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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hriston" data-source="post: 8689707" data-attributes="member: 6787503">Really? A troll, even one just walking by, isn't likely to cause damage or danger? That's a new one to me.Okay, so now you know the troll is a threat because it's participating in the first round of combat and you can see if anyone on the opposing side is surprised because they didn't notice the troll before combat started. Where's the problem, exactly?No it doesn't for a couple reasons: 1. The definition of threat already contains the concept of potentiality. See the word likely in there? 2. If you include every object and creature that might possibly harbor a threat in the category of things you can notice to avoid surprise, then no one will ever be surprised because they always will have noticed something.I didn't see anything in the OP to indicate that any of the players declared an action to try to use their senses or awareness of the environment to detect the presence of a creature. If any of the PCs weren't otherwise occupying their attention, however, I would use their passive scores to determine if they noticed the creature as they came within range. Of course the cleric is likely to have a high Wisdom which I think should be rewarded. By deciding the mimic is automatically successful in its attempt to remain motionless, you're negating that PC build choice.It seems to me that neither the stat-block nor the lore support your claim that the ability is perfect. Perhaps you're bringing in this assumption from somewhere outside of the game?As always and as I just said in the post to which you're responding here, it's the DM's call whether to ask for an ability check and what ability to use. The OP explicitly asked how individual DMs would adjudicate the cleric player's action declaration, which is the question I answered.I disagree. Neither the stat-block nor the lore state the mimic's ability works perfectly every single time.And yet I have people in this thread accusing me of being unfair to the players. I guess you can't please everybody!A rock isn't a creature. It's an object, so it doesn't have to try to be stealthy to avoid being noticed. A creature, on the other hand, is noticed by default, even if it's unseen or invisible, even if it appears to be an ordinary object, unless it tries to be stealthy.1. An ordinary chest is not a threat.2. The cleric failed to notice the mimic.</blockquote>

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