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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 5114442" data-attributes="member: 82106">KD, I think you're making it too hard. Like I say, there are a few different reasons for something to be 'hidden' and not all of them require that it be hard to find something. A trap could be something that is just supposed to be totally obvious and needs no perception to spot, that's fine. It could be cinematic to make it 'hidden' but not really hidden from the characters, so it has a low DC to spot, which is fine too, its the same as something that isn't hidden except thematically you are telling the players that they have found something 'hidden' and thus it is an atmosphere thing or maybe a plot device to explain why some NPC didn't find it at some point or make the story work around why nobody else has spotted this thing before. The PCs are just that good that they 'find' the thing when others didn't.It could be a trap you only want the higher perception character(s) to spot automatically, in which case the DC would be in a range where someone well trained in perception will spot it automatically but most untrained characters won't. This could well be your case where the outcome depends on who goes where. Its primarily designed to let the high perception character shine and give him an advantage that he has earned vs the lower perception people. It could be something well hidden that needs an active check. Like I said before you want either foreshadowing or to have the trap on some point that the PCs will normally check or else you might as well just make it unfindable and unavoidable and rack up some damage on them. Again this will probably let the high perception character shine, but depending on exactly what the DC is its probable that other PCs will have SOME chance to find the thing. Personally I find this type of trap to be the least useful because you are just relying to some extent on luck. Hey, you got a crummy roll on that check, well too bad you're now taking X damage... It CAN be exciting if the effects of the trap are not too severe or the trap just redirects the PCs (like maybe its a slide or something and if they trigger it they just go to a different area or something).The unfindable case is again as I said before primarily a plot device. Its a perfectly legitimate setup but I would never use it with a damaging trap that the PCs will run into as again its just some auto-damage, so why bother? At best it could be some kind of element of a combat encounter that is really essentially a hazard, but in that case it seems boring to have it unfindable. The PCs should at least have a CHANCE to know the full tactical situation they are entering. Since the existing perception skill mechanics seem to adequately support all these possibilities I'm not real sure what the issue is. As far as conditions and modifiers for spotting things you will note that traps themselves always specify this kind of thing. They will say that a DC is X for an adjacent character to spot the trigger plate or whatever. There is a general rule for distance and perception penalties but it is pretty mild (-2 per 10 squares I think). Its perfectly normal to have more rigid requirements for specific things and that was obviously considered when the system was written as evidenced by the way traps are written up. So yeah, I still don't see the mechanical problem. I can see where the system requires the DM to think about how to use it, but I guess I don't really see where that is a flaw in the system or that it really has much to do with what mechanics you use. Any way you slice it the DM needs to think about how he's designing his adventure. There's no free lunch with any system. I mean if you think about the old style thief mechanics from say 1e its all basically the same. There was a probability to find a trap. The same possibilities existed then as now. The current system just has a better mechanics where you can have passive detection IF you want it. If you don't want it, then set the DC accordingly.</blockquote>

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