D&D 5E Passive Investigation?

[Satyrn]

I've got a player taking the Observant feat.

One of the lines is: "You have a +5 bonus to your passive Wisdom (Perception) and passive Intelligence (Investigation) scores." Now, passive Perception gets mentioned all over the place, but passive Investigation? Is this just for when the DM has a clue for you, but no one's said they're looking at the crime scene?

I think I'm just having a hard time coming up with examples in my mind. Is there anything in HotDQ or other published materials actually asking for passive INT checks? Has anyone used them in their game?

A passive check, by the rules, is a check where the DM decides not to ask the player to roll dice, perhaps because it's an ongoing activity, or maybe because it's a series of closely related checks all grouped into one.

It's not about the characters being passive.

So no, it's not meant to be used when they're not looking at the crime scene. I mean, if they're not looking at the crime scene, they're not investigating the crime scene and I see no need to give them anything.

When I might use passive investigation is when the players are canvassing a neighbourhood asking everyone on the street about something, looking for witnesses or information. As a daylong activity, to avoid countless rolls for each neighbour they interview, I might sum up the whole endeavour with a single Passive Investigation check.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Passive investigation is used if something is hidfen in plain sight.
Volo's guide to monsters adds investigation to camuflaged monsters. (Gargoyles of the MM would also qualify).
The difficulty is not noticing something but noticing that something is wrong with what everyone sees. That actually includes illusions.
To not trivialize everything I may use disadvantage on passive checks once in a while.

 

[Greenstone.Walker]

The "Passive Score is the floor" rule from Crawford (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?544340-Crawford-on-Stealth) certainly changes the usage of this feat.

If your INT\Investigation is +5 then a +5 to Passive Investigation means the lowest you can roll is 20.

 

[DEFCON 1]

The "Passive Score is the floor" rule from Crawford (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?544340-Crawford-on-Stealth) certainly changes the usage of this feat.

If your INT\Investigation is +5 then a +5 to Passive Investigation means the lowest you can roll is 20.

I've used the "passive as minimum" all along in my campaigns (before even Jeremy clarified it), and indeed have a PC with the Observant feat. Thus they have a passive perception and a passive investigation in the high teens (his WIS is actually only average). But it really hasn't been a problem, as I don't even really "challenge" him using the game mechanics anymore or bother looking at DC numbers and the like. If he's in an area where there's stuff to see, I just tell him stuff he notices "for free". I treat him having a story-based narrative ability, rather than a bonus to the game mechanics.

D&D traditionally (and indeed with a lot of 5E) attributes mechanical numbers to everything-- everything is mechanics-based. Which is why I found it very refreshing when I first saw Backgrounds and noticed that their Background Features did not in fact use dice rolls or give you bonuses to dice rolls-- instead you just got an ability you got to use automatically "for free" that just worked. If you're an Acolyte for example, you could just go to a temple of your god to receive services and have a place to stay free of charge-- no negotiations or bartering necessary, no need to run quests for them or whatever. It was just a narrative ability you received that had nothing to do with game mechanics.

These kinds of abilities and features are in short supply in D&D-- almost everything else is an allowed dice roll, or a modifier to a dice roll, or a way to adjudicate a dice roll. A feature gives you a bonus to a check, or gives you advantage on a check, or allows you to make a check to begin with, etc. etc. But to have a feature that just allows you to do something no roll necessary is something that most narrative storytelling games give out like candy, but which D&D holds back tightly. And I find that I actually prefer having the former available, because that when a character really feels like they are special. So I treat Feats (especially the non-combat ones) in many ways like background features-- that you just can do stuff successfully without needing to roll. If you are Observant, you just notice almost everything around you that isn't magically inhibited. If you are an Actor, you don't receive a bonus to performance or deception checks and the like, you can just preternaturally ACT in whatever manner you choose that fools everybody. If you're an Athlete, there's absolutely no chance of any "fails" on climbing walls, balancing across rooftops, sprinting after people and the like-- you just are a freak of nature and can do all that stuff.

And it's my job as the DM to take all this cool stuff the PCs can do "for free" and make it narratively interesting.

Now I know there will be some other DMs who will ask how I can challenge the PCs if they can just "do stuff" with no chance of failure... but that's the trick, isn't it? But the way I look at it, I would rather let them "be awesome" at a one particular thing and put the onus on my to come up with other ways to challenge them, then to keep forcing unnecessary dice rolls just to see if they roll a '1' and then "Ooh! A fail! You trip over your feet and fall down!" Instead, I just give it to them. It's more fun for them, and saves me the time having to decide on DCs, making them roll checks and then coming up with lame results if/when they roll a '1'.

Narrative auto-success I find more enjoyable than mechanical failure. Especially when a player has spent a feat slot to get it.

 

[quandaratic]

I think this gets a lot easier with a little translation, where 'Active' indicates that the character intends to do something, and 'Passive' indicates that they don't. 'Perception' is the ability to notice something, and 'Investigation' is the ability to discover something. 'Passive Investigation' would mean that the character has discovered something, when they have not meant to; there have been other comments to this effect, but yeah, it could be that they are researching, and realized an insight unrelated to their research topic, or searching for an item, but discovered something else. It could be that the DM just needs to decide if the thing that is being realized or noticed feels more like thinking or more like intuiting.
...certainly some passive skills are harder to find realistic cases, but there's probably at least 1 for everything.
Passive Sleight of Hand? I have a character that likes to stash things in pockets; maybe Passive Sleight of Hand is relevant during a pat-down situation....
Another way of thinking about it is that a passive skillset is just what a character is like, when they're not trying to do something specific. So, graceful vs. clumsy? Passive Acrobatics. Good judge of character? Passive Insight. Life of the party? Passive Performance.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

I think this gets a lot easier with a little translation, where 'Active' indicates that the character intends to do something, and 'Passive' indicates that they don't.

That is in direct conflict with the game's definition of what a passive check is. What the game rules say is that 'Active' indicates that the player is rolling a die, and 'Passive' indicates that no die is rolled and the result of the check is calculated as if a 10 were rolled - but regardless of whether the check is active or passive (read: rolled or not rolled), the character has to have actively done something to be making a check at all, and there is no such thing as "did [blank] when they have not meant to."

 

[quandaratic]

That is in direct conflict with the game's definition of what a passive check is

Respectfully, I don't think so; if I had said that a die is rolled for a passive check, that would be a direct conflict with the book definition. What I would love to do is simply to find a convincing narrative case for a Passive Investigation check, which is the whole point of this thread.

I think that it's fair to say that the narrative case for rolling a die is the intention of the character, as stated, thusly:

The DM calls for an ability check when a character or monster attempts an action

...'attempts,' being synonymous with 'acts toward an intended result.' Then, by deduction, events that occur without player intention would be what initiate a passive check. Restated, 'Active' indicates that the character intends to do something, and 'Passive' indicates that they don't. To be fair, I do think that there's a problem with my phrasing; rather than suggesting that a character could juggle without trying to juggle, or stealth without trying to stealth (even though I think they could), it would be better to describe this as 'events occurring around the character without the character's intention to influence said events.'

The real-world model for Passive Perception is exactly that, right? That a player, intending to observe and notice, would roll a die, in an active check, but whether they notice something despite a lack of intention would be that passive check.
If there's no such thing as stuff happening around the character, without the character intending to influence them, as the narrative context for roleplaying, when does this game mechanic ever apply?

The PH does provide one sound alternative, in a passive check basically being an average of what would ordinarily be a long series of the same active check, such as making a Passive Investigation check, instead of lots of Active Investigation checks for a day of library research.

Such a check can represent the average result for a task done repeatedly, such as searching for secret doors over and over again, or can be used when the DM wants to secretly determine whether the characters succeed at something without rolling dice, such as noticing a hidden monster.

...BUT, it also has that 2nd example, of noticing a hidden monster, which still leaves the question of what the difference between Active and Passive is, for the character's story. To notice a hidden monster, why wouldn't the DM just ask for an Active Perception check? My answer is, that the character just happened to notice, without being on high-alert, without knowing that something is out there. ...without intention.

All this is only a suggestion. If the ghost of Gygax chimed in, and called me wrong, I would totally accept that, then give you a blue ribbon and a cookie. Absent his response, I would like to make this suggestion.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

<snipped for space>

I have only a few pointed comments to make at the moment as I am short of time.

The first, that passive perception is not "I'm not trying to notice things around me". It is "I'm constantly trying to notice things around me." The mechanical representation of "I'm not trying to notice things around me" is the character closing their eyes, plugging their nose, and stuffing something in their ears, because if they are just standing like there people stand all the time with their eyes, ears, and nose open and ready to receive sensory input - that's actively perceiving (even if it ends up resulting in a passive check).

The second is to go an look at the travel activities rules. Specifically the part where they say if you are doing something other than keeping an eye out for threats, that your passive perception doesn't get used to determine if the party gets ambushed - which clearly shows the game stating a passive check is gained by the character doing something specific, rather than by deliberately not doing that thing.

And the last is that the "ghost of Gygax" has no bearing at all upon what is or isn't the way the 5th edition text describes something, nor on what is or isn't a good ruling. The man could hardly agree within himself withing the confines of being the sole author of his version of the game rules, and from time to time would give advice on DMing that was so ridiculous as to be poked fun at or pointed out as being so anti-players-having-fun as to make it a wonder anyone ever returned to that particular table to play again.

 

[quandaratic]

The second is to go an look at the travel activities rules. Specifically the part where they say if you are doing something other than keeping an eye out for threats, that your passive perception doesn't get used to determine if the party gets ambushed - which clearly shows the game stating a passive check is gained by the character doing something specific, rather than by deliberately not doing that thing.

That's a good argument, and I accept it.
I still have a problem, though, with the Players Handbook's very definition of a passive check, which pretty clearly sets up 2 distinct narrative situations in which to use the mechanic. The first is the shortcut for repeated checks. I'm still looking for a better explanation of the second.

And the last is that the "ghost of Gygax" has no bearing at all upon what is or isn't the way the 5th edition text describes something

It's just a joke. I'll be done, at this point, too.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

I'm still looking for a better explanation of the second.

It's a vestigial remnant of outmoded DM attitudes that game rules details need to be withheld and/or obscured from players because of having no trust that players can make appropriate choices of character actions even if they can see all of the mechanics in play, included as a comfort to those DMs that still believe some mechanical resolutions should be secret.