Investigate is for learning about the things that you can readily see around you.
Search is for finding dangerous things that you can't immediately see.
Characters are part of a team and you can have them doing different things according to their strengths.
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I've also been thinking about this. Here's how I could see it working. The most important point that I took away from reading the book is that exploration activities are not static. The players can (and are expected to) change them depending on what happens.
Here's an example of how I would use this. Assume a party of three: Fighter, Rogue, Wizard.
The party enters a dungeon complex. The Fighter goes first with his shield raised, the rogue wants to detect for traps. The first part of the dungeon is pretty barren. There's nothing that immediately interests the wizard, so he'll also use Perception to check for anything out of the ordinary.
Around the first corner, there's a hallway with paintings all around. Now the wizard will have to make a choice: He could either study the paintings as they walk (Investigate) or he could check for other interesting things (like secret doors and traps). If he's focusing on one, he's not focusing on the other. The party could let the rogue handle Perception while the wizard focuses on the paintings, or they could be very meticulous and have both do Perception before they even begin to examine the paintings. That will take more time, though. If time's not an issue at all, there's nothing to stop the party. But it's something that they'll have to make a conscious decision to do. "First we sweep the entire hallway for traps and other hidden things. When it's clear, we'll take a look at the paintings."
Final example: The party comes across an alcove with a statue. No perception necessary. The GM describes what it looks like, and asks what the players will do. The fighter wants to study it (Investigate), the wizard wants to detect magic. The rogue is anxious and says he'll stay out of sight for the moment (Hide). They find some info, and press on. The GM checks with the party whether they want to use the previous exploration tactics, or something else. And the group continues.
Or, maybe the party gets ambushed at this point; the statue comes alive. The fighter made the choice to study the statue, so doesn't have his shield raised. But he might be allowed to roll Craft for initiative, realizing just in time that the statue is a construct. The rogue was hiding, so gets Stealth for Initiative. The wizard might roll Arcane as Initiative to realize the statue was animated, just before it started to fight. Etc.
Good example.
I'd like to see some summary sheets with complete lists of typical actions for exploration mode, downtime mode and encounter mode. As things stand, they seem spread out in various places.
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Exploration mode isn't really for when the PCs are staying in an area and turning it upside down. It's for a party that's moving onwards, and you have people saying "I keep an eye out for traps", "I take notes on the local wildlife while we move", "I stay at the front with my shield up in case we run into trouble", "I cast detect magic regularly so that we don't run into something weird by accident", "I want to gather food while we move", "I want to follow the tracks".
These were things people constantly wanted to do in PF1 and GMs were always having trouble deciding how that should work. Should you make people roll Perception every 10ft? Should you come up with rules for getting tired for constantly casting detect magic? How many of these things can you do at the same time?
PF2 answers those questions. You can do one of these things at a time. You need to rely on your friends to do the other things. PF2 strongly pushes the idea that you need a whole party to be successful adventurers (notice how it's really hard to be master/legendary in many skills at the same time).
So if a party is in a room and first wants to thoroughly search it for traps, then magic, then study the inscriptions - that's not really exploration mode. You're apparently having an encounter with that particular room. But if you're moving through a very large dungeon with monsters in only a few rooms and the party's mostly just walking through, trying to get this whole thing done today, then you use exploration mode. Or when the party is walking through the forest trying to reach the next village, you can use exploration mode.
Exploration mode gives you nice clear answers to "what was everyone doing just before the encounter started".
Maybe, but I could especially see it working in a non-dungeon setting, like Ascalaphus saus. Say the group is traversing the wilderness. It makes no sense to comb over each square yard. But it might make quite some difference what everyone pays attention to. Tracks? Local fauna? Signs of snares?
The same goes when the group is wandering through a city. Someone could try to snatch up rumors, find the quickest way to their destination, be on the lookout for their nemesis with the distinctive scar, get a feel for the local customs, or try to say unnoticed while on the move. But one person could never do all of those at the same time. And every one of those could give different clues, or could have an impact whenever an encounter starts.
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Now, here is another thing about exploration mode. Suppose the GM waives exploration mode, because the PCs are taking the time to very thoroughly explore. Does this mean that the PCs are entitled to effectively start each combat with Avoid Notice, Defend, and/or Scout, for the start-of-combat benefits of such things?
If you start waiving rules then anything is possible.
If each PC wants to both search and investigate, you can do that by basically traveling at half speed because they just go over each thing twice. I mean, if you wanted to just search everything five times, divide speed by five.
Some of the other ones are harder though. You can't do some things all at the same time. You can't normally Avoid Notice and Search at the same time, but rogues (who would be the prime suspect to try that) get a feat (Trap Finder) to sorta do it anyway.
Likewise you can't both focus on having your shield up all the time and be casting detect magic all the time.
Yeah, it's a bit unrealistic, I agree. I'd have liked a different take that basically says that you pile up all the speed costs and restrictions, and it's up to you how slow you're willing to go.
For example, detect magic has a certain range, so if you want to be sure you never walk into an aura without seeing it first, that puts a cap on your maximum speed. Also it takes a bit of time (and therefore of your actual speed) to cast it all the time. Tracking requires a lot of looking at the ground so it would cost some actual speed. Raising your shield at the time would cost an action so also costs some actual speed. And so forth.
They tried this in the playtest, but said people would get fatigued if they did that. Also it was quite complicated. Now they've chosen to make it simpler. Which reduces realism a bit but is less effort to use.
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In the end, exploration tactics are a tool to help make your game easier to run. I think that when you explain them properly (and maybe make a handout, because the book presentation leaves something to be desired) they can be pretty useful for that.
It's a bit like having people describe a standard marching order. Unless anyone's said anything to the contrary, that's how you put them on the map if an encounter happen.
Exploration tactics just take that idea a step further by also having people say what they're doing while marching.
That sounds perfectly reasonable. If the PC's are under no time pressure and you as a GM know they won't be interrupted, let them find everything there is to find. Only if you know or expect them be ambushed/interrupted, you should ask what they'd do first upon entering such a room (which, as you stated, is their choice of Avoid notice, Defend or Scout).
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In the end, exploration tactics are a tool to help make your game easier to run.At the moment, I am having a great deal of trouble understanding exploration. Suppose the party says, "We are under no time pressure, so we completely comb over the place with all of our senses and skills, leaving no stone unturned, thus allowing us to pool together all of our wits and expertise. Once we are done with a given room, we move on to the next room, with some of us avoiding notice so as to spring an ambush, another one of us keeping their shield raised, and our final party member scouting ahead to help us get the drop on the enemy."
That seems like a reasonable course of action, but how is such a tactic supposed to be resolved under exploration mode? Does it mean that the characters effectively "take 20" on all Perception checks, discover all magic auras, and use Recall Knowledge on everything that Recall Knowledge would uncover, simply at the cost of time? And then, when barging into the next room, each PC gains the benefit of their choice of Avoid Notice, Defend, or Scout?
If they believe they're under no time pressure, and you know that to be true, then yeah no exploration tactics are needed. So if they stay in a room in an old Osiriani tomb, and that tomb is guarded only by constructs that won't go into other rooms, then strictly speaking they don't need exploration tactics. But that kinda comes down to telling them "oh you guys don't have to worry about the next room, the monster won't come out". I wouldn't do that myself.
But when they get ready to head into the next room, they can adopt new exploration tactics. Say they spent an hour rummaging in the first room, effectively performing Search and Detect Magic tactics. And then they're done. They gather at the door to the next room and switch to Defend, Scout and Avoid Notice tactics open the door.
Time pressure is really the elephant in the room (or in the next room) when understanding exploration tactics. Time pressure can be as mild as the PCs saying "we're going to talk to the next village, and arriving there is our primary goal". So they're not going to comb every shrubbery in the forest. Exploration tactics are basically a quick way of establishing what everyone is doing while on the move. The fighter is expecting bandits and has his shield raised. The rogue is scouting and also has his trapfinding feat to spot snares the fighter might step into. The wizard is taking notes on the flora and fauna of the forest. The cleric occasionally checks with Detect Magic but not too often because they're not really expecting anything important and it would slow them down.
For the sake of simplicity the rules come down to "you can do only one thing at a time". Okay. And they kinda lump together "what" you do (searching, investigating, detecting magic) with "how" (avoid notice, defend). I'm not wild about piling those two things together but that's what they did to keep the rules quick and simple.
"All right gang, let's split up and look for clues!"
Shaggy and Scooby take the seek action, because they're actually keeping watch for ghosts or the kitchen, not really looking for clues. It makes sense that their general paranoia (reflected in a good perception proficiency) would help them keep an eye out.
Velma takes the Investigate action, because she's interested in studying things to uncover indications that the monster isn't what it seems. It makes sense that her knowledge (reflected in good knowledge skill proficiencies) would help her notice clues.
When the monster does show up, Shaggy and Scooby, who are looking around rather than examining stains on tapestries, are the ones who notice it. When there's a green paint stain on the tapestry, Velma, who is examining the room for clues rather than looking around for the kitchen, is the one who notices it.
When the monster does show up, Shaggy and Scooby, who are looking around rather than examining stains on tapestries, are the ones who notice it. When there's a green paint stain on the tapestry, Velma, who is examining the room for clues rather than looking around for the kitchen, is the one who notices it.Is the green paint stain really a decent example? That seems more like something Seek would uncover, not Recall Knowledge, except if it was for a narrow Lore category like Art Lore.
It's a good example. I'd probably use a knowledge check on whatever the monster knowledge is. "Why would a swamp monster leave paint stains?" It also leads to further observations, like where the paint stain is positioned. Their example was writing on the wall, after all.
I'd also use Investigate to notice things like the fact that there aren't any mirrors where you'd expect them, for example.
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If anything, what the exploration mode rules should ideally cover is the "party takes its time" scenario, because it really is rather sparse at that.
I don't agree with you. If the party takes its time and has the luxury to do so, no rules are really needed: They just find whatever there is to find.
However, if something happens while the party is exploring, then it becomes interesting to note what each person was doing in particular. And that's precisely what the rules provide.