[RPG] Can you Investigate the same room twice

dnd-5eskills

I have not seen this question when searching, although someone here might be able to point me to it. I found a related one here

Situation: PC walks into a room and wants to investigate to find any clues or whatever. They roll a 5 and lets say +3, which results in nothing. However, as a real person would, wouldn't the PC want to look again? In real life, if I'm in a room and I'm wanting to find something (imagine an escape room), I am going to continue looking around the same room. IE investigating it multiple times.

However, that seems broken, or at least too gamey. But I can't effectively call if gamey if it's a practice people do in real life.

So: Can you investigate the same room twice per RAW?

Best Answer

Yes, RAW allows you to investigate the same room twice

Multiple Ability Checks (DMG 237)

Sometimes a character fails an ability check and wants to try again. In some cases, a character is free to do so; the only real cost is the time it takes. With enough attempts and enough time, a character should eventually succeed at the task.

It then goes on with some suggestions on how to speed things up (automatic success by taking 10 times as long), and also that no amount of time can turn an impossible task into a successful one, or that failures can sometimes make subsequent attempts harder, depending on the situation.

So yes, repeats are allowed according to RAW.