Perception: Why do DMs still use the 3.5 Search rules?

[nosig]

Gorbacz wrote:

hogarth wrote:

nosig wrote:

I am not sure I would except the "Impossible to notice by sight", but that just opens the question - is Perception ONLY sight? when did this happen? if I am blind do I auto fail Perception checks?

As noted, I'm not just making up the idea of "sight-based Perception checks" and "hearing-based Perception checks" -- those are concepts found in the rules. The problem is that the rules are pretty flaky in general when it comes to Perception; sometimes they make no sense unless you really break it into Perception (Spot), Perception (Listen), Perception (Taste), etc., each with its own common-sense rules.

I mean, there's nothing in the rules that says you can't taste a potion from 100' away, right?

*frantically searches the core rulebook for rules on breathing and thinking*

aren't there rules for both? drowning and mindless comes to mind right now. and many monsters are listed as NOT breathing or thinking.

[nosig]

Dennis Baker wrote:

nosig wrote:

Some judges require more than one roll for more things - or catagories of things. for example: one roll for Traps, one for Creatures in Ambush, one for Loot, one for Secret doors, etc. Each of these in turn (for this judge) requires a 2 minutes to T20, and in turn most had to be for each 5' square. It felt like the Judge was trying to insure that the party (or at least my rogue) would stop looking for things, and just get on with the fight.

The judge required you to take 20? Or you were trying to take 20 on every search check and he was suggesting that taking 20 takes 2 minutes?

Taking 20 to troll along corridors looking for traps should be painfully slow.

why? I T20 (2 minutes) as a set of 20 move actions (what happened to the 20 actions I've always wondered). this takes 2 minutes. From the location my character is currently - if she has a +10 on Perception then she has a 30 out to 10 feet, a 29 from there to 20, a 28 from there to 30 etc. That is RAW, right? or am I missing a rule saying something requireing a Perception check for each 5' area (or some other size area)?

[Jiggy]

nosig wrote:

is there a rules someplace that says I have to "Search" a room one 5' square at a time? "

No, there is not. As a result, an intentional Perception check (costing a move action) applies to anything that your senses could detect, subject to your check result.

If you have line of sight to it (which precludes blindness, of course), a sufficiently high check will notice it.

If you can hear and something is making any amount of sound, a sufficiently high (though DCs can get steep fast) check will notice it.

If you have a sense of smell and there is an odor to detect, a sufficiently high check will notice it.

If something touches your fully-functional tongue, you will taste it and in some cases a sufficiently high check will identify it (as with potions).

If you touch a physical object, a sufficiently high check will reveal details corresponding to said check.

So if you stand in a room and - with none of your senses impaired - take a move action to roll perception and get a 17...

You will see everything to which you have line of sight with a perception DC (including modifiers) of 17 or less.

You will hear every sound whose DC (including modifiers) is 17 or less.

You will notice in the texture of whatever you're touching any and all details whose perception DC (including modifiers) is 17 or less.

You will detect any odor in your presence whose perception DC is 17 or less.

You will identify any potion in your mouth whose perception DC is 17 or less.

If you (somehow) have blindsense, you will notice... blah blah blah.

Sufficiently answered?

[Chris Mortika]

Dennis Baker wrote:

Taking 20 to troll along corridors looking for traps should be painfully slow.

nosig wrote:

why? I T20 (2 minutes) as a set of 20 move actions (what happened to the 20 actions I've always wondered). this takes 2 minutes.

1 minute, actually; two Move actions per round.

Finding the average secret door is DC 20. I find the idea that a 10-Wis common town guard finds every typical secret door after looking in the right spot for a minute to be contrary to the environment I'd like to create. The rules as they're written require me to make all secret doors more difficult to find than average, in order to provide any sort of meaningful impediment to any party at all.

Perhaps the problem is in the "Try Again: yes" line. Or maybe Perception should borrow a feature from Use Magic Device, insofar as a natural 1 indicates failure. (So you'd be able to Take 10, but not Take 20.)

[nosig]

Jiggy wrote:

nosig wrote:

is there a rules someplace that says I have to "Search" a room one 5' square at a time? "

No, there is not. As a result, an intentional Perception check (costing a move action) applies to anything that your senses could detect, subject to your check result.

If you have line of sight to it (which precludes blindness, of course), a sufficiently high check will notice it.

If you can hear and something is making any amount of sound, a sufficiently high (though DCs can get steep fast) check will notice it.

If you have a sense of smell and there is an odor to detect, a sufficiently high check will notice it.

If something touches your fully-functional tongue, you will taste it and in some cases a sufficiently high check will identify it (as with potions).

If you touch a physical object, a sufficiently high check will reveal details corresponding to said check.

So if you stand in a room and - with none of your senses impaired - take a move action to roll perception and get a 17...

You will see everything to which you have line of sight with a perception DC (including modifiers) of 17 or less.

You will hear every sound whose DC (including modifiers) is 17 or less.

You will notice in the texture of whatever you're touching any and all details whose perception DC (including modifiers) is 17 or less.

You will detect any odor in your presence whose perception DC is 17 or less.

You will identify any potion in your mouth whose perception DC is 17 or less.

If you (somehow) have blindsense, you will notice... blah blah blah.

Sufficiently answered?

Yep, sounds great! And Thanks for taking the time to answer this!

Now, if this were just true for the people I get as Judges....

[mcbobbo]

Chris Mortika wrote:

Finding the average secret door is DC 20. I find the idea that a 10-Wis common town guard finds every typical secret door after looking in the right spot for a minute to be contrary to the environment I'd like to create. The rules as they're written require me to make all secret doors more difficult to find than average, in order to provide any sort of meaningful impediment to any party at all.

Might it not be metagaming, though, to assume that a secret door exits? I mean, you could always just stop using them altogether...

[hogarth]

nosig wrote:

hogarth wrote:

-sense rules.

I mean, there's nothing in the rules that says you can't taste a potion from 100' away, right?

sounds good to me - I would think the DC would be pretty high, and the character/monster might need some magical help to get it that high, but ok.

According to the rules, tasting spoiled food from 100' away is DC 14 (base DC 5, +9 for 90' range penalty). You don't think that's even a little ridiculous?

[nosig]

hogarth wrote:

nosig wrote:

hogarth wrote:

-sense rules.

I mean, there's nothing in the rules that says you can't taste a potion from 100' away, right?

sounds good to me - I would think the DC would be pretty high, and the character/monster might need some magical help to get it that high, but ok.

According to the rules, tasting spoiled food from 100' away is DC 14 (base DC 5, +9 for 90' range penalty). You don't think that's even a little ridiculous?

so the numbers are wrong. by the other methiod, you cannot tell food is spoiled if I make it invisible. +40 on the perception right?

you are giveing it the +9 for distance, and pointed out that this adjustment is for vision perception rolls. then you use the same adjustment to prove your point about being unable to detect it at 100 feet NO MATER WHAT. Can't be done.

I would say you have a chance to perceive that the food is spoiled - I don't know what sense you are using. It doesn't matter - Perception is all of them rolled into one for convenance. What's the adjustment for the spoiled food being in a Silence area of effect? or in Darkness? or Invisible (+40? really?). Just give me a number, and some idea of how it was arrived at. Otherwise we are back to "'Cause the judge said so" - which would also work. I guess.

[Happler]

hogarth wrote:

nosig wrote:

hogarth wrote:

-sense rules.

I mean, there's nothing in the rules that says you can't taste a potion from 100' away, right?

sounds good to me - I would think the DC would be pretty high, and the character/monster might need some magical help to get it that high, but ok.

According to the rules, tasting spoiled food from 100' away is DC 14 (base DC 5, +9 for 90' range penalty). You don't think that's even a little ridiculous?

How close to open, spoiled food do you need to be to smell it and see the mold on it?

The RAW says nothing about tasting the food only the ability to "determine if food is spoiled".

I agree that it is a little low still, but I am sure that there are ways around that per RAW also.

[hogarth]

nosig wrote:

I would say you have a chance to perceive that the food is spoiled - I don't know what sense you are using. It doesn't matter - Perception is all of them rolled into one for convenance. What's the adjustment for the spoiled food being in a Silence area of effect? or in Darkness? or Invisible (+40? really?). Just give me a number, and some idea of how it was arrived at. Otherwise we are back to "'Cause the judge said so" - which would also work. I guess.

I don't know what to tell you. The rules are vague and contradictory because in several important ways it doesn't make sense to have one Perception skill (unless you're Daredevil, maybe). Expecting every judge to interpret vague and contradictory rules in the same identical fashion is overly optimistic, I think.

[nosig]

hogarth wrote:

nosig wrote:

I would say you have a chance to perceive that the food is spoiled - I don't know what sense you are using. It doesn't matter - Perception is all of them rolled into one for convenance. What's the adjustment for the spoiled food being in a Silence area of effect? or in Darkness? or Invisible (+40? really?). Just give me a number, and some idea of how it was arrived at. Otherwise we are back to "'Cause the judge said so" - which would also work. I guess.

I don't know what to tell you. The rules are vague and contradictory because in several important ways it doesn't make sense to have one Perception skill (unless you're Daredevil, maybe). Expecting every judge to interpret vague and contradictory rules in the same identical fashion is overly optimistic, I think.

Actually, I'm hopeing that every time I bring it up I get a little closer to haveing most (51%) of the Judges do the basic machanics the same. And the only way I have any chance of that is to get them to do it as it is discribed in the book. Hense the subject line for this thread - "Perception: Why do DMs still use the 3.5 Search rules?"

[hogarth]

nosig wrote:

Actually, I'm hopeing that every time I bring it up I get a little closer to haveing most (51%) of the Judges do the basic machanics the same. And the only way I have any chance of that is to get them to do it as it is discribed in the book. Hense the subject line for this thread - "Perception: Why do DMs still use the 3.5 Search rules?"

But the book isn't clear or consistent, so there is no one true version "as is described in the book" (like you seem to be hoping for). For instance, an owl familiar gives you a bonus on sight-based Perception rolls, but there is no discussion of which Perception rolls are sight-based or not. Does that mean that sight-based Perception rolls don't exist? Who knows?

Similarly, the Perception skill allows you to search for a "stimulus". What constitutes a stimulus? There aren't any guidelines on the subject, so it's up to the GM to decide. There's nothing for you to point to in the book saying whether a chest full of gold buried 100 feet underground is a "stimulus" or not, for instance.

[nosig]

hogarth wrote:

nosig wrote:

Actually, I'm hopeing that every time I bring it up I get a little closer to haveing most (51%) of the Judges do the basic machanics the same. And the only way I have any chance of that is to get them to do it as it is discribed in the book. Hense the subject line for this thread - "Perception: Why do DMs still use the 3.5 Search rules?"

But the book isn't clear or consistent, so there is no one true version "as is described in the book" (like you seem to be hoping for). For instance, an owl familiar gives you a bonus on sight-based Perception rolls, but there is no discussion of which Perception rolls are sight-based or not. Does that mean that sight-based Perception rolls don't exist? Who knows?

Similarly, the Perception skill allows you to search for a "stimulus". What constitutes a stimulus? There aren't any guidelines on the subject, so it's up to the GM to decide. There's nothing for you to point to in the book saying whether a chest full of gold buried 100 feet underground is a "stimulus" or not, for instance.

Perhaps what you say is true and I am persueing the "Questing Beast". you would suggest I just give up? maybe take up knitting?

Do you think that a character needs to roll Perception for every 5' square in a room to be sure that he has located everything he can?

Do you think that a character needs to roll Perception for each type of thing (sorry to use the generic term "thing") that he might find? (traps, secret doors, hidden objects, hiding creatures, etc).

Do you think that a character needs to roll Perception for every item in the room that he cannot "Automaticly detect"?

[TOZ]

Gorbacz wrote:

*frantically searches the core rulebook for rules on breathing and thinking*

No, your wizard is not allowed to think according to RAW. Try not to think about it.

[Diego Rossi]

nosig wrote:

is there a rules someplace that says I have to "Search" a room one 5' square at a time? "

There aren't rules saying that you have to search in 5' increments but at the same time there are no rules saying how large is the area that you can search (use Perception upon) at one time.

It is a GM call depending on the situation.

You came in to my bedroom and want to find my backpack? One spot check for the whole room then some extra check for the enclosed spaces like the wardrobe.

Same room but you want to find my copy of Elves of Golarion between hundreds modules with the same general size and shape?
A check every few inches of shelf space.

[Dennis Baker]

nosig wrote:

Perhaps what you say is true and I am persueing the "Questing Beast". you would suggest I just give up? maybe take up knitting?

Do you think that a character needs to roll Perception for every 5' square in a room to be sure that he has located everything he can?

Quote:

Do you think that a character needs to roll Perception for each type of thing (sorry to use the generic term "thing") that he might find? (traps, secret doors, hidden objects, hiding creatures, etc).

Do you think that a character needs to roll Perception for every item in the room that he cannot "Automaticly detect"?

If there is a room with hidden creatures, 2 traps, and a secret door, you can be darned certain that my players will be making four perception checks because each of those items is a separate challenge which the players get experience or other rewards for overcoming.

The secret door and the traps won't be found unless the player is *actively* looking for them (move action). Usually GMs don't make players roll for every 5 foot square because it's a waste of time. Whether it's part of the rules or not, it's not necessary. I just assume it's taking 30 seconds to a minute to quickly turn a room and have them make a search check. If someone wants to thoroughly search (T20) a room, it's going to take and 5-30 minutes depending on how complex it is.

[Diego Rossi]

nosig wrote:

Perhaps what you say is true and I am persueing the "Questing Beast". you would suggest I just give up? maybe take up knitting?

Probably you should stop trying to get an absolute reply to a relative question.

My impression from your posts is that you already have a your opinion what should be the "absolute" rule and only want to get people to agree with you.
The problem is that there is not an absolute reply, so you will never get a complete consensus from the forum.