D&D 5E [+]Exploration Falls Short For Many Groups, Let’s Talk About It

[doctorbadwolf]

And the other part is that the reward for success isn't as interesting as winning a fight when you get to loot the bodies of your enemies and see what you've got. Whereas overcoming a trop means you aren't harmed when you could have been. Meh.

Huh.

Looting the bodies can be fun, sure, but most of the time it’s soemthing we are trying to speed past to get back to the good parts, like searching for secret rooms and examining ancient inscriptions and parkouring up an unstable pile of broken temple to get to the thing that will allow light in for the rest of the party or let water flow into the water-based puzzle mechanism, or whatever.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Huh.

Looting the bodies can be fun, sure, but most of the time it’s soemthing we are trying to speed past to get back to the good parts, like searching for secret rooms and examining ancient inscriptions and parkouring up an unstable pile of broken temple to get to the thing that will allow light in for the rest of the party or let water flow into the water-based puzzle mechanism, or whatever.

And this is another thing the DMG doesn't help with: making those satisfying involves being able to paint a vibrant picture with words that makes the results rewarding.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

And this is another thing the DMG doesn't help with: making those satisfying involves being able to paint a vibrant picture with words that makes the results rewarding.

Sure, whether you mean the looting or the poking at the environs.

I’ve been saying for years that 5e’s biggest weakness is poor guidance, and I noted in the OP that the game falls short for exploration.

 

[Starfox]

Which would work a lot better if you didn't have a measly one per level to spend, as a level where your HP is the lower it'll ever be. You'll be lucky to have more than two or three fights and your Cleric might spend one of their precious spells on healing anyway. Then, at later level, a single HD is too small a portion of your HP to have an impact so you end up using up more of them.

With the Con bonus added I find this is usually sufficent. Healing spells outside of combat basically does not exist at my current table. But we do have pretty short adventuring days with a few, hard encounter rather than slow attrition.

 

[Scott Christian]

Most of that amounts to an obstacle to getting to the parts of the game that are engaging for more of the players because their characters are involved. I.E. Combat. When you run into a trap, the Fighter doesn't block an approach, the Wizard doesn't drop a fireball into the middle of the enemies, the cleric isn't casting spirit guardians - you get the rogue to disarm it and carry on (unless their dies roll is poor).

Most players I know have their PCs doing other things during a setting where there is a trap. At least, that is my experience. I rarely see PCs standing around, but I also have good players. When I am a player, I will sometimes sit around and watch the rogue or bard, but that is because I want them to feel the limelight. I will even have my character react sometimes, such as hide behind a wall or sit back with a "you got this" grin.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I don't think I've ever had to 'do something' while the trap is being disarmed. It's like one roll.

Typically the trap is uncovered as part of a loot sweep where everyone searches so as to mitigate the fact that no one took the alleged 'most powerful' skill, perception. then the rogue disarms the thing or we've picked up a Universal House Key (adamantine dagger) and solved the problem the right way.

 

[Scott Christian]

I don't think I've ever had to 'do something' while the trap is being disarmed. It's like one roll.

Typically the trap is uncovered as part of a loot sweep where everyone searches so as to mitigate the fact that no one took the alleged 'most powerful' skill, perception. then the rogue disarms the thing or we've picked up a Universal House Key (adamantine dagger) and solved the problem the right way.

If you read the DM's Guide, especially the section on traps, they are in all sorts of areas. They are not just after thoughts. Another thing is, and perhaps this is just every table I have played at, but the players play their characters. If one character is exploring is off exploring the room of a house, the other might be in the hallway doing something, while the other two are investigating the room next door. If the person single person in the room thinks they found a trap, they try to disarm it. This is especially true if they have some reason to believe they want this information for themselves. If that is not the case, they may call to the watcher in the hall to help them. Or maybe they call next door and have the rogue come over. Then when that happens, the person in the hallway is still actively doing something.

There are hundreds of scenarios where no one stands around waiting.

 

[Starfox]

If one character is exploring is off exploring the room of a house, the other might be in the hallway doing something, while the other two are investigating the room next door. If the person single person in the room thinks they found a trap, they try to disarm it.

This is 100% nt how we do it. If the team has a trap expert, that is the one doing the traps. Overall, we have a certain niche protection in our social contract - if a character specializes in something, that's who will do that thing in most cases.

I'm not saying this is the right way, its just how we roll.

 

[Maxperson]

The Idea that every kind of healing uses up HD is actually a good one. Because right now, HD are mostly ignored in my games, because the most limiting factor for most players are spellslots and not HP in my experience so they push for a long rest to get those back instead of short rests to regain HP.
That is my experience so far, that PCs use up spellslots way faster than they loose HP.

My players never used hit dice until I went with the one long rest per week. When you've got 4 days left until you can long rest and you're hurt after a fight, those short rests to use hit dice look a lot more enticing.

 

[Maxperson]

I don't think I've ever had to 'do something' while the trap is being disarmed. It's like one roll.

Typically the trap is uncovered as part of a loot sweep where everyone searches so as to mitigate the fact that no one took the alleged 'most powerful' skill, perception. then the rogue disarms the thing or we've picked up a Universal House Key (adamantine dagger) and solved the problem the right way.

This is table dependent. Some tables disarm like...

Player: "I'm going to disarm the trap."
DM: "Roll your disarm."
Player: "19!"
DM: "Okay. You disarm the trap. Now what do you want to do?"

Other tables disarm like...

Player: "I'm going to disarm the trap."
DM: Okay. It's going to take you 10 minutes to disarm the trap as it is pretty complicated. What do the rest of you want to do while Alrick is disarming the trap?"