Hussar
Legend
I guess my biggest issue with this type of ruling is that it makes the DM very visible in the outcomes of the game and that's something I really trying to avoid if at all possible. You guys are effectively saying, "In my opinion, you have no chance of detecting this, therefore, you cannot detect it." And, if the player disagrees, well, there's no recourse. It's a ruling and the player has to suck it up. I hate doing that as a DM and I really don't like it when DM's do it to me.
By using the dice to determine success, a level of fairness is added to the situation. Let's be honest, 9 times out of 10, we'd all get the same results - the invisible character is undetected. The odds certainly favor that outcome. The difference, in my mind, is that 1 in 10 where the outcome isn't certain.
I actually had this come up very recently. In the module I was running, 4 shadows were hidden among statues in a cavern that the PC's were exploring. Now, according to the module (and a ruling I agree with) the shadows had a DC 16 hide score. Any passive perception of 16 or higher would spot them before they attack (or an active perception check if the players asked for one). Now, the group didn't have any passive perception that high and the shadows got the drop on them. So, had I simply ruled them undetectable, the results would have been exactly the same.
Now, there was some grumbling from the players that there was no chance to detect the shadows. I pointed out that there was a chance, it's just that no one had a passive perception high enough and no one asked for a perception check before the two PC's entered the room and approached the statues. IOW, it was the player's own fault they got ambushed. They could have avoided the ambush, they just weren't acting very cautiously. They blundered straight ahead and walked into an ambush. Fair enough. Lesson learned and hopefully they will be a bit more careful next time. Or not. That's up to them.
I just don't want to put myself in the position where it's "Well, I'm in the big daddy chair, so, what I say goes, and you have to suck it up and trust your DM". I LOATHE that style of DMing. I don't do it as a DM and I hate playing that way. And, never minding the heavy handedness of it, it also means that I, as DM, am never surprised by how a scenario rolls out. If I flat out decide that the players Shalt Not do something, then, well, they can't do it and the scenario will progress the way I have pre-determined it. I'd much rather leave a chance of things playing out differently. It's a lot more fun for me as the DM when my carefully crafted scenario goes all wahoonie shaped because the players got lucky.
By using the dice to determine success, a level of fairness is added to the situation. Let's be honest, 9 times out of 10, we'd all get the same results - the invisible character is undetected. The odds certainly favor that outcome. The difference, in my mind, is that 1 in 10 where the outcome isn't certain.
I actually had this come up very recently. In the module I was running, 4 shadows were hidden among statues in a cavern that the PC's were exploring. Now, according to the module (and a ruling I agree with) the shadows had a DC 16 hide score. Any passive perception of 16 or higher would spot them before they attack (or an active perception check if the players asked for one). Now, the group didn't have any passive perception that high and the shadows got the drop on them. So, had I simply ruled them undetectable, the results would have been exactly the same.
Now, there was some grumbling from the players that there was no chance to detect the shadows. I pointed out that there was a chance, it's just that no one had a passive perception high enough and no one asked for a perception check before the two PC's entered the room and approached the statues. IOW, it was the player's own fault they got ambushed. They could have avoided the ambush, they just weren't acting very cautiously. They blundered straight ahead and walked into an ambush. Fair enough. Lesson learned and hopefully they will be a bit more careful next time. Or not. That's up to them.
I just don't want to put myself in the position where it's "Well, I'm in the big daddy chair, so, what I say goes, and you have to suck it up and trust your DM". I LOATHE that style of DMing. I don't do it as a DM and I hate playing that way. And, never minding the heavy handedness of it, it also means that I, as DM, am never surprised by how a scenario rolls out. If I flat out decide that the players Shalt Not do something, then, well, they can't do it and the scenario will progress the way I have pre-determined it. I'd much rather leave a chance of things playing out differently. It's a lot more fun for me as the DM when my carefully crafted scenario goes all wahoonie shaped because the players got lucky.