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Message: <blockquote data-quote="keterys" data-source="post: 6506080" data-attributes="member: 43019">In some cases, yes. It is becoming increasingly common, in my experience, for adventures to have things like:Trap Door: This trap door is hidden under the carpet. If someone lifts the carpet, it is obvious, but it is impossible to detect otherwise.Secret Door: This secret door is activated by pulling the Tome of Openings on its second shelf. Someone specifically examining the bookshelf can tell it is attached to the wall strangely and someone searching the books can find the fake tome.Ie, passive perception doesn't matter because walking down a hallway or looking over a room are largely useless. You must use your player skills and ability to follow room descriptions to find the place to make your relevant Investigation/Perception checks, and until you do so, no amount of Passive Perception does you any good.But, yes, it's true; it does help you for random "There's a pit in the middle of the path and someone notices it". Which is helpful in published adventures; if the DM is creating things, he's effectively deciding in advance whether you notice traps or not by setting their DC, which is at least one reason I've seen DMs call for a Perception check instead of using passive. Otherwise they're deciding in advance that the group definitely sees or doesn't see something when they set the DC.</blockquote>