D&D 5E (2024) How can I do a Charisma-Investigation (or a Strength/Dexterity-Investigation if I can't use Charisma) to find a secret door?

[Micah Sweet]

If he is not there and is not going to let anyone play his character then it is going to kill him.



It does in the only game that is relevant to this thread.

Your specific game is the only one that's relevant in this thread? Wow.

 

[kermit4karate]

But I don't think fade away is a great way to do it, no matter how tables do it that way and the fact that the current official DMG recommends it, because it doesn't make sense from my perspective. If I said that it would be a lie.

Just faaaaade away....

 

[Maxperson]

Just faaaaade away....

 

[pemerton]

Do a flashback where you asked around for rumors about where secret doors are located in the dungeon before you left town.

Have you been reading my old posts?

When posed with a problem like the door to Moria would you use your Diplomacy to pass it? Would you use your Acrobatics? Would you use Arcana?

Using Diplomacy: "Remember that time we were visiting the Wizards' Guild in Greyhawk? And I was buttering up that Burglomancer specialist? She told me a heap of old magical passwords - I try them all." The player rolls Diplomacy (probably at a hard DC - it's a pretty far-fetched story!) to see if this is true.

Using Acrobatics: "As the Watcher in the Water writhes about with its tentacles, I dodge at the last minute so it smashes into the door and breaks it." That might be a hard DC as well.

Using Arcana: "I speak a spell of opening". Medium DC. Or "I speak a spell of recall, to remember all the passwords and riddles I've learned over the years". That's more interesting and more clever- let's say a Medium DC with a +2 circumstance modifier.

a PC can use diplomacy on a Burglomancer (a species of wizard I coined for the purposes of my post), and that when confronted with a door might remember something that Burglomancer told him/her which would be useful to open the door. In the skill challenge, the player explains how and when the diplomacy was used, as I illustrated in my example.

<snip>

I showed how a player might have his/her PC use diplomacy to contribute to a skill challenge involving a door - by retroacively using diplomacy on a person who has the requisite knowledge of how to open the door.

 

[pemerton]

There are other FRPGs that use a "fade away"-style rule. For instance, ere is the Torchbearer 2e rule for an absent player (from the Scholar's Guide, p 25):

If your group plays an ongoing game and a player misses a session, they get a little boost to help them catch up when they come back.

After the prologue, they tell everyone where their character has been. They should make up something cool but keep it short - and make sure it fits with the group’s current predicament.

Once they’ve done that, they may:

* Alleviate one condition (except injured or sick) in recovery order - hungry and thirsty, angry, afraid or exhausted

* If they have no conditions, restore a point of taxed Nature

* If they have neither conditions nor taxed Nature, they may note a test for advancement - pass or fail - for one skill or ability, or memorize one spell or reduce Immortal burden by one​

Here are some examples from actual play:

the PCs were on the wharves of Nulb with Grud Squinteye, offsider to Tolub, the river pirate captain.

I then described Tolub's black-sailed river galley pulling up to the wharf, with Tolub - wearing his mail and carrying his battle axe - standing at the prow of the fighting deck. I also asked Korvin's player to tell us how Korvin - who was absent from our previous session - found himself on Tolub's vessel.

Korvin's player gave us a brief account of how - after the PCs had left the Moathouse - he had tried to sneak aboard Tolub's galley, and been caught, but talked his way out of trouble. He took a failed test for Criminal.

Telemere's player filled us all in on what had happened to him since he was last seen: he had been captured by the Gnolls (everyone knows that Gnolls hate Elves!) and put in a barrel, to be sold as cured meat! But the pickling process had not taken (Elves require more salt than that to be pickled!) and so he was still alive when the Dwarves in the Dwarven Hall opened the barrel - and out he stepped!

He took a failed test in Health for his troubles, which resulted in his Health increasing to 5.

Golin's player filled us in on what had happened to Golin: in the confusion with the bandits in the Moathouse, Golin had left the Moathouse and headed back up-river to find the make-shift raft. He had found it, and had also found his cousin Aldric, who was following the river looking for him; and the two of them had floated on the raft down the river, past Nulb, and finally coming to shore where Fea-bella and Telemere were striking out towards Wintershiven.

Golin therefore recovered from Exhaustion, but remained Injured and Sick.

I enjoy the little vignettes this rule creates; it sounds like @ECMO3's table doesn't require those vignettes, but obviously that's their prerogative. I imagine that if any given participant was really puzzled about the fiction, an appropriate vignette could be thought up and narrated.

This way of handling a player absence doesn't have anything to do with "easy mode": a game doesn't become easy just because your PC (that is, your playing piece and your position more generally) aren't in jeopardy when you're away from the table.

Maybe some groups would want to insist that no one is ever absent, but that's a different thing and has nothing to do with whether the game is easy or hard.

 

[kermit4karate]

There are other FRPGs that use a "fade away"-style rule. For instance, ere is the Torchbearer 2e rule for an absent player (from the Scholar's Guide, p 25):

If your group plays an ongoing game and a player misses a session, they get a little boost to help them catch up when they come back.​

​

After the prologue, they tell everyone where their character has been. They should make up something cool but keep it short - and make sure it fits with the group’s current predicament.​

​

Once they’ve done that, they may:​

* Alleviate one condition (except injured or sick) in recovery order - hungry and thirsty, angry, afraid or exhausted​

​

* If they have no conditions, restore a point of taxed Nature​

​

* If they have neither conditions nor taxed Nature, they may note a test for advancement - pass or fail - for one skill or ability, or memorize one spell or reduce Immortal burden by one​

Here are some examples from actual play:


I enjoy the little vignettes this rule creates; it sounds like @ECMO3's table doesn't require those vignettes, but obviously that's their prerogative. I imagine that if any given participant was really puzzled about the fiction, an appropriate vignette could be thought up and narrated.

This way of handling a player absence doesn't have anything to do with "easy mode": a game doesn't become easy just because your PC (that is, your playing piece and your position more generally) aren't in jeopardy when you're away from the table.

Maybe some groups would want to insist that no one is ever absent, but that's a different thing and has nothing to do with whether the game is easy or hard.

This is pretty sweet. I've never used something this formal or official for absences before, but I can see doing this for a campaign with more than a few players where absences are pretty common.

 

[Hriston]

Have you been reading my old posts?

It seemed like the obvious answer to the OP's question!

 

[ECMO3]

Your specific game is the only one that's relevant in this thread? Wow.

Yes, it is a thread about a specific game.

 

[ECMO3]

You lost me. If there's a rule that says that the DM can change/add/remove any other rule, what's the argument over? It's in the rules to ignore any other rule. That's actually officially within any DM's purview.

Sure it is within the purview, but it does not mean those other rules don't exist.

For example extra attack is a rule which allows Fighters (and others) to make 2 attacks when they take the attack action at 5th level. A DM can overide that and say no one can make more than one attack, but that doesn't mean there isn't a rule about extra attack.

So even if other, weaker specific rules exist on how to handle players who miss a session, what does it actually matter to gameplay? The DM's overall authority supersedes them.

Sure they can. I have said that many times and the DM in this case uses "Fade away" when someone misses a game.

 

[ECMO3]

The rule does not exist.

What rule are you talking about here? The post I replied to did not mention any specific rule.