If there is a hidden thing that you have decided has a DC of 15, do you: (all three of these situations have been discussed in this thread)
Automatically tell me about the hidden thing if my PP is high enough?
Ask me to roll a perception check (either before or after giving me any context for the roll request)
Base your decision on whether I, the player, has announced my character is keeping an eye out for things?
In the context of the original post of this thread, the text of the adventures seem to me to be written with #1 in mind, whereas many DMs from OP's perspective tend toward #2 and some responders in this thread (David42 for instance) seem to lean more toward #3. It is also my opinion that players who build high perception characters are typically looking for #1 as well. After all, you don't know about the things you don't know about. If a DM plays style #3 in that context, then I would think the high PP character will simply announce upon entering every room that they are keeping an eye out for things.
The bolded part is where the issue really lies, methinks.
Some people absolutely hate players who build for obnoxiously high passive perception, on the assumption that their DM is then forced to tell them absolutely everything there could ever possibly be to know about everywhere they're at. I fall into that camp - games are better when players can be surprised sometimes, and the chance of not finding a secret makes those secrets you do manage to find all the more rewarding. Someone who builds a character with a passive perception score of 117 and says to the DM "don't even pretend like I 'miss' things; whenever I enter a room I want an itemized list of every-goddamned-thing in it and I will not accept "roll Perception" as an answer, jackhole" are extremely aggravating to me as a DM.
I'm playing a Druid with Expertise in Perception and the Observant feat currently in a weekly game. It was my first character and I know now I wouldn't want to take this feat again. I love the lip reading aspect of the feat and obviously the +1 Wisdom is really nice, but the passive check buff really makes the game kinda meh to me. With a "powergamer" perspective my 26 passive perception shouldn't really miss much, and my DM has ruled it so that when the stakes are low (unlimited time or what have you) I can use my passive instead of rolling, however that kinda kills the enjoyment for me.
I really don't like the design philosophy of a few of the things like this that 5E does. I'm playing a really perceptive character because I want to be able to notice "everything", but that doesn't mean I want to take away the element of playing the game for noticing things. Passive perception, and Ranger's Natural Explorer are the two that stick out most to me. I don't want to pick the choices that make my PC the best at a certain task only to have the effect be that we skip over it in actual gameplay because I'm able to accomplish the aforementioned task without needing a roll.
On the other hand, the frustration of missing things - especially when you see a roll of 3 on your Perception and you know (as much as a player ever does, anyways) that there's something in that goddamned room and you're missing it - is very real. I can understand the desire to avoid that as much as possible, especially when coming from a video gaming, 100%-er perspective. Passive perception seems like the best tool for ensuring that the jackoff sitting behind the screen who's trying to avoid having to tell you stuff doesn't get the chance to do that.
So you get some pretty fierce debates between people who welcome botched perception rolls and people who cannot stand botching a perception roll. Having recently played several games with a new character sitting at WIS 6 with a commensurately godawful perception, frankly I've found it delightful coming up with increasingly inventive ways for said character to be distracted and unfocused every time she blows a Perception roll, and those rare few times when she nails it are all the more awesome because of it. I would recommend trying such an approach to anyone who typically tries to make sure their passive perception bottoms out at 35 by level 2 in every game they play - it can be a lot of fun.
I agree with this, I've recently started playing a Rune Knight with a Wisdom of 6, his perception is terrible and I've been roleplaying him as not knowing the cardinal directions and he often has to be lead by other party members towards their objectives. Its been a blast playing him.
That's actually a really good point, Tiger. I'd never considered the implications of being so good at a given skill that the DM basically handwaves success, and thus you rarely actually get that moment of feeling cool and powerful because your skill investment yielded an awesome result.
Think part of that is your DM failing to play up why you're getting all these freebie Perception victories - they should still count as victories and be celebrated as such - but it's an interesting point to consider. Heh, I'd bet that when your Rune Knight makes a Perception check it feels a whole lot more like a Victory than when your Druid does, ne?
I love me some Rogues, one of my top three classes, and having high numbers in a lot of different skills is great. I am always down for being the party skillmonkey. But man, it'd suck if my high numbers got ignored and handwaved. Which is probably why Observant is so controversial - people want their passive numbers to be Heroic, too. even if it ends up being bad for the game.
Thanks for that, it's an interesting way to view the problem that I hadn't considered before.
The stat bump has a value of 0.5. Read lips is probably about as commonly useful as a tool or language, so if we set the value of one of those three at n, we get:
(+5 to PP, +5 to PI) has value (0.5 - n)
Expertise has value (1 - 2n)
Thus, expertise is twice as valuable as getting +5 to both passives.
This suggests that passive use shouldn't be more than 25% of the total value of a skill. Alternately, one of those feats is broken.
...I don't follow. Break that down a bit more for us, Pant? The pseudomath is just not clicking for me, I'm not sure what it is you're driving at.
The point is, Observant (which grants a stat bump) should have weaker non-stat effects than Prodigy (which does not). The only way to implement that is by assuming passive perception is rarely used.
Yeah, which is why Tavern Brawler has a weaker effect than Grappler!
Oh wait... well....
In a perfect world, yes half-stat feats would always be weaker than non-stat feats, but I don't think that meta balance between two feats is a very persuasive argument for how to read either of those two feats individually, much less how an entire concept like passive checks operates.
Yeah, which is why Tavern Brawler has a weaker effect than Grappler!
Oh wait... well....
In a perfect world, yes half-stat feats would always be weaker than non-stat feats, but I don't think that meta balance between two feats is a very persuasive argument for how to read either of those two feats individually, much less how an entire concept like passive checks operates.
Sure, there's a possibility of "this feat is poorly balanced", but that's just an argument for removing or changing it. Honestly, bonuses to passive checks are bad design -- far better to give a bonus to certain classes of check, and it applies whether the DM wants to resolve that with a skill roll or a check vs the passive value (in the case of Observant, I have no idea what it's supposed to be; the feat description does not give any reason it shouldn't be a bonus to active checks).
Yeah, which is why Tavern Brawler has a weaker effect than Grappler!
Oh wait... well....
In a perfect world, yes half-stat feats would always be weaker than non-stat feats, but I don't think that meta balance between two feats is a very persuasive argument for how to read either of those two feats individually, much less how an entire concept like passive checks operates.
Sure, there's a possibility of "this feat is poorly balanced", but that's just an argument for removing or changing it. Honestly, bonuses to passive checks are bad design -- far better to give a bonus to certain classes of check, and it applies whether the DM wants to resolve that with a skill roll or a check vs the passive value (in the case of Observant, I have no idea what it's supposed to be; the feat description does not give any reason it shouldn't be a bonus to active checks).
This exactly, I believe it was stated at some point, but just giving advantage on perception/investigation checks based on sight would have caused so many less issues. It might have been too strong at that point, which makes sense but at least it wouldn't break passive perception.
Yeah, which is why Tavern Brawler has a weaker effect than Grappler!
Oh wait... well....
In a perfect world, yes half-stat feats would always be weaker than non-stat feats, but I don't think that meta balance between two feats is a very persuasive argument for how to read either of those two feats individually, much less how an entire concept like passive checks operates.
Sure, there's a possibility of "this feat is poorly balanced", but that's just an argument for removing or changing it. Honestly, bonuses to passive checks are bad design -- far better to give a bonus to certain classes of check, and it applies whether the DM wants to resolve that with a skill roll or a check vs the passive value (in the case of Observant, I have no idea what it's supposed to be; the feat description does not give any reason it shouldn't be a bonus to active checks).
This exactly, I believe it was stated at some point, but just giving advantage on perception/investigation checks based on sight would have caused so many less issues. It might have been too strong at that point, which makes sense but at least it wouldn't break passive perception.
Remove the stat bump? Might still be too strong, advantage is pretty big, but at least it lines up with keen senses abilities.
I don't really get the angst about passive perception. Yes, a high passive perception will notice things that would otherwise likely go unnoticed. However, how does this add to suspense?
A DM who only asks for die rolls when there is something to find is giving away free information to the players. "Oh. We need to search more here". To avoid this, many DMs will occasionally throw in perception checks when there is nothing to find. Similarly, with a high passive perception the DM might narrate whatever is found that might have required a roll from another player.
Keep in mind that from a player perspective it is ALL the SAME. The players don't know if there is something to find, they don't know the DC if any, and if the DM narrates a secret door that only the character with high passive perception notices then they are rewarded for their investment by finding it. There is no "excitement" in failed perception checks. The players don't know that anything was missed. Only the DM knows. The DM has a moment of excitement ... "Oh they came so close to finding the hidden door with treasure behind it, but didn't". All the players see is rolling a die that may or may not be high enough to reveal something. They walk away more than half the time with a feeling of vague dissatisfaction having rolled but found nothing (if the DM is known to ask for rolls when something could be found).
Finally, even if the character notices something, this doesn't mean that they have "solved the problem", "answered the puzzle", or otherwise dealt with a situation. The characters still need to resolve what to do based on the new information. If a DM makes the entire problem dependent only on noticing it then the issue is with the DM encounter design and not with passive perception.
Proper use of passive skills does not detract in any way from game play. However, in many cases die rolls do. For example, the party is looking for clues, examines the contents of the bookcase, one character has a passive perception of 16 and should notice the DC 15 clue hidden among the books. Instead the DM calls for a roll from the 5 players just for the sake of "excitement", they roll: 3,6,7,1,5 ... none of them find the clue .. but the DM made the clue an important step in the plot line and now needs to fudge everything since the players rolled low. Or alternatively, the clue lead to some cool treasure the DM was expecting they would find. Encounter fail in both cases by trying to rely on a die roll. Instead the DM could use passive to find the clue and have that introduce some sort of puzzle or other aspect to the encounter that the players then need to figure out. If no one in the party has a decent passive perception then have a scaled DC ... one letting the characters find the clue and a second lower one that will make them suspicious and allow a re-roll or automatically find the clue if they spend 10 minutes searching.
Anyway, the bottom line, in my experience, passive skills and passive perception in particular, don't take away from play, you still find things and occasionally miss other things and it is fun either way.
P.S. If Observant had been worded to give advantage on perception and investigation rolls that would be very easy to implement. It would STILL add +5 to passive perception and investigation since that is how advantage is implemented when dealing with passive skills. The big problem with how observant is implemented has more to do with the range of ways DMs use passive skills and passive perception in particular and not the feat itself. If a DM doesn't use passive skills then advantage makes more sense for the feat. If they do use passive skills then a +5 is functionally very similar to advantage for DCs in the middle of the target range. However, a flat +5 is much stronger for very difficult task DCs.
I don't really get the angst about passive perception. Yes, a high passive perception will notice things that would otherwise likely go unnoticed. However, how does this add to suspense?
A DM who only asks for die rolls when there is something to find is giving away free information to the players. "Oh. We need to search more here". To avoid this, many DMs will occasionally throw in perception checks when there is nothing to find. Similarly, with a high passive perception the DM might narrate whatever is found that might have required a roll from another player.
Keep in mind that from a player perspective it is ALL the SAME. The players don't know if there is something to find, they don't know the DC if any, and if the DM narrates a secret door that only the character with high passive perception notices then they are rewarded for their investment by finding it. There is no "excitement" in failed perception checks. The players don't know that anything was missed. Only the DM knows. The DM has a moment of excitement ... "Oh they came so close to finding the hidden door with treasure behind it, but didn't". All the players see is rolling a die that may or may not be high enough to reveal something. They walk away more than half the time with a feeling of vague dissatisfaction having rolled but found nothing (if the DM is known to ask for rolls when something could be found).
Finally, even if the character notices something, this doesn't mean that they have "solved the problem", "answered the puzzle", or otherwise dealt with a situation. The characters still need to resolve what to do based on the new information. If a DM makes the entire problem dependent only on noticing it then the issue is with the DM encounter design and not with passive perception.
Proper use of passive skills does not detract in any way from game play. However, in many cases die rolls do. For example, the party is looking for clues, examines the contents of the bookcase, one character has a passive perception of 16 and should notice the DC 15 clue hidden among the books. Instead the DM calls for a roll from the 5 players just for the sake of "excitement", they roll: 3,6,7,1,5 ... none of them find the clue .. but the DM made the clue an important step in the plot line and now needs to fudge everything since the players rolled low. Or alternatively, the clue lead to some cool treasure the DM was expecting they would find. Encounter fail in both cases by trying to rely on a die roll. Instead the DM could use passive to find the clue and have that introduce some sort of puzzle or other aspect to the encounter that the players then need to figure out. If no one in the party has a decent passive perception then have a scaled DC ... one letting the characters find the clue and a second lower one that will make them suspicious and allow a re-roll or automatically find the clue if they spend 10 minutes searching.
Anyway, the bottom line, in my experience, passive skills and passive perception in particular, don't take away from play, you still find things and occasionally miss other things and it is fun either way.
If they are examining the contents of the bookshelf. It should be investigation.
if they are examining the room, and it seems the bookshelf was recently used, that would be perception.
my beef with passive perception. Is many GMs, don’t use perception/investigation appropriately, just the same as many GMs don’t use acrobatics/athletics appropriately either.
Here's my take. I started a campaign using passive perception. (Argue about whether it's a "floor" or not - I would just determine, when the party enters a room, if someone has a passive high enough to notice certain hidden things, and just say "Agmar, your keen eyes notice patterns in the dust around this bookcase that make you think it's been re-positioned recently."
Works great - gives them info and let's them notice something without just saying "woo! you found the secret door. The thing is... the players all complained about not getting to roll the dice enough.
So now I have them all roll perception. either someone will roll high enough to notice whatever it was, or - if anyone in the group has a high enough passive that they should have caught it anyway - I'll just pick the player with the highest roll and say "you just faintly notice something odd about this bookcase."
Now everyone's happy! And they feel awesome for noticing the things. And the game doesn't bog down when they all roll for crap and fail to find any clues to progress. Because if I take the time to plan out a secret room, I kind of want them to find and explore it. :)
If they are examining the contents of the bookshelf. It should be investigation.
Why?
Here is why I might disagree.
Perception in my interpretation applies to things you might notice or sense (hear, see, smell, taste).
Investigation (again in my interpretation) applies to things you need to figure out.
If the clue to be found in the bookcase might be a marked book, a flap folded over as an unobtrusive bookmark then I might well use perception to find the clue. On the other hand, if finding the clue required interpreting the contents of the books then it might be investigation.
Perception. Your Wisdom (Perception) check lets you spot, hear, or otherwise detect the presence of something. It measures your general awareness of your surroundings and the keenness of your senses For example, you might try to hear a conversation through a closed door, eavesdrop under an open window, or hear monsters moving stealthily in the forest. Or you might try to spot things that are obscured or easy to miss, whether they are ores lying in ambush on a road, thugs hiding in the shadows of an alley, or candlelight under a closed secret door.
Investigation. When you look around for clues and make deductions based on those clues, you make an Intelligence (Investigation) check. You might deduce the location of a hidden object, discern from the appearance of a wound what kind of weapon dealt it, or determine the weakest point in a tunnel that could cause it to collapse. Poring through ancient scrolls in search of a hidden fragment of knowledge might also call for an Intelligence (Investigation) check.
So, if the bookcase example required noticing something then I would use perception and if it involved making deductions based on the clues I would use investigation. I don't use the nature of the object being searched to determine the skill needed, I use the nature of the information that could be found to determine whether perception or investigation is more applicable.
I don't really get the angst about passive perception. Yes, a high passive perception will notice things that would otherwise likely go unnoticed. However, how does this add to suspense?
A DM who only asks for die rolls when there is something to find is giving away free information to the players. "Oh. We need to search more here". To avoid this, many DMs will occasionally throw in perception checks when there is nothing to find. Similarly, with a high passive perception the DM might narrate whatever is found that might have required a roll from another player.
Keep in mind that from a player perspective it is ALL the SAME. The players don't know if there is something to find, they don't know the DC if any, and if the DM narrates a secret door that only the character with high passive perception notices then they are rewarded for their investment by finding it. There is no "excitement" in failed perception checks. The players don't know that anything was missed. Only the DM knows. The DM has a moment of excitement ... "Oh they came so close to finding the hidden door with treasure behind it, but didn't". All the players see is rolling a die that may or may not be high enough to reveal something. They walk away more than half the time with a feeling of vague dissatisfaction having rolled but found nothing (if the DM is known to ask for rolls when something could be found).
Finally, even if the character notices something, this doesn't mean that they have "solved the problem", "answered the puzzle", or otherwise dealt with a situation. The characters still need to resolve what to do based on the new information. If a DM makes the entire problem dependent only on noticing it then the issue is with the DM encounter design and not with passive perception.
Proper use of passive skills does not detract in any way from game play. However, in many cases die rolls do. For example, the party is looking for clues, examines the contents of the bookcase, one character has a passive perception of 16 and should notice the DC 15 clue hidden among the books. Instead the DM calls for a roll from the 5 players just for the sake of "excitement", they roll: 3,6,7,1,5 ... none of them find the clue .. but the DM made the clue an important step in the plot line and now needs to fudge everything since the players rolled low. Or alternatively, the clue lead to some cool treasure the DM was expecting they would find. Encounter fail in both cases by trying to rely on a die roll. Instead the DM could use passive to find the clue and have that introduce some sort of puzzle or other aspect to the encounter that the players then need to figure out. If no one in the party has a decent passive perception then have a scaled DC ... one letting the characters find the clue and a second lower one that will make them suspicious and allow a re-roll or automatically find the clue if they spend 10 minutes searching.
Anyway, the bottom line, in my experience, passive skills and passive perception in particular, don't take away from play, you still find things and occasionally miss other things and it is fun either way.
If they are examining the contents of the bookshelf. It should be investigation.
if they are examining the room, and it seems the bookshelf was recently used, that would be perception.
my beef with passive perception. Is many GMs, don’t use perception/investigation appropriately, just the same as many GMs don’t use acrobatics/athletics appropriately either.
I think it would depend on why they are looking at the book shelf. "Oh look! Books! What do they have?" is very different from "There's the book shelf that was referenced in the clue. Everyone take a book to thumb through and find the next piece to the puzzle!"
According to my own stated method, it could go either way. On its face, you're aware of the bookshelf, so you're investigating it to learn greater detail. But maybe you're searching the bookshelf for something and you're not exactly sure what, but you'll know it when you see it. In that case, I could see using perception.
Most of the time, it would be investigation at my table though.
If they are examining the contents of the bookshelf. It should be investigation.
Why?
Here is why I might disagree.
Perception in my interpretation applies to things you might notice or sense (hear, see, smell, taste).
Investigation (again in my interpretation) applies to things you need to figure out.
If the clue to be found in the bookcase might be a marked book, a flap folded over as an unobtrusive bookmark then I might well use perception to find the clue. On the other hand, if finding the clue required interpreting the contents of the books then it might be investigation.
Perception. Your Wisdom (Perception) check lets you spot, hear, or otherwise detect the presence of something. It measures your general awareness of your surroundings and the keenness of your senses For example, you might try to hear a conversation through a closed door, eavesdrop under an open window, or hear monsters moving stealthily in the forest. Or you might try to spot things that are obscured or easy to miss, whether they are ores lying in ambush on a road, thugs hiding in the shadows of an alley, or candlelight under a closed secret door.
Investigation. When you look around for clues and make deductions based on those clues, you make an Intelligence (Investigation) check. You might deduce the location of a hidden object, discern from the appearance of a wound what kind of weapon dealt it, or determine the weakest point in a tunnel that could cause it to collapse. Poring through ancient scrolls in search of a hidden fragment of knowledge might also call for an Intelligence (Investigation) check.
So, if the bookcase example required noticing something then I would use perception and if it involved making deductions based on the clues I would use investigation. I don't use the nature of the object being searched to determine the skill needed, I use the nature of the information that could be found to determine whether perception or investigation is more applicable.
You wouldn’t find a flap folded over as a bookmark. By just looking at a bookshelf with the books lined up in it.
that would require looking at the books individually and their binding.
i could literally prove this point by taking a picture of my bookshelf at home, which does contain this phenomenon. You looking at a picture of my bookshelf. Is perception. If you can spot the exact book doing it. Bravo.
but my money would be you’d need to more closely exam the books, pulling them out 1 by 1 a tiny bit to notice that.
now I realize this is just taking your 1 example and nit Picking it.
the problem I have with the quoted text of you. Is the sentence DIRECTLY AFTER where you bolded perception. You highlighted “detect the presence of something.” Which is vague as hell. The VERY NEXT SENTENCE: “it measures your general awareness of your surroundings”
perception is general
investigation is specific.
your highlighted portion of investigation is spot on and hits its nature of it looks for SPECIFIC things.
perception vs investigation is literally general vs specific.
Perception gives general things. Investigation gives specific.
perception doesn’t give you “hidden door”. Perception gives you “you can see light or feel air coming through the wall”
Here's my take. I started a campaign using passive perception. (Argue about whether it's a "floor" or not - I would just determine, when the party enters a room, if someone has a passive high enough to notice certain hidden things, and just say "Agmar, your keen eyes notice patterns in the dust around this bookcase that make you think it's been re-positioned recently."
Works great - gives them info and let's them notice something without just saying "woo! you found the secret door. The thing is... the players all complained about not getting to roll the dice enough.
So now I have them all roll perception. either someone will roll high enough to notice whatever it was, or - if anyone in the group has a high enough passive that they should have caught it anyway - I'll just pick the player with the highest roll and say "you just faintly notice something odd about this bookcase."
Now everyone's happy! And they feel awesome for noticing the things. And the game doesn't bog down when they all roll for crap and fail to find any clues to progress. Because if I take the time to plan out a secret room, I kind of want them to find and explore it. :)
This!
perception. They notice dust around the bookshelf and such has been disturbed recently. Ie: general use of bookshelf.
they then learn they need to investigate the bookshelf.
now. All of this. Is hilarious to me. The anti investigation backlash. As observant increases passive investigation as well. The fundamental difference. People use int as a dump stat a lot. Where not so much for wisdom. So their investigations are typically lower than perceptions.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Blank
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I'm playing a Druid with Expertise in Perception and the Observant feat currently in a weekly game. It was my first character and I know now I wouldn't want to take this feat again. I love the lip reading aspect of the feat and obviously the +1 Wisdom is really nice, but the passive check buff really makes the game kinda meh to me. With a "powergamer" perspective my 26 passive perception shouldn't really miss much, and my DM has ruled it so that when the stakes are low (unlimited time or what have you) I can use my passive instead of rolling, however that kinda kills the enjoyment for me.
I really don't like the design philosophy of a few of the things like this that 5E does. I'm playing a really perceptive character because I want to be able to notice "everything", but that doesn't mean I want to take away the element of playing the game for noticing things. Passive perception, and Ranger's Natural Explorer are the two that stick out most to me. I don't want to pick the choices that make my PC the best at a certain task only to have the effect be that we skip over it in actual gameplay because I'm able to accomplish the aforementioned task without needing a roll.
I agree with this, I've recently started playing a Rune Knight with a Wisdom of 6, his perception is terrible and I've been roleplaying him as not knowing the cardinal directions and he often has to be lead by other party members towards their objectives. Its been a blast playing him.
Check out my latest homebrew: Mystic Knight (Fighter) v1.31
That's actually a really good point, Tiger. I'd never considered the implications of being so good at a given skill that the DM basically handwaves success, and thus you rarely actually get that moment of feeling cool and powerful because your skill investment yielded an awesome result.
Think part of that is your DM failing to play up why you're getting all these freebie Perception victories - they should still count as victories and be celebrated as such - but it's an interesting point to consider. Heh, I'd bet that when your Rune Knight makes a Perception check it feels a whole lot more like a Victory than when your Druid does, ne?
I love me some Rogues, one of my top three classes, and having high numbers in a lot of different skills is great. I am always down for being the party skillmonkey. But man, it'd suck if my high numbers got ignored and handwaved. Which is probably why Observant is so controversial - people want their passive numbers to be Heroic, too. even if it ends up being bad for the game.
Thanks for that, it's an interesting way to view the problem that I hadn't considered before.
Please do not contact or message me.
In the end, compare Observant to Prodigy (Perception)
The stat bump has a value of 0.5. Read lips is probably about as commonly useful as a tool or language, so if we set the value of one of those three at n, we get:
This suggests that passive use shouldn't be more than 25% of the total value of a skill. Alternately, one of those feats is broken.
...I don't follow. Break that down a bit more for us, Pant? The pseudomath is just not clicking for me, I'm not sure what it is you're driving at.
Please do not contact or message me.
Lol whut.
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
The point is, Observant (which grants a stat bump) should have weaker non-stat effects than Prodigy (which does not). The only way to implement that is by assuming passive perception is rarely used.
Yeah, which is why Tavern Brawler has a weaker effect than Grappler!
Oh wait... well....
In a perfect world, yes half-stat feats would always be weaker than non-stat feats, but I don't think that meta balance between two feats is a very persuasive argument for how to read either of those two feats individually, much less how an entire concept like passive checks operates.
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Sure, there's a possibility of "this feat is poorly balanced", but that's just an argument for removing or changing it. Honestly, bonuses to passive checks are bad design -- far better to give a bonus to certain classes of check, and it applies whether the DM wants to resolve that with a skill roll or a check vs the passive value (in the case of Observant, I have no idea what it's supposed to be; the feat description does not give any reason it shouldn't be a bonus to active checks).
This exactly, I believe it was stated at some point, but just giving advantage on perception/investigation checks based on sight would have caused so many less issues. It might have been too strong at that point, which makes sense but at least it wouldn't break passive perception.
Check out my latest homebrew: Mystic Knight (Fighter) v1.31
Remove the stat bump? Might still be too strong, advantage is pretty big, but at least it lines up with keen senses abilities.
I don't really get the angst about passive perception. Yes, a high passive perception will notice things that would otherwise likely go unnoticed. However, how does this add to suspense?
A DM who only asks for die rolls when there is something to find is giving away free information to the players. "Oh. We need to search more here". To avoid this, many DMs will occasionally throw in perception checks when there is nothing to find. Similarly, with a high passive perception the DM might narrate whatever is found that might have required a roll from another player.
Keep in mind that from a player perspective it is ALL the SAME. The players don't know if there is something to find, they don't know the DC if any, and if the DM narrates a secret door that only the character with high passive perception notices then they are rewarded for their investment by finding it. There is no "excitement" in failed perception checks. The players don't know that anything was missed. Only the DM knows. The DM has a moment of excitement ... "Oh they came so close to finding the hidden door with treasure behind it, but didn't". All the players see is rolling a die that may or may not be high enough to reveal something. They walk away more than half the time with a feeling of vague dissatisfaction having rolled but found nothing (if the DM is known to ask for rolls when something could be found).
Finally, even if the character notices something, this doesn't mean that they have "solved the problem", "answered the puzzle", or otherwise dealt with a situation. The characters still need to resolve what to do based on the new information. If a DM makes the entire problem dependent only on noticing it then the issue is with the DM encounter design and not with passive perception.
Proper use of passive skills does not detract in any way from game play. However, in many cases die rolls do. For example, the party is looking for clues, examines the contents of the bookcase, one character has a passive perception of 16 and should notice the DC 15 clue hidden among the books. Instead the DM calls for a roll from the 5 players just for the sake of "excitement", they roll: 3,6,7,1,5 ... none of them find the clue .. but the DM made the clue an important step in the plot line and now needs to fudge everything since the players rolled low. Or alternatively, the clue lead to some cool treasure the DM was expecting they would find. Encounter fail in both cases by trying to rely on a die roll. Instead the DM could use passive to find the clue and have that introduce some sort of puzzle or other aspect to the encounter that the players then need to figure out. If no one in the party has a decent passive perception then have a scaled DC ... one letting the characters find the clue and a second lower one that will make them suspicious and allow a re-roll or automatically find the clue if they spend 10 minutes searching.
Anyway, the bottom line, in my experience, passive skills and passive perception in particular, don't take away from play, you still find things and occasionally miss other things and it is fun either way.
P.S. If Observant had been worded to give advantage on perception and investigation rolls that would be very easy to implement. It would STILL add +5 to passive perception and investigation since that is how advantage is implemented when dealing with passive skills. The big problem with how observant is implemented has more to do with the range of ways DMs use passive skills and passive perception in particular and not the feat itself. If a DM doesn't use passive skills then advantage makes more sense for the feat. If they do use passive skills then a +5 is functionally very similar to advantage for DCs in the middle of the target range. However, a flat +5 is much stronger for very difficult task DCs.
If they are examining the contents of the bookshelf. It should be investigation.
if they are examining the room, and it seems the bookshelf was recently used, that would be perception.
my beef with passive perception. Is many GMs, don’t use perception/investigation appropriately, just the same as many GMs don’t use acrobatics/athletics appropriately either.
Blank
Here's my take. I started a campaign using passive perception. (Argue about whether it's a "floor" or not - I would just determine, when the party enters a room, if someone has a passive high enough to notice certain hidden things, and just say "Agmar, your keen eyes notice patterns in the dust around this bookcase that make you think it's been re-positioned recently."
Works great - gives them info and let's them notice something without just saying "woo! you found the secret door. The thing is... the players all complained about not getting to roll the dice enough.
So now I have them all roll perception. either someone will roll high enough to notice whatever it was, or - if anyone in the group has a high enough passive that they should have caught it anyway - I'll just pick the player with the highest roll and say "you just faintly notice something odd about this bookcase."
Now everyone's happy! And they feel awesome for noticing the things. And the game doesn't bog down when they all roll for crap and fail to find any clues to progress. Because if I take the time to plan out a secret room, I kind of want them to find and explore it. :)
Why?
Here is why I might disagree.
Perception in my interpretation applies to things you might notice or sense (hear, see, smell, taste).
Investigation (again in my interpretation) applies to things you need to figure out.
If the clue to be found in the bookcase might be a marked book, a flap folded over as an unobtrusive bookmark then I might well use perception to find the clue. On the other hand, if finding the clue required interpreting the contents of the books then it might be investigation.
Perception. Your Wisdom (Perception) check lets you spot, hear, or otherwise detect the presence of something. It measures your general awareness of your surroundings and the keenness of your senses For example, you might try to hear a conversation through a closed door, eavesdrop under an open window, or hear monsters moving stealthily in the forest. Or you might try to spot things that are obscured or easy to miss, whether they are ores lying in ambush on a road, thugs hiding in the shadows of an alley, or candlelight under a closed secret door.
Investigation. When you look around for clues and make deductions based on those clues, you make an Intelligence (Investigation) check. You might deduce the location of a hidden object, discern from the appearance of a wound what kind of weapon dealt it, or determine the weakest point in a tunnel that could cause it to collapse. Poring through ancient scrolls in search of a hidden fragment of knowledge might also call for an Intelligence (Investigation) check.
So, if the bookcase example required noticing something then I would use perception and if it involved making deductions based on the clues I would use investigation. I don't use the nature of the object being searched to determine the skill needed, I use the nature of the information that could be found to determine whether perception or investigation is more applicable.
I think it would depend on why they are looking at the book shelf. "Oh look! Books! What do they have?" is very different from "There's the book shelf that was referenced in the clue. Everyone take a book to thumb through and find the next piece to the puzzle!"
According to my own stated method, it could go either way. On its face, you're aware of the bookshelf, so you're investigating it to learn greater detail. But maybe you're searching the bookshelf for something and you're not exactly sure what, but you'll know it when you see it. In that case, I could see using perception.
Most of the time, it would be investigation at my table though.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
You wouldn’t find a flap folded over as a bookmark. By just looking at a bookshelf with the books lined up in it.
that would require looking at the books individually and their binding.
i could literally prove this point by taking a picture of my bookshelf at home, which does contain this phenomenon. You looking at a picture of my bookshelf. Is perception. If you can spot the exact book doing it. Bravo.
but my money would be you’d need to more closely exam the books, pulling them out 1 by 1 a tiny bit to notice that.
now I realize this is just taking your 1 example and nit Picking it.
the problem I have with the quoted text of you. Is the sentence DIRECTLY AFTER where you bolded perception. You highlighted “detect the presence of something.” Which is vague as hell. The VERY NEXT SENTENCE: “it measures your general awareness of your surroundings”
perception is general
investigation is specific.
your highlighted portion of investigation is spot on and hits its nature of it looks for SPECIFIC things.
perception vs investigation is literally general vs specific.
Perception gives general things. Investigation gives specific.
perception doesn’t give you “hidden door”. Perception gives you “you can see light or feel air coming through the wall”
investigation gives you hidden door.
general vs specific.
🤷🏼♂️
Blank
This!
perception. They notice dust around the bookshelf and such has been disturbed recently. Ie: general use of bookshelf.
they then learn they need to investigate the bookshelf.
now. All of this. Is hilarious to me. The anti investigation backlash. As observant increases passive investigation as well. The fundamental difference. People use int as a dump stat a lot. Where not so much for wisdom. So their investigations are typically lower than perceptions.
Blank