Getting back to the topic, I think one thing that doesn't get used at all at most tables is passive scores other than Perception.
Passive Perception pretty blatantly ties into in-game mechanics with how stealth works, but other passive scores are mostly ignored by players and DMs alike. I think it mostly gets neglected because people like rolling dice... it's a satisfying sensation and it's the most real world action you get unless you've got one of those DMs who spends a ton of money on miniatures to give you a dynamic game board for combat. It would also make most of the game pretty boring... if you allow Passive Stealth your Rogue with Expertise, at level one with a 16 in DEX, would just get a flat 17 for all Stealth checks, which is above the perception of basically anything you'll run into until at least level 7 or 8. I'm sure there's some rules buried in a rulebook somewhere about how to use Passive scores for skills other than perception, but whatever it is, I can guarantee you won't see it on 99/100 tables.
Keep in mind that passive perception is what you sense DESPITE being focused on other things. Most skills are active, stealth means you are actively trying to avoid detection, the closest thing I can think of to passive stealth is small quiet wallflower that everyone always overlooks because everyone else is so noisy. The only other skill I might allow a “passive” check on is surprisingly intimidation - your 6’6” 300# half orc barbarian with scars and tattoos all over and massive weapons is screaming I’ll kill you if you mess with me just standing at the tavern bar peacefully having an ale. For pretty much any other situation your actively using the skill and shouldn’t get a passive check but the skill check the DM is making you roll.
Keep in mind that passive perception is what you sense DESPITE being focused on other things. Most skills are active, stealth means you are actively trying to avoid detection, the closest thing I can think of to passive stealth is small quiet wallflower that everyone always overlooks because everyone else is so noisy. The only other skill I might allow a “passive” check on is surprisingly intimidation - your 6’6” 300# half orc barbarian with scars and tattoos all over and massive weapons is screaming I’ll kill you if you mess with me just standing at the tavern bar peacefully having an ale. For pretty much any other situation your actively using the skill and shouldn’t get a passive check but the skill check the DM is making you roll.
But your charisma score has nothing to do with being 6'6", 300 lbs, or having weapons.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
Getting back to the topic, I think one thing that doesn't get used at all at most tables is passive scores other than Perception.
The listed passive score are passive perception, passive investigation, and passive insight. Perception being the world around you, insight being reading people (?), and passive investigation. I'll admit that at my table as a DM, I am not sure how to use investigation and insight passively. What suggestions does anyone have on incorporating these into regular game play?
Keep in mind that passive perception is what you sense DESPITE being focused on other things. Most skills are active, stealth means you are actively trying to avoid detection, the closest thing I can think of to passive stealth is small quiet wallflower that everyone always overlooks because everyone else is so noisy. The only other skill I might allow a “passive” check on is surprisingly intimidation - your 6’6” 300# half orc barbarian with scars and tattoos all over and massive weapons is screaming I’ll kill you if you mess with me just standing at the tavern bar peacefully having an ale. For pretty much any other situation your actively using the skill and shouldn’t get a passive check but the skill check the DM is making you roll.
But your charisma score has nothing to do with being 6'6", 300 lbs, or having weapons.
How would you use a passive religion or passive history?
Keep in mind that passive perception is what you sense DESPITE being focused on other things. Most skills are active, stealth means you are actively trying to avoid detection, the closest thing I can think of to passive stealth is small quiet wallflower that everyone always overlooks because everyone else is so noisy. The only other skill I might allow a “passive” check on is surprisingly intimidation - your 6’6” 300# half orc barbarian with scars and tattoos all over and massive weapons is screaming I’ll kill you if you mess with me just standing at the tavern bar peacefully having an ale. For pretty much any other situation your actively using the skill and shouldn’t get a passive check but the skill check the DM is making you roll.
But your charisma score has nothing to do with being 6'6", 300 lbs, or having weapons.
How would you use a passive religion or passive history?
The PCs enter a town, and if one of them has a sufficiently high passive religion or history check the description includes relevant bits of lore they know. But, like... common lore that someone might have passively learned over their lifetime.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
A LOT of what I've seen mentioned above comes down to knowing your PLAYERS. My friends and I have been playing 5e together now for about 4 years. I can predict with 90% certainty what they'll do in any situation based on their character. On the flip side, they know ME. They KNOW that I like puzzles, but I don't want to over-burden the party with them, so I'll have them in an adventure but not drown the players with them. They also know that if they get an inkling that something is too easy, they need to be on the lookout for a twist. Like the characters from your favorite action movie or a really good book, you get to know how they think.
I use this knowledge to help plan my story arcs and encounters.
I'm a player in one game (run by one of my players) that started in Curse of Strahd. We started with a larger party so we wound up with two Rogues, one an Arcane Trickster and one an Assassin. They use Thieve's Cant between themselves all the time. My Paladin'Cleric has discussed learning a small bit of it so I can pick out things like 'danger' or 'you're being conned' because one of them has INSANE insight while I have none. I can see Druids doing the same thing. They're certainly not going to teach their entire collections of words and symbols to someone else but they might teach a few things like 'three stones = good, four stones = bad' if they're leading the party or whatever.
There is no hard and fast rule for stuff like this. It's part of the human interaction of the game.
In 3e I played a druid and accidentally used druidic to find a spy (spoiler alert for a 3e adventure set in Homlet... I forget the name). There was a doppelganger posing as a druid in the village, and my character decided to speak druidic to him just as flavor. The DM secretly rolled a saving throw for me vs. the doppelganger's read minds ability and I succeeded, so it didn't understand me and we quickly realized it was an imposter.
In 5e there has only been one time when my party encountered the druidic language. I was playing another druid at the time (that's my go-to class) and there was an awakened animal that only spoke druidic, and it had some very useful information about the dungeon. The problem: I missed that session so we didn't get those clues.
Keep in mind that passive perception is what you sense DESPITE being focused on other things. Most skills are active, stealth means you are actively trying to avoid detection, the closest thing I can think of to passive stealth is small quiet wallflower that everyone always overlooks because everyone else is so noisy. The only other skill I might allow a “passive” check on is surprisingly intimidation - your 6’6” 300# half orc barbarian with scars and tattoos all over and massive weapons is screaming I’ll kill you if you mess with me just standing at the tavern bar peacefully having an ale. For pretty much any other situation your actively using the skill and shouldn’t get a passive check but the skill check the DM is making you roll.
But your charisma score has nothing to do with being 6'6", 300 lbs, or having weapons.
How would you use a passive religion or passive history?
The PCs enter a town, and if one of them has a sufficiently high passive religion or history check the description includes relevant bits of lore they know. But, like... common lore that someone might have passively learned over their lifetime.
Yes but do they remember the lore when needed? What I can see doing is checking their “passive” scores to see if there is any extra info they should get based on that.
Ravnodus, really? Think of a big ugly biker with chains, tattoos etc sitting at a bar? No Charisma? I’ll grant it’s all negative but for intimidation that is perfect. Are you really going to walk up to him and give him a hassle or are you going to stay as far away as you can so he can’t hassle you? Unless of course your Clint Eastwood or Arnold etc.😳😁🤪
Ravnodus, really? Think of a big ugly biker with chains, tattoos etc sitting at a bar? No Charisma? I’ll grant it’s all negative but for intimidation that is perfect. Are you really going to walk up to him and give him a hassle or are you going to stay as far away as you can so he can’t hassle you? Unless of course your Clint Eastwood or Arnold etc.😳😁🤪
Keep in mind that Charisma in D&D doesn't exclusively represent likeability... it represents your ability to influence others through force of will. Someone could have high Charisma because they're so scary that everyone does what they say without question.
That said, there's an optional rule to apply STR to an Intimidation check rather than CHA, and I think that Optional Rule would apply best in a situation where someone is just a huge, nasty looking SOB.
Alternate ability skill checks are a fairly underutilized mechanic. Not sure if it gets quite to the level of forgotten, but I think they fit with the theme of this thread.
Ravnodus, really? Think of a big ugly biker with chains, tattoos etc sitting at a bar? No Charisma? I’ll grant it’s all negative but for intimidation that is perfect. Are you really going to walk up to him and give him a hassle or are you going to stay as far away as you can so he can’t hassle you? Unless of course your Clint Eastwood or Arnold etc.😳😁🤪
Keep in mind that Charisma in D&D doesn't exclusively represent likeability... it represents your ability to influence others through force of will. Someone could have high Charisma because they're so scary that everyone does what they say without question.
That said, there's an optional rule to apply STR to an Intimidation check rather than CHA, and I think that Optional Rule would apply best in a situation where someone is just a huge, nasty looking SOB.
Our DM allows either a Stat swap (Str for Cha as noted above) or grants us Advantage and we use the stat as written. Cha 12 and Advantage is the same as Str 20 if not better so we consider this fair.
As a DM, I will frequently toss in small bonuses to skill checks if the player tries to do something that I think is clever but not clever enough to rate a full Advantage. I'll also grant small bonuses if the character would have some familiarity with the subject at hand but the player is clueless.
We all do similar things darkaiser - I have yet to meet a DM that runs everything exactly by the books.
Transmorpher, you are right as far as that goes but if your doing point buy, standard scores or even if you have bad rolls and your rolling up that half orc fighter are you going to put your best stats into charisma so you can intimidate folks or into strength/Con? Effectively (RAI not RAW) those negative charisma bonuses represent the really nasty and intimidating folks like biker/ half orc barbarian even if the rules say otherwise.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
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Getting back to the topic, I think one thing that doesn't get used at all at most tables is passive scores other than Perception.
Passive Perception pretty blatantly ties into in-game mechanics with how stealth works, but other passive scores are mostly ignored by players and DMs alike. I think it mostly gets neglected because people like rolling dice... it's a satisfying sensation and it's the most real world action you get unless you've got one of those DMs who spends a ton of money on miniatures to give you a dynamic game board for combat. It would also make most of the game pretty boring... if you allow Passive Stealth your Rogue with Expertise, at level one with a 16 in DEX, would just get a flat 17 for all Stealth checks, which is above the perception of basically anything you'll run into until at least level 7 or 8. I'm sure there's some rules buried in a rulebook somewhere about how to use Passive scores for skills other than perception, but whatever it is, I can guarantee you won't see it on 99/100 tables.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
Keep in mind that passive perception is what you sense DESPITE being focused on other things. Most skills are active, stealth means you are actively trying to avoid detection, the closest thing I can think of to passive stealth is small quiet wallflower that everyone always overlooks because everyone else is so noisy. The only other skill I might allow a “passive” check on is surprisingly intimidation - your 6’6” 300# half orc barbarian with scars and tattoos all over and massive weapons is screaming I’ll kill you if you mess with me just standing at the tavern bar peacefully having an ale. For pretty much any other situation your actively using the skill and shouldn’t get a passive check but the skill check the DM is making you roll.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
But your charisma score has nothing to do with being 6'6", 300 lbs, or having weapons.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
The listed passive score are passive perception, passive investigation, and passive insight. Perception being the world around you, insight being reading people (?), and passive investigation. I'll admit that at my table as a DM, I am not sure how to use investigation and insight passively. What suggestions does anyone have on incorporating these into regular game play?
~ May all your rolls Crit ~
How would you use a passive religion or passive history?
~ May all your rolls Crit ~
The PCs enter a town, and if one of them has a sufficiently high passive religion or history check the description includes relevant bits of lore they know. But, like... common lore that someone might have passively learned over their lifetime.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
A LOT of what I've seen mentioned above comes down to knowing your PLAYERS. My friends and I have been playing 5e together now for about 4 years. I can predict with 90% certainty what they'll do in any situation based on their character. On the flip side, they know ME. They KNOW that I like puzzles, but I don't want to over-burden the party with them, so I'll have them in an adventure but not drown the players with them. They also know that if they get an inkling that something is too easy, they need to be on the lookout for a twist. Like the characters from your favorite action movie or a really good book, you get to know how they think.
I use this knowledge to help plan my story arcs and encounters.
I'm a player in one game (run by one of my players) that started in Curse of Strahd. We started with a larger party so we wound up with two Rogues, one an Arcane Trickster and one an Assassin. They use Thieve's Cant between themselves all the time. My Paladin'Cleric has discussed learning a small bit of it so I can pick out things like 'danger' or 'you're being conned' because one of them has INSANE insight while I have none. I can see Druids doing the same thing. They're certainly not going to teach their entire collections of words and symbols to someone else but they might teach a few things like 'three stones = good, four stones = bad' if they're leading the party or whatever.
There is no hard and fast rule for stuff like this. It's part of the human interaction of the game.
In 3e I played a druid and accidentally used druidic to find a spy (spoiler alert for a 3e adventure set in Homlet... I forget the name). There was a doppelganger posing as a druid in the village, and my character decided to speak druidic to him just as flavor. The DM secretly rolled a saving throw for me vs. the doppelganger's read minds ability and I succeeded, so it didn't understand me and we quickly realized it was an imposter.
In 5e there has only been one time when my party encountered the druidic language. I was playing another druid at the time (that's my go-to class) and there was an awakened animal that only spoke druidic, and it had some very useful information about the dungeon. The problem: I missed that session so we didn't get those clues.
Yes but do they remember the lore when needed? What I can see doing is checking their “passive” scores to see if there is any extra info they should get based on that.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Ravnodus, really? Think of a big ugly biker with chains, tattoos etc sitting at a bar? No Charisma? I’ll grant it’s all negative but for intimidation that is perfect. Are you really going to walk up to him and give him a hassle or are you going to stay as far away as you can so he can’t hassle you? Unless of course your Clint Eastwood or Arnold etc.😳😁🤪
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Keep in mind that Charisma in D&D doesn't exclusively represent likeability... it represents your ability to influence others through force of will. Someone could have high Charisma because they're so scary that everyone does what they say without question.
That said, there's an optional rule to apply STR to an Intimidation check rather than CHA, and I think that Optional Rule would apply best in a situation where someone is just a huge, nasty looking SOB.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
Alternate ability skill checks are a fairly underutilized mechanic. Not sure if it gets quite to the level of forgotten, but I think they fit with the theme of this thread.
Our DM allows either a Stat swap (Str for Cha as noted above) or grants us Advantage and we use the stat as written. Cha 12 and Advantage is the same as Str 20 if not better so we consider this fair.
As a DM, I will frequently toss in small bonuses to skill checks if the player tries to do something that I think is clever but not clever enough to rate a full Advantage. I'll also grant small bonuses if the character would have some familiarity with the subject at hand but the player is clueless.
We all do similar things darkaiser - I have yet to meet a DM that runs everything exactly by the books.
Transmorpher, you are right as far as that goes but if your doing point buy, standard scores or even if you have bad rolls and your rolling up that half orc fighter are you going to put your best stats into charisma so you can intimidate folks or into strength/Con? Effectively (RAI not RAW) those negative charisma bonuses represent the really nasty and intimidating folks like biker/ half orc barbarian even if the rules say otherwise.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.