The secret rolls are negotiated with you and your players. The CRB just suggest it:
This rule is the default for actions with the secret trait, but the GM can choose not to use secret checks if they would rather some or all rolls be public.
Besides that usually you don't need to do secret checks for your players in most perception checks. Just most active hazards like creatures hiding is where I'm usually do secret checks. (depending from who have the initiative, if monsters notice the players before they can roll Stealth actively vs players perception DC, if not the aren't hiding at all and no secret test is needed) For the passive things like traps they are always hided by default. So to the player need to do the test actively to search them. (but this can change if someone has some passive feat to detect things).
In a case of the players have to use secret passive perception, if a creature tries to hide from them, but don't try to use it initiative advantage against the players and choose to wait, it's fair to allow players to actively do checks in their turn to find even if they don't notice it from the beginning. Because was a choice of this creature to wait, so this increses the risky to be found.
The secret rolls are negotiated with you and your players. The CRB just suggest it:
This rule is the default for actions with the secret trait, but the GM can choose not to use secret checks if they would rather some or all rolls be public.Besides that usually you don't need to do secret checks for your players in most perception checks. Just most active hazards like creatures hiding is where I'm usually do secret checks.
That just makes it really obvious though.
"Guys, he rolled a secret check. There's something here. Keep looking."
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The secret rolls are negotiated with you and your players. The CRB just suggest it:
This rule is the default for actions with the secret trait, but the GM can choose not to use secret checks if they would rather some or all rolls be public.Besides that usually you don't need to do secret checks for your players in most perception checks. Just most active hazards like creatures hiding is where I'm usually do secret checks.That just makes it really obvious though.
"Guys, he rolled a secret check. There's something here. Keep looking."
It doesn't have to be. I roll dice all the time when I GM. Sometimes, if things are going slow, I'll just pick up some dice and roll them. Keeps players on their toes.
Another technique I've seen GMs use is to roll out a number of perception checks for each player at the start of the session and write them down. Then they can refer to the rolls as needed without having to alert the players that they are making a secret check.
My style with secret checks vs players rolling is that if a player says they want to actively do something, I let them roll their own check. If I want a passive chance for them to notice something, I roll it myself. This just comes down to personal preference and how much of the meta you are comfortable with leaving in your players' hands.
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How much value secret checks have foes depend a lot on how groups play.
For example, if you (or your players) are checking a door for traps and roll a 1, do you open the door that you know to be safe, or ask if someone else can check it, too?
If you answered "open the door", rolling your own checks should work fine.
In the other case, keeping the checks secret would be better.
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Like it says. I'm GMing a game. (Pretty new amd so our my players) we got talking and I know the rule books says most perception checks for searching and seeking is a secret check. My players want to be able to after I roll a secret check to be able to call out like "I look for hazards" to be able to look for them without a secret check. Should searching for hazards, items, etc etc be left to secret or have them take the secret roles out like they want.
There's two different things here.
One is repeating the Seek action. Yeah, players can do that. If they're facing an ominous-looking door that looks like the obvious place for a trap, they could decide to Seek three times each just to be sure.
The other is secret checks. Seeking is a secret check, even if the player calls out they want to do it again. If they Seek three times in a row, then you roll three secret checks.
So it would go something like this:
GM: You come to a portal with a big heavy door, and the portal has a lot of dials with what looks like abyssal runes on them.
Bob: I want to Seek for traps, I don't trust this door.
GM: (rolls a secret check) You don't see any traps.
Bob: Just to be sure I'll Seek again.
GM: (rolls another secret check) Still no traps.
Bob: I dunno, there's just something about this door that rings a bell somewhere. I'll Seek one more time.
GM: (rolls a third secret check, this time with a natural 20 that gets a success against the ridiculously high DC) You realize the door is indeed not what it seems, it's not a trap, it's worse, it's...
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It would be so much easier to just bring back taking 10 and taking 20 for things that have no failure consequences and that have no real time constraints. The difference between the entire party making 10 secret Seek checks to search a room for treasure and just being able to Take 20 isn't worth the removal of the rule.
See I'm not actually sure you can reroll checks to search a room in exploration mode, but I don't have a page to cite, just memories of it being discussed during the playtest. I'd need to comb through the rulebook to make sure, and maybe the GMG.
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If you're in a dungeon or any similar area, there is no reason you can't drop into Encounter mode and use Seek actions to your heart's content.
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See I'm not actually sure you can reroll checks to search a room in exploration mode, but I don't have a page to cite, just memories of it being discussed during the playtest. I'd need to comb through the rulebook to make sure, and maybe the GMG.If you can find this role anywhere please share it. This is another issue that was brought up during game play. One of my players did make a good point though. "In exploration mode you arent normally in a hurry so you should be able to search a room over and over. Like if you lost your keys somewhere you cant only search for them once."
I personally would like to have searching/seeking a room for items/hazards only once or twice. Because like I said before. Searching 5+ times every room to make sure you dont get hurt my anything would be annoying.
I think the idea is that when you aren't in encounter mode you would already be taking your time to thoroughly examine your surroundings-- and if you didn't spot the thing when doing so, doing it again is unlikely to yield different results. To use the keys example, my fiance will often lose her keys or glasses or what have you. She will look all over the house repeatedly and not be able to find whatever it is. But if she asks me to help, I may think to look in the one place that never occurred to her.
She's trying to repeat the perception check, but she's already exhausted her ability to examine this area. I had yet to roll mine, and then succeeded. It is also kind of like how if you fail a knowledge check you don't get to reattempt it.
I dunno. Again, I'm going from memory. But it does keep the game moving. In general I think the point of the Search exploration tactic is that your players don't have to declare they are searching every door or hallway they come across and make unnecessary rolls. We just assume they do so and only roll when their is something to find-- or have them roll at the beginning and then carry it over until there is something to find.
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Real world you can obviously spend more time to search more thoroughly and I don't see any reason you can't do that in game as well. When there's traps involved though, it is possible one might set them off while searching if they didn't find them. Otherwise, the only loss is time spent.
One way to deal with this situation is to ask the players how much time they would like to spend searching the room before they decide to move on. This mimics how most people would approach searching an area in real life. Then you can fast forward and say OK, you spent half an hour and didn't find anything, or after 5 minutes you discover a secret door, or whatever.
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It would be so much easier to just bring back taking 10 and taking 20 for things that have no failure consequences and that have no real time constraints. The difference between the entire party making 10 secret Seek checks to search a room for treasure and just being able to Take 20 isn't worth the removal of the rule.
Take 10 and 20 are different things, and I would say they've been removed from PF2 for different reasons.
Take 10 represents routine, you're confident in your skill and there are no distractions. PF2 has a different take on skill use: you shouldn't be rolling for routine things so much. If you have to make a check, there should be a risk of failure (and your story should be written so that failure also takes the story forward somewhere).
Take 20 represents "if I try long enough I'll succeed". For that the PF2 philosophy is "in that case don't bother rolling, you just succeed". If something is hidden in an area but searching long enough will reveal it, then no roll needs to be asked for.
So if the party really has that much time to exhaustively search a room for treasure, then they should just find it, you don't have to have everyone roll 10 times. You'd be asking for a roll if they don't want to spend time exhaustively searching, because they have to be on time to save the dragon from the evil princess.
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See I'm not actually sure you can reroll checks to search a room in exploration mode, but I don't have a page to cite, just memories of it being discussed during the playtest. I'd need to comb through the rulebook to make sure, and maybe the GMG.
Exploration mode as written is rather rigid - you can't do two things at once, you can't do things doubly careful etc. etc.
But the key thing about Exploration Tactics is that these are things you do while moving about. There are lots of exploration activities that you do while stationary - treating wounds, repairing shields, refocusing, identifying magic items. But the tactics are intended to answer the "while walking, what else do you do" question.
So I think that explains why there just isn't quite a provision for searching twice - you're moving along, and poking before you step into things.
If you're in a dungeon or any similar area, there is no reason you can't drop into Encounter mode and use Seek actions to your heart's content.
Agreed. If there's a particularly suspicious/interesting area you can decide to "hit pause" on exploration mode and do a couple of extra Seeks.
I think the best way to understand exploration mode is that it's a sort of "camera fast-forward" that speeds up play. Instead of moving twenty miles through the forest in 25ft strides, you just describe your general manner of moving, until you run into something interesting that makes the camera slow down again.
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<snip>That's kind of how I wanted to do it. I want to be able to roll secret checks and to be able to also do passive secret checks. Makes me feel a little more involved as a GM. I wanted to bring this up with my players tonight but we had to cancel. I just want to find a middle ground with my players. One of the players I guess doesn't trust anyone making a check for him and wants to be able to roll everything himself but I feel doing this removes suspense. I also thought you could only roll search/seek checks once when exploring. That also came up. Because I know that same person who wants to roll every check himself if he knows he failed or thinks he did. He would want to do it 5+ times.
I think now we're coming to the actual problems.
1) One player doesn't trust secret checks. He wants to be rolling the checks himself.
2) The other one doesn't want to fail and will insist on retrying if he thinks he failed a check.
This is something you need to discuss with your players. As you can see, these two player desires are contradictory. If one player wants to roll himself and see the result, and the other one doesn't want to accept failure if he knows there's failure, then this party will never allow itself to fail any check. That defeats the point of having a challenge that you can fail or succeed at.
You need to discuss how part of the game is accepting that sometimes, you get hit. We don't require enemies to reroll attacks until they miss; why should we make it impossible to stumble into traps? PF2 has a strong premise of "you win some, you lose some". Writing a good adventure in PF2 requires that the author keeps in mind that the PCs won't succeed at all the checks, so victory should not depend on getting 100% score. When that's done well, you get an adventure where you win while overcoming some setbacks. To me, that's more satisfying than never actually getting hit by any setbacks.
That's mostly dealing with the second player's issue; what about the first?
People are weird about dice. Some people are very superstitious, insisting that other people handling their dice may suck the luck out of them, or that some people always roll better than others. Most of this is probably delusion, although it's also likely that the majority of all dice are not entirely fair (cheap production processes cause bubbles in the plastic which makes the weight distribution uneven, causing the die to favor one side).
If the player's issue is that he doesn't trust you to roll as well as he would himself, or if he wants to be responsible for his own failures then you can do the approach of letting him pre-roll a long strip of perception checks. Then, you randomly pick a point in this list to start at and every time you need a result, you cross off the next one on the list and use it. That way, it's his results that you're using, but he doesn't automatically know whether you're currently in a good or a bad part of the series.
If the player's issue is that he doesn't trust you to be fair with his checks, that's a different problem. As a GM, you can be tempted to make people fail a check when the actual die roll was a success, because "it would be more interesting if they failed" or "because it's needed for the story". Resist that temptation. You don't want to burn this trust. If your adventure depended on people missing a check, that's a flaw in your adventure. As I said above, the adventure must be winnable even if the players miss some checks; the reverse also holds. If the players unexpectedly pass a really hard check, that shouldn't break the adventure either. It might become a lot easier, but that's okay. As a GM you might be a bit disappointed but as a player it can be really sweet when the GM says "well this was supposed to be much harder because of the rogue backstabbing you with poison in the first round, but you beat his really good stealth". Players love it when they beat the odds.
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I usually don't allow re-checks during a dungeon exploration not only to avoid the player "just roll perception until the dice give's them a 20" (what is a metagame) but also to represent the tension behind staying too long in a dangerous place.
The most chars know how dangerous is stay in a unknown dark hostile place where something can hurt you from nowhere, this make they have little patience to stay too long searching for every detail.
They can choose to do active and more detailed searches in order to find secrets, traps or even creatures hiding or they can just rush the room to avoid being surrounded or just because they know that is not too smart to stay longer in most dangerous places. But if some player insists to try to recheck I normally ask they to do a will check against a incremental CD (normally starting with 10 and increasing by 5) and at every fail I add a +1 stupefied (+2 if crit fail) for 1 min, after +3 I just say that someone lost the patience and there's no more success chance. This usually is enough to avoid abuses and helps they to understand better the situation where theirs chars are.
Another thing that make's me think that is no good to allow then to freely do re-checks is the Elfs Ageless Patience Feat:
You work at a pace born from longevity that enhances your thoroughness. You can voluntarily spend twice as much time as normal on a Perception check or skill check to gain a +2 circumstance bonus to that check. You also don’t treat a natural 1 as worse than usual on these checks; you get a 40 critical failure only if your result is 10 lower than the DC. For example, you could get these benefits if you spent 2 actions to Seek, which normally takes 1 action. You can get these benefits during exploration by taking twice as long exploring as normal, or in downtime by spending twice as much downtime.
The GM might determine a situation doesn’t grant you a benefit if a delay would be directly counterproductive to your success, such as a tense negotiation with an impatient creature.
This Feat make's me to interpret that is not in game design to repeat perception tests based in how much time a char stay searching. The CRB prefers to allow a char to take more time searching and gives a bonus for this instead if he/she have enough patience for this. There's also other examples and instructions in Game Mastering ch. saying to reuse the results for repeated tests instead of re-roll.
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Several people have mentioned using pre-rolled dice for secret checks. That's what I do too.
I have each player roll 20d20 each time they level up, and write the results down on a sheet I created that also has their save bonuses, as well as perception, thievery and stealth bonuses and related proficiency levels. They write the rolls in two columns of ten, and for each player I randomly determine which column I start with and whether I go up or down. I then refer to this sheet for secret checks during the game and the players don't even realize when I am doing it. Of course if they are actively asking for a check that is secret I just ask for their modifier and use the next result.
One of my players is so interested in verisimilitude that he has me roll the 20d20 for him, so he really doesn't know anything about secret checks other than what I tell him.
As others have said, this method requires trust, but if that is lacking at a table then frankly there are bigger problems to worry about.
I have each player roll 20d20 each time they level up, and write the results down on a sheet I created that also has their save bonuses, as well as perception, thievery and stealth bonuses and related proficiency levels. They write the rolls in two columns of ten, and for each player I randomly determine which column I start with and whether I go up or down. I then refer to this sheet for secret checks during the game and the players don't even realize when I am doing it. Of course if they are actively asking for a check that is secret I just ask for their modifier and use the next result.
Thanks for sharing. I like this method & will steal it. One modification: for active checks, we like the clatter of dice & either get the player to drop into my dice tower arranged so only I can see the result (if at home) or get the player to roll their dice through a cunning gap I have in my GM screen (if I don't have the tower with me).
That just makes it really obvious though.
"Guys, he rolled a secret check. There's something here. Keep looking."
Well, non-secret checks have that problem on top of also giving away the information of whether you failed at the check (if you roll low, you are less likely to trust the information that there isn't anything there).
I guess the ultimate way to make it least obvious is to roll 10d20 for each player before the game, and write down the results beforehand so you can just look at your list of results and check them off instead of rolling in front of the players.
Hellknight Hill is a great example.
Everyone has had the experience of spending 15 minutes searching the fridge for something and not finding it, telling your father that you are out of said thing, and then having him say "Show me.", only for you to open the fridge and see said item staring you right in the face.
Hellknight Hill also has several instances of "if the PCs spend x minutes searching OR succeed at a DC xx Perception check, they find...." You can find things by luck while searching or find them automatically by spending enough time. So if you don't make your secret check, you can take 20 spend some time searching.
And, as Aratorin says,
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From the GMG:
PCs might get to attempt another check if their initial search is a bust. But when do you allow them to try again? It’s best to tie this to taking a different tactic. Just saying “I search it again” isn’t enough, but if a PC tries a different method or has other tools at their disposal, it could work. Be generous with what you allow, as long as the player puts thought into it! If you know a search isn’t going to turn up anything useful, make that clear early on so the group doesn’t waste too much time on it.
Seems like being able to repeat the same Search over and over isn't supposed to be allowed.
From the GMG:
PCs might get to attempt another check if their initial search is a bust. But when do you allow them to try again? It’s best to tie this to taking a different tactic. Just saying “I search it again” isn’t enough, but if a PC tries a different method or has other tools at their disposal, it could work. Be generous with what you allow, as long as the player puts thought into it! If you know a search isn’t going to turn up anything useful, make that clear early on so the group doesn’t waste too much time on it.Seems like being able to repeat the same Search over and over isn't supposed to be allowed.
See, to me that says it's absolutely supposed to be allowed. I search again, but this time I tap any stones that look loose with my 10 foot pole. I search again, this time using my darkvision goggles. I search again, this time using Produce Flame to remove any scrub brush in my path.
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The paragraph preceding that one in the GMG is also quite relevant:
MORE ON SEARCHING
The rules for Searching deliberately avoid giving intricate
detail on how long a search takes. That’s left in your hands
because the circumstances of a search can vary widely.
If the group isn’t in any danger and has time for a really
thorough search, that’s a good time to allow them to
automatically succeed, rather than bothering to roll, or
you might have them roll to see how long it takes before
they find what they’re looking for, ultimately finding it
eventually no matter the result. Conversely, if they stop
for a thorough search in the middle of a dungeon, that’s
a good time for their efforts to draw unwanted attention!
I think this fits within the general philosophy at work in PF2 that replaces the Take 20 uses of PF1: if you can and will keep trying something until it works, then just let the PCs succeed without a roll.
If the amount of time it takes is "interesting" then a roll can be used to determine how long it takes to succeed.
To me what that means is if the players know they're looking for something let them succeed, and tell them how long it takes and what happens during that elapsed time.
Of course, there are many checks where you don't know you're looking for something and I can't abide saying that there is any circumstances where you would automatically succeed. Or even that you would get to roll it again.
In the case of a secret door as you're walking past, as a GM I'm going to roll a single secret check and if you succeed you spot it. But I'm not going to make spotting the door integral to the plot either, so that a failed check would derail things.
The paragraph preceding that one in the GMG is also quite relevant:
Spoiler:MORE ON SEARCHING
The rules for Searching deliberately avoid giving intricate
detail on how long a search takes. That’s left in your hands
because the circumstances of a search can vary widely.
If the group isn’t in any danger and has time for a really
thorough search, that’s a good time to allow them to
automatically succeed, rather than bothering to roll, or
you might have them roll to see how long it takes before
they find what they’re looking for, ultimately finding it
eventually no matter the result. Conversely, if they stop
for a thorough search in the middle of a dungeon, that’s
a good time for their efforts to draw unwanted attention!I think this fits within the general philosophy at work in PF2 that replaces the Take 20 uses of PF1: if you can and will keep trying something until it works, then just let the PCs succeed without a roll.
If the amount of time it takes is "interesting" then a roll can be used to determine how long it takes to succeed.
Yep, makes sense because as the perception is no more a skill, so everyone in a party have it. Now basically what make's diference between chars perception is their class abilities (all martial and specialist classes, except for the monk and champion, have high grade in perception and the ranger is the only one can achieve legendary perception) and some ancestries feats that allow to bonus perception checks in some circumstances.
But there's still some situations where simply without takes 20 allow they have success when there's no possible. For example if there's a very well hidden stone door with CD 34 that hidden rare valuable treasures, a LVL 7 party usually as never able to find it, but if this same party have a dwarf/elf fighter/thief/ranger with Ageless Patience or Stonecunning they will able to find it. If we simple auto find ignoring this little diferences between chars abilities we will ignore the players effort building their chars.
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Yep, makes sense because as the perception is no more a skill, so everyone in a party have it. Now basically what make's diference between chars perception is their class abilities (all martial and specialist classes, except for the monk and champion, have high grade in perception and the ranger is the only one can achieve legendary perception) and some ancestries feats that allow to bonus perception checks in some circumstances.
But there's still some situations where simply without takes 20 allow they have success when there's no possible. For example if there's a very well hidden stone door with CD 34 that hidden rare valuable treasures, a LVL 7 party usually as never able to find it, but if this same party have a dwarf/elf fighter/thief/ranger with Ageless Patience or Stonecunning they will able to find it. they will able to find it. If we simple auto find ignoring this little diferences between chars abilities we will ignore the players effort building their chars.
First off, where are you getting DC 34 from? Since it's not a nice round number from the simple DCs table, is it coming from the level-based DCs table? Because for a level 7 party that's still higher than typical for a level 7 challenge with "incredibly hard (+10 DC) adjustment". So I'm guessing this is just some random number that you plucked out of the air?
But it's actually entirely doable for the party to find it. Let's say they have a cleric using Search tactics. A level 7 cleric has Expert perception, about 18-19 Wisdom, so a 7+4+4= +15 Perception, meaning he needs to roll a 14 to find it.
A level 7 Ranger has Master perception, and Wisdom of 14 doesn't seem to be unreasonable for a ranger either since it boosts Nature and Survival, stuff rangers like to be good at. He also has a +15 Perception. Since he's good at it, he's also going to be Searching.
So then the odds of neither of those guys making the check is (14/20)*(14/20)=0.49; in other words, there's a 51% chance that at least one of them finds it.
(all martial and specialist classes, except for the monk and champion, have high grade in perception and the ranger is the only one can achieve legendary perception)
Rogues also receive Legendary Perception. As will Investigator based on the Class Playtest (and that specifically seems unlikely to change).
Yep, makes sense because as the perception is no more a skill, so everyone in a party have it. Now basically what make's diference between chars perception is their class abilities (all martial and specialist classes, except for the monk and champion, have high grade in perception and the ranger is the only one can achieve legendary perception) and some ancestries feats that allow to bonus perception checks in some circumstances.
But there's still some situations where simply without takes 20 allow they have success when there's no possible. For example if there's a very well hidden stone door with CD 34 that hidden rare valuable treasures, a LVL 7 party usually as never able to find it, but if this same party have a dwarf/elf fighter/thief/ranger with Ageless Patience or Stonecunning they will able to find it. they will able to find it. If we simple auto find ignoring this little diferences between chars abilities we will ignore the players effort building their chars.
First off, where are you getting DC 34 from? Since it's not a nice round number from the simple DCs table, is it coming from the level-based DCs table? Because for a level 7 party that's still higher than typical for a level 7 challenge with "incredibly hard (+10 DC) adjustment". So I'm guessing this is just some random number that you plucked out of the air?
But it's actually entirely doable for the party to find it. Let's say they have a cleric using Search tactics. A level 7 cleric has Expert perception, about 18-19 Wisdom, so a 7+4+4= +15 Perception, meaning he needs to roll a 14 to find it.
A level 7 Ranger has Master perception, and Wisdom of 14 doesn't seem to be unreasonable for a ranger either since it boosts Nature and Survival, stuff rangers like to be good at. He also has a +15 Perception. Since he's good at it, he's also going to be Searching.
So then the odds of neither of those guys making the check is (14/20)*(14/20)=0.49; in other words, there's a 51% chance that at least one...
Was just an example, I'm just trying to say that depending of the party and circumstances auto-success are not good applicable and take a 20 helps to know if is possible or not.
(all martial and specialist classes, except for the monk and champion, have high grade in perception and the ranger is the only one can achieve legendary perception)Rogues also receive Legendary Perception. As will Investigator based on the Class Playtest (and that specifically seems unlikely to change).
Really!? I didn't found Legendary Perception in my book or in SRD:
https://pf2.d20pfsrd.com/class/rogue/
Really!? I didn't found Legendary Perception in my book or in SRD:
https://pf2.d20pfsrd.com/class/rogue/
Incredible Senses at level 13. It's at your link, too.
Thank you.
I didn't found because I was searching for Legendary Perception