Search results

That is an interesting approach, thanks for posting.

Yes, and just because you choose to roll the Orcs' initiative as a group has no bearing on whether you should do a single roll for their perception as a group, initiative and perception are two different activities with different significances.

But then you have the issue of how many PCs get to roll and many of them potentially getting a roll and the issues with variances that you get with a lot of rolls, versus avoiding that problem and the simplicity of a single roll for the trap. Also, just because you fail to perceive the trap...

Flip the script. You have all the PCs roll for stealth individually though don't you? You have all the PCs roll for initiative individually don't you? Initiative is done in groups of bad guys for a gaming shortcut.

Nothing weird at all, and no reason to assume so. Here's a concrete example. The party is advancing through the dungeon. The scout spots signs of a trap ahead. Further ahead, they hear an advancing monster patrol. The party wants to try to disable or circumvent the trap fast enough to get...

Sure, a PC may strive for certainty, but practically speaking, a lot is resolved by a roll. The PC knows the barkeep has some useful information, the PC thinks through the options and decides that slipping some gold and being persuasive may be the best way to get it. That generally leads to a...

Yes, veering off-topic, but I agree as well, and extend it further to say that I don't agree with players using characters' bad tendencies, negative traits, etc. to act as justification for a-hole play, i.e., you can role-play the bad traits, but only up to a point and not to a point where it...

So when are you using passive Perception at all in the game, if not for ambushes? And how are you determining the DC of the ambush? Are all 4 Orcs rolling separately? (That's doomed to fail, someone will roll low.) There appear to be three options, to have a contest if PCs are being...

A PC may ask to make a check because they want to investigate something further or take any sort of action. If a PC thinks the treasure room may be trapped, they may well want to take an action and survey the room and take an active Perception check, rather than waltz in cautiously and just...

Traps often are set by creatures to provide them notice of invaders, so timing is often quite important actually. Plus, as many keep mentioning in the context of traps in various threads, timing for dealing with a trap often matters due to the potential for wandering monsters who may show up...

It appears that traps have a DC under the RAW, but setting that aside, I agree that the DC can and should vary based on PC actions. But even so, I would say that PCs should still have some chance to succeed or fail generally speaking (putting a shield in front of the poison needle trap and...

I'm not desirous of getting off-subject in this thread, so I'll just make the following comments about this subject. Rolling a group check *may* work for a group of Orcs spotting Hobbits, but it doesn't work well with a group of PCs with varying Perceptions getting ambushed by foes. I don't...

Passive Perception is an excellent mechanic and solves the problem that many game systems have, namely, if everyone in the party always rolls, then nothing will ever be hidden, as with the dice variance, someone will roll high. The hobbits can't hide on the mountainside if 1000 passing orcs...

But again, traps have static DCs, so if you are resolving with a passive Perception check, you have the issue of auto-fail and auto-find. As for your comment about keeping eyes peeled, that was my point that characters would be doing that by default, so no need to get into reasonable...

There are no "odds" like you propose, unless there is a roll involved, and the end results are significantly different actually. The DM knows the party's Perception scores, and if the trap DCs are static (e.g., the GM picks a pit trap or spear trap from the DMG), then the DM is basically just...

Thanks for the reference, I'll check that out. But if you have no chance of finding a trap (i.e., passive Perception) without reasonable specificity, that will cause innumerable problems and run a game right into the ground. PCs simply going down a dungeon hall will not like getting hit with a...

The DC is already set for the sample traps in the DMG, and likely already set in most adventures, rather than the DM jumping the gun. Presumably the DM can vary the DC based on PC interaction, but let's face it, there are plenty of simple traps that a PC may well encounter and situation is...

A trap which can't be found is not fun, fair, or interesting. A trap which is automatically found is not fun, fair, or interesting. I merely proposed a simple solution to avoiding the aforementioned problems, which arise from a comparison of static numbers for passive Perception versus trap...

The issue I raised is with static trap DCs, and I raised issues with that by either passive or active Perception, so I addressed either situation, regardless, so I don't see that your comment is really applicable. That's all well and good, but it still results in a static trap DC, which is...

I saw that in the other thread and it was good, and that can work well. But my original post was about noting an issue with the how the RAW handle traps by comparing static scores against one another, and making a simple suggestion on an alternative way to resolve them simply and similar to the...