Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Failed Checks Shouldn't Be Visible

In both my own game and in watching others play, I've observed several instances where a failed Investigation or Perception check is made visible to the player. This automatically prompts the player to try the failed check with another character and/or reload the game. This would be like the DM telling a character that they failed a passive skill check in tabletop D&D, which would ruin any sense of immersion or discovery. It's one thing to know you failed a dialog check, you attempted to persuade a person and it obviously didn't work. But when it comes to exploration, I believe the game would be improved by only showing checks that are successful.

If I notice a trap or discover a secret door, I want it to feel earned. It feels like a reward for specializing my characters a certain way, and using them to scout effectively. It's far less impactful to brute force these moments after I see 2-3 characters fail a check out of nowhere, signposting that I need to reactively scout the area and/or save scum.

Loving the game overall. Thanks, and have a great day!

There are two ways I've found on running checks. One is that the if a check is called for the character noticed SOMETHING even if it's just a bad feeling, but the failed check means that they can't find details or specifics. The other is that the player needs to pretend they don't know a check was made. In either case, you can't really re-roll unless you take actions that expressly arrange a new attempt which may trigger other problems.

In this case, I'm reading it as the first method, when you failed a roll you got that Star Wars "I've got a bad feeling about this." thing going on.

I agree. I also had to equate the failed check to a "bad feeling" the character must have felt, but it does break the immersion of the game,