Well, Mike Mearls got promoted. Any hope for 5e?

[Hieronymous Rex]

I remember in my 1e / 2e games we used to establish the various SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) that would include mappiong/searching functions in dungeons, or standard camp setups for outdoors.

Many of the people I game with and myself use SOPs (e.g. Prod-Listen-Open on doors, the classic tapping the floor with a 10' pole as your advance through a dungeon, marching orders, keeping watch while camping), but to my understanding the Thief ability to find traps doesn't support this; you must declare and roll for each search.

Doors and Traps and Searching
The Search skill doesn't work. You can't search every five feet, and you can't declare every search.

So any time your PCs are pretty skeptical about their surroundings, they get a search check to find out whatever it is is there. And they get one check per thing to be found, and don't bother rolling for empty places.

Search checks can be taken 10 if your players want to, and they can take 20, but taking 20 isn't passive, and requires them to actively declare it, and spend the extra time.

This looks like an improvement. Is the intention that search rolls be made after the fact; e.g. if you would set off a trap, the GM rolls (or asks you to roll) to see if you actually notice it instead? Or that the GM secretly rolls for each hidden feature?

[Swordslinger]

I don't see what Kaelik's change really does. That more or less always worked how search worked, aside from just not rolling at all for empty places (which means PCs always know when they missed something and will just take 20 right afterwards)

If anything, I would think the way to go would be to remove take 10 and take 20 with regard for search checks entirely. Because if you can take 20, you basically can just declare you're taking 20 on everything in the dungeon. Unless you have spell durations you don't want to expire, or you're on a ridiculously short timetable, there's really no reason not to.

[shadzar]

What do you think the characters are doing?

Unless the player declares some action for them... the characters are doing NOTHING. They have no mind or will of their own, they are moving only by the will and choices of the PLAYER, because they are fictional.

[Hieronymous Rex]

Unless the player declares some action for them... the characters are doing NOTHING. They have no mind or will of their own, they are moving only by the will and choices of the PLAYER, because they are fictional.

This is true, but that does not preclude people establishing that "when I am in a dungeon, I am wary of my surroundings and searching for traps". If the system gives a default treatment for this reasonable and obvious SOP, it's a good thing.

[Pseudo Stupidity]

Edit (to keep my perfect editing track record): I am responding so Shadzar, not the reasonable post above my own.

Ok, so unless I declare that I'm breathing my character is not? That's seems kind of silly. Looking for traps when your character should obviously be looking for traps is insane.

Unless you want the players to constantly roll and search for traps in every damn hallway just assume the characters are looking for traps in every damn hallway. It's common sense to look for traps in hallways in D&D land just as it is common sense to breathe in the real world.

I'm in a group that has to declare "I search for traps" at every damn doorway, it's boring, monotonous and makes me want to slit my wrists. Why do you hate your players so much? We got caught ONCE by a trap and now every session drags on for an eternity. Fuck you for encouraging this behavior.

[Swordslinger]

Ok, so unless I declare that I'm breathing my character is not? That's seems kind of silly. Looking for traps when your character should obviously be looking for traps is insane.

By default I assume characters are looking for monsters. They're not taking a careful stock of the floor looking for little cracks and other trap markers, they're watching the corner ahead to make sure a skeleton with a crossbow doesn't suddenly round it and fire.

Probably a potential solution would be to have different levels of awareness. You can either be in combat readiness mode or search mode. If you're in search mode and you get attacked, you should probably be automatically surprised. That would generally prevent the "We're always searching for traps" problem because searching for traps has consequences.

[Pseudo Stupidity]

But there's four people in the party. The guy in front is feeling up the walls and such, the guy behind him is staring straight ahead unblinkingly.

different levels of awareness would be neat, but having each party member be on a different level would then be optimal unless one level sucks, like being aware of changes in barometric pressure. I know that my current party has rogue in front, fighter behind him and caster with detect magic up behind him. The party can see everything and we put the crawl in dungeon crawl.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Forums are in an uproar over the magical item stuff from Mordenkainen's Compendium. I no longer have a subscription so someone else will have to tell me what's what.

[K]

I was was at an RPGA event and I saw a man almost cry because the DM was trying to get him to figure out how to make an antidote.

Making grown men cry out of frustration is not a winner for a design goal.

I think you've mentioned this incident before. The first time I thought nothing of it, but now I am suspicious: What was the context of this, and why did an adult cry over a game?.

Design goals shouldn't have to account for "extreme immaturity".

Our characters had been captured by sahuagin, and we were supposed to do things to impress them. Then they poisoned us and told us to make an antidote. None of us had any of the relevant skills.

So the DM tells us what ingredients we have to work with, then starts threatening us with death if we don't do things to them (and this is the RPGA where treasure is super allocated and death is permanent when you are poor). Some part of the "challenge" was that we were supposed try super hard, but we didn't know that.

So one guy got weepy out of sheer frustration because the character he had been bringing to the RPGA events for years was going to get arbitrarily killed because his personal knowledge of poison-making was lacking.

I took this as a lesson that trying to make players have character knowledge was an extremely frustrating and ultimately pointless exercise. Your character really should be able to solve puzzles or do other job appropriate things with checks, and trying to make the player think like the character runs counter to a fun game.

[Swordslinger]

But there's four people in the party. The guy in front is feeling up the walls and such, the guy behind him is staring straight ahead unblinkingly.

Sure, but that still means the guy not looking for monsters gets surprised when a couple ghouls show up.

Pretty much anyone not looking for monsters is going to get surprised when monsters do show up.

[shadzar]

Unless the player declares some action for them... the characters are doing NOTHING. They have no mind or will of their own, they are moving only by the will and choices of the PLAYER, because they are fictional.

This is true, but that does not preclude people establishing that "when I am in a dungeon, I am wary of my surroundings and searching for traps". If the system gives a default treatment for this reasonable and obvious SOP, it's a good thing.

even SOPs dont always work as you think.

searching where you walk for traps, doesnt mean every square inch.

it seems many have the paranoid player and character, and that becomes a problem with the group.

Vizzini players arent always useful.

again this becomes the breakdown of computer gaming era showing through with an on/off mode for searching and such.

even declaring at the start of a march is actively searching, but asumption that the character is searching when other things may be going on is futile.

are you still under SOP while fighting? you are taking time to look for a trap while stepping around to backstab and dont notice the second wave of orcs coming and getting a surprise attack on you and your party?

[tzor]

I remember in my 1e / 2e games we used to establish the various SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) that would include mappiong/searching functions in dungeons, or standard camp setups for outdoors.

Many of the people I game with and myself use SOPs (e.g. Prod-Listen-Open on doors, the classic tapping the floor with a 10' pole as your advance through a dungeon, marching orders, keeping watch while camping), but to my understanding the Thief ability to find traps doesn't support this; you must declare and roll for each search.

Typical SOP for any door, stand back, thief listen for shit (using "protection" to prevent ear thingies), check for traps, check for lock, check for traps on lock, unlock door, step back and let fighter open door. This does require rolls; oddly enough those are rolls the DM should make becuase you shouldn't know between failing a roll and nothing to find. (At least if I remember the 1e rules correctly and a lot of 2e players often continued to use 1e ideas in 2e.)

[tzor]

But there's four people in the party. The guy in front is feeling up the walls and such, the guy behind him is staring straight ahead unblinkingly.

Crap, well it was nice knowing you. The last person should always be looking behind him because shit always tends to creep up behind parties.

"Shit Adventurers ... Let's Hide"
"They passed us by ..."
"Now we can BACKSTAB!"

[Kaelik]

I don't see what Kaelik's change really does. That more or less always worked how search worked, aside from just not rolling at all for empty places (which means PCs always know when they missed something and will just take 20 right afterwards)

If anything, I would think the way to go would be to remove take 10 and take 20 with regard for search checks entirely. Because if you can take 20, you basically can just declare you're taking 20 on everything in the dungeon. Unless you have spell durations you don't want to expire, or you're on a ridiculously short timetable, there's really no reason not to.

So... You as a DM are incapable of rolling dice for things in advance of the players running into those things, and then using the dice rolls you made earlier?

When an off screen Balor attempts to summon another Balor do you tell your PCs "Now I'm rolling the percentage chance that a Balor you haven't seen will summon another Balor."?

Or do you just roll some dice, and tell your players not to worry about what those rolls are?

Because I do the second one, but I guess if you as the DM are the most retarded human being alive, you might have a problem using my Search rules.

That would generally prevent the "We're always searching for traps" problem because searching for traps has consequences.

Apparently your problem is that you think the PCs always searching for traps is a problem.

[Star*Master]

Hello, everyone. Just found this site from a friend's dogpile search for info on the vampiric touch spell/ability... I've been reading entertaining, informative and amusing topics here all day but this one about searches is the one that got me interested enough to sign on.

I actually agree with most of what has been said on the topic, even when it was contradictory. It's seldom ever a case of 'all or nothing'.

To me, the key point was the dice rolls that tend to slog down an adventure. Distilling what others have said, I've thunked up this idea:

Since the DM is supposed to be making the secret checks for Spot and Search anyway, why not make that the default? Determine a party's 'awareness/perception' level (based on the highest Search ranks, for instance) and modifiy it by a few factors. The DM then rolls for an area and adds that awareness number. If it beats the DC, then items are spotted or found.

Yes, I know this sounds pretty much like the way it already is in 3.5. Here's the catch: the awareness is modified by position in the party and by the level of search being done. I might also use the awareness rank as representing the number of squares that a single search check covers (though maybe there's a base of 4).

Position: the guy in front has a better chance to spot something up front, while the guy in back has a better chance to spot something sneaking up on them. Also, the last character in line gets the benefit of seeing what the others have done, and may take extra effort to double check.

Area DC: if an area has multiple traps, then the check may only spot 3 of the 4. Another way to deal with this is that this 'rough' search/spot identifies likely or suspicious areas. NOW let the rogue earn his keep!

Search Level: I'm not sure exactly how I'd apply this, but my idea is that you have a Standard Search, a Detailed Search and an Intense Search.

Standard Search is what everyone does--taps walls, pokes ahead with a pole, brushes dust away from a suspicious area, etc. Essentially, this would be done at standard movement.

Detailed Search is the next level up. Maybe it only allows half movement. It increases the awareness rank by +4.

Intense Search is the ultimate 'search for traps'. Movement is slower as everyone is doing exceptional actions (blowing dust out of cracks, tossing dust to look for tripwires, etc.). This increases awareness by +4, and only someone with the Trapfinding ability can find traps with a DC greater than 20 (or maybe 24) or find magical traps (though I would think Knowledge (arcana) and/or Spellcraft should be able to augment that).

Anyway, that's my 2-cents.

[Swordslinger]

Apparently your problem is that you think the PCs always searching for traps is a problem.

It is. Because it defeats the whole purpose.

When you're always searching you either find the trap or you don't, with no input from the player. That's boring and not much of a game. The most interesting decision regarding traps is the decision to look for them. If you're always searching everything, there's no decision making. It's just a matter of if your DM decided to make the trap unfindable or not. That's lame.

Making player decisions matter more is good for the game. So having potential situations where you punish people for searching for traps, and others where you punish them for not searching for traps leads to more thinking play, because they have to decide if the tradeoff is worth it.

After you get hit by a trap, you shouldn't be thinking about how the DM fucked you because you had zero chance of spotting the trap. You should be thinking about how you fucked yourself by not searching.

If you can always be searching without penalty, then you will and there's zero actual decision making. Unless your table is filled with non-thinking derp gamers, I don't know why you'd ever want that.

[Star*Master]

Our characters had been captured by sahuagin, and we were supposed to do things to impress them. Then they poisoned us and told us to make an antidote. None of us had any of the relevant skills.

So the DM tells us what ingredients we have to work with, then starts threatening us with death if we don't do things to them (and this is the RPGA where treasure is super allocated and death is permanent when you are poor). Some part of the "challenge" was that we were supposed try super hard, but we didn't know that.

So one guy got weepy out of sheer frustration because the character he had been bringing to the RPGA events for years was going to get arbitrarily killed because his personal knowledge of poison-making was lacking.

In retrospect, I find that amusing. I recall a convention where one table (in a room full of tables and over a hundred people) was running a scenario with several bards. The DM tried to insist that the player who was playing a bard actually stand up and sing when his character was using a bardic ability.

For some people, that can be very entertaining, but for others who can't sing, are shy or have acute stage fright, it's very frustrating. It was also very disruptive to the rest of the room. As far as I'm concerned, it's a case of the DM stepping over the line.

As for the antidote incident, even if no one had any relevant skills, the 'solution' would have been just to make an Intelligence check or else start randomly mixing incredients. "Red powder that tastes like moldy cheese? Sounds like the right ingredient!" It would then have fallen to the DM to resolve the scene regardless of whether the characters/players actually mixed the ingredients correctly.

I suppose an alternative, too, could have been to use a completely unrelated (probably) skill. "I'm going to use my Handle Animal skill to mix up the correct ingredients." If the DM ruled that the DC for such was 150, then when all the characters tried the same thing and failed, he MIGHT have gotten the message.

Of course, it's a lot easier to point this out NOW... not so easy at the time I'd wager.

"Blue flowers, red thorns, blue flowers, red thorns..."

[Swordslinger]

In retrospect, I find that amusing. I recall a convention where one table (in a room full of tables and over a hundred people) was running a scenario with several bards. The DM tried to insist that the player who was playing a bard actually stand up and sing when his character was using a bardic ability.

I think that just highlights the stupidity of bards in general. Can you really picture some close battle in Lord of the Rings where instead of fighting, Aragorn whips out a lute and starts playing a song while orcs are trying to behead him and his friends?

Bards are just dumb.

[Star*Master]

Apparently your problem is that you think the PCs always searching for traps is a problem.

It is. Because it defeats the whole purpose.

When you're always searching you either find the trap or you don't, with no input from the player. That's boring and not much of a game. The most interesting decision regarding traps is the decision to look for them. If you're always searching everything, there's no decision making. It's just a matter of if your DM decided to make the trap unfindable or not. That's lame.

Making player decisions matter more is good for the game. So having potential situations where you punish people for searching for traps, and others where you punish them for not searching for traps leads to more thinking play, because they have to decide if the tradeoff is worth it.

After you get hit by a trap, you shouldn't be thinking about how the DM fucked you because you had zero chance of spotting the trap. You should be thinking about how you fucked yourself by not searching.

If you can always be searching without penalty, then you will and there's zero actual decision making. Unless your table is filled with non-thinking derp gamers, I don't know why you'd ever want that.

I was lamenting with one of my friends not too long ago about this same issue. It's the difference between 1e and 3e. Having begun gaming on 1e, we'd gotten use to the detail-oriented style of play. 3e mostly did away with that. As someone else said, the 'new generation' of gamers want the 'easy way out'. That's a simplistic viewpoint, but generally true. It's not so much what they 'want' as what they've been taught. The world for them moves at a faster pace, so they expect their games to do the same. In the Old Days, the journey was just as important (sometimes more so) than the destination. So you made camp, set watch, etc. Nowadays, it's "you ride 50 miles to the old mine. What are you going to do next?"

It's all about getting to the objective and slice-and-dicing the monsters into Julian fries, getting the treasure, kicking a level, now let's kick some more monster butt! Rinse, repeat. No one stops to smell the roses any more.

So, while I understand the new ways, I don't happen to enjoy them, but that's me. I've always been rather detail oriented.

[Fuchs]

I started in 2E, 1991, and I still loathe the "I play myself, my wits against the evil DM" crap they tried to force on us there.

I play a character, not myself.

[GâtFromKI]

When you're always searching you either find the trap or you don't, with no input from the player. That's boring and not much of a game. The most interesting decision regarding traps is the decision to look for them. If you're always searching everything, there's no decision making. It's just a matter of if your DM decided to make the trap unfindable or not. That's lame.

Traps are lame.

Player: I search for traps.
MC: You find a trap/You don't find a trap.
Player: Then I try to disarm it/Then I don't try to disarm it.
MC: Take X damages, gain Y xp/Don't take X damages, gain Y xp/Don't take X damages, don't gain Y xp.
THE END

You should get rid of traps in the game, and get rid of any retarded trap-disabling-class. Incidentally, it resolves the "search skill problem" in an elegant way.

[Swordslinger]

I started in 2E, 1991, and I still loathe the "I play myself, my wits against the evil DM" crap they tried to force on us there.

I play a character, not myself.

You're taking the role of a character in a fantasy world, but you make decisions for him. When it comes to deciding whether you want to fight the dragon or try to run away, you're making the call, not your character. I want the game to be about decisions not just mindless dice rolling.

I don't want D&D to turn into this:
http://www.kongregate.com/games/dj0wns/ ... er-dungeon

[Daztur]

In retrospect, I find that amusing. I recall a convention where one table (in a room full of tables and over a hundred people) was running a scenario with several bards. The DM tried to insist that the player who was playing a bard actually stand up and sing when his character was using a bardic ability.

I think that just highlights the stupidity of bards in general. Can you really picture some close battle in Lord of the Rings where instead of fighting, Aragorn whips out a lute and starts playing a song while orcs are trying to behead him and his friends?

Bards are just dumb.

Looks like someone needs to read the Silmarillion, that sort of thing a couple times. Bards are still stupid though.

[shadzar]

I started in 2E, 1991, and I still loathe the "I play myself, my wits against the evil DM" crap they tried to force on us there.

I play a character, not myself.

so you bring nothing to the game and ANYONE with a set of dice can play your character the same as you do?

you have to bring a part of yourself ot the character. the character doesnt decide to wear armor to sleep, you choose by inactivity to not take it off for your character to sleep.

[Hieronymous Rex]

Our characters had been captured by sahuagin, and we were supposed to do things to impress them. Then they poisoned us and told us to make an antidote. None of us had any of the relevant skills.

So the DM tells us what ingredients we have to work with, then starts threatening us with death if we don't do things to them (and this is the RPGA where treasure is super allocated and death is permanent when you are poor). Some part of the "challenge" was that we were supposed try super hard, but we didn't know that.

So one guy got weepy out of sheer frustration because the character he had been bringing to the RPGA events for years was going to get arbitrarily killed because his personal knowledge of poison-making was lacking.

I took this as a lesson that trying to make players have character knowledge was an extremely frustrating and ultimately pointless exercise. Your character really should be able to solve puzzles or do other job appropriate things with checks, and trying to make the player think like the character runs counter to a fun game.

So, the party failed to escape capture or impress the sahuagin, your characters lacked the appropriate abilities (either for antidote making or magical neutralization) to cure themselves, but had the opportunity to get yourself out anyway, and (this part of the account was unclear) didn't strictly need to succeed to not die, and this is bad GMing?

What is your complaint? Were you railroaded into capture? Is it unfair for PCs to face challenges that they might not have the countermeasure for? And did the antidote-making puzzle actually involve real world chemistry, or was it a logic puzzle?

This isn't about character knowledge vs. player knowledge because your characters didn't have it. It's like being unhappy that, while constructing a siege engine, your character lacks the appropriate skill and the GM asks you to explain how to build it to proceed.