As a DM I use passive Insight, Perception, and Investigation all the time.
Player says "I search the room." I use their passive Perception. Why? They didn't specify anything specific about their search. So, they don't get to roll because it's not a good idea to let them roll.
What happens if they roll a 20 and there is nothing in the room to find? That's not fun.
What happens in they roll a 1? The next player says "I search the room." Repeat until the whole party has rolled and you've wasted 5 minutes for every single room they went through that had nothing of interest in it.
Player says "I go to the desk that was in the corner of the room and search through the drawers." Okay, now they get might get to roll. It depends. Is there a time limit for the search? Then yes, they roll to see if they they find the MacGuffin before the BBEG turns up to see who's been rummaging through their things. If there's no time limit, then maybe they roll or maybe they just find the MacGuffin without rolling if their passive score is high enough.
In general though, I'm not a huge fan of players rolling for Perception etc because when dealing with aspects of the world that are hidden I prefer to try to keep player knowledge and character knowledge aligned and passive scores are a great way of doing that.
Not gonna lie, I hate this approach. The player specified they wanted to search the room, if they aren't being specific I might make the DC higher, but they are now doing an active search. That's a check. If there's nothing to find, there's nothing to find, but it's still a check.
Now, I do agree with the whole "lets have the whole party do it", absolutely not. I'm not having 7 different rolls just to see if someone individually makes it, but you can now do a group perception check where if over half the group succeeds, they find it. Or you can just go "there's nothing there." There are ultimately ramifications to everything. Like you said, big bad or monsters might ambush them, fatigue might start setting in spending 30 minutes combing through every single room, the time-gated quest might fail because something in the background happened due to them taking too much time, etc. If they want to do it though, that's a player decision. I'm not going to take it away.
The way I read your last line really to me feels like you like to keep the story on a very, very tight leash. That's fine and if your table is happy, run it how you want and how your players want. I just know I'd personally be dissatisfied there.
That's cool, you're allowed to hate it. Every table is different.
But to expand on things from my perspective, I did a whole lot of session 0 explaining how things work at my table. I stated that passive Perception/Insight/Investigation scores would be important. So come level 4, the rogue took the Observant feat. And as a result from then onwards they pretty much noticed everything, without rolling. Which is fine. Hidden stuff is there to be found. I want the party to find the hidden stuff otherwise it may as well never have been there in many cases.
The other big thing at my session 0 was explaining that outside of combat, players don't roll for perception/stealth/persuasion/whatever unless the I ask for a roll. I hate the rogue volunteering perception rolls every single 10 feet as they crawl through the dungeon. It slows the game down so much it hurts. If you are going to roll the dice, the result has to have meaning otherwise you're just wasting everyone's time. There's plenty of chances for you to roll them bones when it is actually going to make a difference to the game.
I'm not exactly sure what you mean about the last line. All I was saying is that metagaming is a thing, and it isn't always a bad thing. But having player knowledge and character knowledge aligned is in my experience, generally speaking, good for the game. And having players know whether they rolled high or low for "detection" skills like Perception breaks the verisimilitude because regardless of how you respond, whatever you say will be coloured by the player's knowledge of their roll.
Now it is totally true that I like to keep the game on a tight leash, but I'm cool for the story to go wherever it wants. There's a difference. When you get 6 people sitting around a table, I'd prefer that the things that we spend time on to actually advance the game, in whatever direction that may be.
That's all well and good, but they asked for a roll. We can pontificate all we want, but that was the point.
See, the point here where we differ is that I would say they asked for a check, which is not necessarily the same thing as a roll. From the PHB:
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.
Emphasis mine on the first half of the second sentence.
Like I said above, if the players are gonna make a roll at my table, then there has to be a point to that roll, i.e. an outcome that depends on the die result. If there is no consequence of failure, then why make the players roll in the first place?
So in the absence of time pressure, if you say you are gonna "search the room", and there is no time pressure, I'll just take the passive score. Which most of the time (in my games) is enough to find the thing for at least one of the party members.
The other big thing at my session 0 was explaining that outside of combat, players don't roll for perception/stealth/persuasion/whatever unless the I ask for a roll. I hate the rogue volunteering perception rolls every single 10 feet as they crawl through the dungeon. It slows the game down so much it hurts. If you are going to roll the dice, the result has to have meaning otherwise you're just wasting everyone's time. There's plenty of chances for you to roll them bones when it is actually going to make a difference to the game.
And having players know whether they rolled high or low for "detection" skills like Perception breaks the verisimilitude because regardless of how you respond, whatever you say will be coloured by the player's knowledge of their roll.
P1: Honestly, I thought that was RAW. The player describe what the character does (or rather, intends), and the DM interprets that into rolls. While I will call for rolls even if nothing is there to be found (to shield against metagaming), I'm not going to allow fresh rolls when nothing has materially changed. It just breaks the flow.
P2: Eh, often you know when you've not been observant perhaps not at the time, but afterwards you do get q feeling of "I didn't look properly". I won't let them reroll again straightaway, bit I will let them cone back "with a fresh set of eyes" later. I generally know when I've done a good search or when I was distracted - after the fact at least.
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I meant what I said by it. Your story has tight rails to the point you don't let your players ask for rolls. I find that to be silly and against the spirit of D&D. As a DM, I have to greenlight the roll, like if a player just goes "I roll 24 on perception in the room we just entered, what do I see?" I go "Well, that's a nice 24, but I didn't ask for the roll so you see that you just rolled a total of 24" and move on.
I want them to be able to ask though. That's my point. I don't have to say yes, but being allowed to ask is important.
Edit: We mean the same thing by check and roll, we're just using different verbiage. As a player, I shouldn't even have to ask for a passive check. It's a passive. The DM is going to tell me if I got it or not. If I have to ask to be able to use a passive skill, what's the point of having it as a passive?
I meant what I said by it. Your story has tight rails to the point you don't let your players ask for rolls. I find that to be silly and against the spirit of D&D. As a DM, I have to greenlight the roll, like if a player just goes "I roll 24 on perception in the room we just entered, what do I see?" I go "Well, that's a nice 24, but I didn't ask for the roll so you see that you just rolled a total of 24" and move on.
I want them to be able to ask though. That's my point. I don't have to say yes, but being allowed to ask is important.
Edit: We mean the same thing by check and roll, we're just using different verbiage. As a player, I shouldn't even have to ask for a passive check. It's a passive. The DM is going to tell me if I got it or not. If I have to ask to be able to use a passive skill, what's the point of having it as a passive?
Nah, you've missed the point I made above. My game has tight rails, the story doesn't. My players can have their characters attempt whatever they wish to. "I make a Persuasion check on the guard" is a very meta-gaming thing to say and a bit strange. "I try to convince the guard to let us into the keep" is just fine, and at that point the DM can decide whether or not a roll is called for.
Now, I do agree with the whole "lets have the whole party do it", absolutely not. I'm not having 7 different rolls just to see if someone individually makes it, but you can now do a group perception check where if over half the group succeeds, they find it.
I don't like group checks, they male little sense to. Let's say you have a Druid with maxed out perception with a +11, then everyone else sucks and has +0. Mathematically, it makes no sense for the Druid to accept any help from the others because he's likely to get anything that's DC21 or lower, but they're likely to cause any check over DC10 to fail. The only time it makes sense is for low DCs to guard against fluke fails, but you generally don't know the DC anyway to know if it's advantageous. Generally, if you get help, it should help.
That implies that unskilled labour has no value, regardless of who is leading said labourers. Helping does not mean "I search here, you search there" necessarily but 'check under that thing there. Essentially more hands and eyes but directed by someone with much more of a clue where to send them.
Right, so long as they're not idiots, having someone take part in the task should have a positive impact. The way the mechanics works means that they're actually a hindrance in most cases, which is why I don't like the way it works. Two people are optimal (effectively gives you advantage or at least minor advantage), but more than that and it's actually making things worse, which is silly. Giving advantage works, but that only accounts for one extra person helping - if you have 5 of you searching, how can you account for that?
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I think taking away the ability to fail a perception check and allowing them to use their passive as the floor just removes the possibility of some interesting character/story progression. Fails aren't always terribly bad, they can often make stories have an interesting turn. A failure could be them being distracted by something else (that their passive has picked up on), it could be linked to something that's previously happened in the campaign (maybe they get a vision, hear a voice, have a flashback?). This is a story telling experience after all.
As a DM I use passive Insight, Perception, and Investigation all the time.
Player says "I search the room." I use their passive Perception. Why? They didn't specify anything specific about their search. So, they don't get to roll because it's not a good idea to let them roll.
What happens if they roll a 20 and there is nothing in the room to find? That's not fun.
What happens in they roll a 1? The next player says "I search the room." Repeat until the whole party has rolled and you've wasted 5 minutes for every single room they went through that had nothing of interest in it.
Player says "I go to the desk that was in the corner of the room and search through the drawers." Okay, now they get might get to roll. It depends. Is there a time limit for the search? Then yes, they roll to see if they they find the MacGuffin before the BBEG turns up to see who's been rummaging through their things. If there's no time limit, then maybe they roll or maybe they just find the MacGuffin without rolling if their passive score is high enough.
In general though, I'm not a huge fan of players rolling for Perception etc because when dealing with aspects of the world that are hidden I prefer to try to keep player knowledge and character knowledge aligned and passive scores are a great way of doing that.
When a player specifically declares attemtping a task, it should usually make the check. If as a DM i want to determine the result without alerting the players, i can either use a passive check, or privately roll it myself. Its usually the case for knowledge check, this to avoid metagame. I am not a fan of Take 10 mechanic as it removes all the swingyness of a d20 making things not all too unpredictable anymore by preselecting a result on the d20 as 10 in advance. If i am to keep the result of the check to me and simply declare the outcome of a success or failure, i'd rather roll for it. While i can roll 10, i can roll higher or lower just as well. The possibilities are expanded and i prefer that.
As a DM I use passive Insight, Perception, and Investigation all the time.
Player says "I search the room." I use their passive Perception. Why? They didn't specify anything specific about their search. So, they don't get to roll because it's not a good idea to let them roll.
What happens if they roll a 20 and there is nothing in the room to find? That's not fun.
What happens in they roll a 1? The next player says "I search the room." Repeat until the whole party has rolled and you've wasted 5 minutes for every single room they went through that had nothing of interest in it.
Player says "I go to the desk that was in the corner of the room and search through the drawers." Okay, now they get might get to roll. It depends. Is there a time limit for the search? Then yes, they roll to see if they they find the MacGuffin before the BBEG turns up to see who's been rummaging through their things. If there's no time limit, then maybe they roll or maybe they just find the MacGuffin without rolling if their passive score is high enough.
In general though, I'm not a huge fan of players rolling for Perception etc because when dealing with aspects of the world that are hidden I prefer to try to keep player knowledge and character knowledge aligned and passive scores are a great way of doing that.
When a player specifically declares attemtping a task, it should usually make the check. If as a DM i want to determine the result without alerting the players, i can either use a passive check, or privately roll it myself. Its usually the case for knowledge check, this to avoid metagame. I am not a fan of Take 10 mechanic as it removes all the swingyness of a d20 making things not all too unpredictable anymore by preselecting a result on the d20 as 10 in advance. If i am to keep the result of the check to me and simply declare the outcome of a success or failure, i'd rather roll for it. While i can roll 10, i can roll higher or lower just as well. The possibilities are expanded and i prefer that.
I'm all in favour of rolling to decide the outcome of the task, but only if there is a consequence to failure.
When it comes to detection tests which aren't being made in a hurry I prefer using the passive score as that simulates the players taking their time to "search" so they get to "Take 10" as you call it (althogh this is technically a 3e term and not a 5e term AFAIK).
If the character is making a detection test with a time limit then I get the player to roll, and that roll represents whether or not they find the thing within the time limit.
I prefer not to roll on the player's behalf if I can avoid it. When a test is called for I prefer to let the players roll to decide their fate. But that is just a preference, and YMMV.
Well, knowledge check to spot, find or remember things rarely have consequence to failure. You just do not find or remember anything if you fail it. The problem with the player knowing the result of the check, wether it rolled it or know it used passive check, is that it can know by metagame that it failed the check because it was not high enought.
I often palliate to that by disclosing some information but not all of it. Like this, the player always has a feeling it gained something and may have succeeded.
The whole point of putative skills is to avoid threats, if it's a stalker or a trap, passive perception seeks to defend against it, some traps call for active searching, but most players are going to actively search the entire way as soon as danger arises, so may as well do passive after the first alert.
Particularly high passives can negate those checks completely, but those high checks are usually a sacrifice by the player to build for them, so that challenge should be submitted to them.
A high perception character might see every trap, but not understand how to defeat them, a high insight character might recognize every social que, but lack the opportunity to overcome them. There's plenty of other checks, you could have climbing and swimming checks, acrobatic and searching checks, there are a lot more checks than perception, it's a good opportunity to make your game more robust.
High passive scores are kind of like Sherlock Holmes. He is able to notice and deduce things many others would not. And never fails at that. The problem I encounter with DMs is not understanding the point of players creating a character with one or more hight passives is for that very king of thing. If one wants a rogue that will keep the group safe from traps or otherwise spot hidden things he/she will make sure to have as high as possible passive perception. This isn't a bad thing and DMs shouldn't pull funny business and override a player who has invested in such a way with their character.
Passive: you spot or hear X as you go about whatever you happen to be doing. Active: for anything outside the range of passive scores. For example a stealth roll that exceeds a characters passive perception would require an active roll to spot.
Look across the vast array of pre-written modules for D&D5e. a DC higher than 20 for spotting a trap is a rare thing. But I can create a Variant Human character with Observant feat and a 14 Wisdom to get to 21. At 1st level. If one interprets passive perception as an automatic and total reveal of any trap, secret door, cache or anything else unusual, I think it is more than fair to argue it is game-breaking.
Far better, in my view, to treat passive perception as a gut feel thing that needs a successful active perception check to determine the exact nature of what the gut is saying. For example, with a trap, passive perception might automatically reveal a faint smell of sulphur growing stronger with every step down a hallway, but the player needs to say "I'm going check ahead for traps", and succeed with an active perception check to actually find the fireball trap. And if they fail, they know something's not right, but aren't quite sure exactly what it is.
Otherwise, might as well hand the DM notes for every trap, secret door, etc...directly to the player.
Look across the vast array of pre-written modules for D&D5e. a DC higher than 20 for spotting a trap is a rare thing. But I can create a Variant Human character with Observant feat and a 14 Wisdom to get to 21. At 1st level. If one interprets passive perception as an automatic and total reveal of any trap, secret door, cache or anything else unusual, I think it is more than fair to argue it is game-breaking.
Far better, in my view, to treat passive perception as a gut feel thing that needs a successful active perception check to determine the exact nature of what the gut is saying. For example, with a trap, passive perception might automatically reveal a faint smell of sulphur growing stronger with every step down a hallway, but the player needs to say "I'm going check ahead for traps", and succeed with an active perception check to actually find the fireball trap. And if they fail, they know something's not right, but aren't quite sure exactly what it is.
Otherwise, might as well hand the DM notes for every trap, secret door, etc...directly to the player.
Your view is how my DM put it into practice in our last session. Our resident Warlock had the Observant feat and our DM knew it was going to be fairly powerful, so they had to be careful with how they described things. In The Lost Mine of Phandelver she had discovered "the branches are swaying as if wind were blowing them... but there's no wind blowing." In order to get anything else from our DM, players would have to roll active Perception to glean what's going on, and even then the creatures are completely hidden until they choose to reveal themselves. That's very different to saying "you detect 6 Twig Blights 60ft. East, 4 North and another two will join. Also you detect Undead 90ft. East," and I believe that to be the 'wrong' way of doing things.
As for traps and secret doors, Tomb of Horrors comes to mind. A passive perception shouldn't tell you that a wall needs to be peeled - yes, peeled - back to reveal a hidden route, only that there's something wrong with it. One trap I'd read about elsewhere was a pit filled with vinegar which would cause anyone to step into it to sink as they'd not be able to swim to the surface (something about it being lighter than water?). A passive perception won't tell you that, only that you can smell vinegar at a greater distance away.
I imagine it can be difficult to give hints versus "hints" a la Crash Bandicoot: N-Sane Trilogy, and I can also imagine it being difficult to counteract a high PP (hehe) without being spiteful after a streak of bad experiences. Such as giving the players a map of a dungeon complete with all its traps, and then snootily telling them their passive abilities won't tell them how the traps operate or how to disarm them.
Zero is the most important number in D&D: Session Zero sets the boundaries and the tone; Rule Zero dictates the Dungeon Master (DM) is the final arbiter; and Zero D&D is better than Bad D&D.
"Let us speak plainly now, and in earnest, for words mean little without the weight of conviction."
Well placed traps and well hidden doors and even hidden monsters or npcs could be missed by high passive perception but the extreme of all or none doesn't go over well for either player or DM.
Here is the PHB for passive.
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.
To make traps and encounters interesting and not alienate a players high passive perception have a trap that involves detective work to overcome. And include invisible enemies with some encounters started out by spoting hidden enemies. Or have an encounter or two with invisible enemies that get a surprise round starting the encounter.
And remember sherlock holmes even with his keen abilities still had moriarty who despite just how good he was put holmes to the active range of his passive so to speak.
Look across the vast array of pre-written modules for D&D5e. a DC higher than 20 for spotting a trap is a rare thing. But I can create a Variant Human character with Observant feat and a 14 Wisdom to get to 21. At 1st level. If one interprets passive perception as an automatic and total reveal of any trap, secret door, cache or anything else unusual, I think it is more than fair to argue it is game-breaking.
Far better, in my view, to treat passive perception as a gut feel thing that needs a successful active perception check to determine the exact nature of what the gut is saying. For example, with a trap, passive perception might automatically reveal a faint smell of sulphur growing stronger with every step down a hallway, but the player needs to say "I'm going check ahead for traps", and succeed with an active perception check to actually find the fireball trap. And if they fail, they know something's not right, but aren't quite sure exactly what it is.
Otherwise, might as well hand the DM notes for every trap, secret door, etc...directly to the player.
Would it not be fair to assume that a character who has focused on Perception would be constantly checking for signs of traps whilst exploring a dungeon? And that their passive Perception score would then be exactly the game mechanic representation of them doing this task over and over again?
Suppose they then fail their active Perception check, and the player asks to make the check again? Would you allow this, and if not, why not?
Would I let them reroll? Most likely, no. Because that's abusing the mechanic. They could drop their Wisdom down to 3 and just keep rolling until they get their Nat20. If there was a time limit, I might let them on the condition that it takes a substantial amount of time - enough that it becomes a tradeoff. Alternatively, if they leave and come back later with "fresh eyes" I'd be willing to let them. They're not just sitting there rolling until they get the result that they like.
The mechanic is more for if they're passing through a series of very small rooms or something where you don't want to stop play every 5 seconds to check each room. Personally, I'd have them roll once and say that's their score for all the rooms. Passive is more for like if there is a trap that they won't necessarily trigger, but I need to know if they spot it or not without alerting the players.
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They arent ever going to fail a passive perception check when they can easily get it to 21 - higher than most any DC - at 1st level. And while I agree the rules as written are pretty clear about the repetitive search thing, with such a high PP, it is exactly the "easy" button I'm concerned about. With a 21 PP, if it is an automatic find, then might as well just hand them the DM notes for every trap, secret door and hidden "anything", right at the beginning of the campaign.
But...if PP is "gut feeling", without revealing any specifics, it functions as an automatic alarm...a "spidey sense", if you will...that there is SOMETHING they need to be worried about. They could walk into a hundred normal rooms and not get any gut feelings, but that next room that has a blade trap at the entrance? Their PP kicks in - "As you approach the doorway, you notice a gap that seems wider than normal". Now, if they could just actively figure out what is up with that gap. And if they fail their active check? "That gap isnt right but you just can't figure out why".
I believe this approach keeps true to the idea of PP being a time saver while avoiding DnD mental carpal tunnel syndrome searching for traps and secret doors, but avoids the easy button of an easily-achieved starting PP above 20.
Honestly, as a player who invested a feat in Observant I would be annoyed if I felt like I wasn't getting value from the feat.
As a DM if I was taking your approach of forcing both passive and active checks to detect a trap then I would give advantage to an active Perception check to a character with Observant that was triggered by their PP.
Remember, most campaigns finish in Tier 2. So players get 2, maybe 3 feats in total. So I feel like there needs to be an appropriate reward for locking in a feat, especially when it's a non combat feat. Otherwise why bother taking Observant when you could take GWF, polearm master, etc?
That's cool, you're allowed to hate it. Every table is different.
But to expand on things from my perspective, I did a whole lot of session 0 explaining how things work at my table. I stated that passive Perception/Insight/Investigation scores would be important. So come level 4, the rogue took the Observant feat. And as a result from then onwards they pretty much noticed everything, without rolling. Which is fine. Hidden stuff is there to be found. I want the party to find the hidden stuff otherwise it may as well never have been there in many cases.
The other big thing at my session 0 was explaining that outside of combat, players don't roll for perception/stealth/persuasion/whatever unless the I ask for a roll. I hate the rogue volunteering perception rolls every single 10 feet as they crawl through the dungeon. It slows the game down so much it hurts. If you are going to roll the dice, the result has to have meaning otherwise you're just wasting everyone's time. There's plenty of chances for you to roll them bones when it is actually going to make a difference to the game.
I'm not exactly sure what you mean about the last line. All I was saying is that metagaming is a thing, and it isn't always a bad thing. But having player knowledge and character knowledge aligned is in my experience, generally speaking, good for the game. And having players know whether they rolled high or low for "detection" skills like Perception breaks the verisimilitude because regardless of how you respond, whatever you say will be coloured by the player's knowledge of their roll.
Now it is totally true that I like to keep the game on a tight leash, but I'm cool for the story to go wherever it wants. There's a difference. When you get 6 people sitting around a table, I'd prefer that the things that we spend time on to actually advance the game, in whatever direction that may be.
See, the point here where we differ is that I would say they asked for a check, which is not necessarily the same thing as a roll. From the PHB:
Emphasis mine on the first half of the second sentence.
Like I said above, if the players are gonna make a roll at my table, then there has to be a point to that roll, i.e. an outcome that depends on the die result. If there is no consequence of failure, then why make the players roll in the first place?
So in the absence of time pressure, if you say you are gonna "search the room", and there is no time pressure, I'll just take the passive score. Which most of the time (in my games) is enough to find the thing for at least one of the party members.
P1: Honestly, I thought that was RAW. The player describe what the character does (or rather, intends), and the DM interprets that into rolls. While I will call for rolls even if nothing is there to be found (to shield against metagaming), I'm not going to allow fresh rolls when nothing has materially changed. It just breaks the flow.
P2: Eh, often you know when you've not been observant perhaps not at the time, but afterwards you do get q feeling of "I didn't look properly". I won't let them reroll again straightaway, bit I will let them cone back "with a fresh set of eyes" later. I generally know when I've done a good search or when I was distracted - after the fact at least.
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I meant what I said by it. Your story has tight rails to the point you don't let your players ask for rolls. I find that to be silly and against the spirit of D&D. As a DM, I have to greenlight the roll, like if a player just goes "I roll 24 on perception in the room we just entered, what do I see?" I go "Well, that's a nice 24, but I didn't ask for the roll so you see that you just rolled a total of 24" and move on.
I want them to be able to ask though. That's my point. I don't have to say yes, but being allowed to ask is important.
Edit: We mean the same thing by check and roll, we're just using different verbiage. As a player, I shouldn't even have to ask for a passive check. It's a passive. The DM is going to tell me if I got it or not. If I have to ask to be able to use a passive skill, what's the point of having it as a passive?
Nah, you've missed the point I made above. My game has tight rails, the story doesn't. My players can have their characters attempt whatever they wish to. "I make a Persuasion check on the guard" is a very meta-gaming thing to say and a bit strange. "I try to convince the guard to let us into the keep" is just fine, and at that point the DM can decide whether or not a roll is called for.
Right, so long as they're not idiots, having someone take part in the task should have a positive impact. The way the mechanics works means that they're actually a hindrance in most cases, which is why I don't like the way it works. Two people are optimal (effectively gives you advantage or at least minor advantage), but more than that and it's actually making things worse, which is silly. Giving advantage works, but that only accounts for one extra person helping - if you have 5 of you searching, how can you account for that?
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I think taking away the ability to fail a perception check and allowing them to use their passive as the floor just removes the possibility of some interesting character/story progression. Fails aren't always terribly bad, they can often make stories have an interesting turn. A failure could be them being distracted by something else (that their passive has picked up on), it could be linked to something that's previously happened in the campaign (maybe they get a vision, hear a voice, have a flashback?). This is a story telling experience after all.
When a player specifically declares attemtping a task, it should usually make the check. If as a DM i want to determine the result without alerting the players, i can either use a passive check, or privately roll it myself. Its usually the case for knowledge check, this to avoid metagame. I am not a fan of Take 10 mechanic as it removes all the swingyness of a d20 making things not all too unpredictable anymore by preselecting a result on the d20 as 10 in advance. If i am to keep the result of the check to me and simply declare the outcome of a success or failure, i'd rather roll for it. While i can roll 10, i can roll higher or lower just as well. The possibilities are expanded and i prefer that.
I'm all in favour of rolling to decide the outcome of the task, but only if there is a consequence to failure.
When it comes to detection tests which aren't being made in a hurry I prefer using the passive score as that simulates the players taking their time to "search" so they get to "Take 10" as you call it (althogh this is technically a 3e term and not a 5e term AFAIK).
If the character is making a detection test with a time limit then I get the player to roll, and that roll represents whether or not they find the thing within the time limit.
I prefer not to roll on the player's behalf if I can avoid it. When a test is called for I prefer to let the players roll to decide their fate. But that is just a preference, and YMMV.
Well, knowledge check to spot, find or remember things rarely have consequence to failure. You just do not find or remember anything if you fail it. The problem with the player knowing the result of the check, wether it rolled it or know it used passive check, is that it can know by metagame that it failed the check because it was not high enought.
I often palliate to that by disclosing some information but not all of it. Like this, the player always has a feeling it gained something and may have succeeded.
The whole point of putative skills is to avoid threats, if it's a stalker or a trap, passive perception seeks to defend against it, some traps call for active searching, but most players are going to actively search the entire way as soon as danger arises, so may as well do passive after the first alert.
Particularly high passives can negate those checks completely, but those high checks are usually a sacrifice by the player to build for them, so that challenge should be submitted to them.
A high perception character might see every trap, but not understand how to defeat them, a high insight character might recognize every social que, but lack the opportunity to overcome them. There's plenty of other checks, you could have climbing and swimming checks, acrobatic and searching checks, there are a lot more checks than perception, it's a good opportunity to make your game more robust.
A character with a high perception bonus will not necessarily spot every traps if the check is rolled as a low roll is always a possibility.
High passive scores are kind of like Sherlock Holmes. He is able to notice and deduce things many others would not. And never fails at that. The problem I encounter with DMs is not understanding the point of players creating a character with one or more hight passives is for that very king of thing. If one wants a rogue that will keep the group safe from traps or otherwise spot hidden things he/she will make sure to have as high as possible passive perception. This isn't a bad thing and DMs shouldn't pull funny business and override a player who has invested in such a way with their character.
Passive: you spot or hear X as you go about whatever you happen to be doing. Active: for anything outside the range of passive scores. For example a stealth roll that exceeds a characters passive perception would require an active roll to spot.
Look across the vast array of pre-written modules for D&D5e. a DC higher than 20 for spotting a trap is a rare thing. But I can create a Variant Human character with Observant feat and a 14 Wisdom to get to 21. At 1st level. If one interprets passive perception as an automatic and total reveal of any trap, secret door, cache or anything else unusual, I think it is more than fair to argue it is game-breaking.
Far better, in my view, to treat passive perception as a gut feel thing that needs a successful active perception check to determine the exact nature of what the gut is saying. For example, with a trap, passive perception might automatically reveal a faint smell of sulphur growing stronger with every step down a hallway, but the player needs to say "I'm going check ahead for traps", and succeed with an active perception check to actually find the fireball trap. And if they fail, they know something's not right, but aren't quite sure exactly what it is.
Otherwise, might as well hand the DM notes for every trap, secret door, etc...directly to the player.
Your view is how my DM put it into practice in our last session. Our resident Warlock had the Observant feat and our DM knew it was going to be fairly powerful, so they had to be careful with how they described things. In The Lost Mine of Phandelver she had discovered "the branches are swaying as if wind were blowing them... but there's no wind blowing." In order to get anything else from our DM, players would have to roll active Perception to glean what's going on, and even then the creatures are completely hidden until they choose to reveal themselves. That's very different to saying "you detect 6 Twig Blights 60ft. East, 4 North and another two will join. Also you detect Undead 90ft. East," and I believe that to be the 'wrong' way of doing things.
As for traps and secret doors, Tomb of Horrors comes to mind. A passive perception shouldn't tell you that a wall needs to be peeled - yes, peeled - back to reveal a hidden route, only that there's something wrong with it. One trap I'd read about elsewhere was a pit filled with vinegar which would cause anyone to step into it to sink as they'd not be able to swim to the surface (something about it being lighter than water?). A passive perception won't tell you that, only that you can smell vinegar at a greater distance away.
I imagine it can be difficult to give hints versus "hints" a la Crash Bandicoot: N-Sane Trilogy, and I can also imagine it being difficult to counteract a high PP (hehe) without being spiteful after a streak of bad experiences. Such as giving the players a map of a dungeon complete with all its traps, and then snootily telling them their passive abilities won't tell them how the traps operate or how to disarm them.
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Well placed traps and well hidden doors and even hidden monsters or npcs could be missed by high passive perception but the extreme of all or none doesn't go over well for either player or DM.
Here is the PHB for passive.
To make traps and encounters interesting and not alienate a players high passive perception have a trap that involves detective work to overcome. And include invisible enemies with some encounters started out by spoting hidden enemies. Or have an encounter or two with invisible enemies that get a surprise round starting the encounter.
And remember sherlock holmes even with his keen abilities still had moriarty who despite just how good he was put holmes to the active range of his passive so to speak.
Would it not be fair to assume that a character who has focused on Perception would be constantly checking for signs of traps whilst exploring a dungeon? And that their passive Perception score would then be exactly the game mechanic representation of them doing this task over and over again?
Suppose they then fail their active Perception check, and the player asks to make the check again? Would you allow this, and if not, why not?
Would I let them reroll? Most likely, no. Because that's abusing the mechanic. They could drop their Wisdom down to 3 and just keep rolling until they get their Nat20. If there was a time limit, I might let them on the condition that it takes a substantial amount of time - enough that it becomes a tradeoff. Alternatively, if they leave and come back later with "fresh eyes" I'd be willing to let them. They're not just sitting there rolling until they get the result that they like.
The mechanic is more for if they're passing through a series of very small rooms or something where you don't want to stop play every 5 seconds to check each room. Personally, I'd have them roll once and say that's their score for all the rooms. Passive is more for like if there is a trap that they won't necessarily trigger, but I need to know if they spot it or not without alerting the players.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
They arent ever going to fail a passive perception check when they can easily get it to 21 - higher than most any DC - at 1st level. And while I agree the rules as written are pretty clear about the repetitive search thing, with such a high PP, it is exactly the "easy" button I'm concerned about. With a 21 PP, if it is an automatic find, then might as well just hand them the DM notes for every trap, secret door and hidden "anything", right at the beginning of the campaign.
But...if PP is "gut feeling", without revealing any specifics, it functions as an automatic alarm...a "spidey sense", if you will...that there is SOMETHING they need to be worried about. They could walk into a hundred normal rooms and not get any gut feelings, but that next room that has a blade trap at the entrance? Their PP kicks in - "As you approach the doorway, you notice a gap that seems wider than normal". Now, if they could just actively figure out what is up with that gap. And if they fail their active check? "That gap isnt right but you just can't figure out why".
I believe this approach keeps true to the idea of PP being a time saver while avoiding DnD mental carpal tunnel syndrome searching for traps and secret doors, but avoids the easy button of an easily-achieved starting PP above 20.
Honestly, as a player who invested a feat in Observant I would be annoyed if I felt like I wasn't getting value from the feat.
As a DM if I was taking your approach of forcing both passive and active checks to detect a trap then I would give advantage to an active Perception check to a character with Observant that was triggered by their PP.
Remember, most campaigns finish in Tier 2. So players get 2, maybe 3 feats in total. So I feel like there needs to be an appropriate reward for locking in a feat, especially when it's a non combat feat. Otherwise why bother taking Observant when you could take GWF, polearm master, etc?