D&D 5E Passive Investigation?

[quandaratic]

So, the advice from Jeremy Crawford, lead designer of the Players Handbook:
http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/james-haeck-dd-writing

...and this is regarding perception, specifically, but the highlights that I take away are:
- DMs discretion, above all; he and the team realize how important it is for a DM to run a game by the flow and narrative that makes sense to them.
- they assume a baseline awareness of a character’s surroundings, when they’re not focusing on spotting the details of it, represented by Passive Perception.
- Passive Perception is intended to be used as a minimum value for a character’s Active Perception checks.
- Passive Perception is also intended to be used for a DMs secret rolls, for information that the player does not know.
- When the character is focusing on a differently activity, it makes sense to either penalize or ignore the Passive Perception concept.

Responses that I have:
- Using Passive Perception for the DM secret rolls does open a conceptual door to using other skills as such, but I recognize that it could get silly pretty quickly. Passive Perception really is a pretty unique case for skills, which is why it’s the only only listed explicitly, on the character sheets. Passive use of Ability Scores is more feasible, like a Passive Charisma check for situations where a character’s presence has an effect on NPCs, to whom the character really isn’t even paying attention
- The specification about Passive Perception, in the Activities While Traveling section, is a case of specific beating general, rather than defining a core mechanic in a section about specific narrative situation.
- Passive Investigation is almost certainly the case of shortcutting a bunch of repeated Active Investigation checks, like dungeon crawling while continually looking for secret stuff
- I have mixed feelings about the minimum rule; it feels a bit unbalanced, since there are baseline levels of other things on the character sheet. A DM could always use Saving Throw values in that same way, though.

 

[iserith]

So, the advice from Jeremy Crawford, lead designer of the Players Handbook:
http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/james-haeck-dd-writing

...and this is regarding perception, specifically, but the highlights that I take away are:
- DMs discretion, above all; he and the team realize how important it is for a DM to run a game by the flow and narrative that makes sense to them.
- they assume a baseline awareness of a character’s surroundings, when they’re not focusing on spotting the details of it, represented by Passive Perception.
- Passive Perception is intended to be used as a minimum value for a character’s Active Perception checks.
- Passive Perception is also intended to be used for a DMs secret rolls, for information that the player does not know.
- When the character is focusing on a differently activity, it makes sense to either penalize or ignore the Passive Perception concept.

We had a whole thread on this after that podcast came out. What Crawford is saying is chiefly in the context of combat where characters are indeed assumed to be paying attention to their surroundings. Passive Perception is the DC for resolving a monster's Stealth check in combat. A Perception check as a result of a Search action with a floor of the passive Perception score therefore makes sense because the monster isn't hidden otherwise. It does not make sense outside of combat.

There is also no such thing as "active check." There's a passive check or an ability check. Passive uses a score. Ability checks use the dice.

 

[quandaratic]

There is also no such thing as "active check." There's a passive check or an ability check. Passive uses a score. Ability checks use the dice.

You're right, and I realize that. I only use the term to distinguish from a passive check, and I shouldn't have capitalized it.
Apologies for diluting the thread, but I felt that the concepts were relevant, since the podcast discussion wasn't only about combat situations.

 

[iserith]

You're right, and I realize that. I only use the term to distinguish from a passive check, and I shouldn't have capitalized it.
Apologies for diluting the thread, but I felt that the concepts were relevant, since the podcast discussion wasn't only about combat situations.

It goes like this:

A character is reasonably assumed to be keeping watch while adventuring (including in combat) unless the character is doing something else that sufficiently distracts from that effort. The rules make some suggestions as to what those might be - foraging, tracking, drawing a map, navigating, etc. - but it's not limited to that.

A passive Perception check resolves any uncertainty as to whether a character notices any hidden dangers the character is capable of noticing while he or she is keeping watch. If the character is doing anything other than keeping watch as noted above or is not capable of noticing the danger, he or she does NOT notice it - there is no check, passive or otherwise. Keeping watch is something the character is doing actively and repeatedly over time which is why it's resolved by a passive check.

Similarly, a passive Investigation check is for resolving any uncertainty as to whether a character can make deductions based on available clues while actively attempting to so, repeatedly over time. It might be reasonable in some situations to rule that such an effort distracts at least as much as drawing a map or navigating in which case the character cannot also keep watch (unless he or she is a ranger in favored terrain!). The character thus runs afoul of hidden dangers. I imagine the activities that might suggest a passive Investigation check probably don't come up very often.

 

[quandaratic]

Yeah, that's what I said.

 

[iserith]

Yeah, that's what I said.

I think what you missed with regard to the "floor" is that the Search action is something you only do in combat, much like Help or Ready are only combat actions. Therefore, out of combat, there is no "floor."

 

[quandaratic]

I think what you missed with regard to the "floor" is that the Search action is something you only do in combat, much like Help or Ready are only combat actions. Therefore, out of combat, there is no "floor."

Could you please clarify the logic in that? It sounds like you're saying that Passive Perception is something that only applies to a Search, which is not true. Crawford was very clear, that Passive Perception is intended to be always on, unless a condition prevents it.

 

[iserith]

Could you please clarify the logic in that? It sounds like you're saying that Passive Perception is something that only applies to a Search, which is not true. Crawford was very clear, that Passive Perception is intended to be always on, unless a condition prevents it.

You said "I have mixed feelings about the minimum rule; it feels a bit unbalanced, since there are baseline levels of other things on the character sheet. A DM could always use Saving Throw values in that same way, though."

That would seem to indicate you think that there's a "floor"outside of combat like you can't roll lower than your passive score. (If you don't think that, then disregard.) That's not the case because by definition a passive check resolves a different kind of activity than an ability check does because the former is for tasks performed repeatedly. In the context of the podcast, they were talking about hiding in combat and how that related to a Search action. In that situation, there is a "floor" because the DC for hiding is set by the opposing passive Perception score. If the monster can't beat that, they aren't hidden anyway, so that's effectively the "floor."

Passive Perception is not technically "always on" nor does it indicate that the character is not actively doing something. It's a mechanic the DM uses to resolve uncertainty for a task related to perception that is performed repeatedly such as keeping watch for danger while adventuring.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Could you please clarify the logic in that? It sounds like you're saying that Passive Perception is something that only applies to a Search, which is not true. Crawford was very clear, that Passive Perception is intended to be always on, unless a condition prevents it.

The travel activity rules show that Passive Perception is not quite "always on".

 

[Inchoroi]

I've been tempted recently, with the megadungeon the group is currently working through, to remove passives entirely, or to change how passives work.

In the former idea, the PCs don't notice anything if they're not going, "I'm going to check that!" Tough cookies if they should have, and trigger a trap.

In the latter, I don't know whether I'd make it just base modifier is your new passive, or something different entirely.