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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ahnehnois" data-source="post: 6227818" data-attributes="member: 17106">I wouldn't put in secret doors at all in most cases. I generally don't have locations planned out in advance. If there was some specific quest that involved a secret door, then that's one thing. I might strictly enforce the need to search actively. If not, but if I knew there were secret doors or traps in the area, I might ask them "are you searching?" as they advance. Typically I'd then let them roll or take 10 or take 20 as they like, and then tell them what's there if they find it.More likely in actual play, a player would search the area and ask if he finds anything, and only at that time would I even bother to consider whether there is anything to find. Which creates a rather odd scenario for the elf, since the DM is theoretically supposed to already know these things already and to tell the player what he finds when there is something find-able. I tried once to record all the PCs' Spot/Listen/Search skills and determine when anyone saw anything without them asking in advance, but that was just too much work for me. I prefer to improvise.I suppose, if you consider searching for or finding a secret door to be a choice of interest. I'm generally looking at conflicts between characters as the primary venue for player choice; using an inanimate object as a challenge doesn't do much for me.However, on some level I am granting the players additional agency. If I determine elements of reality only as a response to their actions, rather than independently and in advance, their ideas are affecting the story. In this case, it's entirely possible that a PC enters an area, says "I search for secret doors", and I think to myself "hey, maybe the ancient race that lived here did leave a secret door" and suddenly, a door exists. That isn't railroading, it's the players laying their own tracks.This is a case of a first level spell trumping only a tiny part of the nonmagical character's expertise. Sure, the Search skill requires a roll, but it finds a lot more than secret doors. Like most spells, it's specialized; something that wins the day if there is a secret door, and is a waste of resources otherwise.And after all of this, how often is there a secret door anyway? If there's one in every room, they aren't exactly secret. It's pretty much inherently something that should be a rare surprise, rather than an expected regular element of play. I've never known a player to play an elf because of that great secret door finding ability, so I don't see that altering that ability is likely to matter much to an elf player.</blockquote>

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