Garsondee
commented
2 weeks ago That certainly might be possible (Big fan of Disco Elysium so I understand what you mean) - I'm very much planning to add a feature aimed at the V12 of Foundry which allows a skill check to be rolled when players enter a region. This could be a perfect use for this so that when the group enters a room it checks their perception to see what they can spot. In short, I'd love to implement this and in theory it shouldn't be impossible to do so.
This idea of mine was inspired by Disco Elysium. That game has stats and dice, but you don't actually roll very often; it's only for actions that take significant effort. The vast majority of the checks in this game are passive checks that add the attribute and skill level and compare them to a static DC, with success and failure being decided by the sum being higher or lower than said DC without even rolling. You can see several examples of this happening in this video, even from the very beginning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGEJgKCAWCY&t=1s
Anyway. In pathfinder, skills and saving throws all have their modifiers. When they're used as passives, the GM takes 10 and adds the skill/save modifier to them. So a +7 perception skill would have a passive score of 17, or a +12 athletics skill would have a passive of 22. You get the point. These passives come into play sometimes, like when a stealth roll is compared to a character's passive perception DC to determine whether the stealth succeeds or not. But what I'm talking about is a little different.
I've got this idea where, with the help of the roll manager, the DC and skills are selected as normal, but an option is included where, instead of prompting the players to roll against the DC, the manager checks the passive scores of the relevant skills and compares them to the DC without rolling. The players do nothing, but success and failure are determined by the passives as normal. So for example:
Passive survival check against a DC of 12. The party of 3 has the following passive scores: Player 1: +8 survival = 18 passive survival. Success. Player 2: +12 survival = 22 passive survival. Critical success. Player 3: +1 survival = 11 passive survival. Failure.
The reason I'm requesting this is because I'd like to have the ability to occasionally invoke sudden flashes of insight, glimpsing something interesting in the environment for but a moment, and "gut feelings" in players who are adept at certain skills. Essentially, they'd be able to naturally and intuitively notice something subtle at a glance or intuitively deduce something brief but important in the moment that others who aren't as sharp or knowledgeable might've otherwise missed. Then this would give them an in-character justification and impetus to actively investigate further for more information. It can do a lot for immersion and make player characters feel like they're actual experts in their fields, to the point where they just pick up on small things naturally.
Sorry for the wall of text. Hope it makes sense! If there was a way to implement this, especially in a way that only needs to be done by the GM without needing player input, I feel like that could add a neat new layer to skill checks for certain GMs like me. Also, an option to make the checks secret would be cool too; sometimes, we just aren't sharp enough and miss out on something without even knowing it was there, after all.