Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
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Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
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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.
" It makes perception nearly useless"
Perception is the same as it was. You enter a room and search for traps, secret doors, and loot. You take the Search Action-Perceptoon check, its exactly the same.
Passive Perception has a -5 penalty when in combat. Thats the only difference.
"Now, show me a monster that has the observant feat. "
https://www.aidedd.org/dnd/monstres.php?vo=ancient-black-dragon
Legendary actions: Detect. The dragon makes a Wisdom (Perception) check.
Hide: rogue rolls stealth check dc 15. If succeed, hidden/invisible condition for at least their turn.
On goblins turn, they can take the search action, dc=whatever rogue rolled to stealth. Or they could try passive perception, with a -5 penalty, and it has to beat whatever the rogue rolled. On success, rogue is found and loses invisible condition.
It gets rid of the opposed check, cause checks are supposed to be for actively doing something and the zero action perception check against a rogues stealth was always a bit weird.
I dont see the end of the world here. Seems pretty straightforward.
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.
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.
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.
You could do Active Rolls for chunks of hallways. That would probably work. I haven't gotten feedback from players saying they feel like I shortchanged them in the "search for traps in the hallways" category....
If you have a warlock with devil sight, a 14 wisdom, and proficiency in Perception, with a pb of +3, they're rolling d20+5 when the take the Search Action->Perception check.
All they're doing is searching, and their average roll is a 15.
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.
If the Warlock is in the party and they're going down the halls carefully, searching every square, I have them auto=detect anything with a Perception check dc 15 or lower. They can roll on specific stuff if they want, but handwaving with a 15 seems to let them sweep the halls without analysis paralysis or whatever. They move. They make decisions. They get into different rooms. and that's whats important to me. 15 is what he would roll on average for an active perception check, and using that 15 I can handwave it and apply it as a blanket search to everything in sight.
Few weeks ago, the sorcerer managed to fireball a cluster of about 30 monsters in one go. I didn't roll 30 saves. I just did the math that if their save is +4 and the fireball is dc16, the average roll is a 10+4=14, so about 40% of the monsters should make their save, 60% should fail. It's just a statistical average to handwave the mechanics of rolling a d20 thirty times.
To me, that's the same as using the average Action Search->Perception Check result, which is called the "passive perception" score, but doesn't seem to be anything passive about it. It's just an average Active Percption Check. Take that score and handwave it and apply it to everything in sight. Doesn't seem that terrible.
And if that's how one would handwave the party doing active searches over a large span of space and turns, it then seems to follow that if they are NOT actively searching, that one should probably take the average active Search Action Perception Check value of, say 15, and subtract a penalty to account for just catching things out of the corner fo their eye while they're busy fighting off a dozen kobolds. And that is when folks seem to lose their minds about this idea because apparently its vitally important that the average Search Action-Perception Check score be applicable during combat, when the players aren't making active Search actions.
The warlock has an average active search action perception check of 15, as explained above. If he actively searches, he will roll a 15 on average. So, if he says hes searching every step of the way through a hallway, he would roll a 15, on average, every time. So, letting them auto-detect anything with a perceptioncheck dc 15 or lower would follow.
Which means if he's NOT actively searching, if he's in the middle of a fight, if he's dashing after a runaway owlbear who is carrying the innocent princess into the woods, then the average Active Search-Perception Check roll of 15 shouldn't apply. The standard in DND rules is to make it simple and just apply Disadvantage to teh roll, which would be a -5 I guess (-4.something, but meh).
Nothing in the above text contains anything that seems unreasonable or illogical. And yet, when its suggested that Passive Perception Checks during combat should therefore get a -5 penalty, the response isn't "that makes no sense", the response is "that would be bad for combat" or somethign liek that.
If active searching gets an average roll of 15 every turn, then not actively searching should be like rolling a 10 or so.
That is the argument in its entirety, and I don't see anything illogical or unreasonable about it. And the responses against it are basically "that will break combat". I don't know that it actually breaks combat. I kinda doubt it. But people oppose this idea not because they're showing where it defies logic, but because they think the game has been balanced with this weird inconsistency, and changing that inconsistency will, apparently, break this balance. Again, not sure that it would, but that seems to be the main thrust behind the opposition to this.
2024 Hide Rules sequence
initiative number 18:
18A) Rogue takes Hide (Bonus) Action: Dex/Stealth check, dc 15. on succeed, Hidden with Invisible condition.
18B) Rogue rolls a 24, and is hidden with invisible condition.
18C) Rogue then casts Hypnotic Pattern which has no verbal component and no attack roll, so Rogue remains hidden with invisible condition.
Initiative number 6:
6A) Goblins take Search Action-Perception(WIS) looking for Rogue. They roll a 22. fail to find Rogue.
The 2024 rules specifically say (18A) is a stealth/dex check, DC 15. The goblins perception isn't mentioned until the Goblins turn (6a) taking the Search Action to look for Hidden Rogue.
So, here's the kicker question: which of the following is true:
OPT1) the goblins passive perception applies at step 18A when the Rogue is trying to hide, and could possibly prevent the rogue from hiding, even if they rolled above the DC15
OPT2) passive or active perception does not apply until 6A), the Goblins turn.
if opt1, then the goblins passive perception is an immediate contested skill check against the rogues stealth check, and the DC15 is actually irrelevant.
if opt2, then the rogue might roll a stealth check of 16, and an enemy might have a passive perception of 19, but that enemy can't percieve the Rogue until the enemy's turn.
I think the OPT2 has to be the answer, because if passive perception applies immediately when the Rogue tries to hide, then its just 2014 rules: its a contested skill check: active stealth check versus passive perception value. and the DC 15 never applies. And if its mechanically the same, they found a really really weird way of describing the 2014 rules in a completely different narrative, but mechanically identical way.
And if its OPT2, that means Passive Perception does not apply immediately. A creature can see if their passive perception is good enough to see something, but only on their turn. Passive Perception is still useful here because it allows the creature to search without spending an action to search. but its not active for all time, it only kicks in on the percieving creature's turn. I don't think this is bad. But I thought of Passive Perception as this sort of "always on" sort fo sense, but here it would be limited such that it only is "turned on" during the creatures turn.
There are spells, like Command, that are cast and the target makes a saving throw immediately, and on a failure, the effect of that spell doesn't show up until the target's turn. That would be sort of the mechanism for how 2024 Hide works if its OPT2). The Rogue hides (stealth/dex dc15) and then on everyone else's turn, that's when they can try to percieve the rogue.
it's... different... than I thought of passive perception, but its actually fairly easy to fit into the rules: A creature's Passive Perception is only available when the Creature takes an Action, Bonus Action, or Reaction.
The current 2024 definition of Passive Perception doesn't really clarify either way whether it applies always or is limited to a creatures own turn....
But i do recall reading that one of the changes for 2024 was the designers wanted checks to be an active thing a character did (on their turn), versus saves would be when they are hit by something on someone else's turn. the opposed skill check of 2014 violated that goal, so changing it to a stealth/dex dc15 check means no one else is doing a check on the rogue's turn. and it would mean if the rogue rolls a 16 on their turn, they are hidden, even if an enemy in the room has a passive perception of 21, because that is the effect of a check, and checks happen on the creatures own turn....
It's a very interesting shift in the way it works. Much more consistent.
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.
Making Search->PerceptionCheck a BonusAction for everyone might be possible solution.
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".
"I think the RAW passive skills using 10 + MOD is too high because it's just the average of the active roll"
Yep. Thats the issue as i see it.
The rest of it, eh, its impossible to post much of anything on the internet without at least some chance of a dogpile. I dont mind.
But also, the language of the rules is just horribly confusing a lot of places, and a lot of.rules, folks interpret differently, but think their interpretation is the intended interpretation. So, when i post, i expect someone is goijg to disagree and i dont rake it personally. But usually, if someone doesnt agree but also is willing to talk about it, some bit of clarity is achieved. In this thread, that clarity is this nugget:
"I think the RAW passive skills using 10 + MOD is too high because it's just the average of the active roll"
And to me, that makes the thread worth it.
So thanks for that.