also spread across three different places which makes it really hard to learn as a gm especially when there seems to be two different ways to determine it's DC.
When I started running PF2e I also had a problem with monster lore. So I decided to make a little modified chart. (Though now watching your video, I'd consider comparing the check against the monster itself, and the lowest level version that the PCs would know about (Example: Ghost vs Ghost mage) if it seems appropriate to do so.)
Anyway, I am in no way a rules master and my players don't seem to care TOO much to give me any real feedback on it, so good or bad, here's what I got:
Monster Identification Chart
Setting DC: Use Level DC modified by Monster Rarity.
Compare results of check to chart below and give them the level of knowledge they achieved and every result below. (Example: If PC rolled 10 or more above the assigned DC, give them everything they would know about this monster.)
----------------------------------
Incredibly Hard (+10): Deep Lore; This is the creature's Ecology, Society, Organization, Detailed Creation Myths, and anything a scholar or fanatic may know about the specific creature and species.
Very Hard: (+5): Offensive Abilities; This is all of the offensive abilities as known by the intellectual community.
Hard: (+2 DC): Defensive Abilities; This is all of the defensive abilities as known by the intellectual community.
Normal: Most Famous Aspects About Creature, Perception Types, Commonly Known Locations (if applicable), If it has Been Known To Speak. Basically anything a studied person might know without specifically fighting or researching said creature.
Easy (-2 DC): Creature Name and Type (if not obvious), You can accurately identify what type of creature it is.
Very Easy (-5 DC): Creature Type (if obvious), Example: You see a shambling corpse with meat hanging off of it. You can't quite tell if it's a zombie or a skeleton, but you can guess it's undead.
Incredibly Easy (-10 DC): Erroneous Information. (Only if they critically failed the check.)
Adjustments
Pertinent Lore Skill scores the next higher on the chart. Slightly applicable Lore skills scores one lower on the chart.
A Natural 20 grants the next higher on the chart, while a Nat 1 pushes the result one lower on the chart.
I like your chart!
@@frederickcoen7862 Appreciate it! I still reference it from time to time when one of my players decides to actually play a knowledgeable character or remembers they can make recall knowledge checks.
How I would run it: A player wants to know information about something. I ask them to clarify what exactly they're trying to learn. (What is it? What are its weaknesses? Etc.) Then I roll using the most relevant, or the relevant skill with the highest modifer, and go from there. If they have the Cognitive Crossover feat, I will reroll on a failure using the next highest modified relevant skill. I think the problems people have with this action is the number of facts gained from it, depending on its degree of success. Keeping the questions specific helps curb that number to something that makes sense with the rules as written. If someone wants to scour over their entire knowledge of a specific thing, I may either require multiple checks, or use a higher DC. Then, on success I give 75% of the most relevant and useful data. On a critical success I give them the other 25% which may contain a small, useful, but mostly unknown piece of data that could help more.
I did away with the dubious knowledge feat and rolled that effect into the critical failure results of recall knowledge. If you fail, you know that you know nothing about the topic, but if you critically fail you know both the true and false information but don't know which is which until after some trial and error.
As for making up false answers on the fly...don't. As part of my DM prep for the session I write down 1-2 pieces of false information about each creature type likely to be encountered. A little bit of extra prep will save you alot of time in play.
Another couple of tweeks I made were to allow the PC to spend more than 1 action on the check, with each additional action adding +5 to the result; and to use their reaction after witnessing the creature use an ability to make a recall knowledge check about it (only once per combat).
I have two things that impact how I think about RK. My players use Recall Knowledge for decision making. They might ask "Do I think these Drow are generally really bad and therefore I want to kill them rather than build an alliance with them. They tend to ask "What do I hear the gossip is about how bad Drow are". If the result is a critical fail (which has happened a couple of times), I might respond with "Yes you hear terrible tales of them stealing away people and doing bad things to them" the sort of opposite of a success where I might say as the GM "You have heard bad and good but they do trade with people and have a normal society, even if it's a tough warrior caste type society". (Note this particular questions also has layers of heritage/background issues that could relate to it).
This leads into the next oddity on the rule. My players are 30 year veterans of roleplaying. Mostly all of them have played in a game every week for that time. They know that Trolls regen and mostly know a lot of detail about monsters.
So on the basis that the characters have a pretty good knowledge about non-flame retardant mummies. Why bother making it a secret GM roll? I often don't because the player is already having to suspend disbelief - The Drow being a perfect example - 3 players tried a "Do I know Drow hate sunlight" question on me. I said try the roll themselves and they all failed with some terrible rolls and one critical failure so I said "you hear some Drow worship the sun".
Why would I make that roll in secret because with their knowledge they already knew Drow don't like sunlight as a person (outside of the game). If I make the roll as the GM and it fails, they know they have failed anway in perhaps 75% of cases.
So I don't know where I am going with this, other than my response on Bone devil would be on a success to say "You know this creature is not an undead because there are various of the typical things you expect that are not right about it". But otherwise I agree with what you are saying on the issue around what skill to use and giving them a second attempt. I will certainly adopt that and in some cases I may also allow a roll by the player, especially where they have the knowledge already and are just trying to work out if their character does.
My table has taken a positive meta-gaming approach to things like Recall Knowledge. State what skills are applicable, player gets to roll, and then effectively let's the player taking the action decide generally what they're looking for (Weakness, resistance, immunities, etc) with accessing multiple options with Crits etc. Our group is reliable enough that if the character botches and gets something completely wrong they proceed as if they believed it, whether that's using the wrong attack/damage/skill or trying completely incorrect social approaches.
Potential fix
ADD the below action
"Identify Creature" one action, targets an unidentified creature, same traits as recall knowledge.
you choose a creature you have not identified, choose a
critical success: you learn what type of creature it is (undead, dragon, fey, spirit, ooze, plant, etc), it's species (ie wyvern, bear, pixie, leshy, etc) and may perform a free recall knowledge check on the creature,
success: You learn what type of creature it is (undead, dragon, fey, spirit, ooze, plant, etc)
failure: you learn which major skill is most relevant (religion, arcana, etc)
critical failure: you fail to identify the creature
this check uses a simple DC based on how relevant the creature is to the skill used, as well as just how common or well known they are in general.
for a creature such as a bone devil, it would likely be a master religion check to ID, since it's only those who've studied either fiends, who would know of it explicitly (trained), or those who've studied undead who might recognize it as a fiend commonly mistaken for an undead (expert)
I also allow for each skill to get harder seperately from eachother. for example, with a dragon you could do arcana for the first check, and if it succeeds, you can do arcana again. if it then fails, you can attempt dragon lore, starting over the series of checks.
Finally, if they critically succeed at recalling knowledge, i let them perform a second check immeditately for free, under the caveat it must be the same skill.
this way, players with good rolls who've invested in their lore skills not only are more likely to identify, if they have 3 high level skills, they can potentially fully ID a creature in one round, and if they outlevel the creature, then they're likely to be able to fully ID the creature in one turn.
When I gm and a PC want to Recall Knowledge I usually ask for a named skill... or give them options... like if is an Undead I ask for a Religion or Arcana check, (if there is a bard or someone ask for an X lore) I may allow it if has sense... like bardic lore (that always on point for any topic... soooo broken I love it)
If they has "Undead lore" and they want to indentify a bone demon, I will say before the check, "you are an expert on Undead and this don't seem to be the cases, you really want to use that skill (meaning will be harder)"
One thing I'd like to point out is that in the example of the Bone Devil, the Cleric shouldn't be saying "I will use Recall Knowledge with my Undead Lore skill" and the GM then going "Yeah, your Undead Lore skill tells you this isn't an undead; you don't know what it could be!" as the text for Recall Knowledge states that the GM determines the DC and what skills are applicable. It stands to reason therefore that the player should be saying "I'd like to Recall Knowledge about this creature, what should I roll?" and the GM would then *provide them with applicable skills from the main list of skills* (and the player could suggest a Lore they possess and ask if it could be used).
While this might give the game away somewhat, as in the case of a Bone Devil, Undead Lore would not be on that list, which would give the player some information without making the check, it's just a core conceit of the game that everyone at the table separates what they as a player know from what their character knows, so I don't consider this to be a problematic result.
So in this scenario, the player would say "Could I try to identify the creature, figure out what it is and any weaknesses or whatever?", the GM would then say "Alright, to identify it you'll need to roll me a secret Religion check", and the player might say "I have Undead Lore, could I use that instead?" since perhaps they've got a better proficiency with that skill, and the GM would say "Undead Lore is not an applicable skill for this creature, I'm afraid." and play would continue with the player either opting to attempt the Religion check or not. The *player* knows that the creature isn't Undead (since why else would Undead Lore not be usable?), but the character is in the dark about it.
Additionally, it's mentioned in the rules for Recall Knowledge that "You might know basic information about something without needing to attempt a check, but Recall Knowledge requires you to stop and think for a moment so you can recollect more specific facts and apply them." Someone trained in Religion who sees a red-skinned, cloven-hoofed biped with horns and a humanoid shape can reasonably guess in-character that a creature is a Fiend of some kind, and it shouldn't take up one of the pieces of information from Recall Knowledge to confirm that if they're right; the information they get should build upon what they already know and be targetted toward things that are immediately useful.
Now, to use the Bone Devil as an example again, if the player says "That looks like a kind of Undead, what else can you tell me about it?" and then rolls their character's Religion skill, then it's reasonable to use up one of the pieces of information to *correct their assumption* by saying like "While this creature - known as an Osyluth - at first appears to be a kind of Undead, it is in fact a Devil born of the fifth layer of Hell: Stygia. Osyluths are known to be resistant to physical assaults, unless one wields a weapon with the properties of silver." But if the player was fighting through the armies of Hell, they might reasonably assume it's just another Devil, and so you wouldn't use a piece of knowledge just to confirm something they can already infer from circumstance.
How would you rule using untrained improvisation for the lower DC on RK checks? RAW you can use any lore skill untrained, but as a result it makes things like being trained in a specific lore or bardic lore feel bad if a player has them.
I always based what they learned more heavily on the character using recall knowledge.
A ranger coming checking against a monster native to his stomping grounds is going to have a much lower DC and get more information if not the entire stat block on a critical.
A cleric that spent most of his life before the adventure locked in a temple learning about their diety tried it's going to be harder and best case he might learn something the monster is best known for.
Regarding Dubious Knowledge in particular (one true fact and one false fact), here's my tips:
- Offer two contradictory pieces of information - "You remember that dragons are resistant to cold... or wait, maybe they're weak to cold? (has Cold Resistance or has Cold Vulnerability)", "You think that this Hydra is either very quick or very clumsy (Reflex is either very high or very low)".
- Offer false information that will probably be disproven soon - lying by saying the ghost is weak to electricity is good, because the players will try it and it will fail; lying by saying the ghost is immune to force damage is bad, because the players will avoid that damage type and never figure out that they were mistaken. Similarly, saying that the Ghost is "either immune to Force or immune to Cold" is bad because the players will just avoid both of these damage types, but saying "either immune to Force or weak to Force" is good because the players have an incentive to try it out.
Also, to tell if a creature has high/medium/low value for saves, AC, attacks, damage, etc - there are tables in "Building Creatures" in the book (I wish there was a simpler way to find them on the fly though... maybe I'll make a Foundry module for this).
All sound advice!
There is a Foundry module for this! Its color codes stats for monster on their sheet and those colors are to signify whether it's terrible, low, moderate, high, or extreme. You do need to remember the color coding beforehand, but it's generally not too difficult since the chosen colors are pretty distinct from each other
Hello,I like your content, it’s clear and you have good arguments. I have a question about RK on the use while observing in battle and the interactions with feats like battle assessment (Rogue lvl4) or Combat Reading (Bard Lvl4). Instead of homebrewing Recall Knowledge, why not create an action that let the character use a Knowledge skill against the creature Deception or stealth skill. These actions could be used from the start or unlocked by a feat…
There is actually one feat that has the effect of Recall Knowledge but it's a different match-up between one of your skills and one of the target's DC. So I hesitate to houserule in something that steps on an ability's toes. But yeah the theme of spending time to make observations is a way to 'reflavor' Recall Knowledge combat that also justifies repeat attempts.
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG Thank you for your answer. I'm sorry if I was not clear, my point was not to modify Combat Reading or Battle Assessment, but to create a new action like:
Observe & Analyze :
You spend an action to observe an ennemy and try to remember what strength or weakness can have that ennemy. As you try to remember pasts studies, you pass throught your knowledge skills. Choose a Skill to check against the deception or stealth DC of the ennemy. it is secret check. You can attempt the action Observe & Analyze any number of time per combat but only once per turn for the same skill. When you use a skill in which you have Automatic Knowledge, this become a free action.
results (see Battle Assessment)
That way, you still have recall knowledge to try to remember the name of the ennemy, which is a totally different action but you can also find clues about your ennemy even if you don't know his name. This also make automatic Knowledge more valuable.
This action is probably not perfect, but in line with the math & the work done by the developper, I prefer to create an action than modify an existing one.
How do you foresee these alterations affecting the Thaumaturge? One powerful feature about the class is that they bypass many of the limitations of Recall Knowledge, so would rules like this make them less good?
We've only seen the playtest version of the Thaumaturge so we can't really know. When I get its lead designer Mark Seifter on my channel you can ask!
is that the gloomhaven digital soundtrack in the background?
For problem #1, RK says the DM chooses the skill, so I don't believe the player choosing the wrong skill should be an issue. The DM should present to the players several options and the player states their bonuses and the DM chooses the higher. Ex: "A skeletal monster? Do I know anything about it? DM - What are your arcana and lore (monsters) bonuses? Player - +8 and +10. DM - (rolls) You recall these creatures mentioned in folklore. They are not really undead, just made of bones
A GM can make a note card or with 3 known checks for each scene. If players ask about recall knowledge or looking for something familiar. Tell them to roll against all 3. Each check has a fact and a falsehood. This will incourage players to make more recall knowledge checks. The information is trival, but you wouldn't have said it otherwise. Random thoughts concerning how a GM envisions it.
I have the same problem with throught reasearch. (From lowg) I should have a +2 for at least when it is the same family. The table i have interpreted as it was working only on a specific monster.
Not sure I know which feat you mean - I looked up Thorough Research but that's an investigator feat from Advanced Player's Guide.
It is clairly says type but it was seen as too powerful.
When a pathfinder author and then a 5 glyph gm status on this, you don't object.
I agree with Angry GMs take on this that Recall Knowledge or similar actions in games should not be actions. You either know something or you don't. When you see something you know something about your brain will automatically present the information you need if it has it available. When you see a creature or a magic rune or such everyone rolls a check using their most relevant skill and they either know or they don't. Using your example with the hydra I would just make everyone roll again with a circumstance bonus, because new information might be enough for your brain to connect to something it didn't before
You can always apply the Pathfinder 1 version, one item of knowledge per 3 points of success.
You forgot about the power of lore skills which can lower the DC by a lot, take the red dragon 41 dc with arcane, 36 with like dragon lore. Which is why i think Paizo made it that high for a reason to bring value to lore skills
I guess I don't see most of these as a problem. I disagree with the idea that the rules make the player guess which skill to use. In my games I have all the skill modifiers for the PCs on a sheet. When they tell me they want to recall knowledge I find the skill with the best chance of success (sometimes that's an untrained lore skill) and roll that for them.
I agree with this take. It says plainly the GM chooses which skills apply. I also don't see where it says what actions to take if the player rolls the wrong skill, which leads me to believe it was never an issue in the first place.
@@Pharmalade It says the player makes a "skill check" (albeit a secret one) to "regarding a topic related to that skill." *Then* the GM determines "which skills apply" (after the 1st sentence). Similarly, the Investigate exploration activity says "You can use any skill that has a Recall Knowledge action while Investigating, but the GM determines whether the skill is relevant to the clues you could find."
It's the ugly reality that this is RAW. But we don't have to accept it! *shakes fist*
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG well somehow by reading the RAW I came to a similar interpretation that you described in your opening. Which means I misunderstood the rules as written in a functional way. I wonder how many other people misinterpreted it so.
Very interesting!
Been thinking about Recall Knowledge (RK) and Dubious Knowledge (DK) recently
When I first read it, my chief concern was how the designers did not foresee the obvious giveaway on the critfail and on DK, and the sheer amount of extra hassle being put on a busy GM with having to track which players have DK and to think of something plausible on every failure so that it does not become a free success. How much latitude is there for the false info? Can I be blamed for throwing the boss-fight?
Just started GMing my first real 2E campaign (having only played one-shots before) and ran head first into DK last session, and it was about as bad as I imagined. So I started brewing.
For the RK action, in my homebrew I removed the possibility of false info on a crit-fail, and deleted the Secret trait for when it is used actively by the PC. "You know when you don't know". The PC gets to select what skill to roll after the GM has revealed which skills are applicable to the question asked. I also give the ID for free on the same roll. Finally, once you fail, you have hit the limit of all you can recall for the moment, you'll need time to think, read, or some clue to try again)
And now, after watching this video, the ID potentially uses a DC separate from the question asked (Thanks man! 👍).
I clarify that Success only answers the question that was asked, not maliciously or anything, it's just up to the PCs to ask good questions, not takebacks and no freebies. Crits however give the answer that will be the most useful in good faith, even if the question asked would preclude it. (For example giving a resistance if there is no weakness and a weakness was asked for)
For Dubious Knowledge, I turned it back into the PCs responsibility. It is now a free action that the PC can use whenever they fail (but not crit fail) a Recall Knowledge check. The GM re-rolls the check secretly, using the same bonus and DC, and gives one true answer on any success, and a believable and maliciously harmful one of any failure, making sure to pause before rolling (Which is reasonable because you expect to need to lie 50% of the time instead of 5% when this comes up!).
Will be playtesting this in my campaign, if the players are onboard with it.
Wow, is this music in background from ksp?
I believe I used music from RUclips's Audio Library for this one (it's free for creators)
Next we'll get a Disarm fix ? (I mean I think taking the swashbuckler's disarm more or less fixes the issues, make the feat allow to expell the weapon in an adjacent square (either swash's choice or roll 1d8))
You've read my mind! (My next video is titled "5 rules to IGNORE in Pathfinder 2e"!!)
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG Whoa, ignore altogether ? Wanna bet half of them people will already have forgotten they even existed ?
@@KalaamNozalys A number of them I say to revise... but ignore I think gets people's attention more =)
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG Yeah, I'm guessing on the rules about searching that makes you move at half speed to calculate how long it takes to search an area.
Lore skills represent the character's knowledge, so there should be the basics for that lore that they know, and rolls are for specific details. A goblin hunter would know a wolf on sight and have a rough grasp of the full statblock, unless it's something unusual. Then it's a lore check to figure out if it's a variant, diseased, or maybe something else burned off half its face. If it's a check to get a combat advantage for one of the class features, it's to spot an individual quirk, like favoring one leg or going low for the ankles. The GM should know the player's lore skills so they can provide their lore flavortext when appropriate and make secret rolls for bonus info.
8:39 in raw I believe that players never should decide which skill should be rolled for knowledge check. The only thing players can declare is they are going to do recall knowledge about the topic they want to know, and the GM decides which skill needs to be used. so in raw actually player does not need to guess which skill needs to be rolled in the first place.
and also as Core Rulebook pg. 506 if the player fails the check, even if they want to attempt it again, the further attempts should be fruitless, so GM should hint to the player that further attempts would not get any more results before they try again, so they don't waste their action
Choosing a skill is RAW, due to this language under Recall Knowledge (CRB p. 239): "In some cases, you can get the GM’s permission to use a different but related skill, usually against a higher DC than normal. [...] The GM might allow checks to Recall Knowledge using other skills."
Regardless, sounds like we agree that a player shouldn't have to declare.
Full agreement with video poster.
RK is weak AF and we dropped it after only a few games.
Just my 2 cents: I think the purpose of the skill check is to allow as many players/characters as possible to attempt Recall Knowledge. It's not that one character with multiple applicable skills uses the "nature part" of their brain to recall some info and the "arcana part" to recall different info, it's that a player with both skills can choose whichever is higher while characters with only one or the other can still make a check.
Also, I would suggest not to limit the skills to only creatures that fall under them. In the Bone Devil example, have the cleric roll. On a success, tell them that they don't recall any information about this creature (which might initially irritate the player, but the reasons for it will become clear, and, depending on how expert they are and how much confidence they have in their abilities, might even suggest to the player/character the reason; I can see the character furrowing their brow, muttering, "Something isn't right here..."). On a critical success, though, tell them they have heard about this creature as it's certainly possible that in the study of the undead one might encounter warnings concerning creatures that are commonly confused with undead. It might not give the cleric an insight into a particular weakness (although it conceivably could), but it would let the cleric know they're not dealing with undead and prevent them from possibly wasting actions or endangering themselves or the party unnecessarily.
Edited to add: And making the DC level-based as opposed to rarity-/obscurity-based has always seemed misguided to me. I don't use that aspect.
In your Success example, wouldn't the degree of success be hidden from the player, since it's a Secret check?
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG I usually don't do hidden roles unless it will add to the suspense of a story or situation. My players are experienced enough to put the story first and not use out-of-character knowledge (and we generally have more fun with them in on the joke if they fail spectacularly). But even with a hidden success, maybe give them a hint by phrasing the results as feeling odd or unusual to their character. After all, it's a successful role; they should get something fun or helpful out of it. Even if they don't pick up on it at the time, in retrospect it will make sense and maybe even give them a cool "ah-ha" moment.
How do you feel about these houserules?
- Recall Knowledge not a secret roll anymore, but rolled in open by the player
- Can be rolled only once, no rerolls
- If a player rolls high or otherwise succeeds, the GM gives them one piece of *true* information. If the player acts on it, they are granted a Hero Point.
- If a player rolls low or otherwise fails, the GM lets them know one piece of *false* information. If the player acts on it, they are granted a Hero Point.
Example: The player rolls low, and the GM tells the player that the troll in front of them, is weak against slashing damage. If the player then equips a slashing weapon and attacks the troll, the first time they do so after Recalling Knowledge, they are granted a Hero Point.
Example: The player rolls high, and the GM tells the player that the troll in front of them is weak against fire. The player already knew that, but their character might not know that. Either way, if the player now deals fire damage to the troll, they are granted a Hero Point.
This way, Recall Knowledge can be used even if the player has metagame knowledge about the weaknesses of a monster. Because even if they do, they can still roll it for gaining a Hero Point. It's gamey, yes, but I don't see that as a bad thing; as long as I acknowledge that it's gamey.
In-game, even if they encountered a troll before and know its weaknesses, they might have picked up a rumor in town: "female trolls are super weak to slashing damage, I tell you! They die in one hit!" And what have you, this troll is female, where the ones before were male. Can't hurt to test it out, right? Apparently, that rumor was wrong.
Hero Points can be swapped for extra Experience Points, Resolve Points, Fate Points, or what have you. It's just important to offer a small reward for acting on knowledge, either false or true.
I don't do secret Rolls, I just told the character to roll the dice and tell me what it is. If they're deliberately doing some kind of a check of recall knowledge I let them roll the dice Choose the skill and do the math. And if I feel that they should have some inkling whether or not that check was successful I might throw them a bone and give them a bit of information. Perhaps what is most obvious maybe something that caught their Eye. I even have an roll dice at random and never tell them what they're rolling for. They only know that their character something triggered something and that's it. Having them roll the dice for Their own character really makes them feel like they're more involved in the game anyways if I'm the one rolling all the dice and they're just sitting there they're gonna get bored out of their mind soon because the only time they're ever gonna be rolling dice then is when combat issues
Maybe I’m a wimp, but on a crit fail my players will learn some completely useless bit of trivia. “You can’t remember what it’s weak to, but you do remember a story about mad King Yuri slipping troll bear toes into guests soup as a tasteless joke. Supposedly some developed quite a taste for it…and there may be a market…”
How I run it is like this:
1. For a Ghost Mage, I just tell them "roll an occult or arcana. or maybe society." I have different DCs for all of this. If they say something like "would religion work?" if it's relevant I give it a DC and let them roll it. They only get info they already know from a regular failure.
2. I usually give them specific traits of a creature. Most of my party is pretty research heavy so if they learn it's incorporeal and undead, they have a loadout for that specific situation. On a crit I let them ask me a question.
3. I think leveled DCs are fine. The more powerful and rare a creature the harder it is to figure it out.
4. I don't run this rule. I've been playing since playtest and had no idea this was here. I don't like this rule. I was already making the DCs harder based on rarity. The rest of the rule is ass.
5. Crit fails for Recall Knowledge checks is the funniest thing in the world don't take this from me. I let them know they crit failed when they act on wrong information, but since the players know how the DCs work, crit failing on a decent roll is a big big red flag. If it's a boss creature though, they typically know what it's going to be. I've had a boss be almost completely skipped by research the day before.
6. Since I run that repeat use is fine, this isn't as much of an issue.
I'm aware that the way I run Recall Knowledge should really be called "Inspect" or something, but I don't care.
Thinking about what has happened in the story and setting could give you an idea about how hard it is to "Recall" particular facts. Have your characters encountered anyone who survived an encounter with the creature? If yes, you may know more about its abilities. Have your characters heard about or met anyone who has killed one? If yes, you may know more about its weakness. If this is a legendary creature that has had encounters with various populations over hundreds of years then you probably all know some basic things about it. If you are facing something totally new to recorded history then you aren't going to recall anything.
You would think that Paizo would give you a couple of fake information samples with the monster.
RK takes an action(the cost) and I do not see that identifiyng disallows reattempt. Only additional knowledge checks seems to not allow reattempts.
However I am not going to argue against the need for getting more clarity on RK...
The jury's out on that one, but there does need to be a stop on "spamming" RK out of combat. I don't allow repeat attempts outside of combat, and the 'flavor' reason for allowing them in combat is that you are observing the creature and getting information... almost like a "Seek" action but focused on finding information and not just 'remembering' it.
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG "You might even need to spend time investigating first. For instance, to use Medicine to learn the cause of death, you might need to conduct a forensic examination before attempting to Recall Knowledge."
I find this to be enough. There might not be enough body to investigate again. The time it takes might be too long for it to be attractive to attempt again, and similar to stealth, you might not know that a check have happened because of a failed secret check from investigation exploration activity.
Simply said, it's not the recall knowledge that shouldn't be reattempted, but the investigation leading to the check
@@laki7480 I agree with you that getting more information can prompt a new RK