D&D 5E Passive Perception better than Active Perception?

ad_hoc said:

He is 1 of 2 lead designers and he has a vision for his game that he is sticking to. You're not just seeing his design in his tweets, his design is the game.

The smart thing to do when you don't like a game is to not play it.

If you prefer another edition of D&D play that one.

I get it, the edition you don't like is the most popular of RPG of all time. I hated 4e so I didn't play it or engage with it. It was unfortunate for me that there was no new D&D for me. If it was wildly popular and poised to last for 20 years I would probably be more disappointed. I wouldn't think of the designers as idiots though. Or feel that I was owed a different game. Or bemoan people who do like it.

Move on, don't hate people for liking something you don't.

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I think 5E is by far the greatest edition of D&D. The basic framework is fantastic, and it easily allows for customization (which was a heavy emphasis during the playtest). The fact that I can ignore the "rulings" from the lead designer without having my game fall apart in front of me is amazing.

My issue with JC is that his "rulings" push the game in a different direction than I want for MY game. They may be better for the majority of DMs, but he knows nothing of my group, nor my DM style, nor my goals for my game. I do, which is why I often ignore his "rulings."

daviddalbec said:

For those players that attempt to game the system and say, "I repeatedly search altars, and secret doors, and repeatedly search for monsters, etc." Or come up with some legalistic description which aims at applying their super high passive perception to many situations, do you just ignore them, say the situation is unique, and call for the roll? Seems solid.

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The first time they break out the Lazy Loser Legalease, I say no. Then. Yes I totally ignore them.

If your heroes invest resources in being perceptive, they should notice pretty much everything. This is something a DM should celebrate, not something that should be frustrating for the DM.

Describe how they notice the small things effortlessly like so many perceptive characters in literature... make them feel like they are amazingly good at perception if they are heavily invested in it.

But do not confuse perception with understanding.

Perception allows you to see or hear small or hidden things, but it does mean you know what they are. You might note the presence of a differently shaped stone in a pattern of stones in a wall. Is that a trigger mechanism for a trap, a secret door, a hide hole.. or just the result of a Mason using one substandard stone?

Obviously, some things are trivially easy to understand once perceived, but there are a lot of things that require knowledge as well as perception to fully comprehend. That is why we have an investigation skill and all of those other intelligence based skills.

And if you do perceive it, and understand it, you still need to deal with it at times. That may require tool checks, athletics checks, sleight of hand checks, etc...

Celebrate the heroic abilities the PCs have, but make sure they're using the right abilities to deal with an issue.

ad_hoc said:

JC stated that the intent is for PP to be a floor.

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gee if only some author, designer, writer, editor or person in charge of creating 5e wrote that down in put in the Player Handbook under perception before the PHB was sent to the printers.
Ok. Due to JC have changed how I do PP. It is on for what maybe able to damage you. Or if I need to speed up the encounter.

jasper said:

The first time they break out the Lazy Loser Legalease, I say no. Then. Yes I totally ignore them.

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This is why I previously said it was up to the DM to determine what a PC would likely be aware of. Proximity and time factor in, but then so does the type of hidden thing in the environment. My tribal druid PC would not have false-books on his radar for example (in passive perception or investigate), but the wizard or rogue might. Maybe it's partially my PC-friendly DMing style, and disinterest in testing player-skill, but I tend to have a lot of leniency for what a PC's passive might register.
Basically it's for when the PCs enter any room, I don't want the players to have to go through some list of premeditated inqueries, like in some ADnD player-skill based game. I assume by the habit of the character that the wizard's eyes are pulled towards the bookshelf, the druid to the mushrooms, the rogue to the lockbox. Whether anyone's paying particular attention to smells and would pick up on Solid Snake hiding under a box on the other side of the room, maybe, but probably not in the first few seconds when they're just in the doorway. If a player always asks "what do I smell" when they enter a new room, then I'd start understanding that it's a habit being repeated by that PC, so I'd maybe consider it the first thing that registers to their passive.
I'd try to avoid situations where the PCs enter the room and their passive immediately exposes a perfect picture of everything in that room up to some DC. It's up to the DM to be sensible about which characters are aware of what in any circumstances. I suppose you could codify this with every hidden object saying "if the PC is within LoS, within 10', for more than 1 turn, with proficiency in History, etc., then a PP or PI of 15 will detect the false book on the shelf" but that seems needless. PCs are constantly looking for things out of the ordinary, but what first strikes them as out of the ordinary surely differs.

"When your character searches for a hidden object such as a secret door or a trap, the DM typically asks you to make a Wisdom (Perception) check. Such a check can be used to find hidden details or other information and clues that you might *otherwise overlook*.In most cases, you need to describe where you are looking in order for the DM to determine your chance of success."
I'm basically saying there are many things your characters wouldn't "otherwise overlook".

I designed a Scout character (before the Rogue subclass improperly culturally appropriated that word) that PP-detected all the enemy's ambushes in one AL module, so we went around them or Alpha Striked the one that blocked our path. It gave us more time with the Boss Monster at the end of the module. The DM wanted to check my math and she was right to do so.

The sloppy version of this is to act like your character has always-on "danger detecting radar". I was asking a question (one only, after experience) as we moved into each new scene - "I give the cave a second look; do I see anything else? Does this smell like a typical grassy field? Can I hear anything shuffling or moving? Is it chilly or warm in here?" - to emulate a person who is stretching his senses to the limit to get the most information from them.

daviddalbec said:

For those players that attempt to game the system and say, "I repeatedly search altars, and secret doors, and repeatedly search for monsters, etc." Or come up with some legalistic description which aims at applying their super high passive perception to many situations, do you just ignore them, say the situation is unique, and call for the roll? Seems solid.

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If the circumstance is such that they can just repeat the task over and over again, there probably shouldn't be a check at all - they should probably just succeed.

But these days I'm strongly inclined to use the ruling put forward by one of the designers (some time ago, possibly even in 4e days): you get to roll once, and that represents your very best efforts. And if everyone in the group attempts the task, the person who declared it first gets to roll once with advantage. Of course, that's not RAW.

(Finally, D&D could really do with a rule similar to the one in Numenera as regards retries: yes, you can retry, but the amount of time involved increases exponentially each time you do so.)

Charlaquin said:

I agree with this assessment, but... I kinda feel like the game works better when there’s an agreement that the party is always looking for traps/ambushes unless they state otherwise? Like, I get some tasks are going to take too much attention to performe while remaining alert to danger. But unless the whole party is engaged in such activities, it seems a little silly for those available not to be watching for potential danger.

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I prefer the players to declare what they are doing in the moment rather than assume or make an agreement beforehand. It's also pretty common that the players have their characters not stay alert for danger because there are a lot of benefits to doing other tasks in my games. For example:

In a recent game, the characters took on a quest to blaze trails to and between three points of interest in the dreaded Hills of Argh. But so did a rival adventuring group, The Pathfinders. The Pathfinders struck out toward the Tower Inscrutable at a Slow pace. The PCs opted to head to the Tear of the Moon Goddess at Normal Pace. As there was no trail to either of these locations, it was difficult terrain and each journey was 15 miles. The Pathfinders would travel 8 hours per day (8 miles). The PCs would travel 10 hours per day (15 miles) due to the dwarf druid's cobbling skills.

Given that there were no trails, someone had to Navigate. The quest demanded maps of the trails, so someone else had to Draw a Map. Another PC decided he wanted to Track specifically to look for trouble as part of the quest is to collect icons or trophies of the sorts of monsters in the Hills as proof of the dangers therein. That left just two PCs who opted to Keep Watch, meaning they were alert to danger and could notice traps or avoid surprise. They marched at the front of the party. Everyone else in the party was risking automatic surprise if a stealthy wandering monster was indicated (1 check every 4 hours). It was especially risky because the Tracking gave the DM advantage on wandering monster checks since they were actually trying to look for trouble.

I won't bore you with too many additional details, but these choices really mattered as to the outcome of the session, especially as they hauled butt at a Fast Pace from the Tear of the Moon Goddess to the Tower Inscrutable. Nobody Kept Watch for that leg of the journey as the Fast Pace demanded the two PCs who were Keeping Watch on the first leg Work Together with the Navigator and Tracker just to hit the harder DCs due to pace. Everyone would be surprised if a stealthy monster came up on a wandering monster check. This time they chose to avoid trouble via Tracking and their gamble paid off - they beat the Pathfinders there just in time with no trouble on the way.

We have a 5th level character with a 21 Passive perception.

LordEntrails said:

Also note that an active roll result normally has a 'floor' value equal to your passive perception. So, if detecting a seam in the wall (where a secret door is) requires a DC 15 passive Perception, and your player is actively checking and therefore they roll a 2 (+5) for a total of 7, but their passive is 15, then they detect it anyway.

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This is new to me, could you point me in the right direction?


Edit: I see this is being discussed, wasn't my intent to pile on...