Search and taking 20: the problem

[Elder-Basilisk]

It seems to me that take 20 searches shouldn't be a problem for DMs who build the kewlest trapped trap within a trapped trap scenario EVAR. If it can't be found by rolling because it's hidden behind a wall that's behind another wall that's behind a hidden panel that's locked and trapped but disabling that trap sets off the traps you couldn't see and nobody could ever possibly see that, then you can take 20 all you like and you won't find it. Because taking 20 only gets you to DC 70 or so (23 ranks, +7 int (this is probably some power-gaming rogue/wizard/arcane Trickster twink), +4 greater heroism, +10 lens of detection, +2 bardsong, +3 skill focus, +1 luckstone, +20 for taking 20) and this trap is so kewl it has no DC. So DC 70 isn't good enough. It's that simple. No house rules are necessary to make a trap that can't be found.

Of course, in most D&D games, a DC 70 anything is well into the range of epic skill checks, so it wouldn't actually be unreasonable for that character to detect a trapped trap within a trapped trap all at once without risking setting it off. The trap is fiendishly clever and impossible to find, but he's superhumanly good at finding traps and can do the impossible. (But that's another matter).

Of course, those aren't properly traps any more--they're environmental encounters or hazards like green slime, lava pits, chasms opened by earthquakes, stampeding herds of cattle, etc. Some of them may be defeatable through skills and spells but they're not usually defeatable through search and disable device (though I suppose a ballista manned by orcs could be taken out with disable device so it will work sometimes). Of course, if you start moving many manufactured traps into that category, your rogue players will probably start to feel pretty useless. ("Why do I have 23 ranks and skill focus in search since all the traps are undetectable?") And justifiably so. Traps are not designed to be detectable. They're designed so as not to be noticed. The author of the trap may think that he's not left any trace of the trap within the trap on the trapped trap but a rogue with a better search score may indeed pick out something he missed. That's what the search skill is for. (When I'm playing a rogue, the traps I think 'good job' on aren't the ones that are impossible to find; they're the ones that go off because I don't think to look for them (dangit--next time search the floor leading to the door as well as the door) or that I don't find with a take ten and a pair of rolled searches and I end up thinking 'see, next time be more careful' because of. Really, that's the beauty of take 20 and the ability to take multiple search checks. You can make the rogue kick himself for missing a trap since there IS something he could have done about it).

And, not that it matters, because T20 is not relevant to the case of the undetectable trap, and if the trap can be detected, the player need not know how the character did it any more than the player need know how the 20th level Bard is able to be so inspiring that his song makes Ernest the high school nerd (str 10) hit as hard as Arnold the Governor when he was on steroids (str 20 +5), but the most likely means of spotting the trap hasn't yet been discussed at all: by noticing the way that the ordinary users of the area react to it. If you have to hold the knob of the lock in a particular way to open it without setting off the undetectable trap, a skilled investigator might notice that there seems to be an unusual amount of wear in these particular areas which is odd and probably indicates a trap of some kind. Or he may notice that the torch bracket on the wall has a slight clean patch underneath it where the orcs sleeves brush away the dirt when they disable their pit trap to pass by. Or maybe it's just slightly too dirty--like an orc noticed the clean patch and threw some mud up there to hide it. Of maybe, if it's a tomb where nobody's been for centuries, the crumbs of the last architech's lunch still indicate the odd pattern of his movements after completing the last trap. Odd movement--probably a trap of some sort. (Or maybe, the architech knew that the Pharoah was going to seal him inside the tomb when he finished and thought "I hope someone does break into that bastard's tomb and steal all his wealth so he's penniless in the afterlife" and scratched a note in charcoal on the floor "Trap here, to disarm, turn once clockwise to ten, then counterclockwise past ten to eight, say "Imhotep" three times, and turn the dial clockwise to 75. Good luck with the tomb robbing, make that bastard penniless in the afterlife." Of course, now all that's left is some illegible charcoal scrawl but the rogue notices how they highlight a hidden seam in the floor.

The only perfect trap is one with a DC higher than the rogue's search check. And that trap is perfect whether the DC is 21 or 92.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

And here I thought the premise of those shows is that there is ALWAYS a clue--sometimes you just have to look hard enough and search thoroughly enough to find it.

Every action has a reaction and you can cover the evidence and cover the evidence of you covering the evidence, but if the investigator reaches far enough back, he can always untangle the web.

Hardly support for the idea that there can be a perfect trap. And the possibility of a perfect trap would hardly be relevant to taking 20 on search checks. If you can't see it, you can't even with a take 20. (Now whether or not there are or should be traps that can't be found on the best possible role is up to the DM).

First, I HAD noticed that the bad guys in CSI (and in almost every crime fiction) leave clues behind.

 

[dcollins]

As i said several times before: Only time-constraints that the players explicitly know about have any chance of changing their Take 20 Search behavior.

Now that's odd. I've read story hours of Forge of Fury and there certainly seems to be things going on while the players' backs are turned so to speak. If the players defeat the orcs at the gates and then leave to heal up, I would expect the guard to be replaced and strengthened and a few extra traps to be laid. If the PCs fight the dragon and decide to rest immediately thereafter, it's quite likely that the Duergar, if alive (as they would be if the PCs negotiate rather than fight them) will come and attack them as they rest.

So you're calling recovery by monsters if the players leave the dungeon, a time-constraint. (a) The PCs don't know about this. (b) The PCs obviously aren't searching in the first place if they're out of the dungeon during downtime! End result: No disadvantage to Take 20 all the time while in the dungeon.

In The Sunless Citadel, there is at the very least the perceived time pressure of needing to rescue the victims of the Gulthias tree before whatever happens to them happens to them. (It doesn't matter too much in the end, but a "rescue mission" isn't an "on your own schedule" type situation).

So (a) it doesn't actually matter in the end. And (b) it sounds like there is no specific time frame even suggested to the PCs. Prisoners are at hand, but there is no explicit threat at a particular time that the PCs know about. End result: No real or measurable disadvantage to Take 20 all the time while exploring.

In the Heart of Nightfang Spire (which I've actually played partly myself), the vampires, vampire spawn, and some of the other undead regenerate regularly until you hunt them down in their coffins and kill them. And there's that assassin who can teleport in to your camp and try to kill you if you tip Gulthias off to your presence.

I see a common thread now: Once again, the only disadvantage is when the PCs take downtime and aren't adventuring or searching. I assume that the magical hit-man who may attack them in camp, is, once again, unknown to the PCs so there's no way for them to know how to avoid him? End result: No disadvantage to Take 20 all the time while in the dungeon.

Nor did I get angry with the DM when all of the monsters and cultists that had been cowering in the basement came up stairs and kicked down the door of the room we'd holed up in to rest and heal.

So, what I must 100% disagree with is your habit of conflating "time for Take 20 Searches" with "time for camp, rest, and recuperate". Spending 1 minute for a Take 20 Search is not by any means comparable to 8+ hours for a rest & recuperate camping session.


I thank you for engaging me in these examples because it's quite clarifying to see what makes you think there's usually a "time-constraint" to must modules -- if those are the best examples you can come up with, I'm even more confident now in asserting that "standard published D&D modules" do not have time constraints that would affect the choice to do Take 20 Searches. The contrived "what-if" examples that come up are not borne out by actual publication history.

I agree with you that Wandering Monster checks are important -- as I said in my first post, they're the only thing I can think of that provides a real disadvantage to Take 20 -- and the odds or likelihood must be explicitly described to the players to make any difference to their behavior or strategic choices.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Actually dcollins, all of those things are affected by periods of time measured as minutes.

Reinforcements can certainly arrive in minutes.

Vampire spawn begin fast-healing after 1 hour of being 'killed'. So if there are 30 squares between you and their coffin (and there certainly could be), and you insist on taking 20 on the lot, then you'll have to fight them over.

 

[DarkMaster]

What about you have 30 seconds to stop the oil from falling were your friends are located but the thing is you don't know behind which of the three doors the lever is.

I don't think you will take 20 on all three doors.

That is were traps are the most effective

Other traps are good to keep the party on their toes, but usually you don't really expect them to significantly affect the party (unless they are stupid)

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

As i said several times before: Only time-constraints that the players explicitly know about have any chance of changing their Take 20 Search behavior.

Utter nonsense. Most time constraints can be guessed by players with half a brain. And if they don't have half a brain then they deserve what they get. (And what they get will usually teach them to stop wasting time).

So you're calling recovery by monsters if the players leave the dungeon, a time-constraint. (a) The PCs don't know about this.

Let me see, how hard is it to figure out "if we give the monsters time to regroup and counterattack, they will" or "if we leave before the job is finished, it will be harder the second time around"? If you think that the standard role-playing group really expects dungeons full of monsters waiting to fight and die in 10x10 rooms, then you're rather behind the times.

(b) The PCs obviously aren't searching in the first place if they're out of the dungeon during downtime! End result: No disadvantage to Take 20 all the time while in the dungeon.

You're obviously not using take 20 to search every square if you think that taking 20 doesn't increase your downtime. (And if you don't take 20 on every square then odds are good that you won't be taking 20 on a few squares that may have traps in them).

A standard 10x60 hallway.
Time to walk down: 12 seconds.
Time to search every square once: 1 minute 20 seconds
Time to take 20 on every square: 24 minutes.

A 30x30 room.
Time to walk through: 6 seconds
Time to search every square: 3 minutes, 18 seconds
Time to take 20 searching every square: 1 hour, 12 minutes

If there are a mere eight rooms in your dungeon (all of them 30'x30' to accomodate all of the PCs and one potentially gargantuan monster) and connected by the 10x60 corridors, you have two things:

1. A rather small dungeon.
2. A dungeon that can be walked through in 2 minutes.
3. A dungeon that can be searched (1 search check/square) in 36 minutes.
4. A dungeon that takes 12 hours to thoroughly search with take 20.

Now, let's say the typical large dungeon in the "on your own time exploration" scenario is three times that size. In that case, taking 20 on every square means that the party will have to go through 2 or 3 leave the dungeon and rest where we might get ambushed sessions while the party that simply searches every square once doesn't need to rest once (unless they run out of resources).

Note that the party who searches each square once also can get through the entire dungeon in the duration of See Invisibility, Magic Circle vs. Evil, Alter Self, etc, and depending upon their level, may only need to use a couple of pearls of power to refresh spells like Shield and Bless.

In fact, a party can even take 20 on the really obvious places to put a trap, have a few fights, search a few areas, and stil make it through the dungeon in less than fifteen minutes.

But if they take 20 on every square in the dungeon, it takes them 12 hours to finish--without considering time for fights or disabling any traps they might find. Where I come from, we call that a significant time difference.

So (a) it doesn't actually matter in the end. And (b) it sounds like there is no specific time frame even suggested to the PCs. Prisoners are at hand, but there is no explicit threat at a particular time that the PCs know about. End result: No real or measurable disadvantage to Take 20 all the time while exploring.

A. Sure, it may not matter in the end, but do the PCs know that?
B. Even if there is not time frame suggested by the PCs, what kind of players don't infer from "captured by goblins" that "lives indefinitely until we show up" isn't in the cards?

If you think that taking 20 is still an option at that point, you must expect the encounters to be coded into the module once and only trigger when the players step on the right pixels--I mean map square.

I see a common thread now: Once again, the only disadvantage is when the PCs take downtime and aren't adventuring or searching. I assume that the magical hit-man who may attack them in camp, is, once again, unknown to the PCs so there's no way for them to know how to avoid him? End result: No disadvantage to Take 20 all the time while in the dungeon.

It looks to me like taking 20 on even one level of a dungeon takes more time than going to sleep and getting spells back. So, the disadvantage is accrued as much by searching exhaustively as by resting--perhaps more so since, every round of searching in a hostile area is a round in which the shadows in the next room might roll a 20 on their listen check, glide through the floor and attack you by surprise. It's also a round in which the wizard in the next room may buff his minions to the gills and then dimension door them in to surprise you.

And the magical hit man may be a surprise the first time around (although anyone who goes looking for an ancient vampire wizard in his lair without considering what reprisals the wizard might bring against them seems extraordinarily foolish). However, if he's defeated once and driven off (probably the most likely scenario), then the PCs know he's there. And they also know that taking 20 to search the entire dungeon not only dramatically increases the number of times they will have to make themselves vulnerable by camping, but it also makes them vulnerable while exploring the dungeon. (If you defeat the mummies in large room 2c and then spend an hour searching the room, that's plenty of time for someone to hear the battle from room 2d, run to his boss, the message to be passed up the chain of command, the level to be organized and all of the monsters from room 2d to 2z come bursting in from various doors just as the improved invisible big bad wizard and his assassin minion teleport in flying above you.

So, what I must 100% disagree with is your habit of conflating "time for Take 20 Searches" with "time for camp, rest, and recuperate". Spending 1 minute for a Take 20 Search is not by any means comparable to 8+ hours for a rest & recuperate camping session.

See above. Taking 2 minutes to search a single door is not comparable to taking 8 hours to rest and recuperate. Taking 12 hours to search every square of a dungeon section is definitely comparable to taking 8 hours to rest and recuperate. And if you only take 20 on the areas that are very likely to be trapped (doors, sarcophagi), then you're obviously not taking 20 on the areas that are individually less likely to be trapped but collectively more likely to be trapped. (If I've a two traps to place in that 60 foot hallway, the door is one logical place for them but adventurers generally check doors thoroughly and are careless about long hallways (for the very good reason that it takes a long time even to give them a cursory search), so I might very well place both of the traps in the hallway--I'm at least as likely to put one there as on the door).

I thank you for engaging me in these examples because it's quite clarifying to see what makes you think there's usually a "time-constraint" to must modules -- if those are the best examples you can come up with, I'm even more confident now in asserting that "standard published D&D modules" do not have time constraints that would affect the choice to do Take 20 Searches. The contrived "what-if" examples that come up are not borne out by actual publication history.

Again, the so-called contrived examples are a fairly good number of published modules. (I'd venture to guess that at least half of the Living Arcanis modules I've played had the kind of extreme time constraints I referred to in those examples).

But if you think that taking 20 on all searches does not reasonably create time constraints then either you're playing 1e with monsters staying in their 10x10 rooms waiting for someone to open the door or you're not really taking 20 to search every square.

I agree with you that Wandering Monster checks are important -- as I said in my first post, they're the only thing I can think of that provides a real disadvantage to Take 20 -- and the odds or likelihood must be explicitly described to the players to make any difference to their behavior or strategic choices.

It appears that you think players extremely dull if you assume that they can't understand the advantages of:
1. Keeping one set of buff spells from room 1a to room 1h
2. Not walking into the ambush set by the monsters in room 1b, c, d, e, f, g, and h

and that they can't infer the likelihood of wandering monsters from simply being in the Temple of All Consumption, the Tomb of a Thousand Ghouls, or from exploring the haunted ruins of an ancient city by day and camping in the demon infested Jungles of Terror by night.

Player: We're being attacked by demons?!?
DM: Emerging from the demon infested jungles of terror, surrounding your campsite you see...
Player: Wait a minute, you mean there are demons in the Jungles of Terror?!?
DM: It would appear that the picture of a spider demon hanging from the trees on your map isn't just an artist's embellishment.
Player: You mean it's dangerous?!? You didn't tell us there'd be wandering monsters.
DM: Yes, the demon infested jungles of terror are dangerous. Yes, they are infested by wandering demons. Yes, they make sane people run in terror. Why on earth did you think there wasn't an inn outside the haunted ruins of the Tomb of a Thousand Ghouls?
Player: Aren't we supposed to get an explicit warning?
DM: You mean something like the fact that they're called the "Demon Infested Jungles of Terror" and that a bunch of first level commoners hasn't already gone in and taken everything of value in the Tomb of a Thousand Ghouls?
Player: Next time, we camp inside the Tomb of A Thousand Ghouls; We searched the first three rooms thoroughly so there's nothing in there to attack us.

 

[dcollins]

Well, here's a nerve.
I'll deal with the primary straw-man argument:

You're obviously not using take 20 to search every square if you think that taking 20 doesn't increase your downtime...

Who said anything about Take 20 Search in every square of the dungeon? I didn't. No one else in this thread did.

I'll tell you what my current power-gamer Rogue player did. He did this:
(1) Max out Search & get a lens of detection. (A bit academic, but he did it because he knew he was going to able to...)
(2) Take 10 Search in every square of the dungeon.
(3) Take 20 Search on every door, chest, or otherwise obvious portal.

Now I'll compare that to the example you provided:

If there are a mere eight rooms in your dungeon (all of them 30'x30' to accomodate all of the PCs and one potentially gargantuan monster) and connected by the 10x60 corridors, you have two things... 3. A dungeon that can be searched (1 search check/square) in 36 minutes.... 4. A dungeon that takes 12 hours to thoroughly search with take 20.

So the complete exploration of this dungeon takes about (assume 8 doors, 1 per room) 36 + 8 = 44 minutes, less than an hour. It's within the duration of many of the buff spells you mention. We're playing 3.0, so the ability-buffs last many hours, long enough for a dungeon 10 times this size. No rest-camp sessions are necessary for this time period.

According to DMG ch. 4 (3.0 DMG p. 118), wandering monster checks are made "Every hour the characters are in the dungeon." Since the complete exploration of the dungeon took less than an hour, by the rules as written, no wandering monster checks had to be made.

So the power-gamer exploration plan is clearly without any in-game disadvantage by the rules as written. It can be accomplished in a "reasonable" time frame. Now let's return to the first post of this thread, whose point was:

It makes searching for the trap a decision for the DM to either get you or not. No variability.

And he's right. I know in advance the exact DC point for any trap in a corridor (10 + skill bonus) or a door or chest (20 + skill bonus) that will automatically be found by the standard search protocol. The only choice I have as DM is: is this a trap that will be found (within the DC) or not found (above the DC) by my player? It's not like AC where it's a little bit harder or a bit easier, but dependent on the dice. It's just automatic true-or-false. I might as well just write down a number of damage points I want the rogue to take from traps before the BBEG. My power-gamer player gets upset anytime there's a high-DC trap in a corridor, because I must have picked it just to screw him, and in some sense he's right, because I did know in advance that would happen.

Summary: Take 20 Search in every square is a nonissue. Predictability of the Search that will occur in every square of the dungeon (combination of Take 10 & Take 20) is a big issue.

Again, the so-called contrived examples are a fairly good number of published modules. (I'd venture to guess that at least half of the Living Arcanis modules I've played had the kind of extreme time constraints I referred to in those examples).

You're the one who brought up the Adventure Path modules as a case study. Since that turned out not to support the small-time-scale contrived examples, you're now going to try and change the subject to Living Arcanis modules?

It appears that you think players extremely dull if you assume that they can't... infer the likelihood of wandering monsters from simply being in the Temple of All Consumption...

I'll tell you, my players do in fact feel that Wandering Monsters are "old-school and implausible". They want each monster to have a story for how they got there. They ask questions like: Where did these monsters come from? Are they removed from rosters in other parts of the dungeon? Where are they coming from and going to? How can monsters just appear out of nowhere that weren't there before a die-roll was made? I'm the only person in my playing group who is willing to use wandering monsters when they DM.

Again, I agree with you that they are important, and I make it clear to my players that I will be checking for them, even though they are accustomed to not having them in any other game. It's the only real disadvantage to deterministic Take X searches of some sort in every square of the dungeon. Nontheless, by the rules as written, even these checks are so infrequent as to never occur once in the dungeon you proposed as an example.

 

[Black Knight Irios]

I'll tell you, my players do in fact feel that Wandering Monsters are "old-school and implausible". They want each monster to have a story for how they got there. They ask questions like: Where did these monsters come from? Are they removed from rosters in other parts of the dungeon? Where are they coming from and going to? How can monsters just appear out of nowhere that weren't there before a die-roll was made? I'm the only person in my playing group who is willing to use wandering monsters when they DM.

So your players ask you all this, hm they think they are pretty clever, but you don't have to answer any of those questions because the players can't know these facts.
And maybe the wandering monster isn't wandering at all, but nothing else then the next patrol on guarding duty.
Or the wandering monster wants to get from point A in the dungeon to point B.
Or the "wandering" one was alarmed by a previous fight, went first to the boss to tell the fact that intruders are in the dungeon and then went back with new orders. So it is no wandering one at all.


And timeframes, maybe players don't know that there is one and that something bad will happen if they search each and every square with T20 but assume a group of adventurers going into an old crypt, I would really doubt that they relax there while searching, having fun all the time, I think they would do the job as fast as possible, to get there out. So even there is no time pressure laid on this group and still they are going to make the job as fast as possible. Because many other did mention the fact, that spells can wear off, when they always try useless T20 searches on all squares.

And we should consider one point in this discussion, that the highest CR for traps given in the DMG is CR10, lets think about it. And the best Search and Disable Device check needed to detect and disarm it are 34 each.
So how could a Trap wit a CR of 10 or lower be a real threat to a LVL 15 party?!? -If the rogue searches for it with T10 and he has a maxed out Searchskill and a good INT score assume 18 and the little item that grants you a +5 bonus on Search checks, he will always get a result of 37.
So why do you even think that CR10 could pose a threat, you don't even think that when you would throw a CR10 Monster at the group, why should a trap then work.
It is possible for sure to create traps with higher CRs and higher DCs and you can do that if you like, but keep in mind what CR means and what any given CR means to your group.

So I say it once again, let them T20 every single square if they like but they must know what their characters want. And if there is a timeframe they should at least have hint about it, a captured princess is for sure not very amused if they take too long, or maybe she is even dead or undead, I like that last possibility, it is so inherently evil.

 

[swrushing]

As i said several times before: Only time-constraints that the players explicitly know about have any chance of changing their Take 20 Search behavior.

Dcollins, your games must be much different than mine.

For my players, the usual assumption is that taking longer when in hostile areas is a greater risk than not. Unless they have explicit reason to "know" they are safe, time is always a concern. If they are in a place where they have encountered hostiles, or seen the evidence of occupation, or simply put just dont know whether or not hostiles are there,... they feel time matters.

Why?

Maybe its because they expect "reasonable" responses on the part of NPCs. Maybe they expect it to not be the case that the various other characters involved sit behind numbered doors waiting for PC arrival. Maybe because in the past they have seen and felt the result of taking too much time in an unsecure area and so experience teaches them to not assume "unless we have conrete evidence of atime specific threat" that they are safe and can take time.

As such, the notion of taking over an hour to search a 30x30 room on take 20 by their best guy would never occur to them unless they were at a point where they knew they would be safe for that time.

The more likely course would be a cursory search, over a few minutes taking 10 by the best guy, or maybe just a quick search with everyone taking a different part and taking 10, or maybe even just closing the door and figuring on searching it after the place has been secured.

If your games run differently and you have taught your players, by experiences, that its fine to take time and ignore time unless specific defined time constraints are inexplicably obvious, then our games are very very different.

Which is fine, of course.

 

[dcollins]

So I say it once again, let them T20 every single square if they like but they must know what their characters want.

Please re-read the preceding. Not Take 20 on every square. Take 10 in every square and Take 20 on all portals -- less than an hour to explore a sample dungeon. No wandering monster checks by the rules.

As such, the notion of taking over an hour to search a 30x30 room on take 20 by their best guy would never occur to them unless they were at a point where they knew they would be safe for that time.

Please re-read the preceding. Not Take 20 on every square. Take 10 in every square and Take 20 on all portals -- 4 minutes to explore a sample room (including Take 20's on any door, chest, or other suspicious item). No wandering monster checks by the rules.