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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lyxen" data-source="post: 8551250" data-attributes="member: 7032025">He does not say that they lose their PP, and that's exactly my point. The curtains on fire, the party is not even trying stealth, they are just saying "we're going to dash out of the Dukes grandball". There's no stealth, no combat, no surprise here.For the "engrossed", it's just the example that I'm always providing, and it actually says the the target has his PP, just that he does not notice someone come out of hiding in the open: "And they might be so engrossed by the performance that even though it's broad daylight. There's no fog. And you're just walking right up behind the person. The DM might decide, well, you know your dexterity. Spell check was good enough, and this person is so distracted I'm going to let you do this right out in the open. Now the DM might decide though, okay, this guys distracted, so I'm going to let you just. I'm going to let you attempt this, but you might get a lousy roll. Which means maybe you bumped into somebody you tripped, you did something to give your position away, or even if you don't mind aside, maybe you didn't give your position away, but it just means you utterly failed to sneak up on this person. So again, this is a great example of the environment really plays a big role in the attentiveness of other people. It makes sense now going back to passive perception. This is, as its name implies, passive. And it's considered to be always on, unless you're under the effect of a condition like the unconscious condition that says you're not aware of your surroundings that really the practical effect of that is basically your passive perception is shut off. "The gunpowder barrel thingie is about losing track of invisible people, because the standard rule is that, unless they successfully hide (which they can almost always do since they are, by definition, out of sight), you know where they are. But of course the DM can make exceptions about this.And the sneak attack of the rogue on the evil caster is again about coming out of hiding to attack.So, no, in none of these cases are creatures being denied their PP, and certainly not on the basis of rules.That being said, my point is not that it cannot be done depending on the circumstances, It can certainly be done (although sparingly, see below). I'm not even saying that it's wrong, at a table, to create a house rule that says that people who are distracted lose their PP.What I'm objecting to is some people claiming that this is a rule that is present in the RAW, so that they can enforce their point of view. This is simply not the case, there is no rule in the RAW that says this, the RAW says quite the opposite, that you always have your PP for the purpose of surprise and detecting hidden creatures, and it's simply a local DM's ruling, based on the circumstances, that will modify that for you.And as Sly Flourish mentions, having people being surprised is NASTY. Not only is it nasty to the character, as it's dangerous, but it's also really annoying to the player, who has to wait even longer to get a turn in which he can act. So his advice, which I echo, do it very sparingly. And creating a rule that says that it happens as soon as someone is distracted goes against that advice, I would certainly not do it at our tables.My perspective is way more open, just refusing to be boxed in by people believing something which is not only incorrect from the purely RAW perspective, but which is also clearly shown as wrong from the examples in the RAI.</blockquote>

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