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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mustrum_Ridcully" data-source="post: 5676048" data-attributes="member: 710">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.</blockquote>

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