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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 7098852" data-attributes="member: 29398">The skulker is seen doing things in the distance a few times before the party really interact with him, right?  So, if nobody knows his motivation at that time why is he doing what he's doing?  His motivation for doing those things has to come from somewhere...in this case, the DM...and thus DM speculation becomes for the moment hidden DM fact.  And the players can then speculate as they wish.The skulker is someone else, as in not the same individual at all?  There's two yellow-robed guys?  Is that what you mean?If they are the same person, however, then the later "authoring" does in fact overwrite whatever was driving his actions when he was seen earlier.  Nothing wrong with this as long as his "new" self would have done the same things seen earlier...but to claim there's no change from what he was previously based on is false.  There is a change.  Thing is, only you as DM know this.Because as I just said, once the skulker attracts the party's attention by flying around in the distance, DM conjecture known only to the DM becomes DM fact known only to the DM.  The idea is in place and being reflected in the fiction by the skulker doing whatever he's doing when the party see him.Nobody is really being tricked here, in that the skulker's earlier actions are innocuous enough that retconning a different set of motivations onto him makes little real difference.  EXCEPT, you have to ask yourself this: if the skulker had been operating under these "new" motivations all along would the party have seen him doing anything different than what they in fact saw?  If yes, then both the players and their PCs have been (more or less) tricked or deceived.There's quite a difference.  Passwall doesn't care if there's a secret door there - it just makes an obvious way through by temporarily changing the architecture - where the Architecture check is based on what's been constructed into the building as noted on the DM's map (or bloody well should be - this idea of Schroedingers Secret Door just doesn't fly with me).  Charm Person is the brute-force approach to diplomacy and information gathering (and not available to everyone).That doesn't answer my question.Can, in your system, an existing secret door simply be missed on a search?  It's not about an absence of anything, it's about the presence of it being flat-out missed by the searcher (with or without possible consequences then or later).Can there in fact be a blood-catching vessel in the room that the searcher just doesn't notice even though it might be in plain sight (we've all done this in real life!)?Lanefan</blockquote>

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