It sounds like quite a number of you don't like the idea of general natural awareness of your surroundings. And some of it seems to stem out of having characters with really high passive perceptions and not wanting to have "insta-win" sensory perception. I can see that. I don't particularly agree with it (because for my money if you spent the character build points to get there, who am I to deliberately try and stop you just because it's not "fun" for me to be unable to surprise you).
But this is why the perception rules (and stealth for that matter) are written how they are... so that all of us can take the most basic rules they give us and then expand them out to... essentially run them how we were going to rule and run them regardless of what was written down in the book. There's really no worthwhile point in them writing the most comprehensive and meticulous rules for perception and stealth in the book when 90% of the playerbase was going to end up running the rules how they wanted to anyway.
But to get all up Crawford's back because what their intention was for how you extended out these most basic rules does not match up with how you were ruling them, is in my opinion rather silly. "Oh no! How I extended out these basic rules for perception and stealth is not how Crawford says they intended the basic rules to be extended out as!" Big shock. But if you already have your own rules in place, it beats me why you're bothering to read Sage Advice anyway since you have no need for the intentions of the rules. All you're doing is getting yourself mad because Crawford doesn't believe in the same game you do.
That being said... my complete rules on Perception and Investigation are as follows:
Passive Perception and Passive Investigation both use Wisdom.
Active Perception and Active Investigation both use Intelligence.
Perception is to notice all living and/or moveable creatures that are trying to hide from you. Anything that would make a DEX (Stealth) check to set the DC for you to notice them.
Investigation is to notice all non-living objects, traps, doors etc. that require someone else at some previous point in time to have to mask the object to avoid being seen. There's no DEX (Stealth) check to set a DC. Usually for these hidden objects I'll either just set a DC that I think makes sense, or I might even make an INT or DEX (Deception) check for that random person in the past that tried to mask that secret door, or cover over that trap, or hide that set of keys etc. and that becomes the DC.
A creature's normal Passive number is 10 + WIS mod + proficiency bonus if proficient.
If the creature is distracted or doing something else, then they have disadvantage on their Passive check. Disadvantage gives a -5. Thus, a creature's distracted Passive number is 5 + WIS mod + proficiency bonus if proficient.
If a creature is Observant, then they have advantage on their Passive check. Advantage gives a +5. Thus, a creature's Passive number is 15 + WIS mod + proficiency bonus if proficient (or 10 if they are distracted, as the adv and disadv cancel out.)
(Yes, I know someone will say that the +5 bonus granted to someone with the Observant feat is not specifically stated as being from Advantage, and thus Observant and having Advantage, say, from Aid Another, should stack. Which to me explains why you're getting such absurdly high passive scores. But personally, I think you're absolutely insane if you aren't treating the +5 from the feat as having advantage on a passive check, seeing as how advantage on a passive check just so coincidentally grants you the same +5 as the feat. It doesn't state it outright... but as far as I'm concerned, Observant grants you advantage on passive perception and investigation checks.)
At all times people have a general sense of what is going on around them, even if they aren't actively looking for something, even if they are doing something else. They hear things in the background, they smell things, they notice movements out of the corners of their eyes. This is all their Passive scores (for both Perception and Investigation.) And the Passive will be '5 +' if distracted, '10 +' for normal action or '15 +' for normal action of an Observant person.
If you are trying to hide from someone or trying to disguise some object from being noticed... you better be good enough to get your check over their Passive number. Because for my money, hiding effectively from being noticed from a whole heap of people is much more difficult than just having a general sense of what's going on around you. Which is why 'perceiving' someone gets the "free" roll of 10 on their passive check, while the person hiding has to actually roll and possibly roll poorly. In my game, hiding from someone is harder than noticing someone hiding.
If by some chance some has hidden themselves really well or they designed that secret door so well that when the group people walk into the area and they don't notice them right away (because their passive perception/investigation were too low to notice them... at that point a PC who states they are going to actually look around will then roll an active Perception or Investigation check (using their INT, rather than WIS) in hopes of rolling over a 10 (or over a 5/15 if they had disadv/adv on their passive check.) Rolling under a 10 doesn't matter because their passive number had already been taken into account when they just arrived. But if they roll over a 10, then they have a chance of now seeing the creature/object because they actually actively found them.
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And this is all from how I extended out the rules for perception and stealth based upon all the small rules here and there throughout the book on how to run these things. Others will have their own interpretation and extensions, and there's a chance they won't agree with Crawford's intention. Which is fine! Do what you want. I completely ignore his intention on Barkskin for example because I think the rule as written and extended is dumb. But I don't have any issue with Jeremy for having told us what the intention was in Sage Advice. I just choose to ignore it.
But this is why the perception rules (and stealth for that matter) are written how they are... so that all of us can take the most basic rules they give us and then expand them out to... essentially run them how we were going to rule and run them regardless of what was written down in the book. There's really no worthwhile point in them writing the most comprehensive and meticulous rules for perception and stealth in the book when 90% of the playerbase was going to end up running the rules how they wanted to anyway.
But to get all up Crawford's back because what their intention was for how you extended out these most basic rules does not match up with how you were ruling them, is in my opinion rather silly. "Oh no! How I extended out these basic rules for perception and stealth is not how Crawford says they intended the basic rules to be extended out as!" Big shock. But if you already have your own rules in place, it beats me why you're bothering to read Sage Advice anyway since you have no need for the intentions of the rules. All you're doing is getting yourself mad because Crawford doesn't believe in the same game you do.
That being said... my complete rules on Perception and Investigation are as follows:
Passive Perception and Passive Investigation both use Wisdom.
Active Perception and Active Investigation both use Intelligence.
Perception is to notice all living and/or moveable creatures that are trying to hide from you. Anything that would make a DEX (Stealth) check to set the DC for you to notice them.
Investigation is to notice all non-living objects, traps, doors etc. that require someone else at some previous point in time to have to mask the object to avoid being seen. There's no DEX (Stealth) check to set a DC. Usually for these hidden objects I'll either just set a DC that I think makes sense, or I might even make an INT or DEX (Deception) check for that random person in the past that tried to mask that secret door, or cover over that trap, or hide that set of keys etc. and that becomes the DC.
A creature's normal Passive number is 10 + WIS mod + proficiency bonus if proficient.
If the creature is distracted or doing something else, then they have disadvantage on their Passive check. Disadvantage gives a -5. Thus, a creature's distracted Passive number is 5 + WIS mod + proficiency bonus if proficient.
If a creature is Observant, then they have advantage on their Passive check. Advantage gives a +5. Thus, a creature's Passive number is 15 + WIS mod + proficiency bonus if proficient (or 10 if they are distracted, as the adv and disadv cancel out.)
(Yes, I know someone will say that the +5 bonus granted to someone with the Observant feat is not specifically stated as being from Advantage, and thus Observant and having Advantage, say, from Aid Another, should stack. Which to me explains why you're getting such absurdly high passive scores. But personally, I think you're absolutely insane if you aren't treating the +5 from the feat as having advantage on a passive check, seeing as how advantage on a passive check just so coincidentally grants you the same +5 as the feat. It doesn't state it outright... but as far as I'm concerned, Observant grants you advantage on passive perception and investigation checks.)
At all times people have a general sense of what is going on around them, even if they aren't actively looking for something, even if they are doing something else. They hear things in the background, they smell things, they notice movements out of the corners of their eyes. This is all their Passive scores (for both Perception and Investigation.) And the Passive will be '5 +' if distracted, '10 +' for normal action or '15 +' for normal action of an Observant person.
If you are trying to hide from someone or trying to disguise some object from being noticed... you better be good enough to get your check over their Passive number. Because for my money, hiding effectively from being noticed from a whole heap of people is much more difficult than just having a general sense of what's going on around you. Which is why 'perceiving' someone gets the "free" roll of 10 on their passive check, while the person hiding has to actually roll and possibly roll poorly. In my game, hiding from someone is harder than noticing someone hiding.
If by some chance some has hidden themselves really well or they designed that secret door so well that when the group people walk into the area and they don't notice them right away (because their passive perception/investigation were too low to notice them... at that point a PC who states they are going to actually look around will then roll an active Perception or Investigation check (using their INT, rather than WIS) in hopes of rolling over a 10 (or over a 5/15 if they had disadv/adv on their passive check.) Rolling under a 10 doesn't matter because their passive number had already been taken into account when they just arrived. But if they roll over a 10, then they have a chance of now seeing the creature/object because they actually actively found them.
>>>
And this is all from how I extended out the rules for perception and stealth based upon all the small rules here and there throughout the book on how to run these things. Others will have their own interpretation and extensions, and there's a chance they won't agree with Crawford's intention. Which is fine! Do what you want. I completely ignore his intention on Barkskin for example because I think the rule as written and extended is dumb. But I don't have any issue with Jeremy for having told us what the intention was in Sage Advice. I just choose to ignore it.
