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Message: <blockquote data-quote="iserith" data-source="post: 6789129" data-attributes="member: 97077">What do you mean?Observant feat, as you say. My low-level rogue, Chuck Dagger, has a passive Perception of 20 thanks to Observant, Expertise, and a +1 Wis bonus. Even at disadvantage, it's still a pretty good bonus. Unless you're talking about a serious lurker or well-hidden trap, he finds it.It makes me wonder how often the bad guys are "stealthed" in your game, however. It doesn't come up a whole lot in mine.I see this as a DM issue - failure to telegraph hidden threats. If the trap is not telegraphed, what you essentially have are some numbers compared to each other to determine a result independent of player decision (outside of marching order and character build, presuming the task while exploring is always "keep watch"). This is not a satisfying challenge, if it can even be considered a challenge at all. Rather, it's a gotcha. I don't know about you, but I think gotchas are weak.Telegraphing is like showing you have cards in your hand, but not what those cards are until the players do something to get you to reveal it. For example, perhaps the PCs find a box of tiny bells and a spool of wire early on while exploring the wizard's tower. The players may deduce that these are the material components for an alarm spell and, judging by how many the wizard has in stock, that he or she probably casts this spell a lot. Thus, it makes sense to send the party's wizard to the front of the marching order to keep an eye out for areas warded by this spell, at least while exploring the archmage's tower. The DM has telegraphed the presence of alarm spells in this adventure location and the players have cleverly made a decision to mitigate their chances of running afoul of them.In the doing, the DM also creates an expectation that they don't have to have the wizard in the front line for every adventure location - just this one. This means you don't have to set up these "standard operating procedures" of particular marching orders, tasks, and magic spells in effect. It also tells the players that if they pay attention to and engage with the environment, they can improve their odds of success. It's a win-win all around. The players don't always pick up on the telegraphing and sometimes make the wrong decisions even when they do, but in any case it does create an actual challenge and removes the perception of it being a gotcha.Of course, this isn't something over which you as a player have control. Talking to your DM may help, but ultimately it is up to your DM to change how he or she presents challenges like these.</blockquote>

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