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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Li Shenron" data-source="post: 8649639" data-attributes="member: 1465">As well said by others, if your group uses passive checks rules, the Observant feat grants a +5 bonus only when the Perception and Investigation skills outcomes are resolved by a passive check, but not when they are resolved by a regular check i.e. roll of a dice.That's an interesting interpretation of the RAI, I haven't thought of that before. It could be a good adjustment to the Observant feat for a group that decides not to use passive checks.And yes, it is definitely campaign dependent. My players are certainly not better off not requesting a check, but that's because I don't typically just let them "request a check" out of character, I prefer them telling me what their characters are doing, and I can rule very differently depending on whether they do something generic ("I search the whole room") vs something specific ("I look behind the curtains"). I make this example because it is a no brainer: if there's something behind the curtains and you tell me your PC is looking there, you get an automatic success; if you stay generic, I only give you a chance i.e. a check. And I won't let you complain that your character surely would have been smart enough to figure it out: it made its check, and pretty much failed to figure it out.Well that's the theory of one way to interpret and play these rules, but the books don't really say that every character should be granted passive checks all the time!Even if you don't completely ignore passive check rules, one sort-of intermediate approach (between never allowing them and granting them all the time) is to allow them only when a character is doing something repeatedly, which is the only narrative explanation of passive checks explicitly provided by the book. A similar but more restrictive option, is to grant passive checks when a character is doing something repeatedly AND the player has actually declared it: "I keep searching for traps while we're in this area" would grant passive perception checks for that purpose, but not necessarily to simultaneously notice hidden doors or monsters.That's actually the best past of JC advice. Had "Passive Checks" been clearly labelled as optional in the PHB or even better in the DMG (and then the Observant feat could have been moved to that section too) there would have been a lot less sour feelings and arguments about whether and how to use these rules at all.Completely agree. It has also been pointed out before that if JC's ruling was RAW, then the Rogue's high level "Reliable Talent" would be useless. So there's a class ability and a feat which in a sense assume two very different ways of using a core rule in order to be worthy. That's pretty much a proof that the whole passive checks rules weren't really though carefully during game design, but were thrown into the game more because of legacy habits.I do the same thing and often don't ask for die rolls but just grant automatic success, if the players have the right idea.But the "player rolling dice every 10'" could be also solved by making a single roll for the whole section (or even the whole dungeon, if there's just a trap or two).The real reason why many DMs hate passive checks, is because they make the outcome non-random, and therefore make it up to the DM to pre-decide what secret doors will be found, what locks will be open, and so on.</blockquote>

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