Perception or Investigation - Dungeon Master Tools

Why open a "trapped" door yourself when a friend can
open it?

Like my previous look at Athletics or Acrobatics, I'm going to examine the difference between Perception and Investigation skill rolls in 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons. These two checks come into play a lot during a game, and they are often ones that seems to cause some contention at the table. Usually you have characters with higher wisdom scores, like Clerics or Druids competing with higher intelligence scores like Wizards and Rogues wanting to use the skill that best suits them. Let's take a close look at the situation and see what skill is really called for.

Classic example, the adventuring party is tracking down the orcs who have abducted the village wizard and spirited her away to their overlord. As they pursue the orcs into a dense woodland, the group is staying on alert, knowing that orcs aren't completely stupid. The monsters may anticipate a tail. Sure enough a group of three orcs lie in wait to ambush the party. You ask for a Perception check from a character who is proficient. The Druid says he is and starts to roll, but the Rogue says that she has a higher Investigation skill modifier and wants to roll too. What do you do?

That dragon has one hell of a
stealth score!

In this case you can have both characters roll for their individual skills, because both apply. Let's look at each skill individually. According to the Players Handbook, Perception "lets you spot, hear or otherwise detect the presence of something. It measures your general awareness of your surroundings sand the keenness of your senses." It is directly tied to Wisdom with "reflects how attuned you are to the world around you and represents your perceptiveness and intuition". It would be safe to say that the Druid's experience of living within the woods, knowing the sounds of bird and beasts would allow him to perceive changes in the environment that may be caused by the orc rearguard. A Perception check makes sense.

The Players Handbook describes Investigation as when you "look around for clues and make deductions based on those clues." It is tied to Intelligence score which "measures mental acuity, accuracy of recall and ability to reason." So if the Rogue notices some broken branches on a cluster of shrubbery, the lack of animal sounds in the area and even the slight indentation of a boot print, she may put the pieces together to determine that someone is hiding and waiting to ambush.

You can see right away that there is a grey area here. How can the rogue pick up these clues without perceiving them? How can the Druid deduce from the signs of nature the ambush around the corner? In this case, I have no problem letting both characters make the roll. Perhaps the characters work together to piece the ambush together (if both roll well). Or you can have the Rogue roll with advantage (roll two D20s and use the higher roll) to say that the Druid was assisting her with the Investigation. Or vice versa. Like my previous post explained, the goal is to make sure you let your players do the cool things their characters can do.

Between the two of them, I think they got this mystery
solved.

Let's flip the tables a bit. Suppose the party is looting the office of a corrupt mayor looking for evidence that he is being bribed by the evil wizard. The Druid's high Perception will not help in this case, because what they are looking for is specific documents or a paper trail. The Rogue's Investigation skill will be a big help here as she pieces together the correspondence that proves the mayor is corrupt. Luckily she has the Druid along with her to keep an eye out for trouble. So when the mayor's deadly elf bodyguard tries to sneak up the stairs, the Druid rolls his high Perception skill and detects the assassin.

Another way they can work together is in detecting and disarming traps. The Druid may be able to find the discolored cobblestone on the floor. But he will need the Rogue's keen Investigation skill to put together how the trap works, and then her nimble fingers to disarm the danger.

The main idea is to keep the two skills distinct enough when possible so the players feel like they are specialized and able to use those talents when needed. It keeps the players working together to solve problems. It also lets you as the DM to build encounters that play to their strengths or prey on their weaknesses. Because sometime even heroes have a bad day.

The Dragon of Icespire Peak Campaign Diary - Episode 17 - The Night Before the Festival

The prep...

A quick search on the internet will reveal all kinds of fun
festival mini-games.

Ok I'm going to admit right off the bat that I probably spent way more time than I needed to on this little bit of home-brew content. But after the fuss I had the NPCs in Phandalin make about the festival, I figured I might as well make it a bit of an event. I curious to see how it plays out for the players, and if they find it as much fun as it was to put together.

I did some research online to find some skill challenges and mini-games to have at the festival. I wrote down some notes on the mechanics for the ones I think would fall into the wheelhouse of the player characters. Events include an archery contest, a scavenger hunt, a card tournament and of course goat races. None of these are mandatory for the players to engage in, but all have prize money and I know for sure the Rogue is looking for anyway to make coin to pay off Haylia.

I created some NPCs visiting the town on this feast day. Some will provide information for the current campaign. I have also thrown in a couple with seeds for Princes of the Apocalypse as well as the official followup to this adventure Storm Lord's Wrath. We'll see if either one grabs the characters (although I've been seeding Princes for a few sessions now).

There are also some vendors in town selling unique items like Silvered weapons (needed for later missions) and health potions. Yes the dragon is going to be sighted during the event, just to keep the tension up. All in all, there is plenty to do. I spent quite a bit of time creating new NPCs and working on the festival events. The NPCs will be useful to flesh out Phandalin a bit more, so even if the festival doesn't click, I'll have new characters for the players to interact with. I've also finally made a list of NPC names (something I should have done a long time ago) just in case my players decide to talk to the random halfling drinking at the inn. (deep breath). Ok, let's see how this goes.

The story...

I told the players in advance that they had a couple days before the festival started. So they could spend those days doing anything they wanted, and we could role play any key events that got their interest. So I started working through the events, and the players ended up interacting with just about every single one! In the end, we didn't actually get to the festival.

To win, he'll stop at nothing!

I handed out the list of events for the festival and the players were immediately caught up in the idea of Goat Races. So they went around town asking about which goats were participating. I had established that Donnabella had saved a goat named Rupert during the white dragon's attack on Phandalin earlier in the campaign. So now I revealed (retconned) that Donnabella was out training Rupert for the goat races when that occurred. So the players had a connection to the event. I made Rupert the middle of the road option for the race, but if encouraged he had the potential to win! I also made the favorite goat Black Philip (which the players heard as Black Peter, so we just went with it). Yes Black Philip is a reference to the film The Witch, just for fun. Or is he really tied with infernal forces? Not sure, but I can go that way if we want. The players promised to help Donnabella get Rupert into racing condition and did some research to find out that Rupert loved apples. So tempting him with apples and having the Druid speak to him is the next step. Rupert's owner, Margo also has some story hooks to deliver, and I hinted at those.

They met some old friends like Adabra the alchemist. Norbus and Dazlyn, the dwarf archeologists showed up to talk with Fargrim Rakencrack (at a lunch event). They also met an older dwarf who helped out Haylia at the Miner's Exchange. The players wondered if he was also part of the Zhentarim... I'll let them wonder.

To the west of Phadalin lies a new adventure...

Lots of visitors from local areas arrived. Obviously Fargrim came with a group of adventurers acting as his body guard. I had them chatting a bit about the dragon and wondering if they should try to take it down. A group of merchants arrived from Yartar and Triboar. They brought more news about things going badly in that area (tied to Princes of the Apocalypse). Finally I had a traveler from Leilon show up and talk to the players about her new town and how they are looking for adventurer's to help make the village a center of trade and travel in the area. This is a plot hook for Storm Lord's Wrath. I also had a couple elven bards show up and chat with the Druid about her background in the Feywild.

I'm really abbreviating everything that happened, because it was a lot of role play, discussion about which festival events to try, and checking out the stalls and stores to see what kind of deals and specials they were planning.

We ended the session on the morning of the Festival. The characters were awakened to the smell of cinnamon apple pancakes in the inn. Then they headed off to find Donnabella and Rupert to see how he was doing the morning of the race.

The post...

I swear it is happening next time!

This session was a lot of fun for everyone and it just flew by. I created hand outs for the festival events as well as a lengthy menu for the Stonehill Inn. These items delighted the players and they referred to them throughout the session.

I introduced a LOT of NPCs in this session and I'm going to create a handout for them to keep as a reference for the day of the festival in case they want to interact with any of them. I was prepped for all the mini-games, but we didn't get to any of them. I admit I was a bit disappointed, but the session was so much fun, it doesn't matter. I love that this is a role-play heavy group. But I think they'll be ready for some hack and slash when the festival is over.

I'm also pleased how much the players enjoy the townies of Phandalin. If we move action to Red Larch or Leilon for future adventures, it will be tough to compare those folk with these that the players have really grown to like (especially Donnabella, Tobin and Inverna). But that is a worry for future DM. For now, I'm looking forward to the next session,

Up Next...

Session 18: Graboids?