Hey, I've got a question. What do you guys think is best way to handle Investigation? How powerful is it meant to be? For an example as to what I mean, let's assume a character enters a room. They look around, then announce to you: "I want to search for traps!" Provided they roll high enough, do you just give them the info on how many and what traps exactly there are inside the room? Or do you force your players to specify, like instead of "I start searching for traps" a more specific "I crouch down to the floor and look for a trapdoor". I can see both options honestly and both have their pros and cons. On the one hand, it's annoying as a DM to put so much time into planing, just for a single, usually for a rogue not even that difficult to do, roll to destroy all that work. On the other hand, it's incredible frustrating, as well as time consuming, for the player to have to describe themselves investigating every single object in the room. It also teaches them to distrust you and they will drag out everything by insisting to investigate everything piece by piece. And as if that issue wasn't enough, what about bigger buildings? Once they investigated an area, when should they need to do the next check? Do they need to search each time they cross a corner? Every time they enter a new room? When does the old Investigation roll "runs out" and they need to do a new one? As DM, I don't want to make it too hard on my players, but on the other hand, I don't want all the time I spent preparing all those traps to be for nothing. I'm at an inpass and maybe one of you can help me figure stuff out. As always, thx for reading and the best of days to all of you^^
Recent discussion on perception and investigation that might help. I would suggest using the two together. Perception for sweeping searches that cover the entire area, which may give clues to key in on certain areas, then investigation to look in-depth at those areas.
Passive perception and investigation are your floor. If something takes a 12 investigation to find and you have a character with a 20 passive, he automatically see it. If the passive of the two is not high enough, then they must state they want to roll or use that skill. I think of perception as seeing what someone or something else did (listen through a door, see someone moving in the dark, hearing a bridge creak) whereas investigation is something you actually do (look for a trap, sift through a pile of treasure, look through a book case).That isn't to say as a DM you can't use a perception to find a trap door "your character perceives a slight temperature difference on this side of the room." If a player wants to use a non standard skill in an different way, just make them justify and describe it. Some characters with the Observant feat are just made to max out perception and or investigation and that is ok, it's what they are built for. You can't get mad at a fighter that is really good with a two handed weapon if that is what the build is for and how they want to play, these two are the same. Just think of other ways to challenge the players or make the traps harder by adding low light, mist, or combat.
In general, if you have a question like this, reframe it in terms of what the characters are doing rather than what skill they are using.
Like, with the rogue checking for traps - the thing to think about is "how much detail do you need to have a good enough idea of what the rogue is doing to decide the result?" Saying "I check for traps" probably isn't enough - is the rogue examining all the furniture, or have they just poked their head in and are looking around, or are they trying to find a safe path to the door at the other end? From "I check for traps", I can't figure out whether there's any chance of him finding or triggering, say, a trap that's on the third drawer down of the desk, or one that's on the door on the opposite side.
Conversely, I don't really need the rogue to describe "I check the wardrobe for traps. I check the top of the desk for for traps. I check the top drawer for traps. I check the second drawer for traps..." That's just way too much.
What helps is understanding the player's goal in doing an action, too. Are they trying to get across safely? Check all the possible hiding places for loot? Ensure it's safe for their teammates to do the same?
Here's what I would be thinking about in the cases you've mentioned:
For an example as to what I mean, let's assume a character enters a room. They look around, then announce to you: "I want to search for traps!" Provided they roll high enough, do you just give them the info on how many and what traps exactly there are inside the room? Or do you force your players to specify, like instead of "I start searching for traps" a more specific "I crouch down to the floor and look for a trapdoor".
This isn't really enough info for me to tell. Are they trying to loot the room, are they trying to get across, what? I'd clarify that with the player first. My guess based on the typical context here is that they're trying to search every nook and cranny for everything possible to grab that isn't nailed down, in typical murderhobo fashion.
The other thing that affects whether this is enough information is the context of the room. In a "stereotypical" dungeon room, there's probably 1-2 traps, and you assume that unless the player triggers the traps then this has no effect on other rooms.
So in that case, I'd tell the player to make one perception roll per trap in the room, have them spring the traps on failure and see them on success, and describe the results.
Cases where I might rule differently: if the whole room is just a big collection of traps and clues and things to find, I'll tell the player to be more detailed. Maybe they need to separately figure out how to get past the pit trap in front of the door, and depending on the results of that they might have more or less space for dealing with the arrow trap by the treasure chest, which, might cause them to startle the sleeping owlbear or whatever... ...no, "I check for traps" isn't enough detail for me to figure out what the character is doing in a room like that, plz give more info!
Note that you can think about all this without worrying about whether checks are even needed. A player could make their way through an entire roomful of traps without ever needing to make any checks if, based on the actions they describe, there's never a case where there's an action with both a chance of success an a chance of failure that they need to make a roll for. Maybe they roll a heavy boulder into the room front of them (safely triggering the pit trap), then carefully walk around the edge of the room not touching the treasure chest in the middle (thus never triggering the trap on it)... well, no checks needed!
On the one hand, it's annoying as a DM to put so much time into planing, just for a single, usually for a rogue not even that difficult to do, roll to destroy all that work. On the other hand, it's incredible frustrating, as well as time consuming, for the player to have to describe themselves investigating every single object in the room. It also teaches them to distrust you and they will drag out everything by insisting to investigate everything piece by piece.
I think this is a time for two-way communication. You can let players generally make just a cursory description/just one roll when it doesn't matter much, and just ask them for more details about their characters' actions when it's relevant.
And as if that issue wasn't enough, what about bigger buildings? Once they investigated an area, when should they need to do the next check? Do they need to search each time they cross a corner? Every time they enter a new room? When does the old Investigation roll "runs out" and they need to do a new one?
Refocus on character actions rather than rolls!
If it's a dungeon where the players are generally going to take a similar approach to entering most rooms, I'd let them describe the course of actions once and then apply it to all future rooms, unless the players tell me otherwise. Like yeah, they're going to enter each room by having the rogue carefully open the door, check for traps visually, have the barbarian walk in first, then rogue checks the room for traps, yadda yadda yadda. Have them describe it once, apply it to all the rooms, and then have them make rolls for it only when it actually matters, or just use passive perception if that's high enough to catch things.
Passive Perception. This is often times a misused skill. My thoughts on it anyway and I have dug very deep into the subject more then once. The way I handle Passive is that the player needs to still be clear as to what they are seeking/looking for. For example, "I keep an eye out for traps." This is fine but what is not... again this is how I handle it. The skill is not an all seeing radar. I happen to have a lvl 17 bard in my group that seems to think that is how it works. They also have a very high passive. What they often do is say, "my passive is..." Unless they are keeping an eye out for something I make them roll a passive check. I recently had a small dispute between two players regarding this. The two of them were both looting and one found a sum of gold and a contract with the parties names on it after killing some Drow assassins. One player decided to keep the gold and keep the contract without telling the other characters. The bard with the high passive points out that they have a high passive and they would of seen the other player doing this. I said no with the reasoning that they too were looting at the time therefore focused on searching the Drow bodies. In a case like this I would use a slight of hand roll Vs. a Perception check roll. I know I went a bit off topic here but I hope this helps some. I see alot of confusion with passive skills. However anyone can rule it however they want in their game. This is how I treat it because I often times see it misused by those with high passives. You simply cannot have an all seeing character. Even in the real world their are distractions.
Passive Perception. This is often times a misused skill. My thoughts on it anyway and I have dug very deep into the subject more then once. The way I handle Passive is that the player needs to still be clear as to what they are seeking/looking for. For example, "I keep an eye out for traps." This is fine but what is not... again this is how I handle it. The skill is not an all seeing radar. I happen to have a lvl 17 bard in my group that seems to think that is how it works. They also have a very high passive. What they often do is say, "my passive is..." Unless they are keeping an eye out for something I make them roll a passive check. I recently had a small dispute between two players regarding this. The two of them were both looting and one found a sum of gold and a contract with the parties names on it after killing some Drow assassins. One player decided to keep the gold and keep the contract without telling the other characters. The bard with the high passive points out that they have a high passive and they would of seen the other player doing this. I said no with the reasoning that they too were looting at the time therefore focused on searching the Drow bodies. In a case like this I would use a slight of hand roll Vs. a Perception check roll. I know I went a bit off topic here but I hope this helps some. I see alot of confusion with passive skills. However anyone can rule it however they want in their game. This is how I treat it because I often times see it misused by those with high passives. You simply cannot have an all seeing character. Even in the real world their are distractions.
The player is correct. Any stealth or slight of hand roll that is within the characters sight has to roll higher than their passive, same as surprise. If they don't, then the character sees it.
Passive Perception. This is often times a misused skill. My thoughts on it anyway and I have dug very deep into the subject more then once. The way I handle Passive is that the player needs to still be clear as to what they are seeking/looking for. For example, "I keep an eye out for traps." This is fine but what is not... again this is how I handle it. The skill is not an all seeing radar. I happen to have a lvl 17 bard in my group that seems to think that is how it works. They also have a very high passive. What they often do is say, "my passive is..." Unless they are keeping an eye out for something I make them roll a passive check. I recently had a small dispute between two players regarding this. The two of them were both looting and one found a sum of gold and a contract with the parties names on it after killing some Drow assassins. One player decided to keep the gold and keep the contract without telling the other characters. The bard with the high passive points out that they have a high passive and they would of seen the other player doing this. I said no with the reasoning that they too were looting at the time therefore focused on searching the Drow bodies. In a case like this I would use a slight of hand roll Vs. a Perception check roll. I know I went a bit off topic here but I hope this helps some. I see alot of confusion with passive skills. However anyone can rule it however they want in their game. This is how I treat it because I often times see it misused by those with high passives. You simply cannot have an all seeing character. Even in the real world their are distractions.
The player is correct. Any stealth or slight of hand roll that is within the characters sight has to roll higher than their passive, same as surprise. If they don't, then the character sees it.
Okay, I could not disagree with you more. You simply cannot have a character running around who will literally be aware of absolutely everything with a passive perception score nearly 30. This is the reasoning why are you approach the issue the way I do. It literally prevents any of using of a high passive perception. Another example that happened in my game just the other session. The group was in combat however one of the enemies decided to jump down off of the roof of a building making it literally impossible for the players to see that enemy. So in turn The Bard runs over after about two turns and looks for the enemy which had already made a self-check in order to conceal itself. The Bard of course claimed passive perception. I did not allow this because they were in the middle of the heat of combat therefore there were too many distractions to rely on a passive state. This is the same reason why it character needs to be specific on what they are trying to accomplish. Are they searching for stealth bad guys in a dungeon or traps? Again with a passive perception so high and if it was played as if it was like a literal radar system nothing would be missed probably 98% of the time. One could argue that traps in hidden bad guys who are actively trying to stay hidden are the same. I would argue that they are not. This I will not get into as it would bring up a whole new topic. Please don't take this as a bad disagreement for a shot toward you as often times seems to be the case on these forums. Again this topic has been covered multiple times all over the place and it would seem that from what I can tell the majority long time dungeon Master's would prefer to use this method in order to prevent breaking the system or abusing ability scores. I am also in no way assuming that you are a new DM or an old DM, you may have been running the game for as long as I have or more. I've been running dungeons & dragons for upwards of 30 years or even more. And in my experience there are often times players we'll look to abuse the system in one form or another. I'm not saying that they do it purposefully but it happens. And honestly I feel that it happens more nowadays then 10 or even 20 years ago. In the end everybody has their own opinions and all should literally be taken with a grain of salt as every dungeon master needs to do what works best for them.
Passive Perception. This is often times a misused skill. My thoughts on it anyway and I have dug very deep into the subject more then once. The way I handle Passive is that the player needs to still be clear as to what they are seeking/looking for. For example, "I keep an eye out for traps." This is fine but what is not... again this is how I handle it. The skill is not an all seeing radar. I happen to have a lvl 17 bard in my group that seems to think that is how it works. They also have a very high passive. What they often do is say, "my passive is..." Unless they are keeping an eye out for something I make them roll a passive check. I recently had a small dispute between two players regarding this. The two of them were both looting and one found a sum of gold and a contract with the parties names on it after killing some Drow assassins. One player decided to keep the gold and keep the contract without telling the other characters. The bard with the high passive points out that they have a high passive and they would of seen the other player doing this. I said no with the reasoning that they too were looting at the time therefore focused on searching the Drow bodies. In a case like this I would use a slight of hand roll Vs. a Perception check roll. I know I went a bit off topic here but I hope this helps some. I see alot of confusion with passive skills. However anyone can rule it however they want in their game. This is how I treat it because I often times see it misused by those with high passives. You simply cannot have an all seeing character. Even in the real world their are distractions.
The player is correct. Any stealth or slight of hand roll that is within the characters sight has to roll higher than their passive, same as surprise. If they don't, then the character sees it.
Okay, I could not disagree with you more. You simply cannot have a character running around who will literally be aware of absolutely everything with a passive perception score nearly 30. This is the reasoning why are you approach the issue the way I do. It literally prevents any of using of a high passive perception. Another example that happened in my game just the other session. The group was in combat however one of the enemies decided to jump down off of the roof of a building making it literally impossible for the players to see that enemy. So in turn The Bard runs over after about two turns and looks for the enemy which had already made a self-check in order to conceal itself. The Bard of course claimed passive perception. I did not allow this because they were in the middle of the heat of combat therefore there were too many distractions to rely on a passive state. This is the same reason why it character needs to be specific on what they are trying to accomplish. Are they searching for stealth bad guys in a dungeon or traps? Again with a passive perception so high and if it was played as if it was like a literal radar system nothing would be missed probably 98% of the time. One could argue that traps in hidden bad guys who are actively trying to stay hidden are the same. I would argue that they are not. This I will not get into as it would bring up a whole new topic. Please don't take this as a bad disagreement for a shot toward you as often times seems to be the case on these forums. Again this topic has been covered multiple times all over the place and it would seem that from what I can tell the majority long time dungeon Master's would prefer to use this method in order to prevent breaking the system or abusing ability scores. I am also in no way assuming that you are a new DM or an old DM, you may have been running the game for as long as I have or more. I've been running dungeons & dragons for upwards of 30 years or even more. And in my experience there are often times players we'll look to abuse the system in one form or another. I'm not saying that they do it purposefully but it happens. And honestly I feel that it happens more nowadays then 10 or even 20 years ago. In the end everybody has their own opinions and all should literally be taken with a grain of salt as every dungeon master needs to do what works best for them.
Passive doesn't apply to combat. "Search" is an action when in combat rounds. Of all the discussions I've seen, not using passive in combat is pretty universally agreed on.
Passive Perception. This is often times a misused skill. My thoughts on it anyway and I have dug very deep into the subject more then once. The way I handle Passive is that the player needs to still be clear as to what they are seeking/looking for. For example, "I keep an eye out for traps." This is fine but what is not... again this is how I handle it. The skill is not an all seeing radar. I happen to have a lvl 17 bard in my group that seems to think that is how it works. They also have a very high passive. What they often do is say, "my passive is..." Unless they are keeping an eye out for something I make them roll a passive check. I recently had a small dispute between two players regarding this. The two of them were both looting and one found a sum of gold and a contract with the parties names on it after killing some Drow assassins. One player decided to keep the gold and keep the contract without telling the other characters. The bard with the high passive points out that they have a high passive and they would of seen the other player doing this. I said no with the reasoning that they too were looting at the time therefore focused on searching the Drow bodies. In a case like this I would use a slight of hand roll Vs. a Perception check roll. I know I went a bit off topic here but I hope this helps some. I see alot of confusion with passive skills. However anyone can rule it however they want in their game. This is how I treat it because I often times see it misused by those with high passives. You simply cannot have an all seeing character. Even in the real world their are distractions.
The player is correct. Any stealth or slight of hand roll that is within the characters sight has to roll higher than their passive, same as surprise. If they don't, then the character sees it.
Okay, I could not disagree with you more. You simply cannot have a character running around who will literally be aware of absolutely everything with a passive perception score nearly 30. This is the reasoning why are you approach the issue the way I do. It literally prevents any of using of a high passive perception. Another example that happened in my game just the other session. The group was in combat however one of the enemies decided to jump down off of the roof of a building making it literally impossible for the players to see that enemy. So in turn The Bard runs over after about two turns and looks for the enemy which had already made a self-check in order to conceal itself. The Bard of course claimed passive perception. I did not allow this because they were in the middle of the heat of combat therefore there were too many distractions to rely on a passive state. This is the same reason why it character needs to be specific on what they are trying to accomplish. Are they searching for stealth bad guys in a dungeon or traps? Again with a passive perception so high and if it was played as if it was like a literal radar system nothing would be missed probably 98% of the time. One could argue that traps in hidden bad guys who are actively trying to stay hidden are the same. I would argue that they are not. This I will not get into as it would bring up a whole new topic. Please don't take this as a bad disagreement for a shot toward you as often times seems to be the case on these forums. Again this topic has been covered multiple times all over the place and it would seem that from what I can tell the majority long time dungeon Master's would prefer to use this method in order to prevent breaking the system or abusing ability scores. I am also in no way assuming that you are a new DM or an old DM, you may have been running the game for as long as I have or more. I've been running dungeons & dragons for upwards of 30 years or even more. And in my experience there are often times players we'll look to abuse the system in one form or another. I'm not saying that they do it purposefully but it happens. And honestly I feel that it happens more nowadays then 10 or even 20 years ago. In the end everybody has their own opinions and all should literally be taken with a grain of salt as every dungeon master needs to do what works best for them.
Passive doesn't apply to combat. "Search" is an action when in combat rounds. Of all the discussions I've seen, not using passive in combat is pretty universally agreed on.
You are correct though I felt it would make for a good example.
Passive doesn't apply to combat. "Search" is an action when in combat rounds. Of all the discussions I've seen, not using passive in combat is pretty universally agreed on.
Passive perception is often used in combat when someone makes an active stealth check, this is one of the few passive checks that is explicitly mentioned in the PHB.
For the rest of the time, I typically use passive perception for repeated checks, such as searching for traps or looking for loot. Active checks are made for things that are important in the moment the check is made, but wouldn't be possible/important to spot before or after that moment.
Passive doesn't apply to combat. "Search" is an action when in combat rounds. Of all the discussions I've seen, not using passive in combat is pretty universally agreed on.
Passive perception is often used in combat when someone makes an active stealth check, this is one of the few passive checks that is explicitly mentioned in the PHB.
For the rest of the time, I typically use passive perception for repeated checks, such as searching for traps or looking for loot. Active checks are made for things that are important in the moment the check is made, but wouldn't be possible/important to spot before or after that moment.
Where in the PHB is it stated that passive is used in combat? Yes, BEFORE combat it is used (as stated in the PHB section on combat), but in combat on a turn by turn basis it is never stated that it is used.
PHB, CH 7, under using each ability, dex section, the hiding sidebar:
Passive Perception. When you hide, there's a chance someone will notice you even if they aren't searching. To determine whether such a creature notices you, the DM compares your Dexterity (Stealth) check with that creature's passive Wisdom (Perception) score, which equals 10 + the creature's Wisdom modifier, as well as any other bonuses or penalties. If the creature has advantage, add 5. For disadvantage, subtract 5.
Remember the difference between perception and investigation- the two really don't have much in common.
Perception is your ability to spot or notice or sense things that are hidden or otherwise not blatantly obvious, either if your players are actively searching for something specific they have reason to believe is there (perception check) or just happen to notice (passive perception). That's all perception does, and nothing but perception does that.
Investigation is your ability to logically deduce facts and get to the bottom of a puzzling situation of some sort, and have an "AH HA" moment, I suppose. For instance, if examining a bloody footprint at a murder scene, maybe after passing an investigation check you realize what npc likes to wear that kind of boot. You could rename Investigation to "Problem Solving".
In general, if you have a question like this, reframe it in terms of what the characters are doing rather than what skill they are using.
Agreed. If the player says "Can I roll Investigation?" ask them what their character is doing. This may take some time to train them away from the CRPG "press Tab" mentality.
Player: I'm searching the room. GM: Cool, what's that look like? Player: What do you mean? GM: Well, what is your character doing? Are they stnading in the middle of the room looking at the place or moving around? Are they being careful not to touch anythng or are they lifting stuff up? Are they being neat and tidy ir making a mess? Are they using any tools? Are they being systematic? Are they putting stuff back where they found it? Are they breaking stuff?
Passive Perception. This is often times a misused skill. My thoughts on it anyway and I have dug very deep into the subject more then once. The way I handle Passive is that the player needs to still be clear as to what they are seeking/looking for. For example, "I keep an eye out for traps." This is fine but what is not... again this is how I handle it. The skill is not an all seeing radar. I happen to have a lvl 17 bard in my group that seems to think that is how it works. They also have a very high passive. What they often do is say, "my passive is..." Unless they are keeping an eye out for something I make them roll a passive check. I recently had a small dispute between two players regarding this. The two of them were both looting and one found a sum of gold and a contract with the parties names on it after killing some Drow assassins. One player decided to keep the gold and keep the contract without telling the other characters. The bard with the high passive points out that they have a high passive and they would of seen the other player doing this. I said no with the reasoning that they too were looting at the time therefore focused on searching the Drow bodies. In a case like this I would use a slight of hand roll Vs. a Perception check roll. I know I went a bit off topic here but I hope this helps some. I see alot of confusion with passive skills. However anyone can rule it however they want in their game. This is how I treat it because I often times see it misused by those with high passives. You simply cannot have an all seeing character. Even in the real world their are distractions.
The player is correct. Any stealth or slight of hand roll that is within the characters sight has to roll higher than their passive, same as surprise. If they don't, then the character sees it.
Okay, I could not disagree with you more. You simply cannot have a character running around who will literally be aware of absolutely everything with a passive perception score nearly 30. This is the reasoning why are you approach the issue the way I do. It literally prevents any of using of a high passive perception. Another example that happened in my game just the other session. The group was in combat however one of the enemies decided to jump down off of the roof of a building making it literally impossible for the players to see that enemy. So in turn The Bard runs over after about two turns and looks for the enemy which had already made a self-check in order to conceal itself. The Bard of course claimed passive perception. I did not allow this because they were in the middle of the heat of combat therefore there were too many distractions to rely on a passive state. This is the same reason why it character needs to be specific on what they are trying to accomplish. Are they searching for stealth bad guys in a dungeon or traps? Again with a passive perception so high and if it was played as if it was like a literal radar system nothing would be missed probably 98% of the time. One could argue that traps in hidden bad guys who are actively trying to stay hidden are the same. I would argue that they are not. This I will not get into as it would bring up a whole new topic. Please don't take this as a bad disagreement for a shot toward you as often times seems to be the case on these forums. Again this topic has been covered multiple times all over the place and it would seem that from what I can tell the majority long time dungeon Master's would prefer to use this method in order to prevent breaking the system or abusing ability scores. I am also in no way assuming that you are a new DM or an old DM, you may have been running the game for as long as I have or more. I've been running dungeons & dragons for upwards of 30 years or even more. And in my experience there are often times players we'll look to abuse the system in one form or another. I'm not saying that they do it purposefully but it happens. And honestly I feel that it happens more nowadays then 10 or even 20 years ago. In the end everybody has their own opinions and all should literally be taken with a grain of salt as every dungeon master needs to do what works best for them.
Unfortunately if you allow passive perception or investigation, that is exactly how it works. If the passive is higher, they see it, period. Now you can not allow passive scores to be used in the game as that is up to the DM, but that should be decided upon up front with a good session 0 with the players. The last thing you want is have someone build a character around the observant feat to have these super high passive scores and then break it to them afterward that they can't use the feat. As a player, it would piss me off. I have been playing for a very long time and actually have a lvl 20 wizard with observant that took 1 level of rogue when he hit 20 so he could have a passive investigation over 30. He was basically an elven Sherlock Holmes and it worked wonderfully. This was planned out since level 1 and I had the discussion with the DM about how I wanted his character arc to be and what feats I was wanting to take. He said he would think about it, got back with me and we went forward with it. He had some very interesting scenarios that allowed my character to shine but altered some things with traps so as to not make every dungeon a cakewalk for us. Now as far as DMing, I do have a lot of experience there although I have played more tier 4 than DM (outside T4, it's about 50/50) with 5e. I can tell you that most of my players and DMs that I play with have a hell of a lot more experience with old editions than I do and normally ask me about rules as I don't have the older editions to get mixed up with. We had a long discussion about the passive scores and after finding a podcast with Crawford where he specifically addresses the issue we decided that using passive would be neat and allowed observant, we just adjusted things a bit but still allow the characters to shine in the way they were designed. You are absolutely correct that you can't have a character running around with 30 passive scores ruining a game. But if they do, it's poor planning on the part of a DM. I know, since I've messed that up myself before lol.
So TLDR: If you allow passive, passive is the floor. You can either not allow passive scores, nix the observant feat, or adjust to compensate for higher scores (ie encounters that won't matter if a high passive score is present). Have a convo with the player first as you didn't make the rule known at session 0 and go from there.
Hey, I've got a question. What do you guys think is best way to handle Investigation? How powerful is it meant to be?
For an example as to what I mean, let's assume a character enters a room. They look around, then announce to you: "I want to search for traps!" Provided they roll high enough, do you just give them the info on how many and what traps exactly there are inside the room? Or do you force your players to specify, like instead of "I start searching for traps" a more specific "I crouch down to the floor and look for a trapdoor".
I can see both options honestly and both have their pros and cons. On the one hand, it's annoying as a DM to put so much time into planing, just for a single, usually for a rogue not even that difficult to do, roll to destroy all that work. On the other hand, it's incredible frustrating, as well as time consuming, for the player to have to describe themselves investigating every single object in the room. It also teaches them to distrust you and they will drag out everything by insisting to investigate everything piece by piece.
And as if that issue wasn't enough, what about bigger buildings? Once they investigated an area, when should they need to do the next check? Do they need to search each time they cross a corner? Every time they enter a new room? When does the old Investigation roll "runs out" and they need to do a new one?
As DM, I don't want to make it too hard on my players, but on the other hand, I don't want all the time I spent preparing all those traps to be for nothing. I'm at an inpass and maybe one of you can help me figure stuff out. As always, thx for reading and the best of days to all of you^^
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/dungeons-dragons-discussion/dungeon-masters-only/68442-perception-or-investigation-the-struggle-is-real
Recent discussion on perception and investigation that might help. I would suggest using the two together. Perception for sweeping searches that cover the entire area, which may give clues to key in on certain areas, then investigation to look in-depth at those areas.
My thoughts:
Passive Perception for when they are not really looking for anything, but rather just being aware of what's around them.
Perception for when they are actively looking at their surroundings, but not at or for anything specific.
Investigation for when they are focusing on a specific area or for a specific object.
D&D is first and foremost a collaborative story. so feed them intrigue and reward their creativity.
you feel a draft coming from the west wall
do I see anything?
roll perception...
or
I take the feather from my hat and move it along the west wall watching it carefully for any changes...
roll investigation with advantage!
perception and investigation certainly have some crossover but in general:
perception for what you hear see smell or feel while standing still.
investigation for a hands on active attempt to discover/confirm something you suspect.
that is how i have distinguished them anyway.
Jesus Saves!... Everyone else takes damage.
Passive perception and investigation are your floor. If something takes a 12 investigation to find and you have a character with a 20 passive, he automatically see it. If the passive of the two is not high enough, then they must state they want to roll or use that skill. I think of perception as seeing what someone or something else did (listen through a door, see someone moving in the dark, hearing a bridge creak) whereas investigation is something you actually do (look for a trap, sift through a pile of treasure, look through a book case).That isn't to say as a DM you can't use a perception to find a trap door "your character perceives a slight temperature difference on this side of the room." If a player wants to use a non standard skill in an different way, just make them justify and describe it. Some characters with the Observant feat are just made to max out perception and or investigation and that is ok, it's what they are built for. You can't get mad at a fighter that is really good with a two handed weapon if that is what the build is for and how they want to play, these two are the same. Just think of other ways to challenge the players or make the traps harder by adding low light, mist, or combat.
In general, if you have a question like this, reframe it in terms of what the characters are doing rather than what skill they are using.
Like, with the rogue checking for traps - the thing to think about is "how much detail do you need to have a good enough idea of what the rogue is doing to decide the result?" Saying "I check for traps" probably isn't enough - is the rogue examining all the furniture, or have they just poked their head in and are looking around, or are they trying to find a safe path to the door at the other end? From "I check for traps", I can't figure out whether there's any chance of him finding or triggering, say, a trap that's on the third drawer down of the desk, or one that's on the door on the opposite side.
Conversely, I don't really need the rogue to describe "I check the wardrobe for traps. I check the top of the desk for for traps. I check the top drawer for traps. I check the second drawer for traps..." That's just way too much.
What helps is understanding the player's goal in doing an action, too. Are they trying to get across safely? Check all the possible hiding places for loot? Ensure it's safe for their teammates to do the same?
Here's what I would be thinking about in the cases you've mentioned:
This isn't really enough info for me to tell. Are they trying to loot the room, are they trying to get across, what? I'd clarify that with the player first. My guess based on the typical context here is that they're trying to search every nook and cranny for everything possible to grab that isn't nailed down, in typical murderhobo fashion.
The other thing that affects whether this is enough information is the context of the room. In a "stereotypical" dungeon room, there's probably 1-2 traps, and you assume that unless the player triggers the traps then this has no effect on other rooms.
So in that case, I'd tell the player to make one perception roll per trap in the room, have them spring the traps on failure and see them on success, and describe the results.
Cases where I might rule differently: if the whole room is just a big collection of traps and clues and things to find, I'll tell the player to be more detailed. Maybe they need to separately figure out how to get past the pit trap in front of the door, and depending on the results of that they might have more or less space for dealing with the arrow trap by the treasure chest, which, might cause them to startle the sleeping owlbear or whatever... ...no, "I check for traps" isn't enough detail for me to figure out what the character is doing in a room like that, plz give more info!
Note that you can think about all this without worrying about whether checks are even needed. A player could make their way through an entire roomful of traps without ever needing to make any checks if, based on the actions they describe, there's never a case where there's an action with both a chance of success an a chance of failure that they need to make a roll for. Maybe they roll a heavy boulder into the room front of them (safely triggering the pit trap), then carefully walk around the edge of the room not touching the treasure chest in the middle (thus never triggering the trap on it)... well, no checks needed!
I think this is a time for two-way communication. You can let players generally make just a cursory description/just one roll when it doesn't matter much, and just ask them for more details about their characters' actions when it's relevant.
Refocus on character actions rather than rolls!
If it's a dungeon where the players are generally going to take a similar approach to entering most rooms, I'd let them describe the course of actions once and then apply it to all future rooms, unless the players tell me otherwise. Like yeah, they're going to enter each room by having the rogue carefully open the door, check for traps visually, have the barbarian walk in first, then rogue checks the room for traps, yadda yadda yadda. Have them describe it once, apply it to all the rooms, and then have them make rolls for it only when it actually matters, or just use passive perception if that's high enough to catch things.
Passive Perception. This is often times a misused skill. My thoughts on it anyway and I have dug very deep into the subject more then once. The way I handle Passive is that the player needs to still be clear as to what they are seeking/looking for. For example, "I keep an eye out for traps." This is fine but what is not... again this is how I handle it. The skill is not an all seeing radar. I happen to have a lvl 17 bard in my group that seems to think that is how it works. They also have a very high passive. What they often do is say, "my passive is..." Unless they are keeping an eye out for something I make them roll a passive check. I recently had a small dispute between two players regarding this. The two of them were both looting and one found a sum of gold and a contract with the parties names on it after killing some Drow assassins. One player decided to keep the gold and keep the contract without telling the other characters. The bard with the high passive points out that they have a high passive and they would of seen the other player doing this. I said no with the reasoning that they too were looting at the time therefore focused on searching the Drow bodies. In a case like this I would use a slight of hand roll Vs. a Perception check roll. I know I went a bit off topic here but I hope this helps some. I see alot of confusion with passive skills. However anyone can rule it however they want in their game. This is how I treat it because I often times see it misused by those with high passives. You simply cannot have an all seeing character. Even in the real world their are distractions.
The player is correct. Any stealth or slight of hand roll that is within the characters sight has to roll higher than their passive, same as surprise. If they don't, then the character sees it.
Okay, I could not disagree with you more. You simply cannot have a character running around who will literally be aware of absolutely everything with a passive perception score nearly 30. This is the reasoning why are you approach the issue the way I do. It literally prevents any of using of a high passive perception. Another example that happened in my game just the other session. The group was in combat however one of the enemies decided to jump down off of the roof of a building making it literally impossible for the players to see that enemy. So in turn The Bard runs over after about two turns and looks for the enemy which had already made a self-check in order to conceal itself. The Bard of course claimed passive perception. I did not allow this because they were in the middle of the heat of combat therefore there were too many distractions to rely on a passive state. This is the same reason why it character needs to be specific on what they are trying to accomplish. Are they searching for stealth bad guys in a dungeon or traps? Again with a passive perception so high and if it was played as if it was like a literal radar system nothing would be missed probably 98% of the time. One could argue that traps in hidden bad guys who are actively trying to stay hidden are the same. I would argue that they are not. This I will not get into as it would bring up a whole new topic. Please don't take this as a bad disagreement for a shot toward you as often times seems to be the case on these forums. Again this topic has been covered multiple times all over the place and it would seem that from what I can tell the majority long time dungeon Master's would prefer to use this method in order to prevent breaking the system or abusing ability scores. I am also in no way assuming that you are a new DM or an old DM, you may have been running the game for as long as I have or more. I've been running dungeons & dragons for upwards of 30 years or even more. And in my experience there are often times players we'll look to abuse the system in one form or another. I'm not saying that they do it purposefully but it happens. And honestly I feel that it happens more nowadays then 10 or even 20 years ago. In the end everybody has their own opinions and all should literally be taken with a grain of salt as every dungeon master needs to do what works best for them.
BrokenDM
Amen Bro 👍
But in my games, I let Players with high passive (whatever) use it
So, yah its like a radar, but they heavily rely on it, so it is easy to foil and get them 🤣
If the narration needs it b/c they do not roll 👌
But I do get your excellent point 👍
Peace be with you friend.
Passive doesn't apply to combat. "Search" is an action when in combat rounds. Of all the discussions I've seen, not using passive in combat is pretty universally agreed on.
You are correct though I felt it would make for a good example.
Passive perception is often used in combat when someone makes an active stealth check, this is one of the few passive checks that is explicitly mentioned in the PHB.
For the rest of the time, I typically use passive perception for repeated checks, such as searching for traps or looking for loot. Active checks are made for things that are important in the moment the check is made, but wouldn't be possible/important to spot before or after that moment.
Where in the PHB is it stated that passive is used in combat? Yes, BEFORE combat it is used (as stated in the PHB section on combat), but in combat on a turn by turn basis it is never stated that it is used.
PHB, CH 7, under using each ability, dex section, the hiding sidebar:
Remember the difference between perception and investigation- the two really don't have much in common.
Perception is your ability to spot or notice or sense things that are hidden or otherwise not blatantly obvious, either if your players are actively searching for something specific they have reason to believe is there (perception check) or just happen to notice (passive perception). That's all perception does, and nothing but perception does that.
Investigation is your ability to logically deduce facts and get to the bottom of a puzzling situation of some sort, and have an "AH HA" moment, I suppose. For instance, if examining a bloody footprint at a murder scene, maybe after passing an investigation check you realize what npc likes to wear that kind of boot. You could rename Investigation to "Problem Solving".
Agreed. If the player says "Can I roll Investigation?" ask them what their character is doing. This may take some time to train them away from the CRPG "press Tab" mentality.
Player: I'm searching the room.
GM: Cool, what's that look like?
Player: What do you mean?
GM: Well, what is your character doing? Are they stnading in the middle of the room looking at the place or moving around? Are they being careful not to touch anythng or are they lifting stuff up? Are they being neat and tidy ir making a mess? Are they using any tools? Are they being systematic? Are they putting stuff back where they found it? Are they breaking stuff?
Unfortunately if you allow passive perception or investigation, that is exactly how it works. If the passive is higher, they see it, period. Now you can not allow passive scores to be used in the game as that is up to the DM, but that should be decided upon up front with a good session 0 with the players. The last thing you want is have someone build a character around the observant feat to have these super high passive scores and then break it to them afterward that they can't use the feat. As a player, it would piss me off. I have been playing for a very long time and actually have a lvl 20 wizard with observant that took 1 level of rogue when he hit 20 so he could have a passive investigation over 30. He was basically an elven Sherlock Holmes and it worked wonderfully. This was planned out since level 1 and I had the discussion with the DM about how I wanted his character arc to be and what feats I was wanting to take. He said he would think about it, got back with me and we went forward with it. He had some very interesting scenarios that allowed my character to shine but altered some things with traps so as to not make every dungeon a cakewalk for us. Now as far as DMing, I do have a lot of experience there although I have played more tier 4 than DM (outside T4, it's about 50/50) with 5e. I can tell you that most of my players and DMs that I play with have a hell of a lot more experience with old editions than I do and normally ask me about rules as I don't have the older editions to get mixed up with. We had a long discussion about the passive scores and after finding a podcast with Crawford where he specifically addresses the issue we decided that using passive would be neat and allowed observant, we just adjusted things a bit but still allow the characters to shine in the way they were designed. You are absolutely correct that you can't have a character running around with 30 passive scores ruining a game. But if they do, it's poor planning on the part of a DM. I know, since I've messed that up myself before lol.
So TLDR: If you allow passive, passive is the floor. You can either not allow passive scores, nix the observant feat, or adjust to compensate for higher scores (ie encounters that won't matter if a high passive score is present). Have a convo with the player first as you didn't make the rule known at session 0 and go from there.