Active Perception and Passive Perception

[LostSoul]

When I write up dungeons I have some traps that can't be detected with Passive checks. The PCs need to do something. I also use wandering monsters, so there is a point to the time that's wasted while searching for traps.

To get around the "Why don't I just decide if they see the trap or not, since I know their skill mods" thing, I give the dungeon a level and then set traps and monsters in it based on that level. When you make the dungeon you won't know if the PCs will see the trap or not because you won't know what level they are.

You also don't care.

 

[N0Man]

The way I like to play it is that the DC should be based on what makes sense on the setting or situation. The DC might also just be to spot a clue.

Some should be tough to see, and only viewable through a normal trained Spot Check success, but what if you have a super perceptive character that can passively perceive what others have to roll for?

It sounds like some of you are promoting that you should raise the DC to high enough so that your perceptive character still has to roll for it, and can't see it automatically.

If that's the case, then why bother putting points in it at all? If you are just making it so they can't do it passively, all the players might as well not even train it, never bother to put a feat to improve it, or use a background for it. It completely defeats the purpose of deciding to have that concept.

If a player builds his character for a theme, and to be good at something, then he should reap the rewards for it. It shouldn't be a constant auto-win every time, but inflating the difficulty to keep people from auto-succeeding is cheap and unfair to players.

This doesn't apply to just Perception, but to any skill. Let your specialists be rewarded for specializing. Make them feel like their choice paid off.

 

[Colmarr]

The way I like to play it is that the DC should be based on what makes sense on the setting or situation.

Not to mention that the DMG includes target DCs for all levels of play.

If a DM can't divorce themselves from the metagame enough to include a trap even though it can/can't be spotted by the players, then that's hardly a fault of the system IMO.

Passive perception no more complicates trap use than the "send the rogue ahead to scout for traps" tactic did in previous editions. Any trap you placed needed to be weighed against the Search modifier of the rogue.

 

[Prism]

It shouldn't be a constant auto-win every time, but inflating the difficulty to keep people from auto-succeeding is cheap and unfair to players.

I don't think this is a problem with home created adventures since you can vary the DC or simply not allow passive perception for some traps and secret doors. With modules its pretty much an auto success even without pushing wisdom. I like the idea of rolling the traps stealth in this case rather than a set DC

 

[Jhaelen]

With modules its pretty much an auto success even without pushing wisdom.

Quite true. The Spot DCs in modules make zero sense. Apparently the authors always use the (revised) DC values from DMG p.42 which can result in extremely silly situations.

I especially hate it if set DCs are given to spot hidden monsters. I've never seen DCs that actually take the monsters Hide skill into account. How weird is that?!

 

[Prism]

Quite true. The Spot DCs in modules make zero sense. Apparently the authors always use the (revised) DC values from DMG p.42 which can result in extremely silly situations.

I especially hate it if set DCs are given to spot hidden monsters. I've never seen DCs that actually take the monsters Hide skill into account. How weird is that?!

Having said that, every trap I have seen so far in a mod is designed to be seen first really. The difficulty is trying to disarm it while fighting monsters or using a skill challenge as it delivers ongoing effects. For that I'm pretty happy with the trap being obvious to the average spotter- thats not the main challenge. I have yet to see one of the old school hidden 'get em once' traps being used in a mod. Although mentioned as minion traps in DMG2 these would be pretty dull if auto spotted via passive perception. The same goes for secret doors. I'd still like the players to actively search for traps on chests or for secret doors - otherwise why bother - which is probably why the modules don't really have this stuff anymore

I hadn't noticed that about monsters not actually getting their stealth skill. The modules seem to follow the formula to closely sometimes (always?)

 

[BruntFCA]

I think KD and N0man make the best points.

I just rolled a rogue with a high perception, ye its a total waste of effort if my char can never be "good" at it, since it auto moved up.

KDs solution is easily the best. For example, do you put the squishy spotter in front of the party or the dwarf fighter?

Also it can make for some great setups, you charge.....once you move 10 feet closer to the enemy you notice 2 thin strands of wire across the room!

So you can continue charge,....stop try to disarm.....or acrobatics over. Also it makes a difference as *who* charges first, maybe the rogue could spot/avoid it...but what about the rest? Does the rogue continue on his own, only to get flanked?

Also the suggestion of making "stealth" checks for the traps is a good one.

I always remember traps being quite fun in 1/2e....must have just been good DMs. Now Tomb of Horrors is coming out.....I hope they spruce up the system or use something like what KD is suggesting.

 

[DracoSuave]

My job as a DM is to make sure people have fun. Not to make sure everything has to involve a die roll. This is an important point.

So... if a player goes out of his way to make a super-perceptive character, I'm not going to up the DCs of things just so he can roll dice. Who cares? I just tell him what he sees and he knows he sees it and others don't because he's superperceptive.

That's WHY he's doing it? Why punish the group because a player wanted to maximise a useful skill? That thinking makes no sense.

What I -will- do, is include more lurkers, more monsters that make his perception save the day. It doesn't -always- see everything, and if he's taking perception high, he's using minor actions to see it. So he's seeing the lurkers, and the party goes 'Oh! Lurkers!' and the player gets to feel like he's the hero of that encounter by getting Distant Early Warning on a couple lurkers before the third teaches the party -why- it would have been bad for all three to get through.


A good DM rewards player decisions by making them matter, not invalidates them by making things arbitrarily harder for no other reason than a sense of entitlement that 'everything must be rolled'

 

[Prism]

So... if a player goes out of his way to make a super-perceptive character, I'm not going to up the DCs of things just so he can roll dice. Who cares? I just tell him what he sees and he knows he sees it and others don't because he's superperceptive.

Its not so much the problem with the actual DC but with the static nature of the passive check. Lets say as the DM you follow the guidelines to some degree and set the DC for spotting traps, secret doors and opponents to 19 for your 8th level party. The 14 WIS perception trained ranger will spot everything all the time with their +11 check. The 10 WIS perception trained rogue will also see everything. The untrained WIS 20 cleric also sees everything. The ranger doesn't feel special at all even though they are considered the party spotter.

So you decide to change the DC slightly to 20. Now the rogue and cleric see nothing and the ranger probably feels important again. The rogue wonders why he bothered training perception at all. The cleric still has other things going on with 18 WIS and probably isn't as bothered

So what do you do? You vary the DC? This is exactly the problem - you are choosing who gets to see each thing with no random element and no dice rolling. Surely that is fine sometimes but everytime? The players will possibly begin to feel out of control of the situation. The DM decides if the ambush should or should not be spotted.

It should be just as important to roll perception, which is often a vital skill just before an encounter, as any other roll. Static scores or 'take 10' if you like should be reserved for mundane, unimportant tasks - not vital perception rolls

If I was playing the rogue above I would want to thing that sometimes we would all spot something, often the ranger would see something I missed and occasionally I would see something the ranger missed. We are only +2 apart in skill level. How does that work with passive perception?

 

[Amaroq]

Hmmm, good points, Prism. I may have to rethink having encounters roll Stealth against passive perception, as that doesn't solve the "the ranger sees everything the rogue sees and more" problem.