Heh... I've had "passive perception" as being always on since it was introduced to the game back in 4E.When sometime around late 2016 early 2017 the idea that passive perception was always on, and writers did not start bumping the DC to account for this. As Hriston states perception by the creators became radar.
My point is. Once it was change, writers and errata should have taken it into account. Everyone knows you can change stuff. Writers Do your job.Heh... I've had "passive perception" as being always on since it was introduced to the game back in 4E.
As far as writers not accounting for it... if/when I found an issue in one of the adventures I just changed the DC myself in whatever method I felt appropriate at the time. Didn't need anyone to account for it in the writing.
Acrobats climb stuff pretty fast too. Springing off some walls up an alley seems a fair acrobat use. Athletics still governs lifting/breaking/swimming if we want to keep it's niche protection.I always run into people wanting to use Acrobatics for climbing. Climbing stuff is like half the point of the Athletics skill.
Acrobats climb quickly because they’re Athletic and Strong ;-)Acrobats climb stuff pretty fast too. Springing off some walls up an alley seems a fair acrobat use. Athletics still governs lifting/breaking/swimming if we want to keep it's niche protection.
It's wildly overused.Something I noticed in the "what don't you like about 5e?" thread was a few people griping about players going out of their way to take Perception. I'd run into this a few years back when I played Pathfinder 1e as well. I'm not really sure what the problem is with players wanting to be good at noticing things, so I was wondering if maybe people would help me understand their point of view on the topic.
D&D especially is a game where not noticing something can end up with your character getting in serious trouble, so it seems to me that everyone would want the ability to not blunder into traps or be snuck up on by Bugbears.
On the contrary it absolutely does.Acrobats climb quickly because they’re Athletic and Strong ;-)
Seriously, Strength is already one of the worst attributes, it doesn’t need its lunch money being stolen by Dexterity any more than it already has been.
Like every other RPG?How do we propose to have characters interact without their environment without determining if they notice things?
I’m sorry, but “INT/WIS/CHA do too much stuff” doesn’t mean it’s reasonable to make STR even less good than it already is, especially taking stuff it does and giving it to DEX, which is already the wonder-stat. Acrobats in reality are incredibly strong people, because it turns out it requires a bunch of physical strength to move your entire body like that.On the contrary it absolutely does.
Acrobatics needs to basically do everything Athletics does when it comes to movement or escaping from stuff, otherwise you're getting into a moronic situation where super-agile characters are terrible at climbing and jumping and so on, because they don't have a ton of STR.
You're totally missing the point re: "lunch money". You're like a nerdy kid bullying another nerdy kid out of his lunch money, when the fat INT/WIS/CHA trio will come around the corner and take both of your lunch monies. The real issue is that either fewer skills should roll off INT/WIS/CHA, or characters who primary STR or DEX need stuff to make up the difference - Expertise, Reliable Talent, extra skill proficiencies and so on.
You're really just proving my point.I’m sorry, but “INT/WIS/CHA do too much stuff” doesn’t mean it’s reasonable to make STR even less good than it already is, especially taking stuff it does and giving it to DEX, which is already the wonder-stat. Acrobats in reality are incredibly strong people, because it turns out it requires a bunch of physical strength to move your entire body like that.
D&D as it is currently constructed in 5e wants you to go hard on a single stat. That doesn’t mean you have to build it that way. PF2, for example, gives you enough attribute increases that you can quite reasonably max DEX, have a reasonable STR, and not be totally useless at everything else.You're really just proving my point.
Yes, IRL, you couldn't have like 20 DEX without having like 14 or 16 STR. You also couldn't do a ton of STR stuff without fairly decent DEX and/or tons of CON.
D&D doesn't model that. Instead D&D forces you to "go hard" with one primary stat. You're praising a situation which makes Rogues bad at climbing, and Fighters good at it (and nope, that absolutely does not match reality - most top climbers are short and not all that strong though obviously pretty fit).
The problem is generic skills here combined with the fact that again, you're more concerned about trying to maintain Acrobatics being a do-nothing trash skill than the real problem, which is INT/WIS/CHA skills being completely dominant.
I suppose that's a fair point, but the kind of responses that spurred me to make this thread was people complaining about players making sure they had proficiency in Perception.It's wildly overused.
D&D 5E is completely wildly over-reliant on it. People often name it as a "god-tier skill" or the like, and that's not a sign of good design, that's a sign of bad design.
Fewer things should require Perception tests, including passive Perception.
It's weird that you don't see a problem from your own description. It's not really optional. At least one, preferably multiple party members need a high Perception, for 5E to function correctly. If you don't, your party is basically Sideshow Bob in the field full of rakes. That's not interesting. That's not engaging. That's not fun. It's not even active - it's literally 90% passive. It's just a dumb must-have thing, that someone in the party either has as a matter of course, or has to sacrifice some stuff to get.
It's much like healing in 2E. It wasn't that people wanted to be "COOL HEALER DUDE", almost no-one did. But someone had to bloody be the Cleric or no-one was getting any healing and you were all going to die. Likewise Perception. Very few people want to be "COOL PERCEPTION DUDE", but unless you have 1+ party members who have high Perception, the game turns into a total farce.
BORING!!!
Really though?Like every other RPG?
I mean, dude, I know you've played a lot of RPGs. About 95% of RPGs either don't have Perception or a close equivalent, or do, but it's very rarely rolled, not rolled any tested constantly.
It's been a lot of use & convinced me that for my next campaign I might remove perception as a learnable skill & replace it with int mod to represent your ability to process the stuff you see & make dumping it have some real penalty.I suppose that's a fair point, but the kind of responses that spurred me to make this thread was people complaining about players making sure they had proficiency in Perception.
If Perception is the problem itself, one would think the complaints would be less "of course people were taking the Sailor Background" and more "Perception needs a redesign".
Myself, I liked how Perception was an ability score in Earthdawn, forcing you to consider it against all others. Unless you cast spells, of course. Then you wanted lots of it.
On the one hand, that's great to give Int more stuff to do.It's been a lot of use & convinced me that for my next campaign I might remove perception as a learnable skill & replace it with int mod to represent your ability to process the stuff you see & make dumping it have some real penalty.
For me it’s a three-fold problem. One, see the “I make a perception check” thread. Two, players will mangle their concept and beg and wheedle their way into getting it. Three, it’s a useful skill, but players act like their character is guaranteed to die in the first seconds of the game without it. I don’t have a problem with perception as a skill per se, I have a problem with how players treat it, both in-game and in the meta-game. These things bother me. It’s this weird “either you’re perfect or you suck” mentality. Not everyone needs perception. It doesn’t make sense for every character to have it. If the only reason a character has it is because the player thinks it’s mandatory, there’s something wrong.Something I noticed in the "what don't you like about 5e?" thread was a few people griping about players going out of their way to take Perception. I'd run into this a few years back when I played Pathfinder 1e as well. I'm not really sure what the problem is with players wanting to be good at noticing things, so I was wondering if maybe people would help me understand their point of view on the topic.
D&D especially is a game where not noticing something can end up with your character getting in serious trouble, so it seems to me that everyone would want the ability to not blunder into traps or be snuck up on by Bugbears.
1. DMs gate information behind Perception checks that should just be part of their description of the environment.
2. DMs treat Perception like always-on radar instead of a possible bonus on a check to resolve a declared action.