Hey, I just had a couple questions on traps and how you run them.
First, can you take 20 on perception to find traps? Does it trigger the traps?
Second could I take 20 on perception to find traps, deliberately excluding touching anything? Would this change the DC, or just exclude touch-based information?
Third, if someone takes 20 on searching a room, do they automatically trigger any trap they don't find? For instance, Roger the Rogue takes 20 on searching a closet. There is a set of drawers with 5g inside and opening them triggers a Perception DC150 spray bottle trap? Since Roger can't find the trap even on a 20, does he just automatically trigger it? If not, does that mean taking 20 only involves searching the surfaces of things, and not inside them, and so taking 20 wouldn't find the 5g either (even if there wasn't a trap)? Would your answer change if I rolled a 20 instead?
Thanks in advance.
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1. Yes. This takes 1 minute (20 move actions) for each location the GM defines as a single search. Perception checks don't risk setting off traps.
2. Perception covers all 5 senses, whichever is useful to detect the item. Searching by sight alone doesn't change the DC unless the thing to be found is in a location you can't see directly.
3. If Roger the Rogue searches a specific location, he finds anything in that location that might be of interest to him and for which he makes the DC, and if he takes 20, he takes 20 to find all such objects. (If neither the trap trigger nor the damaging mechanism is in the closet, searching the closet doesn't help him.) If Roger doesn't find the trap you describe and he opens the drawer, the trap goes off. If he doesn't open the drawer, he doesn't find or collect the 5 gp, unless he can smell gold through a closed drawer, which some characters might.