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<blockquote data-quote="iserith" data-source="post: 7161431" data-attributes="member: 97077">The DC is set without reference to the passive score of the character but rather the stated goal and approach. It goes back to that whole consistency thing, too. A typical search while exploring might have a standardized DC of 15 for secret doors that lead to a useful short cut or safe room or DC 20 for one that hides treasure. Canny players start to figure out the bounds and can plan accordingly - &quot;Put the cleric with the 16 Wis and Perception training on secret door search and have the barbarian Work Together to bump the cleric's passive to 20.&quot; Both of them are surprised when the gargoyles attack from hiding, but they will always find the secret doors. That's a fair trade-off in my view.You say later that you see comparing passive score to DC as negative because there's no &quot;swing.&quot; What's the upside of having that swing? There's certainly none for the player so far as I can see.I'm not so sure that passives do avoid that though. Much of that tedious play experience is in my view due to a DM who doesn't telegraph and wants to play gotcha. Perhaps passive scores mitigate DMs who require unreasonable specificity to some extent - but only to the extent the DM uses them to mitigate the behavior for which the DM is responsible! Mechanics can't solve problems the DMs and players create themselves.And if the players want to declare more actions to cover all their bases, that's okay in my opinion. It takes time, a precious resource. I'll be rolling wandering monster checks or the prince or princess is going to be that much closer to being sacrificed to the Worm Sultan or whatever. In practice, this doesn't happen because time matters and there are five people in the party (more or less). It's not all on one person to do all the exploring. Which seems fitting in a team game.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="iserith, post: 7161431, member: 97077"] The DC is set without reference to the passive score of the character but rather the stated goal and approach. It goes back to that whole consistency thing, too. A typical search while exploring might have a standardized DC of 15 for secret doors that lead to a useful short cut or safe room or DC 20 for one that hides treasure. Canny players start to figure out the bounds and can plan accordingly - "Put the cleric with the 16 Wis and Perception training on secret door search and have the barbarian Work Together to bump the cleric's passive to 20." Both of them are surprised when the gargoyles attack from hiding, but they will always find the secret doors. That's a fair trade-off in my view. You say later that you see comparing passive score to DC as negative because there's no "swing." What's the upside of having that swing? There's certainly none for the player so far as I can see. I'm not so sure that passives do avoid that though. Much of that tedious play experience is in my view due to a DM who doesn't telegraph and wants to play gotcha. Perhaps passive scores mitigate DMs who require unreasonable specificity to some extent - but only to the extent the DM uses them to mitigate the behavior for which the DM is responsible! Mechanics can't solve problems the DMs and players create themselves. And if the players want to declare more actions to cover all their bases, that's okay in my opinion. It takes time, a precious resource. I'll be rolling wandering monster checks or the prince or princess is going to be that much closer to being sacrificed to the Worm Sultan or whatever. In practice, this doesn't happen because time matters and there are five people in the party (more or less). It's not all on one person to do all the exploring. Which seems fitting in a team game. [/QUOTE]

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