I guess the question is, is passive perception assume to mean that the PCs intend to be "attentive" to their surroundings. To me paying attention is not passive. Being passive literally means you aren't paying attention.
A person who can find a hidden trap while not paying attention should not suddenly have the potential to be worse at finding that trap when they start paying attention (rolling).
It seems to me the way others have framed this, it is almost always better to use passive perception than to actively attempt to perceive because you are more likely to succeed.
Do you all have a different understanding than I of what "passive" means?
The DMG says "A character actively looking for a trap can attempt a Wisdom (Perception) check against the trap’s DC. You can also compare the DC to detect the trap with each character’s passive Wisdom (Perception) score to determine whether anyone in the party notices the trap in passing. "
If any PC has a passive perception of at least 10, the following traps (from the DMG) will always be spotted:
Collapsing roof
Falling Net
Simple Pit
Spiked Pit
Traps should always carry the threat of danger from being missed. With Passive Perception auto-detecting traps, anything with a spot DC of 14 or lower is kind of pointless.
Okay, follow up to my last post. I did some reading elsewhere, and found this on StackExchange:
Noticing Threats
Use the passive Wisdom (Perception) scores of the characters to determine whether anyone in the group notices a hidden threat. [...]
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.
This rule actually shows that despite the name "passive", it doesn't mean that this applies only when the character is passive — in fact, characters must be on the alert for danger to even get a check. It's just called "passive" because there is no active roll.
So I guess my issue is with connotations of the word "Passive" and directions from modules to check the party's passive perception against a DC for something hidden. These directions in adventures seem to take for granted that the PCs are on the lookout for things, but okay with potentially missing something for the sake of simplicity.
This means that unless your players actually say "We are keeping our eyes out for any traps" before entering an area, you should not bother with their passive perception, and whether or not you even let them make a roll is up to you.
So if my players enter a room with a trap, if they don't say their keeping their eyes open, I am within my "rights" as DM to have them fall into the trap.
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You don't OWN your books on DDB: WotC can change them any time. What do you think will happen when OneD&D comes out?
It's super simple. Passive Perception is the baseline for your character's awareness. If your character isn't deprived of their senses or distracted with other tasks, then your passive Perception determines what you'll notice just by virtue of having ears and eyes. Keep in mind the game considers DC 10 to be an easy task. Noticing something that requires a DC 10 perception check isn't remarkable in any way. It wasn't something hard to notice in the first place.
If you have reason to suspect there's something hidden in the area - or you just want to be sure you didn't miss anything - you can take the Search action. Nothing stops you from searching multiple times. If you want to be really sure you didn't overlook something, you can keep scrutinizing the same area of the room over and over until you get a 20. All it costs you is time. If that's what you want to do and you're looking in the right place and a natural 20 is enough to find the thing, the DM can totally just skip the rolls and say you find it, as the DMG advices in the chapter about Running The Game.
There's never a case where passive Perception is better than rolling because if you're in a position to notice something by actively rolling, you're also in a position to find it with your passive Perception. Unless you somehow manage to get a +10 bonus that only applies to passive but not active Perception, actively rolling will always yield higher numbers given a couple of tries. The only reason you don't roll active Perception all the time is that you have better things to do than spend 1 minute inspecting every 5-foot-square area of a 4000-square-foot dungeon.
I think now we're getting to the meat of our conflict. YES. "passive perception assume to mean that the PCs intend to be "attentive" to their surroundings"
If I've learned anything from the developers of D&D it's the the definition of words in English has little to do with mechanical definitions. (a dragon with Invisibility cast on it can still breath fire and remain invisible because that's not an "attack")
I think this goes to where I said that I think the skills section is one of the most poorly edited parts of the book. There are references to rules that don't exist, like like Dungeon Delver's "You can search for traps while traveling at a normal pace, instead of only at a slow pace." The face that Passive Perception is common, and it seems to be they intended it to be useful for most/all skills but never clarified.
If you look at the Activity While Traveling the rules it talks about setting pace of travel, if you can use stealth, and what activities different party members are doing: Navigate, Tracking, Forage, Cartography, or Perception (Noticing Threat). If they aren't on Notice Threat they don't get their Passive Perception.
Once the party is in the dungeon, with the possible exception of Cartography, every person in the party is on Notice Threat. No one is foraging or navigating... maybe someone is Tracking. The only other thing casters could be Ritually Casting "Detect Magic" or "Detect Poison and Disease" constantly so the spell is always up. Note Ritual Caster doesn't say the caster has to sit down and light candles to ritually cast a spell, just spend the spell's time + 10 minutes spending their Action casting the spell. They still get their move.
The thing Passive Perception is that it's exactly that. It's not "passive" in your perception when you're not paying attention at all. It's so the player doesn't have to declare "I move 10 feet, and roll a Perception Check". And coooooooooostantly rolling the dice.
This even get to your point about the player being worse at a skill once they start rolling, they have a 50% chance of being worse at the skill then if they don't pick up a die.
So if my players enter a room with a trap, if they don't say their keeping their eyes open, I am within my "rights" as DM to have them fall into the trap.
WHY do they have to declare they are keeping their eyes open. I would grant you this if the party members are sitting in the house having a cup of tea and reading a book. Then they should declare this.
They aren't. They are in dungeon, a castle, a place of danger. To assume they are not being careful shouldn't "within my rights as a DM". This isn't an art museum.
So if my players enter a room with a trap, if they don't say their keeping their eyes open, I am within my "rights" as DM to have them fall into the trap.
WHY do they have to declare they are keeping their eyes open. I would grant you this if the party members are sitting in the house having a cup of tea and reading a book. Then they should declare this.
They aren't. They are in dungeon, a castle, a place of danger. To assume they are not being careful shouldn't "within my rights as a DM". This isn't an art museum.
Because otherwise I don't understand the point of having Spot DCs less than 14 for traps. In an average party of 4 PCs, at least one if them is likely to have a passive perception of 14, rendering the spot checks for a number of traps irrelevant.
IMO a trap should always have the opportunity to surprise PCs. That's the point of traps.
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You don't OWN your books on DDB: WotC can change them any time. What do you think will happen when OneD&D comes out?
Because otherwise I don't understand the point of having Spot DCs less than 14 for traps. In an average party of 4 PCs, at least one if them is likely to have a passive perception of 14, rendering the spot checks for a number of traps irrelevant.
Unless of course it's dark and they're relying entirely on darkvision, which is a very reasonable thing to do when you're trying to be sneaky in a dungeon since light sources can be seen around corners and from miles away. Or the person with 14 passive Perception is busy making a map, or they're in the middle rank of the marching order and the trap is in a narrow corridor. Or the person with 14 passive Perception is unconscious because of a prior battle.
And, again, a DC of 10 is easy, DC 15 is only medium difficulty. If you want to something to be hard to spot, the DC should be 20.
You're forgetting the modifiers to vision. Those take -5 for DisAdvantage from poor lighting or obscurement. If it's totally obscured then there is no chance of success. The traps literally say it's DC:10 to detect the trip wire. It's a trip wire, in the open. It should be a 10. If you put some leaves on the wire to obscure it or if the room it dark that would drop the PC's Passive Perception. Now they need a Passive Perception of 15 to detect it. If you wants to be challenging about it, and make it a puzzle you use the simple trap to lead them into a more complex trap. ie: there is a trip wire trap on the path, but there are hidden pit traps to either side.
Have room filled with up the the party's knees in water brackish. It's now both difficult terrain and they can't see traps. Not ability what-so-ever. After the first trap, they can start trying to "puzzle solve" the other possible traps in the room... like a 20' foot bit trap of water.
So are you traps random damage punishment or can they be detected? If they are puzzles or surprises how do you make them interesting? How do they improve the story your telling?
I'm confused how your players "detect" traps or how you make it interesting, because you mention it is. But, you say the DC needs to be high enough to make it harder to detect. I'm trying to understand your GM process here. What do you get out of trap and what do your players get out of traps.
This should be a non topic as the game designers have stated passive is the floor. Period. No ambiguity whatsoever. If a DM wants to homebrew something entirely different, well that’s another story. But if you play with a DM that does then just repeat “as I approach the room/area I am looking for traps, secret doors, enemies, or anything out of the ordinary” every single time you move. Any DM who thinks someone in a dungeon is just running around carelessly as a default is nuts. Now I have said that my Barbarian forges ahead throwing caution to the wind which I expect that I would not get my passive, but I ELECTED not to. For RP, sometimes ya do non optimal actions for fun.
1) Several people are of the opinion that the passive perception should be
- used as a floor for perception checks
- should apply IF the character is paying attention (if they are doing something else or not paying attention then they won't get a chance to use perception at all) .. if the character is focused on being aware of their surroundings (e.g. on watch, or awareness in battle) then the passive perception should be applied first.
In my opinion, I think this is the way it should be played. It also makes for a very smooth narrative from the DM since the DM simply changes how they set the scene based on what the specific characters can immediately see and sense. The character who notices whatever feature is involved would never know that there was a task with a DC involved at all.
However, I have found a large number of DMs who do not play this way (just witness the popularity of this thread and similar threads on related topics). There is also the confusion about what active and passive mean in this specific rules context ... it appears clear that these do not refer to the character actions though this is a common misconception.
2) Perception is the most discussed skill in this context. However, perception in my opinion appears to be the example chosen to illustrate the rules since it is a commonly used skill in the context of hide vs perception checks and in terms of noticing traps and secret doors. Do the same concepts that are used for passive perception as described above apply to all the other skills? The observant feat gives +5 passive Investigation. It would appear then that the same ideas used for perception could also be extended to investigation and presumably all the other skills.
- passive investigation
- passive arcana
- passive history
- passive nature
- passive strength check to break down a door (e.g. if your strength is high enough then a door requiring a DC 15 to break it down will eventually get broken down).
Using passive skills as the floor again creates a smoother narrative. It also will often let the characters with particular ability in a skill be the ones to more often make the discovery or solve the problem. For example, the wizard with the history skill (and a passive score of 16) is able to recall the necessary information for a DC 15 check while the barbarian lacking both the skill and the intelligence has no clue vs. rolling to see if they succeed and the wizard rolls a 2 while the barbarian rolls a 19.
However, some might say that this interpretation would make the rogue class feature reliable talent obsolete except that the rogue skill applies whenever you roll a die for a skill check. In these situations the passive values can't be used either because the task is to hard or there is insufficient time to be able to use an average value. In these cases, reliable talent would still make a significant difference. It is just that the number of circumstances where rolls might be required is significantly less.
So ... is the passive value of a skill the floor for all applications of a specific skill (not just perception) when you have circumstance that permit using the skill (i.e. character is involved in a relevant activity) and there is sufficient time for effectively multiple checks (i.e. usually not during a 6 second combat round).
MetagamingPigeon wrote: "This should be a non topic as the game designers have stated passive is the floor. Period."
I agree that passive Perception *should* be a non-topic.
But there're a lot of reasons it's still a topic for the community that has never been completely resolved:
The starter set has rules saying the DC of a secret door actually can actually change depending on whether active Perception of passive Perception is being used.
The PHB general passive check rules only talk of using passive Perception essentially as a convenient tool for DM's when rolling is impractical: as an average (not floor) score for repeated checks and when the DM doesn't want to roll dice in order to preserve secrecy.
The PHB has a feat that refers to both passive Perception and passive Investigation--passive Investigation might make sense under the assumed-to-be-taking-10 4E general passive rules, but it really doesn't in the context of 5E's very limited general rules on passive checks.
The PHB has three very specific situations where passive Perception is used to notice things: noticing someone hiding, noticing a trap, and noticing hidden threats. Some people interpret these three rules as implying a general rule about noticing other things too. Other people think these three rules are merely exceptions to the general rule that checks are rolled (with two other exceptions being the two things listed in the passive check section).
The designers on Twitter and in interviews say their intent is that passive Perception is intended to be used as the norm to create an always on floor score to notice anything out of the ordinary--and that characters can also potentially roll higher with an active search.
There's no errata resolving the confusion.
Given how basic the skill like Perception is to almost any RPG, and given how much confusion still exists almost 4 years after the edition was launched, I keep asking myself why the designers won't release any errata to clarify their intent.
Personally, I keep coming back to the fact that 5E does not have a written general take-10 rule like both 3E did (thanks mjsoctober for pointing this out) and 4E did. I think they took it out of 5E on purpose to give more control back to the DM on deciding when to call for an ability check roll--preventing a player from saying "I choose to use the take 10 rule". I think that, in the context of all this confusion, trying to add the always-on/floor passive Perception with just errata would effectively open the can of worms about that effectively being the the 4E take-10-based passive Perception rule. Then they'd start facing a barrage of unanswerable questions like:
"Why can't my character take 10 on other things they are not trying actively to do--like recall knowledge, notice people's deception, etc--since they can do it with perception?"
"If my character can effectively take 10 on passive checks, why can't they take 10 on active checks?"
I predict 5.5 or 6E someday will have a general rule something like this:
"Unless the DM feels circumstances would prevent a character from doing so, the DM makes a passive check (with +/- 5 for Advantage/Disadvantage) to see if a character happens to:
notice something unusual about their surroundings (for example: hidden foes and indications of traps & secret doors) -- Wisdom(Perception)
recognize something strange about someone's behavior/speech (for example, "tells" indicating deception) -- Wisdom(Insight)
recall relevant information -- Intelligence(knowledge skills like History/Nature/etc)
These passive checks are intended to be a common part of the game since much of a character's perception, insight and information recall happens to them on a continuous basis without them actively taking any action. These passive checks happen independently of any actions that characters may actively engage in later to search for things they didn't happen to notice or to research information they didn't happen to recall."
Personally, this is also the rule I plan to use for now, based on all I've learned--and I plan to have Observant +5 also apply to active search check rolls but not to "passive Investigation" since that doesn't appear to really be a thing in 5E. I want my players to spend less time asking passive questions like "Do I notice anything about X?" and more time taking action or talking to NPCs like "I do [this]" or "I say [that]".
The designers on Twitter and in interviews say their intent is that passive Perception is intended to be used as the norm to create an always on floor score to notice anything out of the ordinary--and that characters can also potentially roll higher with an active search.
A PC who normally will spot something of DC 14 or lower with no roll, suddenly misses that same thing if for some reason the DM asks for a roll because they end up rolling less than 14, or roll a 1.
If Passive Perception is meant to be an always-on floor, then either one of the following should result:
1. When a roll is required, a PC might get a higher result, but regardless of what is rolled, can never get a result lower than their Passive Perception.
2. Rolls are never required for perceiving, PC only ever get their Passive Perception which may be modified by Advantage or Disadvantage. Their senses (eye sight, hearing, etc) are developed as well as can be, and unless their Ability or Proficiency increases, won't otherwise get better. There are just some things they will never notice. Some people just have better senses.
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You don't OWN your books on DDB: WotC can change them any time. What do you think will happen when OneD&D comes out?
P175 does state that you "can" you a passive score for any ability check, and EVERY DM does is all the time. If you characters say "I want to walk up to the bar" then you just let them use a passive athletics check and not roll to see if they could stand up and walk. The DC for standing up is considered very low so you don't need to roll. Same with a trap against a character setup to see even the most minute details with a passive investigation of 25 against a DC 12 secret door. It's just as easy for him to see that as it is for your fighter to stand up. Why this is a problem for other DMs to see and why they want to have characters roll for trivial things is beyond me, but to each his own. They even make jumping easy now. If you aren't jumping up, just straight over, you can jump a distance equal to your strength score. Simple! More time to enjoy playing! There are also the DMs that use critical success and critical failure on skill checks, ability checks, and saving throws which is incorrect, but they still do it. If my bard rolls a 19 on his deception with a +14 and you have an insight of +5, you are going to fail no matter if you get a 20 or not. Same with saying you want to jump a 40 foot chasm with a 20 strength. You roll a 20! Great, you made it halfway across and fall as a 20 doesn't make you superman.
A PC who normally will spot something of DC 14 or lower with no roll, suddenly misses that same thing if for some reason the DM asks for a roll because they end up rolling less than 14, or roll a 1.
Again, it's not an either/or thing. If they're able to dedicate their full attention to searching (i.e. make a roll) they're also able to use passive Perception. And, again, nothing forces you to take the Search action only once.
You roll to find things you might've passively overlooked. It's that simple.
I do limit the amount of times you can use a skill or how many people can use a skill at a time. Someone less than savory say they want to hire you to kill a bad guy, I won't allow everyone at the table to roll insight until someone gets a 20 to see if he is telling the truth. Same with a room and a secret door. If nobody's passive investigation would allow it to be found, I would allow two people to look or one with advantage as the other is helping them.
You know, after reading all these posts and mulling things over (and seeing the merits/arguments for both "sides" of the passive perception views) - I believe the solution is that both sides are correct. One side = no floor (All that passive means is "no die rolling." ) The other side = there is always a floor.
There IS a floor (as tweeted by the designers) but there are times when the floor is absent, irrelevant or modified. I believe FullMetalBunny captured the essence of this the most in an earlier post. If you accept that both sides are correct, then we can reconcile the alleged discrepancies between the(5e) sources referenced.
1. Unless something else specifically removes it, the passive floor is always there. The passive perception works. So in cases where a character wants to be active, the passive floor is there to back up a low active roll - the passive score supersedes a low active roll.
An Adventurer adventures - which is inherently dangerous. So yes, without any other special activity, that perception bonus is there passively for him.
2. The floor is removed for a character when she is doing something other than being wary. She is doing things that take away from her ability to notice things. The Player's Handbook ("Activities While Traveling" p. 182-183) lists specific activities that remove that floor. These activities include (but aren't limited to) navigating, drawing a map, tracking and foraging.
The group must decide which character will do which activities and let the DM know.
The references to the Lost Mines of Phandelver p.7 uses this assumption.
3. The floor can be modified (raised or lowered) depending on circumstances. It could even be removed. The DM decides this.
- Advantage add 5 to the roll.
-Disadvantage subtract 5 from the roll. For example, a lightly obscured area gives disadvantage P. 183 PH). So does traveling at a Fast Pace (p. 182 PH)
-Front ranks might not get Passive perception rolls for noticing threats from the rear (P. 182 PH).
-A trap whose maker has labored to make the trap hidden can raise that trap's difficulty (or modify the roll for advantage or disadvantage if you prefer). As FullMetal Bunny wrote earlier, a lone trip wire in broad daylight can be a DC 10. Other than animal or lower intelligence, a DC 10 means most will notice it. But is it hidden/lightly obscured? Then -5 disadvantage to the check. Was extreme care taken to hide it? Make the DC a little higher.
Okay, question... as a DM do any of you allow players (or NPCs) to use passive checks for other skills? What about Stealth?
If we assume that the Passive Perception score represents that PC/NPC's minimum base talent in that skill, it follows that they have a minimum base talent in other skills.
If an NPC has a Stealth bonus of +4, and they have the time to hide well (like an ambush) could they not take their time to use their base minimum talent (the "floor" as others have called it) to get a 14 on their Stealth check to hide?
If we agree that a PC/NPC has a base floor in one skill, representing how "skilled" they are in it, I have a hard time accepting that that same PC/NPC might do much much worse by rolling.
If an NPC has the time to set up an ambush, but then rolls stupidly low, but the PCs can waltz in with an always-on Perception "floor" to see them, I have trouble accepting that.
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If an NPC has the time to set up an ambush, but then rolls stupidly low, but the PCs can waltz in with an always-on Perception "floor" to see them, I have trouble accepting that.
Someone has to roll or the outcome is going to be deterministic (i.e. whomever has the highest modifier always wins.) Picking Perception to be the passive skill makes sense because
Unless you're distracted or unconscious, you're always looking and listening while traveling.It takes deliberate effort to be sneaky.
You can resolve interactions without giving away that there's something to be found.
There's no problem with the sneaky person rolling stupidly low unless you believe the sneaky person should always succeed. You win some, you lose some.
Someone has to roll or the outcome is going to be deterministic (i.e. whomever has the highest modifier always wins.) Picking Perception to be the passive skill makes sense because
But traps don't roll for their DC to be hidden from view. And if the PC is using passive perception then neither of them is "rolling".
Why can't an NPC hide with a passive stealth check, which then becomes the DC for the PC's passive perception check?
How is your perception vs stealth example less deterministic than passive perception against traps with DCs of 10 to 14?
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You don't OWN your books on DDB: WotC can change them any time. What do you think will happen when OneD&D comes out?
Why can't an NPC hide with a passive stealth check, which then becomes the DC for the PC's passive perception check?
Because being Stealthy is a choice and if you use the passive score on both sides, there's 0 room for error?
How is your perception vs stealth example less deterministic than passive perception against traps with DCs of 10 to 14?
Most traps that warrant a perception check don't move or make noise. They don't choose to be sneaky or unsneaky. They're just there. They also don't jump you if you fail to notice them immediately; you can still take precautions and search actively. The trap will wait.
Failing to notice an enemy usually means 1) it starts combat with you and 2) you end up surprised. Rolling for each creature also means it's harder for groups of enemies to be sneaky.
If you want your players to end up constantly surprised by groups sneaky enemies with no chance of avoiding that, by all means just use the two passive scores.
I guess the question is, is passive perception assume to mean that the PCs intend to be "attentive" to their surroundings. To me paying attention is not passive. Being passive literally means you aren't paying attention.
A person who can find a hidden trap while not paying attention should not suddenly have the potential to be worse at finding that trap when they start paying attention (rolling).
It seems to me the way others have framed this, it is almost always better to use passive perception than to actively attempt to perceive because you are more likely to succeed.
Do you all have a different understanding than I of what "passive" means?
The DMG says "A character actively looking for a trap can attempt a Wisdom (Perception) check against the trap’s DC. You can also compare the DC to detect the trap with each character’s passive Wisdom (Perception) score to determine whether anyone in the party notices the trap in passing. "
If any PC has a passive perception of at least 10, the following traps (from the DMG) will always be spotted:
Traps should always carry the threat of danger from being missed. With Passive Perception auto-detecting traps, anything with a spot DC of 14 or lower is kind of pointless.
You don't OWN your books on DDB: WotC can change them any time. What do you think will happen when OneD&D comes out?
Okay, follow up to my last post. I did some reading elsewhere, and found this on StackExchange:
So I guess my issue is with connotations of the word "Passive" and directions from modules to check the party's passive perception against a DC for something hidden. These directions in adventures seem to take for granted that the PCs are on the lookout for things, but okay with potentially missing something for the sake of simplicity.
This means that unless your players actually say "We are keeping our eyes out for any traps" before entering an area, you should not bother with their passive perception, and whether or not you even let them make a roll is up to you.
So if my players enter a room with a trap, if they don't say their keeping their eyes open, I am within my "rights" as DM to have them fall into the trap.
You don't OWN your books on DDB: WotC can change them any time. What do you think will happen when OneD&D comes out?
It's super simple. Passive Perception is the baseline for your character's awareness. If your character isn't deprived of their senses or distracted with other tasks, then your passive Perception determines what you'll notice just by virtue of having ears and eyes. Keep in mind the game considers DC 10 to be an easy task. Noticing something that requires a DC 10 perception check isn't remarkable in any way. It wasn't something hard to notice in the first place.
If you have reason to suspect there's something hidden in the area - or you just want to be sure you didn't miss anything - you can take the Search action. Nothing stops you from searching multiple times. If you want to be really sure you didn't overlook something, you can keep scrutinizing the same area of the room over and over until you get a 20. All it costs you is time. If that's what you want to do and you're looking in the right place and a natural 20 is enough to find the thing, the DM can totally just skip the rolls and say you find it, as the DMG advices in the chapter about Running The Game.
There's never a case where passive Perception is better than rolling because if you're in a position to notice something by actively rolling, you're also in a position to find it with your passive Perception. Unless you somehow manage to get a +10 bonus that only applies to passive but not active Perception, actively rolling will always yield higher numbers given a couple of tries. The only reason you don't roll active Perception all the time is that you have better things to do than spend 1 minute inspecting every 5-foot-square area of a 4000-square-foot dungeon.
I think now we're getting to the meat of our conflict.
YES. "passive perception assume to mean that the PCs intend to be "attentive" to their surroundings"
If I've learned anything from the developers of D&D it's the the definition of words in English has little to do with mechanical definitions. (a dragon with Invisibility cast on it can still breath fire and remain invisible because that's not an "attack")
I think this goes to where I said that I think the skills section is one of the most poorly edited parts of the book. There are references to rules that don't exist, like like Dungeon Delver's "You can search for traps while traveling at a normal pace, instead of only at a slow pace."
The face that Passive Perception is common, and it seems to be they intended it to be useful for most/all skills but never clarified.
If you look at the Activity While Traveling the rules it talks about setting pace of travel, if you can use stealth, and what activities different party members are doing: Navigate, Tracking, Forage, Cartography, or Perception (Noticing Threat). If they aren't on Notice Threat they don't get their Passive Perception.
Once the party is in the dungeon, with the possible exception of Cartography, every person in the party is on Notice Threat. No one is foraging or navigating... maybe someone is Tracking. The only other thing casters could be Ritually Casting "Detect Magic" or "Detect Poison and Disease" constantly so the spell is always up.
Note Ritual Caster doesn't say the caster has to sit down and light candles to ritually cast a spell, just spend the spell's time + 10 minutes spending their Action casting the spell. They still get their move.
The thing Passive Perception is that it's exactly that. It's not "passive" in your perception when you're not paying attention at all. It's so the player doesn't have to declare "I move 10 feet, and roll a Perception Check". And coooooooooostantly rolling the dice.
This even get to your point about the player being worse at a skill once they start rolling, they have a 50% chance of being worse at the skill then if they don't pick up a die.
I would grant you this if the party members are sitting in the house having a cup of tea and reading a book. Then they should declare this.
You don't OWN your books on DDB: WotC can change them any time. What do you think will happen when OneD&D comes out?
Unless of course it's dark and they're relying entirely on darkvision, which is a very reasonable thing to do when you're trying to be sneaky in a dungeon since light sources can be seen around corners and from miles away. Or the person with 14 passive Perception is busy making a map, or they're in the middle rank of the marching order and the trap is in a narrow corridor. Or the person with 14 passive Perception is unconscious because of a prior battle.
And, again, a DC of 10 is easy, DC 15 is only medium difficulty. If you want to something to be hard to spot, the DC should be 20.
You're forgetting the modifiers to vision. Those take -5 for DisAdvantage from poor lighting or obscurement.
If it's totally obscured then there is no chance of success.
The traps literally say it's DC:10 to detect the trip wire. It's a trip wire, in the open. It should be a 10. If you put some leaves on the wire to obscure it or if the room it dark that would drop the PC's Passive Perception. Now they need a Passive Perception of 15 to detect it.
If you wants to be challenging about it, and make it a puzzle you use the simple trap to lead them into a more complex trap. ie: there is a trip wire trap on the path, but there are hidden pit traps to either side.
Have room filled with up the the party's knees in water brackish. It's now both difficult terrain and they can't see traps. Not ability what-so-ever.
After the first trap, they can start trying to "puzzle solve" the other possible traps in the room... like a 20' foot bit trap of water.
So are you traps random damage punishment or can they be detected?
If they are puzzles or surprises how do you make them interesting? How do they improve the story your telling?
I'm confused how your players "detect" traps or how you make it interesting, because you mention it is. But, you say the DC needs to be high enough to make it harder to detect. I'm trying to understand your GM process here. What do you get out of trap and what do your players get out of traps.
This should be a non topic as the game designers have stated passive is the floor. Period. No ambiguity whatsoever. If a DM wants to homebrew something entirely different, well that’s another story. But if you play with a DM that does then just repeat “as I approach the room/area I am looking for traps, secret doors, enemies, or anything out of the ordinary” every single time you move. Any DM who thinks someone in a dungeon is just running around carelessly as a default is nuts. Now I have said that my Barbarian forges ahead throwing caution to the wind which I expect that I would not get my passive, but I ELECTED not to. For RP, sometimes ya do non optimal actions for fun.
A few quick comments ..
1) Several people are of the opinion that the passive perception should be
- used as a floor for perception checks
- should apply IF the character is paying attention (if they are doing something else or not paying attention then they won't get a chance to use perception at all) .. if the character is focused on being aware of their surroundings (e.g. on watch, or awareness in battle) then the passive perception should be applied first.
In my opinion, I think this is the way it should be played. It also makes for a very smooth narrative from the DM since the DM simply changes how they set the scene based on what the specific characters can immediately see and sense. The character who notices whatever feature is involved would never know that there was a task with a DC involved at all.
However, I have found a large number of DMs who do not play this way (just witness the popularity of this thread and similar threads on related topics). There is also the confusion about what active and passive mean in this specific rules context ... it appears clear that these do not refer to the character actions though this is a common misconception.
2) Perception is the most discussed skill in this context. However, perception in my opinion appears to be the example chosen to illustrate the rules since it is a commonly used skill in the context of hide vs perception checks and in terms of noticing traps and secret doors. Do the same concepts that are used for passive perception as described above apply to all the other skills? The observant feat gives +5 passive Investigation. It would appear then that the same ideas used for perception could also be extended to investigation and presumably all the other skills.
- passive investigation
- passive arcana
- passive history
- passive nature
- passive strength check to break down a door (e.g. if your strength is high enough then a door requiring a DC 15 to break it down will eventually get broken down).
Using passive skills as the floor again creates a smoother narrative. It also will often let the characters with particular ability in a skill be the ones to more often make the discovery or solve the problem. For example, the wizard with the history skill (and a passive score of 16) is able to recall the necessary information for a DC 15 check while the barbarian lacking both the skill and the intelligence has no clue vs. rolling to see if they succeed and the wizard rolls a 2 while the barbarian rolls a 19.
However, some might say that this interpretation would make the rogue class feature reliable talent obsolete except that the rogue skill applies whenever you roll a die for a skill check. In these situations the passive values can't be used either because the task is to hard or there is insufficient time to be able to use an average value. In these cases, reliable talent would still make a significant difference. It is just that the number of circumstances where rolls might be required is significantly less.
So ... is the passive value of a skill the floor for all applications of a specific skill (not just perception) when you have circumstance that permit using the skill (i.e. character is involved in a relevant activity) and there is sufficient time for effectively multiple checks (i.e. usually not during a 6 second combat round).
MetagamingPigeon wrote: "This should be a non topic as the game designers have stated passive is the floor. Period."
I agree that passive Perception *should* be a non-topic.
But there're a lot of reasons it's still a topic for the community that has never been completely resolved:
Given how basic the skill like Perception is to almost any RPG, and given how much confusion still exists almost 4 years after the edition was launched, I keep asking myself why the designers won't release any errata to clarify their intent.
Personally, I keep coming back to the fact that 5E does not have a written general take-10 rule like both 3E did (thanks mjsoctober for pointing this out) and 4E did. I think they took it out of 5E on purpose to give more control back to the DM on deciding when to call for an ability check roll--preventing a player from saying "I choose to use the take 10 rule". I think that, in the context of all this confusion, trying to add the always-on/floor passive Perception with just errata would effectively open the can of worms about that effectively being the the 4E take-10-based passive Perception rule. Then they'd start facing a barrage of unanswerable questions like:
I predict 5.5 or 6E someday will have a general rule something like this:
Personally, this is also the rule I plan to use for now, based on all I've learned--and I plan to have Observant +5 also apply to active search check rolls but not to "passive Investigation" since that doesn't appear to really be a thing in 5E. I want my players to spend less time asking passive questions like "Do I notice anything about X?" and more time taking action or talking to NPCs like "I do [this]" or "I say [that]".
So, this is my biggest problem with the rule...
A PC who normally will spot something of DC 14 or lower with no roll, suddenly misses that same thing if for some reason the DM asks for a roll because they end up rolling less than 14, or roll a 1.
If Passive Perception is meant to be an always-on floor, then either one of the following should result:
1. When a roll is required, a PC might get a higher result, but regardless of what is rolled, can never get a result lower than their Passive Perception.
2. Rolls are never required for perceiving, PC only ever get their Passive Perception which may be modified by Advantage or Disadvantage. Their senses (eye sight, hearing, etc) are developed as well as can be, and unless their Ability or Proficiency increases, won't otherwise get better. There are just some things they will never notice. Some people just have better senses.
You don't OWN your books on DDB: WotC can change them any time. What do you think will happen when OneD&D comes out?
P175 does state that you "can" you a passive score for any ability check, and EVERY DM does is all the time. If you characters say "I want to walk up to the bar" then you just let them use a passive athletics check and not roll to see if they could stand up and walk. The DC for standing up is considered very low so you don't need to roll. Same with a trap against a character setup to see even the most minute details with a passive investigation of 25 against a DC 12 secret door. It's just as easy for him to see that as it is for your fighter to stand up. Why this is a problem for other DMs to see and why they want to have characters roll for trivial things is beyond me, but to each his own. They even make jumping easy now. If you aren't jumping up, just straight over, you can jump a distance equal to your strength score. Simple! More time to enjoy playing! There are also the DMs that use critical success and critical failure on skill checks, ability checks, and saving throws which is incorrect, but they still do it. If my bard rolls a 19 on his deception with a +14 and you have an insight of +5, you are going to fail no matter if you get a 20 or not. Same with saying you want to jump a 40 foot chasm with a 20 strength. You roll a 20! Great, you made it halfway across and fall as a 20 doesn't make you superman.
Again, it's not an either/or thing. If they're able to dedicate their full attention to searching (i.e. make a roll) they're also able to use passive Perception. And, again, nothing forces you to take the Search action only once.
You roll to find things you might've passively overlooked. It's that simple.
I do limit the amount of times you can use a skill or how many people can use a skill at a time. Someone less than savory say they want to hire you to kill a bad guy, I won't allow everyone at the table to roll insight until someone gets a 20 to see if he is telling the truth. Same with a room and a secret door. If nobody's passive investigation would allow it to be found, I would allow two people to look or one with advantage as the other is helping them.
You know, after reading all these posts and mulling things over (and seeing the merits/arguments for both "sides" of the passive perception views) - I believe the solution is that both sides are correct. One side = no floor (All that passive means is "no die rolling." ) The other side = there is always a floor.
There IS a floor (as tweeted by the designers) but there are times when the floor is absent, irrelevant or modified. I believe FullMetalBunny captured the essence of this the most in an earlier post. If you accept that both sides are correct, then we can reconcile the alleged discrepancies between the(5e) sources referenced.
1. Unless something else specifically removes it, the passive floor is always there. The passive perception works. So in cases where a character wants to be active, the passive floor is there to back up a low active roll - the passive score supersedes a low active roll.
An Adventurer adventures - which is inherently dangerous. So yes, without any other special activity, that perception bonus is there passively for him.
2. The floor is removed for a character when she is doing something other than being wary. She is doing things that take away from her ability to notice things. The Player's Handbook ("Activities While Traveling" p. 182-183) lists specific activities that remove that floor. These activities include (but aren't limited to) navigating, drawing a map, tracking and foraging.
The group must decide which character will do which activities and let the DM know.
The references to the Lost Mines of Phandelver p.7 uses this assumption.
3. The floor can be modified (raised or lowered) depending on circumstances. It could even be removed. The DM decides this.
- Advantage add 5 to the roll.
-Disadvantage subtract 5 from the roll. For example, a lightly obscured area gives disadvantage P. 183 PH). So does traveling at a Fast Pace (p. 182 PH)
-Front ranks might not get Passive perception rolls for noticing threats from the rear (P. 182 PH).
-A trap whose maker has labored to make the trap hidden can raise that trap's difficulty (or modify the roll for advantage or disadvantage if you prefer). As FullMetal Bunny wrote earlier, a lone trip wire in broad daylight can be a DC 10. Other than animal or lower intelligence, a DC 10 means most will notice it. But is it hidden/lightly obscured? Then -5 disadvantage to the check. Was extreme care taken to hide it? Make the DC a little higher.
Okay, question... as a DM do any of you allow players (or NPCs) to use passive checks for other skills? What about Stealth?
If we assume that the Passive Perception score represents that PC/NPC's minimum base talent in that skill, it follows that they have a minimum base talent in other skills.
If an NPC has a Stealth bonus of +4, and they have the time to hide well (like an ambush) could they not take their time to use their base minimum talent (the "floor" as others have called it) to get a 14 on their Stealth check to hide?
If we agree that a PC/NPC has a base floor in one skill, representing how "skilled" they are in it, I have a hard time accepting that that same PC/NPC might do much much worse by rolling.
If an NPC has the time to set up an ambush, but then rolls stupidly low, but the PCs can waltz in with an always-on Perception "floor" to see them, I have trouble accepting that.
You don't OWN your books on DDB: WotC can change them any time. What do you think will happen when OneD&D comes out?
There's no problem with the sneaky person rolling stupidly low unless you believe the sneaky person should always succeed. You win some, you lose some.
But traps don't roll for their DC to be hidden from view. And if the PC is using passive perception then neither of them is "rolling".
Why can't an NPC hide with a passive stealth check, which then becomes the DC for the PC's passive perception check?
How is your perception vs stealth example less deterministic than passive perception against traps with DCs of 10 to 14?
You don't OWN your books on DDB: WotC can change them any time. What do you think will happen when OneD&D comes out?
Because being Stealthy is a choice and if you use the passive score on both sides, there's 0 room for error?