Changing the meaning of Passive Perception and Insight => Suscipion rather than Facts

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

The title might be a little clunky, but it's difficult to put the idea into short words.

[MENTION=90399]TheClone[/MENTION] mentioned to me an issue he had with the way passive perception and standard DCs in the game worked. Basically, if your perception is maxed out for your level, you will beat all passive perception DCs if you only use the DC table by level.

This takes a little bit out of the potential for mystery, unless you deliberately put higher level challenges in.

So, my alternative take is that Passive Perception and Insight doesn't mean automatically noticing whatever triggered the passive check, but just noticing that something is amiss.

In game mechanical terms, if a characters passive perception or insight check is succesful, he gets to make an actual perception or insight roll.

If he succeeds, he observes whatever was being concealed. If not, the character has basically seen something out of the corner of his eyes or is feeling the goosebumps, but he doesn't quite know what it is.

A failed check would not allow the other PCs to act in any particular manner to allow making them their own perception checks, unless the situation changes enough to warrant a new passive check.*
The DM might give a bonus to all character's passive checks from that point on, to represent the heightened alertness of the group, but otherwise, things go on as if no one would have succeeded with the check. (For combat situations to determine surprise, the enemy might still get the surprise round, but the player characters get a bonus to their initiative.)

Obviously, this weakens the value of good passive perception values somewhat, but it also increases the level of suspsense possible.


*) Keep in mind that sometimes situation changes can be triggered by the characters. For example, if they think someone might be following them, now one player might decide to hide and distance himself a little from the group to find the pursuers. This could trigger new checks - acive or passive. But there must happen some kind of activity.

In some ways, this is already in the realm of the DM to decide, since it is ultimately his decision what a (passive) perception check is for. This could be a house rule that is understood between DM and players, or it's just a ruling used for certain scenarios that a DM might consider.

 

[MortalPlague]

I like this quite a bit. If a character is alerted to something, having the high passive perception means he will also have a high check value, and will likely be able to figure things out. I like that it isn't a guarantee, though.

 

[john112364]

I could see this also allowing characters who normally wouldn't notice with a passive check to have a chance with an active check after the really perceptive one saying "There's something odd about this statue."
After all sometimes the realy perceptive ones can be so caught up in looking for the hidden (i.e. failed check) that their buddy happens to see the obvious (i.e a really good roll). "Umm.. why does this arm move? Oops! Hey! Look a secret door!"
Hey it could happen!

 

[Quickleaf]

What's this difference between this and just limiting when a player can learn something with a passive check. For example, unless they have a reason to suspect an NPC is lying, passive Insight doesn't apply. It's not just that your passive perception/insight picks up everything ambient in the environment, rather it draws focus to things you're paying attention to.

Hmm, not sure if I'm saying this clearly.

For example, noticing a trap is a great time to use passive perception, but if it's the sort of trap multiple PCs can trigger either have each roll individually or have them make a group check. If they've set up a marching order with the thief well ahead, then they should benefit from that strategy and the thief can warn the rest o the group (after all, there are also dangers to sending the thief in front).

However, you probably would use active perception to locate a secret door when the PC are under duress repelling a siege in a room flooding with water.

 

[Quickleaf]

Ack! Double post. Sorry.

 

[TheClone]

I stumbled upon this when I saw a new druid character, level one, having the usual 18 WIS and being trained in perception. It's a total of 19, which is exactly the hard DC in the official skill DC table. Level 2 with a +1 bonus for half to the skill is DC 20. This goes on until level 5 or so. If you want to introduce things which are hard to spot you're doomed. I wasn't even thinking about traps then, but about additional information that can give the story a new twist, but it also works without it. That though did spoil my fun when prepping the game session. Luckily it's not yet played, so I can use Mustrum's idea.

I think the idea is pretty neat, as it adds more tension to the game. I guess in most cases the whole group rolling Perception will produce at least one success. But if they do not, they know there is something. They just don't know what it is and have to be careful. Is it a trap? A secret door with treasure behind it? So I like Mustrum's idea. It's even better than changing the DCs. With that you need the players to roll to be able to spot something. After they learned that, they'll always be on their tiptoes and tell "We'll approach this passage carefully", which is kinda metagamey. I'll use that variant rule as a house rule from now on.

AND none of the players feels cheated, which they might I would just raise the DC. They've built their character to be able to do just that and I'm ruining it. Not very nice.

One little rant, I'd like to add about the passive values: It's statistically strange. Passive values describe your constant awareness of your surroundings (you will never leave home willingly without your pants). But is has - statistically - almost the same chance of success as your roll when observing your surroundings actively. A roll has a mean value of 10.5 and passive values base on 10. The only difference is, that you automatically fail on the difficult things (which you don't if you max your skill value, as noted above). But statistically you are as alert in passive mode as in active mode, like constantly being on your tiptoes. That really feels strange. Changing the 10 for passive values is somehow undermining the very foundations of the (old and new) d20 system, but using 7 oder 8 instead of 10 feels more right and immersive to me.

 

[S'mon]

I'm not a fan of Passive Insight; I feel Insight is a skill you really should have to turn 'on' - if you're a police officer you may do so automatically while on duty, but not while relaxing in the pub after work. If I'm RPing an NPC who's lying to the PCs*, I'm happy to give out Insight checks on request, but if the players haven't indicated their suspicion I'm not keen on checking their Passive Insight to see if they detect a lie.

*I'm incapable of lying IRL, and I feel that when I RP a lying NPC it's incredibly obvious. I was a bit surprised when I did this a while back (they'd captured the dwarf slaver Zark in the Loudwater intro adventure); no one asked for an Insight check, they gave him back his crossbow 'so he could help them', and they seemed surprised when during the encounter with Zark's bandit chums he started shooting at them rather than at the bandits. The players seemed to think that because I hadn't rolled Zark's Bluff skill or asked for their Insight skill, he must have been truthful! :\

 

[Kerranin]

I'm not a fan of Passive Insight; I feel Insight is a skill you really should have to turn 'on' - if you're a police officer you may do so automatically while on duty, but not while relaxing in the pub after work. If I'm RPing an NPC who's lying to the PCs*, I'm happy to give out Insight checks on request, but if the players haven't indicated their suspicion I'm not keen on checking their Passive Insight to see if they detect a lie.

Firstly, if any DM does this he must make it clear in the list of house rules.

Surely doing this just encourages players to constantly ask 'do I think he's telling the truth?' - the idea of the passive values is to not have players constantly asking for checks on Perception or Insight?

Also, constantly having players make active checks encourages a form of meta-gaming where you rolled low so you find an excuse for someone else to roll.

I like Mustrum's idea, that the passive check just gives you an idea that you should do an active check.

 

[S'mon]

Firstly, if any DM does this he must make it clear in the list of house rules.

Surely doing this just encourages players to constantly ask 'do I think he's telling the truth?' - the idea of the passive values is to not have players constantly asking for checks on Perception or Insight?

Also, constantly having players make active checks encourages a form of meta-gaming where you rolled low so you find an excuse for someone else to roll.

I like Mustrum's idea, that the passive check just gives you an idea that you should do an active check.

I guess I don't like Bluff & Insight as skills at all, really. Judging the truthiness of an NPC - as played by the DM - should be up to the judgement of the players, not the dice. (BTW I don't know why it's supposedly ok to give players an abstact puzzle to solve - riddles etc - but not to expect them to judge human interaction with their own judgement).

But I don't see a problem with players asking 'do I think he's telling the truth?' and getting a roll on request. That models the PC assessing body language and other non-verbal stuff the DM may not be representing. If they are suspicious of everyone, fine. Their PC will come across that way in play.

I don't give people active Insight checks unless they're interacting with the NPC, but I'll let them use passive perception if they're just watching.

Like I said, I'm not happy with the Insight skill, nor with the concept of the Bluff skill. I don't find they work well in play. Maybe in groups where nobody ever speaks in character, you just roll dice, it'd work.

Edit: Even then I don't like abilities like Bluff where you want to actively avoid using it! Because AFAICT there are no rules for assessing the truthfulness of someone who *is* telling the truth, it's apparently left entirely to GM judgement. If you don't lie then you can evade having to make a Bluff roll. I think Call of Cthulu handles it far better with a broad 'Fast Talk' skill.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I like the idea, but the way I'd probably play it is that if the character beats the DC by 5 or more, with the passive ability, then they revert back to the standard rules and simply get the facts. I'd also do that if something about what they had done in the situation gave them a big bonus (canceling out the 5 point shift, basically). That way, we aren't rolling for every little thing that super perceptive guy would be noticing most of the time anyway. The rolls would be reserved for more serious things that were substantially in doubt.