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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8989026" data-attributes="member: 42582">The players had their PCs do something, as I described in the OP. They hid themselves in the pit they'd dug, and searched for whatever it was they were searching for. The cover they created will have been some sort of create wood or create earth/stone effect (I don't recall the details any more). There is no DC to &quot;overcome&quot; it, other than generic rules for Perception/Tracking and Detect Magic-type effect.My point is that the system has no very satisfactory way for working out what happens in this situation, because all the adjudication rules are specified in granular space/time terms (eg for 1 minute per level, as long as you concentrate, you can detect magic within 50 feet; plus rules that say how far a horse moves per minute, assuming a rider with such-and-such a riding bonus which will suffer a -50 penalty for concentration; etc).Well, I was there and I'm reporting how it went down.It wasn't dramatic. It should have been, but it wasn't.Generating game stats for dozens or hundreds of nomads is not exciting. Working through their abilities, and making decisions like when do they cast Detect Magic, at what range relative to where the PCs are, and then which of the many areas they might scan do they actually scan is not exciting and also involves a fair bit of largely arbitrary decision-making.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 8989026, member: 42582"] The players had their PCs do something, as I described in the OP. They hid themselves in the pit they'd dug, and searched for whatever it was they were searching for. The cover they created will have been some sort of create wood or create earth/stone effect (I don't recall the details any more). There is no DC to "overcome" it, other than generic rules for Perception/Tracking and Detect Magic-type effect. My point is that the system has no very satisfactory way for working out what happens in this situation, because all the adjudication rules are specified in granular space/time terms (eg [i]for 1 minute per level, as long as you concentrate, you can detect magic within 50 feet[/i]; plus rules that say how far a horse moves per minute, assuming a rider with such-and-such a riding bonus which will suffer a -50 penalty for concentration; etc). Well, I was there and I'm reporting how it went down. It wasn't dramatic. It should have been, but it wasn't. Generating game stats for dozens or hundreds of nomads is not exciting. Working through their abilities, and making decisions like [I]when do they cast Detect Magic[/I], [I]at what range relative to where the PCs are[/I], and then [I]which of the many areas they might scan do they actually[/I] scan is not exciting and also involves a fair bit of largely arbitrary decision-making. [/QUOTE]

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