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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Search Action: when you spend an entire Action doing something like an active Perception check.
Active perception check: roll 1d20 and add perception modifiers, roll 2d20 if advantage.
Passive Perception: reflects how aware you are when you are NOT actuvely spending your entire Action doing the Search Action.
Passive Perception: 10 + percption modifier. If advantage on active perception, add 5
The main issue is when the bbeg is fighting 3 melee characters, they are not burning an Action to Search for the Rogue. So when the Rogue tries to Hide in 2014 rules, the rogue did a Contested Check: rogues stealth versus bbeg's passive perception.
Except the formula for Passive perceptiin is exactly an average Roll for the bbeg burning an Action to take the Search Action and perform a Perception check.
TEN is the average roll for a d20. TEN + perception modifiers is an average roll for an active perception check.
If the bbeg is too busy to take the active Search Action, but gets a passive percptiin exactly on par with an active Search Action used to do a Perception Check, then doesnt Passive Perception basically give everyone a FREE/NO ACTION Search action against anyone trying to hide?
Seems like if the bbeg is busy fighting off a bunch of melee charavters, then they should be distracted just a tiny bit, and their PASSIVE PERCEPTION should be quite a bit lower than their average Search Action to do a Perception Check.
I.e. an active Search action to do an active perception check should be a bit better than a distracted creature catching out of the corner of their eye that the rogue is sneaking up behind them?
I dont know what thr passive perception should be. Maybe 5+perception mod and if advantage then add 2.
Or maybe 8 +half perception mod and if advantage addd 2.
But i dont think "out of the corner of your eye" passive perception should be as good as spending your action doinf nothing but searching.
Why would they still not have passive perception? You can call it perephial vision.
You can be fighting A/B/C/D/etc. and still see things out of the corner of your eye. I assume based on your question you don't have any experience where you are doing several things and still need to see things. Many large team sports are examples, same with babysitting multiple kids at public playground, military life in the field is another example, I am sure there are more.
Babysitting multiple kids is a great example of how you need to pay attention to several individuals and still need to keep your eyes open to see something else.
Just a bit of slant in the survey options, hmm?
If you do the opposite for the players, they are going to start complaining real quick. The entire point of passive perception is that it’s a floor that you have to beat in order to successfully hide or be unnoticed. If you have low passive perception, any traps in an area with be undetected and possibly spring on you, if you have high passive perception, you would know there’s traps in a certain area and be able to coordinate better that way.
Imagine being a Druid with a 20 in Wisdom, you have a Passive Perception of 19 or higher because it’s an important skill. A creature hides and beats the Hide dc, but goes below your Passive Perception, you should notice them right? But oh no, the dm made a random judgment that actually, since your distracted fighting, you don’t notice them at all and they still hide. It completely screws over the importance of that skill and hurts characters who focus on perception more than those who dump it.
Other than in the early stages of a career, rogues generally have no trouble beating most passive perceptions. You should have expertise (double your proficiency bonus for stealth checks) at first level. And, at seventh level you get reliable talent. By eighth level (assuming pure rogue), your modifier for stealth checks should result in a minimum roll of 20 (assuming a dex of 18). I am currently playing a ranger (5th level)/rogue (8th level) who can't roll below a 25 on stealth checks. There aren't too many monsters with that high of a passive perception.
When I've failed stealth checks playing rogues, its generally been at 4th level or lower.
In practice, the BBEG passive perception vs. rogues stealth is generally a non-issue.
The rules on Passive checks are vague. However, the general (and only) rule appears to be that you use Passive checks when the DM doesn't want to alert the players. That is, a Passive check is the check to see if the character is aware enough to realize they should be actively checking for something.
So Passive Perception might clue you that there might potentially be a hidden enemy somewhere around but you'd still need to take an Action to roll the Search check.
Your babysitting multiple kids. One of them is trying to sleight of hand candy out of a jar.
You spend your entire action Searching, doing an active perception check, watching that kid as they atand next to the candy jar.
And youre telling me you should have EXACTLY THE SAME level of perception of catching them sneaking candy if instead you spend all of your actions, bonus actions, and movement keeping 3 other kids from falling off the balcony on the other side of the room
People have clearly become enchanted with the rules and havent stopped to think what the rules mean.
The difference between 2014 Hide and 2024 Hide is
in 2014, the rogue does a contested stealth check against the bbeg's passive perception check, which is exactly the same as them burning an entire action searching for the Rogue.
In 2024, the rogue does a stealth check, dc 15, on success they are hidden. The bbeg doesnt get to percieve the rogue unless they stop and take a Search Action to do a Perception check dc equal to whatevrr the rogue rolled for stealth.
In 2014 hide rules, a passive perception check was just as good as a full active search.
In 2024 hide rules, passive perception doesnt apply. The rogue hides if they succeed on a dc 15 stealth check. And the monsters dont get a free no action Search Action free Pereption check. The monster actually has to take the Search action if they want to look for the rogue.
Anyone who thinks a free passive perception corner-of-eye check should be just as good as an active Seach Action->Perception Check has forgotten what the rules even mean.
2024 rules for Hide completely solve this problem by removing the free passive check from the sequence.
Nope. You spend 6 seconds active taking the Search Action looking for the Rogue
Or
You take 6 seconds to Attack the Paladin, Bonus Action light attack the Cleric, Opportunity attack the Druid who is running away from you, while watching the rogue behind 3/4 cover, somewhere out of your direction of view and you side glance to see what he's up to.
BOTH of those perceptions of the rogue have the same capability in 2014, and its actually crazy.
But, 2024 solves it by removing the contested stealth versus passive perception check. The bbeg doesnt get a free SideEyeGlance thats somehow just as effective as 6 seconds of doing nothing but watching the rogue like a hawk. The passive perception is gone from the equation.
Hide is stealth dc 15. To percieve, you must take the Search Action and not distract yourself with Attacks or Bonus Actions. And your perception check must be higher than what the rogue rolled for stealth.
It fixes everything wrong with the 2014 rules for Hiding. By doing a complete end run around the passive perception corner of your eye check somehow being just as good as 6 seconds intently searching.
Now rhat passive perception is removed from Hide rules. The thing left to fix is passive perception itself.
And the only way to NOT fix it is to say a side glance corner of your eye peek is just as effective as 6 seconds doing nothing but a perception check.
And do people vote that because they actually believe it? Or do they vote that way because theyre used to that being the rule for over a decade?
I spend my entire turn doing nothing but watch the rogue. Youre saying i can be just as effective in keeping an eye on the rogue if all my actions and bonus actions and such are all focused somewhere else and i just side eye the rogue?
And you’re saying that adding another layer of complexity that’s completely redundant is a smart move? I did not know you were an expert game designer.
If it’s 2014, you’re nerfing ONLY characters with good perception anyways by forcing them to waste an action because their passive perception is suddenly lower because… dm said so.
If it’s 2024, the Passive Perception doesn’t even do anything at all, so you wasted your time fixing a issue that isn’t even real.
Passive Perception still exists in 2024 rules. And its definition is still wonky:
2024 PHB: "Passive Perception is a score that reflects a creature’s general awareness of its surroundings. The DM uses this score when determining whether a creature notices something without consciously making a Wisdom (Perception) check."
If you are actively searching and your average perception check while actively searching is 18, then how is your perception check when you are not acticely taking the Search Action also 18?
Players are crawling a dungeon, taking it slow, being xarefule, looking for traps, looking for ambushes. The DM knows there are a bunch of kobolds around the next corner but doesnt want to ask for a perception check because asking players to make a perception check will alert them to something being nearby.
But theyre being careful and taking it slow, so using their average active perception check makes sense.
But if the players are busy fighting some goblins, and a kobold is setting up for a sneak attack, the dm shouldnt use the average of their active search perception check. Because theyre not actively checking for anything. Theyre in combat.
But you dont want to ask for a perception check because that tips off the players. So, what value should the dm use? Half their Passive Perception? calculate their average roll for actively searching, and divide by 2?
The issue with passive perception messing up the Hide action is gone in 2024, but the definition still points to the same problem. If the players are actively searching, if theyre moving slow and being cautious, and theres an ambush ahead that you want to know if they see it, but you dont want to ask because asking tips them off, you would use the passive perception acore calculation.
Makes sense.
But if theyre in combat, not being careful, not taking their time, and theyre about to walk over a trap door, but you dont want to ask for a perception check because that will alert them, you certainly wouldnt use their passive perception based on the average result of an active Search Action. They're swinging swords and grappling giant octopi. Theyre not Searching.
What score do you use to determine if they see the trapdoor before someone steps on it when the party isnt searching and everyone is distracted
That’s quite a lot of spelling errors in there, but that’s beside the point. Do you know both 5e and 5.5e already have mechanics that fill in what you proposed? 5e's travel rule has it so when you're travelling at a Fast pace, you have Disadvantage (or a -5 on your passive) on Perception checks, in fact, Dim Light and any Light Obscuration does the same exact thing in combat.
5.5's travel rules are even more refined in this matter, Disadvantage on Perception and Stealth when you go Fast, Disadvantage on Stealth when you move normally and Advantage on Perception when you go slow.
Your definition of combat is ill defined, is combat when you’re in initiative? Or is it when you’re fighting a certain amount of enemies. What about enemies that are very distant and using ranged attacks? What you want is so poorly explained that it you as well say “it happens whenever I want”.