Level Up (A5E) Rogue/Investigator ability - Track Recognition

[Grakarg]

I'm a little confused by the 9th lvl Rogue/Investigator ability, Track Recognition. Maybe how it's phrased is just not clicking with me. What exactly is the ability supposed to do?

The ability states, "Starting at 9th level, when you examine a creature’s trail (footprints or similar signs), you can recall the circumstances under which you examined this individual creature’s trail before."

So if I'm tracking something, I can remember what had happened the last time I'd tracked the same creature?
Wouldn't I remember that anyway because it had happened to me? A-ha! I can tell from THESE tracks that yesterday I was tracking them when it was RAINING! Huh?

I feel like this ability is supposed to get the player more info about the creature they're tracking than they'd normally get, but I'm unsure how to adjudicate this at the table. Any advice?
Maybe give them insight into the creatures behavior based on their tracks. Or is it just that you can follow a specific set of tracks (like an individual running in the middle of a group)

 

[Satirical Bard]

With some of my players this would be an enormous boon lol!

But I agree, it is presumably a bug and meant to mean something else.

 

[MarkB]

To me it sounds like you effectively automatically identify the trail as belonging to a specific individual so long as you've tracked that individual on a previous occasion. So if you examined a crime scene earlier and saw a set of size nine boot prints leading away, then if at some later point you come across a similar set of tracks you'll automatically know whether they belong to the same individual, without requiring any kind of ability check.

That's absolutely awesome for an investigator.