D&D 5E Is "Passive" (for Passive Perception) really the right term??

[DND_Reborn]

Ok, so "passive", as in passive perception (or other "passive" scores) has always bothered me a bit because the mechanic is 10 + your total modifier.

Why 10?

Well, my understanding is that the designers chose 10 because it was supposed to represent your "typical" effort (roughly average on the d20).

Then they chose the term "passive" for it... And, yeah, that is what bugs me.

"Routine" would be better, because passive (to me) represents "non-active", as where doing a task over and over would be "active" or "routine".

I mean, think about it, something that is "passive" is better than nearly half of your active attempts?

So, someone is trying to stealth past you, against your Passive Perception. But, you aren't really trying to perceive---you're just there. But your score is based on your average result if you were trying to perceive. Now, to be clear, when you are trying to perceive you are actively looking for something/ listening/ searching/ etc. In this case, you aren't. But, still using the 10 + modifier...

Anyway, it seems to me if a passive perception score was actually passive, it should be 5 + modifier or something. Then we could also just have the whole "Take 10" for routine tasks or have a "Routine/ Typical/ Whatever? Score" of 10 + modifier.

Just throwing this out as I am working on other stuff...

 

[Stalker0]

You could say "Standard Perception"

 

[Leatherhead]

Passive Perception is like Passive Sonar.

 

[Shiroiken]

Like a lot of other terms, it's a carryover from an older edition. In 4E, your Passive Perception was basically the minimal you could have, since it was literally just what you had without trying. This is part of the reason why people keep thinking this in 5E (including Jeremy Crawford), despite it not existing anywhere in a rulebook.

 

[James Gasik]

Like a lot of other terms, it's a carryover from an older edition. In 4E, your Passive Perception was basically the minimal you could have, since it was literally just what you had without trying. This is part of the reason why people keep thinking this in 5E (including Jeremy Crawford), despite it not existing anywhere in a rulebook.

Yeah, see Crawfords comments about passive Perception being a "floor" on Perception checks (ie, you can't do worse on a Perception check than your passive score), making me wonder if that's intended, why we don't roll d10+10 for Ability check instead of d20.

 

[Shiroiken]

Yeah, see Crawfords comments about passive Perception being a "floor" on Perception checks (ie, you can't do worse on a Perception check than your passive score), making me wonder if that's intended, why we don't roll d10+10 for Ability check instead of d20.

I know that this wasn't necessarily designer intent. Back on the old WotC forums when 5E first came out, people had questions about Passive checks. Mike Mearls offered up several suggestions, including the "floor" model of 4E, and I took his preferred method for my own. Basically the DM makes a roll against the Passive skill of the players, using the modifier +(DC-11) that has to beat the Passive Score. I've actually expanded on the idea, making Passive knowledge checks for the characters whenever they meet a new creature to see if they already have knowledge of it. Since we play on Roll20, I created an easy macro to roll all at once; I'd only roll once if playing IRL.

 

[Vaalingrade]

You're not actively engaging, so it is passive.

But we could change it to something more descriptive like Scanning Perception.

Or be honest and just call it Taking 10.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

It is passive in the way that passive learning is passive.

It doesn't mean you take no actions whatsoever. It means you are simply not being overt or focused on the activity of perceiving things. Humans necessarily perceive things at all times while they are conscious, this is not an intentional act, it simply happens as a consequence of being aware of our surroundings. It is in fact almost exactly the same sense as what we use for things like "passive [solar] heating," where there are no moving parts or electronic systems that create or collect heat, and instead the heating system is based on being good at collecting the ambient heat in winter and reflecting it away during the summer. Or consider "passive income," which refers to income sources that do not require direct engagement to continue providing returns, e.g. if you rent out your property to others, that is a form of passive income even though you are technically "doing" something. Royalties would be another example of passive income, since you don't need to do any further work to earn money from them (ensuring the enforcement of copyright being separate from actually making new works that can have copyright.)

"Passive" does not exclusively mean "inert." It also means "not having intentional effort." "Passive observation," for example, is a formal term in science for collecting data purely through looking at things (or in other ways just observing them) rather than doing any form of experiment or prediction per se. It is usually contrasted against active experiment, but could also be contrasted against predictive modeling, which lies somewhere between the two. Passive observation still requires you to take actions, like recording video or audio or making detailed notes. It just doesn't involve the observer actively participating in the physical situation themselves. Most of astronomy and cosmology, for example, consists of passive observation and predictive modeling, because we cannot construct new proto-stars and wait out the formation of planetary accretion disks and such. Yet to do that we have to take a great many complex actions, like designing, building, and launching the JWST.

 

[Horwath]

Yeah, see Crawfords comments about passive Perception being a "floor" on Perception checks (ie, you can't do worse on a Perception check than your passive score), making me wonder if that's intended, why we don't roll d10+10 for Ability check instead of d20.

because how much chance you get to roll higher number.
if you roll d10+10 then you have 10% chance for max score while for d20 you have only 5%

there should be a d20 die with 10 sides numbered with a 10 and then rest normal from 11 to 20

Edit:
in addition: if you use d20 with 10 floor, you get 12,75 average roll, with d10+10 you got to 15,5 average.

 

[delericho]

With 5e I've found it's generally best to assume that anything that isn't directly related to combat has been half-assed and doesn't really work. That's not entirely true, but it cuts down on a lot of frustration to think of it that way.

With regard to Passive Perception in particular, I recommend treating it like Armor Class, but against things like sneaky assassins, hidden traps, and the like - it's a shorthand to cut out a load of opposed rolls, nothing more. For anything else, I recommend using 'active' Perception (and using the full d20 range of results).