My party is in a dungeon. They state that they are "searching for traps" each time they move. How does that work? Should I make them roll for every five feet even if nothing is there? What does that do to their rate of movement?
It likely means they move slowly. It may mean they're not being very stealthy.
This is what passive perception/investigation is good for. (If they're just wary and keeping an eye out, I'd use perception. If they're actively prodding and poking, investigation.)
Just describe it as slow cautious movement, probing anything that looks odd. Have them roll 5 perception or investigation rolls (regardless of whether there's anything there) for each hallway or room and move on. If there's something there, you have their rolls, meanwhile if there's not something there, they'll never know because you had them make a bunch of rolls.
It's a lot of fun to comment things like, "ew, sure you don't have any plusses to add to that?" It will make them paranoid as they move forward!
Our DM requires 5 minutes per 10' section being searched and we roll for each section searched (even if there is nothing there). So 20 minutes to clear a single 10' section of a hallway if you count walls, floor and ceiling. When it takes an hour to move 30' we cannot just "search everything" while moving or we would not get anywhere. Also it gives more time for random encounters or for whatever lives in the place to find us.
Searching for traps is not an "action" type, it's a role-playing description, an activity and it is not something you can turn on or off. If players insist they are "searching for traps", at that point you have to respond to it as a role-playing instruction with a role-playing narration, the same response as you would any other role-playing instruction.
For example "you stop moving and spread out as you search the room thoroughly for traps, it takes you approximately 20 minutes to complete your search, you make a considerable amount of noise shuffling about the area as lights flicker by your movement, you can hear sounds in the distance as if something is moving".
They might decide, "well we don't want to take that much time, we just want to be sure there are no traps, just a quick peek", to which your response should be, either you are or are not searching for traps. What they want is to make a quick "perception check" to find traps to avoid danger to circumvent a part of the game. That is not how this works.
Point is don't let them use role-playing depictions/instructions, as a type of action as if it's just going to boil down to a dice roll because at that point they are just gaming the system, trying to win at role-playing which defeats the purpose of the game entirely.
If they screw about too much, just start randomly rolling dice behind the screen and don't tell them why you're doing it maybe throw a random encounter at them and burn some of their resources. They should see "searching" as something that takes time, and resources and comes with some risk.
My party is in a dungeon. They state that they are "searching for traps" each time they move. How does that work? Should I make them roll for every five feet even if nothing is there? What does that do to their rate of movement?
No problem. Contrary to what others say, that it is a trivial perception roll, it is as others have said, a time consuming process, which takes a minimum of 10 minutes in a small area. You should always be rolling for random monsters every 10 minutes when in a dungeon/exploring, so the longer the party spends doing something.....
Oh, and NO WHERE in any book, does it say that Darkvision gives perfect sight in darkness conditions, so if the PC's plan on doing this without a light source, that means a lot higher chance of failure, or it taking even longer. And light sources attract unwanted guests.....
If they're getting annoying...then show consequences. If they're searching every square.inch for traps, then they're not paying attention to their surroundings. Perfect for an ambush. If they have one person searching and others as lookouts, out a wandering enemy that they really don't want to mess with - they will speed things up when they realise that hanging around means dealing with a Cadaver Collector at level four.
However, if you're happy with the behaviour, just use Passive Investigation, where instead of rolling, you just "assume" they rolled a 10 and then add their relevant bonuses to that (so if they have an Investigation of +6, then they're Passive Investigation is 16.
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My party is in a dungeon. They state that they are "searching for traps" each time they move. How does that work? Should I make them roll for every five feet even if nothing is there? What does that do to their rate of movement?
It likely means they move slowly. It may mean they're not being very stealthy.
This is what passive perception/investigation is good for. (If they're just wary and keeping an eye out, I'd use perception. If they're actively prodding and poking, investigation.)
You can always rule it takes a minute to search a 10 X 10 foot section.
Just describe it as slow cautious movement, probing anything that looks odd. Have them roll 5 perception or investigation rolls (regardless of whether there's anything there) for each hallway or room and move on. If there's something there, you have their rolls, meanwhile if there's not something there, they'll never know because you had them make a bunch of rolls.
It's a lot of fun to comment things like, "ew, sure you don't have any plusses to add to that?" It will make them paranoid as they move forward!
Playing D&D since 1982
Have played every version of the game since Basic (Red Box Set), except that abomination sometimes called 4e.
Our DM requires 5 minutes per 10' section being searched and we roll for each section searched (even if there is nothing there). So 20 minutes to clear a single 10' section of a hallway if you count walls, floor and ceiling. When it takes an hour to move 30' we cannot just "search everything" while moving or we would not get anywhere. Also it gives more time for random encounters or for whatever lives in the place to find us.
Searching for traps is not an "action" type, it's a role-playing description, an activity and it is not something you can turn on or off. If players insist they are "searching for traps", at that point you have to respond to it as a role-playing instruction with a role-playing narration, the same response as you would any other role-playing instruction.
For example "you stop moving and spread out as you search the room thoroughly for traps, it takes you approximately 20 minutes to complete your search, you make a considerable amount of noise shuffling about the area as lights flicker by your movement, you can hear sounds in the distance as if something is moving".
They might decide, "well we don't want to take that much time, we just want to be sure there are no traps, just a quick peek", to which your response should be, either you are or are not searching for traps. What they want is to make a quick "perception check" to find traps to avoid danger to circumvent a part of the game. That is not how this works.
Point is don't let them use role-playing depictions/instructions, as a type of action as if it's just going to boil down to a dice roll because at that point they are just gaming the system, trying to win at role-playing which defeats the purpose of the game entirely.
If they screw about too much, just start randomly rolling dice behind the screen and don't tell them why you're doing it maybe throw a random encounter at them and burn some of their resources. They should see "searching" as something that takes time, and resources and comes with some risk.
No problem. Contrary to what others say, that it is a trivial perception roll, it is as others have said, a time consuming process, which takes a minimum of 10 minutes in a small area. You should always be rolling for random monsters every 10 minutes when in a dungeon/exploring, so the longer the party spends doing something.....
Oh, and NO WHERE in any book, does it say that Darkvision gives perfect sight in darkness conditions, so if the PC's plan on doing this without a light source, that means a lot higher chance of failure, or it taking even longer. And light sources attract unwanted guests.....
If they're getting annoying...then show consequences. If they're searching every square.inch for traps, then they're not paying attention to their surroundings. Perfect for an ambush. If they have one person searching and others as lookouts, out a wandering enemy that they really don't want to mess with - they will speed things up when they realise that hanging around means dealing with a Cadaver Collector at level four.
However, if you're happy with the behaviour, just use Passive Investigation, where instead of rolling, you just "assume" they rolled a 10 and then add their relevant bonuses to that (so if they have an Investigation of +6, then they're Passive Investigation is 16.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.