Fair enough; and I agree that exploration challenges can be hard to manufacture given all the out-clauses 5e gives its characters. It's a problem that long predates 5e, though 5e certainly hasn't done anything to solve it.
What I'm seeing, though, is a repeated sentiment that amounts to "Because exploration has few or no challenges and-or doesn't engage with many game mechanics, it isn't important to game play". I very much disagree that lack of challenge in a game element makes that element unimportant or irrelevant.
Example: the PCs chatting with each other around the campfire. No challenge anywhere and nary a game mechanic in sight yet this type of Social-pillar stuff is often absolutely vital for character development, and in some cases for player engagement.
Well, to some extent the same goes for non-challenge freeform exploration: it's a useful means of immersion into the setting for all, and for some it provides a higher degree of engagement.
I think that is in part because with a lack of challenges it becomes hard to highlight the difference. We seem to have a deep struggle in this thread to even define what is and what isn't exploration and why that is. Now, you may have an answer that seems obvious to you, but others of us are seeing it from a different angle that makes your answer not seem 100% accurate.
Is describing a location important? Yes, it could even be considered the most important thing in the game, but that is because we can't do anything without describing it, and therefore description is a part of every single pillar. Which makes it difficult to imagine that's what was intended. Setting it up so one pillar is the bedrock of the other two isn't having three pillars. So, for a lot of us, we go forward with the idea that this isn't the case. That description =/= exploration.
So, I don't think it is that people think non-challenge exploration isn't "important" to a smooth running of the game, as much as they are saying that it is so integral to the game that it can't be a pillar like the other two. You can't interact with the gameworld without moving through it, so the "exploration pillar" can't default to being that, because that is such a bedrock element that you can't seperate it from any other portion of the game. Which means "exploration" must be something else, something smaller.
Indeed; I think we mught be simply disagreeing as to where that cutoff point is.
That is highly likely considering our differences in style.
Ah, but the way I see it is that if searching the room takes 10 minutes then after that 10 minutes you'll get a roll to see how well your searching went, and that's that. Spending another 10 minutes - or another two hours - simply isn't going to help unless you materially change something you're doing; as your initial roll has already determined the results of your best effort. (re-rolling is a non-starter for me)
But a material change in approach means you're in effect starting over. For example, if your initial search was done discreetly so as to not leave signs of your presence and came up dry, changing tack to "Screw it, I don't care if they know I was here" and trying again would get another roll.
See, this is a weird non-starter for me. Re-rolls make sense. I'm going to switch examples to highlight this, but I'll try and bring it back to exploration.
If I try to break down a door, and I fail in real life, then I can always try again. I can try again in the exact same manner, and there is a god chance that, given enough repeats, the door will wear down. However, by not allowing re-rolls it feels like I get a single chance to break it down, and if I fail it becomes an impenetrable force construct, locked into reality and immovable. You can say "you put in your best effort" but I know that isn't true, because I know my best effort would break down the door.
It ends up feeling like the DC changes. As though it goes from whatever value to infinite after a single attempt, which is very jarring to my verisimilitude. And going back over a paper or a book or a searched room and finding something that you missed before happens all the time in real life. It makes sense.
Now, I get why you don't like re-rolls, because what they mean is that given a non-threatening environment, the players will always eventually succeed. And I think that is why I prefer sometimes to take a roll that failed, and say that instead it succeeded, it just took longer. It is the idea of failing forward, but I think I want to evolve that concept a bit. Not right now, but ideas are percolating as I'm writing.
What if failing a roll, not catastrophically, but just by a bit is the driver of that Doom Pool idea?
This points to a difference in how we perceive characters in general, perhaps.
I tend to see adventurers as ordinary people who have become good at a few things but - far more importantly - are willing to take risks and endure hardships that others are not.
I struggle with the exact cut-off point, but looking at Xanathar's tool rules and everything else, I think I lean far more to the Eberron Model. By level 1 you are already highly trained, and by level 3 you are exceptional.
However, I also tend to make a lot of other people exceptional too. Your blacksmith PC is as good as any highly-trained blacksmith, but the City Watch in the Capital are all likely level 3 fighters, because they are just that good. IT causes issues, the game isn't set up well for how we balance the power of PCs/NPCs/and monsters in the world, but there has to be a middle ground.
And sure, someone trained in investigation might be as good as real-world law enforcement; but without all the modern tech (or magic, in a game world) that might not be saying very much.
Fair, but a lot of police work doesn't involve tech too.
Advantage and, on average, +15? I thought 5e's bounded accuracy was supposed to eliminate that sort of thing!
shrug I have never had a party not roll with advantage. They always use the help action on every check they can. And a lot of abilities exist to boost skills, and they all tend to stack.
Which makes it difficult to find appropriate challenges. I think 5e does better, but it isn't perfect.
