D&D 5E Does anyone play 5e Perception rules as written?

[FitzTheRuke]

Only one character needs to invest in the Light cantrip for this problem to be largely ignored. Any convenient item is now your torch: shield, arrow, doohickey hanging on your belt, random pebble that you can casually drop or throw whenever you feel like it. Even before everyone in my gaming group had Darkvision, the Warlock basically made sure "torch" was just a line that was ignored on everyone's character sheet.

While you're right, IME nearly everyone casts light on a coin - I think it's so that they can cover it up when they want to try to sneak - so I'd think that they ought to be holding it when they want to light up the room. OTOH, I've definitely seen the shield-thing. When I remember, I tend to have most ranged-attacking monsters shoot whoever is holding the shield. They're just such an obvious target!

 

[FitzTheRuke]

That's honestly why my party doesn't bother with torches. The bullseye lanterns are on belts, the continual flames are on mining helmets, and the rocks with light spells are often being hauled around by mage hands ahead of the party, etc.

It's like torches are lava, unless they are being put into wall sconces or something.

Literally had someone put continual flames on an immovable rod, then cover it in a cloth. They would click it and hang it in the air when they were sure the rod wouldn't be stolen.

Bullseye lanterns on belts? That sounds like a good way to burn yourself. Not to mention have a light source that shoots all over the place as you walk.

I like the rest of your descriptions, though!

 

[Argyle King]

Agreed. Passive is a HORRIBLE term for this. "Repeated or Secret" is better since the DM can also use it for "secret" rolls.


Yeah, it really doesn't make sense but if you want to play it that way, knock yourself out.

FWIW, "helping" and working together should not be allowed if the people "helping" have disadvantage. I know that isn't the "rule", but I also know most of the rules in 5E are imbalanced, over-simplified, or ill-conceived.

EDIT: I'll go further to say that this one phrase for working together ruins it:

A character can only provide help if the task is one that he or she could attempt alone.

It is a stupid condition, because frankly speaking, anyone can ATTEMPT anything. It makes it a non-issue and superfluous. The condition should be:

A character can only provide help if the task is one that he or she could accomplish alone.

It is a big difference.

I wouldn't say that I necessarily agree with how the rules works (in terms of how I would prefer they work). I'm only commenting on how I perceive them to work, as currently constructed.

It gets even weirder when you try to wrap your head around how invisibility works and whether or not you can cancel out your disadvantage to attack an invisible foe.

 

[Stormonu]

I haven't used light sources since some time back in 2E I think, maybe even before then. Tracking who has the light source, how close everyone is to said light source, who had hands free to carry the light source and which darkvision/infravision monsters are even carrying light sources and whatnot was just not something I wanted to bother with sorting out.

Had a recent VTT game with light sources turned on and it was sort of interesting, but not something I think I'd want to fiddle with all the time.

 

[MNblockhead]

Yes. Typically we have one, maybe two PCs, with perception proficiency. Athletics, Stealth, Survival, Arcana, and others are more commonly valued. Perception has its uses, certainly, but no more or less than many other skills.

The ones that continue to see little value are History and Religion. However, we've made "creature lore" for humanoids and giants part of History, and Religion covers celestials, fiends, and the undead. Arcana covers aberrations, constructs, dragons, fey, and monstrosities; Nature covers beasts, elementals, oozes, and plants.

Performance sees little use, too.

---

I haven't been following the playtests and have no interest in 2024 really. D&D just isn't heading in the direction I like with it.

This depends, like most things with D&D, on the setting, adventure, and the DM. History and Religion are very important skills in most of my game, in particular my homebrew.

With published adventures it is tricky. I would like to see more calls for history/religion checks but to make them even more meaningful tends to require more lore that is tied to success in the adventure, but not so heavily so as to require it for success. I can also lead some adventure writers to pad the adventures with lots of lore, plot, and setting details, making it more difficult for DMs to prep and run. I prefer that suggestions be given in one or two short succinct lines of text, in context with a room or encounter description given an DM hint on how a religion or history check could help out in a situation. An instead of pages of background text in the intro chapter, instead have a page page with a "lore you may know" page. Sort of like a rumor table, but instead information characters with good skill and rolls on history and religion may have coming into an adventure. It creates another way to deliver hooks that players may feel more invested in than a rumor they heard.

 

[Seramus]

Bullseye lanterns on belts? That sounds like a good way to burn yourself. Not to mention have a light source that shoots all over the place as you walk.

I like the rest of your descriptions, though!

Hilariously, they have burned themselves before. I don't call for anything like that during a fight unless someone gets immersed in dragon's breath or the like, but I have called for it when the party is frantically running away. Once they even left an oil trail the enemies could follow!

I usually only use shooting light sources when I'm describing a scene, or if I'm setting up a jump scare or other horror element. Mostly no mechanical consequences.

 

[MNblockhead]

Let me explain it simpler.

• Most Darkness monsters are melee.
• Groups without light sources but with darkvision cannot see targets in darkness outside their darkvision range.
• Groups without light sources but with darkvision have -5 to passive perception in dim light inside their darkvision range.
• Melee Darkness monsters who are faster than a creatures darkvision range or can dash as a bonus action can easily get into melee without being shoot.
• Melee Darkness monsters who have got Dex or trained in Stealth can sneak up on their targets much easier
• No Torches = RAW 75% of your fights are ambushes and you are surprised even with darkvision
• No Torches = Melee monster eating good

This is some "Monsters Know What They're Doing" type advice that I love. Often, when people complain about D&D being "easy mode" get lectured about how if people would just enforce and more strategically use many of the rules as written, things would be much more challenging. The problem is that the PHB and DMG do now do a good job presenting the rules. Just some basic call out boxes with reminders and advice like these bullets, that cross reference the various rules that interact, would be helpful. It would also be nice if tips like this were provided in adventure books as call outs. I find tips like this more useful for making things more or less challenging for players than, for example, simply increasing the numbers of opponents.

 

[MNblockhead]

I have. It resulted in the players yelling at me for doing it wrong. I pointed out the rules in the book and they didn't care. It was still wrong. Somehow. After that I started listing the RAW for perception as a house rule. That weeded out quite a few players. They felt the need to get mad and tell me about it.

I wouldn't list it as homebrew, but giving the issues you've had, I would certainly call out that I'm running darkvision RAW and explaining what that is, since many players have different expectations.

 

[overgeeked]

I wouldn't list it as homebrew, but giving the issues you've had, I would certainly call out that I'm running darkvision RAW and explaining what that is, since many players have different expectations.

It's just one item on the long list of things that made me stop running 5E. I'm having a blast playing OSR games, especially Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG.