If I'm Avoiding Notice and roll a high Stealtch check, and the party triggers an encounter, what advantage did my roll get me before being invalidated by my new initiative roll???
The same benefit and advantage that it gives you for rolling a high Stealth check for Avoid Notice while moving through areas where there are no enemies.
You can certainly claim that the roll has no purpose and therefore doesn't need to be rolled. The roll is called for in the rule though. So removing it is a houserule that you should discuss out with your GM.
Insofar as I'm aware, there are no rules that prevent you from swapping exploration activities whenever you want; only rules that prevent you from doing more than one exploration activity at a time.
That is pretty low metagaming. That is not the way to go if you want to convince your GM to let you not roll your Avoid Notice check while moving around.
Can someone please walk me through an example in which two Stealth rolls are made, one for Avoid Notice and one for Initiative, and both are meaningful?
I'm coming around, but I'm still having issues wrapping my head around the idea that the first roll isn't somehow wasted.
It is very GM dependent. Some GMs are better at exploration mode than others.
The thing is that the two rolls represent very different things - two completely separate periods of time. The Avoid Notice primary roll is to represent how well you are sneaking around for the time before (including just before) you start combat. The Initiative roll - if you are rolling Stealth - is to represent how well you are hiding after Initiative is rolled and before your first turn in combat when you can hide again.
So it is similar to Defend/Raise Shield. If you are using Defend as your exploration activity, then your shield is raised during the combat time before your first turn. If not, you have to wait until your turn comes around before you can use Raise Shield and get the benefits.
Similarly, if you are using Avoid Notice when combat breaks out you can benefit from being Hidden from the very start of combat. If you are not using Avoid Notice, then you have to wait until your turn comes around and then Hide/Sneak during your first turn.
The difference between Defend and Avoid Notice is that Avoid Notice still requires the Stealth check as normal for Hide. The developers decided not to require three Stealth checks by having the Initiative roll do double duty of counting as your Hide check for the in-combat time before your first turn.
How can you benefit from cover bonuses to Initiative if you roll before you know where on the map you're miniature is going to be placed?
The GM is determining all of this. They determine if you can apply a cover bonus to your Initiative roll if using Stealth. They are going to list out your options for your starting position and it will likely depend on your Avoid Notice roll result. Then once your starting position is known, then you can calculate out if you have cover from any/all of the enemies while Initiative is being rolled.
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Hmm... looking at it, I can see a few reasons for two rolls. (Note that this post will assume that after using Avoid Notice, you use Stealth if you roll initiative. All of the second roll's potential benefits are lost if you choose to roll Perception for initiative.)
1) The first roll is assumed (but technically not stated) to be a secret roll. Initiative, however, is not. If you use the initial roll as your initiative, then the GM is required to reveal the roll, thus breaking secrecy. The second roll thus exists to preserve the first roll's secrecy.
2) It's possible for effects to modify an Avoid Notice roll but not an initiative roll, and vice versa. (And, if we assume that Avoid Notice is a shorthand for subordinate Sneaks, it's also possible for effects to modify a Sneak roll but not an initiative roll, and vice versa.) Keeping the two rolls distinct makes it easier to properly apply effects.
3) The first roll is made when entering exploration mode, and the second roll is made when entering encounter mode. They take place during different modes of play, and are assumed to not carry over from one mode to the other.
4) Players aren't actually required to know whether they're being observed while being sneaky, funnily enough. The first roll thus allows the GM to maintain the illusion of opposition, regardless of whether the party is actually opposed or not. If you were only required to roll at the start of Avoid Notice if you're actually being observed, then Avoid Notice would actually be a magical omniscient radar that lets you know whether anyone in the known universe is looking at you or not. ...Meanwhile, if an encounter starts, you now know that you're being observed, and thus get a second public roll so you know whether you're still hidden or not when combat begins.
5) Funnily enough, the initiative roll actually provides a last-minute chance to mitigate the first roll's failure. If the first roll fails, then any opposition has reason to believe you're there, but can't actually prove it. If you then go into encounter mode, a sufficiently high initiative roll allows you to remain hidden when entering combat, either leaving your opponents easy pickings, or forcing them to waste actions searching for you. You also have an opportunity to stealthily exit combat, if you so desire. (More succinctly, the first roll determines whether you trigger an encounter. If an encounter is triggered, the second roll determines whether you enter combat undetected, hidden, or observed. If you only make one roll, it becomes impossible to enter combat undetected, because any result high enough to remain undetected is high enough to avoid combat in the first place.)
6) Logically speaking, the change of conditions might lead to changes in how you try to hide. If you hear someone shouting that they've discovered your friends, you might panic and make a mistake that outs you. Or conversely, you might take extra precautions to make sure they don't find you, too. Having a distinct initiative roll provides a way to model this.
7) And most importantly... combat is optional. If you try to Avoid Notice, you might end up getting in a fight, and you might not. If you don't, there won't be a second roll, because initiative is never needed. If you do, there will be a second roll, both to determine your starting initiative and whether your now-spooked opponents see you at the last possible second.
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It's important to remember that being discovered doesn't necessarily mean the first roll was low. It's entire possible that your party of four rogues got natural 20s on your Avoid Notice checks, but your quarry is as crazy prepared as Batman, and the only way to reach them is a chokepoint with detection magic or infrared sensors; the party's quarry knows you're there, but you're still sneaky enough that they don't know where you are, why you're there, or where you're headed. If you're just passing through and don't want to fight, or you're just there to observe your quarry and report back to base, then you can do so with no problem whatsoever; there's no second roll, because you never start an encounter and never need to roll initiative. If you're there to capture or kill them, then you're doing so on their terms, since they have the home field advantage; everyone involved makes a public initiative roll, and may or may not give your location away based on this public roll.
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It's also important to remember that different encounters might have different DCs. Suppose you're trying to infiltrate a mage's tower, with a security booth at the only entrance, cleaning staff on various floors, and the mage's apprentices & students halfway up. You decide to Avoid Notice, and get a nat 20 on your secret roll; let's say you're Lv.7, and have a total result of 37 (master Stealth, +4 Dex, no items). The security guard's Perception DC is 35, the maids are 14 because they're not paid enough to care, the students are anywhere from 3 to 33 depending on how occupied they are with experiments & studying, and the mage himself is DC 40. Thanks to Avoid Notice, you skip at least three potential encounters, and get to fight the mage with full resources and no minions; it'll take multiple turns for any of the mage's allies to arrive, giving you an opportunity to win and leave before anyone else shows up. Possibly even without anyone knowing you were here! Everyone now rolls initiative; the mage is about to sound the alarm, and you're about to strike. Depending on the results, this can go four ways:
1) The mage can go first but you beat his Perception DC, so he knows you're there but not where you are (letting him sound the alarm, and letting you get in a sneak attack).
2) The mage can go first and you fail his Perception DC, letting him sound the alarm and also target you with a spell.
3) You go first but fail his Perception DC, meaning you can stop him from setting off the alarm, but he's not off-guard and might be able to disable you with a reaction.
4) You go first and beat his Perception DC, leaving a spooked mage watching every shadow in terror, easy pickings for you to drop on from the ceiling; you can stop him from sounding the alarm, and he can't do a thing to stop you.
In this example, we see that the first roll allowed you to skip most of the dungeon and go straight to the end, while the second roll both gives you an opportunity to recover when the first roll eventually does fail, and also determines the severity of the first roll's failure.
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Now, that said, if you want to flatten it into a single roll, and have the initial roll pull double duty as any necessary initiative rolls, that's probably fine too. It can be a good way to save a tiny bit of time, even, if your group tends to sneak around a lot. You'll just want to keep a few things in mind:
1) The initial roll will only be truly secret if you never enter encounter mode. If you go into combat, the results will be revealed; either you have to tell everyone their rolls upfront so they know their initiative order, or you can tell players when it's their turn and which (if any) enemies have noticed them, allowing them to get a rough estimate of their rolls. Or, if you want to save time, you can just have them roll publicly, but act as if they think they passed; this can lead to fun roleplay opportunities, and let anyone who fails poke fun at how their character failed (stepped on a few too many branches, maybe, or accidentally tripped over a garbage bag in the dark alley).
2) Even though you're only rolling the dice once, there are still two distinct "rolls" for mechanical purposes. Remember to apply modifiers appropriately, and that the second "roll" still triggers any actions that rolling initiative normally would! (For instance, if your base Stealth check is 25, you have a +3 bonus to Avoid Notice, and a -1 penalty to initiative checks, make sure to remember that your roll is 28 in exploration mode and 24 in encounter mode! And if you're, e.g., a Monk with Reflexive Stance, you still get your free Stance action when combat starts!)
3) Using only a single roll means there's no last-second recovery chance. If you fail to beat their Perception DC while Avoiding Notice, you'll also fail to beat it when "rolling initiative", since you still have the same roll and they still have the same DC. This makes it impossible to enter combat undetected; depending on your one and only roll, you will always be either hidden or observed upon entering encounter mode. (This is a big one, your party's Rogues might feel unfairly punished unless you give them a second roll to try to enter combat undetected. At which point you're just making two rolls anyways. Make sure to discuss it with the party first; make sure they understand the repercussions of removing the second roll, and that they're still onboard with it, because it's more likely to harm them than it is to help them.)
Good post, Omega Metroid. I'm still not convinced that Avoid Notice should necessarily be rolled in secret though.
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Good post, Omega Metroid. I'm still not convinced that Avoid Notice should necessarily be rolled in secret though.
Thank you, Ravingdork, I'm glad it helped.
As for the first roll being secret, there's nothing that actually requires it to be a secret roll, but there is reason to believe that it probably should be. Mainly in how the activity is tied to the Sneak action, which does want a secret roll.
First, if you enter an encounter while Avoiding Notice, your initiative Stealth check is essentially a public Sneak check with a different name; this hints at a connection, but doesn't say anything about publicity vs. secrecy in & of itself. Stealth feats are interesting, though:
• Terrain Stalker applies a benefit to Sneak, and also to Avoid Notice. This implies that the two are considered to be counterparts of each other, for encounter & exploration mode respectively.
• If following a specific target with Avoid Notice, Shadow Mark gives the target a penalty to their Perception DC for detecting you. When stating that the bonus also applies to their initiative & Perception DC if you enter encounter mode, it repeats the base activity's phrase "as normal for Sneak", strengthening the connection between the two.
• Foil Senses applies to Avoid Notice, Hide, and Sneak, suggesting a connection between the three.
• Legendary Sneak lets you Hide & Sneak whenever you want, with or without cover/concealment, and also lets you Avoid Notice whenever you want, with or without the Avoid Notice activity. This suggests a correlation. If we assume that the first sentence belies developer intent, the Avoid Notice benefit is caused by the Sneak benefit, with the assumption that your character gets free Avoid Notice because all of their movement is Sneak.
It's also notable that legacy Avoid Notice directly mentions Swift Sneak and Legendary Sneak, and explicitly applies Swift Sneak's Sneak benefit to Avoid Notice, suggesting that Avoid Notice is intended to be the exploration version of spending one action per turn on Sneak. It's also interesting to note that the Investigate and Search activities mention secret checks, but don't have the Secret trait; we can infer from this that exploration activities don't need to have the Secret trait to want secret rolls, but we can also infer that if they want a secret roll, they'll ask for it in the activity's description.
Now, all of this provides interesting data, and does suggest that there's reason to keep it secret, but we haven't seen anything that answers the question directly...
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There is one other place we can look, though: The rules for running exploration mode. In the legacy version, it was pretty explicit: The CRB chapter essentially tells us that Avoid Notice is just shorthand for using Sneak ten times a minute, and the GMG expansion confirms that exploration activities are typically based on using one action per turn. The GM Core version confirms that exploration activities are still based on taking one action per turn, and it does still hint that Avoid Notice is the "one Sneak per turn" activity, but the remastered version is unfortunately less explicit than the legacy version here.
And that, in turn, is why we tend to assume the first roll is secret. It's not explicitly required to be secret, you're right about that. But Avoid Notice is essentially ten Sneaks per minute, and Sneak is secret, so most people treat Avoid Notice's first roll as secret for consistency. You don't actually HAVE to make it a secret check if you don't want to, though, just keep in mind that letting your players see the result might convey information you don't want them to have yet, and might spoil a surprise or two for them. (In particular, if they know they rolled low, it's a lot harder to have competent NPCs pretend to not see them, and players might find it harder to believably fall for the trap and/or might unconsciously change the way they RP.) If your group is good at keeping meta information out of their roleplay, making it public can lead to fun times roleplaying the failure, and provide characterisation that success doesn't normally provide (e.g., did they get sloppy because they're too overconfident, did they make critical failures because they lack confidence, did they just trip over something like a banana peel and make too much noice, or was it something else entirely?). But if they're prone to metagaming even when they don't want to, or if they like letting things play out organically and don't want to know the result before their characters know, then they'll probably prefer you keep it secret.
Best to just go with whatever your table enjoys more, IMO; just keep in mind that the average player or GM will probably assume it's secret even if it doesn't say so.
Good post, Omega Metroid. I'm still not convinced that Avoid Notice should necessarily be rolled in secret though.The main point to that is, Would you roll Search in the open? Are you supposed to know the outcome of the roll or are you going to have to see wether or not you did based on the effects that happen. Like with an example using Search and walking past a trapped corridor.
You have yourself asked the question what stops someone from seeing the roll and then simply changing the exploration activity as a result from seeing their low roll. What if you are avoiding notice trough enemies you dont know exist? We don't roll when the roll becomes relevant in order to preserve player agency because when we roll even if randomly for no reason we still affect their decisions. They dont know its trapped but they know something is up if I were to toss a dice. Their first reaction most likely to spend more time trying to figure out what is up.
And as I pointed in another thread, Just because something doesn't have the secret trait doesn't mean its subordinate actions loses said trait like in the case of Investigate and Search which clearly state you are repeatedly using Seek and Recall Knowledge.
You are absolutely correct that when we take the activity on its own it doesn't say anything about it being a secret check. But there is plenty of good evidence that the activity is meant to be viewed as repeatedly sneaking.
So if it is meant to be repeatedly using the sneak action then it is absolutely secret, Otherwise we refer to the rules regarding secret checks
The GM rolls secret checks when your knowledge about the outcome is imperfect, like when you’re searching for a hidden creature or object, attempting to deceive someone, translating a tricky bit of ancient text, or remembering some piece of lore. This way, you as the player don’t know things that...
Though I think Avoid Notice should be secret, I do roll search in public. Some of us have been playing too long to care about secret rolls any longer.
I do triple checks as a player during search of key areas like doors, strange looking passages, rooms, chests, and anything else unusual. I don't even care if I succeed on the first roll, I still check it multiple times just to develop the habit.
I don't think amount of experience is the sole factor here.
From what i've seen there is absolutely a difference in table philosophy between the two of us. Which is understandable. I didnt touch DnD at all outside of Pathfinder first edition and instead was introduced to TTRPG trough Target Games.
And .. im just going to be honest, I don't let players retry skillchecks most of the time. You either have very little in terms of failure or time pressure and succeed eventually provided your proficiency is high enough rank. Boom.. Lockpicking turned into an improvised exploration activity taking the average amount of time it would take a character to get this open.
Sometimes I let them gain an ad-hoc bonus by taking more time similar to Thourough Search, Even telling them how large that bonus is before letting them commit. If someone is comfortable losing a large amount of time its obviously an eventual critical success. But I do keep track of time and fatigue because of this. If a player wants to spend an hour examening a room for hidden compartments thats fine as long its a party decision, it happens rather often when the party needs to heal at low levels.
But most of the time when you fail, Thats it. non-discrete exploration activities are meant to represent several repeated actions already. Take the penalty which in most cases is just lost ingame time, minor damage, lost picks or you missed something. But the table didnt grind to a halt which is the important thing.
I'm not entirely sure if GMCore reccomends something similar, rather I dont remember but I wouldnt be suprised if there are paragraphs that talks about this.
Encounter mode however, Different story.
To my knowledge you can repeat skill checks as long as there is no consequence for failure. They used to have a rule where you could extend the time to search or what not and get a natural 20 guaranteeing success, which they did away with. Now you roll multiple times unless you fail so badly it says you can't roll.
So this is table variation and I guess a house rule on your part denying additional skill checks. I don't much see the problem with additional searching. If the player wants to spend the time, let them spend the time.
We also often have the entire party search the same area or what not as well as the increased rolls are often better for search, though worse for stealth or climbing.
I'd prefer not to punish players for wanting to be extra careful absent a time crunch or additional dangers.
You can repeat checks, yeah. It does feel a bit odd in a game without take 20, though. Part of me thinks it's because of the critical failure penalties on some activities, like lockpicking.
And since the game-play outcomes are both smoother and more favorable to a player actually being able to accomplish the task they set out to accomplish with it being a singular check, made not upon declaration of trying to Avoid Notice or some other nebulous moment of exploration but only once there are actual defined creatures in an actual defined encounter - i.e. when you'd have rolled initiative if none of the characters were trying to Avoid Notice.
You're contravening the exact text of Avoid Notice, and effectively suggesting the player never make any stealth checks at all and only roll initiative.
How could you even tell if an encounter is triggered or not to know to roll initiative?
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This mix of encounter, exploration, and downtime mixes up some DMs I think.
I know when my players reach a door, they want to shift to encounter mode and search/seek checks shift to actions. Some want to force the players to remain in exploration if the encounter hasn't started, but I have no problem shifting between the two. Once the group hits a door, they start checking it using seek actions as you can search a small area like a door with a single search action. So it's not all that time consuming to do three search/seek actions on a door.
Wandering random hallways is another matter and I do generally only allow once search check during exploration search unless the PCs tell me they stop and thoroughly check a certain area, then I shift to encounter and let them do search/seek actions in encounter mode.
I don't like to let the new modes of play screw up how I've always run things. I tend to believe the designers never intended modes of play to interfere with DMs running things like ambushes, searching doors, or the like. They made the modes to make it easier to run wandering random dungeon hallways or wilderness while not expecting it to be so rigid if your players tell you they want to shift to encounter mode to check doors and prepare to enter a room that you can't until initiative is rolled.
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Yeah, I think a lot of people forget that you can use most encounter mode actions in exploration as well. As a result, they default to running exploration in longer chunks of time, and never run exploration on a round-by-round timescale even if the narrative (or the table) would benefit. Knowing to when to speed up and when to slow down is an important part of managing gameflow.
I see exploration mode and exploration activities as a nudge to get new DMs to avoid micromanaged, action-by-action play outside of combat. The game wants to teach them to condense rolls, not worry about having individual players make movements, and so on. It's a good thing to try to codify! But I find the execution somewhat lacking. Run too RAW, it feels worryingly constrained, mechanical, and text-parser-y. And it can imply that all out-of-combat action must be run all loose-y goose-y, when it doesn't have to be. Exploration mode really is something better done with the spirit and not the letter of the rules in mind.
I still run exploration mode about the same as I ran out-of-combat in 1E, as well—at least, the same as I ran it in 1E when the party wasn't trying to juice every last round out of a buff and clear a dungeon in 5 minutes. I just use exploration activities as a guideline when needed, instead of (sometimes improvising) checks as appropriate and deciding how best to pace those checks myself. (And I let people know to tell me if they want to Scout or Defend if they want either relevant bonus. Those are important, but they're unlikely to come up if the players are just roleplaying out exploration mode.)
Yeah, I think a lot of people forget that you can use most encounter mode actions in exploration as well. As a result, they default to running exploration in longer chunks of time, and never run exploration on a round-by-round timescale even if the narrative (or the table) would benefit. Knowing to when to speed up and when to slow down is an important part of managing gameflow.
I see exploration mode and exploration activities as a nudge to get new DMs to avoid micromanaged, action-by-action play outside of combat. The game wants to teach them to condense rolls, not worry about having individual players make movements, and so on. It's a good thing to try to codify! But I find the execution somewhat lacking. Run too RAW, it feels worryingly constrained, mechanical, and text-parser-y. And it can imply that all out-of-combat action must be run all loose-y goose-y, when it doesn't have to be. Exploration mode really is something better done with the spirit and not the letter of the rules in mind.
I still run exploration mode about the same as I ran out-of-combat in 1E, as well—at least, the same as I ran it in 1E when the party wasn't trying to juice every last round out of a buff and clear a dungeon in 5 minutes. I just use exploration activities as a guideline when needed, instead of (sometimes improvising) checks as appropriate and deciding how best to pace those checks myself. (And I let people know to tell me if they want to Scout or Defend if they want either relevant bonus. Those are important, but they're unlikely to come up if the players are just roleplaying out exploration mode.)
I agree. My players like to complete some dungeon areas before a 10 minute buff is up. So they will move in encounter mode through the place.
You can do three seek actions on a door in encounter mode, seems kind of strange you are suddenly limited to one in exploration mode. Doesn't make a lot of sense mechanically when trying to maintain some level of verisimilitude.
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The game is written as if they expect exploration mode to be a usable part of the game mechanics, and exploration activities to be a good thing to use.
If you had a trap that you had a 60% chance of spotting in Search mode, and doing it in encounter mode with repeat Seek actions gave you 10 rolls, that'd result in a (1 - 0.4^10)*100 = 99.99% chance of finding it.
Clearly, that can't be how the game was supposed to work.
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To anyone thinking you'd only roll Stealth once, at what point would you apply the effect of Incredible Initiative?
Presumably, not for every Stealth roll which might result in encounter mode.
Do you apply it retroactively when initiative is called for? That could result in a situation wherein you fail to beat the adversary's passive perception which causes initiative, bumping your Stealth up by 2, and now beating their passive perception.
If our sneak-er was never a position to be noticed before Initiative was called, I can get behind one check. Likely because they are not approaching closer than the non-sneaking characters.
But if the sneaking character is in a position to be noticed by NPCs, such that being noticed would cause initiative to be rolled they need to be making Sneak checks.
That is, if you're not going straight in to rounds immediately. That's probably the most straightforward way. As soon as you're closer enough to be spotted by foes, go into initiative and do sneaking in rounds. But most people don't seem to like that until you're rather closer, because it takes a long time irl and the more times you have to roll, the better odds are you fail.
...Yeah, I think a lot of people forget that you can use most encounter mode actions in exploration as well. As a result, they default to running exploration in longer chunks of time, and never run exploration on a round-by-round timescale even if the narrative (or the table) would benefit. Knowing to when to speed up and when to slow down is an important part of managing gameflow.
I see exploration mode and exploration activities as a nudge to get new DMs to avoid micromanaged, action-by-action play outside of combat. The game wants to teach them to condense rolls, not worry about having individual players make movements, and so on. It's a good thing to try to codify! But I find the execution somewhat lacking. Run too RAW, it feels worryingly constrained, mechanical, and text-parser-y. And it can imply that all out-of-combat action must be run all loose-y goose-y, when it doesn't have to be. Exploration mode really is something better done with the spirit and not the letter of the rules in mind.
I still run exploration mode about the same as I ran out-of-combat in 1E, as well—at least, the same as I ran it in 1E when the party wasn't trying to juice every last round out of a buff and clear a dungeon in 5 minutes. I just use exploration activities as a guideline when needed, instead of (sometimes improvising) checks as appropriate and deciding how best to pace those checks myself. (And I let people know to tell me if they want to Scout or Defend if they want either relevant bonus. Those are important, but they're unlikely to come up if the players are just roleplaying out exploration mode.)
I agree. My players like to complete some dungeon areas before a 10 minute buff is up. So they will move in encounter mode through the place.
You can do three seek actions on a door in encounter mode, seems kind of strange you are suddenly limited to one in exploration mode. Doesn't make a lot of sense mechanically when trying to maintain
Why would it be weird if you're in a dungeon and the next encounter 50 to 100 feet away or less? What do you do if your players say, "We're not stopping. We move to the next room now. Quick search the door, bust it open, and go."
They move round by round in encounter move moving 30 feet per move per round which is up to 90 feet from room to room. They really don't care if they find creatures there because they want the creatures there so they can waste them.
This is one of the reasons I'm always surprised when people say something like, "What if the creatures know we're coming?" and no on in my group cares. They want the creatures to come.
AOE is really powerful as you level in this game. You can decimate groups of mooks withi AOE if they all come. Our group wants to group as many as possible up and blast them.
We run with 5 which usually includes two casters with AOE, two melee martials, and one ranged martial.
If you're playing real low level, we can't use this tactic for maybe the first four levels. Once you hit level 5 and up, pretty easy to move from room to room gathering things up and wasting them.
I usually upon first contact my players will cast heroism and say, "Let's move and take out as many rooms as we can in 10 minutes."
One downside of this though is classes like the psychic aren't built for this. It really harms that class in play. Classes that heavily rely on focus points can't keep up with groups that do this, which is mainly the psychic unfortunately. Every other class I've seen has no problem with this style of play. Martials are especially good at this and casters are good at using AOE to destroy encounters if they are patient waiting for the big damage opportunities.
We move in encounter mode after first contact often in dungeons past level 5. We figured it's a good way to go to extend buffs and use spellpower well when you group up a lot of enemies for the AOE smash.
In general, the game handles repeat checks poorly. At bottom, the incentive to not take an hour meticulously searching a room is time. But time is usually not a significant constraint in PF2E scenarios unless the PCs make it one themselves. If it were a real factor, players would be unable to take 10-30 minute breaks to heal.
So no, I'm not suggesting that a player never make any stealth checks at all and only roll initiative - I'm suggesting that the things which call for stealth checks are themselves actions taken during encounter mode of play.
Okay, so now exploration mode activities are actually actions taken in encounter mode. ...This is a novel take, to say the least.
Why would it be weird if you're in a dungeon and the next encounter 50 to 100 feet away or less? What do you do if your players say, "We're not stopping. We move to the next room now. Quick search the door, bust it open, and go."Because I just put them at the next door saying it took a x rounds/minutes to get there depending on distance, before asking if there is anything they want to do before going trough. Instead of playing the round it took to get there. They are still going to need new initiative rolls either way.
Exploration doesn't mean the heroes take a break, It just means we dont track rounds or actions.
Even if its not a door or a hallway, If they express they want to gogogo I just put them around one corner at a time asking where next or if they want to do something until they find the next encounter.
So you would make them use up more time than they would in encounter mode? Why?
Running it in encounter mode is far easier. They don't want to use rounds or minutes. They want their buffs to stay on and keep going as it preserves magic use for the day. They don't need to slow down.
Move to next door in previous initiative order. Only the monsters need to roll new initiative. Players stay in encounter mode and move to the next encounter in the initiative order using delay actions as needed to set the order for the martials to go first.
But I would not expect players to slow down because the DM can't handle the pace of the players. DMs should not be able to slow players down and the game rules should not interfere with their pace of play. You have to be able to handle the way the players want to play and push. They don't want their buffs tracked down because the DM forces them to wait a few rounds when they can move much faster in encounter mode and don't care about stuff like searching a door too long or what not. They want to go and go now and go fast in encounter mode through the whole dungeon.
To us adventurers are small combat units that are there to clear an area fast to avoid the enemy being able to prepare a counter assault and maximize our resources by extending spell slot use by moving fast.
This is why I get criticized for the way we play all the time being non-standard even though we've been playing this way for 30 plus years across editions. More people have to play this way. We can't be the only ones that use this style of play. Bring the hammer hard and fast, only stop when you must, and keep the opposition on their heels. It was even worse in 3E/PF1 where you could rip whole dungeons apart before buffs even came close to be done. At least PF2 is challenging enough we do have to slow down at times and refocus or heal.
That's literally how the group I ran rise for decided to do things towards the end of book 4. They wanted to see how far they could push the game if they bought buff wands, pearls of power, etc., instead of permanent items. Everyone was on board, so I let them. (And I had additional incentive to let them continue doing it, since they decided they'd just completely skip book 5.)
They were essentially just speedclearing dungeons. And since buff uptime needed to be tracked precisely and the dungeon maps weren't large, things were just done round by round. It almost never takes more than a few rounds to get to the next encounter on a lot of PF1 AP dungeon maps, so it's not -that- clunky.
The criticism here isn't the speed-clearing, its that I find it weird that you are choosing to remain in encounter and tracking actions when you can instead set the gameboard/scene up for the next encounter when you already know how many actions it would take to get there. If I'm making any sense?
You don't actually know that, though. You don't know what they'll want to do along the way, if they'll split up or stay together, if they'll head to a different encounter entirely than the one you're calling the "next" encounter, if someone might accidentally trigger a second encounter, etc.
Really, this assumes very uniform action from the party, and has a touch of railroading in the supposition too.
You don't need precise tracking of actions, You don't need to slow down travel time.
Most people who want a playstyle where you race buff timers would be livid if you didn't track the amount of time left on buffs accurately. Losing an encounter's worth of buff duration off your 10 minute buff because the GM is handwavy will not go over well with that sort of table.
Like, I agree that for most tables, this is a terrible idea. But for the kind of people who are powergaming to make a one minute buff last two encounters, it's a terrible idea to not be precise.
Again Firelion you arent the only one with decades of experience in multiple systems.
As previously stated my experience comes from Mutant, Dragonbane and Kult before Pathfinder even became its own thing.
So for me tracking each action in a round without conflict is meaninless minutia compared to players placing their tokens in the next area and then having the GM tell you how long it takes. Durations tick down from the time it takes to get there and its going to be just as many rounds as if they moved in encounter.
New initative is because those that rolled high are otherwise guaranteed to go first (or last depending on when you break the door down and lets be honest no one wants to be guaranteed last in order.) Also because of abilities that trigger of initiative.
Similarly we have already established that one can improvise exploration activities. I got one called Sprint, Tripple travelspeed(since travelspeed is based on 1 stride per 6 seconds), Three strides a round with a limit on 1+con mod minutes (minimum 1). So I dont see any reason to why you would waste durations either. My point is... if exploration takes longer than encounter if we are just moving from point A to B then something is seriously wrong or its not being applied proper when the entire point about exploration is to obfuscate with a layer of abstraction to fit the narrative.
You don't need precise tracking of actions, You don't need to slow down travel time. You know the group can move 90ft in a single round so they do. While the players are busy placing their tokens I as a GM measure the time it takes to move. (or not, sometimes 10 minutes is long enough that it doesnt matter.)
If the encounter is 90ft away then it only takes 1 round as you sprint.
The criticism here isn't the speed-clearing, its that I find it weird that you are choosing to remain in encounter and tracking actions when you can instead set the gameboard/scene up for the next encounter when you already know how many actions it would take to get there....
I would have to see how you do it. But you remain in encounter because the clear areas from room to room are small. If you can eight rooms within a 100 feet or so, then you why would you need to calculate 90 feet? The next combat is occurring immediately.
Who goes first is less important than order. In general you want martials going first to position at choke points like doors. You're not necessarily going in the room. You're opening the door, creating a choke point your backline ranged and casters can hammer down. You're doing this room by room by room unless there is some reason to adjust.
Even recently we took out a small cavern/dungeon complex. There was no need to count the 90 foot move. The doors and connected rooms were all close.
If we're in bigger areas, I would do it more as you're outline just moving on to the next area in coordinated position tracking rounds it took. But in a tight dungeon, no real need for that.
It would depend on the layout. Many dungeon areas are tight quarters with lots of grouped rooms with far less than 90 feet. Party is more interested in maintaining initiative order than top initiative.
Rogues for example do not usually want to be first in the room. So if they go first, initial actions may be search the door and position next to it to sneak attack usually if they go right before the heavy frontline martial. They'll delay to ensure the heavy frontline martial doesn't move at a time that creates too much of a spread with the rogue. Casters do not enter first, but will AOE hammer a room if they have a clear view.
I think tick down is important for 1 minute buffs. Maybe not as important for 5 and 10 minute buffs, but the 1 minute for sure. A series of close rooms can often be cleared before the 1 minute buffs are even up.
But basically I'm saying you can play in encounter mode for a while if the areas are close. That's why a DM needs to know how to easily manage encounter mode or pseudo-encounter mode which is something less than the 10 minute exploration, but maybe slightly more than strict encounter mode for buff tracking and such. Some groups like to move and clear real fast and operate as a very focused team.
You're telling me that for some reason if I move to a door or something, you're only letting me roll the door search once because I'm in exploration mode where if I switch to encounter mode I can do 3 checks in one round. That is not making sense to me unless it is your house rule to make traps and hazards more dangerous which I can understand. Some tables like more dangerous traps and hazards and multiple search checks finds them more often than not and ranged attackers with the new hit point system can take them out fairly easy or a good rogue.
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Well, this got me thinking. We keep saying that exploration mode is only there for convenience, but I think there's more to it. It's also for handling effects that scale a bit differently.
For example, travel speed. The table in PC1 p. 438 is pretty clear: a speed of 10ft per Stride gets you 100ft per minute, 1 mile per hour and 8 miles per day. Doubling your Speed doubles all those other speeds too.
But if you stayed in encounter mode, you could take three Stride actions per round, so this "clever hack" would let you travel three times as fast in a day. Just stay in encounter mode, don't use Hustle, and you'll be fine.
Or repeating a spell: instead of using the Repeat a Spell activity that makes you tired, just stay in encounter mode and repeat the spell "manually".
I hope you see that this is cheesy?
A way to look at this is that in encounter mode, we ignore some of the "costs" because you're only doing the thing for a moment. We don't track how many Stride actions to you take in a combat to see if you're getting fatigued. At the scale of one combat, it doesn't really matter enough to be worth tracking. But at the scale of an adventuring day, it does matter.
So Seek vs Search is a similar issue. Using Seek multiple times in a round because you really want to find that invisible enemy is fine. If you're in an area where you know there's supposed to be a trap because you had advance warning, or where you were told there's a secret door for example, I'd still be okay with repeat Seek actions. But when moving through a dungeon complex where you have no specific intel about a particular hidden feature to Seek, then I'm not okay with it. Because then it becomes a "clever hack" that gives a far better probability of finding any trap than the Search activity.
Basically, if staying in encounter mode lets you do an encounter-mode variant of an exploration activity far far better, then that's a too good to be true thing.
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So I'm fine with rushing from one encounter to another to milk buffs a bit more. Totally reasonable, you're not making any exploration activity obsolete with that.
I'm not so on board with keeping the initiative order. Because then it basically means that for the first combat of the day you're in a (dice-based) random order, while for the rest of the day your initiative order is far more controlled than you'd get if you just rolled every time. Again, this is using a "clever rules hack" by staying in encounter mode that would give a completely different mechanical result than using the normal exploration mode.
If there's no enemies left, initiative ends. We can still go round by round if it's a short distance, but we can dispense with going in a strict turn sequence, because we'll establish initiative the next time we see enemies.
Now you could say you still want to do Stride and Seek actions instead of going to Search, because it's a little bit faster. But keep in mind that then you're responsible for using Seek actions on defined areas as determined by the GM, and you might need more than one Seek action to check the main path, doors, cupboards and whatnot depending on the amount of clutter.
At this point we might as well use exploration mode, but with an eye towards durations measured in rounds. Exploration mode works fine for "not in a strict initiative order, but still moving swiftly" situations like this. You can just take the party's preferred marching order and determine the slowest effective movement speed in the party, and calculate how many rounds it took them to get to the next encounter.
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So circling back to "exploration does some stuff different than encounter mode for a reason": maybe rolling Avoid Notice only once outside encounters is a feature. You roll only once, so the chance of failure is way lower than if you have to roll for dash between two shrubberies.
Also, maybe the failure condition isn't entirely the same as Sneak either. If you fail to Avoid Notice, you're no longer Unnoticed. But maybe that's all it is - you could still be Undetected, because all you failed to do was avoid getting noticed. It'll be your initiative roll (the second roll for Avoid Notice) that determines if you're going to remain Undetected or if people figure out where you are.
If you put these two things together, then we actually have halfway feasible scouting, which is something a lot of people wish the game had but which seems so really numerically hard to pull off.
But if a failure on the first roll means starting an encounter where you still have some distance to enemies AND you have chance that they don't know exactly where you are before you start running away, then it's starting to look like a sporting chance.
You have accurately summarized my stance in the entirety of the post.
But if you stayed in encounter mode, you could take three Stride actions per round, so this "clever hack" would let you travel three times as fast in a day. Just stay in encounter mode, don't use Hustle, and you'll be fine.This quoted part however is the exact reason the improvised "Sprint" activity I use is limited to 1+con mod minutes. GM-core suggests that activities using more than 1 action per round on average should be treated like hustle which is a two-action per round. With 10+(10*conmod). So anything with 3 actions average per round should be even more intensive than hustle.
Exploration to me is for when I want to veil the nitty gritty of exact squares and what action is used when, because it just doesnt matter without conflict, And the free-form that comes with a non-determinate order lets people discuss before comitting. It doesnt even stop you from using actions that otherwise is purely encounter mode. This is even encouraged.
Ultimately I'm not against staying in encounter mode but I find it a weird decision when a party most of the time is going to want to discuss what they do next after a combat finishes up, What path and preventatives to take and so on while leaving the exact details outside.
There is also the part about retrying checks especially as many systems explicitly do not allow this. But here thats not the case even if I feel some checks shouldnt be allowed to be retried similar to Recall Knowledge.
They already discussed prior to engagement. My players for example already know that as soon as the heroism and haste is cast, we're going until there are no enemies left to drop within a reasonable proximity.
Up to the enemy to be strong enough to force us to stop, which does happen. Some enemies have driven us from the dungeon causing a coordinated retreat. Mostly depends on how much spellpower support they have as the main thing PCs have that monsters and NPCs don't is powerful caster support.
It sounds like you can handle how we play and understand the push.
I guess the point which it seems you understand is exploration, encounter, and downtime are all just tools for a DM to demarcate time. You have to be able to adapt when players push the envelope on time.
I have been pushing DMs on time since I started playing. I still recall playing in a tournament ages past when they did that and one DM handled our hard push easily which kept us in first place and the other DM grew flustered when we pushed him on time which ended up dropping us to 2nd place. It was pretty irritating when a DM can't handle a group of players who push fast through a dungeon immediately assessing and moving with little to no downtime or discussion. One player takes command and we push on.
But there are modules in the elder days like Tomb of Horrors where this is a bad idea and you have to adapt to that while still moving fast enough that when the DM starts counting to 10 you are doing what you need to do to survive whatever insane trap you just set off.
I don't enjoy slow, distracted play. I see no use in wasting time in each room. We don't even search fallen enemies until we drop everything and secure the area. Then we go back and find the treasure.
So circling back to "exploration does some stuff different than encounter mode for a reason": maybe rolling Avoid Notice only once outside encounters is a feature. You roll only once, so the chance of failure is way lower than if you have to roll for dash between two shrubberies.
Also, maybe the failure condition isn't entirely the same as Sneak either. If you fail to Avoid Notice, you're no longer Unnoticed. But maybe that's all it is - you could still be Undetected, because all you failed to do was avoid getting noticed. It'll be your initiative roll (the second roll for Avoid Notice) that determines if you're going to remain Undetected or if people figure out where you are.
If you put these two things together, then we actually have halfway feasible scouting, which is something a lot of people wish the game had but which seems so really numerically hard to pull off.
But if a failure on the first roll means starting an encounter where you still have some distance to enemies AND you have chance that they don't know exactly where you are before you start running away, then it's starting to look like a sporting chance.
Avoid Notice once is a lower chance of failure because of the failure effect of Avoid Notice.
But Searching and rolling once is an increase chance of failure because rolling multiple checks is a much higher chance of success.
So I guess pick your poison. Make the stealth check and fail the search check, set the trap off and experience the pain possibly prior to an encounter.
...Yeah, I think a lot of people forget that you can use most encounter mode actions in exploration as well. As a result, they default to running exploration in longer chunks of time, and never run exploration on a round-by-round timescale even if the narrative (or the table) would benefit. Knowing to when to speed up and when to slow down is an important part of managing gameflow.
I see exploration mode and exploration activities as a nudge to get new DMs to avoid micromanaged, action-by-action play outside of combat. The game wants to teach them to condense rolls, not worry about having individual players make movements, and so on. It's a good thing to try to codify! But I find the execution somewhat lacking. Run too RAW, it feels worryingly constrained, mechanical, and text-parser-y. And it can imply that all out-of-combat action must be run all loose-y goose-y, when it doesn't have to be. Exploration mode really is something better done with the spirit and not the letter of the rules in mind.
I still run exploration mode about the same as I ran out-of-combat in 1E, as well—at least, the same as I ran it in 1E when the party wasn't trying to juice every last round out of a buff and clear a dungeon in 5 minutes. I just use exploration activities as a guideline when needed, instead of (sometimes improvising) checks as appropriate and deciding how best to pace those checks myself. (And I let people know to tell me if they want to Scout or Defend if they want either relevant bonus. Those are important, but they're unlikely to come up if the players are just roleplaying out exploration mode.)
I agree. My players like to complete some dungeon areas before a 10 minute buff is up. So they will move in encounter mode through the place.
You can do three seek actions on a door in encounter mode, seems kind of strange you are suddenly limited to one in exploration mode. Doesn't make a lot of sense mechanically when trying to maintain
Is this the post you're talking about?
I think I've illustrated why you don't need to use the hustle for a minute or what not. Next room is far closer. As you stated you're already rolling initiative in other rooms due to noise which is what I do too often times.
As far as I narrative, I disagree. I think it is worse for the narrative to make a single roll, especially when in movies and stories characters built for finding stuff usually find stuff. With traps often built so even characters good at finding stuff have a 40 to 50 percent chance of finding it leaving a 50 to 60 percent failure chance when that chance should be closer to a 5 or 10 percent or less failure chance, I think rolling multiple times much better simulates a rogue or ranger with Legendary perception, a perception item, and a feat like Trapfinding actually finding the vast majority of stuff in their way.
Narratively speaking they look far more like the super perceptive "I find everything" guy in the narrative they have built to be than the I rolled once with a +2 to 4 and failed again due to how high DCs are set for the rolls.
I want a player who builds to find things to find them almost all the time with rare exception. They built for that. In the narrative they are that guy who you bring because they have almost supernatural perceptive abilities to find almost everything.
As an example, it would be like making Sherlock Holmes and being a Sherlock that finds only half the stuff in a given area. Or a Hawkeye type of super perceptive scout and finding half of what is front of you so your crew was getting hit by traps or not picking up enemies 50 to 60 percent of the time. That looks terrible narratively when you build some rogue or ranger with Legendary perception who is supposed to find stuff.
If it really is that close yes. But thats also another context than moving to the next encounter, Enemies are still nearby and they know you are there, you can hear them shuffling about. The encounter never ended so a discussion on how to handle what happens between encounters isnt relevant.
Otherwise you can just freeform the rounds leading up to the next. Time is just as important within exploration as it is within an encounter, Some encounters you just dont care about because they are under 1 minute. Others you really care about because you only have so many rounds/minutes to complete an objective. Some exploration is taken into 10 minute chunks or even 1 hour chunks. Some measure minutes or rounds.
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And maybe rolling thrice feels more accurate, But Statistically the odds are the same if you give the proper bonus which as I stated is +5-6 in most ^3 rolls, Not the +2-4 that I used for rolling twice. No variance to really care about in this situation here,
Likewise Critical Success doesn't matter if all you care about is finding out if a door is trapped. Two important factors most people dont even consider when it comes to statistics and when its appropriate to combine rolls.The problem I have still with allowing repeats is not that the sherlock holmes with supernatural vision that only fails 10-20% of the time on the rolls that arent in his favor, Its that a character that have no investment and need a roll of 17 still succeeds on a cointoss after the three rolls are done.
And it gets worse when multiple people decide to do the same while waiting for someone to get into place.
The Sherlock might not even be there yet but two of his 'assistants' brute forces a success 3/5 times, before the sherlock even has a chance to move if all they do is stride and two seek actions despite being god aweful at trapfinding. With less time pressure and more people it quickly gets to the point where the lethality of traps does not matter as parties without any trapfinding...
Or you could let them roll three times on every door and develop a system of checking that accomplishes the same bonus, uses an action cost, and makes the player not subject to random dice rolls like rolling a 1 even with a plus 5 bonus. This idea that multiple rolls equate to a certain bonus isn't what I've seen in the games. Most of these calculations are done over thousands of rolls. Where the way the math in games such as these works is a finite number of rolls for a particular task done during that task.
So this idea you get a +5 bonus over 3 rolls done a 100 or a thousand times doesn't change the idea that 3 rolls on a single task with a different percentage chance of success each time doesn't appear to be a +5 if you roll a 1 on that task and fail more often than not.
Each individual roll for each task has a 1 in 20 chance of particular number whether that number is a 1 or a 20. Sure if you roll over a large number of rolls over multiple games it may equate to some average number or bonus, but it doesn't feel that way in the moment.
Which is why you are much more assured of success providing three rolls for the given task at the given percentage.
Then the player must decide with success or failure unknown if they will enter.
All these people on these boards doing math rarely model PF2 math or these games very well at all. They calculate these bonuses for hundreds of rolls coming to an average. It's not accurate.
PF2 and similar game math is based on a singular event that has a failure effect immediately upon failing. So telling someone they get a plus 5 on average bonus rolling twice doesn't matter if in that moment neither dice rolled succeeds.
So you come down to probability of succeeding rolling two or three times on that single event. Just that one. What happens over a 100 or a 1000 rolls doesn't matter one bit.
That's why I've found multiple rolls on a single event vastly improves the chances far more than a single roll with a plus 5 due to the variation in each individual roll.
They may succeed on all three rolls, fail on all three rolls, succeed on two and fail on one, or one of the many variations. But it still only applies to that singular event at that moment and not to what happens if you try that a 100 or 1000 times.
PF2 and similar type of math may roll a d20 3 times for the seek, 1 time for each strike with a MAP bonus, a save, then another attack, then a save, then a combat athletics check. So you're rolling 20 or 30 or more d20 rolls per combat each for a single finite event with a different probability of success and a different bonus with a series of d20s coming up a failure or success occurring in what likely looks like inconsistent variations that add up to some consistent probability of success over a large number of rolls but within that number of rolls might feel like abject failure for one character and amazing success for another.
That's why I don't like using a generic bonus and prefer multiple rolls when I want someone to appear successful at something like searching.
If a party isn't particularly good at it, I've found they get bored of rolling. They like to let the player built for perception do that activity. Same as the player built for athletics does that. They may only try more people if the first fails.
And some DCs are set so high with the double balance mechanics of both requiring a certain perception and a certain probability ensures the DM can manipulate search checks to only be successful for certain high perception characters.
Even once you've found the trap, not a great guarantee you can disarm it or beat it without putting yourself in danger.
PF2 has multiple balance levers which in no way make trapfinding too easy. I found it was too difficult which is why we moved to the system we use with the DM not revealing success or failure unless they find what is there. They waste a lot of search checks on untrapped doors.
To sum it up, in PF2 DM already has tools to make sure the non-Sherlock Holmes, Eagle Eye characters don't find something with the proficiency and DC of the hazard or trap. No use punishing characters built for trapfinding by increasing their chances of looking ridiculous by only allowing a single roll.
I want a player who builds to find things to find them almost all the time with rare exception. They built for that. In the narrative they are that guy who you bring because they have almost supernatural perceptive abilities to find almost everything.
I happen to be one such player.
Not only will my awakened spider rogue be a great ambush predator, she will be a Perception demigod with her eight eyes and extra senses.
- Rogue class starts with high Perception and gets Legendary Perception at 13th-level. She also has Wisdom as he second art stat (only because rogues can't max Wisdom).
- Natural Senses (ancestry feat) gets her darkvision and tremorsense.
- Trap Finder (class feat) gives her a Perception check to spot traps as a non-action.
- Sharpened Senses (ancestry feat) allows her a free action Seek every single round.
- Sense the Unseen (class feat) enables the really of a failed Seek check as a reaction.
So in a single round she can check for a trap 6 times without assistance.
I would be mildly miffed if someone else tried to hone in on that action, even though I fully understand there's little to nothing stopping them from doing so.
...early on there was the inclusion of "cannot retry certain checks until circumstances changes". They chose to lighten it up and put it in the hands of GM for some and explicitly forbidding it for others (Like Recall Knowledge) and downtime activities. So a GM is not only allowed but encouraged to not allow repeatedly attempting these kinds of checks.
So what you're essentially telling me is that my demigod perception build is dead on arrival?
What you described with multiple rolls is Variance. Variance was accounted for. There is no average of a hundred rolls being used, Simply basic knowledge of the interaction between probability and variance. In this case.. its really just as simple as asking what the chance that a character fails all three rolls is. And as said, this is only relevant without critical failure or critical success effects.
70% chance of succees, ~95% chance atleast one of three succeeds.
60% chance of success, ~90%
50% chance of suceess, ~87%
40% chance of success, ~75%
35% chance of success, ~72%That looks like a +5-6 to me with the occasional 7.
Similarly Proficiency isnt really a thing that stops players with how Perception auto-improves for every class.
Probability percentages occur over a larger number of rolls. So converting an increased probability of 25 percent to a plus 5 will not produce the desired result save over a large number of rolls. Not sure why this is hard for you to understand. Probability math such as 2d6 producing 7 is a result that is produced over a large number of rolls as is most probability math.
But that's not what's going on with PF2 combat. I've explained why and it also shows up in experiential play because groups don't play over hundreds of rolls. They experience the feel of failure and success in small discrete units.
That means you have no control over which player experiences the negatives of variance from session to session. It can sometimes seem like the same player is experiencing that negative variance from session to session. It is super frustrating. So you decrease the negative experience of variance by allowing multiple rolls because probability math is produced over a large number of rolls and thus allowing a larger number of rolls decreases the negatives of variance which a flat bonus doesn't accomplish.
Proficiency is a thing. I find it strange you would say that it isn't given only 3 classes obtain Legendary proficiency (Rogue, Ranger, Investigator). Most other martial classes top out at Master. And every caster classes other than the bard maxes out at Expert.
Whereas as there are traps that require Master and Legendary perception to even notice them. You don't even get to roll if you don't have a Master or Legendary perception which makes it so classes with Expert or even Master can't even roll.
Proficiency very much matters and is another lever to manipulate difficulty and narrative. It is done with Perception as well as Thievery, Athletics, and just about any skill a DM wants to create a a feeling of increased difficulty so increased probability due to number of dice rolls doesn't create a success chance of 100 percent as it did in previous editions.
Proficiency levels was a good additional design lever to add to the game for this reason.
@NorrKrekten:
Strictly speaking, you can give a flat bonus to help bring the expected total rate of <success of better> more in line with what you would get from rolling multiple times. But this doesn't perfectly emulate the effects of roll x times, keep highest. A flat bonus pushes the floor and the ceiling of the results higher—perhaps even preventing critical failures entirely, depending on the check and bonus involved—and does not change the probability distribution of the die results themselves. This matters when 1 and 20 remain "special" numbers, and DC over/under by 10 is a crit or crit fail.
You oversimplified the result a bit by reducing it to just a "success rate."