Passive vs Active Perception...

I'm currently DM'ing the 1st Chapter of TftYP. Made a conscious decision to do away with Passive Perception and just have the PC's roll a Perception Check every time they might be Surprised. Hated to see Bardic Inspiration, Halflings Lucky Trait, the Lucky Feat, and/or any other dice-altering abilities Nerfed...Am I too reactionary??

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i_dont_meta said:

just have the PC's roll a Perception Check every time they might be Surprised

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I personally think that's the way it is intended to be. The Passive Perception rule was not added to the game for determining surprise.

i_dont_meta said:

I'm currently DM'ing the 1st Chapter of TftYP. Made a conscious decision to do away with Passive Perception and just have the PC's roll a Perception Check every time they might be Surprised. Hated to see Bardic Inspiration, Halflings Lucky Trait, the Lucky Feat, and/or any other dice-altering abilities Nerfed...Am I too reactionary??

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Is your concern that it is too easy for a Stealthing creature to beat another creature's Passive Perception? And thus people who might get a chance to see the stealthers because they have "roll helping" dice abilities don't get to use them to help spot them?

If that's the case, then I can understand your issue... but I would actually say you don't need to remove Passive Perception, you can just add onto it. The way I've always read how it's supposed to work (and indeed, Jeremy Crawford's Sage Advice says this is how it's supposed to be done)... is that all creatures have Passive Perception up all the time. But all this does is essentially give a floor to the hiding creatures that they HAVE to beat with their Dexterity (Stleath) checks to even be considered to be hiding. If you roll your Dexterity (Stealth) check and get a '7'... you're pretty much seen by everybody. You did a horrible job hiding. Your butt's probably sticking out, or the bush you are behind keeps jiggling back and forth, etc. But if you roll higher on your check... say maybe a '13'... then some of the other creatures might still notice you due to higher PPs, but others might not. Were you to jump up and start combat at that point... you and the folks with a PP 13 or higher would get to act, but the others would not. They were Surprised and did not get to act in that first round.

But... there is also no rule that says creatures can't make Active Perception checks too... in addition to their "always on" Passive Perception. This is where you as the DM have to interpret what the characters are doing as they move around, and whether some are "keeping watch" while others are doing other things (like keeping a map of the travel, or foraging for food, or searching for traps and so forth). Those creatures who are using their time while they move to "keep watch"... you can allow them to make Active Perception checks too, in order to possibly notice the hidden targets. And all that's really important is whether that creature rolls ABOVE a '10' on their Active Perception d20 die-- because their Passive Perception of 10 + WIS + prof bonus (if applicable) still counts even if they make an Active roll. So if their Active Perception check rolled a '4', it doesn't matter... because that creature still has their Passive Perception number to fall back on. The Active check is there just to see if the creature can get ABOVE their already-established Passive Perception check, in order to hopefully find those creatures whose Dexterity (Stealth) check was higher than it.

This is what was clarified by Sage Advice-- if someone is hidden, everyone in the area who might notice that creature checks their Passive Perception number first. If anyone's PP is higher than the Stealth check, then those specific creatures see the hidden target and are not Surprised (and would get to act in the first round should combat begin). If their PPs are lower, they don't get to notice the hidden target and wouldn't get to act in the first round... but the DM can allow some of those creatures to make Active Perception checks if they weren't already doing some other activity and said they were keeping an eye out. And if any of those Active checks are also higher than the Stealth check, then those creatures sees the hidden target too and are not Surprised (and can also act in the first round.)

It's the PCs that have low Passive Perception and who tend to do other activities while they move that usually end up Surprised and can't act in the first round of combat.

Something to examine closely is how often surprise is coming up in your games. I know in my games it isn't very common. In such a condition, it might not be seen as a "nerf" to the feats and race/class features you're concerned about. Perhaps one-third of my random encounter charts are "lurker" creatures where I will try to determine surprise. Very few of the location-based encounters involve lurkers.

It seems more cumbersome to me as well to have to compare all those die rolls - all the monsters' Stealth check results versus all the PCs' Perception check results to determine who is surprised. Passive Perception helps sort this out which is maybe why it's part of the rules for determining surprise.

I find the problem with active perception is that if there is a group of monsters rolling, at least one with succeed. If 20 goblins are in a room, one of them should roll a 20 on the check and most likely notice. Now, I tend to just roll a couple dice and think a few may be alert and watching out, but most are hanging out doing something else.

I also think the PCs are not active all the time even if the player says so. I let them roll and if it is low, they are not paying good attention. I'm not sure how I feel on passive checks and PCs. I tend to give them advantage on things like seeing a goblin hiding. It may add up to the same thing.

Also, is there a distance penalty to perception? If the goblin is hiding 60ft away and is going to shoot a bow, would the passive score help, or is there a +1 to the DC for each 10ft or 20ft.

aco175 said:

Also, is there a distance penalty to perception? If the goblin is hiding 60ft away and is going to shoot a bow, would the passive score help, or is there a +1 to the DC for each 10ft or 20ft.

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No, but the DM can apply advantage or disadvantage if the circumstances warrant it.

i_dont_meta said:

I'm currently DM'ing the 1st Chapter of TftYP. Made a conscious decision to do away with Passive Perception and just have the PC's roll a Perception Check every time they might be Surprised. Hated to see Bardic Inspiration, Halflings Lucky Trait, the Lucky Feat, and/or any other dice-altering abilities Nerfed...Am I too reactionary??

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A big issue here is that every time you ask for a perception check, the players will know something is up even if they roll badly. To fix that, you have to request perception checks all the time, even when there is nothing to see. If that sounds fine, then go for it.

But DEFCON's point is correct, passive perception is not supposed to work against active perception in any way. If the characters come to a suspicious location but don't see anything, they are free to make an active check, and it can't hurt them.

aco175 said:

Also, is there a distance penalty to perception? If the goblin is hiding 60ft away and is going to shoot a bow, would the passive score help, or is there a +1 to the DC for each 10ft or 20ft.

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There is no set penalty. If you think the goblin is far enough away to make it hard to spot, you can assign disadvantage to the perception checks.

Like iserith said

The simplest way to explain and utilize active and passive perception:

Passive perception is always on and requires no actions. If you'd apply disadvantage (perhaps because they're asleep or distracted), it has a 5 penalty. If they'd have advantage (because they're suspicious, perhaps), it will be at a +5 bonus. Advantage and disadvantage are generally added at the discretion of the DM for these passive uses. Those +5/-5 are directly from the PHB, btw.

If they wish to elect to use an action to look around, it is active perception, but they effectively have their passive perception as a floor on this check because passive is always 'on'. As a result, the 'range' on active perception is really only 11 values wide (effectively (10 + perception) to (20 + perception)) with 50% of the time it being the floor value.

One approach to consider: The PCs are the heroes of the story. They're supposed to detect dangers and counter them most of the time. Failing to detect an enemy should be a rarity, not the norm, if you want them to feel like heroes rather than zeroes.

jaelis said:

There is no set penalty. If you think the goblin is far enough away to make it hard to spot, you can assign disadvantage to the perception checks.

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And make sure to subtract 5 from the Passive Perceptions of the characters too.