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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If a player says "I search the room" and the DM says "make a perception check", that's player-initiated. If the PCs are walking down a trail and the DM says "make a perception check", that's DM-initiated.
Have you considered that taking the search action is for when passive fails? Much like an attack roll you might do better then average you might not. Your action is what gives you the chance of doing better. If your opponent has high AC then there is a chance an average roll fails. It's the same with stealth.
But there is no "passive attack". Nor can you "take 10" or "take 20" on an attack. Passive checks are and should only be for those skills that can be done... passively. In fact, you can understand better by the fact that it's not called "passive search" either; it's "passive perception". How do you perform a Search Action (action)? Make a Perception Roll (skill). It's not a Perception Action, nor is it a Search Roll.
Yeah, but if the dm says "roll perception" and everyone rolls single digits, the players should not be allowed to immediately reroll. Its not just "roll when players ask to roll". If everyone rolled and failed, then thats it. Requests for repeat rolls should be denied by the dm.
The dmg specifically described the dm using passive perception as a way to avoid metagaming. But metagaming is a constant thing the dm has to stop. Inventing passive perception for this one metagaming issue just created all these other problems.
Also: "If the PCs are walking down a trail and the DM says "make a perception check", that's DM-initiated."
If the players arent actively searching, then the dm shouldnt have the players make an active search/perception check roll. If the players are dashing, they should not be able to percieve just as well as when they are standing still examining the floors for traps.
But thats basically how passive perception rules work. Players are in middle of combat, not searching, and when someone tries to hide, it ends up going against the enemy's passive perception scores. Even though the enemy is fighting and not actively searching.
And passive perception is the average result of actively searching.
Its called the Search Action. But if you do the Attack Action, you can fall back on your passive perception which, half the time, your passive is better than an active search action perception check roll. Half the time, you roll less than a 10. Half thr time, not actively searching (relying on passive) is better than actively searching (rolling a d20). Its a weird mechanism. It makes no sense.
Nope. Not at all. If they have the time to burn, let them burn the time.
No, the DMG does not. You are injecting your own bias into the rationale behind the rule and then using it defend your bias. It's circular logic.
The DMG (and the PHB) never mentions metagaming and that's a good thing. Some people enjoy leveraging meta knowledge in the game and if that's what the table wants, the DMG and PHB should not push that it is objectively wrong.
45% of the time, not half.
Nothing about Passive Perception explicitly states that it is a 1 for 1 substitute for a Perception check and can accomplish the same ends. It's a valid inference at best. If you discard the inference and Passive Perception accomplishes less than a standard check, then there is no problem.
*Passive Perception indicates character noticed something* "You hear a snapping sound to the north west"
"I Search for the source of the sound."
How to add Tooltips.
My houserulings.
passive perception already gets nerfed too much . often player characters will not get any benefit from being perceptive. one way they could improve rangers that wouldn't be game breaking is reinforcing how perceptive they are.
I'm not following this thread in a lot of detail, but if it's interesting for anyone, the "Borderlands Quest: Dagger Danger!" adventure has an example using Passive Perception: