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Message: <blockquote data-quote="iserith" data-source="post: 7163065" data-attributes="member: 97077">I'm not sure you quite understand the definition of the word "consistent." Of course it's "repetitive." You're doing the something the same way over time in order to be fair and accurate. You're advocating for inconsistency. Which is fine if that's what you like. I prefer a DM that is consistent though (obviously).No, the DM does not "have your back." Paying attention is a good idea in both life and in D&D though because it keeps you out of trouble, right?There are plenty of good reasons to take Perception or Insight in a game where the DM fairly telegraphs threats. For any action a character takes, the DM has to decide if the outcome is successful, fails, or is uncertain. If you take Perception or Insight, you're investing in insurance for those times when you fall short of automatic success when undertaking tasks related to Perception or Insight. Those proficiencies might also apply to your character concept. They might also be fun for you because you like to undertake particular exploration tasks during play more than others. And so on. What this approach does do is not make Perception (or to a lesser extent Insight) such an "obvious" choice - as the OP put it - that passing it up is setting your character back in some way. It is therefore a solution, in part, to that problem, assuming it's seen as a problem.Again, you make more assumptions here. The DM puts some clues in the description of the environment. You engage with the environment and make good decisions and get more. And the reason you do that is because if you get a clue in the description of the environment, the smart play is to verify your assumptions, right? Because if you just assume, you might be wrong and that can be catastrophic depending on the circumstances.Because you're trading the resource of a 2nd-level spell slot for certainty about finding traps. Again, you appear to assume that the players will always pick up on the clues, always make an effort to verify assumptions about those clues, and succeed on verifying those assumptions. (And that's not even getting into the fact that just finding a trap is only the beginning of the challenge, not the end.) That's a lot of points of failure there. Or you can trade a spell slot in exchange for certainty on all of those points. It's a good spell, even with the DM is setting up fair challenges by telegraphing threats.</blockquote>

Verification