D&D 5E Crawford on Stealth

[Flamestrike]

I agree, as I posted this is what Crawford seemed to really mean by passive perception being a "baseline". If a creature isn't Hidden - meaning it failed to roll higher than surround enemies passive perception - then you wouldn't need to search for it in the first place. Sure, you *almost* have the Reliable Talent feature going in this case, but we already know that that 10 isn't good enough.

I think when I laid out 4 cases of hiding, I was pretty on point.

1. A character's passive perception might find a creature, in which case you don't use your *action* to search for it, because you know it is there.
2. You do not find it with passive, and also never know it is there, which would mean you as a player would not know to use your action to search.
3. You know a creature is there, perhaps you saw it hide behind a stone, in a cabinet or cast invisibility, or you have insider info that it is around, but you (with passive) can't detect it. You'd likely use your *action* to search for it. In this case you can get up to 10 points higher (or 5 higher if you have Observant Feat) on perception than your passive, and maybe reveal the hidden thing.
4. Some situation, such as an specific item being hid in a desk as in the PHB example, you need to be specific about your actions and *actively* interact such that a passive skill doesn't apply. So something not "the average result of a task done repeatedly" and of course not something secret. It'd have to be something accute and novel. I think only in these case, by the rules, do you *have* to use an active check at all, and furthermore a passive cannot be used. Something like "Your passive doesnt find the gnome in this room - I roll active trying to look closer (nat 20) - you still don't find him (he isnt *detectable * from there) - I check inside the chest under the desk (roll 10) - you press your ear up to it and hear breathing" in this case the rogue feature and such do something and the passive does nothing.

Hilariously the Observant feat grants +5 to passive perception and investigation scores.

Meaning it also sets your minimum perception D20 result at 1st level is 15 + (Wisdom + Proficiency)

By comparison, the 11th level Rogue feature 'Reliable talent' sets it at 10 + (Wisdom + Proficiency).

Even more hilariously, following the rule of 'The specific rule overrules the general rule', Rogues with the Observant feat get 5 points less perceptive at 11th level.

 

[Li Shenron]

Oh, good point, I did add my own interpretation there to the meaning of passive skills. As Crawford pointed out, you may "use" your passive even in the heat of battle (barring some exceptions he suggested). It really seems important for the DM to find the line where something becomes accute/unique/specific enough where we have a case #4 and not #3 as I put it, and only active checks are acceptable. If you want to convince to *a* guard on the street of something it would probably be an active check, but maybe by the second guard the DM realizes you're going to be doing this all night and goes with passive? Still persuade is different from skills like Perception, insight, maybe investigate, as the Player MUST be agent in persuade. You aren't going to have a situation where a player doesn't know it, but his presense persuades some creature of something. Well, I guess that MIGHT happen.

Here's another question about that line. He brought up only having to roll stealth once and it applying until you are revealed in this podcast right? When does a situation become "repeated" use of that skill to warrant considering the PC's passive Stealth check?

Yes, I think you are basically seeing it now the same way I do...

I suppose that potentially you can find a situation for every skill to be used repeatedly/continuously enough so that the DM decides to use the passive skills rule. There is one more thing to consider however: the examples which are really the original reasons for designing the passive skills rule in the first place are all about a character not knowing what they are using their skill against. For instance, you are continuously trying to be perceptive because you don't know where or when there is anything to be noticed; you are continuously trying to be stealthy because you don't know where or when someone might be noticing you.

The general idea is that every now and then there's something with its own DC (or skill check result) waiting for you to "pass by" and activate a contest. Like a hidden door vs your Perception, or a guard on alert vs your Stealth.

But this actually means that the passive skill rule is not strictly needed. You can just totally ignore it, and instead require a check only when there is indeed something with a DC.

The choice of using the passive skills rule then becomes more a matter of preference on randomness. Do you want a probability of failure for stuff with fairly low DC? Then use checks. Do you want autosuccess for most of them? Then use passive scores. And Crawford's approach pretty much explains how to achieve the latter consistently, if that's what you wish.

 

[daviddalbec]

Hilariously the Observant feat grants +5 to passive perception and investigation scores.

Meaning it also sets your minimum perception D20 result at 1st level is 15 + (Wisdom + Proficiency)

By comparison, the 11th level Rogue feature 'Reliable talent' sets it at 10 + (Wisdom + Proficiency).

Even more hilariously, following the rule of 'The specific rule overrules the general rule', Rogues with the Observant feat get 5 points less perceptive at 11th level.

So, Reliable Talent treats any *roll* of 9 or less as 10, and Observant increases passive by 5. Like I pointed out in my 3rd case, there are situations when Reliable wont matter at all, since you need to roll better than 10 or 15 anyways and Reliable Talent does nothing to remedy this. It does matter in some corner cases when you can't possibly use passive, like in the 4th case.

From what I read Reliable Talent does nothing to passive checks, but that passive check is also 10/15 anyways, UNLESS you have disadvantage, in which case passive is 5, and Reliable will still round any roll below 10 up to 10. So in those cases, like in Dim light, it's nice.

 

[Flamestrike]

So, Reliable Talent treats any *roll* of 9 or less as 10, and Observant increases passive by 5. Like I pointed out in my 3rd case, there are situations when Reliable wont matter at all, since you need to roll better than 10 or 15 anyways and Reliable Talent does nothing to remedy this. It does matter in some corner cases when you can't possibly use passive, like in the 4th case.

From what I read Reliable Talent does nothing to passive checks, but that passive check is also 10/15 anyways, UNLESS you have disadvantage, in which case passive is 5, and Reliable will still round any roll below 10 up to 10. So in those cases, like in Dim light, it's nice.

In my houserules I simply remove the +5 of Observant and let you 'take 10' on perception, investigation and insight checks.

So you always get your passive perceptions score, unless you choose to roll.

 

[raleel]

I guess I wonder if this notion of the passive being the floor applies to every skill in the right circumstances. Passive nature - you can automatically identify any creatures that are identifiable with a roll below your passive skill, for example. If this is the case, then it seems that a character with a high enough passive investigation is immune to most illusions, provided he spends an action and his passive check is higher than the spell DC. I can see them being automatically immune outside of combat, because there is no action economy to deal with.

 

[iserith]

I didn't hear anything particularly controversial in his interpretation. I will have to correct some rulings with regard to attacking from hidden, as I tended to rule that if you pop out to attack, you're no longer hidden. So that will please all the multiclass rogues in my current campaign. I've been handling invisibility and hidden the same way he said to do it.

Passive Perception as "always on" is still technically in line with my interpretation of its use to the extent that it is always applicable until it's not. Those circumstances are when the character is distracted doing something other than looking around for stuff. So as long as the DM is having the players establish what their characters are generally doing while traveling the adventure location, passive Perception may or may not apply as normal. Observant characters still need to be keeping watch for danger. They don't also get to do other tasks that may distract from that. Jeremy was clear on the DM determining whether someone's in the position to notice something or not.

 

[JonnyP71]

I'm happy with a constant passive perception radar, but I just stick with:

Perception means general/environmental stuff - is something wrong? did that shadow appear to move? does anything look out of place?
Investigation means specific analysis... that book looks newer than everything else on the shelf, the door's hinge has been oiled recently, or markings in the dust suggest the old rug has been moved recently.

If the PC wants to know concrete information, then they will need to pass an investigation check, not perception!

 

[jaelis]

Your perception checks can never be worse than your passive perception.

I am surprised that his comments on perception checks didn't light up the forum yet. At around 22:00 he starts talking about how passive perception is always working in the background to notice things. He goes on to say that your Passive Perception is always your floor for perception checks. If your passive perception is higher than the DC for noticing something, your passive perception always notices it. Perception checks are for noticing things that have a higher DC than your passive perception. He specifically says that if DM's are using passive perception correctly, then they will tell players about things that they would notice automatically, and use perception checks for a chance to roll higher than their passive perception. I have never played in a game that handled perception this way. It's always like this:

"I'm looking through the bookshelf for that book we were trying to find." [17 Passive Perception]
Give me a perception check.
"12"
You don't find it.

Then another character with a passive perception of 13 rolls a 15 and finds the book. What?

You know the general location of invisible creatures!

JC says that being invisible and being hidden are not the same thing. Invisible creatures give themselves away by making noise and interacting with the environment. Invisible creatures need to use stealth or have some other cover to be hidden. A monster or PC might be distracted or lose track of an invisible creature, but if you know someone is likely to be invisible and are trying to find it, you have a general idea where it is. He says that the game mechanics make invisibility awesome enough on their own - advantage on attacks, disadvantage on attacks against you, can't be targeted by spells that target "a creature you can see" - so invisibility does not need any additional benefits. I wish the DM who hammered away at us last weekend with the unseen, completely silent, unfindable shield guardian hadn't made us swing randomly at thin air until we got lucky and found it because he said invisibility made it impossible for us to know where it was.

These sound like what the book says to me, so I guess I wouldn't expect them to be controversial. Obviously people who don't like either rule can play otherwise without breaking anything.

 

[Uller]

Your perception checks can never be worse than your passive perception.

I am surprised that his comments on perception checks didn't light up the forum yet. At around 22:00 he starts talking about how passive perception is always working in the background to notice things...

I think he was talking about noticing threats, not searching for a specific book (which at my table would be an investigation check anyway).

In that context, it makes sense. When a hiding character' stealth check fails to surpass an observer's passive perception, the observer notices the hider. Otherwise, on the observers turn, he has to take the search action for an active search.

As for rogues witg impossibley high passive perception...they spent the resources for it...a feat, high wisdom score, trained skill, expertise. So they will have lower ability at other things.

 

[Ganymede81]

I prefer to use Passive Perception and other passive scores in a way very similar to the Take 10 rule from 3e: if you are in a calm, low-pressure situation, your passive score is the floor for any check, but high-pressure situations like combat always necessitate a die roll. I still use Passive Perception to give players a chance to auto-detect hidden creatures in combat, though.