D&D 5E What DM flaw has caused you to actually leave a game?

[Kobold Boots]

I'm confused by this conversation.

Your passive perception is your floor for any perception check. If you have a 15 passive perception, that's the lowest that ANY perception check can go. If you roll an active perception check of 6, your actual perception roll is 15.* I believe there was a Crawford on this.

So it's pretty easy as a DM to just set DCs for things that are going on and know if a player is aware of it. If you're not telling them, well that's on you.

Peace
KB

* barring situations that would inhibit a character's senses.

 

[5ekyu]

I'm confused by this conversation.

Your passive perception is your floor for any perception check. If you have a 15 passive perception, that's the lowest that ANY perception check can go. If you roll an active perception check of 6, your actual perception roll is 15.* I believe there was a Crawford on this.

So it's pretty easy as a DM to just set DCs for things that are going on and know if a player is aware of it. If you're not telling them, well that's on you.

Peace
KB

* barring situations that would inhibit a character's senses.

If you have a link to a ruling that pp is the floor for any active check please post it.

If not, is that a house rule?

EDIT

i see for instance this which is not quite what you are claiming.

https://twitter.com/jeremyecrawford/status/1001632654918172672?lang=en

 

[iserith]

I'm confused by this conversation.

Your passive perception is your floor for any perception check. If you have a 15 passive perception, that's the lowest that ANY perception check can go. If you roll an active perception check of 6, your actual perception roll is 15.* I believe there was a Crawford on this.

That's true in combat and if you're alert to danger, which is not always the case.

 

[Maxperson]

To get info the players seek out. The info you'd give a player after he says something like "do I know anything about this?" and he rolls a successful check.

The thing is, any info that is important has already been given out for free. Sure, I can roll an arcana check on the magic globe, but because the DM has already divulged the important information in the room, I know that any answer is just going to be secondary at best.

 

[Maxperson]

Hmm. The plant sounds promising. Can I identify it?

You've played at my table before!!

 

[Kobold Boots]

If you have a link to a ruling that pp is the floor for any active check please post it.

If not, is that a house rule?

EDIT

i see for instance this which is not quite what you are claiming.

https://twitter.com/jeremyecrawford/status/1001632654918172672?lang=en

That is exactly it.

If the DM decides that Passive Perception is used in a game, it is effectively the floor. A check is not required. If a player asks for a check, he can't go lower than his floor.

I realize that that is not exactly what is stated, but it is the resultant interpretation provided that the DM allows passive perception and doesn't institute some other reason why a player character's senses are impaired (which is exactly what I stated)

There is no reason for an active check if a player already finds whatever his passive would find.

 

[Kobold Boots]

That's true in combat and if you're alert to danger, which is not always the case.

The definition of passive is "not necessarily paying direct attention".
The definition of active is "looking for something"

If a player has a high passive perception, he or she is very observant. If I have a DC of 11 for something noticeable, and I have a player with a passive perception of 12, I'm going to give them what they'd notice.

In that same scenario if I have the same player roll active perception and he rolls at 6, I'm giving him the benefit of his passive score because it makes sense to do so. If he or she rolls a 19, there might be something more, there may not. However, there is no point of having passive perception in the game if you're forcing a hard check to notice something lower than its floor.

Might be opinion, may not be. That's my interpretation given the Crawford post provided that I as a DM allow passive perception in the game.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

That is exactly it.

If the DM decides that Passive Perception is used in a game, it is effectively the floor. A check is not required. If a player asks for a check, he can't go lower than his floor.

That's one interpretation of the rules. Another interpretation is that your passive score is used when you aren't actively looking for something, but you have to roll whenever you want to actively look. (It does mean that you might sometimes be better off choosing to not actively look, but it's far from the only weird thing in the ruleset, and handing out the rogue's level 11 ability for every Perception check would also be weird.)

 

[Kobold Boots]

That's one interpretation of the rules. Another interpretation is that your passive score is used when you aren't actively looking for something, but you have to roll whenever you want to actively look. (It does mean that you might sometimes be better off choosing to not actively look, but it's far from the only weird thing in the ruleset, and handing out the rogue's level 11 ability for every Perception check would also be weird.)

I hear you. So here's the counter:

A character's passive perception is "always on". So when you walk into a space the DM should be saying to himself.. "Is there anything in this scene that my players would pick up on?" when the scene opens. If so, he shares that with the player who has the appropriate passive score.

Now the player knows that he's got a score of 15, and he found something.. but he doesn't know if there's anything else, so he asks for an active check (or perhaps more importantly, someone else does). At that point active perception rolls come in to play.

I don't see where our interpretations are different, at all save for the fact that mine comes into play proactively. The Rogue's Reliable Talent is not the same thing - it maxes out at a roll of 10 (active roll at that) and isn't an optional rule as Passive Perception is.

The value of doing things the way I believe is true - simple.. it actually speeds up the game for players that aren't keen on finding every nuanced thing they could miss.

Regardless, as with any rule, if you have fun doing it the way you're doing it.. you're doing it right.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I hear you. So here's the counter:

A character's passive perception is "always on".

Yes, that's the previously-stated alternative. Passive Perception is either "always on"; or it's "only on when you're perceiving passively", and turns off when you're perceiving actively. Both methods seem equally supported under the definition of Passive Perception, so it's down to the individual DM for which method works best for them.

So when you walk into a space the DM should be saying to himself.. "Is there anything in this scene that my players would pick up on?" when the scene opens. If so, he shares that with the player who has the appropriate passive score.

That could be where you're losing me, is that I've never been comfortable with thinking in terms of "scenes". Likewise, if something is usable "once per encounter" then that's equally meaningless to me. Surely, what constitutes a "scene" or "encounter" is simply a matter of the observer's perspective. (Fortunately, 4E defined encounters sufficiently through the use of five-minute rests.)

For me, I think in terms of objective metrics, like feet and minutes. If the third pillar on the left has a notable feature that would require a DC 17 Perception check to find, then I wouldn't consult anyone's Passive Perception score until they got close enough to actually see it (probably around ten feet); if they started actively surveying the room before they got over there, then they would only get the result of their active check, which could well be lower than their passive score.

I don't see where our interpretations are different, at all save for the fact that mine comes into play proactively. The Rogue's Reliable Talent is not the same thing - it maxes out at a roll of 10 (active roll at that) and isn't an optional rule as Passive Perception is.

If a high-level rogue is surveying the room, then they're guaranteed a minimum result on their Perception roll (and coincidentally, that minimum result is equal to their Passive Perception score). That's a benefit of being a high-level rogue, under my interpretation of Passive Perception, is that actively looking is never worse than passively looking. Under your interpretation of Passive Perception, everyone gets that benefit.