Originally Posted by Kromm
The PC doesn't receive free details except on a critical success, but he should get to react sensibly to the threat. He has perhaps a 1- to 2-second warning that something isn't right. This lets him try whatever countermeasure is allowed when one is prepared to face that same threat: avert his gaze from Medusa, hold his breath vs. gas, make a Dodge roll against a missile, try a Stealth roll before the ogre turns the corner and sees him, etc. He can also shout or gesture to teammates, but to be entirely fair, they should have about a second less to react.
The key control isn't to make Danger Sense uselessly vague or unable to help teamates. The key control is to make Danger Sense what it's supposed to be: the last-minute warning before the inevitable danger, which is already on its way, hits home. It allows a defensive response. Danger Sense isn't meant to be a sense like Detect, where you can hover your hand over items and say, "Hm, this one is dangerous. This one isn't."
Example: Dan Danger, thief extraordinaire, has Danger Sense. He comes upon two doors in the dungeon. Little does he know, the right-hand one is booby-trapped. The GM secretly rolls for Danger Sense and gets a success. He tells Dan's player, "You're not comfortable with this setup. Ladies and tigers come to mind." Only on a critical success would he say, "The door on the right feels dangerous to you."
Dan can opt to hover around each door, and even grasp the knobs. However, he'll get no further warning. He can't use Danger Sense to guess the right door. For that, he should've bought Intuition.
Eventually, Dan mans up and pulls the right-hand door open. The GM decides that since the Danger Sense roll succeeded earlier, Dan is alerted. He gets a Dodge vs. the poisoned crossbow bolt that shoots out at him. Dan dives and yells "TRAAAAAP!" The bolt misses him and streaks toward Mitsy the Barbarian. Mitsy has only a secondhand warning, so the GM gives her a dodge at the usual -4 for being stunned; that's still better than no dodge, but not what Dan got.
Dan's player could, of course, have opted for other measures. Suspecting gas, a blast, or a projectile, Dan could've told his pals to stand around a corner 40' away, and then borrowed Mitsy's adamantine bustier (more a pavise to him), held his breath, had Father Doom cast Resist Fire on him, and then opened the door. Of course, the GM could say that all that fussing took long enough that orcs show up and attack while Dan is alone 40' away, Doom is fatigued, and Mitsy is down to her tiger-fur bikini top.
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