Level Up (A5E) Is passive expertise intended to be locked at +3?

[Vexxmyst]

Looking at the rules on Passive Skills, it says only that expertise grants a +3 bonus, which I assume is taking into account the average roll of a d4, rounded up in the same way as average health is.
However, expertise isn't limited to a d4, so were you to increase expertise in Insight from a d4 to d6, would the passive bonus increase from a 3 to a 4; or is the intent to keep it at a +3 regardless of die size?

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

Looking at the rules on Passive Skills, it says only that expertise grants a +3 bonus, which I assume is taking into account the average roll of a d4, rounded up in the same way as average health is.
However, expertise isn't limited to a d4, so were you to increase expertise in Insight from a d4 to d6, would the passive bonus increase from a 3 to a 4; or is the intent to keep it at a +3 regardless of die size?

Why would you assume it doesn’t do exactly what it says, grant a +3 bonus?

Please note that I have not read this part of the book yet

 

[Morrus]

As written it stays at 3. I haven’t tried it the other way, and don’t think it would be a problem if you chose to do that.

 

[Vexxmyst]

Why would you assume it doesn’t do exactly what it says, grant a +3 bonus?

Because it's granting a static application from a variable. You can have a d4, d6, or d8 (and d10/d12 if you work for it) as your expertise die that increases odds, but regardless of this it grants a binary +3 to passives? I'm naturally going to question if that was intended.

As written it stays at 3. I haven’t tried it the other way, and don’t think it would be a problem if you chose to do that.

Fair enough!
Doing the math, a level 20 Investigator with Spot Tell and Nobody's Fool would have a passive Insight of 27 (10 + 6 + 5 + 3 + 3) before ability modifiers. Scaling passive expertise would increase that by 3 to 30, for an 11% increase. With that in mind, I suppose there isn't much of a point in having scaling passive expertise as there are already enough avenues to increase passives.

 

[FirehouseGames]

Question then:
If I have perceptive stance (+3 passive), and a specialty (hearing), would that stack (providing that the particular specialty applies)?

Example:
1) Perceptive stance +3, plus foresight specialty +3 (if applies) = +6
2) Perceptive stance +3, plus foresight specialty +3 (if applies)= +3

which one is correct?
thank you all for your help.

 

[Psykotik_Dragon]

Question then:
If I have perceptive stance (+3 passive), and a specialty (hearing), would that stack (providing that the particular specialty applies)?

Example:
1) Perceptive stance +3, plus foresight specialty +3 (if applies) = +6
2) Perceptive stance +3, plus foresight specialty +3 (if applies)= +3

which one is correct?
thank you all for your help.

That would grant you the +3 from the expertise die & that's it. There was another thread one here where Morrus stated it's a static +3 bonus if you have any expertise die regardless of the source, the stance just grants you an expertise die to active checks (increasing the stack for other sources of expertise die, like your specialty) which guarantees the passive +3 for having the expertise die.

 

[xiphumor]

I personally choose to add another +1 to the passive checks every time the expertise die improves. It doesn’t break the game or anything.

 

[JerichoPenumbra]

For Perceptive stance and others like it, the +3 to passive that they state is actually a redundancy in the rules. It was meant to serve as a rules reminder about the first expertise die giving +3 to the passive, rather that be an additive to the existing rules.

Echoing Xiphumor, my group has agreed to use a scaling bonus to passive scores if the expertise die goes up in size. Rewards people who pump up a skill and it's just following the math. Passives are meant to be dead average rolls, and the +3 is basically just the average of a d4 (2.5 but rounded up). Every ExDie size boost should translate to a +1 to the passive