D&D General Why Exploration Is the Worst Pillar

[Chaosmancer]

Butting in, the servant is described as a shapeless magical force. It almost certainly doesn't have any weight (unless you decide that all magical force creations, including Bigby's hands and Tenser's disks have weight as well), so it's not going to trigger pressure plates or pit traps. Because it's shapeless, it will "flow" around any tripwires, levers, or other triggers. At least not on its own. You could likely direct it to do so, but that means you'd have to know where the trap is, and the trap would have to be sensitive enough to be triggered by a Strength 2 entity (30 pounds of force).

Weight is pressure. Per the original example, the Unseen servant is applying pressure to the floor and walls. So it certainly should trigger any pressure plate or pit trap that it presses against.

If it "flows" around things, then it can't do what it does as a servant, like lifting up a glass or picking up forks. Heck, the thing can sew, so it should surely be solid enough to pull against a trip wire, and it can easily throw levers, that's a job a human servant can do.

And 2 strength is 60 lbs. It can pull, lift or drag 30 times strength.

 

[Chaosmancer]

All good points. The question is how permissive is the DM in handwaving a lot of this stuff and just saying unseen servant solves the problem. I mean, it was even suggested by Chaosmancer that it counts as a creature. This is like the mending spell I discussed well upthread. Some DMs have it fix anything in any state of disrepair when the spell itself is actually pretty clear on its limitations. And if the DM is just very permissive and handwavy, they can hardly complain it's the fault of the rules when players are walking all over their exploration challenges!

It has AC, HP, and at least one stat if not more. I could easily see a DM ruling it as a creature. It is a target at the very least. And while "mindless" that simply could mean an INT, WIS and CHA of 1

 

[Chaosmancer]

Lightning bolt trap here: "Hold my beer".

Great. Lightning bolt trap hits the party. Now, tell me, how would this have gone differently if the rogue had gone up and pulled the lever? Lightning Bolt trap still hits the party right? So, no difference.

hands back beer

Now that's a leap of faith. Valid house rule for a table, perhaps, but canonical? Open to debate, at the very least.

Sure, it is up for debate. And the fact that it is up for debate makes it worth at least bringing up.

Assuming, of course, the following:
--- the passage is the only way forward (i.e. there's no other known way to reach the party's goal)
--- the passage is not itself a red herring
--- there's no hidden bypass that the party have thus far either failed to find or (more commonly IME) not even looked for
--- the PCs don't have means of getting past the blockage e.g. passwall, dimension door, or a few hours work from a Dwarf.

'Cause yes, any DM worth her salt would do this now and then.

Sure, you could. But how does this make the Unseen servant not a good solution to the trap? If the hall was a red herring, we just saved the rogue's life. If it isn't the only way forward, then we just saved the rogue's life. If there is a hidden bypass, then the unseen servant might be the one to discover the lever to open that door... and saved the rogue's life.

Again, nothing you are saying here says that the Unseen Servant wasn't the right play instead of sending forward someone who can't summon back in 10 minutes.

Here I agree: if the Servant does set if off that's good use of resources. My argument is that I think some are being far too generous in what they allow the Servant to do.

All I'm letting it do is pull, push and otherwise apply force to every surface that I can see within sixty feet. That is easily within what the spell allows.

And if the illusion is good enough (i.e. the senses it fools include touch) your stick idea might not work. But it's still something most parties don't generally do, IME.

If the illusion is good enough that the stick won't pass through it, then you can walk over it and not fall through. And most illusions aren't that good.

Lots. Glyph of Warding is a 3rd-level Clerical spell that lasts until triggered.

Hell, the PCs put them up sometimes to defend their campsite, if they're sacking out indoors in a dangerous area.

I mean, sure, if you abandon all mechanical traps and just fill the dungeon with Glyphs of Warding then you can cancel an Unseen Servant... and also a rogue who has no way of dealing with Glyph of Warding.

Also, we are talking about exploration right? And now we've gone to "only glyph of warding or other powerful magic traps, wandering monsters, and countdowns" all from a single ritual that is free to cast infinitely all day. How does this not prove that a smart use of magic basically turns off a lot of exploration?

 

[Chaosmancer]

The first thing I need to do is give context. Mind, as much as he says this is a "whiteroom scenario," I built this actual dungeon with actual lore and actual structure.

Part of the challenge of exploration is, quite simply, the mystery. The cleric flipped through the notes and now a lich might be somehow involved. But is it behind the iron door? Behind the stone door is a dark room with an orb and a pedestal with corpses. Is it a trap? An ambush? Is the orb helpful or harmful? What was that clicking sound from the book? What did it do?

There are various ways to go about it, but the point of the exercise is that there isn't anything to beat in the core of exploration.

---

I don't think the exploration pillar is even supposed to be about the challenge. Sure, you've got traps and obstacles and puzzles just like you've got monsters and terrain and spells in combat, but ultimately exploration, to its very definition, is the act of uncovering mysteries.

Its the experience of discovering something new. There is no "autowinning" exploration. In fact, doing something like teleporting past several dungeon rooms means you've probably auto-failed exploration because you've lost what could be valuable context.

Assuming a fair and honest DM running a fair and honest adventure, these contexts can be more powerful than the strongest magic items. You could convince a dragon to join your side if you know what he wants or you could trick the guardian into letting you past. You could stop a fight or engage in it.

Exploration is a pillar not because its identical to combat but because it shares its importance. A game with no exploration isn't just a game with no choices, its a game with no context. And once a game loses context, it becomes nothing more than just a string of mismatched talking and combat, which ultimately becomes boring for even the most mechanical players.

Okay, but at that point the "pillar of exploration" is just the DM telling the story.

All those questions you asked about the room are great, that can lead to good stories, but there is no pillar here to engage with. The question of "What is behind the Iron Door?" exists as soon as you introduce the iron door, but if the answer is as easily found as opening the door... then while it was a fun mystery for 30 seconds, it isn't offering anything. I can't engage with it beyond the storytelling.

I'm not sure how best to explain it, but if your point is that you can't "succeed" in exploration because the challenges aren't the point... then you are just enforcing Hussar's point. We skip the challenges because not only can they be trivially solved, they aren't even the point of the exercise.

I've actually encountered this a lot. I've had to tell DMs "Okay, we search every room in the house thoroughly, what do we find" because they put us in a house with clues and nothing else to do except search it. And... why would I bother saying "okay, I search the bookcase thoroughly. Okay, then I'll search the chest thoroughly. Okay, then I'll search the dresser thoroughly". I'm just going through the motions, trying to say the right thing to be allowed to find what we are looking for.

Actually, even worse sometimes. I'll say something like "I'll go investigate the desk" and the DM will tell me that I find a book on the desk... then stop and stare at me. And after a few seconds I need to say "I pick up the book and try reading it." There isn't exactly anything else for me to do with the information that I found a book except try to see what it is, so why do I have to specify that. And then one of two things happens. 1) They tell me the information in the book. Meaning that they could have simply skipped me saying I picked it up to just tell me what was in it. 2) It blows up. And boy don't I have egg on my face for falling for an exploding book trap. I'm done 15 health and have wasted time doing nothing.

Engaging in the information can be interesting, that can lead to decisions, but just blindly searching a room, hoping to find something isn't engaging. It is just point and click until I get to the part that is engaging.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Remember, there is no retroactive "oh, but my character would have thought of that!"

I don't consider players brain dead for having the possibility of certain types of traps alluding them. Whether they forget magical traps exist, traps that activate via sound, traps that only activate with visible creatures, or traps that aren't specifically "traps."

Why is it that having an oversight means the players are braindead? Its almost elitist how if you're not playing the correct way you must be stupid.

The point is more that after the first time the Unseen Servant fails to detect a trip wire, the players will give it a hooked stick for all future attemtps to avoid the problem.

This is the problem with the "but you didn't specify" style of "challenge" after a few times it just leads to the players handing you a checklist that they go down every single time. This is part of why standard trap rules in the game are terrible. Because once you figure out an SOP then they are pretty much meaningless and you might as well not bother putting them in the dungeon in the first place.

 

[Chaosmancer]

There is a simple explanation for why players don’t use unseen servant as some sort of minesweeping service. Though I agree with you that it doesn’t work in most cases.

The simple answer is that it would be extremely dull for the other PCs to sit and wait. If I’m in the party and the wizard player says they want to take 30 minutes to summon and send their unseen servant to laboriously search a section of 20ft hallway. After the second or third time I am almost certainly going to say screw that I’ll just walk down the corridor. The risk of getting dumped in a pit of acid is better than all this waiting around.

So... do you mean 30 minutes IRL or 30 minutes in game but 30 seconds IRL?

Because I'm more than happy to have the Unseen servant spend an hour checking a hallway if it means that avoid someone dying in a pit of acid. And it should only take a few seconds at the table.

 

[Chaosmancer]

That said, this hypothetical party must be running without a Thief given as their primary method of trap-finding is to set 'em off rather than try to disarm them.

Not necessarily. The Thief can fail to disarm the trap. If they do, they generally trigger it and get hit by the trap.

So, if you have an infinite source of setting off the trap while taking no damage to anyone in the party... why not use it?

 

[TheSword]

That's a great example. Now, you're talking about the first two floors right? Not the basement which is mostly combat, I'm assuming.

Now, searching the house, if you play the module as written is pretty much zero stakes. There might be a trap here or there? It's been a while since I ran this, so, I'm a bit fuzzy. But, as I recall, it's about 15 empty rooms, 3 rooms with something in it, and that's about it. So, the exploration part is largely searching around empty rooms, where there is no threat (but the players can't know that) and no stakes (again, totally invisible to the players) and faffing about doing an awful lot of nothing.

Hey, if that's what you guys enjoy, knock yourselves out. My group, when I ran this? They didn't even bother with the second floor after realizing that there was pretty much nothing on the first floor and found the way down. That poor NPC that's on the second floor? He died of starvation. Never even got a chance to make an appearance.

Three rooms with something in? This is spoiler territory so…

Spoiler: Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh Spoiler

As I recall there was a lot in the manor house itself: the trapdoor with the magic mouth, the upper floor room with the smugglers lantern, the fireplace with the treasure, the attic, the false smuggler, the footprints leading to the wine cellar, the rotting floors, the stuffed chairs with swarms inside. That’s plenty to fill a session for me.

My DM @GuyBoy is excellent though at painting a picture and creating tension. That’s important.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Here's a point of interest: place those famous 30' chasms in your game and, at the very bottom, put some cool magic items from lost adventurers. Make sure the bottom is out of view from the edge. Watch as the wizards "win" this challenge by shooting their own foot and missing out on something that could have helped the group.

If the players don't know the treasure is there... then so what? Do you tell them later "You know, I put a +5 Holy Avenger down in the chasm. Man, this fight would have been so much easier if you guys had fallen in it and found that treasure."

I mean... what's the point of putting treasure somewhere the party will never look, never see, and if they are playing the game with a sense of trying to stay alive and accomplish their goals, will try and skip past?

 

[TheSword]

So... do you mean 30 minutes IRL or 30 minutes in game but 30 seconds IRL?

Because I'm more than happy to have the Unseen servant spend an hour checking a hallway if it means that avoid someone dying in a pit of acid. And it should only take a few seconds at the table.

Sure an hour to find a trap to save someone’s life is fine. What about the other twenty corridors that don’t have traps that you insist on checking? Only to walk into a trap that unseen servant doesn’t trigger the next time. After empty corridor number 3, I’m forming a new party.

In this circumstance as DM I would say, “So everybody, while you wait 30 minutes for Bob the wizard to do this, what are you doing?”… every time, until Bob got the hint.

As a player, when the DM asks me this, I’d be gauging how hard it would be for my fighter to shove the wizard down the corridor he’s probing.