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:
Based on what, sxactly?
A monster/npc actively takes an action to Hide. They roll an active stealth check. They have to roll greater than 15 AND greater than any PASSIVE PERCEPTION of any player.
So while the hider has to take action, the searchers just rely on passive perception to find them. AND the hider has to beat a 15 on their stealth, meaning even if the entire party has passive perceptions of 10, the hider has to beat a 15.
It is WAY harder to hide, it takes an action or bonus action to hide. You stealth has to beat an arbitrary 15 as well.as any passive perceptions.
Passive perceiving doesnt require any action or bonus action, but is as effective as an average active search action rolling a 10 on the d20, plus any modifiers.
Perception is waaaay more powerful than Stealth/hiding.
The players are dashing through the hallway where the bugbear is hiding. . they are not as perceptive as a 16 passive perception. Their background perception (much lower than passive) has to beat a 16 to percieve the bugbear so as not to be surprised.
Based on how a lot of Dms play it.
most benefits of passive perception can easily get dm veto
Based on hiding being much easier than finding someone hiding. I'm fine with a nerf to passive perception as long as there's an equal nerf to hiding.
Where in the world are you getting this from? There is no such thing as "background perception" in this game.
If you look at the quoted text above which comes from an officially published adventure, the DM is explicitly instructed to use the Passive Perception score and compare that to a DC of 16 (this happens to be an average roll for this monster if it had actually rolled for Stealth instead -- the adventure simplifies that portion of the mechanic in this case). That is how this particular scenario is meant to be adjudicated and that is generally the purpose of Passive Perception and how it is meant to be used. It is a good example.
Well if they refuse to allow passive perception when the players arent searching, then thats basically pointing to the problem im seeing: passive perception is too high.
If the players are going carefully down a hallway, and the dm doesnt want to ask for a roll to tip off the players about an orc ambush, use passive perception. Its the average of an active search. And the players are actively searching.
But if the players are preoccupied, then passive perception is too high. Theyre not paying attention, theyre not actively searching. If the dm wants to know if the players see something without asking for a roll (because theyrr not taking the search actikn so a roll would be inappropriate) then either use a different "passive" score like "background" or us "passive" with a penalty such as -5 for disadvantage.
Except no one can passively hide. It takes an Action or BonusAction. But currently PassivePerception is as good as an average roll of an active perception check done as an Action, but taking no time.
For most characters (except rogues), hiding burns your Action and you cant attack, so most builds dont hide during combat. For all characters, passive perception is free, takes no time, and is as effective as an perception check that normally takes an entire Action.
Most builds might hide outside initiative to avoid combat or to setup an ambush (though ambush only gives advantage on initiative now, so isnt as useful so i dont see it happen very often). But during combat, hiding is too expensive, no one wants to give up their action and not be able to attack.
Passive perception is free, takes no time, and always on.
And you think hiding is easier?
"If you look at the quoted text above which comes from an officially published adventure, "
The entire point of this thread is that there is a problem with the official rules.
Lugga, is a hidden bugbear. Trying to surprise/ambush the party in a hallway.
The rules you quote say "If the character(s) ... have a Passive Perception of 16 or higher, they are not Surprised."
Scenario 1: players are carefully moving through the hallway, taking rheir time, trying to be quiet.
Scenario 2: players just ran into a monster and are dashing every turn through the hallway.
And the rules you quote say use Passive Perception for both scenarios.
I say if the players are being chased by a monster and dashing down the hallway, then Lugga the bugbear should have an easier time ambushing the party than if the party were carefully and quietly moving down the halway.
So invoke disadvantage (-5) on their passive scores, I guess? Honestly, I've been going back and forth on this myself, and I will say that some points you bring up bear discussion, but I also think there is a solution to your problem within the rules themselves: If you think things are too hectic for a character to reasonably get (ever so slightly below) their average roll for passive perception, then apply disadvantage.
I'm trying to codify some things that I feel Hide/Perception/Invisible do that bring up way too much argument at the moment, but I don't want to push this thread in that direction. I would like most participants in this thread to take a look (over in DM's Only) and get your thoughts.
There isn't actually any problem though. Mathematically, the current model works just fine. Could they have chosen to use "8" as a baseline instead of "10"? Maybe. But what difference would that make really? That design decision is somewhat arbitrary, and they chose to use "10" which means that 50% of the time your active roll will not be better. Would it be so much better if they had decided that 40% of the time your active roll would not be better instead?
It's really important to understand that the actual number that is rolled has no meaning. The entire point of a D20 test is to simply create a random pass/fail outcome with a certain probability of success with the notable exception that a natural 1 or natural 20 for an attack roll does have mechanical meaning. Ability checks don't even have this. So, comparing the actual final number between a Passive check and an active check misses the point. The active check will always give you an opportunity for success a certain percentage of the time in cases where the Passive check will always fail. And the opposite is never true since you wouldn't be rolling if the Passive check was already successful. As such, these mechanics work just fine together as written.
The published adventure is advising the DM to adjudicate the particular presented situation in a certain way. In this case there would be no difference between Scenario 1 and Scenario 2. That's also the default for how Passive Perception is meant to be used.
However, if you create your own similar situation for your players in your game then it is reasonable for a DM to apply disadvantage to the Passive Perception for Scenario 2 -- there is rules support for that in the Travel section of the rules even though those rules are typically applied to longer term travel rather than dungeon exploration "travel", but the concept could certainly be borrowed from there if the DM decides that the scenario should be ruled that way.
Note that in both scenarios above, the characters are not actually taking Search actions. They are just remaining as aware as possible while moving through the environment.
Yes. What this amounts to is:
Youre looking at the chance of success numbers and ignoring the action cost.
Burning an action to hide has 50% chance of success.
Using your action to attack and relying on -5 to passive perception to find someone hidden has a 25% chance of success.
I honestly think that is a fair trade.
If you take an action to Search, you should have an better chance of finding whats hidden.