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Message: <blockquote data-quote="quandaratic" data-source="post: 7376251" data-attributes="member: 6945440">So, the advice from Jeremy Crawford, lead designer of the Players Handbook:<a href="http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/james-haeck-dd-writing" target="_blank">http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/james-haeck-dd-writing</a>...and this is regarding perception, specifically, but the highlights that I take away are:- DMs discretion, above all; he and the team realize how important it is for a DM to run a game by the flow and narrative that makes sense to them.- they assume a baseline awareness of a character’s surroundings, when they’re not focusing on spotting the details of it, represented by Passive Perception.- Passive Perception is intended to be used as a minimum value for a character’s Active Perception checks.- Passive Perception is also intended to be used for a DMs secret rolls, for information that the player does not know.- When the character is focusing on a differently activity, it makes sense to either penalize or ignore the Passive Perception concept.Responses that I have:- Using Passive Perception for the DM secret rolls does open a conceptual door to using other skills as such, but I recognize that it could get silly pretty quickly.  Passive Perception really is a pretty unique case for skills, which is why it’s the only only listed explicitly, on the character sheets.  Passive use of Ability Scores is more feasible, like a Passive Charisma check for situations where a character’s presence has an effect on NPCs, to whom the character really isn’t even paying attention- The specification about Passive Perception, in the Activities While Traveling section, is a case of specific beating general, rather than defining a core mechanic in a section about specific narrative situation.- Passive Investigation is almost certainly the case of shortcutting a bunch of repeated Active Investigation checks, like dungeon crawling while continually looking for secret stuff- I have mixed feelings about the minimum rule; it feels a bit unbalanced, since there are baseline levels of other things on the character sheet.  A DM could always use Saving Throw values in that same way, though.</blockquote>

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