D&D 5E Rogue Stealth in Battle

[MG.0]

My problem with passive (apart from the static passive vs static trap DC issue - urrrghh!!) is that in practice, if 10 is the passive number, an 18 dex rogue with expertise once he gets +3 prof (is that 5th?), has +10 on his check... which means he wont fail to hide against almost all monsters in the MM! That is waaaaay too easy in my book. At least if both parties roll, you will occasionally get a low roll from the thief, and a high roll on the perception, resulting in a failed hide attempt.

We tried passive and went back to rolling. The game functions better in my view.

I actually agree with you. My post was more a repudiation of Pickles III's statement that rolling let's the dice influence things too much. It doesn't. Rolling against an active opponent roll slightly lowers your chance of succeeding if you have good bonuses vs. doing so against a static DC, but it also yields a slight improvement of your chances when you are very outmatched. I replied to your post because you had replied to him, so I was continuing the conversation. Sorry for the confusion.

 

[CapnZapp]

The 5E rogue needs all the help he can get.

Being able to hide nearly anywhere and nearly automatically is fine in my book. The Rogue class still has too few hp and too low AC to survive for any length of time, so why not let him have his toys while they last...

 

[Pickles III]

That said, I did some experimenting today. I wrote a computer program to simulate rolling contests vs rolling against a static DC. The differences are pretty minor and boil down to your bonus vs. your opponent's bonus (or the DC difference from 10 for a static DC). Unless your opponent's bonus is 5 or more higher than yours (or the DC is equal to or higher than 15+your bonus) you are slightly better off rolling against a static DC by a small percentage. At an extreme range of +-10, the difference my be as high as 15%, but normally it is much lower.

I think my only gripe with passive skills is that they are based on 10, making them almost as good as an average roll of an active attempt. I think 8 would have been a better base, but 10 was likely chosen for simplicity of math.

It works fine for one on one like that. If you have a large enough number of individuals & roll for them all them one of the seekers will get a 20 & one of the hiders will get a 1 and it's very different compared to just rolling one side (the PCs or the active party).

Passive being based on 10 is for when you might ask for a roll, or roll on the players behalf, in earlier editions. The benefit of actively searching is that it is in addition to checks against passive values & is unbounded upwards too.

Rolling both sides makes it just about impossible for large groups to hide from one another & the fact that this does happen in real life (eg the battles of The Trebia or Omdurman) makes it a bit jarring. In fact I prefer one side rolling because it makes this sort of situation more possible rather than effectively giving a -19 to hide checks. It still clunks for groups much larger than 4.

This is one of the reasons for using group checks as described in the DMG - it allows the rules to work in situations where they otherwise might give the sort of results you do not like. Group checks can do this the other way around - they are often a bit too easy & can be much easier with 4 than 5 as the maths is a bit odd.

They are all just tools to use to create the game you like so I would try them & see what feels good for you.

(apart from the static passive vs static trap DC issue - urrrghh!!) .

That is indeed an abomination.

I might pre-roll traps & write down the passive DC rather than assuming a 10 & that would be fine in a pre-written module too.

My motto as you will have figured out is that one side rolls, but then I feel many DMs make/demand too many rolls.

Many people like more randomness but I prefer chess to slot machines*


*This is a lie I hate them both

 

[Pickles III]

I actually agree with you. My post was more a repudiation of Pickles III's statement that rolling let's the dice influence things too much. It doesn't. Rolling against an active opponent roll slightly lowers your chance of succeeding if you have good bonuses vs. doing so against a static DC, but it also yields a slight improvement of your chances when you are very outmatched. I replied to your post because you had replied to him, so I was continuing the conversation. Sorry for the confusion.

I accidentally answered this in reply to your earlier post.

I would say the situation you describe here means the dice do have a bigger impact with 2 rolls the results are less normative.

"It doesn't, much" but again it's more pronounced with more actors.

 

[DEFCON 1]

My problem with passive (apart from the static passive vs static trap DC issue - urrrghh!!) is that in practice, if 10 is the passive number, an 18 dex rogue with expertise once he gets +3 prof (is that 5th?), has +10 on his check... which means he wont fail to hide against almost all monsters in the MM! That is waaaaay too easy in my book. At least if both parties roll, you will occasionally get a low roll from the thief, and a high roll on the perception, resulting in a failed hide attempt.

We tried passive and went back to rolling. The game functions better in my view.

Quite frankly, if people don't use or like Passive Perception it doesn't bother me at all. But for me... all Passive Perception does is give a minimum number for every character out there to have to reach when stealthing. Is the PP pretty much useless against the rogue who expertises in Stealth? Absolutely. But when the entire party is having to sneak their way through the forest past the goblin encampment... that PP number of the goblins gives the party the baseline number of what they better hope the platemail-wearers can reach if they hope to make it past. I don't even have to worry about stating whether the goblins are "on the lookout" for intruders or not... I just know that their PP is 9 and that any of the party who can't reach that 9 on their Stealth checks is probably going to alert them.

But then as Pickles III said... you then get to layer Active Perception checks on top of the Passive checks to notice people hiding. Which is really no different that what you seem to be doing, other than just skipping the Passive baseline to go straight to the Active check. Which, if that works better for you, then great. Using the baseline minimum of the PP number for Stealth checks isn't a necessary part of the process, unless you just want to weed out the really crappy attempts at Stealth without bothering to roll perception checks. Personally, I like having that "You must be this Stealthy to hide" number just to save a little time, but it isn't required by any stretch.

The other question of course being whether or not you grant that active Perception check on the part of the enemies to be a free check, or if you require them to use their Action to do it? If you grant it for free (especially during combat) then it does certainly make hiding during combat more difficult because odds-are at least one of the enemies will spot the hiding rogue, and then get to attack immediately in the same turn using their Action. I don't tend to do that, as I choose to follow the RAW in this regard in making any Perception check during combat require your Action to use (thereby making rogues less likely to get attacked because the enemy who succeeds in the check no longer has their Action available to also attack with)... but I personally prefer wanting those enemies to use their movement to go bounding into the bushes after the hiding rogue, rather than standing back and potshotting at him from range. But this mainly because I like panicking my rogue players by forcing them into melee combat on occasion.

 

[Coredump]

My problem with passive (apart from the static passive vs static trap DC issue - urrrghh!!) is that in practice, if 10 is the passive number, an 18 dex rogue with expertise once he gets +3 prof (is that 5th?), has +10 on his check... which means he wont fail to hide against almost all monsters in the MM! That is waaaaay too easy in my book. At least if both parties roll, you will occasionally get a low roll from the thief, and a high roll on the perception, resulting in a failed hide attempt.

We tried passive and went back to rolling. The game functions better in my view.

I have not tried it yet, but one variant I thought of is to use the Passive check allow you to notice something, which triggers the active check.

So, walking down the passage, if your passive check beats the DC of the hidden trap.... you get to roll your perception to see if you notice it.