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<blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 7160688" data-attributes="member: 6787650">I actually use Insight for a few things, including &quot;is this combatant feinting?&quot; and &quot;which one of these hobgoblins is the leader?&quot;My discomfort with Investigation stems from the fact that it has two separate roles:(1) Discovering physical objects like traps and secret doors, and(2) Doing deduction on the players' behalf (deducing the location of a hidden object, finding the weak point in a tunnel).#1 feels like something that should be Perception (or Perception AND Investigation) but was tacked on to Investigation to bulk it out a bit. In practice I often make these gated on both Perception and Investigation, e.g. Perception DC 11 to smell the goat's blood and Investigation DC 18 to realize these funny crenellations are actually booby traps, and that Goatherd Bryan's missing goat must be squished under one of the ones that have already been triggered.#2 is something that I have trouble reconciling with game flow: I don't really like saying, &quot;Here's a riddle, but if anyone has passive Investigation of 23+ you can flip over this piece of paper and read the answer; or you can give a Schrodinger answer and roll an active Investigation check to see if your answer turns out to be what's written here on this paper.&quot; It works okay but it doesn't feel quite right. Now, maybe I just need better game structures to make it flow more smoothly; but maybe I should just abolish the dice-based approach entirely and let a riddle be just a riddle.How do YOU guys handle riddles and puzzles and traps? Do you give players a dice-based option, and if so how hard do you make it compared to solving the riddle/whatever with your brain?</blockquote>

[QUOTE="FormerlyHemlock, post: 7160688, member: 6787650"] I actually use Insight for a few things, including "is this combatant feinting?" and "which one of these hobgoblins is the leader?" My discomfort with Investigation stems from the fact that it has two separate roles: (1) Discovering physical objects like traps and secret doors, and (2) Doing deduction on the players' behalf (deducing the location of a hidden object, finding the weak point in a tunnel). #1 feels like something that should be Perception (or Perception AND Investigation) but was tacked on to Investigation to bulk it out a bit. In practice I often make these gated on both Perception and Investigation, e.g. Perception DC 11 to smell the goat's blood and Investigation DC 18 to realize these funny crenellations are actually booby traps, and that Goatherd Bryan's missing goat must be squished under one of the ones that have already been triggered. #2 is something that I have trouble reconciling with game flow: I don't really [I]like[/I] saying, "Here's a riddle, but if anyone has passive Investigation of 23+ you can flip over this piece of paper and read the answer; or you can give a Schrodinger answer and roll an active Investigation check to see if your answer turns out to be what's written here on this paper." It works okay but it doesn't feel quite right. Now, [I]maybe[/I] I just need better game structures to make it flow more smoothly; but maybe I should just abolish the dice-based approach entirely and let a riddle be just a riddle. How do YOU guys handle riddles and puzzles and traps? Do you give players a dice-based option, and if so how hard do you make it compared to solving the riddle/whatever with your brain? [/QUOTE]

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