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D&D 5E Any further clarification to Hiding in Player's Handbook?
- Thread starter MerricB
- Start date
Iosue
Legend
Passive is passive, active is active. But it's Perception all the same. People are hiding in a room. You walk into the room. Right off the bat, their Dexterity (Stealth) check has to beat your Passive Perception in order to remain hidden. That's right there on p. 60 of Basic v2.0, p. 6 of the Starter Set Rulebook, and p. 177 of the Players Handbook. Let's say they beat it. Now you search the room, give it more attention. You roll. Now it doesn't matter if you roll low or not, because they've already beaten your Passive Perception. You'll only discover them if your active Wisdom (Perception) roll beats their Dexterity (Stealth) roll.
The key is that Passive Perception is always on. That's why it has it's own place on the character sheet. As it notes under "Passive Checks", the rules of hiding and exploration "rely" on passive checks. It's distinct from, say, taking 10 on Dexterity (Thieves' Tools) check to pick a lock because it's not a distinct action that players are taking a lot of time on, it's something always in effect. The example originally in question, the goblin ambush in the Starter Set, is an excellent example. Each character is only surprised if the goblins' stealth beats that character's Passive Perception. The players don't have to "take 10" to use their character's passive perception; it's always in effect whenever the DM feels there is something they might notice without looking for it. The players never even have to reference it. If a player decides to use their active perception, that represents attention paid above and beyond their normal degree of alertness.
Otherwise, you get the bizarre situation asked about: a character actively searching rolls low and fails the check, while their passive perception score would have been enough to beat the Stealth check. That would not be in the spirit (or letter) of the rules -- it'd be an artifact of mechanical resolution systems, divorced from the in-game reality.
tl;dr: Making an active Wisdom (Perception) check doesn't "turn off" Passive Perception. At the very least, the character's Passive Perception is in effect right up to the point they make the contest, and if it beats the Stealth check, the character notices the hidden character, making the active check superfluous.
Charles Rampant
Explorer
Thanks for the clear explanation.
Agamon
Adventurer
If a player says, "I look up at the ceiling. Do I see anything?" That's active. The actual definition of passive skill checks is doing something over and over again, such as when the party is exploring. They can slow down because they are "on alert", but that still uses passive, but with advantage.
Eryndur
Explorer
It should be noted that according to the Vision and Light rules, lightly obscured areas (and thus dimly lit areas, as well) impose disadvantage on all Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight. A PC's Passive Perception score is still defined as a check, so I interpret this to mean that in a great many circumstances, Stealth Checks will be opposed by Passive Perception scores that are 5 lower than normal.
Take the opening ambush encounter in the Starter Set. Those goblins are in foliage that provides light obscurement. I ruled that their stealth checks were opposed by the PCs Passive Perceptions score -5. The average PP score was about 13, so they were working with modified scores of about 8. Goblins had +6 to their Stealth rolls. As you can no doubt surmise, they easily achieved surprise.
I only point this out because I haven't seen anyone mention this rule in the discussion so far, and it seems like one that would be applied in more cases than not.
Take the opening ambush encounter in the Starter Set. Those goblins are in foliage that provides light obscurement. I ruled that their stealth checks were opposed by the PCs Passive Perceptions score -5. The average PP score was about 13, so they were working with modified scores of about 8. Goblins had +6 to their Stealth rolls. As you can no doubt surmise, they easily achieved surprise.
I only point this out because I haven't seen anyone mention this rule in the discussion so far, and it seems like one that would be applied in more cases than not.
Psikerlord#
Explorer
yeah i think this is the part i most dislike about passive, the "over and over" again part. Which demonstrates the real reason for the rule, to prevent, for example the party saying "we keep searching the room till we roll 20..." or " I keep trying to remember something about Lord Blah Blah until I roll a 20".
A better rule is to simply say you can only search once until something changes - they get more info, another clue, whatever.
In any event, for my games, i wont be using passive at all. It's just a sh*t mechanic, not needed, and screws with trap DC vs passive DC = auto result = lame.
Agamon
Adventurer
I would take this to actually mean that the observer needs to be in the obscurement themselves to have disadvantage. Otherwise, like you say, the perception checks will always be at disadvantage, which I'm pretty sure is not the intention.
Psikerlord#
Explorer
Theres nothing bizarre about a low roll = failed check. Its the basic premise of the game. What is bizarre is the passive perception score mechanic itself; utterly contrary to the rest of the dnd system, an unfortunate extrapolation of the take 10 rule from3e, and later 4e, which sadly did not get eliminated in playtesting. Hmm actually was it even in the playtests, I dont recall.
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