D&D 5E How far away can a person make perception checks?

[Stalker0]

If we assume nice open conditions, good weather, pretty flat, at what range would you allow players to start making perception checks to notice things?

Example: An enemy orc is on the horizon, lets say at what distances would you allow a player to check to see if they see something, and can identify it as an Orc:

DC 30 (almost impossible)
DC 20 (tough but a fair amount of people could see it)
DC 10 (you would have to have diminished senses not to notice)

As a follow up to this, there are a few abilities that give some extraordinary sight ranges. For example, the Eagle Totem Warrior, Eyes of the Eagle magic item, and a wildshaped druid as an eagle. So if you go with the 1 mile as the "extreme distance" noted for the eagle totem specifically, would you use DC 30 to start at the 1 mile marker for these types, or a smaller DC?

 

[jgsugden]

It is far from an exact science. The general answer is that I make sure that whatever things the PCs have devoted resources into having are rewarded, and that the game is fun. If the PC made a choice to have exceptional distance vision, they will need to feel the 'seeing of things' that nobody else can see.

 

[R_J_K75]

I would say within line of sight depending on weather and if an object obstructs view.

This is interesting, found it with a quick internet search.

How Far Away is the Horizon?

The distance to the horizon depends on many variables including your height.

www.livescience.com

 

[iserith]

I'm not really sure what's at stake in this example, so it's hard to say. In all likelihood, I'd just say the characters can see the orc in the distance appropriate to the scene I was trying to present without any need for an ability check.

 

[coolAlias]

Eagles can purportedly spot a rabbit from 2 miles away [1]. I imagine they could see a human-sized object at 10+ miles fairly easily.

A human on completely "flat" ground on a sphere the size of the earth can see just under 3 miles before the curvature obstructs their view [2]; however, an elevated vantage point can drastically increase this range - the theoretical maximum from the top of Mt. Everest, for example, is 211 miles [2].

As for a normal human recognizing another human-like shape, we could extrapolate from the eagle (whose eyesight is 4 to 8 times better than a human [1] - let's go with 8 for easy math): we should be able to spot a rabbit at 1/4 mile, so we can extrapolate from that if we knew the size of the average (African or European?) rabbit used in the eagle example.

Not accounting for weather conditions, I'd say at least 1 mile easily, and probably close to 2 or even more if you have an elevated vantage point.

Note, however, that that's just to recognize it as a human-like shape, not to identify it as an orc. I'd probably reduce the ranges by 1/2 or even 1/4 before allowing that information, but I have no sources to base that on.

1. Eagle eye - Wikipedia

2. What is the maximum distance the human eye can see if unobstructed?

 

[R_J_K75]

I'm not really sure what's at stake in this example, so it's hard to say. In all likelihood, I'd just say the characters can see the orc in the distance appropriate to the scene I was trying to present without any need for an ability check.

Agreed. Very few times has this come into consideration except for short distances. For me it comes down to common sense and if I want the PCs to detect something or not, if I dont than I decide what check(s) are required.

 

[Mistwell]

If we assume nice open conditions, good weather, pretty flat, at what range would you allow players to start making perception checks to notice things?

Example: An enemy orc is on the horizon, lets say at what distances would you allow a player to check to see if they see something, and can identify it as an Orc:

DC 30 (almost impossible)
DC 20 (tough but a fair amount of people could see it)
DC 10 (you would have to have diminished senses not to notice)

As a follow up to this, there are a few abilities that give some extraordinary sight ranges. For example, the Eagle Totem Warrior, Eyes of the Eagle magic item, and a wildshaped druid as an eagle. So if you go with the 1 mile as the "extreme distance" noted for the eagle totem specifically, would you use DC 30 to start at the 1 mile marker for these types, or a smaller DC?

I don't understand the perception check thing. Perception is for hidden threats. Things which are obscured, concealed, hiding, or otherwise blocked from your vision. If it's out in the open and within your field of vision, then you see it. No check.

 

[iserith]

Agreed. Very few times has this come into consideration except for short distances. For me it comes down to common sense and if I want the PCs to detect something or not, if I dont than I decide what check(s) are required.

Right, and so far as I can tell in this situation, the players haven't even said what they are doing. So at best I can, as DM, determine surprise and check the orc's Stealth against their passive Perception, provided the PCs were keeping watch for danger? I can't just call for a check without an action declaration from the player, and one that has an uncertain outcome and meaningful consequence for failure.

Or maybe the DM has described a silhouette on the horizon and a player says he or she tries to get a better look at what it is from a higher vantage point or something at which point I decide there's a roll? But without knowing what the meaningful consequence for failure is, I can't say if that's even a check either. It might just be a narrated success (or failure).

 

[DEFCON 1]

I don't understand the perception check thing. Perception is for hidden threats. Things which are obscured, concealed, hiding, or otherwise blocked from your vision. If it's out in the open and within your field of vision, then you see it. No check.

At a certain distance, something becomes so out of focus that you could say it was "obscured", thus generating the perception check. Then if the check succeeds, then the out-of-focus, obscured thing in the distance did something or moved in such a way, or the light hit it such that the person was able to deduce what it was they were looking at.

You weren't checking to see that it was there, necessarily... you were checking to see if you could figure out what it actually was.

 

[Celebrim]

An infinite distance away. After all, you can see mountains and the sun from quite a ways away.

The question really is, "When is it practical to start making checks?" or perhaps, "What sort of difficulty increase is involved with increasing distance?"

So lets start with the idea that seeing something human sized at close range that is making no effort to hide is like DC -5 or something. Under normal conditions, even the half-blind see that, although a confluence of factors might cause something like that to escape notice (poor perception, distraction, smaller size, poor lighting conditions, partial concealment, etc.)

So how far away would that orc have to be before making checks to notice it wasn't pointless?

In my own 3e game, I use the following table:

Spot DC Modifier*	Condition
+0	Up to 10’ away
+1	Up to 20’ away
+2	Up to 40’ away
+3	Up to 60’ away
+4	Up to 90’ away
+5	Up to 140’ away
+6	Up to 200’ away
+7	Up to 300’ away
+8	Up to 450’ away
+9	Up to 700’ away
+10	Up to 1000’ away
+11	Up to 1500’ away
+12**	Up to 2200’ away

Beyond 2200' has never come up in a situation where I would rather roll than use fiat, but it's +1 for each 2200' beyond that as a rough guideline.

Turns out that if there is nothing intervening our moving man sized figure can be seen about 4 miles away by just someone of average perceptiveness. This is so far out that as a practical matter it doesn't come up much, and so far away that it doesn't really matter much whether you see the person or see them a minute later. There is a potential for surprise to matter as in who sees who first, but as I've never run a game on the steppes or other area where encounter distances average in miles, I just haven't felt a need to roll for anything at those sort of distances. If I did, I might actually write a tiny computer application that figured out who had surprise and by how many rounds, to determine which side had a chance to hide or otherwise react first.

That is probably overkill for most purposes. Just use fiat at encounter ranges over a few hundred feet. Your instincts will be good enough.