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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Gradine" data-source="post: 7054103" data-attributes="member: 57112">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.</blockquote>

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