I was like, "I think by now [GM] knows we will try to talk to ANYTHING." He responded, "You expect too much of me. xD I was like, 'Bugs? I can probably get away with that.'"
(My character is also currently a raven, but she's able to magically communicate her point regardless of the form she's in, so confused onlookers were watching some random guy talking seriously to bugs they would normally burn on sight while a bird flies around him cawing and flapping and somehow totally enriching the conversation.)
I've been running a campaign out of a book (Eyes of the Stone Thief for 13th Age) for the first time in a very long while. It's interesting, how it changes the way I approach encounters. I don't mind at all if PCs find a way to circumvent one, stomp all over it due to lucky rolls or great tactics, or just plain refuse to go that way. I can just turn to the next page, and there'll be more stuff to throw at them there.
Maybe on their next visit to the dungeon they'll face the same encounter. Maybe they won't, it's a huge book. Makes it easier to say "yes". Not that I wouldn't otherwise, but I'd feel disappointed if they refused to engage with an encounter I made. Or if they thought of a smart way to overcome it, I'd kick myself for not thinking of that first.
@Pixie the cows notice you are very good at talking to things, and come to you grumpily but nonverbally expressing expectations for similar arrangements to be made.
Heh. The other highlight of this session was my character getting an artifact she needed cheaply by steamrolling a trader at a chess-like game he thought he couldn't possibly lose. He botched his roll (no successes at all), I got five out of five successes.
(She would have gotten the artifact either way, she just would have paid double and thrown in a free performance. But she walked away with her artifact and the dude's pride. :P)
Looks pretty good. Might want to pay some mind to how big & intimidatingly complex those bullet points look at first. I'd consider whether the example scenario should lead first as a "here's how I'd consider doing it, and I'll explain how I got there:"
I can't think of how we would decide what the best answer would be
so it's probably not site-appropriate
was just going to ask how people prefer to use passive perception
in 5e passive perception is your perception check that's used when the DM wants to check your perception in secret or to save time if the party is in a situation where they want to roll it a lot
but as the DM I happen to know everyone's passive, so it's tempting to just make traps that have a DC of 1 higher than their highest so that they don't just see traps passively all the time
But I'd hate that as a player, so I don't do it
so basically it boils down to me asking the party to roll all the time so I hardly use passive perception except in the event of hidden monsters that rolled to hide
But yeah, there's probably a bunch of options that would work equally well, so there's not a way to identify a best answer
I don't know my way around D&D adventure design and play styles
but if you can derive that stuff from a model about why the traps are there
(if that makes sense in the system)
then that will (a) inform you about the difficulties and (b) be clues for the party to actively check for traps when they really expect a very hidden one to be there.
For a while they've just been coming across a bunch of traps that are within their passive perception threshold so they spot all of them pretty easily. It makes sense for the types of places that they've been exploring. Either everything is very old and broken or the people making the traps didn't have access to exceptional skill or technology
I just make it a challenge to figure out how to disarm the traps and making the skill check to disarm pretty difficult
So they know that traps are about, so if they go somewhere which looks quite pristine and well-kept, they should expect traps to be there, as well, but better-hidden?
I suspect that the first time that they come across a trap that they couldn't passively detect, they would revert into "Check everything all the time" mode and roll for it constantly
which is fine, but at that point it's basically a decision of "Do I want Passive Perception to be widely or narrowly applicable this session?"
so it's good to drain them with traps or ambushes every now and then so that when they get to something that's meant to be a real challenge they're rationing equipment rather than just going full blast
Oh, they don't drain anything while looking
but if they don't look and get hit it'll drain potions and spell slots, etc.
I mean, I can be more creative with traps sometimes. Charm some PC and convince them that something absurd is real, teleport somebody away from the party, etc
@Tophandour Ask a question where you set out the problem and ask for solutions to fix it. There may well be multiple possible answers, but that is often the case with questions on the site
but yeah, the time downside for rolling for trap checks constantly is that some dungeons have time pressure on them or there are wandering monsters, etc. Something to make them feel like they shouldn't stay in one place for too long so they have to balance speed with carefulness
@Wibbs I guess I could try it out, but I don't feel confident that I won't get hammered with downvotes and then get the question closed :p
I'm aware of my party's maximum passive perception so I'm tempted to make every fifth trap or so higher than their passive perception just so that they don't always detect every trap (unless they take the time to roll for it)
@Anaphory yeah, but I kind of know the answer to that. Rolling takes more time and they need to be specific, passive perception is 10+ a modifier so tends to be pretty successful and happens without them doing anything
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