D&D General "I make a perception check."

[tetrasodium]

I don't actually think it says Passive checks work like taking 20.

It works better than taking 10 & taking 20. Those required no distractions or threats & not under any sort of time pressure. With kevel based DCs gone it effectively becomes automatic take20 equivalent when DCs fail to keep up with the scaling of 10+attrib+prof

 

[Maxperson]

But that Crawford quote above seems to contradict that. Or, at least, guarantee a "second chance" for no apparent reason.

It does no such thing. That quote says "when characters actively search." If the player does not declare an action that would generate an active ability check, there is no second roll. Back to your assassin example, if the passive score fails and the player doesn't declare anything that would give a perception check, that player isn't getting a roll when the assassin jumps out to kill him.

 

[Maxperson]

It literally doesn't say that. It is just a tool to reduce die rolling. It isn't an average of a bunch of attempts, it just uses the die average for expediency.

It literally says one of the things it represents is the average of an action done repeatedly.

 

[Maxperson]

That's fine. But a good amount of this thread seems to be putting down players and DMs who choose to not follow RAW in this instance. If the player just wants to declare a check, roll the dice, and the DM is fine with this, then go for it. I guess I'm just surprised by so many posts here by DM who don't simply shrug their shoulders and go "sure" if a player wants to do so. The game is minimally impacted, and the player is happy. Even though I'm usually a fairly RAW DM, I guess I'm a bit unusual with not minding this at all...

I don't want to play the PC, which is the position I'm put in every time a player just says, "Can I roll perception?" or "Can I roll insight?" There's literally nothing there for me to use in my narration of the result of the action. It places one more thing to have to do when I'm already doing a lot. Now I have to come up with something like, "Bortak intently notes the body language of the vampire and sees signs of deception," rather than narrating what the player already described followed by a success or failure modification.

That's not my job. The player has one character to play and I don't want part of that job on top of my own already very busy job. I'm not going to slight you if you want to do it, but I'm not going to do it in my games.

 

[Demetrios1453]

I don't want to play the PC, which is the position I'm put in every time a player just says, "Can I roll perception?" or "Can I roll insight?" There's literally nothing there for me to use in my narration of the result of the action. It places one more thing to have to do when I'm already doing a lot. Now I have to come up with something like, "Bortak intently notes the body language of the vampire and sees signs of deception," rather than narrating what the player already described followed by a success or failure modification.

That's not my job. The player has one character to play and I don't want part of that job on top of my own already very busy job. I'm not going to slight you if you want to do it, but I'm not going to do it in my games.

I'm not saying you should. I'm saying that those here who say it should never be done and act as if it's some horrible bad thing might just want to consider that some players might prefer to do that, and some DMs are fine with them doing so.

 

[Thomas Shey]

The problem with that interpretation IMO is it implies that negative modifiers could change it when that may not be the case. In the stealth example you can ONLY hide if you have concealment. That's it. That's the rule.

But see, to me, anything that provides enough negative modifiers in that context is indistiguishable from concealment. Let's say you're vision is impaired badly; how, in any practical sense, is that not providing the opponent concealment? What would count as a modifier that harmed your perception roll seriously that wouldn't, and why?

 

[Reynard]

It's not conducted with specificity, though. Unless you're telling me that the party is taking a detailed search of every 10 feet of dungeon corridor and every room "Passively." That means that an active declaration by the player still requires a roll per the ability check RAW. Those checks are not removed just because passive skills exist.

The rules i quoted specifically say the repeated use of a skill. So, yes, a detailed search every 10 feet. So, yes, the PCs are moving slowly and suffer whatever consequences might happen for focusing on searching. The rules do not indicate any different use of the skill, only a different procedure in determining the result of the skill use as a way to save time. Or, when the DM wants to keep the results secret. Again, no changes in the actual way the skill is used in play are indicated.

 

[Reynard]

It literally says one of the things it represents is the average of an action done repeatedly.

That's not what it says. It says it can represent an action taken repeatedly, and in adjudication it takes the average of what the die roll would be for that action. That's different.

 

[Cadence]

Were the DMG and PHB written by the same people? The DMG seems to back up the passiveness of things mire like the sage advice, and in contrast to how the PHB seems to read to many.

The DMG feels like passive perception is kind of like AC. You just get to use it when stealthed against by a person or object.

 

[kenada]

Yes, but if he had bad previously experiences elsewhere, that sort of thing tends to stick with you.

Could be, but we’d been playing together for over a decade at that point, and I’d already run a bunch of Pathfinder stuff for the group. Anyway, I suppose it doesn’t really matter. However, I did get a response, which was he didn’t remember the situation.

Sidestepped it in some fashion I'd assume.

The treasury is in a cage off to the side. You can complete the dungeon by ignoring it, so that may be what happened.