D&D General What's wrong with Perception?

[DND_Reborn]

It, like Dexterity, is too good to pass up. If you can get it, you always should. If you can't get it, you should look for a way to get it.

Nah... DEX is much more useful than Perception, of course (I won't argue that!), but lots of PCs do just fine without Perception proficiency. It doesn't hurt to have it, certainly, but it is hardly vital to all.

Consider if Initiative were a skill that players could become proficient in. Absolutely all characters would want it. There would never be a character who doesn't want it.

LOL, definitely NOT. Due to Initiative's cyclical nature, going first isn't really that big a deal 90% of the time in 5E IME anyway. Unlike other games where going first really does make a huge difference, that just isn't the case in 5E, especially after tier 1.

FWIW, take the Alert feat and both Perception and Initiative a pretty much taken care of. You cannot be surprised (so no fear of ambushes) and you get the +5 to initiative (if it really matters to you...).

Obviously, YMMV of course, so I'm not looking to "debate" or "discuss" this, just voicing that your view is hardly universal. Cheers.

It's also nice to see we're back to disagreeing on things. (j/k)

 

[James Gasik]

I always run into people wanting to use Acrobatics for climbing. Climbing stuff is like half the point of the Athletics skill.

Ever see the weird rope climb in Chronicles of Riddick? They're probably thinking some Cirque du Soleil stunt.

 

[iserith]

I have no issue with Perception as it is written in D&D 5e. In addition to coming up in several adventuring situations in two of the three pillars (if not all of them sometimes), it is probably overvalued in a lot of games because the DM interprets the rules governing Perception in ways that make it stronger than what appears to be intended. That is why a lot of players take it in my view, if they can.

 

[rooneg]

Ever see the weird rope climb in Chronicles of Riddick? They're probably thinking some Cirque du Soleil stunt.

I think it’s more like they’re thinking “I didn’t want to burn a skill proficiency making my Cat Burglar Rogue able to climb worth a damn”.

 

[James Gasik]

It, like Dexterity, is too good to pass up. If you can get it, you always should. If you can't get it, you should look for a way to get it. It is always useful to have more people with good Perception--unlike, say, Athletics or Acrobatics, where only 1-2 people really need it (and the 2 is just so you can avoid the "our one Athletics dude is out of commission!" issue.)

Consider if Initiative were a skill that players could become proficient in. Absolutely all characters would want it. There would never be a character who doesn't want it.

PF2e had the right idea, making it a distinct, derived attribute like Initiative.

I've actually played games with an Initiative skill. Turns out it's not actually a big deal, because it competes with other skills, and it has fairly narrow application, at least from my experience. For example, Fantasy Age and if memory serves, Star Wars Saga use skills for initiative.

 

[tetrasodium]

Nah... DEX is much more useful than Perception, of course (I won't argue that!), but lots of PCs do just fine without Perception proficiency. It doesn't hurt to have it, certainly, but it is hardly vital to all.

This is related to the fact that a lot of skills are basically trash & PCs don't have the budget for trash skills. Perception is almost always going to be useful to some degree. How often have you seen entire campaigns run without ever having someone use medicine/nature/handle animal history or performane? Out of the times those skills even come up in a campaign are they regularly important to any degree? Sure bob might tame a wild animal or use handle animal with a horse but was a possible failure going to have much more impact than "ok.. moving on" or something in even half of those cases?

 

[James Gasik]

I think it’s more like they’re thinking “I didn’t want to burn a skill proficiency making my Cat Burglar Rogue able to climb worth a damn”.

Perhaps. Some games make climbing Dex-based. I know free climbing requires upper body strength, but small animals without much Strength are amazing climbers (squirrels, cats, chipmunks) so...

 

[Smackpixi]

Well, I have a rant on passive perception. Not the question here though, for the regular active perception, yeah, I get it’s different technically than investigation, but I play they’re interchangeable. Wanna check out a place, either works. But I play a real round easy edges shaved off dnd.

 

[James Gasik]

There is a, uh, perception (no pun intended) among players that proficiency in a skill you don't have a strong ability score in is a waste of time. It's not accurate, but I've played under DM's who set fairly high DC's for things, so I could understand a character not wanting to use one of their few skill picks to grab Athletics if they have low Strength.

And while the answer might be "don't have low Strength", you're going to have something low, so what do you choose?

 

[Hriston]

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.