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Message: <blockquote data-quote="BoldItalic" data-source="post: 6807320" data-attributes="member: 6777052">If the DM wants some, all or none of the PCs to see through an illusion that he himself has created, that's fine. That's his job, deciding things like that. He can decide arbitrarily what makes the best narrative to entertain the players. He can reveal the illusion immediately and leave the players to admire it and wonder what it signifies and who the NPC was who supposedly created it; or he can decide to play 'gotcha' and not reveal it unless and until it occurs to a canny player to make an active check. But either way, he doesn't have to justify that decision to himself by appealing to some sort of formula.If an NPC casts an illusion, the DC is determined by the NPC's stats which the DM decides arbitrarily. There's no element of chance. The PCs skill adjustments are known as soon as they enter play. Again, there is no element of chance. Adding 10 and calling it a passive score doesn't change that. The result of comparing two numbers that are known in advance is a foregone conclusion.If you use a foregone conclusion to try to justify an arbitrary decision, you are not being honest with yourself. I might decide to wear red socks tomorrow, on a whim. But if I tell you that I had to wear red socks because pi is more than three, you would be entitled to cast doubt on my thought processes.Passive scores make sense when they are compared to a dice roll (such as a Stealth roll). They don't make sense when they are compared to a predetermined stat (such as a spell save DC) because the comparison is redundant.</blockquote>

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