If a character succeeds at a Perception check to spot a secret door, do they have to check again if they come back 24 hours later?
How about if the character is an Elf and comes back 240 years later?
Does the DC of the Perception check make a difference? Should it be easier to "remember" a DC 15 secret door vs. a DC 50 secret door? Or vice versa?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I would assume that once you found it, you don't have to make a skill check again.
The answer would generally be no, they don't have to 'find it' again, although I could think of odd situations where I might call for a new check (and even then I would likely give a bonus to the roll since the character already located the door once).
I would increase the DC by 1 every day they don't go back to it. This starts from 0 and increases until it hits the regular secret door DC.
The answer would generally be no, they don't have to 'find it' again, although I could think of odd situations where I might call for a new check (and even then I would likely give a bonus to the roll since the character already located the door once).
I'm of the same mind. If the area were completely rearranged and the opposition took special pains to conceal exactly where the door was, I might require a reroll but I'd probably start at no more than half the former DC since they know the general area and that there's a door there. They've just lost track of its hidden catch or whatever. If the door migrated around the wall or room, that would require a fresh roll after every location reset. Likewise a good illusion might hide the door, but I'd expect the party to see through that one pretty quickly unless it was something like the same hidden catch but a few inches to one side and the illusion gave the impression it was stuck.
Or something messed with the party's memory, of course. I read about someone over on ENWorld years ago who got his players to go along with a memory gambit by ending one session with them riding into town and beginning the next with them riding towards home and really laying on thick how convinced they were that nothing really happened there. I guess it took them about half an hour of play time to RP around to something being screwy and going back to check on general principle. Neat trick, but I think you'd have to have just the right group for it not to immediately come to "I roll a will save." And of course you can't do it more than once.