Legends & Lore: A Few Rules Updates

[Mistwell]

I am fine with passive perception, I just don't think it should be 10+bonus.

Instead, it should be just bonus.

So, wisdom bonus + proficiency bonus = passive perception.

You should not get the benefit of an average roll - if you want a roll, you need to do active perception checks. Otherwise, you're only spotting things with the benefit of our innate perceptions and training/talent.

Now if that is just too low a result I think I'd be OK adding an additional bonus for being in front of the marching order. So for every member of your group, you get a +1 for being in front. Four people in the party? +4 for being in front. Five people, +5 for being in front. This represents more eyes looking for things in the party.

Here's an example. Let's say your Level 1 Rogue has a Wisdom of 13 (+1), is proficient in Perception (+1) and has selected Perception as part of their Expertise ability (+5). So their total normal bonus is +7. But, if the Rogue is in the front of a party of 5 members, then their total Passive Perception would instead be +12.

And that's it. If the rogue wants to actively perceive things, they can call for a perception check, and roll the die, with an average result of 17. But, it could be as low a result as 8, or as high as 27. The randomness still comes in with an active check.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I guess I just don't feel the force of this. If I can roll for a trap's attack - which can't be determing anything random about the trap (a deterministic mechanism) and hence must reflect random stuff about the position and movement of the PCs, etc - then I can roll for its obscurement too.

I don't see a trap's attack roll as determining anything about the PC -- they've got AC which describes what they're doing. The trap's attack roll describes what the trap is doing. Which might include "getting tangled up in some spiderwebs and misfiring" (a low roll) and might include "being pointed right at your eye" (a high roll).

If I wanted to figure out what the PC was doing, I'd have the PC roll (like, rolling a DEX save to dodge the hail of arrows).

But passive Perception doesn't eliminate actively searching for something. It just means that the trap (or the trap builder's camouflaging skills) didn't catch the party's slightly-more-than-cursory glances. The DM tells the party everything they see (which could even include a hint that something is off, like a smear of blood on the wall where a hammer-trap usually hits), and the party decides whether to pursue a more in-depth examination.

The weird thing to me here is that there needs to be a number or roll to determine what is caught in a slightly-more-than-cursory glance. The party is a group of trained adventurers and they're ready for danger, if there's a thing to notice, they should be told that they notice it. Unless that thing is hiding, in which case they're not GOING to notice it, unless they specifically look for it.

I don't need to roll dice to see if they choke on their ale in a bar. I don't need to roll dice to see if they have a heart attack in the middle of the night. I don't need to roll dice to tell them that they see a desk in the corner of the room. And if they want to see if that desk is not a desk, then it's up to THEM to get that information, via their characters -- it feels really weird as a DM to basically remove all the tension and risk from an event without the players even making an active decision.

It doesn't feel particularly great as a player to get that reward without having to do anything, either. If the DM's reaction to my saying "we go left" is "you pass by a trapped flagstone in the hallway and continue on," my reaction is basically, so frickin' what? Now that trap may as well have not even existed. It doesn't engage me, it doesn't stop me, it's not interesting, the DM doesn't get to use their cool trap, I don't get to actively do anything cool on my end, and we've all wasted preparation time designing characters and traps that don't add to anything.

Anyway, that's kind of a rant. Like I said, I don't think D&D has ever really done this in a satisfying way, so I can't really expect 5e to do it well out the box, either. All I can hope is that it's something that's easy to change -- something I have pretty high hopes for, given the rest of 5e's promise.

 

[Keldryn]

Of course... even beyond all of this... there is a very easy way to do traps in your game without needing to worry about passive perception or who rolls or whatnot. Quite simply... don't put traps in random locations throughout your dungeon.

(snipped)

You do all that... and you don't NEED to have PCs using "passive perception", because they know enough not to otherwise ask to "look for traps" every 5 feet because they know they won't be there. They'll know you aren't trying to just screw with them for no reason. It's really all down to you as a DM.

I agree completely, and this is the approach I take in my games. It's essentially part of the social contract in the games that I run: I won't design adventures with traps and doors hidden in nonsensical locations, and you won't waste our limited play time being pedantic about examining every square inch of the dungeon.

A lot of old TSR-era modules did train players to behave this way. This is the major reason why I've never been fond of monsters like the lurker above, mimics, ear seekers, and the like.

 

[Prism]

But passive Perception doesn't eliminate actively searching for something. It just means that the trap (or the trap builder's camouflaging skills) didn't catch the party's slightly-more-than-cursory glances. The DM tells the party everything they see (which could even include a hint that something is off, like a smear of blood on the wall where a hammer-trap usually hits), and the party decides whether to pursue a more in-depth examination.

This...

And in addition the current how to play document doesn't seem to suggest you even use perception to notice traps, hidden things and secret doors. So passive perception is mainly for noticing hidden creatures, ambushes, general surroundings.

Search is used for traps and secret doors. There is one example of a flickering torch under a the crack in a secret door or as you say and smear of blood near a trap. These could be the exception rather than the norm and I would expect most traps to be undetectable without a search roll - which is definitely not passive by its description

I guess the idea of the monsters rolling rather than the players is to not alert them to the threat by asking for a roll at all

 

[DEFCON 1]

A lot of old TSR-era modules did train players to behave this way. This is the major reason why I've never been fond of monsters like the lurker above, mimics, ear seekers, and the like.

Exactly. Everything has grown organically over time, and yet we still do the things we should have grown out of decades ago because the reasons are no longer valid or overdone.

The very original game was "explore this dungeon, killing monsters, disarming traps etc. etc.". At the time people did that... it was all new. And there was no standardized protocol on how to accomplish it. But the more any of us played the game, and the more we saw the same tropes appearing over and over in every dungeon... the more we realized that there was the same mechanical functions that had to occur each and every time to defeat them. Thus... the origination of "tapping the ground in front of us with a 10 foot pole."

At some point... several years into the process... we needed to just stop putting f-ing trap doors in random hallways in our dungeons. Because we all knew they were there, we all knew how to get past them, it was just a matter of wasting time trying to find the "right" square on the map that it was hidden.

The trap was no longer a thing to surprise us or keep us alert or let us accomplish something "cool". Instead, it was just an artificial way to slow the party down. The truest definition of "jumping through hoops". Most traps in fact I don't believe actually add to game play AT ALL. And the only ones that do? The ones we've never experienced before and thus have no regular checklist on how to defeat them.

Use those kinds of traps. Original ones. Ones that don't require a "passive perception" check to be made so as to avoid the party arbitrarily stumbling into it. Either make it so that you're supposed to stumble into it, or make it so that just because you can see it... you still need the player to explain how they're doing something into order to disarm it.

 

[Lokiare]

...for some playstyles.

OTOH there are plenty of playstyles in which:

No Random Encounters = Fail. Unless every creature in the area you are traveling through never leaves home, a lack of random encounters doesn't make sense and seems arbitrary.

Personally, while I have nothing against you not using random encounters, I certainly appreciate guidelines for them.

Thorag The Barbarian: "Well we've blocked off all the exits, searched all the seven rooms of this dungeon three times over, why is this happening?"
Lite The Cleric: "I know, I've casted every divination I can and there are no secret doors or portals or entrances here. No one has teleported in or out in years. How is this possible?"
Thorag The Barbarian: "Yeah it seems we walk around for a few minutes and we suddenly encounter 3.5 Orcs. I'm just wondering what's going on."

I've got no problem if you have patrols of monsters or wandering monsters, but that's not the same thing as random encounters.

Maybe if you were traveling in an area with a near unlimited supply, like the Orc's tribal lands where thousands of Orcs call home, it might make sense but in dungeons with a limited number of inhabitants and no way to get new creatures just throws out mine and my players sense of reality.

I refer you to the www.angrydm.com article on encounter design. You should always need a reason for the players to engage an enemy and 'oops I just wandered in your path' gets real old real fast...

 

[ccooke]

Thorag The Barbarian: "Well we've blocked off all the exits, searched all the seven rooms of this dungeon three times over, why is this happening?"
Lite The Cleric: "I know, I've casted every divination I can and there are no secret doors or portals or entrances here. No one has teleported in or out in years. How is this possible?"
Thorag The Barbarian: "Yeah it seems we walk around for a few minutes and we suddenly encounter 3.5 Orcs. I'm just wondering what's going on."

I've got no problem if you have patrols of monsters or wandering monsters, but that's not the same thing as random encounters.

Maybe if you were traveling in an area with a near unlimited supply, like the Orc's tribal lands where thousands of Orcs call home, it might make sense but in dungeons with a limited number of inhabitants and no way to get new creatures just throws out mine and my players sense of reality.

I refer you to the www.angrydm.com article on encounter design. You should always need a reason for the players to engage an enemy and 'oops I just wandered in your path' gets real old real fast...

That seems to be a bit of a straw man - you appear to be saying that having random encounters ever is the same thing as continuing to use them even when the area has been completely cleared out. Which is silly; even some of the oldest, simplest pre-written adventures don't do that. Most of them would assume you're sensible enough not to.

Sure, there should be GM advice with random encounter tables to say that they should be used when it enhances the game for the party at hand. But then, that's the point of the GM anyway - there should always be advice on when not to use any rule, or when to do things differently. A chapter on what processes a good GM will follow for different groups of players would be good, for instance (Rather than the chapters I've seen on dealing with individuals, I think the overall requirements of the whole group can be very important).

As to random encounters... they're a traditional part of the game and always have been. Some people love them. Some people like to use them occasionally. Some people never will. Isn't it better to support the widest range of *common* playstyles? As I've said elsewhere, if 4th edition can be said to have done anything "wrong", it was in its failure to support the playstyles of a large proportion of its target audience. Fifth edition could easily make a similar mistake, if it isn't able to appeal to enough of the 4e crowd within a year or two of release (or sooner, if a failure to release promising content at release is taken badly enough).

 

[Lokiare]

This...

And in addition the current how to play document doesn't seem to suggest you even use perception to notice traps, hidden things and secret doors. So passive perception is mainly for noticing hidden creatures, ambushes, general surroundings.

Search is used for traps and secret doors. There is one example of a flickering torch under a the crack in a secret door or as you say and smear of blood near a trap. These could be the exception rather than the norm and I would expect most traps to be undetectable without a search roll - which is definitely not passive by its description

I guess the idea of the monsters rolling rather than the players is to not alert them to the threat by asking for a roll at all

The way I do it the passive perception or the active perception roll reveals the blood stain or the flickering torch under the crack. I don't just blurt out "you find a secret door" or "you find a trap". I say "Your keen senses notice a slight red tinge to the wall in the shape of a liquid stain." or "You catch the flicker of some light in a crack under the wall that doesn't match the flicker pattern of your torch."

That's where the information should lie, in giving the players a clue so they can then decide what their character do with that information...

 

[Lokiare]

That seems to be a bit of a straw man - you appear to be saying that having random encounters ever is the same thing as continuing to use them even when the area has been completely cleared out. Which is silly; even some of the oldest, simplest pre-written adventures don't do that. Most of them would assume you're sensible enough not to.

Sure, there should be GM advice with random encounter tables to say that they should be used when it enhances the game for the party at hand. But then, that's the point of the GM anyway - there should always be advice on when not to use any rule, or when to do things differently. A chapter on what processes a good GM will follow for different groups of players would be good, for instance (Rather than the chapters I've seen on dealing with individuals, I think the overall requirements of the whole group can be very important).

As to random encounters... they're a traditional part of the game and always have been. Some people love them. Some people like to use them occasionally. Some people never will. Isn't it better to support the widest range of *common* playstyles? As I've said elsewhere, if 4th edition can be said to have done anything "wrong", it was in its failure to support the playstyles of a large proportion of its target audience. Fifth edition could easily make a similar mistake, if it isn't able to appeal to enough of the 4e crowd within a year or two of release (or sooner, if a failure to release promising content at release is taken badly enough).

You seem to be conflating what was traditionally random encounter with other things like wandering monsters.

A random encounter is when you consult a table and roll to see if the party randomly encounters something. There is no limit to the number of times the party can encounter these things. In 2E you had these charts of monsters you would randomly encounter in each environment and you had example charts for dungeon random encounter tables. No where did it say you should limit the number of encounters and in fact random encounters played a huge role in keeping the five minute work day under control. They still didn't make sense though for the most part.

I've got no problem with wandering monsters. Where you have a set number of monsters that patrol the area and you can eventually kill them off. You might even use a random chart to determine when the players encounter them instead of trying to keep track of their movements in relation to the players. However those aren't random encounters in the sense that the words are used in previous editions.

Like I said there are situations where random encounters might be appropriate like a dungeon on the edge of the Shadow Fell where monsters randomly cross the border into the world the players are in. Wandering through a swamp filled with tribes of Lizard Folk might be appropriate for a random encounter chart. Moving overland across large tracts of land where you don't want to have to detail out the ecology of every living creature might also use a random encounter chart.

There are also places where it is wildly inappropriate like a small walled town or an isolated dungeon with only a few entrances. For the most part previous editions didn't make a distinction and told DMs to just make random encounter charts for everything. That really destroys believability...

 

[Prism]

The way I do it the passive perception or the active perception roll reveals the blood stain or the flickering torch under the crack. I don't just blurt out "you find a secret door" or "you find a trap". I say "Your keen senses notice a slight red tinge to the wall in the shape of a liquid stain." or "You catch the flicker of some light in a crack under the wall that doesn't match the flicker pattern of your torch."

That's where the information should lie, in giving the players a clue so they can then decide what their character do with that information...

Yeah, I'd be happy for the passive perception (wis) to pick up stuff like this, followed by an active search (int) to find the door or trap. Then with a well made secret door or trap that has no signs of its use or construction I wouldn't allow a passive or active perception at all (though that's the same as setting a high passive perception DC I guess). Shouldn't be able to find everything simply by passing by - needs a search

This also seems to be how it is currently written