D&D 5E Aarakocra in combat and a question about passive perception

[DEFCON 1]

Observant will give him +1 Wis as well.

His Wis score is 19 right now at level 7. He'll take the feat at level 8 and it will bump it to 20. I doubt he would consider the feat if he had an even Wis score.

Ah, gotcha! My apologies to [MENTION=60210]jaelis[/MENTION] for the misunderstanding.

 

[iserith]

About passive perception, I have a player with a level 7 Cleric that is sitting at a 19 in Wis and is likely to take the Observant feat at level 8. His passive perception will be 23 which is crazy high. This seems oddly powerful to me. He is going to notice everything all the time. Am I over-reacting to this a little? Also, if he actually makes a perception check and it comes up lower than 23, can he just use the 23 pp instead? How do you even RP a perception check of say 10(if he rolled a 2) if his pp is 23?

Being observant is a great thing - but a character can't be observant to all things all the time. The player needs to declare what he or she is doing. Keeping watch for hidden monsters and traps so as to avoid surprise? Great! But you have no chance of spotting secret doors. Want to find all the secret doors while you're traveling the dungeon? Awesome. But you will be surprised if a monster sneaks up on the party. You have to choose one task or another, not both. (Unless the character is a ranger, of course.) Marching order also plays into this. If the character is not in the position to notice something, such as in the case of a hidden pit trap ahead of the party and the cleric is in the middle or back ranks, then the cleric simply fails to notice the trap.

So one thing I make sure I do when the players set off onto adventure is to ask them to describe what they are doing "in general" while going about the business of adventuring. Do you keep watch for danger? Do you search for secret doors? Do you draw a map? Do you navigate? Forage or track? Something else? The observant character will want to either keep watch or search for secret doors generally speaking. And that comes with the opportunity cost of not being able to do anything else. You can't have it all.

Remember, "passive" in "passive check" doesn't mean you're not actively doing something. It just means there's no die roll.

 

[cooperjer]

Defcon 1 and iserith both have very good points. With regards to monsters hiding I like to consider that the monsters may have setup a hiding spot and spent some time making sure they are not easily seen. If they have a buddy who can talk with them (most goblinoids and humanoids would) then they get assistance on hiding. The net result is I use the passive stealth with advantage for humanoid monsters that work in teams. This works out to be a little more challenging for PCs that do not specialize in finding things.

For the PC that does specialize in finding things I like to think of them as a Sherlock Holms type character, in that, the character has an eye for detail that is astonishing. They'll be able to notice that something is odd about a section of wall where a hidden door is located. Depending on their Intelligence (Investigation), they may not be able to figure out how to open that section of wall to get through the hidden door. In a similar manner, this perceptive character may be able to notice the small holes along the outside of a treasure chest and the residue near those holes. It's clearly a trapped chest. They may not be able to disable the trap though. Other similar changes put more value on the Intelligence score and can force some team work in the group.