Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Obreon" data-source="post: 7210319" data-attributes="member: 6815225">Like so many other people, I've struggled with finding a good way to handle players perceiving hidden items in the dungeon. I've read dozens of threads/posts here and elsewhere on the subject, and there's a lot of good advice out there - particularly from [MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION] here and (very differently!) the AngryGM.Here are my goals:<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">I want player skill to be relevant; there should be a way (but not a trivial way) for players to find hidden items with little or no random input from the dice.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Players who invest in the Perception skill should see some concrete benefit from doing so...</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">... but Perception shouldn't be a skill tax either</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Discourage the automatic "I search the room" thing - this sort of generic searching should be a fallback, and there should be a meaningful cost to doing it</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Some sensible degree of realism about the effectiveness of actively searching a room vs just walking into it - the whole Passive Perception "autoscan" thing has never sat well with me, but at the same time there clearly are differences in people's basic observation skills</li> </ol>I'm not bothered about RAW, although in general I'd like to stick as close as possible to the spirit of the 5e system. Here's what I'm thinking of doing:<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">In order to notice things "passively" you need to be paying some degree of attention - and focusing on something else prevents that. In practice, when moving through a dungeon environment, characters must choose between:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Keeping an eye out for secret doors/traps</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Staying alert for monsters</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Mapping (at least one person must do this or I keep the rest of the map hidden on the VTT and you only see your immediate surroundings)</li> </ul></li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Characters not looking for hidden things don't get their PP compared to any detection DCs.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">There is no "auto-search" mechanism. Searching is an explicit action that must be declared (see below)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Passive perception scores act as a gate on information given to PCs based on just walking at exploration pace through the dungeon, or entering a room and doing a quick scan to see what's there. As a guideline, I would normally set the DC to perceive something in this way 5 higher than the DC to perceive it during an active search. A well-constructed secret door might have a detection DC of 20, requiring a passive perception of 25 to see just by walking into the room - and quite possibly 30 in a low-light environment. In practice this would restrict instant detection of secrets to characters that have invested very heavily in perception - and there is still plenty of room for failure at high levels with a combination of bad lighting and especially effective craftsmanship.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">I would generally also include other hints as to the existence of something hidden; the more helpful hints would be gated behind detection DCs 5-10 less than the detection DC of the hidden item itself, making them instantly available (via PP) to the more perceptive party members, and easily findable via an explicit search</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Doing an "I search the room" search on a well-furnished 10x10 room reasonably thoroughly takes 10 minutes; players make an active perception roll to do so, with no "passive floor". DCs should be set based on common sense of what is findable in this way - and something things might be nigh-on impossible to find in this timescale.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Spending 1 hour searching a room gives you a "take 20" result.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Instead of saying "I search the room" players can choose to go all OSR and call out specific ways in which they're going to search. Depending on what they say this is likely to entail an auto-success or an auto-fail - or there could be some element of doubt involving a roll at a modified DC. With careful play hidden items should be findable with no dice rolls based on just hints available from PP.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">WANDERING MONSTERS! Time has a cost. Taking an hour to search pretty much guarantees you're going to run into trouble. Wandering monsters provide no or much reduced XP or little in the way of treasure - they are pure obstacle.</li> </ol>I *think* this basically achieves what I'm going for. What problems am I setting myself up for here? What have I missed?Cheers,</blockquote>

Verification