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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Thinking about this in game design terms rather than realism:
Oddly, hiding and moving silently are much much different in this edition than they were in previous editions
AD&D
3.x
4e
So in every prior edition, hiding was part of movement, and perception was mostly passive. That doesn't mean the 5th edition way of doing things is bad, just different, but it might be bad.
What do players and DMs actually expect?
My experience is that people do not expect perception checks to require an action for normal hazards, but something that does require an action is usually impossible without an action -- the DM won't even give you a roll unless you say "I'm searching the bookshelf" or whatever. I think the actual expected behavior of perception checks is something like:
Of course, that's about outside of combat. In combat, it really comes down to plausibility and balance. I think the expected behavior is something like
That's not the best way to think about it in this case. Instead, what I've described is just the only possible conclusion that can be drawn from the rules that actually are written. The books emphasize brevity so when this sort of thing occurs, they tend not to actually write the conclusion into the text.
The reason why it works this way is because passive perception is explicitly used to determine what a creature notices within the environment through general awareness without actually consciously searching.
So, by the time that you are ready to declare an action to search for something either you've already passively noticed it, or you haven't. So, any value for your active roll that is lower than your Passive score simply has no meaning other than as a failure state. For example, if your Passive Score is 13 and you actively roll a 6, that does NOT mean that you are perceiving something "even worse" than you could have passively. That's not a correct interpretation. Instead, this simply means that the thing that you are searching for was too well hidden to notice passively and that with this particular active roll you still cannot find it. The actual number doesn't matter except as a pass/fail mechanism. Therefore, as a way to explain what the rules actually say in a simplified manner, we can consider that any value for the active check below your Passive score can just be rounded up to your Passive score which therefore acts as a "floor" for your active check numerically.
Example: Your Passive score is 13. You are walking down a hallway. A secret door on one wall is defined to be impossible to detect unless a creature is 10 feet away or closer. When within that distance the DC = 10. Well, if you happen to be walking close enough to that wall during your walk you will automatically "notice" the secret door without actively searching for it (no action required). If you never got close enough to that portion of the wall while walking down this hallway then you will not "notice" it. Now, if instead you do walk close enough but the DC = 15 then you will not notice it and will likely walk on by without ever finding it. However, if instead for whatever reason you are actually searching this wall for secret doors, then since your Passive check has already failed (no action required) then the DM will now ask you to roll a Perception check (action required). This active roll has a 45% chance of success. The actual value of the roll is meaningless beyond the fact that it either represents succeeding (45% of the time) or failing (55% of the time).
Nope. I've quoted the rule above.
I've quoted the rule above.
By the RAW, this technically does work although it's not as good of a hiding place as most other places.
The reason why this works is because I cannot see or hear this creature and therefore I do not actually know it's location. I can make a pretty decent educated guess. But you might have used Subtle Spell to cast Dimension Door. Or you may have dropped down into a hole. I don't actually have any way of knowing this if my sense of sight and/or my sense of hearing cannot currently detect your location. What I CAN do is guess the square. And in this scenario, I'd be correct most of the time. But not necessarily every time.
__________
One final point I'd like to make here is somewhat of an appeal to common sense. Why do you all think that the game designers went through all of the trouble to define, include and print a Passive Perception score into just about every single published monster stat block in the game?
Unfortunately, "failure of internal communication" is a reasonably plausible answer, because it was definitely important in 2014.
Instead of making Passive Perception lower, the Devs opted to increase the Hide DC.
A DC 15+ requires a high Wisdom and/or Proficiency Bonus in Perception. Many low-mid CR creatures don't have a Passive Perception of 15+
More player characters tend to eventually have Passive Perception of 15+ because Perception is a popular skill proficiency and Wisdom is a primary ability of some classes.
Passive perception isn't for during combat...
It isn't for while you are tracking initiative and per round actions at all. That's what the search action is for.
Passive perception is for time frames of the game where your character is specifically NOT tracking each and every round worth if actions and is presumably just occasionally looking around. You know. Passively.
It is a tool for the DM so he doesn't have to tip his hand to the players by asking for a check to spot something because asking for that check let's players know there is something. So you use Passive perception.
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.
While DMs are free to not use Passive Perception during some encounter, the rules don't say ;
Anytime a DM wish to rely on it it can, regardless of the type of encounter or environment.
The DM can do anything with any rule whenever he or she wants. Sure sure. Rocks fall, your players die. Give them free actions all you like. Take their actions away. Play their character for them. Sure sure. The DM is in charge. Or whatever.
But, regardless, the passive perception is still a tool for the DM with a specific purpose, just like the Search action is a tool for the players for a specific purpose.
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.
Why is this thread so toxic, we're talking about something that's already been changed, and i don't think WOTC is gonna change it.
Chaos is malleable, death is not the end, and immortality is impermanent.
Its probably toxix because i suggested lowering paassive perception. That means nerfing the way things are now. That means lowering a character's power the way they are now.
Ask any player "should we nerf some feature, make characters less powerful?" And the vast majority of the answer will be "no! How dare you! This is a stupid idea!"
Because power.creep.is a thing.
Currently, 2024 rules basically say that everyone's passive perceptio ln is a minimum 15. Well, not exactly, the rules say you have to roll a atealth check, dc = 14 to hide. Which in the 2014 rules of contested checks stealth-versus-perception means that its equivalent to everyone having a minimum passive percwption of 15.
Suggest that this be nerfed, suggest that passive perception be lowered? Its always going to get folks who object based on nothing more than they dont want anything that lowers their power.
Stealth needed some kind of limiting factor if it's going to explicitly grant the invisible condition, particularly if you cleave to the opinions that nothing short of an active Search Action can then see through it.
The problem with nerfing passive perception is that stealth is already a balance problem. I'm fine with a small nerf to perception as long as it gets combined with a much larger nerf to stealth (step 1: pass without trace no longer grants +10 stealth, it gives advantage on stealth checks and disadvantages on checks to see you. Which isn't that much worse by itself, it just eliminates its ability to stack with other stealth mechanics).
I'd agree that Pass Without Trace is a bit overblown. Indeed, I'd argue that virtually all of the specialized bonuses to d20 rolls violate the principle of "constrained accuracy" - including far more mild benefits like Guidance. Advantage is fine. Versatile Talent-like abilities are fine. Being able to use one ability instead of another is fine. But when you just start adding flat bonuses to the rolls, they can get out-of-hand.
However, any discussion about balancing Stealth needs to acknowledge that while Stealth on a Wizard or Fighter is nice, it's an essential core mechanic for Rogues. So if you rewrite Hide so that "not being behind Cover/Obscurement at the end of the turn" is an additional condition for ending Stealth, you need to also implement a fix within the Rogue class itself to counterbalance it.
"Stealth needed some kind of limiting factor if it's going to explicitly grant the invisible condition, "
"Invisible" as a conditon just means advantage on attacks. Disadvantage being attacked. Which is exactly the same mechanic as 2014. Its juat that 2014 put it all in a weird block of text about invisible and unseen attackers.
"particularly if you cleave to the opinions that nothing short of an active Search Action can then see through it."
I cleave to the opinion that Dashing every turn shouldnt give you the passive perception equal to the average roll for actively taking the Search action every turn. But it does.
I also cleave to the opinion that having your passive perception be your average roll means that half the time you actively search, it results in a worse result than if you had done nothing and relied on passive perception instead. And thats dumb.
Makng passive perception be the floor value of any active check fixes the problem of "actively searching is worse than doing nothing half the time" but the effect is "half the time, actively searching is as useful as doing nothing"
You do? Why?
The solution to that is to give a huge bonus to the search action. Or to just make it not an action in the first place. I would be tempted by
Then you can make passive scores be skill+5 or whatever and it's fine.