Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Perception checks reset after long rest

Hello! revisiting the game again after patch 9, (I played almost every patch, but skipped patch 8 :P)

was wondering if it would be a good idea to allow perception checks to be reset after a long rest.

for example, sometimes you pass by an area where there is a perception check, and all 4 party members fail. Thing is, if they all fail, the check is lost forever. But maybe you can give players to keep trying after long rest so it wouldn't be gone forever.

another idea, is that usually perception checks can be made easier to spot with things like guidance but the issue is that there is no telling where a check is gonna happen unless you know previously. maybe if you can make it like the reaction system where if a perception check happens, you can choose to apply guidance or other spells that help with that as a form of "reaction" or something similar if you get my drift.

thanks!

I’ll admit this does seem to make sense! I think I’d see it as “cheating” in my own playthroughs to go back to a spot where I’d failed a check the previous day specifically to try again, given that my characters wouldn’t generally know that they’d failed to notice something. But if the characters to happen to be back somewhere (eg walking down a path where there’s a hidden chest) then surely they might happen to notice something they’d missed before.


I do agree that the game makes it hard to keep guidance active, given how easy it is to break concentration (as per another active thread). I don’t think I’d be in favour of something that interrupted the experience of exploring but I wonder if you’re right that the reaction system now implemented opens up options to potentially either prompt players to apply guidance if there’s an upcoming check or else auto-applies it to characters who have the spell if they’re not currently concentrating on something else, or something like that.

Personal oppinion, but its already very easy as it is. You see that perception is rolled and you can simply give guidance to your second character. Resetting it on rest is barely more a nusiance than reloading a save - so from my perspective it doesn't solve much except for those who want to say they don't save scum, while just repeating all tests with 4 attempts after each rest. I'd guess you can anyhow have a new set of companions run through the area as well.

I wouldn't mind if they do it like in Pathfinder WotR where you get a new attempt after each level up.

My thoughts were that, resting costs supplies. so its limited even there, though i know this game throws supplies at you, but it's still a theoretical limit while loading and saving doesnt.

also for pathfinder are you sure its every level or every rest? I remember in kingmaker I used to setup a camp somewhere and try to get some check solved. everytime i failed i rested and tried again.

That’s a good alternative.


I don’t quite agree there. As mentioned, I’d not feel right to go out of my way to retry checks that my characters wouldn’t have realised they’d failed, but there are plenty of times when you naturally walk past a spot again later, such as hidden chests by paths. And the party might well decide to go back to a spot where there was something they didn’t previously understand (eg a statue of an unknown god) to see if they can make more of it. They might continue to fail their checks each time they happen to try again, in which case so be it. That is a not the same as save scumming to my mind.

I hope I didn't get it across as an attempt to insult as that wasn't my intent. Its just looking at it from a mechanical point of view - in the sense of 'Is it worth putting time and effort in making this feature to give the players a different experience'.

From my perspective this is where the mechanic fails. I also wouldn't do it as a DM at my table in most cases - I would base it on has something changed for the character that would make him/her view the situation differently - otherwise it just becomes a numbers game with no stake beyond patience.

As mentioned you have 4 rolls + all companions in camp - making it quite a high chance of success to begin with, so why even bother making it a chance and not just giving the result to the player before putting in minor hinderence like a DC 10-15 (I guess most cases in this game are DC10) under the circumstance of re-rolling for every character after each long rest? That's a guaranteed success anyhow.

Not at all!


This is a fair point, and perhaps it’s not worth the opportunity cost of doing anything at all complicated (though I’d think just resetting checks on long rest would be pretty cheap and easy). Though some of my parties do fail a reasonable percentage of perception checks as it stands, partly because I don’t usually do things like cast guidance when my first character fails a perception check (though I might for an arcana or other check that the party might reasonably know was being made). And I wouldn’t bring companions from camp just to try a perception check for the same reason I wouldn’t go out of my way to rerun a perception check another day.

But I realise that’s just me and everyone’s mileage will differ

They need to remove the visible check when you fail and add randomized places for hidden stuff.

It's silly metagaming giving the player information the characters don't have about stuff they didn't see.

I can see the argument for not showing (some) failed checks, but think it would get fiddly as while characters probably would be oblivious in the case of failing some perception and insight checks, in others it makes more sense to think of the characters as trying to do something (such as find a hidden room where a wall seems suspiciously thick, or tell if someone is lying) but failing, which they would know about. And in the case of things like arcana, history and religion checks, again the characters would usually but not always be aware that the were missing something.

Given this, I’d probably prefer to leave as is rather than have either all environmental failed checks of specific types invisible, or having Larian faff about working out which should be invisible and which shouldn’t.

I do like the idea of randomised secret loot you can spot, as opposed to the buried chests always in the same places, though! But as this is a small part of the game it’s not high priority for me.

If you're actively looking for secret doors, you can already move everyone to search everywhere. I don't see how the visible check has any relevance here, it's strictly metagaming information for the player. And a reload if the entire party fails. I'd rather not know and be tempted to save scum at all. And since the visible fail makes it possible to save scum every secret in the game, might as well remove the Perception skill entirely if it only adds tedious reloads to the game.

Ah well, everyone’s mileage will vary. Setting aside what the party would be aware of, from a meta-gaming perspective I actually enjoy the mini-tragedy of seeing there’s a check I’ve not passed, and/or the thrill of anticipation that there’s something to discover on my next playthrough. But then I tend *not* to reload if my whole party fails.

I guess balancing these different tastes is one of the difficult tasks Larian has.