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

[Charlaquin]

I'm not sure I follow. You have a passive walking around taking your time score (for perception all the time but sometimes for investigate and insight and I have heard of DMs that go all the way with a bunch of other skills too) and you have your active "I am looking around" roll the d20+ mod.

they are different things. "what my passive sees" and "make a ____ check" don't mean the same to me.

like i said before I walk in you describe what a passive XX sees, if I take a small amount of time and say I look around I get a roll with a bonus of XX-10

We’ve been over how I understand the rules for passive checks to work. By my reading are for actions (so, active) performed repeatedly over time. You may disagree with that interpretation, and that’s fine, but at my table there is no distinction between a “passive walking around score” and an “active looking around roll.” The score represents the results of you actively looking around, repeatedly, as you explore the dungeon. If you have to think of it as me houseruling, so be it.

 

[Charlaquin]

The passive score is useful as a metagame tool for game pacing. But it also cuts off half the potential results - the higher half. So for an individual case, it’s not very convincing, in fact it’s completely unconvincing, that the PC had a chance to reach their highest possible result.

Well it’s not for an individual case, it’s for the results of performing the action over and over again, such as in the case of looking around.

At least getting the roll validates that you’ve given the PC that potential even if the roll ends up worse than the passive score.

But either way, you’ve taken an action (looking around for danger) and the DM has applied (what they believe to be) the appropriate rules for resolving that action and told you the results. If you want different results, you have to try a different action. I don’t understand why that’s controversial at all.

 

[Reynard]

They didn't get a roll in the first place, it was a passive check. So, can they ask for a first roll?

They still have to DO something -- specifically something different than they were doing before (looking around).

"I don't like the looks of this hallway. I stop and kneel down and see if I can spot anything weird about the floors or wall."
"That foul breeze you mentioned worries me. I sniff and see if I can pinpoint where it is coming from."
"Cold spot? Uh oh. I take off my gauntlets so I can feel changes in temperature better."

These are how you get an active Perception roll, not by saying "I roll perception ::clatter::".

 

[SkidAce]

I explain passive versus active skills as:

"Take your time to solve this long division problem" versus "What's the answer RIGHT NOW!

Within your ability and plenty of time, you will almost always solve it. On the spot, the better your skill the better your chance under pressure.

 

[Reynard]

I explain passive versus active skills as:

"Take your time to solve this long division problem" versus "What's the answer RIGHT NOW!

Within your ability and plenty of time, you will almost always solve it. On the spot, the better your skill the better your chance under pressure.

That sounds more like "Taking 20" versus making a normal check. Passive doesn't grant you any sort of benefit for taking time. It is just a book keeping/pacing tool.

 

[Charlaquin]

I explain passive versus active skills as:

"Take your time to solve this long division problem" versus "What's the answer RIGHT NOW!

Within your ability and plenty of time, you will almost always solve it. On the spot, the better your skill the better your chance under pressure.

See, the way I view it is if you have all the time you need to solve one long division problem… that’s just an auto-success because as you say, you will almost always solve it given enough time (and I don’t think accounting for the small minority of cases where you don’t is very fun or interesting). A passive check is for an action performed repeatedly. So it’s more like “solve these several pages of long division problems.” Once again, given unlimited time, you succeed automatically. But if you have a limited time, a passive check will tell you how you did overall: about average given your level of skill.

 

[Reynard]

In reality, you could easily eliminate passive checks from the game entirely. What we used to do back in the day was have all the players each roll a d20 20 times and I would keep those lists and any time I wanted a "secret roll" i would just take and strike off the next number on the list. It is effectively the same thing minus the "average result" part. Otherwise, you could just have a procedure of everyone making a Perception check every "turn" of movement while exploring, whether they need to make one or not.

Now I am thinking about why we want secret rolls or don't want the players to know the die roll results in the first place. Is it for immersion?

 

[Cadence]

Now I am thinking about why we want secret rolls or don't want the players to know the die roll results in the first place. Is it for immersion?

It's hard for players to avoid having their characters act on information the players know but characters don't? (Why did he have my fighter roll perception... Ok, I have Thorg stop and get ready for an ambush and ask the ranger to look around carefully.)

It can remove a lot of surprise the players might experience if they're tipped off to things?

 

[Charlaquin]

In reality, you could easily eliminate passive checks from the game entirely. What we used to do back in the day was have all the players each roll a d20 20 times and I would keep those lists and any time I wanted a "secret roll" i would just take and strike off the next number on the list. It is effectively the same thing minus the "average result" part. Otherwise, you could just have a procedure of everyone making a Perception check every "turn" of movement while exploring, whether they need to make one or not.

Now I am thinking about why we want secret rolls or don't want the players to know the die roll results in the first place. Is it for immersion?

Personally I don’t use passive checks to resolve actions secretly. I only use them for the results of actions performed repeatedly over time. Primarily, they come up when keeping watch for danger while traveling or exploring.

 

[Reynard]

It's hard for players to avoid having their characters act on information the players know but characters don't? (Why did he have my fighter roll perception... Ok, I have Thorg stop and get ready for an ambush and ask the ranger to look around carefully.)

It can remove a lot of surprise the players might experience if they're tipped off to things?

Sure. I just hadn't really thought about it through this entire discussion, but since I am prepping (as we speak) my Rappan Athuk campaign that starts tomorrow I suddenly found myself thinking about it.