D&D General "I make a perception check."

[Swarmkeeper]

Right, but this doesn't allow you, as the player, to do anything except look at the desk. So any other hidden features of the room are excluded. And if you look at everything, one by one, down the list, what do you do then?

Presumably there are 3 or 4 other PCs doing something else in the room and they are all sharing information.

I've never seen anyone try or allow insight to predict a person's next move. In fact, I've repeatedly had DMs who have told me that "insight isn't mind-reading" and refuse to allow me to even determine if someone is lying or not because "you don't know them well enough to tell."

You might point out to those DMs what Insight can be used for as specifically described in the books.

If you allow these other uses, then sure, maybe the player needs to specify they are trying to figure out if the person is hiding anything, but that is a goal, not an action. So, as long as you have an idea of the player's goal, is it fine for them to say "Insight, what's he hiding?" or are you going to demand further information from the player?

"I'm watching their body language and listening carefully to their words..." can be spoken or unspoken as the action. Why would the player even want to invoke "Insight"? If an ability check has a meaningful consequence for failure, wouldn't they just want to try to get the info for free rather than risk a roll?

Are you missing that the conflict wouldn't even exist if you had the paladin roll, the same as the rogue? You have set up a system that allows them to "hash out conflicts" created by the system you are using. If everyone has to roll, then it doesn't matter who goes first, because there is no advantage in picking an "ideal" hiding spot. It is only when certain actions they can take guarantee success for them, and lock out other players from getting their own auto-success that any conflict is even possible in this scenario.

It's a team game. If this is really a conflict among the players, there's some other strained dynamic going on that isn't going to be cured by any ruling.

So what value are you getting from enforcing auto-successes that is worth potential conflict?

It's my prerogative as DM to rule a PC's action automatically succeeds. If that creates a conflict among players, we have some other weird social contract issues at the table that need to be dealt with. The rogue player should be ecstatic that the paladin hiding in the pantry for once is not alerting the enemy of their presence, IMO.

 

[iserith]

Were that true, it would take hours to go 100 feet in a dungeon.

It takes 30 seconds at a slow pace. It takes 15 seconds at a fast pace, but you take a -5 penalty to passive Perception.

 

[Maxperson]

It takes 30 seconds at a slow pace. It takes 15 seconds at a fast pace, but you take a -5 penalty to passive Perception.

There's no way you're checking the walls for secret doors and traps at either of those paces. All you are doing is noting the walls.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Why the assumption of malicious intent?

Because this level of specificity always seems to come with a dose of "They didn't do the right thing, therefore trap"

Notice, by the way, that @Reynard mocked me in their response instead of answering the question of why a player moving to the center of the room and asking to roll perception cannot roll perception to discover the trap before they trigger it. This seems like a legitimate question to me. They have taken an action, declared an intent, but because that action happens to have been a trigger for a trap, their intent is ignored and they get hit by the trap, no save, no check, nothing. To the player, the answer is obvious, they shouldn't have moved. Moving was a mistake. But then the next room they attempt not to move, and they get told they must move and take an action, or they don't get to make the roll.

Well, yeah. If the player has made a mistake, that’s necessary information for the DM to have. If the player has not made a mistake, that is also necessary information for the DM to have. The entire game functions via verbal exchange of information.

They would have done, it’s called passive Perception.

If they could have spotted the trap without interacting with the environment in some way, they would have done so already. That’s how the conversation of the game works; if there was something the PC could have seen without having to interact with the environment, the DM should have included it in the description of the environment.

Which all feels like it is saying there is no action that allows for perception. You just have to guess and hope your "mistakes" don't lead to traps and hidden creatures.

Now, lets flip this on its head for a moment. Let's go to my table where a player enters a room, I describe the room, and then the player holds up their dice and says "I want to roll perception". I, as the DM, know that there is a trap hidden in the room, and I let them roll. They roll high enough and I tell them that they spot some details that lead to them determining that there is likely a trap in this spot. Specific details depend, but a pit trap under a rug, maybe they notice the rug sagging in the middle slightly, a detail they would have missed before.

The player took due caution, indicating to me that they wished to look more carefully at the room, and therefore made zero mistakes that needed me to harm their character over. And if I describe that, and then the player asks "well what about [blank]" indicating to me that they intended their roll to cover something else that I did not tell them, then I compare the roll to that new information, and let them know what that roll would tell them.

Then, once they have more information, they begin either getting more specific, or moving on. But I respect their initial caution, their initial instinct that something could be dangerous and their response to tell me, as the DM, that they want to take extra precautions to avoid that danger. And frankly, half the time I'll tell them something is obviously dangerous, and they will poke it anyways.

 

[iserith]

There's no way you're checking the walls for secret doors and traps at either of those paces. All you are doing is noting the walls.

You're doing enough to notice them, according to the rules for secret doors and traps, with a penalty at a fast pace per the travel pace rules. Which is fine in my view as that's only the start of the exploration challenge. Now, if detected, it's on to figuring out how the secret door or trap works. Then, in the case of traps, disarming or circumventing them.

If a character doesn't notice a trap or secret door while traveling the adventure location (because their PP is lower than the DC for the secret door or trap), they can certainly stop, spend more time in a specific area, and potentially make an ability check which can exceed their passive score. Similar to a Search action during combat.

As an interesting side note, it appears some traps can be detected via an Intelligence (Investigation) check, which suggests that either passive Perception or passive Investigation can be used to find traps while moving about. But if you move at a fast pace, you only get a -5 penalty to passive Perception. So what you do here is jack up your passive Investigation (perhaps with Observant feat) and then speed run the dungeon to clear it of traps!

 

[Chaosmancer]

Presumably there are 3 or 4 other PCs doing something else in the room and they are all sharing information.

So we can only check four things off the checklist at a time?

You might point out to those DMs what Insight can be used for as specifically described in the books.

Don't play with them anymore, but if I run into again, I'll be sure to pull out my rulebook and tell the DM what rules allow me to take that action. DM's love that after all. /sarcasm

"I'm watching their body language and listening carefully to their words..." can be spoken or unspoken as the action. Why would the player even want to invoke "Insight"? If an ability check has a meaningful consequence for failure, wouldn't they just want to try to get the info for free rather than risk a roll?

Because I don't punish them for failure. If they fail the roll, especially insight, then they simply get no information.

And they aren't going to just get the information, because I rarely open up with "So the merchant starts lying to you about..." unless someone has stupidly high insight or their lies are so blatantly obvious that everyone knows it.

It's a team game. If this is really a conflict among the players, there's some other strained dynamic going on that isn't going to be cured by any ruling.

It's my prerogative as DM to rule a PC's action automatically succeeds. If that creates a conflict among players, we have some other weird social contract issues at the table that need to be dealt with. The rogue player should be ecstatic that the paladin hiding in the pantry for once is not alerting the enemy of their presence, IMO.

But this is the exact same as saying the Bard with expertise should be ecstatic that the Cha 8 Barbarian is IRL a smooth-talker and gave an eloquent speech to the king that auto-succeeded on their goals. Because it is a team game, and the barbarian who dominates in combat mechanically and dominates out of combat by playing the DM is great for the team, unlike the bard who can't dominate in combat, because they specced for out of combat, that the DM never lets them roll for, because the barbarian handles that better with no mechanics.

Just because the paladin player says they hide perfectly doesn't mean they actually hide perfectly. They should roll, otherwise what is the point of having stealth penalties to their armor?

 

[Cruentus]

Because this level of specificity always seems to come with a dose of "They didn't do the right thing, therefore trap"

Notice, by the way, that @Reynard mocked me in their response instead of answering the question of why a player moving to the center of the room and asking to roll perception cannot roll perception to discover the trap before they trigger it. This seems like a legitimate question to me. They have taken an action, declared an intent, but because that action happens to have been a trigger for a trap, their intent is ignored and they get hit by the trap, no save, no check, nothing. To the player, the answer is obvious, they shouldn't have moved. Moving was a mistake. But then the next room they attempt not to move, and they get told they must move and take an action, or they don't get to make the roll.

Yeah, I don't see malicious intent on the part of the DM in this instance, I see your expecting or projecting that malicious intent though.

If you come to a door in a dungeon/house/castle/whatever, I, as the DM, tell you what you see (i.e. what you perceive):

DM: "You stand in a doorway. The floor is made of wood, very much scratched and well trod. Covering the center of the floor is a rug, what you might have thought as being luxurious is now threadbare and also worn. There is a large wooden desk directly opposite you in the room. It looks heavy and well made, in better condition than the rest of the room's contents. On the desk you see a burning candelabra, some papers, writing implements, and several small boxes, closed. You see two chests in the corner across the room, stacked, they have padlocks on them, and seem to be closed. There is an armoire to your left along the wall, and to your right is a chair, turned facing the desk."
PLAYER: "I roll Perception."
DM: "You see what I just described, would you like me to read it again."
PLAYER: "I roll Perception to see if there are any traps."
DM: (No roll) "From where you are standing, you don't see any traps. What do you do"
PLAYER: "I want to roll."

So, the player wants to roll to avoid the possibility of there being any traps they might stumble into, I get that. But its pretty ridiculous. Unless there is a tripwire across the doorway (which I would have described, by the way, because I assume the character can see (ie. has light, the room is lit), and characters don't just stumble into rooms that are unfamiliar, unless the player says "I burst into the room, what do I see?"

IF there were a trap in that room, say, a trap door in the floor, I would have given a hint of some kind - one part of the wooden floor seems to have been recently repaired, the rug seems uneven in the middle of the rug, where it is not elsewhere, there is a pull rope to the side of the desk, etc.).

The player then needs to tell me what they're doing in the room. Using Perception is not a magic ability. It doesn't do anything mystical. I can't help you find traps, unless you look for them (at least in my game). I'm of the camp that traps shouldn't be "oops, you didn't say you searched that square, you fell into a pit trap!" or "You failed that role, that's where the trap is, mwahaha!" You'll see the wire, or the trigger, or potentially something out of the ordinary that will clue you in.

In the description above, the player could say, "I think there might be something under the rug, so I'll skirt around it to the desk, going the direction of the chair. Does the rug go all the way under the desk?" I might call for a Perception check there (though likely not, you can see if the rug is there or not), or maybe I'll call for a check, because now you're passing the chair, you do notice some dried blood on the arm of the chair that wasn't visible from the door (and you were focusing on the rug and desk). Or maybe I ask for a check, and then say "From this angle, the rug doesn't look like its sitting perfectly flat, something appears to maybe be under it."

Its got to make logical sense in the progression of the adventure/story. Its not a gotcha. Its not a malicious DM. I also realize that other tables want these kinds of things to go faster, <skip> passed the dialogue, investigation, exploration, not get hurt, surprised, damaged, whatever. Thats fine. My table, and its the same when I play with our group, this kind of stuff is where the interesting bits can be, when built around the action of fighting.

Its also why I switched to OSE/Basic. No skills. We adjudicate what happens as you describe what happens. If you stand there in the door, I read the above, and ask you what you want to do. Now, there are no skills on your sheet. What DO you do?

 

[Maxperson]

You're doing enough to notice them, according to the rules for secret doors and traps, with a penalty at a fast pace per the travel pace rules. Which is fine in my view as that's only the start of the exploration challenge. Now, if detected, it's on to figuring out how the secret door or trap works. Then, in the case of traps, disarming or circumventing them.

According to the passive rules, you are SEARCHING for secret doors repeatedly. That means pouring over every inch of ever 10 feet of wall, prodding at strange cracks and so on. You are not searching for secret doors at all, let alone repeatedly, if you are walking at a speed of 30 down the hall. Glancing at a wall for a second or two is not searching the wall. Even at a slow pace of 15, you still do not have time to search a wall for secret doors or traps.

Another thing to consider is that while passive perception can be used for an action done repeatedly, the rules do not say that adventurers are automatically performing those actions. If the group says, "We are carefully searching every inch of the walls, floors and ceilings for traps and secret doors," then passive perception for searching for traps and secret doors would kick in, as the group is repeatedly performing an action. And it would take forever to go 100 feet.

If a character doesn't notice a trap or secret door while traveling the adventure location (because their PP is lower than the DC for the secret door or trap), they can certainly stop, spend more time in a specific area, and potentially make an ability check which can exceed their passive score. Similar to a Search action during combat.

The travel pace rules imply that the threats are creatures, not traps or secret doors. The examples are seeing hidden creatures and those are really all you might notice while moving at 15 or 30.

As an interesting side note, it appears some traps can be detected via an Intelligence (Investigation) check, which suggests that either passive Perception or passive Investigation can be used to find traps while moving about. But if you move at a fast pace, you only get a -5 penalty to passive Perception. So what you do here is jack up your passive Investigation (perhaps with Observant feat) and then speed run the dungeon to clear it of traps!

Both could be used for those particular traps, sure.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

So we can only check four things off the checklist at a time?



Don't play with them anymore, but if I run into again, I'll be sure to pull out my rulebook and tell the DM what rules allow me to take that action. DM's love that after all. /sarcasm



Because I don't punish them for failure. If they fail the roll, especially insight, then they simply get no information.

And they aren't going to just get the information, because I rarely open up with "So the merchant starts lying to you about..." unless someone has stupidly high insight or their lies are so blatantly obvious that everyone knows it.



But this is the exact same as saying the Bard with expertise should be ecstatic that the Cha 8 Barbarian is IRL a smooth-talker and gave an eloquent speech to the king that auto-succeeded on their goals. Because it is a team game, and the barbarian who dominates in combat mechanically and dominates out of combat by playing the DM is great for the team, unlike the bard who can't dominate in combat, because they specced for out of combat, that the DM never lets them roll for, because the barbarian handles that better with no mechanics.

Just because the paladin player says they hide perfectly doesn't mean they actually hide perfectly. They should roll, otherwise what is the point of having stealth penalties to their armor?

At this point, I'm going to disengage from this conversation with you as it doesn't seem like you are at all interested in understanding a legitimate playstyle. It appears you may have had bad experiences in the past with gotcha DMs who just want to punish players and you can't imagine anything but malicious intent in what several of us have been trying to describe to you.

Happy gaming.

 

[iserith]

According to the passive rules, you are SEARCHING for secret doors repeatedly. That means pouring over every inch of ever 10 feet of wall, prodding at strange cracks and so on. You are not searching for secret doors at all, let alone repeatedly, if you are walking at a speed of 30 down the hall. Glancing at a wall for a second or two is not searching the wall. Even at a slow pace of 15, you still do not have time to search a wall for secret doors or traps.

That's your take because you don't like things happening that quickly, but it's not the rules. As long as we're clear on that.

Another thing to consider is that while passive perception can be used for an action done repeatedly, the rules do not say that adventurers are automatically performing those actions. If the group says, "We are carefully searching every inch of the walls, floors and ceilings for traps and secret doors," then passive perception for searching for traps and secret doors would kick in, as the group is repeatedly performing an action. And it would take forever to go 100 feet.

Yes, the players must say what they are doing. Only in combat do the rules say that the characters are always alert to danger. In other situations, the characters may be sufficiently distracted by other tasks that their passive Perception doesn't apply.

As to the pace, that's between your sense of realism and the rules. I'll let you two work that out.

The travel pace rules imply that the threats are creatures, not traps or secret doors. The examples are seeing hidden creatures and those are really all you might notice while moving at 15 or 30.

The travel rules refer to "hidden threats," which can certainly include traps. The travel rules do not mention searching for secret doors as an activity while traveling. This would fall under this rule: "However, a character not watching for danger can do one of the following activities instead, or some other activity with the DM's permission." So a DM can say "searching for secret doors" is at least as distracting as navigating, drawing a map, tracking, or foraging and you can't also notice hidden threats. That's certainly what I do. If you want the benefit of finding secret doors while traveling the adventure location, which are always great finds in my game, you're going to have to put yourself at some risk.