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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Maxperson" data-source="post: 8689781" data-attributes="member: 23751">A troll that is just walking by is only likely to walk by, because that's all he is doing.  To be likely to do anything, it has to be 67% or more likely to happen.""Likely" means greater than 66 percent. "More likely than not" means greater than 50 percent. "About as likely as not" means 33 to 66 percent. "Unlikely" means less than 33 percent."The problem is that is wasn't a threat before combat, so if we follow your procedure and not the book, we end up with the party not noticing the threat until combat begins and being surprised, despite seeing the troll.The only way it works out for the party to not be surprised is if noticing the potential threat = notice threat.This is wrong.  It only includes situations where combat is 67+% likely to happen.  It has to include all potentiality, which your definition of threat fails to meet.Which would end up being a rules failure if it wasn't for that "The DM decides" that covers the oddball situations.Really? You failed to see the cleric cast Toll the Dead on the chest to see if it was a creature?So I shouldn't have a dragon fly if the player of the fighter makes the build choice to not have any ranged weapons.  And I shouldn't have a creature turn invisible if no player made the build choice to be able to see invisibility.  Because doing so would be negating those build choices.I disagree with that.  Build choices are inherently flawed and fail to work in 100% of situations.  Hitting a situation where the build choice isn't working is just normal game play.  Negation would be if I set it up so that the build choice almost never worked. A creature has special abilities and those abilities don't negate any build choices. They are designed to make the creature more challenging.What's really happening is you are negating the mimic's CR and making the fight far easier than it should be.  I would hope that you would lower the XP value of the mimic so as not to over reward the PCs for a fight that was far easier than it should have been.You're being unfair to both.  Unfair to the mimic by removing a good chunk of it's challenge rating, and unfair to the players by removing the cleric's agency and surprising him despite the impossibility of surprise in that situation.Still is still.  Still doesn't make noise.  You're conflating a creature like a human, who is not naturally still with a creature like a mimic that has evolved to be still in order to survive.  The mimic doesn't need to roll stealth to be still and therefore be silent.All chests are potential threats to someone who doesn't have information about it yet.This is objectively false.  The cleric in fact did notice the mimic.  He just doesn't know that it's a mimic.  If your PC suddenly appeared here on earth and saw an airplane high in the sky, he might think it's some sort of bird or dragon.  Does he notice an airplane? 100%.  Does he know it is an airplane? Not even a little.</blockquote>

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