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<blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 8203388" data-attributes="member: 7006">One of the things I do not like about the game using Investigation to &quot;deduce&quot; how things work is that it runs completely counter to the idea of the DM putting things in place for the players to figure out.If I put in a secret door and I think up some hidden mechanism for the way it is meant to unlock and open... why would I want to have a skill in place that players would use instead of them figuring out how the mechanism works?&nbsp; Why bother thinking up the way to open the door if the skill check pretty much gets around needing to think about how to open the door by the skill &quot;deducing&quot; the answer?&nbsp; And if you say &quot;well, the Investigation skill only gives the players clues to figuring out&quot;... I find that to be such a ridiculously narrow focus that I don't even think the skill should be bothered to be in the game then.Here is what I would expect to happen... a PC says &quot;I'll look for secret doors&quot;.&nbsp; Okay, they make a Perception check and I tell them &quot;you think something is there&quot;.&nbsp; They then either go straight to &quot;I Investigate&quot;, they make a check, and I reveal the information and clues about the situation they probably could have been given on the Perception check... or the players start asking the prototypical questions to find info like &quot;is there a breeze&quot;, &quot;do I hear anything&quot;, &quot;is there a crack in the wall&quot;, &quot;are there any protrusions to press&quot; etc. etc.&nbsp; And then after I give them all this info, they then say &quot;Okay, let me make my Investigation check to piece it all together&quot;.&nbsp; As though once you get given all the clues, the skill check then solves it for you.&nbsp; What exactly is the point of that?So I just avoid all that and use Investigation as the &quot;object finder&quot; skill and have them make one roll and then if the door is secured in some additional way I'll start giving them clues on how to open it as they ask the right questions.&nbsp; And no skill can be used in place of actually figuring out how the door opens.&nbsp; I went through the effort of coming up with that &quot;puzzle&quot;... the least you can do is try to solve it yourself.&nbsp; <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

[QUOTE="DEFCON 1, post: 8203388, member: 7006"] One of the things I do not like about the game using Investigation to "deduce" how things work is that it runs completely counter to the idea of the DM putting things in place for the players to figure out. If I put in a secret door and I think up some hidden mechanism for the way it is meant to unlock and open... why would I want to have a skill in place that players would use [I]instead[/I] of them figuring out how the mechanism works? Why bother thinking up the way to open the door if the skill check pretty much gets around needing to think about how to open the door by the skill "deducing" the answer? And if you say "well, the Investigation skill only gives the players [I]clues[/I] to figuring out"... I find that to be such a ridiculously narrow focus that I don't even think the skill should be bothered to be in the game then. Here is what I would expect to happen... a PC says "I'll look for secret doors". Okay, they make a Perception check and I tell them "you think something is there". They then either go straight to "I Investigate", they make a check, and I reveal the information and clues about the situation they probably could have been given on the Perception check... or the players start asking the prototypical questions to find info like "is there a breeze", "do I hear anything", "is there a crack in the wall", "are there any protrusions to press" etc. etc. And then after I give them all this info, they then say "Okay, let me make my Investigation check to piece it all together". As though once you get given all the clues, the skill check then solves it for you. What exactly is the point of that? So I just avoid all that and use Investigation as the "object finder" skill and have them make one roll and then if the door is secured in some additional way I'll start giving them clues on how to open it as they ask the right questions. And no skill can be used in place of actually figuring out how the door opens. I went through the effort of coming up with that "puzzle"... the least you can do is try to solve it yourself. :) [/QUOTE]

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