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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pbartender" data-source="post: 5399019" data-attributes="member: 7533">Kind of, but not exactly...  It involves multiple checks, but they used a little differently and total success for failure does not necessarily hinge on accumulating successes and failure from those checks.  Here's how I look at it:The initial Passive Perception check: Tells the players there's probably a trap around somewhere.  Now they have the option of A) searching for traps, B) moving forward without searching for traps and likely setting it off, or C) turning around an explore a different part of the dungeon.The Active Perception check, should they choose to use it: Will tell the exactly what the trap does, where it is, and how it is triggered.  Now they have the option of A) disabling the trap, B) moving forward and attempting to bypass the trap without disabling it, or C) turning around an explore a different part of the dungeon.Then comes any appropriate checks they might use to disable it with the usual results.So really, it's not that much different than how you would normally run a trap.  Only, instead of requiring that the players continually make Active Perception check every five feet in order to find the trap, you use their Passive Perception to give them a clue to which areas they should be searching...  and I try to use a little more in-game description for what the traps look like and do (and you're right -- that can be done even without suing Passive Perception for hints).Three options...1) The players are paranoid and search everything in the entire dungeon.  They probably find the trap and bypass it, but might get unlucky and miss it inevitably to fall into it.2) The players aren't paranoid, and search only when they think of it.  They almost certainly miss the trap and trigger it, but they might get lucky.3) Passive Perception tells them, "This would be a good spot to place a pit trap."  They search, and whether or not they find it actually depends on the Perception roll.The first option is the non-combat equivalent of "grind", and any tension from finding (or not) the trap is diluted by the tedium and routine.The second option also eliminates the point of finding the trap, because no one is really looking for it.  You might as well give it an impossible Perception DC.The last option gives the "There might be something there, but we're not sure" vibe.  It's that uncertainty that gives tension to the search.</blockquote>

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