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<blockquote data-quote="iserith" data-source="post: 7376570" data-attributes="member: 97077">You said &quot;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.&quot;That would seem to indicate you think that there's a &quot;floor&quot;outside of combat like you can't roll lower than your passive score. (If you don't think that, then disregard.) That's not the case because by definition a passive check resolves a different kind of activity than an ability check does because the former is for tasks performed repeatedly. In the context of the podcast, they were talking about hiding in combat and how that related to a Search action. In that situation, there is a &quot;floor&quot; because the DC for hiding is set by the opposing passive Perception score. If the monster can't beat that, they aren't hidden anyway, so that's effectively the &quot;floor.&quot;Passive Perception is not technically &quot;always on&quot; nor does it indicate that the character is not actively doing something. It's a mechanic the DM uses to resolve uncertainty for a task related to perception that is performed repeatedly such as keeping watch for danger while adventuring.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="iserith, post: 7376570, member: 97077"] You said "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." That would seem to indicate you think that there's a "floor"outside of combat like you can't roll lower than your passive score. (If you don't think that, then disregard.) That's not the case because by definition a passive check resolves a different kind of activity than an ability check does because the former is for tasks performed repeatedly. In the context of the podcast, they were talking about hiding in combat and how that related to a Search action. In that situation, there [I]is [/I]a "floor" because the DC for hiding is set by the opposing passive Perception score. If the monster can't beat that, they aren't hidden anyway, so that's effectively the "floor." Passive Perception is not technically "always on" nor does it indicate that the character is not actively doing something. It's a mechanic the DM uses to resolve uncertainty for a task related to perception that is performed repeatedly such as keeping watch for danger while adventuring. [/QUOTE]

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