What does Hide do? And how to read and understand the rules.

Quote from Jaysburn >>

It does indeed make having a high Passive Perception nearly useless in combat. Which I personally have... very mixed feelings about. Outside combat, it's still useful, which I went into some detail about recently in this comment.

It doesn't just make passive nearly useless. It makes perception nearly useless.

Quote from SunIsGettingRealLow96589 >>

Did you ever check out the Observant Feat of 2024?

Now, show me a monster that has the observant feat. 

In combat time, Passive Perception is for when someone breaks cover to sneak in for melee (or other, wilder things you might have a shot at spotting/hearing). A Search action isn't really worth the Action in combat, but with Obvservant it could be.

Quote from SunIsGettingRealLow96589 >>

Quote from sabin76 >>

If the players have actively said they are "going cautiously" and "checking for traps and ambushes" and you don't let them roll a perception check... what are you even doing??

 

The last dungeon i ran was a thousand feet long. Thats 200 squares on a side. Assuming  a quarter of it is tunneled out, thats 10,000 squares.

While sneaking around, the players tell you they are going to be quiet, cautious, and check for traps and ambushes.

So you have them roll every 5 foot square? That dungeon would take ten times as long. Im not doing that.

If they come to a door and listen, they roll. If they come to something that they caught with their passive perception, and they want to roll, then the roll. But im not having then roll every square down every hallway. If they get in a room and want to search, they roll. 

But moving about the halls and between rooms and all that nonsense, YOU can have them roll every grid square, im not.  

One interaction, they were fighting some incorpreal thing, ghost or aomething. Ghost took a lot of damage and flew down an unexplored hallway. One player chased after it, dashing every turn to catch up. Their passive perception wasnt good so they didnt see the pit trap and triggered it. Ghost came back and player killed it. Party showed up and helped player out of pit. 

Player dashes down an unexplored hallway, bolting as fast as they can, they arent taking thr Search action, they are sprinting. You think they should get a passive perception for a trap with a score matching thrir average active Search Action Perception Check?

I dont see the issue.  If players stop and want to focus on a feature like a door or search a room or whatevr, they roll. But im not doing that for all the hallways and tunnels. Hasnt been a problem yet. 

Im not a big fan of lots of hallway traps anyway. The campaign isnt in the hallways. The faster they get into the rooms the better.

Why would you make them roll every square anyway? That makes no sense. Is there anything to find in this hallway (traps, secret doors, an ambush)? Have them roll once. They've already told you they are moving cautiously, checking for traps, so having them roll doesn't reveal your hand. Depending on their roll they may find the obvious pit trap, but miss the secret staircase and group of piercers on the ceiling.

If there's nothing to find in this hallway, then you have a choice. Follow the rules and simply tell them there's nothing to find or add some deception and have them roll anyway to give the illusion there was something to find.

Quote from SunIsGettingRealLow96589 >>

Im not forcing players to roll every 5 feet. I prefer as few rolls as possible for the boring stuff. But ive seen players move ten feet to an intersection, ask for a perception check to listen, check for traps, check for secret doors, move fifteen feet to the next jntersection, stop and ask to check for traps, listen, etc.  To me, thats about as exciting as tracking ammunition. Sure there are rules for it, but im not interested.

Like i said, the campaign isnt in the hallways. 

 Then I would tell the players, "I'll let you do a Perception roll for the whole hallway/corridor/howeverfaryouthinkitshouldgoasaDM."

Again, if there's nothing for them to actually find, then simply tell them that and don't let them roll, even if they ask.

Quote from SunIsGettingRealLow96589 >>

I dont see the end of the world here. Seems pretty straightforward.

 Okay, the actually balanced way to have stealth work is very simple: for contestants of equal skill and equal action economy (i.e. if one can hide as a BA, the other can search as a BA) hiding and finding a hidden target should take the same number of tries. Even the 2014 rules fail at that -- it takes an average of 1.82 tries to hide from someone of equal skill, and the median number of tries required to find someone of equal skill is 3.63 -- but the 2024 rules are even more biased in favor of the person hiding.

The easiest way to make it work correctly is that the target to hide is passive perception, and the target to find a hidden person is passive stealth (not the actual stealth roll). Then at equal skill, it always takes an average of 1.82 tries to hide, and it also takes an average of 1.82 tries to find someone hiding.

Quote from SunIsGettingRealLow96589 >>

Now, that warlock is surrounded by  three chuuls, getting multiple hits, uses his reaction for Hellish Rebuke, BonusAction misty step to position himself, and then Action for Eldtritch Blast and Repelling blast. And you're telling me he should be able to side-eye the enemy rogue trying to hide using a passive perception of 15? Same as if he had spent the entire Action searching? I don't think that makes sense. 

 You're right, spending your action searching should be much easier than it currently is, to the extent that it's actually a reasonable choice.

I think part of the problem, Sun, is that the way you presented this entire thing was that the rules somehow worked in a way counter to the way everyone played them. You only recently admitted that the rules aren't actually written the way you propose, and that they should be written that way instead.

I think if you had started with "I think the RAW passive skills using 10 + MOD is too high because it's just the average of the active roll" and perhaps expanded on that a little bit and/or solicited feedback on lowering it as a homebrew modification, you'd have more civil discussion around this whole thing. Rather than the nonsensical, "passive checks are for when characters are actively checking".