D&D 5E Crawford on Stealth

[Flamestrike]

If you think they are in a situation where they wouldn't be looking out for danger or traps (tavern, brothel, etc), impose a situational -5 disadvantage penalty. But if they are in enemy territory (dungeon, stronghold, or a section of wilderness known to be dangerous), I think it makes sense for everyone to be at least minimally aware at all times.

("Sorry Thorgud, visiting a brothel doesn't count as a "high alert" situation." "But Thorgud has a fear of women, he'd always be watching for betrayal!" "You didn't bring it up before she pulled the knife, so no.")

Thorgud is a barbarian clearly.

Why is it barbarian names are always the most gutteral sounds you can make? Grog, Thokk, Throgug, Korg etc.

Also they always have accents. Always.

 

[Caliban]

In the examples I gave, you're constantly making use of the skill over a prolonged time. It isn't "always on", but it is "on for a prolonged period."

Exactly. That's not "passive". That's active - it's taking your full attention and your action every round, you just aren't rolling for it.

Passive Perception is taking place in the background, not costing an action.

 

[Arial Black]

Id be much more comfortable if passive was (5+perception). It encourages players to investigate things a bit more.

It doesn't really. It just cuts down on rolling, not on investigating.

In order to investigate something, it's not the players who say "I'm making an Investigation check!"; the players just say "I'm looking in that chest-of-drawers!", and the DM who asks for an Investigation check.

Using passive Investigation, the players still have to tell you that they are checking out the chest-of-drawers, but if their passive Investigation score hits the DC of the clue then no die roll is necessary. If the passive score isn't high enough then you ask them to roll an Investigation check.

If the PC has the Observant feat then the order of operations is not changed in the slightest. The only difference is that since the passive score is higher it will hit more DCs and therefore rolls will be required less often. Although rolls will be required less often, the player's choosing to actually have their PC's look for stuff, where and how, is unchanged by the existence of either passive scores or of the Observant feat.

 

[iserith]

Exactly. That's not "passive". That's active - it's taking your full attention and your action every round, you just aren't rolling for it.

Passive Perception is taking place in the background, not costing an action.

Crawford did a great job of confusing all of this by using terms like "active" which I, heh, "actively" avoid. A passive check is a mechanic to resolve uncertainty with a thing you're constantly doing. The assumption with passive Perception is that you're constantly staying alert for danger unless you're doing something else that prevents you from doing that. So a passive check of any other kind is like that - you're doing stuff, but you're not rolling to resolve the uncertainty, just using a score against a DC.

 

[Caliban]

Crawford did a great job of confusing all of this by using terms like "active" which I, heh, "actively" avoid. A passive check is a mechanic to resolve uncertainty with a thing you're constantly doing. The assumption with passive Perception is that you're constantly staying alert for danger unless you're doing something else that prevents you from doing that. So a passive check of any other kind is like that - you're doing stuff, but you're not rolling to resolve the uncertainty, just using a score against a DC.

I think this comes down to differences in terminology, not an actual disagreement.

I think that the way 5e uses the term, Passive <skill> doesn't take you an action, Active <skill> does take you an action.

Passive Athletics, at least in the sense that I think Jgudsden and Flametitan are using it, would still take your action, you are just using an average roll. That's not "Passive" in the way that the 5e rulebook uses the term

5e doesn't seem to have a mechanic spelled out for "taking 10" the way 3e did. (The closest thing I can think of is "The DM can decide you don't need to roll".)

And I think that is what we are talking about - the difference between Taking 10 (still takes your action, you have to choose to do it) and Passive (does not take your action, is always operating by default).

 

[iserith]

I think this comes down to differences in terminology, not an actual disagreement.

I think that the way 5e uses the term, Passive <skill> doesn't take you an action, Active <skill> does take you an action.

Passive Athletics, at least in the sense that I think Jgudsden and Flametitan are using it, would still take your action, you are just using an average roll. That's not "Passive" in the way that the 5e rulebook uses the term

5e doesn't seem to have a mechanic spelled out for "taking 10" the way 3e did. (The closest thing I can think of is "The DM can decide you don't need to roll".)

And I think that is what we are talking about - the difference between Taking 10 (still takes your action, you have to choose to do it) and Passive (does not take your action, is always operating by default).

Of course "taking an action" only really matters when the action economy matters, such as in combat, right? So in the case of [MENTION=2629]jgsugden[/MENTION]'s examples, it's more abstract than that. It's stuff the PCs are doing constantly over time and with an uncertain outcome, so a passive check could apply to resolve. It probably wouldn't come up much except perhaps in particular overland travel scenarios or montages of one kind of another.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Man all these perception and stealth rules give me a headache. Don't get me started on invisibility.

 

[Mistwell]

Or we can just ignore him ☺

Way too many forumists place the blame for poorly written explanations on DMs instead of the rules designers.

Here's what he has to say about why this issue, more than just about any other, is intentionally placed on the DM rather than the rules [word for word from this podcast]:

We very intentionally in 5th edition put stealth in the domain of the DM...This is actually a rare case, in a rule, where we right up front in the hiding rule in the Player's Handbook, which is in the chapter called Using Ability Scores, we tell you the DM decides when circumstances are appropriate for hiding. The reason why we pointed that out is we've tried, in the previous edition for example, a more mechanized approach to stealth where we provided a very clear cut set of circumstances in which you could hide.

The thing is, that works when you're dealing primarily with stealth within combat, but because so much of D&D happens outside of combat...you're eves dropping, you're trying to avoid notice in a crowd, you're trying to escape a dangerous situation and avoid notice...And there are a lot of environmental factors that can come into play, the quality of light, how noisy a place is, are there things to hide behind, how attentive are your potential observers, so many factors.

We decided this is where we just need to, right up front, acknowledge this, more than almost any other part of the game, is going to rely on the Dungeon Master, the person who runs the environment and all potential observers, rely on the DM to make some judgement calls.

Which can mean there are cases where the DM might decide that no rolls are even necessary. Because a group might say we're going to dash out of the Duke's grand ball avoiding notice, and the DM might decide that well the dancing troop in the ball, because they just accidentally set the curtains on fire and there are people screaming and running in the grand hall, they're not even paying attention

...This is an area where we wanted to make it doubly clear that really really really the DM is going to be the referee on how this works...it's always true that the DM is the final arbiter at a particular table. But more than ever it has to be true of stealth and here's why. Often when you're sneaking around and when your foes are sneaking around, there is hidden information. You, as players, don't know everything. Because that's why we're even talking about stealth; if someone else is sneaking up on you, you don't know it, you don't have all the information. And so the DM, this is an area where the DM has to hold their cards a little closer to their chest than they do normally with certain things in the game. Because otherwise you can have situations where all the drama is lost because well it's obvious that this sneaky situation is happening.

 

[Caliban]

Of course "taking an action" only really matters when the action economy matters, such as in combat, right? So in the case of [MENTION=2629]jgsugden[/MENTION]'s examples, it's more abstract than that. It's stuff the PCs are doing constantly over time and with an uncertain outcome, so a passive check could apply to resolve. It probably wouldn't come up much except perhaps in particular overland travel scenarios or montages of one kind of another.

True enough. I just thought it was worth trying to avoid making a confusing topic even more confusing by not using the same name for two similar but mechanically different ways to use skills.

 

[Mercule]

Crawford did a great job of confusing all of this by using terms like "active" which I, heh, "actively" avoid. A passive check is a mechanic to resolve uncertainty with a thing you're constantly doing. The assumption with passive Perception is that you're constantly staying alert for danger unless you're doing something else that prevents you from doing that. So a passive check of any other kind is like that - you're doing stuff, but you're not rolling to resolve the uncertainty, just using a score against a DC.

Agreed -- I think.

I've pretty much come to the conclusion that Passive Perception for secret doors, traps, etc. is a just plain stupid idea -- if you want such things to have any variance, whatsoever. It's a good solution for things like stealth, where only one side actually is intentionally acting. Lying works similarly with passive Insight. Even then, it doesn't address a case like where a guard has reason to be intentionally searching, but rolls a 1, so gets a worse result than if he'd been just playing on his phone. In that case, the idea that the PP is the "floor" still sounds bad, but may be the least bad option -- the PP determines whether surprise occurs, but a successful intentional check could allow the guard to turn the situation around and trick the sneak, or otherwise be more prepared than just "not surprised".

For situations where the character needs to be intentional about an action, like searching for a secret door (unless you're an AD&D elf*), passive checks don't apply because the character isn't being passive. I don't understand the argument about repetitive searches down a hallway and the like. What I've done since 1E is to just roll one check per area (however you want to define that). That doesn't mean a check for every 5' section. It means you're just rolling the one relevant check. If there are more than one thing to find in an area, then you just need to know whether the character is working left-to-right or the other way around. The roll is for the first "thing". If they find it and want to keep searching, roll again. Actually, I grab a couple dice and just know what order they apply: red, purple, orange is my current standard and I don't ever remember needing more than two, let alone more than three. I also make the characters actually say what they're willing to move/touch, with the understanding that there is the potential for contact poison, tripwires, magic sigils, etc. If they want to ransack the room, then all secrets and traps are on the table. Passive Perception just doesn't provide enough benefit to justify using it for intentional activities.

* If you want to emulate the AD&D elf, I'd say add a racial ability that they can find secret doors using PP. I'd do it at disadvantage, but YMMV.