D&D 5E Perception vs. Investigation in UA Traps Revisited - A problem again?!

[iserith]

Player knowledge vs. character knowledge

It's only a guess, but maybe the real problem is different: It seems like WotC wants to avoid that details perceived by Perception are automatically interpret by Players. E.g. a character succeeds on a perception check and the DM tells the player: "Your character spots faint burn marks". I guess, most of the Players would realize, it's a trap and continue acting in great care. So they make the Investigation check for its Character obsolet by deducing informations as a Player. Maybe this is the real reason, why WotC doesn't ask for both checks. But that's not satisfying though.

I seriously doubt it.

No ability check is ever required. Whether or not an ability check is called for is entirely up to the DM, based on his or her judgment as to the certainty or uncertainty of the outcome of the player's stated goal and approach for the character given the fictional circumstances at play.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

TL;DR

I'm surprised everyone doesn't do it like I have been for decades now...

Perception: "You notice some soot, burn marks if you will, all along the left and right wall next to the door"


Investigation: "After carefully checking the area for what caused this, you find a panel to either side that flips up. The panel is made to look like the stonework."

Perception/Wisdom = "You notice [something]"
Investigation/Intelligence = "You've discovered that its because of [something]"

*shrug* I guess I'll just continue to ignore UA, as usual, and keep using my own stuff, er, as usual.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Imaculata]

My two cents:

Perception can be used to detect the signs of a trap (for example, burn marks), or the DM may rule that the clue to the trap are already picked up by passive perception. If you just want to focus on the resolution, and not on gotcha mechanics, you can just give your players some clues to the trap without a check. I tend to lean towards less checks, not more. But in the case of a tripwire, maybe the players are only given the clue of a metal dart stuck in a wall, but they won't see the tripwire unless they succeed at a perception check. So you can do both!

Investigation I think should only be used when the players ask a question about the trap. This could be a search action (Can I find something in the wall that could have caused this burn mark?), or a logical deduction (Can I determine from what direction the source of the burn marks came?), or knowledge (Can I determine what this black dust is on the ground?).

I think each trap description should indeed list both a perception and investigation check. It is up to the DM which one applies, in relation to what the players want to do. I think the books should be a bit more consistent, and include DC's for both.

 

[ThePolarBear]

*sigh*

Investigation is about investigating things, not finding them. See? I can stay play that game too.

Yep, you can. And you are right. Both investigation and perception are about methods, not about goals. The goals are various and complex, and can include finding things, but are not what the skill is about. Investigation is about connecting dots i can see and discerning what's relevant to what's not to what i want. To answer "Who, What, When, Why, Where...".

Both can be used to "find things", but neither is about "finding things" specifically. And have different ways and limitation that have to be applied to them to make the difference matter.

You can perceive the light coming from below what seems to be a wall whether or not you are searching for hidden doors. You are not able to perceive said hidden door if it's well made - it would feel like a wall, taste like a wall, look like a wall. Still, you might think that there's a hidden door there, even if in reality there's just a hole. You need to do one more step - investigate the anomaly - to have some answers. You do not need to roll for it prehaps, as you do not roll to notice you still have your feets and such, as long as there's no need for the roll.

CAN WE PLEASE STOP DISCUSSING THE DEFINITIONS OF PERCEPTION AND INVESTIGATION?

No.

My intention was to point out that it is not consistent to ask for only one of those checks. Instead, any trap must usually include both checks:

I do not agree. If there's nothing to be perceived, then there's no meaning in having a perception check. If the trap is obvious in its working, there's no need for an investigation check. And vice versa.

Also, compounding checks makes failure easier, but nothing prevents a trap to have multiple requirements. I think it just goes against the intention of "simplicity" of 5e.

[*]Trip Wire: The wire is very hard to spot, so the Perception check might be around DC 20. After you have noticed it, it is quite clear that it's a piece of a trap. So investigating it would require a really low DC of 5.
[*]Doorknob triggers trap: The scuffs and wear pattern require advanced deduction to find out this is a trap and how it works. So the Investigation check might be around DC 20. But realizing them is still no auto success, because a character doesn't realize any detail of its surroundings automatically. So it would require a medium DC of 10-15 to perceive those hints, before being able to deduce them via Investigation.
[*]Fiery Trap: The Fiery trap's description speaks of "faint ash marks". Faint means "not obvious". So again, the outcome to spot is uncertain. And that means, it should require a Perception check at first, followed by an Investigation check to deduce those facts to realize, it's a trap.
[/LIST]

I think you are missing the point.

Tripwire: You can always ask for an investigation check if a player wants to know if that particular wire is or not connected to a mechanism, and what that mechanism does. However, in that particular trap, the bare minimal requirement for successfully avoid or negate the trap is spotting the wire. No need to go any deeper: a proficient character knows how to check for tension and disable the trap without caring for any other mechanism - if the trap is a simple tripwire.

Doorknob: You are required an investigation check to notice a particular pattern on the marks on the door. The implication is that the character looking at the door could already see the marks. Perception has already passed, possibly because the difficulty to notice them was so trivial that the marks were simply described into the scene.

Both this examples are in a place where it's underlined the difference between the two skills: Perceiving and Analyzing, exactly as you say, to simply underline the difference. Neither is an actual trap.

This leaves the Fiery one as the apex of contention: Ash and burn marks.
Quite simply for what i see the trap is still a simple one. For me it requires investigation alone because perception passes from "you have no way to perceive this normally" to " it becomes obvious once , while investigating and thus being near the place i'm looking at, i see that the mosaic is not intended to have black in that place and what i thought was dust like the rest is actually ash", neither situation requiring a check. You still need to perceive those things, it just passes from "impossible" to "automatic" once the right situation comes up.

AGAIN: I am not arguing the definition of those skills. I am arguing the point that any trap and any detail which is uncertain to perceive normally requires a Perception check. But these rules handle traps that require deduction (via Investigation) as if any of those details would automatically been perceived. And that is not consistent.

And that's why i think there's no uncertainty at least for these examples. Again, the Fire trap is a thematic one and if we want to go for it the Dm might already have been describing the temple as having a "deep, hot air that smells of coals, dust and ash, with a light whiteish fog that, while not enough to impede vision, gives the whole area some sort of supernatural and eeire feeling", already covering most of the sensorial inputs that perception itself would cover.

Player knowledge vs. character knowledge

It's only a guess, but maybe the real problem is a different: It seems like WotC wants to avoid that details perceived by Perception are automatically interpret by the Players. E.g. a character succeeds on a perception check and the DM tells the player: "Your character spots faint burn marks". I guess, most of the Players would realize, it's a trap and continue acting in great care. So they make the Investigation check for its Character obsolet by deducing informations as a Player. Maybe this is the real reason, why WotC doesn't ask for both checks. But that's not satisfying though.

Regards.

That is not possible. The very same tripwire example falls perfectly in what you say Wotc doesn't want to happen. Again, it's simply impossible to notice those things without inspecting the related surface in detail. Once one does so, the anomaly becomes apparent. Then again a temple with a mosaic with runes on the floor smells like trap even without a perception check ;D

 

[lkwpeter]

In my view, ANY trap should require:

• a Perception check ranging from DC 1 to 30, depend of the level of concealment of trap details. These details are perceived via hearing, spotting, etc. This check reveals details, but doesn't tell the character it's a trap.
• In addition, there is a need of an Investigation check ranging from DC 1 to 30, depend of the level of deduction needed to interpret those details, hints, evidences as being a trap.

This also makes it possible to take circumstances into account that make perceiving more difficult. Because even a low DC can be hard to succeed, if the characters are distracted or exhausted, any trap should require a Perception check at first.

Again: Neither do I argue how to use Perception/Investigation, nor do I argue that those checks are not valid in the situations that are stated in the UA Trap rules. I am absolutely fin My point is, that you can't investigate somehing that you haven't noticed.

Doorknob: You are required an investigation check to notice a particular pattern on the marks on the door. The implication is that the character looking at the door could already see the marks. Perception has already passed, possibly because the difficulty to notice them was so trivial that the marks were simply described into the scene.

You wirte "Perception has already passed, possibly because the difficulty to notice them was so trivial". Maybe we have differences of opinion cocerning "what is trivial to perceive". In my opinion "faint burn marks" are not easy to spot (in contrast to BIG FAT BURN MARKS). Furthermore I think that "scuff marks and wear pattern" are also not trivial and therefore no auto success - especially, if there are other conditions like if the characters are in a hurry or exhausted (disadvantage on ability checks).

Again, I do agree on using Investigation to deduce facts/evidence to find a trap. But these rules ALWAYS ask for perception to find "obvious traps". But the moment Investigation comes into play, it seems like Perception doesn't have to be taken into account at all. It's alway either Perception or Investigation. But for some strange reasons you never seem to need both. That is not consistent.

 

[Aldarc]

Use your best judgment to make it consistent then. Why overcomplicate or overdramatize the issue?

 

[iserith]

Question for you [MENTION=6804713]lkwpeter[/MENTION]: Are you providing any clues when describing the environment that telegraph the presence of a trap? Or are you always gating that behind an ability check?

 

[robus]

Use your best judgment to make it consistent then. Why overcomplicate or overdramatize the issue?

This could be applied to almost every topic on this forum! If we took that rule to heart what would we find to debate ad nauseam??!!

But seriously - in a spirit of continuous improvement it's always interesting to hear people's thoughts on various aspects of the game. The rules are certainly not patently obvious. And if one has a feeling the game play is not satisfying then seeking input from others on the forum seems reasonable.

If you're not interested in this topic then there are plenty of others

 

[Aldarc]

This could be applied to almost every topic on this forum! If we took that rule to heart what would we find to debate ad nauseam??!!

But seriously - in a spirit of continuous improvement it's always interesting to hear people's thoughts on various aspects of the game. The rules are certainly not patently obvious. And if one has a feeling the game play is not satisfying then seeking input from others on the forum seems reasonable.

If you're not interested in this topic then there are plenty of others

It's interesting to hear people's thoughts, which is certainly why I initially came to this thread, but it's difficult to see what more the OP wants to get out of this conversation.

 

[Gradine]

The important thing to remember is that 5e does not, strictly speaking, have skill checks. What it has are ability checks, which you may add your proficiency bonus to if you have proficiency in a relevant skill. So rather than fret over the descriptions of what Perception and Investigation say (or don't say), 5e would have a DM decide the appropriate ability check first.

Wisdom is, at least in the case of traps, the ability relating to your sensory perception. The role that the Perception skill plays, then, is quite clear; it's whether you spot that hidden trip wire, or that discoloration from a not-quite-perfect concealment, or that blood stain. Intelligence governs your deductive and inductive reasoning. It is your ability to draw inferences and conclusions to what you have already perceived, as well as your ability to perform tasks, for lack of a better term, heuristically (such as a methodical search). This is why "Search", as a skill, used to key off of Intelligence and not Wisdom, and why Investigation, and not Perception, is the most obvious successor to that skill.

Here's how I adjudicate traps:
*If the trap has a visual component, I compare that component's DC vs. the PC's passive perception to see if any of them notice the component.
*How the PC's choose to react to the information tells me whether to call for a Wisdom (Perception) check (e.g, "Do I see anything else?") or an Intelligence (Investigation) check (e.g, "I check the wall next to it; do I find anything?")

Generally speaking, pretty much every trap I design has several visual components (with separate Wisdom (Perception) DCs, so some obvious clues will spotted through Passive Perception, while better concealed components would require a more thorough active check) and most have non-visual components (which would necessarily have to be revealed through an Intelligence (Investigation) check).

A trap that doesn't have a single component or clue that can be spotted given a reasonable Passive Perception check is not a trap (as a game component) at all, it is a HP or ten-foot-pole tax. Not that such traps can't be used well if done sparingly; I might design a dungeon with a lot of arrow traps, for instance; the first one or two might be nearly impossible to spot but not deal too much damage, and tells them exactly what to keep an eye out for through the rest of the dungeon; at which point I'd give them a bonus to Passive Perception at the expense of the speed with which they move through the dungeon; throw a couple in a few combat encounters, etc.