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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Raven Crowking" data-source="post: 3040082" data-attributes="member: 18280">By its very nature, a lever implies that, by changing its position, you cause something to happen. This makes a lever very different from, say, a raised dias, a table, a torch, or a statue. All of those things might do something; it is a far more reasonable (and obvious) assumption that a lever or a switch will do something.(It might not, of course. It could be a red herring. The mechanism could be broken. However, even if you see no obvious result, it is safe to assume that throwing the switch/lever has had some effect that you should, thereafter, keep your eye out for.)In the example room, there is a secret door. A secret door implies both a space beyond (although this may not be true; it may be a false secret door leading to a stone wall) and a means to open it (again, this implication may not be true; the secret door could be built in such a way that it has no regular means to open it, especially if it is intended as bait rather than as a door). In the example room, we have a secret door with no means to open it, and a lever that does something that we do not know. So here we have two objects. One does something, the other needs the means to do something. The easiest solution to the problem is that the one object does the something for the other object. We do not think any further, throw the lever, and roll a saving throw.But...hold on. Naturally, the lever could do a lot of other things. Moreover, the means to open the secret door might not be in this room. If you were going to the effort to hide a door, would you place the lever in plain sight? Probably not. Logic therefore dictates that the lever probably does not open the secret door. A moment's thought takes us past the simple "throw the lever, and roll a saving throw" result.By this point, perhaps, the idea that the secret door is bait to cause us to pull the lever might appear. Certainly, we search the lever for traps, Taking 20 to do our best job. We find nothing. That still doesn't mean that pulling the lever is a good idea. It is possible to make a trap that we cannot find. After all, the DC has to be no more than 1 beyond our maximum result, and we know as a fact that this is possible.So, what now? We have the McGuffin. We could just leave. If we are on a tight schedule, this is probably the best option.We could cast a simple divination spell to determine whether or not throwing the lever is a good idea. The more we think about this, the better it sounds....even if it means having to rest up first, so long as we are not on a tight schedule. If we have the time for it, this is the best option.If we don't have access to the best divination spells for the job, we could possibly use detect magic. That would at least give us some more information. Not a bad option. It might, in fact, give us reason to investigate further before doing anything rash. We could also consider using a summoned creature to do the dirty work.As a final option, we could just pull the lever. Doing so, after all, might grant the person doing the pulling a wish. Probably not. For all kinds of reasons, this is simply the worst option to take.RC</blockquote>

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