Adjudicating Investigator “meta” feats

[Supes]

How are you all adjudicating the Investigator feats such as “Connect the dots” or “whodunnit” etc?

What tips do you have that can make interaction/game mechanic more fun?

[Cordell Kintner]

I would talk with talk with the player before hand about what they are expecting to do with these feats. They are uncommon for a reason, some GMs are either unwilling or unable to put in that kind of foresight into their games, or players interpret what they do differently than the GM, leading to arguments about the information gathered from the feats.

[Ascalaphus]

When it comes to adjudication specifically (leaving aside what is fun for the moment), I think the key thing is to read the abilities carefully so that you understand exactly what their scope is. A lot of outraged GM reactions in previous discussions have been based on people over-reading what is in there.

Take for example Pursue a Lead:

Quote:

You spend 1 minute examining the details of one potential clue, designating the subject related to that clue as the target of your active investigation. This subject is typically a single creature, item, or small location (such as a room or corridor), but the GM might allow a different scope for your investigation. You don't need to know the identity, purpose, or nature of the subject, but you do need to be aware of its existence. For instance, finding a footprint is enough to investigate the creature that left it, and seeing a hasty sketch of an item or location can be enough to start your investigation of that subject.

You couldn't walk into an office (dungeon) and declare "the management" to be the target of the investigation. However, standing in front of the door of Jenkins, CEO, with his name engraved on the door, you could very well pick him as your target.

Declaring "the people behind this door" isn't gonna work. "The owner of this room that we're standing in front of" might work, but then when you get into a fight, make sure to note the limit on Devise a Stratagem:

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If you're aware that the creature you choose is the subject of a lead you're pursuing, you can use this ability as a free action.

It's not enough for one of the creatures in the room to be the owner. Only if you actually figure out that that creature is the owner, do you get the benefits.

---

This is kind of the general pattern I wanna emphasize: read the abilities carefully and understand them. They have reasonable limits built in, but they're quite new and different from other things like spells, where we all know how to read them and look for the limits.

[Cordell Kintner]

Ascalaphus wrote:

You couldn't walk into an office (dungeon) and declare "the management" to be the target of the investigation. However, standing in front of the door of Jenkins, CEO, with his name engraved on the door, you could very well pick him as your target.

Declaring "the people behind this door" isn't gonna work. "The owner of this room that we're standing in front of" might work, but then when you get into a fight, make sure to note the limit on Devise a Stratagem:

Quote:

If you're aware that the creature you choose is the subject of a lead you're pursuing, you can use this ability as a free action.

It's not enough for one of the creatures in the room to be the owner. Only if you actually figure out that that creature is the owner, do you get the benefits.

Exactly, I've had new Investigator players try to pursue a lead against the boss with no way for the lead to lead them to the boss. Or just pursue a lead to get a bonus on skills.

"I want to pursue a lead on this cliff"
No...

"I want to pursue a lead on what's leaving these animal droppings."
You already know what the animal is, this isn't a mystery.

There needs to be a mystery or some unanswered question. This is a great example from a scenario, where I Pursued a lead that did happen to end at the boss:

Scenario #1-25:

When you first enter the building you hear some haunting music, so I pursued a lead against who's playing the haunting music in this haunted house in the middle of Ustalav. That ended up being the Boss, and it was obvious he was my target since he plays the music in the boss fight.

You can't always pursue a lead, and your leads may not pan out. This is why you can have two leads, and you can always abandon one if you think it wont pan out.

[N N 959]

Cordell Kintner wrote:

"I want to pursue a lead on what's leaving these animal droppings."

You already know what the animal is, this isn't a mystery.

That's not correct, the rulebook cites this very example:

Pursue a Lead p.56 wrote:

For instance, finding a footprint is enough to investigate the creature that left it, and seeing a hasty sketch of an item or location can be enough to start your investigation of that subject.

So a PC can absolutely tag the animal that left the droppings.

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There needs to be a mystery or some unanswered question.

That's also incorrect. There doesn't have to be a "mystery." That's not at all what the rules state. You're misinterpreting this:

Core rulebook p.54-55 wrote:

As an investigator, you think of your adventures as cases waiting to be solved.

This is a statement meant to explain how the class can be thought of, or approached. It is not a "requirement" that there be an actual mystery to use Pursue a lead. A PC can stare someone in the fact, know everything about them, and still designate that person as a lead. It just has to be someone (or something) you're trying to investigate or learn more about, question, or simply interact with..

The RAI of the Pursue a Lead is to make the Investigator that de facto, "best" at mental/investigatory-based skill checks. Just as Fighters are the de facto best at combat. Clue in, is there to make the other players not resent it. In PF1, this accomplished by allowing Inspiration. In PF2, they are using Pursue a Lead.

As GM, you shouldn't be looking for ways to screw over the the players use of PaL. Granted, the scope has to be narrow, but so long as it is sufficiently narrow, anything can be a Lead. It doesn't have to be tied to some larger mystery.

[N N 959]

Ascalaphus wrote:

Quote:

If you're aware that the creature you choose is the subject of a lead you're pursuing, you can use this ability as a free action.

It's not enough for one of the creatures in the room to be the owner. Only if you actually figure out that that creature is the owner, do you get the benefits.

This is a poorly implemented clause, imo. On the one hand, I understand that Paizo may have done this to stop DaS from being used as a dousing rod when trying to track down a culprit, but at the same time, GM and player may not agree on what constitutes enough information for the PC to be certain creature X is the subject of that lead, especially when X is trying to hide its identity.

This is going to cause problems, me thinks.

As a GM, if I think there is a non-zero chance the PC may encounter a subject of its lead and not know who it is, I would explain to the player, in advance, that this situation may arise, and make it clear what the PC would have to know to be "aware." Obviously that may be hard without giving away spoilers, so...

[Ascalaphus]

N N 959 wrote:

Ascalaphus wrote:

Quote:

If you're aware that the creature you choose is the subject of a lead you're pursuing, you can use this ability as a free action.

It's not enough for one of the creatures in the room to be the owner. Only if you actually figure out that that creature is the owner, do you get the benefits.

This is a poorly implemented clause, imo. On the one hand, I understand that Paizo may have done this to stop DaS from being used as a dousing rod when trying to track down a culprit, but at the same time, GM and player may not agree on what constitutes enough information for the PC to be certain creature X is the subject of that lead, especially when X is trying to hide its identity.

This is going to cause problems, me thinks.

As a GM, if I think there is a non-zero chance the PC may encounter a subject of its lead and not know who it is, I would explain to the player, in advance, that this situation may arise, and make it clear what the PC would have to know to be "aware." Obviously that may be hard without giving away spoilers, so...

I don't think it's all that problematic. You have to be "aware" that a creature is the subject of the case you're pursuing. That seems reasonably precise to me.

Suppose you find some tracks. You follow them and end up in a room and you see the muddy tracks lead all the way up to the feet of a guy. Bingo!

Now suppose you're at a murder site and you find a literal calling card. A clue! A few days later you meet a dapper yet suspicious gentleman. You ask him his name and he won't tell. Not good enough for free DaS yet. But then you use your Pointed Question ability and force him to answer the question. He tries to lie to you but you win the Sense Motive check, and now you're pretty sure he's the one that left the calling card. Bingo!

It's a requirement that stimulates the investigator to actually investigate a lot to make DaS work at full power. An investigator is going to be stronger in an encounter if he engages in a few rounds of banter with the other side to maybe confirm his suspicions, than if he wades in trying to catch people unprepared, whoever they may happen to be.

[Ventnor]

Ascalaphus wrote:

N N 959 wrote:

Ascalaphus wrote:

Quote:

If you're aware that the creature you choose is the subject of a lead you're pursuing, you can use this ability as a free action.

It's not enough for one of the creatures in the room to be the owner. Only if you actually figure out that that creature is the owner, do you get the benefits.

This is a poorly implemented clause, imo. On the one hand, I understand that Paizo may have done this to stop DaS from being used as a dousing rod when trying to track down a culprit, but at the same time, GM and player may not agree on what constitutes enough information for the PC to be certain creature X is the subject of that lead, especially when X is trying to hide its identity.

This is going to cause problems, me thinks.

As a GM, if I think there is a non-zero chance the PC may encounter a subject of its lead and not know who it is, I would explain to the player, in advance, that this situation may arise, and make it clear what the PC would have to know to be "aware." Obviously that may be hard without giving away spoilers, so...

I don't think it's all that problematic. You have to be "aware" that a creature is the subject of the case you're pursuing. That seems reasonably precise to me.

Suppose you find some tracks. You follow them and end up in a room and you see the muddy tracks lead all the way up to the feet of a guy. Bingo!

Now suppose you're at a murder site and you find a literal calling card. A clue! A few days later you meet a dapper yet suspicious gentleman. You ask him his name and he won't tell. Not good enough for free DaS yet. But then you use your Pointed Question ability and force him to answer the question. He tries to lie to you but you win the Sense Motive check, and now you're pretty sure he's the one that left the calling card. Bingo!

It's a requirement that stimulates the investigator to actually investigate a lot to make DaS work at full power. An investigator is going to be stronger in an encounter if he engages in a few rounds of banter with the other side to maybe confirm his suspicions, than if he wades in trying to catch people unprepared, whoever they may happen to be.

So... what you're saying is, if an Investigator wants to use their full potential, then they need to... investigate stuff?

[N N 959]

Ascalaphus wrote:

I don't think it's all that problematic. You have to be "aware" that a creature is the subject of the case you're pursuing. That seems reasonably precise to me.

It's precise when the example is cut and dry.

What if the person who has the calling card, found it, or was given the card or set up by someone else? What if the tracks leading from the body are not those of the murder but someone who simply looted the corpse?

What constitute "awareness" isn't cut and dry. Are you "aware" that you age more slowly on the earth than you would up in orbit? If so, are you actually aware of that, or have you just been told that and you believe it?

Merriam-Webster wrote:

AWARE implies vigilance in observing or alertness in drawing inferences from what one experiences.

So my PC could draw an inference as to who the owner of the room must be based on description, where said creature is standing, or whatever. But if you, as the GM, don't believe that information identifies the owner, do you have the right to deny the PC is aware that this creature is, in fact, the owner?

Quote:

It's a requirement that stimulates the investigator to actually investigate a lot to make DaS work at full power. An investigator is going to be stronger in an encounter if he engages in a few rounds of banter with the other side to maybe confirm his suspicions, than if he wades in trying to catch people unprepared, whoever they may happen to be.

There is no requirement that you have to investigate anything to make DaS work. It woks on anyone. The entire reason it works on a Lead as Free Action is for two reasons, both of them meta:

1. Strictly to boost one of the weakest pseudo-martials in boss fights.

2. To pseudo lockdown one of the investigator's leads during the entire adventure. If the Investigator designates the boss as its lead at the start of the adventure, he or she cannot use that Lead slot for anything else if they want be able to designate the boss again, without chewing up a precious feat in Solid Lead at 2nd level.

The Investigator doesn't need to invest in any banter to confirm suspicion in any nominal boss encounter. The Large ogre amongst the goblin is obviously the boss. The NPC who is telling everyone else what to do is obviously the gang leader. The beast that guards the lost relic is obviously the beast guarding the hidden relic.

Let's not invent ways to screw over PCs and undermine what few and weak feats that PF2 provides.

[Cordell Kintner]

Investigators shouldn't just get their main class ability as a free action for "Balance". It's balanced over having to investigate and figure out things rather than just getting free precision damage and all the other bonuses that come with DaS. Also it takes a whole minute and the Ogre boss isn't going to stand there and wait for you to finish studying them.

N N 959 wrote:

What if the person who has the calling card, found it, or was given the card or set up by someone else? What if the tracks leading from the body are not those of the murder but someone who simply looted the corpse?

This is a prime example of why you shouldn't murder hobo. Yes, all signs lead to that person being the murderer, but unless you talk to them and figure out that they aren't, that's going to be the safest assumption should you fight them. As a GM I would give my investigator the free action if they got into a fight with them before talking. As far as they know, they are the murderer.

N N 959 wrote:

So my PC could draw an inference as to who the owner of the room must be based on description, where said creature is standing, or whatever. But if you, as the GM, don't believe that information identifies the owner, do you have the right to deny the PC is aware that this creature is, in fact, the owner?

Investigators are smart, and they make inferences based on evidence. If there's no evidence of someone being the "owner" of the room they can't just say "It must be YOU!" The evidence of the tracks is obvious, that person is obviously involved in the murder somehow and if you murder hobo then yea, in your mind that's the guy. But walking into a bar and seeing a guy behind the counter doesn't automatically mean he owns the joint. The owner could be sitting in the corner with his mob friends talking business for all we know. To know for sure, we must Investigate.

To say that Investigators don't have to do what they are built for to gain their bonuses is just lazy GMing.

[N N 959]

Cordell Kintner wrote:

Investigators shouldn't just get their main class ability as a free action for "Balance".

You mean like Fighters who get to start out with Expert in weapons...just because?

Every single mechanical thing in the game is coded for "balance." All of it. Every. Last. Mechanic.

If you designate the creature who is responsible for the killing, you don't have to "talk to it' for 1 minute, to get DaS as a free action. If that were the case, they would put that requirement in the feat. They didn't. You only have to be "aware" the creature is the subject of your investigation and you know that as soon as you are aware this is the creature doing the killing. It does not take 1 minute of conversation to determine that. Trying to insist the only way you can be aware someone is who you think they are is by 1 minute of conversation is a house rule.

Quote:

It's balanced over having to investigate and figure out things rather than just getting free precision damage and all the other bonuses that come with DaS.

No, it's not balanced over having to investigate things or figure anything out. It's balanced over the idea you ARE investigating things and its purpose is to unequivocally give the class a default advantage at doing so. Are you at all aware of Inspiration works in PF1?

Paizo nerfed Inspiration in PF2, like they did so many other things. They "balanced" it by limiting you to 2 subjects, not allowing to redo a PaL on the same subject, and requiring 10 minutes to reuse one of your PaLs. The "investigate" part is added to stop the bonus from being used for STR/DEX skills. The 1 minute part is added to stop it from being used in every combat on anything that requires a non-STR/DEX/CON skill check. That's obviously to discourage players from dipping into Inv simply to get a free stat bump. In PF1, you could take 1 level of Inv and get a 1d6 bonus on any skill check, and some of them permanently.

Quote:

Also it takes a whole minute and the Ogre boss isn't going to stand there and wait for you to finish studying them.

That's exactly why insisting someone have converstation with a boss to be "aware" this is the subject of their investigation is nonsensical. You would NEVER get DaS as a free action unless the creature were coded to have a talk. That means DaS as a FA doesn't work on an creature that doesn't have language skills or that you can't understand. Sorry, I don't think that's what Paizo intends or wants.

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This is a prime example of why you shouldn't murder hobo.

That has nothing to do with the topic. We're talking about whether it is easy to be "aware" that the creature you've found is, in fact, the subject of your investigation. What does awareness require? It isn't always going to be cut and dry.

Quote:

As a GM I would give my investigator the free action if they got into a fight with them before talking. As far as they know, they are the murderer.

And if they aren't the murderer, are you still giving them the free action? Because if they aren't the murderer and you don't give the free action, then it's immediately obvious to the player that this is not the murderer....because DaS isn't a free action. This is why the "aware" requirement poses problems.

There's a PF2 1st level scenario where it's not clear who the real leader is, not even OOC. One person is being non-magically manipulated by the other. So who is person responsible? Who does the Investigator have to target to get DaS as a free action? I can guarantee you GMs are not going to agree on how to resolve that.

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Investigators are smart

They are no smarter than anyone else with the same INT/WIS score.

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and they make inferences based on evidence. If there's no evidence of someone being the "owner" of the room they can't just say "It must be YOU!"

Rational minds may disagree as to what conclusions the evidence requires. This is precisely why we have trial by juries. A jury's job is to determine what is actual evidence and what it means. If the only evidence is NPC is holding the bloody knife, some may think that's enough and others may say it proves nothing.

Quote:

The evidence of the tracks is obvious, that person is obviously involved in the murder somehow and if you murder hobo then yea, in your mind that's the guy.

The tracks example is brought up to counter your assertion that you can't PaL the animal that left the droppings.

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But walking into a bar and seeing a guy behind the counter doesn't automatically mean he owns the joint. The owner could be sitting in the corner with his mob friends talking business for all we know. To know for sure, we must Investigate.

No, because you could already know the description of the bar owner before you entered. You could already know that he has no employees. You could hear someone call his name and know that is the name of the bar owner. There is no requirement that you have to "investigate" to allow DaS as a Free Action.

You can make that a requirement, but it is unequivocally a house rule.

Quote:

To say that Investigators don't have to do what they are built for to gain their bonuses is just lazy GMing.

And to insist Investigators only get their bonus if there's a 'mystery" or if they talk to the boss for 1 minute, is simply house-ruling.

[shroudb]

An aspect of metagaming is to be expected for meta abilities.

It falls on the player himself to moderate and seperate what the player knows with what the character knows. And the gm to judge if the players is doing so sufficienctly.

That's not different than a player knowing the monster stats that his character shouldn't yet know and act upon that knowledge, it's nothing new and it's something to be expected in rpgs.

My main issue with how DaS works is another one, granting the "character" (not the player) metagame knowledge.

Using a simple example:

You are investigating the leader of a criminal organisation. You follow the clues as you found them, storm the lair, reach what you think is the big bad and battle ensues.

Investigator uses DaS... and suddenly he sees that his stratagem isn't as effective as it should have been against "the target of his investigation".

Now, you can use weird in-game justification like "you suddenly notice that the target doesn't behave and react as you would expect from the target you investigated, so you understand that this isnt the target of your ivnestigation"

It's weird, and it gives metagame knowledge to the character (as opposed to the player).

Or you can scam the player and say that the DaS works fine (so free action) even if the one he's using it against isn't actually the target.

But that's even worse, because that's basically the GM scamming a player. Because even if the player made a wrong call, the character didn't have made that wrong call. The character, by rules, would not have gained a better DaS against the wrong target.
GM scamming the player like that is no different than the player trying to scam the GM by calling every enemy he wants afterwards as "i think that is my target" afterall.

[Ascalaphus]

shroudb wrote:

My main issue with how DaS works is another one, granting the "character" (not the player) metagame knowledge.

Using a simple example:

You are investigating the leader of a criminal organisation. You follow the clues as you found them, storm the lair, reach what you think is the big bad and battle ensues.

Investigator uses DaS... and suddenly he sees that his stratagem isn't as effective as it should have been against "the target of his investigation".

Now, you can use weird in-game justification like "you suddenly notice that the target doesn't behave and react as you would expect from the target you investigated, so you understand that this isnt the target of your ivnestigation"

It's weird, and it gives metagame knowledge to the character (as opposed to the player).

I agree that this is what would happen, but I don't agree with you that that would be a bad thing.

Your investigator thought he was facing the boss, but there are just glitches in how he thought the boss would because based on prior evidence, which leads him to question the assumption that that person over there is really the boss he's been chasing.

Seems fine to me.

But it does introduce us to a new set of finer-grained distinctions:

True Positive: you're fighting your target and you know it -> you get free strategy.

False Positive: you're fighting someone who turns out not to actually be the subject of your investigation -> you don't get free actions, but you do gain new information.

True Negative: you're not fighting your target and you didn't think you were -> no free actions.

False Negative: you don't realize you're fighting the subject of your investigation -> so you don't get free actions.

[Watery Soup]

Fundamentally, I wish Paizo gave a little more guidance on the intended scopes using complicated examples, rather than using simple examples.

Which animal left droppings is a very simple example. Even the footprint example is pretty straightforward.

Let's say PCs find a well in town, and the well contains a loose brick with a Treasure Bundle (or a dastardly note from the BBE) behind it. What constitutes a valid lead? Can the well be a subject of investigation? Does looking for treasure or knowing the BBE left a note somewhere in town generate bonuses for different areas?

It would also help if, in the first few PFS scenarios of Season 2, guidance were given on what are valid leads, what are invalid, and which are subject to GM interpretation.

I see GMs as lagging behind players in their comfort with adjudicating investigators, and that's setting heterogeneous expectations.