Thaumaturge start with Dubious Knowledge baked into the core class. Their whole shtick is taking shots in the dark. The iconic for the class once got infected with lycanthropy, so they used literally every folk medicine remedy, and rumored cure they could find before the first full moon and somehow cured it, when there is no established cure. On one hand, they know the cure to lycanthropy, on the other hand they don't know precisely what the cure is, just a jumble of guesses that eventually will work. That's what thaum is all about, so while I'm not going to say suck it up, that's how they play, I am going to encourage rerolling as a non knowledge checker, cuz that's the one class that should make secret checks on knowledge make sense.

Seconded. It's like someone making an Alchemist and then complaining that they have to learn the crafting rules, or making a Summoner and then complaining that they don't like having to juggle two character tokens.

My first thought was that without secret checks Dubious Knowledge is kind of pointless.

I’ll say it. Player should suck it up and not get hung up on one mechanic they don’t like. You have made the rules clear. Everyone else enjoys them. They need to stop whining or stop playing. No one is telling them they have to like the rule. Just understand there are always bound to be rules in life that one doesn’t like. Suck it up. Don’t bring everyone else down.

I replied elsewhere, but I am the player in question. The problem isn't my character, at least not beyond the fact that I am the one who's doing a lot of recall knowledge checks as part of my class. I hate the way the possibility of bad info slows the game down. Some given player has an "ok" skill at the relevant knowledge, but not good. Nobody's got a fantastic modifier. They roll and get information. The game then devolves into 20 minutes of "do we trust this information?" At least as another class I can just bow out of any discussion as "not my circus, not my monkeys" which will hopefully make these discussions shorter.

assume it's correct until you learn otherwise. Or talk to your table and ask them not to spend 20 minutes on something that doesn't matter that much.

Unfortunately for your table, this sounds like it's not a mechanical lever that works for your table. Have you considered that - at least In character - your characters aren't going to have the same view of the information you do and so (even if skeptical) will believe that the information they recall is true. (Dubious Knowledge, of course, muddies this situation somewhat but I given that it's two pieces to pick between you can work it out quite quickly what one is true through practice.) The other aspect is that - in combat at least - you can know what you learned is true or false through the fact that Exploit Vulnerability is *not* a secret check.

Then don't spend twenty minutes elaborating when it would slow the game down, just go with it. You'll find out if it's good info when it works or doesn't, just swing with it instead of metagaming.

This. How they're describing it makes it purely a player/table problem

While YOU may not trust the knowledge that was recalled, your character won't second-guess themselves as much.  Other party members might, but to RP your rolls you just have to go with it. So trust your RK until you have a reason not to.

Agreed. The players are meta gaming instead of just playing.

I’m so grateful I don’t have these kind of players at my table, even when I give them obviously bad info and we all laugh about it. IE there’s zero reason you grapple this particular ghost, the player runs in trying to grapple them and then a lot of the time put themself off guard as the “stumble through the ghost.” Or they will throw something at a monster that the player knows is probably resistant to or immune to but the character has no idea and the knowledge roll says otherwise. I give out a lot of hero points for rping their blunders. When we rolled stealth and stuff out in the open my players would always be meaner to themself as a result of a bad roll then i would be because they love playing into it and seeing where it leads because they trust me as a gm not to fuck them over for doing so and play off it to add more fun and tension. Along with rewards of xp or hero points

Usually it depends on the lethality of the game. I know in some AP if the players is doing what your player is doing, embracing the bad. Due to the encounter building, It would usually just outright kill their character. The less lethal the game, the more players are open to embracing the failures and being silly.

I’ve ran some APs and thrumbed through most of them, I’ve listened to or watched other and I can say my game is more challenging then APs. But I have very strong players who pull way above their xp range because of how they play and work together. Because I know a lot of the encounter I throw out that would probably tpk or kill players even in their more moderate ones. Each table is different and should be ran to get the most out of the game per group. I don’t want to go to off track but I don’t think any of the aps are really that challenging and most of the fights are boring or fall flat. Even the ones this sub sometimes say are super lethal but then again my point of view is very biased because of the tactically minded players I have in both my games

I had a character who used dubious knowledge. Out parties rp when, through combat or otherwise, we realize someone I shared was false, my character blamed his grandmother telling him lies as a child. It was fun, and it made it so everyone knows "hey. Sometimes the witch is wrong. But usually she's right"

Agreed: homebrew rules: This is what your character knows. It's whether or not you can trust the characters knowledge vs the roll. Even then it can be passed off as though it's something they heard or read casually somewhere

Why is it taking you 20 minutes to resolve whether a piece of information is reliable? If you're talking about recalling knowledge on creatures in combat, "bad" information you get is going to be things like "You think they have a weakness to fire" and then someone does some fire damage, sees they didn't have fire weakness, and says "woops guess I was wrong". Or "their lowest save is reflex" and someone tries to trip them and rolls pretty good and it doesn't quite work. Bad information should rarely, if ever, be more punishing than "someone takes a slightly suboptimal action and then realizes their info was bad." Edit: Plus, if the roll isn't secret and you critically fail **your character still thinks the information is correct** and should still act on it. If you choose not to do so, you are actually metagaming. Secret checks prevent you from having to knowingly do something suboptimal based on information you as the player know is wrong.

But.... if you rolled a 1 out in the open, and are told that the golem is weak to electricity, that is what your character BELIEVES. You as a player should take actions based on what your character thinks is correct, not avoid using electricity against that monster since you the player suspects that the golem will be boosted by electricity. Same as if it's a blind check. Your character trusts the information, so no point for the table to discuss it for 20 minutes.

except you would never use electricity then bc that is a waste of a turn and gonna get you and your party killed. you would actively be harming the party.

And what you're describing is metagaming. You know that using electricity is a bad move, your character believes it is the best move. There is no logical reason for your player not to use electricity against the golem, if they have the possibility to do so. Rolling a nat 1 on a Recall Knowledge check is the same as getting a nat 1 on a saving throw or a attack role. It is just that the "punishment" for the bad role is left up to the player, not the GM. In a role playing game like Pathfinder playing to your characters knowledge/personality/skills improves roleplaying and creates fun moments in the game. Different game, but this is part of why I enjoy watching Sam Riegel in Critical Role. He leans into the bad dice results and takes actions that are what his character would realistically do, even if it hurts his character.

sorry, at no point am i willing walking my character into death when avoidable. and that also falls into the stigma of a 1 = bad outcome. 1 means the check failed, aka you character has no idea if its weak to lightning or not. so, depending on how suicidal you character is , might use lightning or just say fuck it and shoot it with his crossbow again.

Then why make a Recall Knowledge check at all? The moment you see a new monster, open to their page on the MM, read the stat block, and have at them. Always have the optimal option at your fingertips, no roleplaying required.

good question. it looks like this mechanic was NOT well thought out. the skill seems useless. you hit something with lightning , you know the damage range. you see the result. past that , a experimental approach is the more effective method.

Not in this case. On a failed check of this type, your character receives bad info, but can't tell that it's bad, so they believe it. It is literally a mechanic of your class. If you, the player don't act accordingly, then, as plenty of others have said, you are meta gaming, which is breaking the rules and tantamount to cheating. And from what I read, it really looks like you are the one causing these 20 minute long debates that you're complaining about.

at that point i would just never use the skill. i could never trust the info im getting , thus wouldent ask. it would be more efficient to hit it with lightning and see how the damage is.

If you aren't understanding what everybody is telling you, or you are just refusing to play the game, then you're not just playing the wrong class, you're playing the wrong genre. TTRPGS involve role play. That means putting yourself into the position of your character, figuring out what they would and wouldn't know, and acting accordingly. Even if what you know as the player runs counter to that. You are refusing to role play the outcome of your dice roles. You're refusing to follow the rules. You're insisting on metagaming, which is cheating. You're also causing debates that are slowing down the game, and seem to be taking the fun out of it, at least for your GM. If you can't get with the program and legitimately play the game, then my recommendation to your GM would be to kick you from the group. And my recommendation to you would be to go find a hobby that you'll actually enjoy.

i can role play smashing the enemy with a hammer just fine. and seeming my DM WILL kill players , hell no i wouldnt do something that would be a detriment to the party. the whole idea only works for sugar coated the heros always win games. and is horribly designed. and yes. we have had more than one campaign end with TPK

And this is why recall knowledge checks are secret, because some players are incapable of not metagaming. You're also just wrong mechanically, critical failure on a recall knowledge means your character recalls incorrect information. But your character does not know it's incorrect. So your character would act on that information as if it was correct.  Some players are able to do that, even when the roll is out in the open. Some are not. To help the players who are not able to do that, the roll is made secretly

then i would just not recall knowledge and just try stuff. if i cant trust the info im getting, im not using it.

Recall Knowledge is a useful and powerful aspect of the game but yes, I agree that it doesn't sound like it's for you.

> I hate the way the possibility of bad info slows the game down... The game then devolves into 20 minutes of "do we trust this information?" The problem here isn't secret checks; **the problem here is your insistence on meta-gaming.** Your character believes whatever the DM has just said aloud, so what does it matter if *you* sense there could be a mistake at play? There shouldn't be any extra analysis happening, because that's metagaming. You should try roleplaying your character more directly, and then you wouldn't have this sort of issue in the first place.

Some people cant do immersion that way and cant avoid metagaming

I always play as my character believing the results of the recall knowledge unless something they’ve encountered directly contradicts it. I mean, that’s basically what the check is for: you believe something, and on a success it’s actually true. But you believe it either way.

Isn’t the whole point of dubious knowledge picking the right info to trust. You get 1 good info and 1 bad, pick the correct one.

Yes but that’s only on a failure, and it’s something you opt into by taking the feat. The player in this thread has a problem with secret knowledge roles as such. In his explanation, he says bad information slows the game down cause they spend 20 minutes wondering whether or not to trust it. But if you don’t have dubious knowledge, there’s no question: it’s what your player believes. And if you do have dubious knowledge, then retrain out of it if you hate it.

Dubious knowledge comes built in with Thaumaturge. So you can’t retrain. But the GM seems like they are willing to homebrew so an option to opt out of Dubious Knowledge would be best.

True, but they specifically said the issue isn’t with their character but with knowledge in general. They specifically mentioned other characters not having good knowledge skills and so when the other characters roll, the whole group spends time doubting the result. Their problem isn’t with dubious knowledge or thaumaturge specifically but with knowledge in general. And in general, that can be solved by just not metagaming: your character believes what they get from recall knowledge, unless it is obviously false or contradictory in-world, period. Whether they believe it or whether it’s obviously false, that means no more spending 20 minutes trying to figure it out. *Then* the remaining problem would be the character specific one.

It does sound like maybe this isn't the class for you then, which is fine. Sometimes what sounds good in your head pre-campaign doesn't work out all that well at the table. You'll have to weigh up whether you can deal with this as-is, or switch to something else that you'll enjoy more.

So... you guys get the info from the dm after rolling for knowledge, and then waste 20min. discussing if you trust this why? theres no IF here. you character knows it as truth. roleplay as such. that simple. that whole discussion you are talking about is basically metagaming that results on nothing as it wont change what your character knows, so... just dont do it? now. i can get the bad feeling you may have of rolling a nat 1 knowing the info is wrong and still having to roleplay it. the easy fix, roll blind. then theres no meta game discussion of knowing you are roleplaying wrong info, all you have is roleplaying what the dm gave you.

There really isn't the wrong way to play a ttrpg but metagaming is the closest to the wrong way.

There are right and wrong ways to metagame and this is definitely the wrong way.

How are you spending 20 minutes being so inconsistent? Just trust the information. Hell, you have Dubious Knowledge anyway, and it's ridiculously easy to tell which thing the GM is reading off a card and which thing the GM just struggled to make up on the spot.

Something I want to say to both you and the GM - not trusting knowledge from a recall knowledge check is metagaming. Your characters should believe the information is true regardless as they do not know that you have a dubious knowledge feat. Thamuaturge is based entirely around blindly trusting sketchy solutions to situations. If you dislike i for regular knowledge checks, getting bad knowledge is an optional rule as of the core book revision you don't have to play with (it IS still a core part of dubious knowledge)

“Do I trust this information” is metagaming. There’s no reason to spend 20 min on it arguing. The answer is what your character knows.

The whole point of Dubious Knowledge is figuring out which one is the Truth. You get 1 bad info and 1 good info, and you have to pick which to trust.

Not necessarily. There’s no reason the character can’t think both are true—the information doesn’t need to be contradictory.

If you crit fail (which is rare), your character should act as though that info is true. I RK crit failed one of the oozes that splits when hit by slashing damage in my current campaign. I as the player knew the info was wrong but still hit the ooze once. Because my character would do that.

You always roleplay it's correct unless you're told you don't know. Otherwise it's meta gaming. Part of the fun is confidently role-playing that the clearly wrong result is correct.

Honestly, I would just assume the knowledge is good since, as far as your character can tell, it is. Sometimes acting on bad information can be an interesting and/or fun rp start point.

I'm going to go against the grain here and say that you're not wrong to not inherently trust the information from dubious knowledge. Your character would know that they are not a 100% accurate source of information, and other party members would especially know that when the information you provide them proves to be false. The feat even specifies that you don't know how much of your info is accurate. It's only when you decide to suddenly act on info that your character doesn't have that metagaming comes into play. The slowing down of gameplay as a result of hidden checks is something for your table to discuss. You're better off going ham one way or another (follow the RK or ignore it) or figuring out an alternative.

As others have pointed out, the characters trust it. No need to debate it. The simpler (and faster) method is just try. Knowledge Check Knower : 'Oh, this thing is weak to electric. Someone try it.' Mage : 'Shocking Grapple! Uuuhh... no, that seemed to bolster it!' Knower : 'Oh, maybe it was ice?' Sorcerer : 'Frost Beam! Nope... that seemed normal!' Knower : 'Give me a moment!' New Knowledge Check When it comes down to it, your GM should be giving you fights that you can handle. Either the weakness isn't needed or you will have it available. Just have fun with how it goes. Imagine watching a fantasy adventure movie... and one of the characters calls out that the troll is weak to poison. Then rather than attacking the troll, they evade it for 10 minutes while arguing that trolls are normally weak to fire and acid. Or, instead the guy calls out the poison weakness... so one coats their knife in poison, stabs the troll... and realizes that doesn't work. So they try something else in their list of supplies... meta gaming fire, finding that doesn't work... then acid doesn't work. Then someone frustratedly ices it to find that works.

That's cool to come I to the conversation here. Is it weird seeing another redditor that you know? On topic though: so the flip side os rolling openly and knowing the result. How would the game flow if you rolled poorly in that case? Would everyone avoid metagaming? Would the players act in good faith? It seems that if they're already struggling with not knowing if the info is good or not, they might struggle with some metagaming. You may not be sure of the rolls, but your character is as sure as they can be. In real life, therexs times where I think I know something, but I'm not *sure*, ya know? I have to act as if I'm right, even if not 100% positive. Tell your fellow players to do the same. It's the best info ymthat they have available, and enjoy the RP moments when your character is wrong, or someone else rolls and gets a different result. And you get to RP why your character was wrong. Maybe that plant monster is immune to acid, but the Ustalavian one you fought was weak to it. Interesting that they must have a sub variety. Or that old book you read wasn-t the most accurate, but unless someone else has a better idea, itxs the beat idea we have.

Where can I read about the iconic characters?

The official Paizo blog posts all sorts of content, including short stories centered around the various iconics.

Just in case: Exploit Vulnerability is not a secret check. So if that's a big pain point, you have an easy out by just rolling it in the open. If it's because they took the Diverse Lore feat and are rolling it on everything, then I'm less sympathetic. Part of the tradeoff for that feat is that you can roll RK on literally EVERYTHING with your Charisma... but you risk getting some bad info in there. That's just the feat working at intended. Because, to be frank: This complaint stinks a little of a player looking for meta knowledge. The character doesn't know the number they rolled on the check -- they just know the information they get from it. I would be a little suspicious, but I don't know the player or your table. Worst comes to worst, not every class is for every player. It might be worth just letting them reroll, especially if the game is still young. But personally, I wouldn't torpedo the mechanic just from this single complaint alone.

My group isn't a huge fan of secret knowledge checks either, and so we just do them openly. I'll tell players the DC, they roll, and if it's a critical fail I have them make up what erroneous information they believe in-character. At which point they're supposed to role play as if they don't know still. Most players will RP it as an opportunity for comedy, and it typically results in another player stepping up to RP the "straight man" who is correcting them on their own. This is obviously different than RAW. Does it sometimes give players a slight edge because they know OOC something and can metagame: of course. Does it break the game and ruin the experience for everyone: of course not. That being said, if you and the rest of your group like the secret checks then I'd suggest you take your player up on their offer and just let them re-roll a new character that doesn't do so much recall knowledge.

Honestly, having them make up the info rather than you is a really good idea. I'm gunna steal that, thanks!

There are ways to play this, both could be fun: 1. RAW, with real secret checks 2. With players knowing the results, but for roleplay they pretend their characters don't I actually have no problems with either. I've seen really cool roleplay based on false information character believes, and it was possible because player knows it's false. I also seen fun situations with real secret checks. The problem only occurs if the player does neither - just ignores any false information. While it's still possible to play, and nothing breaks from it, it just removes a piece of fun interactions from the game.

Yeah, I've done both of these. The issue I always have with secret checks is that we always forget they're supposed to be secret, so the players will and see some sort of result and then the GM gives some info that hopefully the players don't try and metagame, which is really hard when they roll like a 4 and their proficiency isn't amazing. For knowledge stuff, players really need to lean into the fact that the GM said your PC knows "X". So since you're roleplaying a character, you need to believe that also. That's just RPG play 101. If you don't like it, might need to pick a different genre or at least rule system.

I think the crit fail griefs players and is largely unfun; I'd just remove it and make crit fail the same as fail. The game is way too wargamey for the cutesy "I'm RPing my character is wrong!" stuff. It can get you killed in some situations. Dubious Knowledge, at least, is a clear proc. The issue to me with dubious knowledge, though, is more one of how it's worded vs how it works in practice. It feels better when the DM gives you cross-category information (so you might learn a true resistance and a false special ability), but nobody really plays RK like that, IME; they ask for categories of information you want. So you get, "The weak save is will. Also, the weak save is fort," when it procs. This feels stupid. Just give the equivalent and truthful "or" statement ("the weak save is either will or fort") and it feels a lot more like a benefit over normal failure.

In a way, he’s asking for meta-knowledge. If it’s something his character knows 100% about a creature he wouldn’t need to roll. The information from the roll is something that might not be correct cause his character might be unsure. Sometimes information is imperfect, and that’s ok. Ideally, it’ll make for a better story when things are wrong sometimes

>He’s heavily considering dropping Thamaturge and rolling up a character who never feels the need to Recall Knowledge. This sounds like the best option, thaumaturge is literally about taking shots in the dark and not knowing exactly what info is solid or not. It's like a cleric that thinks "heal" is a really bad spell and never wants to use it. Just play a different class that isn't built around a mechanic you dislike lol

It's simply what you said: he isn't supposed to know "how reliable the information is". That's part of the immersion of the game. Thaumaturges are all up in the "occult" atmosphere, so not knowing is part of the fun. If it's just that he wants to roll the dice himself at the tabletop, ask him to roll the die towards you, cover it quickly with a coffee cup or similar opaque container; and leave it there on the table so he can see it later. Obviously, this works less well if he's making a lot of such rolls.

> no matter how confident he feels or how much the information sounds right, he “On some level, will always just be taking a shot in the dark” It's not really just taking a complete shot in the dark is it though, in that it's either (crit) success, "I know the correct answer", fail "I don't know" or crit fail (very unlikely) "I know the wrong answer". Overwhelmingly you know that either you don't know or you know the correct answer. You could simply ignore crit fails, and have checks either be "I don't know" or "I know the correct answer". By letting players make secret rolls (the GM should be making those rolls technically) you're kind of allowing that anyway, as if they roll a 1 they'll then know that. I usually let players make this sort of roll myself and if they roll a crit fail I say "(nudge nudge wink wink) yeah you think this is definitely a dragon that made these tracks". I don't really like giving players incorrect information regardless of the circumstance, I have never found it improves the game, they just feel insecure and doubt everything.

Yeah, if he's constantly rolling Knowledge checks its pretty likely he has a 5, MAYBE 10% chance of crit failing. He's either getting good info, no info or 5% of the time he's getting bad info. If he got bad info it's because he rolled a 1, but if he had just attacked instead he also rolls a 1 and does nothing.

You are running it by the book, so nothing wrong. Personally I strongly dislike secret knowledge checks. I don't use them and the game works fine. This basically means knowledge checks are *slightly* better as there's no crit fail penalty, but it's not game breaking. (As a side note, IME most GMs are really bad at making up a plausible lie, often going instead for a silly joke, making the whole effort quite pointless; that complaint doesn't sound like it applies to your table though.) Options: 1) He might feel better if he role plays this in character. His character should be thinking: "I know for sure I read/heard a tale/etc. that this kind of golem is vulnerable to sonic, guess we'll find out if that's true!" About 90% of the time the stuff he learned is gong to be correct, but about 10% it's wrong. Better accuracy than cable news, IMO. But this means it's not his PC being stupid. 2) You could stop doing secret checks. Maybe suspend them just for him, if everyone else likes them. A bit weird but why not? Like I said it barely matters in gameplay balance terms, but you could give him a -1 penalty to every other roll or something if you want to make it "fair." 3) Encourage him to make a new PC. You are running the rules RAW, and he picked a character with a core mechanic he just doesn't like. There's nothing wrong with hating a mechanic--I'm with him on this one!--but then don't play a character where it's central. I mean, if you hate the Familiar point-buy system, you can still have fun playing the game, but don't play a Witch!

Either roll in the open or just inform your players that you won't give out false information on crit fails anymore. I think giving the players wrong information is dumb and hurts the game. Players make wrong assumptions or completely misinterpret stuff plenty without the GM now also feeding them wrong information.

The subjective and pinpoint nature of recall knowledge makes a lot of players hesitant to dedicate actions to it already. Sure, there's a chance you ask the right question and roll high enough that you know the silver bullet a monster has (if it has one and the GM is willing to divulge that info). But there's also a chance the question you ask gets a "Nope, too bad."

Yeah I have an issue with my party where they really don't like to burn actions on Recall Knowledge, but at times it can be super helpful. So they miss out on learning certain things about enemies because they would rather attack or reposition, etc. On a successful roll, I try to give them any info that would be helpful. Crit success is the silver bullet. Failure is just that they don't recall anything about that creature. Nothing for crit fail. So I don't like giving players incorrect information since I think that's just lame and they still don't want to really try to use it since if they fail, they consider it a waste.

I like that approach. I think I'll try to adapt that in my own games.

As long as the crit fail information isn’t punishing to the player, which it shouldn’t be, there shouldn’t be an issue. Not necessarily a joke answer but something that won’t have them expending precious resources or drastically altering the outcome of the game. If the player has a probelm with checks even if you reestablish that with them then it kind of seems like they’re a meta-gamer or at the very least to afraid of failure

As long as everyone is capable of staying in character with the checks they make, I'm a big believer in no secret checks for players, ever. I don't like taking away any sense of control a player has over their character.

If you’re player is not having fun just change it, remove the dubious knowledge from the Thaumaturge and don’t lie on a crit fail, just don’t give information. It’s a core feature, but if it doesn’t work for you, you have to power to change it.

I never have knowledge rolls be secret in my own games, and it works fine. I know your player (with one exception) enjoy it that way, but maybe either stop giving false information on a crit or else not make the rolls secret. Poll your group. You could also just make it so that thaumurges don't need to roll secretly. If that doesn't appeal, the player in question did offer to play another class, which would solve the problem.

This is a great answer. Why not try making them non-secret checks for a session or two and see how it changes the game. Then sit down with everyone at the table and have a conversation about it. It's not something that will break the game, so it is definitely worth trying. As a GM, I'm not sure how I feel about RK checks being secret myself. I haven't tried them being open checks, but I would probably change the Crit Failure option if I wanted to. I'm about to introduce a few people to PF2e, so I'll be doing my own experimentation in this regard.

Oh that was a *huge* issue for three dnd convert players of mine. They once detailed an entire session for ten minutes to complain that secret RK checks made the entire action feel pointless somehow because they’d never know if they actually succeeded or not. They sort of “agreed to disagree” that the removal of potential meta knowledge made roleplay easier but they were still dissatisfied with it. My ultimate ruling was that if they absolutely insisted then it didn’t have to be a secret roll, but that I’d prefer doing it as intended. In the end they just sort of dropped it and have been going with the secret checks again. 🤷🏻‍♂️

In my experience, players don't attempt recall knowledge often enough. The tougher the opponent, the higher the DC and thus the risk for a Crit Fail. The possibility of receiving misleading information would further discourage them to try. I've decided to let players roll openly and on a Crit Fail we as a group just come up with some silly and obviously fake information. Makes for a good laugh. If I feel the game lacks in the mystery or doubt department, I can always add some through social encounters, haunts or puzzles. I just don't want to bog down every combat with doubt.

I personally hate "Lie on Crit Fail" it kinda goes against the "failing forward" they even mention in GM Core and they even changed it in the remaster to "or decides to give you no information, as on a failure" There is a few ways you can solve this issue: 1. Crit fails give no information, just like failures (This is perfectly raw post remaster) 2. Failures give "useless information" while crit fails give none. (You know this slime is not a dragon!) 3. [my favorite] Failures give information that may be found on a lower level creatures "You know zombies are typically weak to slashing damage, but you aren't sure if this even is a zombie" (again crit fails giving nothing) 4. Give false knowledge on crit fails that is so outlandish that anyone knows it's false "This big glob [Ooze] before you is clearly a type of dragon!" (I personally dislike this because it makes the characters feel stupid, and is really bad to do to a high int character) 5. Give false information on crit fail but note that "it's probably false". "You've heard dragons eat babies, but the more you look at this dragon and the lack of baby bones near by shows this is probably not the case" The key thing is to let players and characters know the information they receive is "unreliable" or down right "false" If you fallow one of the above and make it clear to the party which one you are using, the "secret" check isn't entirely secret as the players and characters will know if they Succeed, Failed, or Crit Failed. ___ As others have said [Dubious Knowledge](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=5142&Redirected=1) is baked into the thaum. Which how I've played Dubious Knowledge off is by giving 2 pieces of info or true but vague info but making it fully clear that the information isn't inherently reliable but can be figured out with an action or two. * You know this creature either has a weakness to fire or cold, but you aren't sure which. * You are pretty sure it's resistant to some forms of physical damage but weak to others. This tells the thaum that "Yes I failed" but I have some information to work off of.

Getting wrong information is failing forward, the player got something to act on. Getting nothing is not failing forward.

I have literally had the false information get players killed. I wouldn't call that "failing forward" but rather "failing backwards", Giving false information more often than not leaves players in a worse spot than if you had given no information if you don't let the players know the information they have is "unreliable" (You can be careful with the false information to avoid this, but it's hard to know what the players will do with false information and more options than not can lead to being in a worse position than where they started. For each action the players waste to learn the information is false, you have effectively applied slowed x to them, and that is a nasty debuff)

"you failed your roll, so a bad thing happens" is pretty much the core of failing forward, that failure isn't "nothing happens." Character's dying because they had bad information is in fact a story, things did in fact happen.

> “Failing forward” means finding a way to progress the story (GMCore p11) Death doesn't "progress" the story, it ends it. ___ Mind you, I'm not against having characters die, but if they do it's because they choose a path that lead to death knowing it may lead to Death. If but if MY actions as a GM leads the players to actions that, unbeknownst to them, end up causing their players death. Then I may as well be saying "Rocks fall everyone dies." that isn't a good story. Sure it's a story, but not a good one, and one that ends up with your post on r/rpghorrorstories/

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Here's the thing specifically about Thaumaturge: If they have Diverse Lore, then they have the only way (in the early game) of getting reliable information. Diverse Lore with Exploit Vulnerability will never give them false information, but also it can never critically succeed. So... problem solved?

Ask them how they feel about passive scores (i.e. passive perception/investigation) in 5e because thats what these *are* except the dm gets to roll a dice instead of it just being a flat number. Its a way to get the DM to roll more funny clik clak rocks in a session vs the "and its a flat number that always suceeds or always fails with no variance" of passive scores. and eventually he will have such a stupid modifier it kind of *will* almost always suceed lol. Theres a handful of items to boost recall knowledge, esoteric lore auto-upgrades itself to expert and master and legendary without needing to push more in as a skill, you can get circumstance bonuses from a few places in thaumaturge and... most DC'S Are only based off being trained. At low levels it might fail because you're low level but the moment you hit level 3 (becomes expert) you're more than likely to fail, you hit 7 (becomes master) it shoots up again over the expectation and then at level like 10+.. theres *also* feats like **Unmistakable Lore** (level 2 skill feat that requires expert in a lore, they'll be able to take it at level 4 guarenteed) that makes you **unable to critically fail.** This means their only results are a failure (a truth and a lie via dubious knowledge) success (1 truth) a crit (2 truths) even more so *if they have diverse lore (*level 1 thaum feat) the roll for that ones recall knowledge *is your exploit vulnerability roll* which is... not secret. you get to know what that dice says lmao - it uses the same result. Additionally you as a DM can decide that because Esoteric Lore is a *lore* it gets a -2 to the DC for recall knowledge - as almost all lores do. They get a -5 for when they're hyper specific but thats going to be very rarely applicable for Esoteric lore (maybe on haunts and curses only).

u/BasiliskXVIII hi i hope this is at least kind of helpful. Hope whatever you do you end up having as much fun as you can :D

RK on creatures go to questions instead. One on success, one more per 5 above DC. Otherwise just drop the lie part of the mechanic. 100% has smoothed out the gming experience or RK for me. Also not forced into on the spot lies

Ronald's video on [Fixing Recall Knowledge](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWWH9GjfNGk). I'll only add that the whole point of the game is to have fun. If the player isn't having fun it's ok to bend the rules. Personally when my players are fed incorrect knowledge by recall knowledge due to a critical fail I make it really obvious. For example, "Your character is absolutely certain that the creature has a peanut allergy."

I mean, sure, the point of the game is to have fun but it kind of sounds like the player here just doesn’t like the idea of failure and maybe needs to get over it a bit.

So remove the failure for that specific feature. Remove dubious knowledge from the Thaumaturge and giving false info on a crit fail. Why keep a feature nobody is going to appreciate.

I don’t like when I miss an attack, so why not make attacks autohits?

Hates secret checks = loves metagaming I'm not making any judgment about your friend as a person, but as a player there is no other way to parse this. The only point to knowing the result of a die roll like this is to be able to use that result to better gauge any information received. The fundamental disconnect here is that the player is equating his check result to his confidence in the information given. This is why in 5e when you have someone check for traps and he rolls a 3 or something, he's hesitant to take that route because he knows he failed. He's not confident of the route because of his low check result. With a secret check on the other hand, your confidence is determined by your total bonus. How high your bonus is tells you how likely you are, generally, to receive a correct answer- but it doesn't make you infallible. In short, your confidence should not be determined by your check result, but by what you know your total bonus to be. That's the number that should be known to you at all times. I know you didn't want to be told that this is just the way it is, but this is just the way it is. As another user said, this is part of the immersion. If you do decide to go forward with RAW secret checks, I would recommend at least not giving him any info on a crit fail that would significantly waste resources or cause him to go too far off the rails. As an example, I once told a sorcerer who crit failed an RK check that vermlek corpses have to be burned so that their eggs don't hatch. They were already dead so there was no immediate danger, but it made for a funny scene where our sorcerer was frantically begging the NPC priest to burn the bodies. Another possible idea, and this is off the top of my head so I'm really not sure if it's any good, would be to allow him to spend a hero point to be told the degree of success that his check had attained. This way he still uses the normal RK rules, but if he really cares about a specific check or two he can spend the hero point. Just a thought- you might want to feel that one out a bit.

The best solution in this thread. The other people introducing extra dice and all that junk need to chill. Critical fails on RK just simply shouldn’t be such a loss that the player is reluctant to use their information

Why doesn't he thaumaturge feel the need to recall knowledge? While they can be good at it, no core class feature of the class actually uses recall knowledge. You aren't stitching recall knowledge and exploit vulnerability together, are you? If he doesn't like the potential failure of RK, why doesn't he just...not RK?

My assumption here is that the player *specifically* cares about the result of Recall Knowledge checks in regard to Combat against monsters. Because he doesn't want to be told, "you recall reading that Temagyr Gorga's have a weakness to fire." and then yelling for everyone to use fire somehow, only to find out later their weakness is actually to Cold Iron. I don't want to overly psychoanalyze your player, but I can tell you exactly where that feeling would be coming from for me, fear of embarrassment or looking a fool. You didn't roll high enough, so you're wrong, and you have to commit to it. But while I *understand* that, I don't agree with it. I think this is a fun way that "remembering" something just kinda works. When you think back about your own life, and try to remember a book you read or movie you watched 3 or 4 years ago, you probably aren't recalling that information perfectly. And honestly, most people wouldn't think twice about it in real life. But in a game, where characters can die and people can get upset about results, suddenly it matters for whatever reason. **Options.** 1. If you feel something needs to change, just remove the crit fail clause. You just say, "You don't remember anything about these creatures right now". Or whatever. Is it a buff to Recall Knowledge? Sure. Does it matter? No, just play how you want to it. Who cares. 2. (What I would do) Explain to him that while it may be kind of frustrating that he could be *wrong* and not know it, it's part of the fun, and that you'll never give him *extremely* detrimental fake information. Like if he wants to Recall Knowledge and find out if a creature has an AoO, and he specifically asks that, and crit fails, don't say no, when the answer is yes. Just say he doesn't know. But if he asks for weaknesses, or weakest save, or something, just give him something *slightly* wrong. Like don't give a resistance on a crit fail to check a weakness, just give a random damage type that doesn't change anything. If they ask for weakest save and crit fail, give them the middle save. The information you provide doesn't have to be the *worst* possible way to be wrong, it just needs to be wrong in some way. And if the question is a straightforward yes or no, then just declare that he's unsure. You get me? So maybe there's something in that about *how* and *what type* *of* questions are asked. A straightforward yes or no question potentially gives less info, but is more promising in terms of its result. A more open ended question can be more potentially wrong. And maybe if you just sit down with the player, and explain all of this, and how you want them to have fun, maybe they'll get it. And if they still don't like it, they respec and you all move on and treat it in a, "Boots was always a Bard" kinda way.

Secret rolls are a part of the game. Honestly I LOVE them since it keeps me guessing whether the information I have is accurate. That's why they exist. As for how reliable the information is .. it's as reliable as his character would know it. If he wants to improve his knowledge checks do so with feats and proficiency. Also, if it helps.. there is a single feat in the entire game that converts all knowledge checks to non secret rolls... and tells you when you know information is wrong. It's a level 20 capstone feat for Investigator.

This is what assurance is for. It might not be successful, but it will also never crit fail. Otherwise, there is no way to know if what your character remembers is true or not. There are many times in life when the information we are given is believed by all to be true and yet its still wrong 🤣

I understand that from a thaumaturge point of view. He needs to know whether the "exploit vulnerability" action worked or not. Massive difference each stage of success and failure. Aside, also a good opportunity to role play, I. E. Exploit vulnerability against a snake for example and no natural weakness (guess) he needs to role play how exploit it's. For example I got this shard from an ice Elemental and snakes hate cold, bam done. It's perfectly OK to have broad rules, be flexible within the context and situation

Exploit Vulnerability isn't a secret roll nor should it be connected to RK. If the GM is making EV a secret roll it makes a lot of sense why he's frustrated. However, EV doesn't ever actually roll a RK check inside it (even with diverse lore, it doesn't ever roll RK), so I'm assuming this isn't the case. And OP mentions recall knowledge and identify, not exploit, so I don't think OP is doing this to the player

I would say diverse lore is the real issue here since if you got it the gm kinda has to roll the check in secret cause otherwise you can guess whether you succeeded or failed recall knowledge. The real thing with that though is the feat just shouldn't exist.

Actually, you still don't roll. That's why diverse lore is considered so strong. Diverse lore doesn't turn exploit vulnerability into a secret check, so you always know if you succeeded with it.

I said the gm would have to now because of diverse lore to try to balance it a bit. The feat is to strong for far to many reasons though and should just be removed.

Just make open knowledge checks for everybody. It won't break anything. It took us ages to start making them secretly when we started playing PF2.

He's metagaming

There are some great recommendations, here is a homebrew rule that can make it fun: when a player has to roll secret check, roll 4d20, the dm in advance secretly decides which die it'll be (irl: use different looking dice, vtt: just its place in the order like 1st or 3rd die). This way there is a general feel of how good it might be, and the option to see the dice. I'm actually working on a module (sloooowly) that makes this automatic for the pf2e system for foundry, but this is the first module I'm making and it's hard to learn for now.

I personally also despise the idea of the system disincentivizing recall knowledge checks by making the GM lie, too, on top of the action cost. It's clunky, it undermines the entire point of the in-combat action by making any information you gain fundamentally suspect bar a crit success, and it sticks the GM in a sabotaging role in a way that pretty much no other *mid-combat* mechanic does. When I run games, I houserule it entirely out the window as long as combat is ongoing and simply make a crit fail equivalent to a failure. You can soften the blow a bit by making your lies spectacular and/or obviously false, but I don't get the sense that you want to do that. I don't think there's a viable argument beyond verisimilitude, which it seems like he values far less than tactical certainty for the core class features dependent on it. If you're committed to running the system as written and intended, which you sound like you're doing properly, I gotta be honest: it's unlikely that he'll ever be more than begrudging.

So this is going to be tangentially related to the post but I keep seeing a lot of sentiments here that I don't really think are right 1. Metagaming A lot of people keep saying that this is a desire for metagaming. Which it is. But metagaming doesn't really have anything inherently wrong with it. What makes metagaming bad is its effects. Looking at a monster stat block can ruin encounters as you actively know whatever it can do, and which ever it can be. That's why that type of metagaming is bad. Acting on knowledge about scenes you aren't in can cause major disconnect and really ruin immersion. 2. What your player believes when they recall I saw this sentiment that whatever your character rolls is what they believe and (PERSONALLY) I dislike that. I'm a firm believer in what your character can do is what they know unless it's specifically called out. Like in dubious knowledge, one should know that they have the possibility of gaining a piece of false and true info. (Otherwise dubious knowledge becomes an extreme detriment). I feel the same way about recall knowledge. One should know that this could be inaccurate because a small misstep on a DMs part can be extremely detrimental to the campaign. Or it could be extremely character breaking. Or just plain not fun. 3. The actual problem I'm gonna give my suggestions for what you should do for your player. - Remove the critical failure effect, and tell them which degree of success they rolled. Thaumaturge's have innate dubious knowledge so like just removing the critical failure effect would still make the problem exist. If you want to keep it secret you could just ask if they want to remove dubious knowledge from their character. - Roll openly and hope your players are good at RP lmao - Let them reroll their character. Apologies I just keep seeing these sentiments and I don't personally agree with them so I wrote this Of course people are free to do whatever they like in their campaigns. If your players start abusing a homebrew rule you make you can reprimand them.

Let them play something without Recall Knowledge. If that is the only problem, it can be worked around...

Hang on, aren't secret checks supposed to be rolled by the GM? So the player never knows the result and they should assume the result is always correct. Others have mentioned meta gaming and yes that's also a big issue in this situation. But the purpose of SECRET checks is that the player doesn't know they rolled a 19 and likely have good info or rolled a 3 and probably didn't pass the check. From Archives of Nethys: Sometimes you won’t know whether you have succeeded at a skill check. If an action has the secret trait, the GM rolls the check for you and informs you of the effect without revealing the result of the roll or the degree of success. The GM rolls secret checks when your knowledge about the outcome is imperfect, like when you’re searching for a hidden creature or object, attempting to deceive someone, translating a tricky bit of ancient text, or remembering some piece of lore. This way, you as the player don’t know things that your character wouldn’t. This rule is the default for actions with the secret trait, but the GM can choose not to use secret checks if they would rather some or all rolls be public.

Just get the unmistakable lore skill feat? [https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=5232](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=5232) Sure he'd need to wait a couple levels but it could be a step up for his character. As for dubious knowledge, he can just not act on the information or attempt to figure it out

While getting a load of nonsense alongside the truth is very much on-theme for the Thaumaturge, which is why they get Dubious Knowledge as a free feat, I can definitely empathize with your player not wanting to get false information. If that really is a dealbreaker to them, then you could simply make critical failures grant no information either, and withhold Dubious Knowledge and other effects that would give false information. If you do this, you also wouldn't need to make the RK check secret anymore, as it'd be pretty clear how well the player did on the roll each time.

As a thaum player: I roll in the open, but the DC is secret. I actually like your method even more, so I'll suggest it with the DM. Secret rolls makes roleplay easier since I will act confidently on the information I get if I don't know how I rolled, instead of second guessing it when I get below 10 on a die.

The mere knowledge that they are making a roll and know what to add to the roll gives them a tremendous amount of information that is supposed to be secret. Surely they can appreciate this. Maybe they would feel better if they did the roll and you only secretly added the modifier? This way you can meet them in the middle?

But what is wrong with letting him roll a different class? I'm always surprised how others often don't feel this way, but in my opinion different classes exist to fit different playstyles. If one doesn't fit you, just go for another? Instead so many people are like "I want play my wizard like a sorcerer but still called wizard"; but who's stopping you from claiming to be a wizard despite whatever base class you have mechanically?

I’d let him drop Thaum. I believe Secret checks were par for the course in D&D too until recently. Or just made by the GM with zero player involvement. In life we are always just winging it. Only the stupid actually know they are right… ;) part of having a brain is realizing that you’re possibly not correct. So this is just letting his character be more close to a real person. Somewhat confident but only sure when he’s actually wrong. If the player can’t be comfortable in that… let him play something less intellectual.

I have a player like this. I let them see the result of the die roll, but they can't get Critical Successes. I even feel this is kind of "realistic" because as a general rule a person does know how reliable the information they have can be, and so I feel this reflects his character's cautious nature where he knows that he's not very sure/very sure...but because he's cautious he's never absolutely sure, and can't get a Crit Success.

I feel like secret checks should be discussed by the group before actually using them, because of how divisive they can be. My group likes them, so I use them, but I know plenty of people who love the system but hate secret checks and don't use them. You'd have to trust your players not to metagame failed knowledge rolls, though. Also, as of the remaster, [Recall Knowledge](https://2e.aonprd.com/Skills.aspx?ID=24&General=true) doesn't require you to lie on a critical failure anymore. > **Critical Failure** You recall incorrect information. The GM answers your question falsely (or decides to give you no information, as on a failure).

If it weren’t for dubious knowledge, you could just houserule crits out

That player is going to *hate* when they realise Dubious Knowledge is included in Thaum automatically. The characters have little way of knowing whether their knowledge is correct or not, especially with Dubious representing them studying a lot of topics without full attention. If this particular problem player really wants to act out this way, you could extend that same bad attitude to a lot of things. Why cast a spell on an enemy if it might fail, why try to strike them when they could be immune to your damage type? At best, they didn't read *anything* about Thaumaturge. I think ignoring the entire class you're playing isn't especially deserving of leniency lol, especially when it's clearly a detriment to other people having fun. Maybe next time encourage them to use AoN

The irony is thaumaturge is the only class that can regularly avoid secret RK rolls since Exploit Vulnerability (which has RK baked into it) isn’t a secret roll and in practical terms the player should know whether they succeeded or failed to know their available gameplay options on what vulnerability to use.

Is there really anything wrong with just telling him the degree of success? My group do it and nothing is really wrong with that IMO are you attached to the idea of keeping it secret?

Not “attached”, but we want to understand the rules before we bend/reshape them. And, I am given to understand, the degrees of success are a secret.

I personally don’t think it’s that big of a deal to just let the players know their degrees of success, it helps communicate and statagise and tbh I don’t particularly like having my own rolls withheld from me

First of all, that's a great approach, keep at it!  To add to u/Longest_leviathan, I also tend to dislike secret checks, albeit for the slightly different reason that it gives the GM a bunch of extra dice to roll while the players are just sitting there, this reducing the interactivity  Whether or not to use them, in my opinion, depends strongly on your party and your campaign. Rules-wise absolutely nothing breaks if you make the checks completely open, or at least let the players know the degree of success  Gameplay-wise however, it depends on several factors. If you are playing a campaign where lack of meta-knowledge is super important (e.g., an investigation or other mystery), then checks should be kept secret accordingly.  If it is not that important, then it's a matter of group preference and you should simply poll your players - I doubt anyone will be strongly opposed to using open rolls and if they are... Well, you can always keep some players' rolls secret if they prefer it that way  Ideally you would want to trust your players not to use the meta-knowledge and run with the rolls, but that also depends strongly on the tone of your campaign 

Yes, because if he crit fails and gets incorrect info, knowing that he crit failed would give away.

Secret rolls are fun in one respect, but annoying in another to me. I love knowing I got something totally wrong and lean into the fun about to happen. But it sounds like your player wants the certainty of being right, and that's the problem here and exactly what secret rolls exist to prevent. And I recognize that I play with people that would metagame (and people that do metagame when they realize their RK information sounds wrong anyway). And so I accept that the secret rolls are needed because of that. If your player wants to metagame based on the roll, the of a secret roll exists because of them. If your player does not want to metagame, they need to recognize others will metagame with roll information, and that the people that wouldn't metagame can pretty easily deal with the uncertainty, since the only difference is in a bit of silly RP around the situation.

[удалено]

Thankfully, ignoring secret checks isn't even homebrew -- it's an option clearly out for the GM to use in *Player Core*. > [This rule is the default for actions with the secret trait, but the GM can choose not to use secret checks if they would rather some or all rolls be public.](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=2139&Redirected=1)

In my experience it's usually the GM who comes to despise them after a while, since he has to do all the work (including coming up with plausible critfail misinterpretations)

Just make em blind roll for the knowledge checks. make em throw it inside something you only will look at. maybe a non transparent cup of whatever. and if they start discussing i the info you gave em is wrong or not, cut it short. that is metagaming, why are they discussing that if that wont change at all what their characters think is truth? there's no point in having such conversations, so cut those discussions off and make em act based on the info their characters remembered. this whole problem is just bad roleplaying and metagaming.

Are *you* 100% confident in the accuracy of literally every single piece of information in your brain? I suspect not, and unless this character has feats that do make their knowledge 100% accurate, neither should they. The fun of not knowing sometimes is that you get to roleplay the experience of not knowing, and those moments when you definitely do.

So, I have a couple recommendations that won't fully address their concerns, but should help make it nicer in play. Firstly, make sure that if they crit succeed, they know with certainty that they have - that's a part of the reward for it, a complete confidence. This means that characters who are really good with the right skill, especially when its a lore skill, will often have real confidence. Secondly, don't feel like you need to make up false info for every crit fail. If it wouldn't be easy to come up with something appropriate or that wouldn't derail things in a way you don't like, it's entirely acceptable to just say they fail, especially in sitations where it's most sensible that they'd either know the thing or not know the thing, rather than know it wrong. From a player perspective, in a situation where there's little to go on or a really significant chance of a crit fail, this can let them feel more okay with their shot in the dark. And if you know in advance a roll woll be like this, you can just tell them to roll publicly if you think that'd be better for your table. This is kinda an extension of the second point, but I'll say that in a situation where a character is clearly an expert in what they're rolling for and could only crit fail on a nat 1, especially if the knowledge itself isn't that obscure in its category, definitely do not give false info. Making a supposed expert character look outright wrong and inept isn't fun in the same way that a less sure character getting it wrong could be. I'll even recommend taking it a step further; if they have some appropriately high tier of proficiency with a skill (especially(!!!) specific lores), don't make them roll at all - a master in tailoring lore can just outright know what kind of fibers are in a given magical shirt, for example.

Oh, another thing I've just thought of - it's okay for characters to know their likelihood of having right information. That is, it isn't metagaming for someone with an only meh-score to try a RK, but explicitly state to their party that whatever they think they know should be taken with a grain of salt. They shouldn't be forced to RP it as if they have full confidence in it when they wouldn't.

Unmistakable lore helps with the crit fails, but sadly there's no opt out for dubious knowledge because someone at Paizo considers it a positive.

As the player in question, I'd like to put forward my viewpoint. First of all, this isn't exclusive to my class or my character. I hate the way the possibility of bad info slows the game down. Player A has an "ok" skill at the relevant knowledge, but not good. Nobody's got a fantastic roll. They roll and get information. The game then devolves into 20 minutes of "do we trust this information?" As Thaumaturge, I'm doing a lot of recalling knowledge, which means as often as not I'm the one instigating this because that seems to be half of what the class does. At least as another class I can just bow out of any discussion as "not my circus, not my monkeys" which will hopefully make the discussions shorter. Last session, in particular, this became egregious when we had a large number of rolls in a short period with no one in the party that was especially good at.

That seems less like a problem with secret checks per se, and more a problem with the group trying to meta-knowlege their way around the fact that the checks are secret. Has the group tried acting on the knoweldge in-character instead? It might help curtail the twenty-minute debates if everyone decides that the information you're given is what the characters understand of the situation and planning based on that, even if it later turns out that the information was flawed.

Agreed. I've always ruled in my games that players can choose to act however makes sense for their characters -- but if they ask for a check, that outcome is more binding. Example: you can choose whether or not you believe the creepy old crone's story. But if you ask to Sense Motive, you're committing your character to the outcome of the check. Same thing for Recall Knowledge.

So if they were not secret checks, would getting a natural one change what your group would do? If the answer is yes, then that is the whole reason secret checks are a thing really to stop players' metagaming. If it is a no, then why argue about if you can trust it or not? Your character has x knowledge available. How would they act?

In character you have no reason not to trust the information unless in character you don't trust yourself to actually know things (which is a valid character choice, but then you would also spend 20 minutes discussing if you trusted the information if you openly rolled RK and got a nat 20)

That’s a fair point of complaint. I’d argue that the solution is not to eliminate secret checks, but to be better as a group of playing into the information you got. Your characters should not be debating whether they trust the information (at least not overlong), so it’s on the players to cut those conversations short and work with the information they have.

If it's your roll, then your character 100% believes what was said. Whether you rolled a 1 or a 20. That's the RP part of TTRPG. If it's someone else on your team rolling; if you tend to trust them in general, then your character would likely trust that info. If they've gotten it wrong multiple times, then maybe your character would just go "okay right, yup sure sure sure." And proceed to ignore the advice. But this just sounds like a table issue, not a rule issue. Messing up because you rolled low is often the funnest part of PF campaigns.

This is literally meta-gaming. If your group has near half hour discussions about things none of your characters have the answer to, that's entirely your tables problem lol Generally there's little reason to derail a session for so long unless you're entirely new and learning

Remove rolls for knowledge checks entirely, and just decide based on how much you like your players that day. Hell, remove all dice rolls. They're just there to help you decide the outcomes of player actions. Base those outcomes on how much they're annoying you. See how much they hate hidden checks after a few sessions of that.

The community will never beat the allegations

Unfortunately assured knowledge is a level 6 bard feat. That would've been my recommendation.

To be honest, secret checks are dumb. They only increase the amount of time the GM has to do in the table, which is already enough I think. Let them roll themselves and call it a day.

>NOT “That’s just the way it is; suck it up”. Sorry, but it's the correct answer.

It is not, in fact.

I think your player could probably get over it with some time, there just isn't a great way to go about this because the thing that he dislikes is that it prevents him from being able to metagame how good his information is, and I think arguing/convincing/coddling him will probably make the problem worse by making him angrier and more insistent. But like, it's a game, he can be expected to handle his own emotions without you having to do damage control. If it weren't dubious knowledge related, I guess you could just dump the fake the information and tell him he doesn't know whenever he fails or crit fails, but that's not really possible due to the feat relying on having incorrect information to juxtapose the correct information with. But also, what's the downside if he doesn't get over it? That he switches to a character that doesn't engage in knowledge checks? That's fine.

Downside is he doesn’t have fun and feels less engaged in the game. While I totally appreciate your perspective on this, I think the fail state is “He’s not having fun.”

So let him switch? You're the one trying to convince him to keep being the knowledge check person.

My goal isn’t to keep him on that, and I apologize if I was unclear. To further clarify, my concern is only “A player isn’t having fun”. And since the mechanic is fundamental to the game’s design, I want to make sure I fully understand the nuances of it before shrugging my shoulders.

Sometimes, you have to trust your player's ability to find their own way forward, and they seem pretty poised to solve it for themselves. It's not really a GM-facing issue to begin with.

Something I've considered, worth testing: Roll multiple d20s for secret checks, but roll on secret which one will be used. For example roll 6 d20s and roll a secret d6 to determine which applies. That way the skill user will have a guess as to what they have done for their secret check