D&D 5E I don't use Passive Perception

DEFCON 1 · Oct 14, 2017

"Incestigation"? Is that the skill you use to figure out if the target is related to you?

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robus · Oct 14, 2017

Shiroiken said:
I'll give an example: an elf and human walk past a secret door. The DC to find the secret door is a 15, the elf has a passive perception of a 16 and the human a passive perception of 11. The DM rolls 1d20+3, and an 11+ means the human doesn't see it, while a 16+ means the elf doesn't either. If neither find it, they can still find it with an active roll. Thus they have a free passive attempt, plus they may make an active attempt if they fail.

So the DC is used to determine the bonus. That’s cool and actually would be a great thing to put in text: DC 15 (+3) so that the DM can easily use either. (i know it’s not hard to convert on the fly too, but it would act as a reminder

)

TheCosmicKid · Oct 14, 2017

robus said:
So the DC is used to determine the bonus. That’s cool and actually would be a great thing to put in text: DC 15 (+3) so that the DM can easily use either. (i know it’s not hard to convert on the fly too, but it would act as a reminder )

Shouldn't it be +4, though?

Ristamar · Oct 14, 2017

TheCosmicKid said:
Shouldn't it be +4, though?

EDIT: Wow, rough evening, my math/logic was a total failure on the first pass.

Using the example [MENTION=6775477]Shiroiken[/MENTION] provided, a human with an 11 PP (inferring no proficiency, +1 Wis modifier) has a 40% chance to detect a DC 15 trap when converted to a d20 + 3 DC. The trap is found on a natural die roll of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, or 8. If the same human was actively making a check against a static DC 15 trap, he'd also have a 35% chance with d20 + modifier. The trap is found on a natural die roll of 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, or 20.

So, yes, +4 is correct for a randomly generated DC since ties still indicate successful detection assuming the standard ability check versus target DC mechanic. However, if you are treating the trap as an opposed roll where a tie does not indicate success (the situation remains unchanged, thus the trap is not detected), you would use +3 instead.

Harzel · Oct 15, 2017

Shiroiken said:
an elf and human walk past a secret door.

Heh. Sounds like the beginning of a joke.

SansMoins · Oct 15, 2017

Nebulous said:
I had a player last week bragging about his low-level characters passive perception 20. The fact that he can even get that leads me to think the numbers are broken in this game sometimes. Regardless I will not let traps be automatically found or secret doors noticed the moment he passes them by. I will just keep in mind that he is highly perceptive.

I’m betting he rolled for his stats. And rolled high on almost all of them.

EDIT: I would be suspicious. Max stats you can have is 20 (+5). Right there would be a 15 pP. If your proficient that would make 17. If you have expertise, then 19.

The only way that would happen is if the DM lets the players roll and have more than 20 in a stat.

If I am overlooking something, please let me know.

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UngeheuerLich · Oct 15, 2017

DEFCON 1 said:
"Incestigation"? Is that the skill you use to figure out if the target is related to you?

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That's the one, yes.

UngeheuerLich · Oct 15, 2017

SansMoins said:
I’m betting he rolled for his stats. And rolled high on almost all of them.

EDIT: I would be suspicious. Max stats you can have is 20 (+5). Right there would be a 15 pP. If your proficient that would make 17. If you have expertise, then 19.

The only way that would happen is if the DM lets the players roll and have more than 20 in a stat.

If I am overlooking something, please let me know.

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Observant feat. +5 passive perception. So it is not difficult to achieve with standard array and human variant.

Don't use auto successes on traps. But what should PP actually do? It should prevent people from asking for traps all the time.
So what I did with our observant monk was telling him that he notices something that may initiate a search at this place.
Tracks that suddenly stop. More or less dust than usual etc.
In the case of passive investigation I used to tell him that he notices the interior of the building is smaller than it looked from the outside. Or that in the floor below all rooms seemed bigger.

Not allowing passive checks to do something devalues the feat choice and what is worse, just slows down the game. Secret doors are there to be found. The game is usually more interesting that way.
You can assign disadvantage (-5 PP) in many cases though, because of bad lighting or because adventurers are not paying attention to their surroundings. I expect them to at least tell me that they are trying to be aware of traps and secret doors and then I may give a penalty on their PP to being surprised by creatures.

JesterOC · Oct 15, 2017

dpkress2 said:
As A DM, I don't use passive perception. I think it ruins the fun of things that are supposed to be a surprise. Traps or Hiding monsters comes to mind.

With passive perception what is the point of a trap? The player either automatically finds it OR I jack the spot DC and the player automatically doesn't find it. This is barring actively searching for traps of course.

Now players don't have to search for a trap to find it. If I know a trap is coming I will roll perception for the player in secret. If the make the DC, cool. If they don't, cool.

So far my players have not complained the least. But can anyone give me a reason why this is a bad idea or unfair?

I realize that I'M the DM and it's MY game so do works for ME and MY players is cool. So you don't need to tell me things of that nature. I'm looking for arguments in favor of Passive Perception or perhaps alternate ways to use it.

I see it as a time saver. If you don't mind rolling the dice Everytime a trap is near and sometimes when one is not then cool. However I don't see how it ruins the fun. If a player in your group had made choices so that he/she is very perceptive then the party will be having fun each time they detect a trap.

As a rule of thumb I try to break trap detection down to a simple description. Is it easy, hard, very hard. Then assign it a value based on this chart

5 - Very Easy
10 - Easy
15 - Moderate
20 - Hard
25 - Very Hard
30 - Nearly Impossible

I try to be consistent, but obviously I'm human so I know I am biased. But as long as everyone is having fun and it feels consistent to the players, it's all good.

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Shiroiken · Oct 15, 2017

Ristamar said:
EDIT: Wow, rough evening, my math/logic was a total failure on the first pass.

Using the example [MENTION=6775477]Shiroiken[/MENTION] provided, a human with an 11 PP (inferring no proficiency, +1 Wis modifier) has a 40% chance to detect a DC 15 trap when converted to a d20 + 3 DC. The trap is found on a natural die roll of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, or 8. If the same human was actively making a check against a static DC 15 trap, he'd also have a 35% chance with d20 + modifier. The trap is found on a natural die roll of 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, or 20.

So, yes, +4 is correct for a randomly generated DC since ties still indicate successful detection assuming the standard ability check versus target DC mechanic. However, if you are treating the trap as an opposed roll where a tie does not indicate success (the situation remains unchanged, thus the trap is not detected), you would use +3 instead.

Yea, I would go with the +3, because I use the Passive score of the character as the actual DC of success for the trap/door/ninja/whatever. It's been quite a while since I did the math, but using this assumption, DC-12 was correct. So long as you're consistent, it works either way, so it's just what you're most comfortable with. I used to put the modifier with the DC in my adventure notes, but since I run on Roll20, I just made a Passive Macro to do the work for me