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Message: <blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 8203311" data-attributes="member: 71699">Preface: I like to make all abilities useful, and I like to lean hard away from the fab-four skills (Athletics, Perception, Persuasion, Stealth).I suspect the most honest way to describe my ruling is that Perception is used to notice creatures, and Investigation is used to deduce the implication of artifacts. That means it is a perception check in my game to notice a creature sneaking up on you, and an investigation check to spot a trap or secret door. It is worth noting that the designers of official material don't use investigation in this way. In published adventures, a character can typically ride Perception all the way through.As for passive checks, I use them as a floor for Perception and Investigation, so that normally players automatically get some environmental information. That might be at disadvantage (i.e. -5) if they are rushing or otherwise hindered. Or forestalled completely in some circumstances. It means that characters with Observant are hard to sneak up on even if not keeping an active lookout and so forth. I think this plays well because if it isn't a floor, players can hinder themselves by taking action to keep a sharp lookout or whatever. I prefer that they can at worse do just as well as they would have if being ordinarily cautious.</blockquote>