D&D 5E Is my DM being fair?

[iserith]

I would never use perception the way you do. Every player would move a small distance, stop, Observe, move small distance, stop Observe. It would drag the game too much. I do like the idea, but every intelligent creature in the world would do the same thing.

I'm not sure how you reached this conclusion based on what I wrote. This wouldn't be an outcome because that's, in part, what passive checks are for - resolving uncertain outcomes for tasks that are performed repeatedly. So, while traveling the dungeon, you're Keeping Watch for danger or whatever. Your passive Perception score applies whenever the DM determines surprise. If you're not Keeping Watch, then it doesn't apply and you're surprised if a monster is acting stealthily.

Nothing in any ruleset anyway require that PC be informed that you are in Initiative and thus Combat, that destroys any element of surprise.

"When a combat starts, every participant makes a Dexterity check to determine their place in the initiative order." Emphasis mine. By definition, when Initiative is rolled, everyone knows they're in a combat. The participants may or may not be surprised as determined by the DM.

If a enemy is hiding he is in combat, taking the hide action, and doing so over and over again waiting for the trigger. His initiative is set, its right before the PC who activates the trigger. Otherwise the PC can ruin an ambush just getting lucky on initiative, that's not the intent of the rules. An invisible, hidden behind total cover creature who rolled a 1 for initiative wont get the drop on anyone, the minute you call for initiative every PC knows something is there and all the PC will start taking actions to detect something that they should have no idea is there unless you say "you cant possibly detect anything so you cant take any actions" then makes the table feel screwed.

An enemy who is hiding is not necessarily in combat. The Hide action is something you can do in combat, given certain conditions, but a creature can also hide outside of combat by simply being unseen and unheard. Regardless, the scenario you're describing is covered by the rules for determining surprise. The invisible creature you mention meets the definition of one or both sides of the combat trying to be stealthy. So, the DM rolls a Dexterity (Stealth) check for the creature and, if that result is higher than a PC's passive Perception score (provided the PC was Keeping Watch and is in the position to notice the creature), then the PC is surprised unless he or she has the Alert feat or some other feature that negates surprise. Even if the surprised PC beats the invisible creature in initiative, the surprised PC does not get to take action before the invisible creature does, except for a reaction after the surprised PC's turn is passed.

If that's not an ambush, I don't know what is.

IMO, Passive Perception is misused by players and DMS alike. Here is the PHB example:

Use the passive Wisdom (Perception) scores of the characters to determine whether anyone in the group notices a hidden threat. The DM might decide that a threat can be noticed only by characters in a particular rank.

You cant ask your players their passive perception scores at the table, you give the game away then. You need to know them before the session starts, and then unless the PC tell you different like "We are moving slower to be aware of threats" they get no perception check to notice things, you only get your passive and only for the PC's in the right spots like in the example above. From Reddit user Ironforged:

Passive scores are a DM tool to use in two different situations.
The character is doing something over and over again repeatedly and you want to speed up play. Example, they are walking cautiously down a dungeon corridor on the lookout for traps and other dangers. You as the DM don't want to slow the game down by having them roll every ten or twenty feet, so you just use passive perception and passive investigation.
The character has a chance of doing something, but the act of rolling gives the player too much information so you want to test against their passive score so no roll is made. Example, when a group of monsters is about to ambush the party and surprise them, or when the succubus is disguise and blatantly lying to them, so you make the stealth and deception checks against passive perception and passive insight.
Those are the only two different ways covered in the PHB that passive scores are used.
The word "passive" has nothing to do with situation 1 at all but yet that is what they decided to call it, I think it wasn't the best term.
Addressing your concern, I don't ever have them roll if I used their passive score, it is either something I use to speed up play or to keep information from them, passive scores are not a safety net.


Also, passive perception still requires something for you to perceive. A silent creature hiding behind total cover that has no scent to me means no perception check will ever reveal them. That's what blind sight, tremor sense, etc are for.

I would say that the main misuse of passive Perception is treating it like it applies to resolving the outcome of all Perception-based tasks simultaneously. When taking the rules as a whole into account, it's clear to me that a player has to choose a single task and can't perform additional things that distract from that task. That immediately deals with objections to passive Perception being too powerful in my experience without making feats like Observant useless. It means you'll be good at whatever task you focus on, but not all Perception-related tasks at the same time. Only a ranger in favored terrain would be able to both Keep Watch and, say, search for secret doors simultaneously.

As for "giving away the game," I lay out the common tasks appropriate to the adventure location and the respective DCs when those outcomes are uncertain. The players can then establish their characters's tasks according to their strengths, weaknesses, and priorities. They can therefore decide that, for example, finding traps is really important to them, so they put their highest passive Perception character in the Front Rank (which might expose that character to greater risk). If the DC for finding secret doors at a slow pace is set to 15, they can put a PC with a passive Perception score of 10 in that task and have another PC work together with him or her to make it 15. Those characters will always be surprised, but they'll always find secret doors if they come across them - that's the risk they take for success. And so on. I then resolve outcomes as normal.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

No it doesn't. Every party I've DMd have had at least one high-Wis character proficient in Perception with Darkvision.

With a passive perception of 17 and climbing as written nothing gets past this character. Even monsters that are supposed to be sneaky have very rarely more than a 50% chance of beating DC 17. Most monsters, even of relatively high CR, have Stealth +4 or worse.

Getting a +5 on top of this score breaks the game to the extent that you need to toss out the monster stats entirely, if you still like there to be danger lurking in the beyond.

Its not quite that bad. If the character with darkvision is trying to be sneaky in the dark, then they probably aren't using a light source: -5 to passive perception. That puts the probable character in question down to spotting DC 10 stuff at first level, increasing as Wis and prof bonus improves. Alert can counter the darkness penalty, or give a very high bonus when in the light.
But bear in mind that this is a hero who is very very good (invested proficiency, ability score and a feat) at doing this.

They are in combat, they have set an ambush, which means they know you are coming. They have been in combat rounds already, over and over, waiting for you to get to the ambush point. The fact that the players don’t yet know they are in combat is irrelevant; get a higher perception score.

A simple example, a rug of smothering. It sits there, as soon as you get with 60’ it’s rounds start as it has blindsense 60’. The players are also in combat, but don’t know it. As soon as Mr. Alert steps onto the Rug it attacks first, then you roll for surprise and initiative as appropriate. Mr. Alert has a much better chance to get to go before the Rugs next turn as opposed to the Rug going twice in a row.

Some DM’s, including me sometimes for speed, will just put the Rug on top of initiative, but that’s penalized players who try max initiative.

I would imagine that much of the difference in opinion in this sort of situation is whether you see combat starting/the party roll initiative at the point when the ambushers burst out of the bushes and charge/the rug starts to move or at the point when the ambushers/rug strike the first blow.

 

[CapnZapp]

But bear in mind that this is a hero who is very very good (invested proficiency, ability score and a feat) at doing this.

No, I'm saying this is the average, as in every party I've seen.

And there's no feat involved. You get a passive perception of 17 simply by being a Monk or Cleric.

Every DC 10 Perception check in the game is utterly irrevocably borked, and the game is irredeemably tilted in the heroes' favor.

I recommend increasing every Perception DC by +5 just to make the game work, like, at all.

Don't get me started on the feat.

 

[shadowoflameth]

As a DM, I don't nerf things unless there's a mistake that we've made, or before the game begins. The exceptions are that if the player wants it the official errata way, I'll allow that. Otherwise, unless we find out we've been making a rules mistake, we'll make whatever change beginning with the next new characters. Then you're not chasing a set of rules that never stops changing. In your case, the DM is out of line for a couple of reasons. One is that he's declaring it against the rules to be good at things. Not so. Then he's also changing his mind about approval of things after the decision is made and the result is in play. He had a chance to approve Variant Human, including feats, and to approve your choice of feat (twice). As a suggestion, if alert is considered broken then I'd consider prodigy with the expertise on perception for a similar effect. Really though, if your DM is so keen on taking stuff away, I'd suggest doing it beginning with the next new character or that another in the group ought to DM. If this happened to me as a player, I'd vote with my feet.

 

[iserith]

One is that he's declaring it against the rules to be good at things. Not so.

Well said.

 

[Arial Black]

The way you are running things is what creates the problems you are having, and your solutions are making things worse.

Compare:-

* the situation is that an ogre is hiding behind a rock in order to ambush the party, because they were being loud and he heard them. The DM determines that the ogre is not surprised, but the party might be. The ogre hides (this is not an Action In Combat because combat hasn't started yet, he just, y'know, 'hides') and the DM rolls a Stealth check. When the party move into that room the DM can compare the passive scores of the PCs to the result of the ogre's Stealth check. What happens if the PCs fail? The DM describes the room and what they can see, but doesn't mention the ogre. What happens if a PC succeeds? The DM informs them that they notice an ogre trying to hide behind a rock holding a massive club, as well as the other things that everybody can see. Noticing the ogre does not tell you anything about the ogre beyond what you see. If the ogre were wearing a Hat of Disguise and looked like a tall human, then the successful PCs would notice a tall human, not "an ogre wearing a Hat of Disguise pretending to be a tall human"!

* the situation is that a Rug of Smothering is on the floor pretending to be a normal rug, but otherwise is in the same boat as the ogre. When the party come into view, any who make their Perception roll notice a rug. They do not notice a Rug of Smothering, because merely seeing something just tells you its appearance, not its game stats or magic potential

So a successful Perception because of ungodly numbers does not spoil the Rug's M.O. The Rug is in plain sight, so 'noticing' it is neither here nor there. 'Noticing it as a threat' requires more than just seeing it!

But what if the PC has the Alert feat or a Weapon of Warning and is Immune to Surprise? He'll be able to tell it's a Rug of Smothering and avoid the ambush. No fair!

Rubbish! Being Immune to Surprise does not grant the ability to see through illusions or grant Truesight or whatever. It just does exactly what it says on the tin, which is it does not suffer the game effects of surprise, which means that they CAN take reactions before their first turn and CAN act normally on their first turn!

That's it! No 'Auto-Detect Rugs of Naughtiness'!

The alert PC who succeeds with his Perception sees a rug. He also sees the rest of the furniture. What does he do? Unless he has some special means of detecting the disguised rug, unless he suddenly decides to closely Investigate the rug for some reason, he will probably move forward over the rug (because of course the rug placed itself in a spot which must be crossed to enter the room).

So the ambush proceeds. Initiative is rolled. Even though the PC is 'not surprised' (feat/item/ability) combat ensues normally.

No, the rug (nor anything else in the game) gets to attack before combat begins! Why? Because the rules say so. The rules state that combat takes place in Combat Rounds, therefore if it's combat then it takes place in the Combat Round in Initiative order.

No, you cannot Ready Actions In Combat when you are not in combat! You cannot be in combat without being in Initiative order in Combat Rounds!

If the rug wins initiative then the advantage of being Immune to Surprise is that you can take reactions. When the rug tries to engulf you, you may very well have a reaction that might help. If you don't, tough.

If you go before the rug and are Immune to Surprise but failed your Perception then you 'get a bad feeling about this!' and know that combat is about to start but you don't know why. You can act, and what you choose to do may or may not help against the rug.

If you made the Perception check then the DM may tell you that this 'rug' is quivering. Not normal for a rug. What are you going to do? "I put my head really close to the rug in order to get a better look". As you roll up your next character you may pause to reflect that being Alert for danger still requires you to do sensible things in response!

If you decide not to run combat as the 5e rules say, and have 'pre-combat' combat(!), then you are needlessly nerfing the very abilities that are meant to be proof against it. "Oh, so the PCs are Immune to Surprise? In that case I'll have the bad guys attack them before combat starts(!) and this will get around their Immunity to Surprise!" You mean, you cheat. Shame on you.

If you change the rules so that creatures CAN Ready outside combat, then what will happen is that outside combat every player will tell you the Ready an action every six seconds of every day, resulting in every encounter being between two sets of foes who ALL have Readied actions. So who's Readied action goes first?

Errrm....roll Initiative? Then just play by the rules! Everybody is on the lookout for danger! This does not mean that you automatically react in time to avoid it or detect every danger! Every ambusher intends his ambush to be foolproof! This does not mean that every ambush is automatically successful!

That's why the rules are as they are! They determine, by checks and initiative and Actions In Combat who goes when. Follow those rules correctly and it all plays out as it should. Not every ambush is successful, not every player who says his PC is 'looking out for danger' automatically spots it in time.

 

[smbakeresq]

No, I'm saying this is the average, as in every party I've seen.

And there's no feat involved. You get a passive perception of 17 simply by being a Monk or Cleric.

Every DC 10 Perception check in the game is utterly irrevocably borked, and the game is irredeemably tilted in the heroes' favor.

I recommend increasing every Perception DC by +5 just to make the game work, like, at all.

Don't get me started on the feat.

This is correct also, especially if every player gets a perception check as opposed to one player doing this and another doing that. If you get enough shots at something then you most likely will get there. Same applies to investigation checks, its hard for a party of 4-5 with everyone investigating to miss something. If you need to roll a 19-20 for a success, with 5 PC trying the chance for all of them to miss is %59, so you have a %41 success rate.

There needs to be some things that require a minimum skill to even try to make a check; this was used in the old days. I cant recall exactly but in Against the Giants there was a box find in the mind flayer cave at in the Fire Giant King Dungeon where you needed at 18 INT to even try to figure out how to attempt to open it. I am going to start doing this to see how it works.

 

[smbakeresq]

Its not quite that bad. If the character with darkvision is trying to be sneaky in the dark, then they probably aren't using a light source: -5 to passive perception. That puts the probable character in question down to spotting DC 10 stuff at first level, increasing as Wis and prof bonus improves. Alert can counter the darkness penalty, or give a very high bonus when in the light.
But bear in mind that this is a hero who is very very good (invested proficiency, ability score and a feat) at doing this.

I would imagine that much of the difference in opinion in this sort of situation is whether you see combat starting/the party roll initiative at the point when the ambushers burst out of the bushes and charge/the rug starts to move or at the point when the ambushers/rug strike the first blow.

Yes. Some will ABSOLUTELY NOT DEVIATE ONE WORD from the ruleset as written even if it makes sense to do so until Sage Advice oks it for them. Its quite clear if you watch any Wizards streams this is not the case, they are all about moving the game along and framework of the ruleset as not set in stone. Its RAI vs RAW.

 

[iserith]

Yes. Some will ABSOLUTELY NOT DEVIATE ONE WORD from the ruleset as written even if it makes sense to do so until Sage Advice oks it for them. Its quite clear if you watch any Wizards streams this is not the case, they are all about moving the game along and framework of the ruleset as not set in stone. Its RAI vs RAW.

What incentive is there to "deviate" from the rules set when, as Arial Black and I have shown, the rules perfectly cover the examples you've given when used as intended?

 

[smbakeresq]

What incentive is there to "deviate" from the rules set when, as Arial Black and I have shown, the rules perfectly cover the examples you've given when used as intended?

Do you mean the rules wherein you created your own rule on how to handle passive perception? That ruleset? Or the rules as I seen used in play on Twitch Streams sponsored by WoTC?

And no you interpretation does not cover it at all, nor does ArialBlacks. The rules are not straightjacket, in fact rules lawyers are ruins the game. And, as I have showed, both of you are reading into the rules things that are not their by a strict reading (as you want) or adding rules like your link to on how to handle passive perception, which is not in the rule book at all.

The GAME is important, the flow of the GAME is important.

Technically, the answer you should give to the OP is that your dm is always right and entitled to modify every rule in the book because that actually is said in the rule set. You should completely and utterly agree with the DM the original poster is complaining about, and be against the OP as the DMG, Page 4, states:

The D&D rules help you and the other players have a good time, but the rules aren't in charge. You're the DM, and you are in charge of the game.


Since, as you state, you should never DEVIATE from the rules you must therefore agree with the DM in charge of the OP game.

BYE