D&D 5E (2014) Crawford on Stealth

[iserith]

BTW, this is the passive rule I generally follow:


I'll realize that they're not meant, specifically, to represent passive "always-on" checks in the rules. But that's how I've rolled with them.

I also don't have a hard time with these mechanics at all.

Okay - the key thing in the section you quoted though is "succeed at something." So they are doing something. I think that's something many people overlook when it comes to passive checks.

 

[Satyrn]

The adjudication process as I see it is thus: DM describes the environment. Player describes what he or she wants to do. DM decides if the outcome is uncertain. If it's not, narrate the outcome of the adventurer's action. If it is uncertain, DM decides if the task is repetitive or ongoing based on player description. if it is, a passive check resolves. If it is not, an ability check resolves. Then the DM narrates the outcome of the adventurer's action.

Aye. Although I guess I see the adjudication slightly differently:

If the result is uncertain, call for an ability check. It gets rolled unless I see a reason to use the Passive score, which is probably just gonna be for - umm, huh . . .

. . . theoretically I guess.

 

[Gradine]

Okay - the key thing in the section you quoted though is "succeed at something." So they are doing something. I think that's something many people overlook when it comes to passive checks.

This is splitting hairs to the point of senselessness, but sure, I'll play along.

You can succeed at something passively.

"You successfully noticed that glint of light!" "You successfully remembered that lecture you sat through about Blood of Vol rites!"

We don't actually say it that way because it's kind of cumbersome (but again, see splitting hairs). But that doesn't make it any less passive or any less of a success.

 

[iserith]

This is splitting hairs to the point of senselessness, but sure, I'll play along.

You can succeed at something passively.

"You successfully noticed that glint of light!" "You successfully remembered that lecture you sat through about Blood of Vol rites!"

We don't actually say it that way because it's kind of cumbersome (but again, see splitting hairs). But that doesn't make it any less passive or any less of a success.

You may be misunderstanding me. I'm stressing the fact that a passive check resolves a character doing something (successfully or unsuccessfully). A lot of people treat it as a character not doing anything i.e. being passive. But they aren't. They're performing a task.

Unless I'm misunderstanding you.

 

[Gradine]

You may be misunderstanding me. I'm stressing the fact that a passive check resolves a character doing something (successfully or unsuccessfully). A lot of people treat it as a character not doing anything i.e. being passive. But they aren't. They're performing a task.

Unless I'm misunderstanding you.

It's entirely possible (probable, even!) that we're talking past each other about things that are almost the same thing but aren't quite? I'll try to clarify--

I used active as "the player has declared their PC is performing an action" and passive as "basically everything else".

This is why I use passive knowledge checks in place of "is that something my character knows?" because the character isn't actually performing an action there. Of course, there's a difference between that and actively trying to recall information the character may or may not have learned, which is what active checks are for. Yes, I realize that sounds a lot like splitting hairs. I'm full of inconsistencies! But it's what makes sense for me and my table.

So passive perception represents normal level of awareness and care while moving through space, while active perception involves stopping and visually scanning (or putting an ear to the ground/wall/etc) for something. Passive insight is the visual cues and vocal cues people give in everyday conversation that provides clues to the individual's mental or emotional state; active insight involves keeping an eye out for more subtle cues, putting the pieces together to get a fuller idea of their mental/emotional state and make guesses at what that might mean vis-a-vis what they're actually saying (i.e, this guy's fidgeting, avoiding eye contact, sweat rolling down his brow even though it's kind of chilly right now; he's probably lying).

As an adventure writer, I rely on passive checks to provide clues that will spur players to attempt to actively solve whatever puzzle (location of a trap, whether an NPC is lying or nervous about something else, a particularly important piece of lore) I've created those clues for.

I honestly mostly skip this step in home games where I'm familiar with the PCs and what they're capable of, really. I already know what clues they're going to be capable of catching or not, so there's really no point to the mechanic for me. I'll sometimes use it in the first few adventures where I'm still learning the PCs though.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

BTW, this is the passive rule I generally follow:


I'll realize that they're not meant, specifically, to represent passive "always-on" checks in the rules. But that's how I've rolled with them.

I also don't have a hard time with these mechanics at all.

Same here. It always seemed pretty straitforward. Passive Perception sets the variable point at which one notices things without actively searching. It's what you see, hear, smell, etc, while simply "staying alert". It is only a task in the most abstract sense, but it also isn't the same thing as "not paying attention" which would probably be an autofail, or at least disadvantage.
Everyone sees the door. The guy with PP 12 sees that the door is old. The guy with PP 16 sees a bunch of other stuff. All three are just staying alert. The stuff they saw might or might not cause them to look more closely, which would be an active Perception check. They can't get any lower than they would by merely remaining alert, thus PP as a floor.

Okay - the key thing in the section you quoted though is "succeed at something." So they are doing something. I think that's something many people overlook when it comes to passive checks.

Success doesn't necessarily mean actively doing something. You can successfully understand a concept. Recalling a memory isn't really an active task you are undertaking, either, necessarily. It can be, but a lot of times the memory simply triggers upon seeing, smelling, hearing, etc something associated with it.
All sorts of stuff are both passive, on the part of the person "doing" them, and in question as to whether or not they might succeed.

You may be misunderstanding me. I'm stressing the fact that a passive check resolves a character doing something (successfully or unsuccessfully). A lot of people treat it as a character not doing anything i.e. being passive. But they aren't. They're performing a task.

Unless I'm misunderstanding you.

IMO, paying attention to one's surroundings is only "performing a task" by the most technical definition. On a practical level, especially when discussing a game meant to be read in "natural language", it's a passive stance of sorts. Like standing in a way that doesn't put you at risk of being easily knocked over.

A gust of wind would be ignored by the mechanics if it's not strong enough to feel a push against you, challenge your passive [up to DM] if strong enough to push you a little but not require any active response, and require an active ability check if it was strong enough to require you to respond to it, strengthening or changing your stance.

Similarly,* stuff that requires actively looking around/looking for, requires an active ability check. Depending on what exactly you're doing, it could be Perception or Investigate.

*and no, I don't care about any nit picking about the wording of the specific example. Not saying you will respond that way, just saying, just in case, please don't waste time and space with a derail about the precise nature of an illustrative example that is clearly not the point.

 

[Mistwell]

It's doesn't follow the rules of the PHB, I find it absurd the ceiling to only one skill, it's also a bad mechanic because they could have changed all the rolls to 1d10+10 and , for all I care you could use passive perception to avoid rolling how far your players jump or how much damage they do.

It follows the rules. I outlined the rules above. Here it is again:

It does say right in the PHB, "Use the passive Wisdom (Perception) scores of the characters to determine whether anyone in the group notices a hidden threat." It also says, "Passive Perception. When you hide, there’s a chance someone will notice you even if they aren't searching. To determine whether such a creature notices you, the DM compares your Dexterity (Stealth) check with that creature’s passive Wisdom (Perception) score..."

If you consider the ramifications of that, he's right it must be your minimum. It's always on, even when you're not specifically searching for something. You automatically perceive anything your passive perception might perceive, before you even request to make an active perception check by engaging in an active search for things. So there would never be any point to rolling for perception if your passive perception could perceive it - it would have already perceived it before that point. And even if you rolled worse than your passive perception check, your passive perception would immediately spot it after your check as well if it could. Therefore it is indeed a floor of your results for perception checks.

 

[iserith]

It's entirely possible (probable, even!) that we're talking past each other about things that are almost the same thing but aren't quite? I'll try to clarify--

I used active as "the player has declared their PC is performing an action" and passive as "basically everything else".

I look at it this way:

As DM, I can't assume or establish what a player's character is doing. That is not part of the basic conversation of the game. Only the player may say what his or her character is trying to do. Therefore, a passive check is the mechanic for resolving a character's action which a player must have described at some point. That action will also be something the character is doing repetitively or "in general."

Which is why you'll see me checking in with the players on what their characters are doing in general while adventuring. That typically means just one task - keeping watch for hidden dangers (traps and monsters), tracking, foraging, drawing a map, searching for secret doors, navigating, etc. I will also ask for their marching order since being able to notice traps (if nothing else) depends on what rank they are in relative to the location of the trap. If these tasks at any point have an uncertain outcome, then I will resolve that uncertainty with a passive check. If they choose at any other point to perform some other singular task, I have to decide whether or not that distracts from the task they are performing in general in addition to determining if that task has an uncertainty. This would be resolved with an ability check.

This is why I use passive knowledge checks in place of "is that something my character knows?" because the character isn't actually performing an action there. Of course, there's a difference between that and actively trying to recall information the character may or may not have learned, which is what active checks are for. Yes, I realize that sounds a lot like splitting hairs. I'm full of inconsistencies! But it's what makes sense for me and my table.

Recalling lore (with uncertainty) is always an ability check for me, not a passive check. Or at least so far. No circumstance has arisen for this task to be performed repeatedly or in general which would call for a passive check. When I describe the environment, I am describing enough for the players to act with agency in the fictional world. Recalling lore tends to be an action players take to gain some additional benefit.

So passive perception represents normal level of awareness and care while moving through space, while active perception involves stopping and visually scanning (or putting an ear to the ground/wall/etc) for something. Passive insight is the visual cues and vocal cues people give in everyday conversation that provides clues to the individual's mental or emotional state; active insight involves keeping an eye out for more subtle cues, putting the pieces together to get a fuller idea of their mental/emotional state and make guesses at what that might mean vis-a-vis what they're actually saying (i.e, this guy's fidgeting, avoiding eye contact, sweat rolling down his brow even though it's kind of chilly right now; he's probably lying).

Passive Insight might be used by me if a character is in a social interaction challenge and isn't doing anything that potentially distracts from being able to read body language and interpret mannerisms. (The task would also have to have an uncertain outcome as usual.) So you'd probably see the a few PCs engaging in the conversation and one person hanging back observing and advising the talkers with whatever the passive check might turn up. It honestly doesn't come up a great deal.

As an adventure writer, I rely on passive checks to provide clues that will spur players to attempt to actively solve whatever puzzle (location of a trap, whether an NPC is lying or nervous about something else, a particularly important piece of lore) I've created those clues for.

I honestly mostly skip this step in home games where I'm familiar with the PCs and what they're capable of, really. I already know what clues they're going to be capable of catching or not, so there's really no point to the mechanic for me. I'll sometimes use it in the first few adventures where I'm still learning the PCs though.

I'm actually not a huge fan of including DCs in a published adventure unless it very clearly states the specific goal and approach that are determining the difficulty in succeeding. Because in my view, we can't settle on a DC until the player has described the goal of the character and the approach to achieving that goal.

 

[iserith]

Success doesn't necessarily mean actively doing something.

What I hope I clarified in the post before my last one is that a check - ability check or passive check - means the character has done something with an uncertain outcome. Because that is what ability checks and passive checks resolve. This is regardless of success or failure.

IMO, paying attention to one's surroundings is only "performing a task" by the most technical definition.

As I hopefully show above, we arrive at it being a task by going back up the chain of adjudication to the source. It is a technical definition, but one that I think is required to understand what I'm saying.

And just as an aside, there's no such thing as an "active ability check." But I get what you and @Gradine imply by using that term.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

What I hope I clarified in the post before my last one is that a check - ability check or passive check - means the character has done something with an uncertain outcome. Because that is what ability checks and passive checks resolve. This is regardless of success or failure.



As I hopefully show above, we arrive at it being a task by going back up the chain of adjudication to the source. It is a technical definition, but one that I think is required to understand what I'm saying.

And just as an aside, there's no such thing as an "active ability check." But I get what you and @Gradine imply by using that term.

I really strongly dislike technicality, pedantics, or any close cousin of those. An active ability check 1. has a clear, easily understood meaning, and 2. is a common phrase. Therefor, it exists. For me, that is the end of it, unless a person can, and for some unfathomable reason cares to, prove 1 or 2 to be false. And even then, I probably won't even read the argument wherein a person tries to prove such a thing, because I know it's just going to be a lot of pedantic time wasting with no bearing on common speech, which is what actually matters.

especially in a game that runs on "natural language", but even in a game like 4e. If you know what we mean, then we have used a correct term.