D&D 5E Investigative campaign?

Sunseeker · May 7, 2015

I've got a couple of campaigns I'm working on atm and one of them moreso than the other will require investigative skills much more than combat skills. Many situations will involve traps, locks, magical devices, diplomacy and so forth with absolutely no way to resolve the situation with combat mechanics.

So I'm wondering how well 5th supports this sort of adventure? Should I limit/nudge certain classes over others? I suspect that Wizards, Rogues and Bards will be particularly useful most of the time while Fighters, Barbarians and Paladins will see little "screen-time". Would it be better to give players the Skilled feat for free? That would bring even the lowest-skilled class up to 7 total skills (including background), which would certainly round out some of the martial classes with more options at the table. Or am I overthinking things? Do classes, plus backgrounds and possible racial proficiencies already give even the least-skilled classes enough tricks to handle more "thinking" situations and less combaty ones?

So, textwall summary:
Does 5E handle low-combat, high-investigation/exploration games well?
Do characters need anything extra to handle these situations or do the default rules provide enough?
Should I add extra sub-skills (similar to 3.5's Knowledge: *subject* skills) to help players be better at specific things instead of generalists?

ExploderWizard · May 7, 2015

I would say making sure your players are aware of the campaign type before creating characters is more important than the system.

Having done that, 5E should work fine. You can run investigation in AD&D without any skill support so there isn't a reason 5E can't handle it as written.

Sunseeker · May 7, 2015

ExploderWizard said:
I would say making sure your players are aware of the campaign type before creating characters is more important than the system.

Of course, I'd tell people the sort of game they're going to be playing in, I sincerely dislike being expected to "guess" what kind of skills I'll need in a new game, especially if that game has a strong central feature.

mflayermonk · May 7, 2015

I'm working on something similar and decided to adapt GumShoe to D&D for the investigative side and just run combats in D&D.

http://pelgranepress.com/site/?p=13319

iserith · May 7, 2015

shidaku said:
I've got a couple of campaigns I'm working on atm and one of them moreso than the other will require investigative skills much more than combat skills. Many situations will involve traps, locks, magical devices, diplomacy and so forth with absolutely no way to resolve the situation with combat mechanics.

So I'm wondering how well 5th supports this sort of adventure? Should I limit/nudge certain classes over others? I suspect that Wizards, Rogues and Bards will be particularly useful most of the time while Fighters, Barbarians and Paladins will see little "screen-time". Would it be better to give players the Skilled feat for free? That would bring even the lowest-skilled class up to 7 total skills (including background), which would certainly round out some of the martial classes with more options at the table. Or am I overthinking things? Do classes, plus backgrounds and possible racial proficiencies already give even the least-skilled classes enough tricks to handle more "thinking" situations and less combaty ones?

So, textwall summary:
Does 5E handle low-combat, high-investigation/exploration games well?
Do characters need anything extra to handle these situations or do the default rules provide enough?
Should I add extra sub-skills (similar to 3.5's Knowledge: *subject* skills) to help players be better at specific things instead of generalists?

I think it will handle it just fine as-is. While players would be smart to take classes with more access to skills than those that do not, this need is mitigated by the DM running a game that balances the use of dice with automatic success and failure based on how well the player has his or her character approach a given problem. (See DMG pgs. 236-237.)

Another good approach is to make sure that clues aren't hidden behind ability checks. Or rather, you can have a player roll a die to obtain a clue but they find it no matter the result - a failed check just results in some kind of interesting complication, setback, or cost. This means that even those characters not trained in a particular skill won't potentially stymie an adventure from moving forward, keeping some classes viable in that sense.

Thyrwyn · May 7, 2015

You might try one of the skill variants that tie proficiency to traits and/or background, rather than the standard method. That would seem to work well for that type of focused campaign. it would also allow different characters to showcase different environments: the Fighter (sailor) would be more persuasive in the dockside bar than the Wizard (sage), while the latter would shine in the Great Library. This even works for non-social skills (which one do you think would be better at sneaking around the library?). Attributes would still play a part - the Wizard will still be able to contribute to (Investigation) checks because of his high Intelligence, even in environments outside his background. Criminals would climb buildings well, while sailors would be better at climbing through the rigging...

I would hand out Inspiration often - to give players the ability to choose which checks are important to them - and to encourage them to play to their traits. This should build the positive feedback loop you're looking for: players' playing up their traits and backgrounds to put themselves in situations where they will do well, being rewarded for it, and doing it more often. Since there is generally less opportunity to earn Inspiration in combat, players will seek other means to accomplish their goals.

Tony Vargas · May 9, 2015

Most classes can do something in a campaign that de-emphasized combat in favor of 'investigation.' Any 5e neo-Vancian caster can adjust his pillar emphasis just be preparing a new set of spells. Other classes will do better if the players are told about the emphasis up-front, so they can choose spells, abilities, and skills accordingly. Only a very few sub-classes lack both spells/abilities with non-combat applications and the Expertise that can make a non-combat skill contribution more significant - so long as you make the nature of the campaign clear, up-front, players can avoid those few sub-optimal choices.

Quickleaf · May 11, 2015

shidaku said:
Does 5E handle low-combat, high-investigation/exploration games well?
Do characters need anything extra to handle these situations or do the default rules provide enough?
Should I add extra sub-skills (similar to 3.5's Knowledge: *subject* skills) to help players be better at specific things instead of generalists?

I think that investigation centric campaigns succeed because of the DM's work crafting interesting logical clues (and presenting them well).

I love this style of game and have run investigative heavy adventures in 2e, 4e, and 5e. The system is not the determining factor in having an awesome investigative game. So...yes 5e will handle this type of game just fine, the default rules will cover you just fine, and no you don't need to provide sub-skills or whatever.

That said, developing interesting coherent clues takes work you need to do in advance (or at least I needed to do in advance). Likewise, presentation of those clues is really critical. I highly recommend checking out the Three Clue Rule on the Alexandrian blog, and I also second [MENTION=54007]mflayermonk[/MENTION]'s suggestion to check out GUMSHOE. I even did a 4e skill challenge write up inspired by GUMSHOE which may provide inspiration: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...llenge/page3&p=6136483&viewfull=1#post6136483