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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Li Shenron" data-source="post: 8543480" data-attributes="member: 1465">I think that at least it can be debated whether there is enough in-game logic for justifying using the specific mechanic.Just thinking out loud here...Think of a case where there is a heavy fallen tree trunk to be moved. In the real world, it is well known by everyone's experience that while a single person might just not have the strength to lift it alone, two (or more) persons might succeed by combining their strength. If you decide to use ability checks to determine the resolution of such task in-game, the rules will fail, because aiding another would only grant advantage and that won't allow your maximum result to be a bit higher than the maximum result of a single person. In addition, a third (or ten more) person coming to help has no additional benefit, but obviously in real life 12 people may be able lift a tree trunk that 2-3 people cannot. That simply means, don't use the RAW in this case, or use another rule (like rules for lifting and dragging).Then think of the case of a character and their pet, at the task of noticing a threat. Narratively, the old western dog can definitely help the owner noticing something they missed. You could actually rule that the character makes a check and the dog makes its own check, so each of them has their own separate chance at succeeding the task. This doesn't sound wrong, to represent the narrative... sometimes the owner succeeds, some other times they fail but the dog succeeds, so there's definitely the narrative of the dog helping the owner. "Work together" isn't THAT much different: instead of two separate rolls of the dice each with a different bonus, there is a two-roll-use-best with a single bonus (which actually raises the question whether it could actually be sometimes more convenient for the ranger to aid the pet if the latter has an overall higher bonus). I certainly wouldn't say there is no in-game logic for these! Still, I can see how someone could prefer less abstraction, and claim that you can't help someone seeing or hearing or smelling better than how they already do, and decide to rule that you cannot use the "work together" (or "help" in combat) with perception. I don't think the rules strictly force one of the other.The matter is complicated by the fact that the OP is actually interested in using "working together" with passive checks. The PHB says passive checks can represent the average result for a task done repeatedly, but the way this presented doesn't imply this is the only possible meaning of a passive check (in fact it gives another option). Although personally I don't see this complicating the decision of whether the mechanic feels correct enough to a certain DM for representing in-game narrative, I do think it complicates game balance a bit (but again as I said before, only because when coupled with Observant, it turns a net Take 15 effect into a Take 20 which I personally do not like at all as it equates to always rolling 20 all the time).</blockquote>

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