Statement: Familiars, like any character, can aid any action they are trained in. Statement: Familiars have a telepathic bond with their owner.
Question: Would it be reasonable that any turn a familiar is *not* doing something else (ie: out of combat during the exploration phase), that the familiar is assumed to always be using it's action to Help Action the player's Perception score, giving the player Advantage on any active tests and +5 to Passive?
That's as reasonable, to me, as assuming that a character behaves in a certain way in a given commonly-occurring situation even without the player specifically saying so (for example, listening at a door before opening it if there is no reason not to, searching for traps before trying to open a chest/door/other thing if there is no reason not to, and so on).
At my table it comes down to a choice; either you choose to have your character's familiar's default assumed state to be helping your character with perception, or you choose to have your characters's familiar's default assumed state be protected from unexpected area damage by it being in some other dimension.
Agreed with Aaron. At my table someone with a familiar or similar can give their familiar a "personality" from a list, or roll for it. That personality denotes that familiar's default action in combat when not given something else to do. Outside of combat you should be controlling the familiar actively. It has it's own passive perception, it wouldn't aid the player UNLESS it's a higher passive than the player's. Then you would just take that instead, not adding anything.
I'm not sure I like that. What difference is there between this and say, a PC with terrible Perception spending their time 'Helping' the PC with the highest Perception. Bonus +5 effective passive perception for the party! I guess it depends on how you interpret the workings of passive perception, and how strong you think the telepathic link is. For me, the fact that you can see through its senses but only by giving up on your own means that you shouldn't get any bonuses that require using both sets of senses at the same time. Plus that's just a hell of a near permanent bonus to get from a single level 1 spell.
The Help Action states "A character can only provide help if the task is one that he or she could attempt alone. For example, trying to open a lock requires proficiency with thieves' tools, so a character who lacks that proficiency can't help another character in that task." You could argue that even though an untrained character can attempt to perceive threats, they aren't gong to actually be helpful.
Other then that, I think it would be unfair to say Perception is any different from any other skill.
If you're trying to Navigate, Draw a Map, Forage, Track, for Perception. In any of those tasks, except maybe Forage, it makes far more sense to have 1 person roll with Advantage instead of 2 people without. This is both from a mechanical sense and a narrative one. Think about 2 people trying to navigate 1 succeeds and 1 fails, the party wouldn't know which is which. Two people navigating together, you roll with Adv and they either succeed together or fail together. The same would be true of being On Watch. As the rules stand if you don't "Help" then lets say you have 2 trained people with a +1 and +2 Wisdom Mod. So they have a score of +3 and +4. That means they are incapable of detecting any threat that beat the DC:15 Stealth. It makes a lot more sense for them to be working together to have a combined Stealth DC of 19, as they are working together not lone watches in the same location.
On the other hand if a Ranger and a Redshirt are on patrol. The Ranger can have a Passive Perception of 16, but the Red Shirt being untrained... no matter how much the Ranger tries. The only help he's going to give the Ranger is from his screams as the Grue eats him.
It's either lvl 1 Wizard spell that cost 10 gold. Keep in mind all familiars have 1 HP, so the threat AaronOfBarbaria points out is real. lvl 3 Pact of the Chain core ability. lvl 5 Paladin (Find Steed, get a mastiff)
If the party has Animal Handling and bought a dog, I would argue it probably can't "Help" as it's not sapient. All of the creatures under these features are supernatural and telepathically bonded.
Also, RAW it wouldn't help. Dogs have a Passive Perception of 13 and Advantage on Hearing/Smell. So they usually have a Passive Perception of 18, "aiding" them wouldn't give more Adv.
But Perception *is* different from any other skill, in that the rules specifically define a passive version of it for situations of someone noticing things "even if they aren't searching". If you were on watch, constantly searching, then the DM could have you make active Perception checks to search for hidden dangers, and maybe then you can argue that some other creature is helping in the search. But only if the DM agrees that this is a situation "when two or more individuals working together would actually be productive". I am of the opinion that two creatures searching together has the effect of two creatures performing separate searches, not one creature performing a more detailed search. The more detailed search would require both creatures looking through the same eyes and thinking with different but linked brains at the same time, and as I said earlier I don't feel the telepathic link described for familiars can handle that level of connectivity. Other checks like an investigation or survival/tracking check I would be more likely to come up on granting advantage, because the two creatures can talk and discuss and compare notes and weigh evidence together, but Perception is really more of a "can you spot the thing" check. When two people read a Where's Waldo book they are in fact not working together, just separately looking for Waldo at the same time on the same page.
Obviously everyone can run their table and game how they want, but I'm saying that RAW the rules do not unambiguously support helping on passive perception, and that there are plenty of ways to argue against it both from the rules or from Waldo-based real world experience.
...noticing things "even if they aren't searching".
That's not how the rules define a passive check. The difference between a passive check is not "the character is trying" vs. "the character isn't trying" - it is only "there is a die roll" vs. "there is a score used", but with both only being possible when the character is trying.
Which is how you get situations like the travel rules, which state not that if you are doing something besides keeping an eye out for threats you use your passive perception, but that if you aren't actively looking for threats you don't get to contribute your perception at all.
The quote marks I used were to indicate that this is in fact exactly how it is defined at least in one place (from the rules for hiding in the Player Handbook). Passive perception is keeping an eye out, but not for any specific thing that you have reason to suspect is there. If you think a thing is there then you stop walking and do an active check. Or whatever, it's a little beside the point. There is nowhere in the rules where Helping is unambiguously said to apply to a passive value, and it is up to the DM whether each individual activity is something where "working together" makes sense. I argue that Perception (passive or not) almost never makes sense with Helping. Because of Waldo.
The quote marks I used were to indicate that this is in fact exactly how it is defined at least in one place (from the rules for hiding in the Player Handbook).
That passage of text does not define what a passive check is, not even in the context of only defining what a passive perception check is. The "even if they aren't searching" line has no reason to be interpreted as meaning "even if they are not trying to perceive things" instead of only meaning "even if they have not taken the Search action" as it is intended.
There is nowhere in the rules where Helping is unambiguously said to apply to a passive value
There is no need for an explicit mention of a passive check because the text of the Help action already covers passive checks when it says "When you take the Help action, the creature you aid gains advantage on the next ability check it makes to perform the task you are helping with, provided that it makes the check before the start of your next turn." This is because the Passive Check rules tell us "A passive check is a special kind of ability check that doesn't involve any die rolls." so anything that says it applies to ability checks is already telling us it applies to passive checks as well. All we need to know then is also covered by the Passive Check rules, which mention how to handle Advantage when the DM decides a particular ability check will be passive rather than active.
I argue that Perception (passive or not) almost never makes sense with Helping. Because of Waldo.
And I argue that helping with perception almost always makes sense - and especially makes sense with a telepathic form of communication. Because of Waldo - If I find him, I can tell you were he is and that makes your chances of spotting him better, and if I don't find him but you and I are working together to find him you'll be looking somewhere other than where I am not finding him which still gives our shared effort improved chances of spotting him.
So we agree. RAW the rules say helping can assist with passive perception if and only if the DM decides that it can. You would decide it can, I would decide it can't, due to our differing experiences with Waldo.
RAW the rules say helping can assist with passive perception if and only if the DM decides that it can.
This adjusted sentence is what the RAW actually say, and what I am willing to agree upon. Adding the "with passive perception" part muddies the waters by implying there is something special about passive perception, which is absolutely not the case - it's the same as any other passive check (edit to add: which are the same as non-passive ability checks in this regard too).
RAW the rules say helping can assist with passive perception if and only if the DM decides
This adjusted sentence is what the RAW actually say, and what I am willing to agree upon. Adding the "with passive perception" part muddies the waters by implying there is something special about passive perception, which is absolutely not the case - it's the same as any other passive check (edit to add: which are the same as non-passive ability checks in this regard too).
Uh huh, (though the topic we are discussing is very specifically about passive perception) I include passive because whether any given check is or isn't passive is another thing that it totally at the discretion of the DM. A player never gets to choose to make a passive check. And Perception makes up 99% of passive checks for most people (though I like to use Passive everything else as much as I can too, maybe that's why I'm less keen to hand out ongoing advantage to any passive skills based on helping).
...I'm less keen to hand out ongoing advantage to any passive skills based on helping.
I think it's important to keep the other factors at play in mind here, because it really isn't a "hand out" from my point of view.
For the example situation - a familiar constantly helping a character with perception - to come into play, the following costs have to be paid:
Choosing find familiar to be in your spellbook instead of some other spell - whether that means picking it as one of your limited options guaranteed by your level, or spending gold on scribing it rather than on something else should your DM provide you with a found spellbook/scroll with the spell.
Choosing to spend the gold on the expensive, and consumed, component - which can add up over time, given the next cost.
Having your familiar be at risk of taking damage at any time it is providing you this benefit, rather than having it hidden safely in another dimension until you wish to use it for something.
And for it to genuinely matter that you have Advantage on perception so frequently, you still have to make some investment into being good at perception rather than something else (because very often a 15 won't quite be enough, but an 18+ will).
To me, it's logically impossible to "help" someone in a passive activity. Help requires something active - "I'm going to try to lift the iron gate." "And I'm going to give him a hand."
Also, I'm not certain how allowing helping with passive perception would work with two PCs. If PC1 is passively perceiving things, and PC2 is "helping" him, what happens during the goblin ambush? Does PC2 get to help and use her passive perception, or is PC2 always going to be surprised? Passive perception seems like an inherently individual thing to me - everyone tromping through the dungeon/woods/whatever is on high alert all the time. Exactly how alert they are depends on their perception modifier.
I would certainly allow the PC to use the familiar's passive perception if it's higher, though.
A passive check is a special kind of ability check that doesn't involve any die rolls. Such a check can represent the average result for a task done repeatedly, such as searching for secret doors over and over again, or can be used when the DM wants to secretly determine whether the characters succeed at something without rolling dice, such as noticing a hidden monster.
Sometimes two or more characters team up to attempt a task. The character who's leading the effort--or the one with the highest ability modifier--can make an ability check with advantage, reflecting the help provided by the other characters. In combat, this requires the Help action.
Has so few people ever worked together with others to look out for danger in the woods, or worked together to find something?
Context: Growing up I spent my summers in The American South. When you're children walking through the wood/swamp/tidal waters. You're always looking out for: copperheads, water moccasins, cottenmouths, jellyfish, stingrays, ground bees, etc... When you're going through these woods everyone isn't trying to observe everything at once. Instead you work together, each person looks out for part of where you're going. Two people are more observant together then each individual.
In long term travel or on watch you're not just making a single check, you're making checks constantly and averaging the results of these. A Passive Check is an Active Check, it's the average of the hundreds of active checks. It's why individuals who aren't actively "looking out for danger" don't even get a Passive Check.
Yes, but with passive checks, the results are inherently individual. Passive perception in a party seems to already presume that everyone is doing their best to look out for danger to everyone. In an ambush situation, every character's passive perception is checked against the ambusher's stealth. So, the person who succeeds in spotting the copperhead gets to go "Oh, crap! a Copperhead!" However, this doesn't prevent you from being surprised if your passive perception wasn't up to snuff. There's still a group advantage, because your more perceptive buddy can whack the copperhead before it bites you (maybe).
Like I said above, I can't visualize how help would work in that situation. Is the helper just hosed and automatically surprised, or does does the helper get to BOTH help AND make their own passive perception check? If the latter, that seems to violate action economy. If the former, I guess I'd be OK with it, since the helper is ONLY looking out for the helpee, and thus more vulnerable to attack.
It seems to me that if the rules intended for "help" to work with passive perception, the passive perception rule would have a sentence that says "When traveling in a group of two or more, all passive perception checks are made with advantage."
It seems to me that if the rules intended for "help" to work with passive perception, the passive perception rule would have a sentence that says "When traveling in a group of two or more, all passive perception checks are made with advantage."
Why would it have that sentence when there are so many traveling activities (gathering food, navigating, mapping, etc.) that a character could be doing that prevent their perception being used to detect threats?
It seems to me that if the rules intended for "help" to work with passive perception, the passive perception rule would have a sentence that says "When traveling in a group of two or more, all passive perception checks are made with advantage."
Why would it have that sentence when there are so many traveling activities (gathering food, navigating, mapping, etc.) that a character could be doing that prevent their perception being used to detect threats?
Maybe I'm missing something about how you guys run these sorts of encounters (and how I should be running them). Take this situation:
Four characters are traveling through the woods. Rick the ranger is navigating. Right behind him, Wally the wizard is making a map. Rose the rogue is in the middle, and Frank the fighter is in the rear. I roll a random encounter and get a result of six goblins. I determine that the goblins are hiding up ahead and roll their stealth checks. Which of the four in this situation get to make passive perception checks? Personally, I'd say all four of them. Navigating involves looking where you're going and shouldn't distract from the passive check. Map making doesn't take up 100% of your time, and shouldn't affect the passive check anymore than a character saying "I want to stay hydrated, so I take a sip from my watersking from time to time." The other two obviously get to make them.
Again, I wouldn't have a problem with Frank saying "I'm worried about Rose because she only has two hit points left, so I'm going to spend all my time looking out for her at the expense of my own safety." Then, sure, Frank helps Rose and she gets +5, but then Frank doesn't get to make a passive perception check of his own and is thus automatically surprised.
Maybe I'm missing something about how you guys run these sorts of encounters (and how I should be running them)
It's not a question of "should be running them", whatever works for your group works for your group. But how I run them is based off the text of the rules found in this section.
Specifically under the "Other Actions" subheading, where it says, "Characters who turn their attention to other tasks as the group travels are not focused on watching for danger. These characters don’t contribute their passive Wisdom (Perception) scores to the group’s chance of noticing hidden threats." and also further provides potential for restriction of perception being used to notice threats with text under "Noticing Threats" saying, "The DM might decide that a threat can be noticed only by characters in a particular rank. For example, as the characters are exploring a maze of tunnels, the DM might decide that only those characters in the back rank have a chance to hear or spot a stealthy creature following the group, while characters in the front and middle ranks cannot."
Rick the ranger is navigating. Right behind him, Wally the wizard is making a map. Rose the rogue is in the middle, and Frank the fighter is in the rear. ... Which of the four in this situation get to make passive perception checks?
According to the rules, only Rose and Frank get to make perception checks - with one or both potentially not getting to because of their position within the ranks of the marching order, and whether the check is passive or active being determined by the DM.
At my table, one of these characters would likely be in the front rank of the marching order because their intent is to notice threats ahead of the party, and the other would be in the rear for the same purpose - and only the one in the proper rank for the direction of the threat would be given a perception check (and I would have that check be passive).
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Statement: Familiars, like any character, can aid any action they are trained in.
Statement: Familiars have a telepathic bond with their owner.
Question: Would it be reasonable that any turn a familiar is *not* doing something else (ie: out of combat during the exploration phase), that the familiar is assumed to always be using it's action to Help Action the player's Perception score, giving the player Advantage on any active tests and +5 to Passive?
That's as reasonable, to me, as assuming that a character behaves in a certain way in a given commonly-occurring situation even without the player specifically saying so (for example, listening at a door before opening it if there is no reason not to, searching for traps before trying to open a chest/door/other thing if there is no reason not to, and so on).
At my table it comes down to a choice; either you choose to have your character's familiar's default assumed state to be helping your character with perception, or you choose to have your characters's familiar's default assumed state be protected from unexpected area damage by it being in some other dimension.
Agreed with Aaron. At my table someone with a familiar or similar can give their familiar a "personality" from a list, or roll for it. That personality denotes that familiar's default action in combat when not given something else to do. Outside of combat you should be controlling the familiar actively. It has it's own passive perception, it wouldn't aid the player UNLESS it's a higher passive than the player's. Then you would just take that instead, not adding anything.
I'm not sure I like that. What difference is there between this and say, a PC with terrible Perception spending their time 'Helping' the PC with the highest Perception. Bonus +5 effective passive perception for the party! I guess it depends on how you interpret the workings of passive perception, and how strong you think the telepathic link is. For me, the fact that you can see through its senses but only by giving up on your own means that you shouldn't get any bonuses that require using both sets of senses at the same time. Plus that's just a hell of a near permanent bonus to get from a single level 1 spell.
The Help Action states "A character can only provide help if the task is one that he or she could attempt alone. For example, trying to open a lock requires proficiency with thieves' tools, so a character who lacks that proficiency can't help another character in that task."
You could argue that even though an untrained character can attempt to perceive threats, they aren't gong to actually be helpful.
Other then that, I think it would be unfair to say Perception is any different from any other skill.
If you're trying to Navigate, Draw a Map, Forage, Track, for Perception.
In any of those tasks, except maybe Forage, it makes far more sense to have 1 person roll with Advantage instead of 2 people without. This is both from a mechanical sense and a narrative one.
Think about 2 people trying to navigate 1 succeeds and 1 fails, the party wouldn't know which is which. Two people navigating together, you roll with Adv and they either succeed together or fail together.
The same would be true of being On Watch. As the rules stand if you don't "Help" then lets say you have 2 trained people with a +1 and +2 Wisdom Mod. So they have a score of +3 and +4. That means they are incapable of detecting any threat that beat the DC:15 Stealth. It makes a lot more sense for them to be working together to have a combined Stealth DC of 19, as they are working together not lone watches in the same location.
On the other hand if a Ranger and a Redshirt are on patrol. The Ranger can have a Passive Perception of 16, but the Red Shirt being untrained... no matter how much the Ranger tries. The only help he's going to give the Ranger is from his screams as the Grue eats him.
It's either
lvl 1 Wizard spell that cost 10 gold. Keep in mind all familiars have 1 HP, so the threat AaronOfBarbaria points out is real.
lvl 3 Pact of the Chain core ability.
lvl 5 Paladin (Find Steed, get a mastiff)
If the party has Animal Handling and bought a dog, I would argue it probably can't "Help" as it's not sapient. All of the creatures under these features are supernatural and telepathically bonded.
Also, RAW it wouldn't help. Dogs have a Passive Perception of 13 and Advantage on Hearing/Smell. So they usually have a Passive Perception of 18, "aiding" them wouldn't give more Adv.
But Perception *is* different from any other skill, in that the rules specifically define a passive version of it for situations of someone noticing things "even if they aren't searching". If you were on watch, constantly searching, then the DM could have you make active Perception checks to search for hidden dangers, and maybe then you can argue that some other creature is helping in the search. But only if the DM agrees that this is a situation "when two or more individuals working together would actually be productive". I am of the opinion that two creatures searching together has the effect of two creatures performing separate searches, not one creature performing a more detailed search. The more detailed search would require both creatures looking through the same eyes and thinking with different but linked brains at the same time, and as I said earlier I don't feel the telepathic link described for familiars can handle that level of connectivity. Other checks like an investigation or survival/tracking check I would be more likely to come up on granting advantage, because the two creatures can talk and discuss and compare notes and weigh evidence together, but Perception is really more of a "can you spot the thing" check. When two people read a Where's Waldo book they are in fact not working together, just separately looking for Waldo at the same time on the same page.
Obviously everyone can run their table and game how they want, but I'm saying that RAW the rules do not unambiguously support helping on passive perception, and that there are plenty of ways to argue against it both from the rules or from Waldo-based real world experience.
That's not how the rules define a passive check. The difference between a passive check is not "the character is trying" vs. "the character isn't trying" - it is only "there is a die roll" vs. "there is a score used", but with both only being possible when the character is trying.
Which is how you get situations like the travel rules, which state not that if you are doing something besides keeping an eye out for threats you use your passive perception, but that if you aren't actively looking for threats you don't get to contribute your perception at all.
The quote marks I used were to indicate that this is in fact exactly how it is defined at least in one place (from the rules for hiding in the Player Handbook). Passive perception is keeping an eye out, but not for any specific thing that you have reason to suspect is there. If you think a thing is there then you stop walking and do an active check. Or whatever, it's a little beside the point. There is nowhere in the rules where Helping is unambiguously said to apply to a passive value, and it is up to the DM whether each individual activity is something where "working together" makes sense. I argue that Perception (passive or not) almost never makes sense with Helping. Because of Waldo.
That passage of text does not define what a passive check is, not even in the context of only defining what a passive perception check is. The "even if they aren't searching" line has no reason to be interpreted as meaning "even if they are not trying to perceive things" instead of only meaning "even if they have not taken the Search action" as it is intended.
There is no need for an explicit mention of a passive check because the text of the Help action already covers passive checks when it says "When you take the Help action, the creature you aid gains advantage on the next ability check it makes to perform the task you are helping with, provided that it makes the check before the start of your next turn." This is because the Passive Check rules tell us "A passive check is a special kind of ability check that doesn't involve any die rolls." so anything that says it applies to ability checks is already telling us it applies to passive checks as well. All we need to know then is also covered by the Passive Check rules, which mention how to handle Advantage when the DM decides a particular ability check will be passive rather than active.So we agree. RAW the rules say helping can assist with passive perception if and only if the DM decides that it can. You would decide it can, I would decide it can't, due to our differing experiences with Waldo.
This adjusted sentence is what the RAW actually say, and what I am willing to agree upon. Adding the "with passive perception" part muddies the waters by implying there is something special about passive perception, which is absolutely not the case - it's the same as any other passive check (edit to add: which are the same as non-passive ability checks in this regard too).
To me, it's logically impossible to "help" someone in a passive activity. Help requires something active - "I'm going to try to lift the iron gate." "And I'm going to give him a hand."
Also, I'm not certain how allowing helping with passive perception would work with two PCs. If PC1 is passively perceiving things, and PC2 is "helping" him, what happens during the goblin ambush? Does PC2 get to help and use her passive perception, or is PC2 always going to be surprised? Passive perception seems like an inherently individual thing to me - everyone tromping through the dungeon/woods/whatever is on high alert all the time. Exactly how alert they are depends on their perception modifier.
I would certainly allow the PC to use the familiar's passive perception if it's higher, though.
I find the concept of not being able to "help" someone to be a surprising thing.
The Rule for Passive Checks:
Working Together stats:
Has so few people ever worked together with others to look out for danger in the woods, or worked together to find something?
Context: Growing up I spent my summers in The American South. When you're children walking through the wood/swamp/tidal waters. You're always looking out for: copperheads, water moccasins, cottenmouths, jellyfish, stingrays, ground bees, etc...
When you're going through these woods everyone isn't trying to observe everything at once. Instead you work together, each person looks out for part of where you're going. Two people are more observant together then each individual.
In long term travel or on watch you're not just making a single check, you're making checks constantly and averaging the results of these. A Passive Check is an Active Check, it's the average of the hundreds of active checks. It's why individuals who aren't actively "looking out for danger" don't even get a Passive Check.
Yes, but with passive checks, the results are inherently individual. Passive perception in a party seems to already presume that everyone is doing their best to look out for danger to everyone. In an ambush situation, every character's passive perception is checked against the ambusher's stealth. So, the person who succeeds in spotting the copperhead gets to go "Oh, crap! a Copperhead!" However, this doesn't prevent you from being surprised if your passive perception wasn't up to snuff. There's still a group advantage, because your more perceptive buddy can whack the copperhead before it bites you (maybe).
Like I said above, I can't visualize how help would work in that situation. Is the helper just hosed and automatically surprised, or does does the helper get to BOTH help AND make their own passive perception check? If the latter, that seems to violate action economy. If the former, I guess I'd be OK with it, since the helper is ONLY looking out for the helpee, and thus more vulnerable to attack.
It seems to me that if the rules intended for "help" to work with passive perception, the passive perception rule would have a sentence that says "When traveling in a group of two or more, all passive perception checks are made with advantage."
It's not a question of "should be running them", whatever works for your group works for your group. But how I run them is based off the text of the rules found in this section.
Specifically under the "Other Actions" subheading, where it says, "Characters who turn their attention to other tasks as the group travels are not focused on watching for danger. These characters don’t contribute their passive Wisdom (Perception) scores to the group’s chance of noticing hidden threats." and also further provides potential for restriction of perception being used to notice threats with text under "Noticing Threats" saying, "The DM might decide that a threat can be noticed only by characters in a particular rank. For example, as the characters are exploring a maze of tunnels, the DM might decide that only those characters in the back rank have a chance to hear or spot a stealthy creature following the group, while characters in the front and middle ranks cannot."
According to the rules, only Rose and Frank get to make perception checks - with one or both potentially not getting to because of their position within the ranks of the marching order, and whether the check is passive or active being determined by the DM.At my table, one of these characters would likely be in the front rank of the marching order because their intent is to notice threats ahead of the party, and the other would be in the rear for the same purpose - and only the one in the proper rank for the direction of the threat would be given a perception check (and I would have that check be passive).