D&D 5E Passive skills

[Psikerlord#]

I guess my point is, you don't necessarily know whether there will be time pressure or material cost for any given lock placed in an adventure. If the PCs remove those concerns by their own efforts, then the lock is still there and just becomes trivial - spend the time and open it up, no roll necessary. We DMs put obstacles of all stripes in adventures. We don't necessarily know ahead of time how the players will get past them or whether a roll will be required.

Hmm. I think DMs know almost always if there will be time pressure.

 

[Psikerlord#]

Actually, I see this questioned/mentioned quite a bit. My answer is always the same, there is no problem. It's there because it belongs there.

So you have a temple, and certain areas are off limits to the general public or hold valuables, etc. Or they are private chambers. They are naturally locked. There may not be any immediate issue at the time the PCs are there, nor will they know whether there really is something valuable behind the locked door. It's up to them to decide if they will investigate or not.

Note that in these circumstances I still require a skill check. They don't know whether somebody might come down the hall while they're trying to get in. It may still take a few minutes to succeed. The lock may still serve it's purpose, which is to be a deterrent from somebody (like the PCs) entering.

While I understand the general reason why some DMs think they shouldn't put a lock if there's no immediate danger, that's really just the DM metagaming. The DM knows there is no immediate danger so is skipping a "boring" event. But, do the PCs remember to lock the door behind them? Are there any marks left that would alert the occupant that somebody entered without their permission? What if there's a reason for them to return to this door, and at that time there is a time pressure or material cost to opening it. If the door should be locked and wasn't the first time, but now it is, why?

Also, if you hand-wave opening the lock, you're giving away the fact that there is no danger at that time. You're reducing the "fun" by doing so. If what you as the DM are choosing to include/not include is based on whether there will be any danger or material cost, then why include the room either?

To me, the world should make sense. Locks exist in the world to keep people out, or act as a deterrent to keep people out. A lock shouldn't exist/not exist based on whether it makes an interesting encounter for the PCs, nor because the DM knows that there is no risk at this point in time. It should exist/not exist because it makes sense in the world the characters live in and are exploring.

One of the three pillars of D&D is exploring. The process of exploration is mundane. Anything behind a locked door or a trapped hallway could be interesting. It keeps the players thinking, acting. Maybe they missed something important. Maybe not. But the mundane accentuates the unusual. They've explored what appears to be the barracks, and the first 8 doors to private sleeping chambers have been locked, but the 9th is not. Does that mean something? There was nothing other than personal effects in any of the others, and this is no different. Maybe somebody just forgot to lock the door. Maybe it's a trap. Maybe there was something they missed in the other rooms.

The exploration of the rooms can be quick or not. We don't actually have to wait the time indicated by a failed skill check. And if the locks are all similar, simple, and within the passive ability of the PC in question, it's OK to indicate that these are all pretty similar locks, and you're able to get this one open more quickly as a result and go with the passive ability. But I wouldn't hand-wave the first lock, and it would be clear that the other locks are opened because of their skill.

The same thing applies to things like travel. Sure, in some cases it's worth jumping from one location to another. But if you include those portions from time to time, it gives them the sense that they are arriving somewhere when they do. My group spent several months (real time) exploring some catacombs, and had one goal when doing so. Everything else was trying to find that one goal. Of course they found other things, and learned other things on the way, not to mention had numerous encounters and found some treasure. But it was a long time looking for one thing. And finding it was a huge deal because of the time and effort they put into locating it. There was also a time element in that others were looking for the same thing. But the catacombs were huge (based on the maps of the ones in Rome and Paris), and nobody knew where within them they needed to look.

Now they were just entering another dungeon. Once they explored the ruins of the temple and found the entrance to the dungeon, they went back outside to see the sun one last time because they aren't sure when they'll see it again.

Ilbranteloth

I agree the world should make sense and you should have a lock if that is appropriate. What I dont agree with auto picking that lock using take 10 or passive. Taking out the random reduces the fun, in my view. It is more satisfying to roll and succeed (even if the risk is minimal, like 1 in 20 fail, which the player is not aware of) - because the player feels like some risk has been successfully overcome. Auto wins are more boring.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

I agree the world should make sense and you should have a lock if that is appropriate. What I dont agree with auto picking that lock using take 10 or passive. Taking out the random reduces the fun, in my view. It is more satisfying to roll and succeed (even if the risk is minimal, like 1 in 20 fail, which the player is not aware of) - because the player feels like some risk has been successfully overcome. Auto wins are more boring.

But part of the world making sense is that you actually get good at something. Picking that simple lock may be difficult for somebody that's never picked a lock before, but you've got the training, experience, and have done it a number of times, that it's just simple now.

Just like you don't make a skill check to see if you can walk across the room. Or drive a car/ride a horse. If you learn to play an instrument, even playing a simple song is a challenge. But once you've worked past a certain level of skill, even an intermediate song is simple and wouldn't require a check. On the other hand if somebody tells you to play a song correctly with a gun to your head, the circumstances have changed to such a degree that you might make a mistake on even a simple song.

A blacksmith can make horseshoes all day. But a suit of plate armor, that's different. Sure they'll have different DCs, but once you've made 1000 horseshoes, probably more like 100, I think it's pretty safe to say that you'll never fail your check again.

If you have a character with a smithing ability, and you need to make new horseshoes, I think the passive score is sufficient to say, "yes, while in town you can make new shoes for your horses before the next leg of the journey." Partially because they have the skill, and partially because even if they make a mistake, they can just keep working at it until it's done. There's no time element at play. Their passive skill indicates they are capable of completing the task.*

If there's something that alters the DC to something above the easy, then make a roll. But even if you aren't requiring a roll, I think it's important for the player to realize that the reason they are opening the lock is that they have the skill to do so.

While traveling across a rocky steppe, one of your horses throws a shoe, or a shoe breaks. The party is being tracked, but you have at least a half-day head start. One of the characters used to be a smith, or at least an apprentice, so it's an opportunity to use his skill. He can attempt to reforge the pieces to repair it enough to make a workable one. That would need a skill check. If he fails, there's really no reason why he can't try again, so I would go with just a time element. Since forging a horseshoe doesn't use the same time-scale as combat, I might say the delay is measured in 10-minute, or even hour increments. Complicating matters is that the party has been traveling dark, not making fires, so as not to be seen at night. So the work must be completed before dusk and the fire put out.

Random situations introduce fun, but random for everything isn't. For the world to make sense, the randomness needs to make some sense too. The skill, in particular the increasing skill of the character should be taken into account. Yes, it's taken into account by the check modifier, but at some point they get good enough to not require a skill check.

Introducing randomness also introduces the possibility for failure. A lot of times that doesn't make sense and is unnecessary. Or if introducing the randomness (a die roll) will have no impact on the outcome, it's also unnecessary. Overusing the technique can reduce the value of the technique. If 90% of the time a die roll is irrelevant and you're making them roll them anyway, it reduces the effectiveness of rolling the dice. Then rolling the dice reduces the fun.

In addition, anytime you roll the dice you are shifting your focus from the action in the game to the game itself. Your attention is drawn from the immersion of the characters and what they are doing in the world, to the mechanics outside of that world. That's OK to a degree, and that degree will vary from player to player and table to table. For some people the mechanics, the "game" part of the game is really fun. Just like some people really enjoy a "highly tactical" approach like the 4e combat system, others, like me, prefer the combat, or the mechanics of the combat, to intrude on the action in the game as much. Muchkinizers/min-maxers/optimizers tend to like more skill checks for example.

Like anything, it's a balance, and that sweet spot will vary, but from a mechanical viewpoint for most people the sweet spot is related to how much is at stake when you make the die roll. It doesn't really matter if the players know that they can't fail or not on a given die roll. What matters is how frequently they make a die roll that succeeds and/or fails.

For example, if every die roll is 50/50 (and it plays out that way), people will feel they have little impact on what's going on. It's literally a coin toss. We're going to enter this battle (or pick this lock, or whatever), and we'll fail as often as we succeed.

If the general chance was 75%+ failure, they'll eventually stop trying things that are dangerous, because it's safer to not do it.

Without an actual study on the matter, I'd guess the sweet spot is somewhere around 80% success on average. More often than not they will succeed at what they attempt. But there is a chance, and a decent chance, at failure. So choose your actions wisely.

Having them roll for every lock may or may not alter this fact. I don't know how often you have locks that are easily within their capability to open within their passive score. The answer to finding this sweet spot lies not within your decision to make them roll for every lock. They might come across a lock once or twice in a session, or maybe 20 times. The answer as to whether this has an impact is related more to how many times you roll the dice in a session, and what the average outcome is. It's more a function of the role of the dice in the entire session than for a single type of task.

On a different but related subject - if you think that the passive scores are too easy, then make it 8+ the modifier, or 5+, or even just the modifier. Another alternative would be to say that a check isn't required if your passive score is at least 5 higher than the DC. It's really a question of how things work in your game, but I do think too many checks is as bad as too few. Possibly worse. It's sort of like crying wolf. If most of the time you roll the dice, you succeed, and then you do it once and you fail, it doesn't feel as fair.

Or increase the DC. The DC definitions make some sense, as long as you're using the standard array for abilities. That means that for a proficient skill in your highest ability you have a +5 (+30%) chance of success over somebody average with no ability in that skill. That puts even medium tasks within a level of automatic success. Is that reasonable? Well, If you're a commoner and a blacksmith, and all you do is smithing, and you're proficiency is in your smith tools, your strength is 15, plus your racial bonus bumps it to 16 or 17, yeah, you'd probably be able to make all but the difficult items on a regular basis.

To put it a different way, somebody who is not proficient (trained), but is capable of performing the task, can succeed at the easy tasks, but a trained person succeeds at medium tasks. That sounds fairly reasonable based on the design goals of 5e.

Even if you're more likely to hand-wave checks as a DM as unnecessary, the passive score at least gives you an objective measure as to when that's appropriate.

*Note that the current rules don't differentiate between proficient and non-proficient tool use. They assume that if you have the tools, you can complete the task, and that the proficiency bonus differentiates between the two. This also applies to skills. It's part of the idea that anybody can try, and potentially succeed at anything. It's also part of the concept of bounded accuracy to keep the difficulty of even the most difficult task within reach of more people.

This is an entirely different discussion, but if you don't like the way trained/untrained works in this edition (and I don't), one solution is to allow passive checks only for skills with proficiency. That reduces the randomness for somebody trained, but keeps it for those that aren't. I also think that some tasks would require training regardless. Sure, I can buy all of the tools needed for forging a sword. But without any instruction on how to do so, I'm not likely to be successful.

I'll have to think through these options - reduce the passive score base, increase the DC, or not allow passive checks if non-proficient, and see which fits my concept of "realistic." There are pros and cons to each approach.

Ilbranteloth

 

[Psikerlord#]

But part of the world making sense is that you actually get good at something. Picking that simple lock may be difficult for somebody that's never picked a lock before, but you've got the training, experience, and have done it a number of times, that it's just simple now.

Just like you don't make a skill check to see if you can walk across the room. Or drive a car/ride a horse. If you learn to play an instrument, even playing a simple song is a challenge. But once you've worked past a certain level of skill, even an intermediate song is simple and wouldn't require a check. On the other hand if somebody tells you to play a song correctly with a gun to your head, the circumstances have changed to such a degree that you might make a mistake on even a simple song.

A blacksmith can make horseshoes all day. But a suit of plate armor, that's different. Sure they'll have different DCs, but once you've made 1000 horseshoes, probably more like 100, I think it's pretty safe to say that you'll never fail your check again.

If you have a character with a smithing ability, and you need to make new horseshoes, I think the passive score is sufficient to say, "yes, while in town you can make new shoes for your horses before the next leg of the journey." Partially because they have the skill, and partially because even if they make a mistake, they can just keep working at it until it's done. There's no time element at play. Their passive skill indicates they are capable of completing the task.*

If there's something that alters the DC to something above the easy, then make a roll. But even if you aren't requiring a roll, I think it's important for the player to realize that the reason they are opening the lock is that they have the skill to do so.

While traveling across a rocky steppe, one of your horses throws a shoe, or a shoe breaks. The party is being tracked, but you have at least a half-day head start. One of the characters used to be a smith, or at least an apprentice, so it's an opportunity to use his skill. He can attempt to reforge the pieces to repair it enough to make a workable one. That would need a skill check. If he fails, there's really no reason why he can't try again, so I would go with just a time element. Since forging a horseshoe doesn't use the same time-scale as combat, I might say the delay is measured in 10-minute, or even hour increments. Complicating matters is that the party has been traveling dark, not making fires, so as not to be seen at night. So the work must be completed before dusk and the fire put out.

Random situations introduce fun, but random for everything isn't. For the world to make sense, the randomness needs to make some sense too. The skill, in particular the increasing skill of the character should be taken into account. Yes, it's taken into account by the check modifier, but at some point they get good enough to not require a skill check.

Introducing randomness also introduces the possibility for failure. A lot of times that doesn't make sense and is unnecessary. Or if introducing the randomness (a die roll) will have no impact on the outcome, it's also unnecessary. Overusing the technique can reduce the value of the technique. If 90% of the time a die roll is irrelevant and you're making them roll them anyway, it reduces the effectiveness of rolling the dice. Then rolling the dice reduces the fun.

In addition, anytime you roll the dice you are shifting your focus from the action in the game to the game itself. Your attention is drawn from the immersion of the characters and what they are doing in the world, to the mechanics outside of that world. That's OK to a degree, and that degree will vary from player to player and table to table. For some people the mechanics, the "game" part of the game is really fun. Just like some people really enjoy a "highly tactical" approach like the 4e combat system, others, like me, prefer the combat, or the mechanics of the combat, to intrude on the action in the game as much. Muchkinizers/min-maxers/optimizers tend to like more skill checks for example.

Like anything, it's a balance, and that sweet spot will vary, but from a mechanical viewpoint for most people the sweet spot is related to how much is at stake when you make the die roll. It doesn't really matter if the players know that they can't fail or not on a given die roll. What matters is how frequently they make a die roll that succeeds and/or fails.

For example, if every die roll is 50/50 (and it plays out that way), people will feel they have little impact on what's going on. It's literally a coin toss. We're going to enter this battle (or pick this lock, or whatever), and we'll fail as often as we succeed.

If the general chance was 75%+ failure, they'll eventually stop trying things that are dangerous, because it's safer to not do it.

Without an actual study on the matter, I'd guess the sweet spot is somewhere around 80% success on average. More often than not they will succeed at what they attempt. But there is a chance, and a decent chance, at failure. So choose your actions wisely.

Having them roll for every lock may or may not alter this fact. I don't know how often you have locks that are easily within their capability to open within their passive score. The answer to finding this sweet spot lies not within your decision to make them roll for every lock. They might come across a lock once or twice in a session, or maybe 20 times. The answer as to whether this has an impact is related more to how many times you roll the dice in a session, and what the average outcome is. It's more a function of the role of the dice in the entire session than for a single type of task.

On a different but related subject - if you think that the passive scores are too easy, then make it 8+ the modifier, or 5+, or even just the modifier. Another alternative would be to say that a check isn't required if your passive score is at least 5 higher than the DC. It's really a question of how things work in your game, but I do think too many checks is as bad as too few. Possibly worse. It's sort of like crying wolf. If most of the time you roll the dice, you succeed, and then you do it once and you fail, it doesn't feel as fair.

Or increase the DC. The DC definitions make some sense, as long as you're using the standard array for abilities. That means that for a proficient skill in your highest ability you have a +5 (+30%) chance of success over somebody average with no ability in that skill. That puts even medium tasks within a level of automatic success. Is that reasonable? Well, If you're a commoner and a blacksmith, and all you do is smithing, and you're proficiency is in your smith tools, your strength is 15, plus your racial bonus bumps it to 16 or 17, yeah, you'd probably be able to make all but the difficult items on a regular basis.

To put it a different way, somebody who is not proficient (trained), but is capable of performing the task, can succeed at the easy tasks, but a trained person succeeds at medium tasks. That sounds fairly reasonable based on the design goals of 5e.

Even if you're more likely to hand-wave checks as a DM as unnecessary, the passive score at least gives you an objective measure as to when that's appropriate.

*Note that the current rules don't differentiate between proficient and non-proficient tool use. They assume that if you have the tools, you can complete the task, and that the proficiency bonus differentiates between the two. This also applies to skills. It's part of the idea that anybody can try, and potentially succeed at anything. It's also part of the concept of bounded accuracy to keep the difficulty of even the most difficult task within reach of more people.

This is an entirely different discussion, but if you don't like the way trained/untrained works in this edition (and I don't), one solution is to allow passive checks only for skills with proficiency. That reduces the randomness for somebody trained, but keeps it for those that aren't. I also think that some tasks would require training regardless. Sure, I can buy all of the tools needed for forging a sword. But without any instruction on how to do so, I'm not likely to be successful.

I'll have to think through these options - reduce the passive score base, increase the DC, or not allow passive checks if non-proficient, and see which fits my concept of "realistic." There are pros and cons to each approach.

Ilbranteloth

All good points. My fundamental objection to passive is it by inference suggests you can keep retrying things, which I very much dislike, as "I roll till I get a 20" is the logical conclusion. Passive is then required to prevent this, but it doesnt make sense why you should be limited to a 10 on your d20 roll. Why cant you keep trying till you get a 20? (take 20). Reason of course is game balance, lots of stuff breaks if you take 20 on most situations - adventure lore, locks, traps, hiding for an ambush, scouting for an ambush, etc.

My preferred solution is the default is no retries - until something changes in your favour.

I understand others think, hell, why cant I retry! The answer is: Game balance man! If you can roll till you get a 20, you just threw random out the window. And the "game" part of RPG is as important a factor for me as the "role" (er, and "playing!"?)

In any event, an interesting discussion.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

All good points. My fundamental objection to passive is it by inference suggests you can keep retrying things, which I very much dislike, as "I roll till I get a 20" is the logical conclusion. Passive is then required to prevent this, but it doesnt make sense why you should be limited to a 10 on your d20 roll. Why cant you keep trying till you get a 20? (take 20). Reason of course is game balance, lots of stuff breaks if you take 20 on most situations - adventure lore, locks, traps, hiding for an ambush, scouting for an ambush, etc.

My preferred solution is the default is no retries - until something changes in your favour.

I understand others think, hell, why cant I retry! The answer is: Game balance man! If you can roll till you get a 20, you just threw random out the window. And the "game" part of RPG is as important a factor for me as the "role" (er, and "playing!"?)

In any event, an interesting discussion.

Hmm. Some interesting points when you think about it.

i disagree about the no retries. It just doesn't make sense to me if a person's skill is high enough to succeed at a task that they won't eventually succeed at it. Nor do I think it has anything to do with game balance. I can't think of anything that breaks with acknowledging that fact that eventually you'll succeed. The time element is an important factor that can't be forgotten.

But you're right, there's no mechanic for Take 20, in which there should be. Also, the Passive score is serving two similar but ultimately different purposes:

#1. A replacement for the Take 10 mechanic that sets a floor for simple tasks.

#2. An actual passive score, for use in opposed checks.

The problem with the current ruleset is that the floor that is set for #1 feels too high. At least without a time component like the old Take 10 rule. I have also never liked the fact that you couldn't Take 10 or Take 20 when there was a danger element. I guess since everybody is rolling an attack roll each round, it's no different to just roll another skill check each round.

I like my solution where the time element is built into the first roll. That eliminates the need for multiple skill checks during combat. But I'll have to think about the other issue with the Take 10.

Obviously there's the possibility of just using the Take 10 and Take 20 rules from 3.5, but they had their own issues.

My initial inclination is to either modify DCs to push them out of the range of automatic success, or reduce the amount of default value - instead of 10+modifier for a passive score, 5+ or 0+, but that also causes problems with opposed checks against a passive score.

As a DM the passive scores are very useful. But the thing that now bothers me (thanks!) is that the essential replacement for Take 10 doesn't account for a time element. So I'm not sure how I'll handle that anymore. Other than opposed scores maybe allowing the passive score only for trained (proficient) skills.

Something I'll have to think about. I have several ideas, just have to work through them.

Ilbranteloth

 

[Ilbranteloth]

OK -

So as I said, I don't think game balance is an issue. And I don't particularly care if the same character succeeds more frequently than others, that's part of the point of having a higher skill.

I admit that this complicates things a bit. I don't think excessively, but YMMV. Here are the things that came to mind when working through this:

#1. Not all passive uses of a skill are the same. For example, I will continue to provide a feeling, sense, or hunch for abilities such as Investigation, Insight, and Perception. This also largely applies to Arcana, History, Religion, and some uses of things like Medicine, Nature, or Survival. Basically the passive use is just like the real world - you notice something is out of place, something pops into your head, or something comes to mind after you've slept on it. Then the player can take that hint and work on it from there. If they wish to utilize the skill specifically, they can make a die roll.

Other passive skills are just automatic successes. The blacksmith making a horseshoe. A mountain climber climbing an easy cliff. That sort of thing. They roughly divide between the physical and mental skills, but that's not a hard rule.

#2. Skills with proficiency or expertise have a floor for automatic success. Non-proficient does as well, but it's largely irrelevant as you'll see.

#3. Instead of Take 10/20 where a fixed amount of time is given, I'm using the die roll to determine the variable amount of time. The difference between the DC and the roll is the amount of time it takes to eventually succeed (provided the DC is within the characters capability). The time scale is not fixed. In combat or dangerous situations it's usually rounds. But some skills (as noted in the example with the horseshoe) might be minutes, hours, or longer.

In addition to the time element, I'm using degrees of success/failure. Degrees of success come into play only if you actually roll higher than the needed DC. For now I'm sticking with 5 higher, 7 higher, and 10 higher. The actual effects very greatly with the skill and circumstance. For failure, since a time element is already worked into the die roll, it's also based on the fail by 5, 7 or 10. But even within the 5 there may be some consequences. These complications generally don't extend the time, nor prevent you from completing the task altogether, although the fail by 10 or more or a natural 1 can. For example, if you roll a one trying to pick a lock, you might damage the lock or your pick, preventing you from completing the task normally. It might simply require another skill check with a higher DC to get around the failure. There's a lot of DM discretion here simply because the possibilities are endless.

So what's the actual process? Almost the same as it is now.

--

The passive score is simply the ability modifier for non-proficient skills. This means that for most skills, not even very easy tasks are automatic success since you'll usually have an ability modifier of less than +5. Regardless, somebody that does have a 20 ability has a knack for those sort of things, they are a "natural" so it makes sense that they'd automatically succeed at very easy things, but they'll still need to practice the skill (gain proficiency) to get better at it.

Otherwise, the passive score is 8 + proficiency bonus + ability modifier. This means that for proficient skills very easy and easy tasks are automatically successful. Characters that have expertise and at least a +1 modified can automatically succeed a medium tasks.

Most characters will need to be 9th level before they will automatically succeed at medium skills (assuming a +3 ability modifier), and 13th level with expertise before automatically succeeding at hard tasks.

--

As you can see, I've based the system on what I think is reasonable for somebody with the skill to succeed at every time. This goes back to the blacksmith. A trained smith should be able to complete items with easy or very easy difficulty without worrying about failure. An expert smith can do that with medium items as well. There's a reasonable split between non-proficient, proficient, and expertise.

By not changing DCs, nor lowering the chance of success for non-proficient skills, it just sets a reasonable floor for somebody who is trained. The difficulty categories (very easy, easy, etc.) are measured against a skilled (trained) individual. That is, a very easy task is very easy for somebody who is trained, or has a natural ability.

--

I've also added a new Feat: Expertise. The prerequisite is proficiency in a skill, and you can gain expertise in that skill with the feat. You can take the feat multiple times for additional skills. I might limit the skills it can be used on to the ones from your background.

I don't think it's all that powerful, and since it requires the use of a feat I don't think it really reduces then benefit of a rogue. What I'm really trying to do is give commoner artisans and craftsman the ability to gain expertise in their given skill. So a commoner blacksmith can be an expert blacksmith without having to be a rogue and have class levels. If I limit it to the skills of your background (many of which are tools) it means it's not terribly attractive to a PC.

--

So I think this covers all of the things I was trying to accomplish, with the least impact to the rules. When I worked through the numbers with a +5 it took too long for an expert to be a step ahead of a proficient character, although it's still a possibility for those that want a lower floor. The class that gets the biggest boost (really, is hit the least) is a bard with Jack of All Trades. But since it doesn't lower the possibility for success, only the auto-success, I don't think it's a big deal.

More importantly, it addresses an issue that I've had with bounded accuracy, which is that there was little difference between proficient and non-proficient skills, particularly at low level. I'm not concerned about high level characters being consistently better than the commoner, that's expected. But the local smith should be better than the local farmer at smithing. Now, a lucky farmer can roll well and make something decent. But not consistently. The smith can crank out basic items all day without a check.

The only question is which method I'll use for opposed checks. Most use a die roll anyway. Stealth against the lower passive Perception could be very interesting, especially for non-proficient characters. If neither works well, I might just stick with the 10+ for opposed rolls.

Ilbranteloth

 

[Ilbranteloth]

So far, everybody from both campaigns want to go with opposed passive checks for non-proficient skills are made with just the modifier. That is, if an opponent is using Stealth, and the PC is not proficient in Perception, then their passive Perception = their ability modifier. Apparently they like the idea that there are a lot of people that walk around oblivious to what's going on around them.

Their position is that the'll be fine, as long as at least one character in the party has proficiency in Perception. I think it's going to be pretty cool myself.

Ilbranteloth

 

[mrpopstar]

All good points. My fundamental objection to passive is it by inference suggests you can keep retrying things, which I very much dislike, as "I roll till I get a 20" is the logical conclusion. Passive is then required to prevent this, but it doesnt make sense why you should be limited to a 10 on your d20 roll. Why cant you keep trying till you get a 20? (take 20). Reason of course is game balance, lots of stuff breaks if you take 20 on most situations - adventure lore, locks, traps, hiding for an ambush, scouting for an ambush, etc.

I understand passive checks and retries to be different things.

A passive check represents the average result for a task done repeatedly, such as searching for secret doors over and over again as you make your way through a dungeon.
A passive check does not represent the average result for repeated attempts at the same task, such as searching for a specific secret door that you've already failed to spot.

Does that make sense?

The game expects that with enough attempts and enough time, a character will eventually succeed at a task, so we can assume that a character spending ten times the normal amount of time needed to search for that specific secret door ultimately succeeds (see DMG, 237).

As iserith mentioned, the players can trade time for success, which is exactly how 3rd Edition's take 20 works.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

I understand passive checks and retries to be different things.

A passive check represents the average result for a task done repeatedly, such as searching for secret doors over and over again as you make your way through a dungeon.
A passive check does not represent the average result for repeated attempts at the same task, such as searching for a specific secret door that you've already failed to spot.

Does that make sense?

The game expects that with enough attempts and enough time, a character will eventually succeed at a task, so we can assume that a character spending ten times the normal amount of time needed to search for that specific secret door ultimately succeeds (see DMG, 237).

As iserith mentioned, the players can trade time for success, which is exactly how 3rd Edition's take 20 works.

Yes, but if there is one secret door, (or one lock, or whatever), then it's the same thing. But a fine point nonetheless.

Regardless of the specific rule, it only makes sense to me that for most tasks you can retry given the right circumstances. The only ones that pretty much never allow a retry once you get to a certain point of failure are the interactive ones, like Persuasion, Intimidation and Deception.

Ilbranteloth

 

[Yardiff]

Pgs 237 to 242 of the DMG might be an interesting read if have read them yet.