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When it comes to deciding whether or not you should use exploration activities vs other options, I always start by asking my self, does it seem likely that round by round activities will/can matter?
If so, then you're not in exploration mode (even though you might not be in combat, if tracking individuals rounds is or might be relevant you end exploration mode).
So if you were starting a dungeon by listening at the first most exterior door, that might still be exploration. Afterwards, it's probably best to track by each round. Which means (for me) it's valid to say "I go to the door and listen, can I make a perception check?".
And honestly, as the GM I'm probably running that first door as not exploration either, assuming the party is trying to by "stealthy" and ascertain if enemies are present and not just opening the door.
Would Search apply to that as much as to traps on the door?
That is what I would do. Treat it like anything else that can be detected via exploration activities.
Traps
Other hazards
Hidden creatures / unexpectedly dangerous plants
Secret doors
Important objects
Yesterday in Explain to Me Your Worst Class comment #79, Deriven Firelion said:
They created Downtime, Exploration, and Encounter mode for inexperienced players to have some idea of how to run each type of mode.
For experienced players and DMs, you don't need these rules. You've been using them for years and know how they run. It helped some to have them codified, but it wasn't necessary. When you've played for years, you know how to run dungeons, overland travel, crafting during downtime, and the like.
They aren't helpful to my group. We run encounter mode all the time in dungeons or areas we clear. We clear them in less than 10 minutes. We would never let a DM try to put us in exploration mode when we don't need it.
...
I treat the modes like Deriven Firelion does. They are tools for common uses, but for a few uncommon situations more flexibility is necessary. I often declare a mode that is part Encounter Mode and part Exploration Mode in which the players take turns without a turn order. So one PC could take a Seek action to listen at a door and the rest of the party could be Avoiding Notice in Exploration Mode in order to avoid being overhead through the door.
This comes up more often when Interacting to Open the Door. If one PC volunteers to open the door and then the party rolls for initiative, the PCs who rolled higher would stand around waiting for the volunteer to open the door, a waste of a good roll. The guards inside the room also waste good rolls. Ironically, if the guards rolled low they would have better timing. Thus, I let the volunteer open the door as an inciting incident before initiative is rolled. This does not penalize them, they get their turn like usual.
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but I don't think it's RAW.
lol. We are talking about Exploration mode here. The rules are deliberately a bit lax. More like guidelines.
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Part of it is that I want to skip dropping out of exploration at every door, especially those cases where there isn't a combat waiting on the other side.When it comes to deciding whether or not you should use exploration activities vs other options, I always start by asking my self, does it seem likely that round by round activities will/can matter?
If so, then you're not in exploration mode (even though you might not be in combat, if tracking individuals rounds is or might be relevant you end exploration mode).
So if you were starting a dungeon by listening at the first most exterior door, that might still be exploration. Afterwards, it's probably best to track by each round. Which means (for me) it's valid to say "I go to the door and listen, can I make a perception check?".
And honestly, as the GM I'm probably running that first door as not exploration either, assuming the party is trying to by "stealthy" and ascertain if enemies are present and not just opening the door.
In that case, the answer is simple (to me). The players tell you what they're going to do (not in game terms).
Having the player say "I'm going to search the door for traps and listen if anyone is on the other side" is perfect. You know what they're trying to accomplish, as a GM you can tell them what to roll and adjudicate how you want to proceed.
For me as a GM, it's better when the players don't try to tell me exactly what game mechanics they want to use (when outside of combat) because I can run the game in a way that feels the most seamless and smooth.
I tend to use exploration and encounter mode time flexibly, going back and forth often as fits the situation. I think of them as "real time" and "fast forward" modes. Do I (and the players) feel we need to give whatever is happening great attention? Yes? Encounter time. No? Then exploration it is.
Exploration rules are just to facilitate how to mechanically run the "fast forward" part of play, guidance if you needed it. As a GM, you should never say "You can't do that in exploration mode" because at worst it means you need to exit exploration mode and switch to encounter mode so the player can do that.
Would Search apply to that as much as to traps on the door?That is what I would do. Treat it like anything else that can be detected via exploration activities.
Traps
Other hazards
Hidden creatures / unexpectedly dangerous plants
Secret doors
Important objects
The Search rule is very focused on objects, up to saying "If you come across a secret door, item, or hazard while Searching, the GM will attempt a free secret check to Seek". It makes sense to extend that to creatures, but I don't think it's RAW.
Definitely playing it that way though.
As Finoan said, I think the problem here is you are trying to be too by the letter and too strict when running things in what is decidedly not a strict mode/setting. Exploration mode isn't meant to be so rigid.
...Part of it is that I want to skip dropping out of exploration at every door, especially those cases where there isn't a combat waiting on the other side.When it comes to deciding whether or not you should use exploration activities vs other options, I always start by asking my self, does it seem likely that round by round activities will/can matter?
If so, then you're not in exploration mode (even though you might not be in combat, if tracking individuals rounds is or might be relevant you end exploration mode).
So if you were starting a dungeon by listening at the first most exterior door, that might still be exploration. Afterwards, it's probably best to track by each round. Which means (for me) it's valid to say "I go to the door and listen, can I make a perception check?".
And honestly, as the GM I'm probably running that first door as not exploration either, assuming the party is trying to by "stealthy" and ascertain if enemies are present and not just opening the door.
In that case, the answer is simple (to me). The players tell you what they're going to do (not in game terms).
Having the player say "I'm going to search the door for traps and listen if anyone is on the other side" is perfect. You know what they're trying to accomplish, as a GM you can tell them what to roll and adjudicate how you want to proceed.
For me as a GM, it's better when the players don't try to tell me exactly what game mechanics they want to use (when outside of combat) because I can run the game in a way that feels the most seamless and smooth.
I tend to use exploration and encounter mode time flexibly, going back and forth often as fits the situation. I think of them as "real time" and "fast forward" modes. Do I (and the players) feel we need to give whatever is happening great attention? Yes? Encounter time. No? Then exploration it is.
Exploration rules are just to facilitate how to mechanically run the "fast forward" part
To me there's not a great deal of difference between encounter time for checking a door and exploration mode checking a door. Exploration mode would generally be just "noticing something is out of place" and then to get more detailed you effectively switch to encounter mode with multiple checks.
To me it's a situation where each door kind of needs its own check, because otherwise players tend to feel a bit cheated.
Which is to say I'm not sure how you could streamline it to run faster or not.
Since PF2 ditched most of specific DCs for things like a casual conversation, or the specific modifiers like having a wooden door in the way, the other question to ask yourself is what can you hear on the other side of the door.
In the spirit of keeping the game moving, I'd definitely let a Searching PC hear a conversation on the other side of the door or a similar level of noise, and wouldn't allow for enemies who are just chilling to be heard. I wouldn't let dice enter into it. If you tell your players you'll tell them if there's something they could hear without them specifying, that's pretty much that.
NorrKnekten has a point with the simple DC for listening at the door, although at all but the lowest levels I think I would just let it automatically succeed at listening at the door as an untrained perception check with a DC of 10 (assuming anyone on the other side is not attempting to be stealthy and having a conversation at normal sound levels).
That said, in a dungeon type situation after the first room/combat and assuming other people are reasonably in ear shot you might:
0) Raise an alarm and...
1) Have other enemies coming to investigate, potentially turning combat into an extended encounter
2) Have enemies wait in their respective rooms/locations and get into an advantageous position to try to deal with the PCs.
Both are valid responses IMO.
However if enemies come to investigate...well those rooms no longer have a closed door to listen at and presumably GM and players will just continue on saying "this room appears to be empty" so you don't need to worry about perception (against enemies).
And in the event of enemies staying put, searching is relevant but now the enemy is likely trying to be stealthy and positioned themselves in advantageous spots. So at that point I would have the PCs roll against enemy stealth. And you should absolutely include some rooms that were just empty rooms and no one came out of, so that the PCs can always conclude a closed door means someone is inside.
I agree, generally my players are only trying to know if there are enemies in the room, not how many or where. And even if the did want to know those things, unless they had a special sense at best I might tell them "you think there is between 1 and 5 (or 5 to 10 or 10-15) creatures and they sound like they might be in opposite directions (not revealing exact position)."
And like I mentioned, after the first door the "dungeon" is likely to be on alert and creatures will either be coming for the party or using stealth and so it changes how things play out anyways.
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And like I mentioned, after the first door the "dungeon" is likely to be on alert and creatures will either be coming for the party or using stealth and so it changes how things play out anyways.That's another question and one that I often struggle with. Especially with a lot of modules/APs: You've raised an alarm and the entire place is reacting and the whole thing is going to be at best a single running fight with no break from now on - if you're not simply overwhelmed and cut off.
Well, yes but also no.
I have enemies in adjacent rooms typically come in, but depending on a lot of variables it does sometimes require adjusting the encounters to make sure players aren't overwhelmed by a continuous stream of enemies.
In places of "strategic importance" I have guards/enemies stay in place, and in other cases the stay in place because despite hearing the alarm they don't know where the intruders (PCs) are. So there is a lot of leeway to whatever you as a GM thinks works, and ways to justify it.
Like you could have completely undisciplined bandits, who either don't care and say "Not my problem, I'm not on watch" and stay where they're at, but you could also have bloodthirst bandits who say "I'm always looking for a fight". No matter who the enemy is, there are ways to justify whatever behavior you want. Or you could have enemies that despite being bandits, have some level of tactical acumen and know that they need to protect *insert important thing* and so they go there (or are already there) giving them reason to not go running to the party.
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Real world modern reaction to hearing an allied unit get attacked in the distance involves a mix of (1) denial and delay before taking action ("they aren't really attacking right, maybe it's the Afghan/Iraqi army shooting up in the air again in celebration for some reason"); (2) not having enough information to act as a group ("lets wait for them to call for help and tell us what they need/where theyare, ok, it has been a while, lets send a couple of guys to see what it was"); (3) delay in getting your gear on/finishing in the bathroom or shower/finding the guy who went missing to get a meal or whatever; (4) convincing yourself that whatever it was is over and you can't do anything anyway, plus another unit is closer, so go back to your own patrol/rest unless you hear something happen again; (5) having a reasonable suspicion that the fight you hear but don't have details on is quickly overwhelming/killing your allied force before you can get there, making a prepared defense where you are and setting an ambush a wiser choice than rushing in and risking getting ambushed yourself.
All of this lets you program in waves of reinforcements scattered over a broad array of time and potentially just sending one or two guys to see what's going on before coming back to fetch their buddies, allowing you to pick off those forces piecemeal. Or letting the cowards, cautious, or unprepared guys nervously draw their weapons deeper in the dungeon and stand flanking the door to get anyone coming through once the PCs are ready.
PF2 battles also last about 30 seconds of IRL time.
The amount of time it will take nearby dungeon/castle denizens to a) realize what was going on, and b) organize a response to it will vary. But at the very least, it should give the party enough time to listen and assess things. They can probably hear something about the preparations that are being made and decide if they want to face what is coming, or sneak somewhere else to try and rest up.
Having an organized force come busting in the side door 45 seconds after the first surprised shouts of the battle in the first room is not all that believable as a common occurrence.
I think the difficult part is balancing enemy reactions not just with incremental, manageable mobs, but with the 10 minute recovery times (which the party often needs several of).
ETA: Agree with much said here re: timing, but let's remember how superhuman PCs get with their senses, explicitly Legendary for several classes. This may be one of those instances to gate behind proficiency rather than via static DCs which would likely imbalance the narrative. So a low-level Expert might discern more than a mid-level Trained, while mid-level Master would discern more than a high-level Expert, despite relative numbers.
One group I played with had a system where they'd simply say a key word to launch into door analysis; traps, listen, and formation. Then it wasn't on me to play their PCs as always remembering, and they wouldn't have to spell everything out each time either (especially in larger dungeon crawls). As for rolls, I'd simply save them for relevant doors, tossing in spare rolls so players couldn't determine which doors had mattered. And yes, every so often they'd forget, especially in particularly eager moments which suited RPing IMO.
Personally, I find there is value in drawing a distinction between Search allowing you free checks to spot hidden traps/objects/doors and allowing you free checks to spot hidden creatures. Given that, in order to make an ambush, a hidden monster or PC needs to both beat their opponent's Perception DC and their initiative so they actually act before the creature they're ambushing, it seems like there's already a significant resolution mechanic for determining whether a hidden creature is spotted before it strikes.
Meanwhile, if initiative isn't going to be rolled (let us assume the PCs enter the room of a creature, but it's either not hostile or not ready to strike yet), unlike the passive DC of a treasure, in order to remain unfound, the creature is going to need to roll at least one Stealth check. Allowing Search to auto-check against hidden creatures effectively weights the odds heavily in the searching character's favour by given them two chances to notice every potential ambush. This doesn't seem to be consistent with how Search works against any other case.
...Of course, there are some exceptions where I would consider throwing in the free check--should a hidden creature stay in one place and thus trigger no additional checks, but the PCs remain within the area for a minute, it seems fair that the PCs have another chance to realize they're not alone, which could be through running another Stealth check, but would feel more appropriate as a Perception check for any PCs searching the room (or Scouting, for that matter). And obviously I would also allow any PC to call for a Seek action. Exploration mode to me is about automating the minutia, not locking the characters out of encounter actions.
...
Buuut, bringing this topic back around to listening at doors, on the one hand, if listening at every door is slowing down play for limited benefit, it's definitely the kind of minutia that I'd expect to automate with exploration tactics like Search... but on the other hand, it sounds like maybe the kind of information players hope to glean from this action is the kind of thing that makes play interesting for them. If the answer to what they hear on the other side of the door leads to interesting tactical choices about which doors to open, maybe it's worth taking that moment at every door. That said, I don't know if I would let just listening at the door tell much more than what kinds of sounds and the probable number of creatures making them. Identifying the location of every creature in a room is something that feels more the domain of a Stealth check to crack the door.
So, in short, I don't think listening at the door would really be a passive function of Search, but I do feel like it's a part of active Exploration in general--unless perhaps the PCs end up making enough noise at the door that it triggers an initiative roll anyway.
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I just want to chime in with a few things I keep in mind when people ask to listen at a door:
1. Every door has a different sound dampening effect. Don't forget to include appropriate adjustments for perception check DCs (very easy to very hard, etc)! It's actually quite important for making the presence of the door matter! Also don't forget to factor in distance while you're at it.
2. Basic DCs are perfectly fine for most everything that's not trying to actively avoid notice
3. If people want to go through a dungeon room by room, and the person checking for traps says they also want to check for sounds, you can just stay in exploration mode and roll for them twice. Combining into one roll isn't nearly as fun, since it lowers the chance of mixed results.
1) There aren't any suggested adjustments for specific door types in the rules, right? I've got not problems handwaving it, but it would be annoying doing so because I missed the actual rule.
This falls under the "actual rule" of Adjusting Difficulty. They don't list out every possible type of door and its consequence on listening. You have to decide if listening through a door is incredibly easy, very easy, easy, normal, hard, very hard, or incredibly hard.
Apologies, in the length of my post, I neglected to mention what WatersLethe here has added, that in my book the door would be providing some amount of dampening cover- or concealment-like effect preventing sounds from the other side of it from being as precise as normal hearing. Certainly hearing is an imprecise sense, but like how looking through frosted glass might inhibit a precise sense to the degree that you can tell little more than the locations (as an imprecise sense), I feel like all but the thinnest doors will likewise inhibit the sense of hearing to the point it acts more like a vague sense. That said, I would also use my experiences hearing things in real life to make on-the-fly adjustments. Should a creature walk by the door, certainly I would allow the listening PC to know its exact location, or if the room is cavernous large I would also give them a sense of that... provided there are enough creatures or phenomena already making noise within the room to give it any kind of sound profile, anyway.
Additionally, it is possible to run creature stealth as an automatic DC until encounter mode starts, in which case Search would be a perfectly viable way to locate them, but also would become the only way to locate hidden creatures before they strike (or otherwise not sneak/hiade/step), which is a choice but not one I think I would find most satisfying or feel the most fair.
In any case, it is true Observant Explorer lists hidden creatures where the Search activity does not. It is my hope that this fest never gets reprinted and it is relegated to the editing mistake I feel it is, but nonetheless it is true that at least some of the developers also thought that Search applied to hidden creatures, against which I have no particular argument. Even so I'll continue operating under the assumption that it doesnt for my games since it seems to make this whole part of exploration mode work smoother until such a time the developers give their explicit examples how they believe this to work, which I understand has been to the confusion of several tables over the years
You know,if your players like to make a listen check at every door, you should probably encourage them to just take scent. The tables where I play allow it to sniff most creatures within 15 feet of a door (treating it as though the creature were upwind), and even make a Recall Knowledge check to identify the creature with a very hard adjustment.
It is my hope that this fest never gets reprinted and it is relegated to the editing mistake I feel it isI believe they had given clarifications? Both as part of group interviews way way back, playtest feedback and responses on threads that adressed this like What Michael Sayre did here by essentially stating that Search=Seek in Exploration. Granted these arent a CRB clarification on the FAQ and are quite hard to find. But still, Just because Search doesn't list "hidden creatures" doesn't mean the current list is conclusive since it ends with "and so on." Doesn't help that Search as written is just Stride + Seek and its entirely legal to say "I seek for creatures"
But I can understand not wanting to run it that way, personally I feel like Avoid Notice should be able to detect creatures so that you have the option to avoid encounters you were hoping to avoid. But at the same time creatures trying to be stealthy and standing still don't need a stealth check until initative happens.
Ah, wouldn't you know it. No, that makes sense--it seems like perhaps the scenario of stationary hidden monsters that I outlined as a corner case is actually taken to be the standard. I've kind of tended to assume that if a creature isn't going to launch an ambush as soon as the players are within position, then its because they're going to be making active sneak attempts to get a better position, but I can live with the idea of static stealth DC creatures lying in wait
My thing is, if the stationary hidden creatures are going to do the ambush predator thing and are going to strike when the PCs come within range, the most appropriate moment to resolve whether they are spotted before getting the chance to drop the ambush is the act of rolling initiative. Unless the ambush creatures are waiting around as the PCs explore the room for several moments before striking (which, there are several valid reason to do this), I don't feel as if it really makes much sense to have the players roll Perception vs Stealth to notice the creatures in the moment they would attack and then have the creatures roll Stealth vs. Perception for initiative to determine whether they were still hidden at the moment of attack.
This is why stationary stealth creatures feels more niche to me--most cases of hidden enemies are going to be resolved as an immediate ambush using Stealth initiative. In the smaller subset of encounters where the creatures don't immediately attack, my assumptions were that moving (to spy or to maintain cover/concealment as the party moves around them) were the more likely, and remaining frozen hunkered in place (whether because the optimal ambush requires the party to pass them, or because they're actually trying to avoid a fight) to be in the minority.
There is the further argument to be made that a character Searching should always get a chance to notice the ambush before the ambush is rolled (once again giving them specifically a significant advantage against being ambushed), but I feel as though this would only further motivate parties to double-down on full-party Searching. It seems the other exploration activities already have a difficult time competing against extra chances to spot traps/treasure, never mind getting an extra chance to preempt an ambush (and to say nothing of the Scouting tactic, the naming of which I am not terribly fond).
Or, to put it the other way around, I feel like my players might revolt if their attempts to ambush foes kept failing because, even if they rolled high on their Stealth initiative, the guards spot them anyway by virtue of a free Seek check before the fight started (of course assuming again that the sneaking party weren't trying to sneak past or lying in wait for multiple rounds.
Even so, I think this has helped me develop a much more robust understanding of the various interactions of Stealth, Searching, and Initiative, so thank you!
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I feel that ultimately the game rules are there to facilitate the storytelling. The point of exploration activities is to speed up the less interesting portions of the story and not get bogged down in minutia of tactical movement, directions that a character is looking (facing isn't a mechanic in PF2), and enunciating every action used (don't forget to state that your character remembers to breathe).
So as long as all of the players at the table - on both sides of the GM screen - are feeling like they are playing characters that are effective and necessary participants in the story, then that is fine. If that can be done by treating Search and Avoid Notice as repeated Seek and Sneak, then do that. If running it that way is causing problems, then run it a different way instead. Even if the table's standard way of running exploration is having problems with one particular scene and scenario, run exploration differently for that scene.
Yeah, it's important to remember exploration rules are there just to help provide guidance on how to fast forward through parts of play that aren't very interesting and not much it happening.
That's honestly why my initial response was basically "If you're in a dungeon, then at that point its pretty much tactical play" especially if you're coming to a door to investigate. It's true there can be bits of exploration in a dungeon if you know that there's nothing particularly threatening PCs need to react to, you can ask how they want to get from point A to point B. But if something really start to matter, it's time for encounter mode.
And personally I tend to run all door encounters/checking for traps at doors as more of tactical mode, only because I don't want players thinking "oh were in exploration mode so there must not be anything behind this door". But that's probably has a lot to do with exactly how we as a group use exploration vs tactical time.