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Message: <blockquote data-quote="KarinsDad" data-source="post: 7161028" data-attributes="member: 2011">I actually hate the very concept of passive perception (and passive insight) with a passion.The PCs walk into the room. There is a hidden pit trap in the floor. With passive perception, whether they notice it or not is dependent on the DC of the trap and whether the PCs with good passive perception are close enough to see it. If the Expertise Rogue PC is in front, they notice it every time. If not, they don't. There is virtually no randomness here. Same for secret doors and a lot of other common game situations.If I call for a perception check for everyone, someone is going to make the roll.So, I call for a D20 roll for the closest PCs and don't tell them what it is for and look at my Perception cheat sheet. Sometimes they make the roll, sometimes they do not. Sometimes the most perceptive PC notices, sometimes a lesser perceptive PC notices. Sometimes nobody notices. This might give the players a clue that something is going on, but for all they know, it could have been some other roll (like a "high is good for the party roll" which I use a lot).I do the same think for Insight, Knowledge checks, etc.So even for surprise, I give players an active perception check against the average (rolled) stealth of the hiding foes. I prefer a few PCs knowing that something is going on than all of the PCs almost always knowing that something is going on and the perceptive PCs are almost never surprised (which happens if you have 5 foes roll active stealth rolls vs. passive perception of each PC as per the surprise rules). Changing the rule around like this, there are very few rounds where all of the PCs (or all of the NPCs) are surprised and although the perceptive PCs often make their rolls, they don't always do so. Sometimes, the least perceptive PC notices something and the other PCs are distracted and surprised.With the rules as written, a single stealthy Goblin out of 5 can roll a 1 on Stealth for a total of 7 and everyone in the party make their passive perception and are not surprised. They might not know where the other Goblins are, but they can all act on the "surprise round" because nobody is surprised. I find that nonsensical because with 5 foes, it happens nearly every encounter. Some NPC will roll low.This approach also allows for the PCs to try to stealth in, even the PCs in heavy armor. We add of the total stealth of every PC and divide by the number of PCs (effectively a Group Check, but with slightly different mechanics). That gives us the average and some of the NPCs make their active Perception rolls and are not surprised and others don't.</blockquote>

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