So my players hid something that the antagonists are actively looking for. How do I determine whether or not they find it? I was thinking about doing a a contested investigation roll by the npcs with a deception roll by the players? How do I navigate this so my players don’t feel totally cheated if/when they do find it? Especially when they probably won’t be present to prevent it being found?
Do the bad guys have access to locate object? It’s a pretty common spell If they have an idea of where it is, within 1,000 feet, it’s pretty easy to explain how they found it. Heck, given enough time anyone can find anything, no magic required
Your player’s feelings is another thing. Hopefully, they’ll just accept it as part of the story, and their fault for leaving an important item unguarded. If not, you can just point out that locate object is a thing.
Do the bad guys have access to locate object? It’s a pretty common spell If they have an idea of where it is, within 1,000 feet, it’s pretty easy to explain how they found it. Heck, given enough time anyone can find anything, no magic required
Your player’s feelings is another thing. Hopefully, they’ll just accept it as part of the story, and their fault for leaving an important item unguarded. If not, you can just point out that locate object is a thing.
Locate object is a great point, maybe I can find some way to leave evidence of it being cast. In the players defense the baddies (and me) manipulated them into leaving it behind by threatening the town and now they have to go clear a dungeon for the townsfolk to hide in, which would be pretty hard to do while lugging around a whole corpse. (They don’t have any bags of holding yet, only level 5). Mostly I just want to make sure it feels like it took real effort to find, and wasn’t just the DM playing god lol.
If it's a corpse, how well did they hide it? Could someone else potentially find it? Then report a body to the authorities, which one member of these authorities is a bad guy in disguise?
For me I just make sure that I have a plausible story to explain the process. Generally if the "other guys" finding the hidden thing makes the story work better, my players don't mind because we're all here for "good story".
Do the bad guys have access to locate object? It’s a pretty common spell If they have an idea of where it is, within 1,000 feet, it’s pretty easy to explain how they found it. Heck, given enough time anyone can find anything, no magic required
Your player’s feelings is another thing. Hopefully, they’ll just accept it as part of the story, and their fault for leaving an important item unguarded. If not, you can just point out that locate object is a thing.
Locate object is a great point, maybe I can find some way to leave evidence of it being cast. In the players defense the baddies (and me) manipulated them into leaving it behind by threatening the town and now they have to go clear a dungeon for the townsfolk to hide in, which would be pretty hard to do while lugging around a whole corpse. (They don’t have any bags of holding yet, only level 5). Mostly I just want to make sure it feels like it took real effort to find, and wasn’t just the DM playing god lol.
It’s got a material component of a forked twig. The party finding that, plus an arcana check could do the trick.
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So my players hid something that the antagonists are actively looking for. How do I determine whether or not they find it? I was thinking about doing a a contested investigation roll by the npcs with a deception roll by the players? How do I navigate this so my players don’t feel totally cheated if/when they do find it? Especially when they probably won’t be present to prevent it being found?
Do the bad guys have access to locate object? It’s a pretty common spell If they have an idea of where it is, within 1,000 feet, it’s pretty easy to explain how they found it. Heck, given enough time anyone can find anything, no magic required
Your player’s feelings is another thing. Hopefully, they’ll just accept it as part of the story, and their fault for leaving an important item unguarded. If not, you can just point out that locate object is a thing.
Locate object is a great point, maybe I can find some way to leave evidence of it being cast. In the players defense the baddies (and me) manipulated them into leaving it behind by threatening the town and now they have to go clear a dungeon for the townsfolk to hide in, which would be pretty hard to do while lugging around a whole corpse. (They don’t have any bags of holding yet, only level 5). Mostly I just want to make sure it feels like it took real effort to find, and wasn’t just the DM playing god lol.
If it's a corpse, how well did they hide it? Could someone else potentially find it? Then report a body to the authorities, which one member of these authorities is a bad guy in disguise?
For me I just make sure that I have a plausible story to explain the process. Generally if the "other guys" finding the hidden thing makes the story work better, my players don't mind because we're all here for "good story".
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It’s got a material component of a forked twig. The party finding that, plus an arcana check could do the trick.