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<blockquote data-quote="iserith" data-source="post: 6987459" data-attributes="member: 97077">I think the trap a lot of DMs fall into is treating passive Perception like an &quot;always on radar.&quot; That's not how it works in my view. You can only perform one task at a time while moving about. One of those tasks is &quot;Keep Watch.&quot; But there are other tasks like navigating, foraging, tracking, drawing a map, searching for secret doors, etc. The key is making those tasks as attractive (read: beneficial) to the PCs as possible so that they'll risk not keeping watch.For example, in my dungeon-delving campaign, a complete map of a dungeon level is worth 100 gp x the level of the dungeon. So if you map the Soul Trap Layer on level 5, you can sell that back in town for 500 gp. This means there's always some character that will draw a map rather than keep watch for danger, opening up that character to being surprised. In the Shade Garden of Muscaria the Inscrutable, foraging can net you some magic mushrooms that have potent divination abilities which allow the PCs to preview other parts of the dungeon. Therefore, someone will tend to forage instead of keep watch. Secret doors are known to either be short cuts that can allow the PCs to skip past trapped areas or to get from level 3 to level 5 quickly (for example), so naturally one PC is going to want to look for those at the risk of being surprised.In short, if you don't make other tasks as attractive as keeping watch for danger, then all the PCs will just keep watch for danger and the high Perception PCs will usually spot all the hidden traps and monsters (but not secret doors!). Which is fine, of course, if that's what they want to do. I just prefer some meaningful trade offs in my games.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="iserith, post: 6987459, member: 97077"] I think the trap a lot of DMs fall into is treating passive Perception like an "always on radar." That's not how it works in my view. You can only perform one task at a time while moving about. One of those tasks is "Keep Watch." But there are other tasks like navigating, foraging, tracking, drawing a map, searching for secret doors, etc. The key is making those tasks as attractive (read: beneficial) to the PCs as possible so that they'll risk not keeping watch. For example, in my dungeon-delving campaign, a complete map of a dungeon level is worth 100 gp x the level of the dungeon. So if you map the Soul Trap Layer on level 5, you can sell that back in town for 500 gp. This means there's always some character that will draw a map rather than keep watch for danger, opening up that character to being surprised. In the Shade Garden of Muscaria the Inscrutable, foraging can net you some magic mushrooms that have potent divination abilities which allow the PCs to preview other parts of the dungeon. Therefore, someone will tend to forage instead of keep watch. Secret doors are known to either be short cuts that can allow the PCs to skip past trapped areas or to get from level 3 to level 5 quickly (for example), so naturally one PC is going to want to look for those at the risk of being surprised. In short, if you don't make other tasks as attractive as keeping watch for danger, then all the PCs will just keep watch for danger and the high Perception PCs will usually spot all the hidden traps and monsters (but not secret doors!). Which is fine, of course, if that's what they want to do. I just prefer some meaningful trade offs in my games. [/QUOTE]

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