I am way late to the party… I use passive skills like an Armor Class and active skills like an Attack roll. EG: Goblin sneaking up on the party.. goblin rolls stealth against the passive perception Ranger is actively aware and looking for the goblin sneaking up on the party it’s an active perception roll vs the goblins stealth roll Very scenario based but it works for our table
You not using Perception Checks right is dumb. Yes it is a floor because why would your active check ever be below your passive skill? I find a lot of your homebrew to be terrible and you are clearly not a game designer. Do you even play DnD anymore? So why comment about DnD stuff when you clearly don't care for the product? Passive skills are there so you don't have to ask for a bunch of dumb rolls all the time. Passive skills represent a character taking their time to do something that is repeatable and has no consequences for failure immediately. Why can't you make multiple searches in one room. The Search Action is an action that is done within 6 seconds. Which means all your players could keep rolling perception every square until they find your traps. Traps are meant to be foiled, dude. People bump up their perception and take the Observant Feat to be able to spot dangers. You are saying f it to core rules and making up your own crap which I find offensive. The balls on some people who think they are better at someone else's job. I seriously dislike DMs like you that turn my DnD game into sh$t I cant even recognize. Tired of RUclips DM grifting.
I think similar to the last point, passive perceptions/insights etc are there for making a check when the players are unaware a check is being made. If a player doesn't have the presence of mind to actively watch or actively question the validity of something an NPC tells them, that's when passive is used as the act of asking for a check can tip players off that something is wrong.
This is the most succint way I have been able to put it for how I run things in my games. It's there as a general "omnipotent" tool of the nature of the game to help them out. I can't expect my real life players to be as excellent at certain things as their epic heroes would be, so passive checks are there to represent those things. And then, as Coach says, if they actively point something out, or want to specifically try something, then we get bonuses to their checks, or get into rolling.
Full honesty, this strikes me as your adaptation of the rules, not what the rules intended. As JC said in the tweet, the players roll to notice things that their passive didn't already find. By simply walking into a room, you notice things. You do this without looking, without even trying. Just today i walked down stairs and noticed a moth on my ceiling. I wasn't looking for one, but my passive perception noticed it. You are correct in that a passive perception isn't technically a 'floor', because anything noticeable by your passive perception number you should have already seen, you already noticed it. Rather, when characters enter a room, the DM should look at everyone's passive perception (assuming they're using that rule), apply modifiers, and then describe everything that number would reveal. Anything above that number (hidden traps/ambushes/hidden books) you don't describe unless the party goes looking and rolls higher. Don't take my word on this, I quote: In a Sage Advice podcast segment, Jeremy Crawford (Lead Rules Designer for D&D) clarifies this: Passive Perception is always on. It’s impossible to roll an active Perception check that is below your passive score. If you’re rolling, it’s just to see if you can roll higher than your passive score. dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/james-haeck-dd-writing Design your games with your parties in mind. If you have someone with a really high passive perception score, add in less traps and more 'hidden rooms'. Reward the score, but keep the modifiers in mind. "What's that, you have a passive perception of 18 and darkvision? Cool, but your did not use a light, so you count as in dim light, so your perception is at disadvantage and you suffer a -5 passive perception, sorry, you needed a 15 to spot that trap, you trip it." There is no 'passive attack', attack rolls represent a combination of things, not just you swinging a sword. And in terms of the other abilities, IE "Passive athletics." Sure, if time isn't an issue and you can spend as much time as you'd like prying open a gate, go ahead and use it. Say what you will about "Oh maybe you just weren't on point at that moment." That moment is a life or death moment with enemies abound and a wrong step meaning death. You're on point. Your character is a highly trained and skill adventurer in the middle of a dungeon full of monsters, they're not thinking about other things at that moment. They're trying to stay alive.
Was looking forward to seeing the other side of the argument, great points made! I think my biggest hung up is that nobody is ALWAYS perfect, never being distracted of off their game etc.
@@TheDungeonCoach I think we have different definitions of the word 'perfect'. On a D20 perfect is a '20' a passive is a '10' (average-10.5). It's an average, a baseline. This is, on average, what your score is and what you'll notice. Now you can say what you will about "Sometimes you roll below average", and I'd agree. But here's the thing. Looking and hearing aren't something you do once. You don't walk into a room, look around and then shut your eyes. You don't notice what you can hear and then plug your ears. Every second you have your eyes open, every second you're hearing, that's you perceiving. You're doing the task over and over and over and over and over and over again without even realizing it or intending to. So the average is the proper score to use. It's the average of what you see, what you hear, what you feel, and what you smell every single second you're in that room. It's not a question of "perfect", it's simply a question of how trained you are in picking out details. What, on average, does your mind do and notice without even trying? What do your senses notice, on average, REGARDLESS of your mindset or the conditions you're under?
I think the problem is that passive perception is described as doing three separate things, across at least 2 sections of the book. And that is why the survey split. 1. A passive check(generic) CAN represent the average of a task done repeatedly eg looking around a room 2. The gm wants to secretly determine whether the characters succeed a generic task without rolling a die 3. Passive perception is specifically called out as the DC against which to hide The first two as per the text are at DM’s choice and are to improve and smooth gameplay at the table. Only the third one is an actual rule with a specific procedure.
@@davidmc8478 I agree it needs to be rewarded in the dmg. You have to look at outside sources and quotes from JC to determine how it should work. But the information is there and this video is definitely incorrect in that context. But it’s an optional rule, and, as with every rule, is subject to modification by the DM as he so wishes. Just clarify with your players how it’ll work at your table before the game starts.
Fun fact: the Crawford thing people keep referring to is out of context. It's specifically about stealth, the only core rule where passive perception is definitely used, not all perception checks.
There are a few situational penalties to Passive Perception that I think are often overlooked: - Lighting: Dim lighting gives you disadvantage to sight based perception checks, which would be -5 to passive. Torches and the Light cantrip is bright only out to 20 feet and dim beyond that. Characters without darkvision should be getting the penalty unless they are in fairly close proximity to the object in question. - Move Speed: If a character moves more than 40 feet in a turn (including dash option), then they get a straight -5 to penalties. Also, when actively looking for traps while wandering a dungeon, the party must move at a Slow speed unless someone has the Dungeon Delver feat. If a character is being chased through a cave system, they will have a total of -10 to their passive perception to detect ambushes and traps. Also, a high passive perception means they notice quick details, such as a loose floorboard a disturbance in the dust in the wall. I do not let this mean they automatically know its a trap or secret door. It will let them know that they ought to stop and take a closer look, which is always an active check, and depending on the situation, I may have them use perception or investigation. This creates great tension when they know something is off, but fail the follow up investigation checks.
This. Im so tired of all the hate on passive perception. There's other parts to traps than perceiving them. Like figuring out how it works (investigation) or disarming it (thieves' tools) or avoiding it (acrobatics/athletics), etc. DMs who rely solely on perception or whose game falls apart because of a 30 PP is either inexperienced or lazy.
You forget that darkvision gives sight in darkness as if it were dim light, meaning they get -5on passive perception and can't see colors. In case someone brings a light source they can see without malus in the lit area. Beyond the range of the torch they still have -5. So yeah, maybe bring a torch or something👍🏻
For me Passive Perception vs Perception is like See vs Look. You are seeing everything before you, but you are only looking at a portion of what you see.
My favorite use for Passive Scores is as a DC for contested checks, as I don't like the variability of two folk rolling dice against each other. For PCs, this is largely only Perception, because I don't want the players alerted when someone rolls Stealth against them. My favorite example for NPCs is "Passive Deception" being the DC for an Insight check to tell how forthright they are being.
The other really important one, in my opinion, is Insight. Instead of players yelling "INSIGHT" every time an NPC says something, in order to "Insight check" whether they are lying, I just secretly have lying NPCs roll Deception against the players' passive Insight. If the Deception check succeeds, I don't tell you anything. If the Deception check failed, I will tell you that you noticed something or simply roleplay the NPC in way that is flustered and unconvincing.
I feel that the main reason that some DMs/PCs have a problem with passive checks is that they either think of it as a way to be lazy about things that they'd rather not bother with. But my problem with this is that it assumes a degree of overlap between the Player and the Character that just isn't possible. If a character has a high passive perception, it means that the character, even when not actively scanning their surroundings for threats, has a base line of how much they instinctively pay attention to such things.It represents a combination of the character's personality and their experiences/training. If joe schmoe sits down for dinner at a local bar and grill, they may let their guard down while they eat, but the seasoned adventurer, a veteran of the war against the cult of vecna, with ptsd that is sitting there eating at the next table will have his head on a swivel, and expect every shadow to have an enemy. But the player, having already described their character's personality and given the DM their character's passive perception score, shouldn't need to start every single scene with a description of how much paranoia their character has. It should be something that can be assumed, and let them save the description for moments the player knows/feels it should be relevant. And on a similar note, I'm playing a character that has a 20 Cha and is an expert in persuasion, it doesn't change the fact that IRL I'm an introvert with poor conversation skills. I can't count how often my character that should be very persuasive and charming doesn't even get a request for a persuasion check from a DM that wants me to role play EVERY interaction, and effectively make my incredibly persuasive character, completely awkward in conversations meant to convince an NPC to be helpful. But if we worked out what the character's passive persuasion check should be, he'd have a 21 for it. How does this make sense when coupling the stats of the character to the way the character is forced to interact with the world? If I can't get my DM to acknowledge that the character has a charming personality that I the player lack, and actually let me roll for these things in the first place, then how am I supposed to get them to let me use a passive check for it? Don't get me wrong, roll playing shouldn't replace role playing. But if it's a bargaining session to haggle with a shop owner, maybe let the character's scores matter, and not be ignored in favor of my IRL lack of conversational skills.
This video is basically just "I don't like to use passive perception" followed by 15 minutes of reasons why you actually use passive perception for most of what it's actually used for, but without caring about the specific number... The problem exists almost entirely because DMs aren't actually running it right (module mileage will vary). 1. Passive scores in general are primarily the average result for repeated tasks or to roll in secret, like when you run an old-school dungeon crawl and don't want to roll perception checks for every single tile; you only need to worry about travel pace and lighting. Source: PHB, page 175. 2. The only passive skill with regular use in the core rules is stealth vs passive perception for sneaking around. The rest are niche exceptions. Source: Read the book. Confirmed also by CTRL+Fing a digital DMG for the word "passive". 3. **Crawford did not say that passive skills are the floor to your success,** that's taken out of context from a podcast in which he was specifically talking about passive perception against stealth checks. Not all perception checks, and not all skills. 4. Perception is for noticing clues, investigation is for actually understanding them. For most hidden traps, detecting it should be "The dust around this specific tile is absent", not "You found the pressure plate trap". Source: DMG, page 104 (Concealed Doors); DMG, page 238 (INT vs WIS checks). 5. Using passive perception for a trap is an OPTION, not a default rule, as indicated by "you can" language with regards to perception and traps. It is a choice that is up to the DM. If you run fewer but more effective traps, you can just roll for it instead of using the passive. If your dungeon has a 1d4 poison damage dart trap every other tile, just use passive and be done with it. In summary, passive perception should be used for noticing things like the signs of a trap, not the actual trap itself, with clues that do not actually tell you whether it's a trap. "A misshapen rug" could be literally anything. Let your investigators learn more, or let the Barbarian simply spring the trap all by himself, or however they wish to handle the situation. You should only be using passive perception if you would otherwise be making a lot of perception checks from multiple players. If you want to get a bit looser with things, passive perception could simply reveal *less* than the active perception roll, prompting players to try to learn more (or not). It could also simply give the players who spring traps the chance to do something just before it's set off, while those with low perception do not. Those are options that don't spit on the rules or different builds because you failed to run them right. If that's not good enough, because "A high passive clears too many checks too easily since 10+mods is pretty high", then you can start with some homebrew. - Passives start at 8 instead of 10. - Increase reasonable DCs against PASSIVE perception only (like it is in the Lost Mines of Phandelver, with DC15 vs passive, and DC10 vs active, to find secret doors). Whatever you do, don't set out to nerf the skill monkey playstyle and waste the time of players who are simply building characters in a way you don't like. Killing the reliability of skill-focused builds because you "Don't like reliable talent, rolling dice is fun" is how you either end up training your players to be DPR combat min-maxers or you make them all play casters who have more reliable spells.
It might just be how I see it but I feel like the name passive perception tells you when to and when not to use it. example: If you walk into a room and are trying to see if there are any traps or anyone hiding, you aren't being passive but active. If you're already in the room and someone tries to sneak up behind you, you aren't actively looking for someone then your perception is passive. This is generally how I use passive skills. Occasionally I alter how I use it for narrative or mood settings reasons.
It's a way for the DMs to determine a DC that their own NPCs have to beat when interacting with a player. -Enemy rogue hides (Stealth) in combat. He has to beat your passive Perception to do so. You MAY use your Action to 'actively' find them. -Evil cultist is trying to pass-off (Deception) as a normal street merchant. He has to beat your passive Insight to do so. -Silly prankster tries to scare (Intimidation) your horse and cause you to fall off. He has to beat your passive Animal Handling to do so.
Player: Its dumb that I have to roll this check, I've done this a million times! I shouldn't have a chance to fail by now! DM: Have you ever choked on your own spit? Player: Player: Player: fair
I use the 3 Clue Rule (from The Alexandrian) in my games, in addition to a node system of plot points. I use passive skill checks to ensure that at least 1 clue is always found at each node. I may ask for a roll, but that is only to determine how long it takes (which could have consequences), if they are noticed during the check (do they raise suspicion) and consequences (Do they have to ask for a favor or earn the ire of someone powerful). That way passives have a place at the table when it comes to plot points but they also get to roll. I also use them as passive DC checks for NPC's or Challenges that may hurt or hinder the players. I find players actually enjoy it when I can point and say "With a History roll of 2 (total of 9), your time spent in the Dwarf library is challenging. The noises of festivals outside, along with a suspicious librarian following you everywhere hinders the speed of your research. It takes 4 days to assemble an accurate translation of the Poem of Light, giving you a better understanding of where to go next. Sadly this has given Atriex the Black a head start on the search but now at least you also know where to go." Here the player's passive history score guaranteed they would get a clue even with a low roll. Thus their investment feels important but they also get to roll their dice and feel engaged. This would be the point where the player could ask "Anyway to speed this up?" and we could discuss an option to sneak in at night, possibly gaining the ire of the Dwarf Librarian and offending their Dwarven sponsor. Risk vs reward and the chance for a skill check for the player or the group and a potential new complication/enemy to be made.
The way I do passive perception is that it acts like a spider sense. The player gets a sense that something is wrong. You then roll to figure out exactly what it is. It helps you build suspense as a DM. (Edit) Example below 👇
@@TheDungeonCoach I liked the way you explained it with traps. An example from in game about how you can use it to build tension is, when a monster is sneaking up on them. My players were in the forest fighting as shadow demon that I gave the ability to shadow stride. I would roll stealth for the demon and if it was below this players passive perception I would say that he got an ominous sense that he was being watched or that he heard a twig snap or rustling leaves. If he failed his perception check against the demon's stealth I would say that he saw something out of the corner of his eye but when he looked there was nothing there. Then the demon got to attack with advantage. If he passed the perception check he would see the demon and could choose to alert the party or attack etc.
@@RobearRich This is M'uaah *chef's kiss I'm definitely doing PP and PI like this forever and ever from now on, you can feel the suspense just from reading it!
“Passive perception is on whenever you’re conscious and aware.” “It’s always on-that’s the baseline. Now, this brings up questions because then people were saying, ‘how it is when I make an active perception check I might get a roll that’s lower?’ Well, you aren’t. Yes, that roll is lower, but remember your passive perception is always on. So it really represents the floor of your perception.” “If you make an active perception check, and get a number that’s lower than your passive perception, all that means is that you did a lousy job of this particular active search, but your passive perception is still active. You’re still going to notice something that blips onto your passive perception radar. Really, when you make that roll, you’re rolling to see, ‘can I get a higher number?’ If you fail to, your passive perception is still active. It is effectively creating that minimum.” - D&D Lead Rules Designer Jeremy Crawford, D&D Podcast 4/27/2017 @ 22:14
I use passive perception for counter stealth checks if not actively looking and to just notice things in plain sight. Otherwise I use rolls for everything else. Even for noticing traps, I have them roll to make it interesting, plus it allows for the abilities that make you take a 10 instead of a low roll to have more impact.
Whenever I use Passive perception. If you are over I'll tell you something vague that is happening. You think someone may be in the room. Or in the case of slieght of hands, you think someone may have taken something off you. You may notice something but you're not 100 percent clear what you noticed. So if someone stole something off of you. You notice someone did something, but you may not know who, or what. Something's off about this room, you think you saw something out of place in the room. Then the Pc may roll to actually know exactly what it is. It's a pressure trap not just a loose brick that seems out of place.
I like to treat passive scores in a similar manner to DCs. Part of this is having the score set at 8+skill modifier instead of 10+skill modifier. It also means that npcs have to try and beat it. You can't have a passive score vs a passive score.
As a new player, attempting to DM with a bunch of other new players, going through the rules, this one did confuse me, for all the reasons you highlighted, hence why I stumbled on your video looking for an explanation. thanks
IMO, there should be more mechanical weight to building passive abilities. if you have 20+ passive perception you should just get blind sight. 20+ insight? maybe passive detect thoughts or detect evil and good. 20+ passive investigation? passive locate objects or find traps.
As a Legacy Player with 30+ years and over 800+ D&D modules; yes you are correct! the average 5E player has less than 100 hours of experience and a 5E level 20 character is only level 8 or 9 in past versions of the game. Passive Perception is made for DM who have less than 100 hours of gameplay experience.
I like the idea of using passive checks to avoid total failures after you roll if it's contested by an appropriate check. The idea of failing an insight check outright feels kinda bad, especially when you have a good passive insight. So the idea that you still get SOMETHING, vague or otherwise, is a good incentive to push things further the way your character would. I feel like this should just be standard.
I think the purpose of the dice is to create tension, and drama and introduce a level of randomness to symbolize the fact that not everything is in your control. I think passive skills should be "how good would you be in a low tension environment". The rogue with expertise on the tightrope wasn't suddenly inept if they rolled super low, they just got UNLUCKY and a gust of wind blew right as they were in the middle. Eg. A Paladin with proficiency in Athletics might be able to climb that exact same wall if it was in the gym, but while it's dark and rainy and they're trying to be super quick maybe not. The rogue might be able to slink along the rooftops unnoticed just fine on a normal day, but maybe not if they just committed a crime and are fleeing. The cleric might know all about their religion and how to stop a fiend normally, but in the heat of battle, in a couple seconds, with adrenaline pumping and fireballs being lobbed around maybe not.
I didn't know how to use passive perception correctly until I ran Mines of Phandelver. Between that campaign were I regularly used psasive and my previous campain where I used active, I noticed that rangers and druids seem to generally have the highest passive perception. Which is great for those classes and makes a lot of sense. Using passive you can regularly have your Ranger notice things and it makes them feel special especially given how weak the class was designed.
nat 1 perception check : you looked around you and you have noticed that the sun looks bright, you adored looking at it and thinking of it's beauty you notice that their is some smoke coming out of your eyes, you see nothing else ... for a while
in my early days of dnd, i had a player roll without my asking for a roll, i asked "what are you rolling for?" deer in headlights. "nat one perception." "looking for?" "a branch." they were in the woods, so he did go blind to trees and branches for the session.
I like Passive scores. I use them as what the characters can do in a neutral sub-conscious state. No Pressure. No opposition. Just things their body pulls off automatically. Active skills and rolls are when you have to put thought, knowledge, and intent into the Skill. Using real life situations. I am Passively Sneaky and many times I simply walk into a room and then scare my family or friends as they finally notice me. My passive stealth was higher than their passive perception. But if they weren't relaxed and was constantly thinking about perception, like being on guard duty, then my passive stealth is negated and I would have to actively be sneaky, thinking about line of sight and noise, to still sneak pass them. Similar for passive insight. Say you go to the market place and asking about a ware there. The merchant tells a marked up price using a his passive deception as he off handedly says 'handmade' be they go to another customer. Your passive insight beats the deception and you get a mental bell that the price or 'handmade' wasn't 100% sincere. Weather to investigate deeper for any reason would incur Active rolls.
Too much rolling. If the character is not the actor(not actively attempting to perceive something) and don't have a feat that breaks this rule, then they don't roll perception. If something is sneaking up on them, that entity rolls stealth and you compare to passive perception. If someone is making noise down the hall, you roll their check and compare to passive perception. The DM should never, ever, call for a perception ROLL to indicate that the character might "passively" notice something. Seems kind of obvious when you read the words huh?
Cyberpunk asks players at the beginning of a game session to roll "passive skills" at the adventure start, and give them to the game master. When the game master needs to test against a player's skill, he can instead roll on a matrix of all the player's pre-rolls to determine which to use, and never ask the players to tip them off their character just made a check.
When it comes to passive perception, or passive any skill, I usually take into consideration the character as a whole to determine if this is something they would perceive. Perception can't be a blanket "I perceive ALL THE THINGS!". For instance, if the players are exploring a dungeon and they come across an little alcove with some mundane objects in it, then more than likely the cleric or character with religious proficiency would notice they were antique tools used in the rituals of an old god of humans before the current town's inhabitants occupied the region. The thief in group would probably not know that (assuming they never described their character as studying or having come from a religious background) even though the rogue has the highest perception. Also, I do adjusted DC checks. If actually examining the alcove, the rogue might have a DC 25 or 28 to recognize something about those tools while the priest's DC would be a 12 or 15 to know what they are due to their background and education in the clergy.
I pondered about this topic for some time and decided, that passive skills are often times "by chance". Like, passive investigation is, for example, you read something, and "by chance" something, maybe a phrase or a certain way of how words are used, triggers you as something of interest, leading to finding another book that provides information on a topic, but the book itself wouldn't usually be considered in that topic. Maybe it's a Situation like in BBCs Sherlock Holmes "You said it was a hound. Not a Dog, but a _Hound_ ." Or passive perception, while looking around a room underground "you notice an air flow", which could lead them to a hidden door, but they still have to actually look for it.
Nat 1 does nothing special on skill checks. The rogue has a passive perception of 32. Realistically, when is the DC going to be higher than them rolling a 1?
Is an involuntary skill that alerts you to a change in the environment (within you base speed range). You can use it to smell a fire or dead body, or hear a twig crack or a door squeek, or feel a tremor in the floor as the statue comes to life, or you taste a poison you just ingested.
Two of my players will tell me at the end of an event, "I would have noticed that anyway with my passive perception." I just tell them to have fun with that and continue to ignore it. Truth is, I forget it even exists half the time.
Hey Coach. I don't normally comment on your videos because I like and enjoy most of them but I think this one was really well done and I liked it a lot. I look forward to more videos of this caliber and I hope you will do that natural one natural 20 video in the same way you did this one. Thanks for a great watch!
Someone trailing the group sounds like the shadowing party rolls stealth and attempts to get over the PC's passive perception. I don't like the idea of 3 armor clad horsemen just rolling up on the group and the only reason I don't know is I didn't ask for a perception ck every 3 minutes. You could always word the success different, like you notice that birds are being displaced from behind you, or you see glints off the moonlight from a vague direction. If you get clever you can wrap it into the overall narration of what the scene looks like so they think you're just laying out the scene. "I thought you were just explaining what the surrounding looked like". "I certainly was, I just threw in a major hint you pasted up"
Haven't finished the vid, so idk if you mention it, but dim light causes disadvantage on perception. So that's a -5 to the passive. Even with darkvision, complete darkness is treated as dim light, so the passive is reduced.
I try to use passive perception to prompt players to make a check if they so choose. "You enter the crowded tavern to the din of uproarious laughter, the impassioned regaling of fables and tales, and clanking of glasses and silverware. Amongst the conversations Bob, with his keen elven hearing, hears what sounds like a familiar voice (Bob then rolls perception and gets a 5 even though his passive is 13). But upon trying to pinpoint the origin of the voice, he loses the conversation amongst the chaotic noise, or perhaps he was mistaken altogether." And I also think that based on a character's actions, the DC for using their passive perception can vary, "as the party enters the abandoned laboratory, Steve sees beneath the thick veneer of cobwebs and dust what appears to be a control console that most everyone else had passed over". As Steve focuses on the levers and dials, curiously twisting and switching them, the DC for him to notice the ceiling grate sliding open using his passive perception is now higher than it is for the rest of the party, who are continuing to investigate the layout of the room itself. I'm sure we've all encountered situations in real life where, for example, we notice a spot on the ceiling, but upon staring at it can't quite tell if it's a bug or not, and as we get up onto the chair and really focus on it and realize there's also some water damage in the corner that we hadn't seen before, we're not as tuned into the sound of the cat hacking up a hairball in the other room; but our girlfriend just leaped into action to stop the cat because all she was doing was drying her hands on a towel, which didn't really shift how she was focussing on her surroundings.
I think a wide range random flat probability generator where the result of a roll is often more important than how trained someone is at something, especially when it comes up all-or-nothing checks and it's been a problem since original dnd, basically I don't like d20s
on a side note: I get to think the d20 is supposed to be used as a global narrative device instead of a defining factor is an action is completed or not. I think it's quite hard to explain, but if you realize that in the beginning only the gamemaster rolled dice, then one can understand that the dice is only a tool for the GM to describe what happens after the player decided on an action. Nowadays the game is much more focused on the players for that to not become a completely frustrating experience at its core... Argh, I think I still botched my explanation, but there it is.
@@nairocamilo yeah, I think I know what you mean. I often try to play bad rolls off as some external factor getting in the way, but sometimes it's hard to narrate how someone very trained in something fails, but then noob succeeds.
@@nairocamilo I've been playing rpgs since Morvold basic set in 5th grade, and I've a lot of different systems, and I think all of them have different issues. With dnd, maybe using 2d10 for "d20" rolls helps average out the dice and make a bit of a bell curve but that introduces other problems where stacking bonuses can start to get out of hand.
When I run my games: When the party enters a room I’ll probably ask for a perception check. I note their perception rolls and let the players know what they see/hear/smell/feel according to their rolls. I’ll then turn to my “passive perception 20 at level 1” player and let them know the details other players who didn’t roll high enough did not perceive. This includes non-magical traps and ambushes. Also remember, just because they see something doesn’t mean they know what it is.
The direct quote from the book is: "Passive perception is a character's ability to notice what's happening around them without actively examining their surroundings." It doesnt say you find secrets, traps or find hidden things. It specifically states that you notice what is happening. Secrets and traps dont happen, they exist in their state and a trap springs then the saving throws to avoid them HAPPEN. A secret entrance simply exists, if found opening the door is what HAPPENS, if a stealthing or invisible individual is sneaking about that is whats HAPPENING. Its pretty cut and dry and as with most things in the DMG and PHB is worded fairly specifically.
Passive Perception is crucial to the Rogue's "Cunning Action: Hide" ability in combat, and rolling is only valid (IMHO) if a creature uses its action to search for the Rogue. Otherwise, its PP vs Stealth.
That goblin has passive attack roll of NAT 20 for stabbing that character. But I agree with combining the passive numbers with the character information. A archetype ranger with 19 passive perception may notice that a tree is recently scarred high up, an interesting plant, or a wounded animal. But an archetype thief with 19 passive perception might notice someone in the shadows of a town, someone trying to blend into the crowd, or someone with a heavy purse. Different people pay attention to different things even if they’re the same level of perceptive. And things are adjusted by the character themselves. Someone with 20 passive insight might notice that a servant is afraid of their lord enough to warrant a roll. But a passive insight 10 character might notice the same thing if they experienced the same trauma.
I use passive perception, but it does not replace active perception rolls I need my players to make. I had a player roll when I asked for a perception check and then say "I rolled a 12, but my floor is 16." My partner who was in the game as a player said, "Oh, he doesn't use passive perception as a floor." Then I heard the other player say, "Oh, so you ignore rules as written, I see," I then said, "No, it doesn't say that as a rule." He then quoted Jeremy Crawford and I reminded him that is Rules as Intended, not rules as written. Also, the part where Jeremy never said it was an actual floor. The best way I can explain passive vs. active perception is seeing the forest for the trees. If you are actively looking for something, your passive will miss it because you have switched your focus.
The way I use it is if I have a skill check in my DM notes, and your passive score for that checks exceeds the DC, all that happens is I tell you there is a check you can make here, and your character is pretty confident about being able to succeed at it. That's all. No auto successes. But there's a LOT of reasons why I run passives this exact way: -It does not step on the Rogue's reliable talent. I've got a rogue in all of the campaigns I've DMed that have reached level 10, and they felt AWESOME when they got reliable talent, because it was such a significant boost to their exploration skills. I would never want to take that away from them. -It doesn't take the fun of rolling out of the game. If I have a check in my notes, you better believe it's going to be a check where if you fail, there will be consequences. So even if I tell the player there is a check to be made, it is still up to them whether or not they want to risk it, while knowing that choosing not to risk it is going to have consequences too. -Players can still ask for checks themselves. If I don't ask for a check, they don't know if it's because I didn't have it in my notes, or because I set the DC so high that it's above their passives. So they know that if they stop asking for checks, they'll miss some secrets that could have helped them. And as it turns out, as a DM, I WANT my players to be asking for checks. Them taking initiatives means they are taking ownership of the story, and that is exactly what I want to happen. So a system that encourages players to ask for checks means a good system, to me. And that works for every skill: -Athletics: "oh yeah you can totally lift that bro, easy. Probably." -Stealth: "those guards seem a bit drowsy, you're pretty sure you could sneak past them" -History: "this reminds you of something, it's on the tip of your tongue" -Insight: "this guy's giving you a weird vibe, maybe he's not being totally forthright" -Persuasion: "you think this guard is gullible enough that you could probably convince him to let you go" etc....
I really like this, even though I think the problem (including Coach's video) mostly comes from people not running passive skills *well,* and it's pretty reasonably within the perview of "passive skills are up to the DM".
The only time passive perception comes up in my game is when I need to determine which player is surprised in an ambush, or if a creature/npc is trying to sneak past or pick their pockets, etc. Ultimately, it's there to give the creature/npc something to roll their stealth against if the PCs are not looking for danger. We all know you can't just randomly ask player for a perception check, because now they know that something is up. That being said, you can subtract 5 or 10 (passive disadvantage) from the players passive perception if the player is distracted in some way. With a really clever npc, I'll have them create a diversion and then attempt the stealth check.
My only complaint with lowering the DC for players that specifically say something they are actively looking for (in your example saying that a player wanted to look behind to see if anyone was following or not) is that it may or may not align with the character's attributes. Often times DM's use charisma based skills for this reasoning. I myself DM'd a group where a player was VERY charismatic (sometimes I was tempted to not even have him roll) but the problem was he always talked before he rolled. I always tell my players to roll the check before you speak, so that what you say matches the result. I dislike when players talk and give a 100% failsafe compromise with eloquent speech, and then they roll a 1. Like, how do you back that up! Because, this same player, had a character with a 10 charisma score (not the lowest in the group but definitely not the best), there was a disconnect caused when the players wrongly role play there character's stats. For instance, again, I had a puzzle that took a long time for the players to think about it and ironically the player with the Intelligence and Wisdom dump stat figured it out! I realize the latter example is hard to pull off without sort of "meta-gaming" (if this fall in that category) but I think with perception it should be the same as the other example. If a player is active in the game and calling out detailed perception checks, AWESOME! But let's see if your character is too! What if the player with the smarted perception (in real life, maybe not perception but overall intelligence) had a character with the worst perception. There can be a fine line but I feel like automatically rewarding a PLAYER and not a CHARACTER (using caps only to emphasis and not be argumentative) by lowering the DC or straight up not having them roll isn't the answer. I don't know, I've always struggled with the idea of Player vs. Character Attributes. What do you guys think?
"Roll before you roleplay" sounds awkward in that it may force you to have a weird disconnect where the player must announce what they are mechanically attempting to do before they then engage with the narrative. "I would like to Charisma (Persuasion) the guard to let me through" followed by the 17, followed by the still awkward RP from the unclever introvert who said "Nice hat". Functionally, it mostly works as a solution, but it sounds wrong in practice. I'm okay with a little reality bending around the roll. Maybe the guard goes "Whoa, thanks, I buffed and shined it myself! You're a swell guy!" and lets you through. Maybe that really ironclad "I have a letter penned from the king himself to let me through" followed by the rolled 3 makes the guard look like the dumbest baffoon when he goes "What's a king?". There are other options, of course, for how to contextualize the roll. Maybe just some suspicion, maybe some "Let me get the captain to be sure", and so on.
While watching, a really good solution struck me. Instead of treating passive perception as a skill floor, treat it as a skill cap! A very observant person has a high passive perception which means they should have a *chance* at noticing something difficult to see, but they might still roll low and not see it because they aren't looking for it. However, a not very observant person might not even have a chance to notice something. For example, a creature is stealthing by and rolled a 13 for stealth. The party members weren't alert or watching for danger, so the all roll perception. A ranger with a passive perception of 17 rolled an 11 total, so he didn't see it. A different character with a passive perception of 12 rolled an 18, but he wasn't looking and typically isn't very observant, so it doesn't make sense he would notice it. Instead he is considered to have a roll of 12, his passive perception being the maximum he can roll while not alert.
Hey DC, great video, just wanted to ask how you use reliable talent in your games as, pretty similarly, me and my group don't enjoy the skill floor nature of it. I was wondering if you had an alternate feature or version of it you could share as some inspiration? Thanks!
The way I've viewed passive perception is a bubble of your senses around you that trigger when you aren't actively focused on it. But once you call out that you are searching, a low roll would be you hyper focusing on certain areas to the point that you miss the detail. What could have been you noticing a stalker through passive, becomes you passively being aware something is off, but you got too focused to actually pinpoint the issue. The same would apply to other passive skills. Passive dex lets the monk cross the narrow ledge in their sleep, but if they ask to make a check, they could roll low and over-analyze or get too psyched out that they slip. But due to their passive dex, they could push back reflexively and end up back with the party on solid ground instead of falling like a less dexterous character would in that situation. Basically a redo for something they should not have feasibly failed at.
I'm new to DMing so I'm trying to figure out how I want to use it. Right now I'm using PP to give the character s little more information. Something like, "You notice some marks on the wall/floor." Then if they say they want to investigate those marks, I'll check their Passive Investigation. If it's not high enough (which it usually isn't), I'll ask for a roll. The idea being that one may perceive indications of a trap but investigation is the skill that let's them figure out what it actually is.
In both my campaigns that I am in Passive Perception is used like "eyes in the back of your head", its what you notice out of the corner of your eye, while you might be doing something else.. A RL example would be taking your kids to the playground and having a conversation, but you notice your kid acting odd, so then you turn your focus (roll) and if you might figure out they are starting to put something they should not in their mouth, or you might need to start to head over, or call to them etc.. .. As a player I feel that its balanced for both.. I might notice something but I then need to role if I can figure it out ... Works for both my home games..
How I use passive perception: it is their general awareness of whats happening around them, but only general. If they want specifics, they need to make an active roll. Moving through an alleyway and someone is sneaking in the shadows, but they roll below the passive perception, I'd say "You notice someone in the alley ahead. They're trying to hide, using the alley's trash for cover." "Who is it?" "Roll perception to get more details". *Success* "Given the way they move and their silhoette, you think its Lady Jorasa. The way her hand is positioned, you're certain she is carrying a blade". *Fail* "Too dark to see and they're using their cover too well to get much detail. All you can tell is that they're humanoid and watching you".
(7:55) - 32 Passive : Instead of always going to 'that' guy, you could use whatever the DC is and the player with the next highest Passive is the one to notice. This way other members whom have a high DC (16+...) can get the 'nod' of discovering things. And when those times of something truly 'obscure' or 'hidden' and a DC of 20/25+ is needed then 'that' guy gets to show off his exceptional perception
Has anyone here playtested with multiple actions per turn homebrews? I stole from Library of Ruina the idea of multiple actions per turn being represented by multiple initiative dice on a character and it's honestly a bit more fun than i first thought. Had to change the way the combat works a lot tho.
That would completely change the balance of combat and make me nervous but if the group wants to play a campaign (or one shot) with that I would love to try that out lol... its basically 2 turns in 1
@@TheDungeonCoach oh did I tell you that some enemies can boost their highest initiative die to infinite value and thus have an uninterruptable attack at the start of the round? Regarding the combat, I pretty much made a fusion of dnd and Library of ruina, and I accidentally made normal attacks too swingy (either they're bad or they're broken). Context: both enemies and players can use special combat cards which has multiple offensive and defensive dice on them (at a cost of course) and these are abused really hard by my players.
I did this because I made the mistake of trying to adapt this fight into dnd and now I'm sticking to my guns damnit. ruclips.net/video/hbDNbq8dkeA/видео.html That was a lot of time spent balancing E.G.O pages...
this is usually handled by most active perception DCS being 5 or more points lower than passive Perception DCS. because actively looking is easier than passively looking
I think the big thing with passive scores is people end up treating them like their baseline. Like, say a character has a 20 passive perception. They might expect to never need to roll for any perception DC 20 or under. I tend to treat all passive scores as 'casual' scores. If you're not going out of your way to accomplish a task, that's the number that's applied. Spotting your keys on the dresser? That's passive. Looking to the dresser to find your keys because you need them? Active. Not seeing them and looking somewhere else around the room for your keys? That becomes an investigation roll.
Becomes a very 'gamy' distinction. Huh, my ranger with the observant feat is on watch, if I say I'm looking for enemies I'll get a perception roll of 1d20 + 8. But if I say I'm staring up at the stars and relying on my passive perception, my roll will be an automatic 23. "DM, my lazy ranger is going to stare up at the stars and map out the constellations as they rely on his passive perception to spot things."
@@MJ-jd7rs I mean, if your Ranger is being lazy, then I don’t think his passive should apply. There’s a difference between casual and not paying attention. Perception is a combination of most of the five senses, so if your Ranger is focused on the sky, he’s not actually looking at anything that could help him. And that is kind of the problem with 5e combining Spot and Listen from older editions.
@@MagusAgrippa8 ehh, then "My ranger will do whatever he neesd to do so it doesn't require an 'active' check and I can rely on my passive." Or just say you're not going to use passive while telling people not to take the observant feat, or use the rule as intended (which is not what this video does).
@@MJ-jd7rs By that point, I would call that metagaming. That’s no different than reading ahead in a module to get easy answers. Either way, it would probably result in the Ranger being forced to roll active checks regardless since he’d rather argue with the dm than pay attention during watch.
My approach to this is that there is no easy way to use Passive Scores other than a complete rewrite of the rules anchored on mechanics we already have in 5e. Using Passive Scores 1. Quick Draw Technique One DM decide if the player’s role-playing modifies the roll, two is character class capable of doing the task, three decide narratively keeping in mind the pace and agency surrounding such die roll, determine if a roll is even required, four if so when the passive perception is higher than the target DC give the character advantage on the die roll(s). DM roll behind the screen. *actively the player rolls the d20. 2. Detailed Technique As characters explore searching and approaching different types of encounters, instead of asking for an ability check and comparing it to the target encounter DC. Instead DM roll 1d20 behind the screen with modifiers for the encounter compare the result to the character(s) passive ability score (the DM has for each character behind the DM screen). The formula to calculate the modifier on the DM's d20 roll is familiar to determining a passive ability score, take the encounter DC? -10. At the DM's discretion keep track if characters have been descriptively searching, moving slowly or if the encounter is within the character classes wheelhouse, in this case DM roll 2d20 use the lower of the two results giving the trap or secret door disadvantage to remain unnoticed. Also at the DM's discretion if the group is not searching descriptively, being chased or under time constraints, DM roll 2d20 and use the higher of the two results giving advantage to the encounter. For example, if text indicates noticing a trap requires a successful DC14 Wisdom (Perception) check, find the modifier to the roll -10 DC14, DM roll 1d20+4 and compare the result to the passive Perception of characters who are in danger of triggering the trap (lower is better in this case). 3. Advanced DM Technique When characters are actively searching for traps or secrets, trying to open a lock, or making any other Ability check is for the DM to roll a d20 when the players do. Players should know you’re doing this, but they shouldn’t see the result of the roll. Explain to them are many cases in which a character has advantage or disadvantage on the check without knowing it. The d20 the DM rolled could be helping the PCs attempt or hurting it or it could be the DM rolling a die just to keep them guessing. Great video Coach, I'm excited for the release of your book in the coming months! 😀
As for other passive scores, I do use them based on the character's background. So, in a group, I have a ranger who was a bounty hunter. So, I use passive survival tracking when tracking humanoids. He's done it for so long, that he has become skilled at it. I have one who is a rogue with a criminal background specializing in pickpocketing, so when pickpocketing normal folks with little to no distraction, I use his passive.
Surprised to not mention that it makes a great DC for hidden enemies. If you walk into a room and the enemy is hiding, they can make a stealth check against the characters, passive perception, and anybody he beats a surprise during the first round you could potentially beat everybody and surprise everybody or he could be beaten by everybody and lose to everybody in the surprise round
Passive Perception is a Dungeon Master tool that is optional. But Jeremy Crawford and the Design team have sent confusing messages to the community on it. The rules have hard baked elements of P P and frankly the Observate feat would be better not to exist.
I think the problem with PP is that it shouldn’t have a plus 10 it should be a rule built into that perception skill that a players points in perception are their PP if I’ve boosted it to 32 it’s now 22 I notice anything below that the dice which symbolize me attempting to find or see something should always add to ,never become irrelevant.
So one idea with passive checks like passive perception has to do with Activity While Traveling as described in the PHB on page 182 and 183 where it talks about things like marching order where maybe the ranger is in the back so they know when they are being follow or like people in front might notice a trap or ambush. With feats like Dungeon Delver the player could be on lookout for hidden creatures like most people are or hidden objects like a trap or door but the trigger they don't know, that is when they need to investigate. Players could be foraging for food or tracking something with survival, the wizard or cleric l could be in the middle of a ritual for detect magic or making some holy water and when not focusing on those things the score isn't applied, like the wizard is too busy ritual casting because it is long and short rests that have to do with gaining hit dice or preparing spells and getting them ready. The bard could be playing a song as they ritually cast leomund's tiny hut, the party finding a place close to a river for fresh water and some plants they could forage, maybe the druid is looking for an oak tree and rolls Nature check or could use a passive nature to know where best it would be found so they could get mistletoe for Goodberry or a separate bag for special mistletoe harvested with a golden sickle under the light of a full moon as described in the consumed spell components for XGtE 6th level spell Druidic Grove which is a reference to an actual real world druidic practice Ritual of Oak and Mistletoe so when this Druid is looking for like a oak tree, or holly or ash or something they are also trying to find the trees mistletoe is found on for Goodberry and all the while the Bard is playing their song, maybe giving bonus action inspiration. Could the druid during the 10 minutes the bard is ritually casting Leomund's Tiny Hut add the bardic Inspiration to a passive roll? Imagine giving that to the rogue with the Observant feat at level 6 and +2 wisdom and with expertise in perception checks. Like before they already had 23 passive perception but then they roll say a 4 and they got 27. Imagine before taking a rest and setting up watch the bard going up to the Paladin who is first watch and giving them an inspiration and it only lasts 10 minutes yes but I would still let the Paladin use that inspiration for the passive perception to keep an eye out for an enemy or they want to set up some traps because they know earlier they are being followed or something let's say and gotten it figured out so while you got the paladin awake and on watch the rogue or artificer are making this tool check to build these traps with the inspiration and instead of the DM asking for separate rolls for every trap the rogue makes they just take 10+ proficiency if tool or background make them good with making traps like theive's tools lets you disarm a trap so reverse reverse engineer that the knowledge of this rogue or artificer say they are making the trap and a trap that is harder to spot they add their wisdom, a trap harder to disarm without triggering adds their intelligence, it's like cutting the wire if you fail and cut the wrong one the bomb goes off or in this case the trap activates. Now you roll that bardic Inspiration and we'll say it's the artificer with a +5 intelligence and tool expertise so the base is DC 21. You add that d8 bardic Inspiration it could be as high as DC 29. Now the artificer is busy so they don't notice the goblin, no passive perception score is added but the paladin on watch they do and after surprise does the artificer help the paladin and maybe only make one trap have that high DC or risk and reward deciding to continue activity where action they can take for the next minute or 10 rounds is help or dodge. How much do they trust the paladin to take care of things? But anyway when finished it's the next morning and here is this group or bugbears that been following them and all caught up and maybe some of the goblinoid notice the trap maybe others don't and those ones go off but even if they don't and a hobgoblin can clearly see the trap they have some goblins try to disarm but they fail and end up taking damage and dying so decide to just go around but basically what players did was create a door way, so each of these goblinoids are walking single file to the the other side, here's the Wizard casting a straight like of grease or the barbarian or swashbuckler pushing back over enemies making this pile of goblin or sneak attacking raukish audacity to make the goblin pile instead. Maybe for something like passive insight the player says what they are listening for as the group is talking to the NPCs with social check or whatever else, the wizard is say looking for great powerful wizard, Elkazarum who it is rumored is the only person with a remaining scroll for the 8th level XGtE spell Illusory Dragon. So the party wizard, they want that spell and they know that only Elkazarum has access to it but he might not out himself because others could want the spell too so wizard as he is talking to these mundane NPCs maybe while the Bard is performing in the tavern in walks this tanner/leatherworker just coming in after a long days work and while maybe the ranger is trying to find a way to give his pet wolf leather barding the DM looks to the Wizard and says this man, you get this feeling he is more than just a tanner and then the wizard considers how will he confront this information. Maybe play things safe and gain trust, the party is helping this guy with making leather (which by the way I heard before the process stinks, and maybe first protecting beasts from attacks like wolves or bandits to going into the forest to find elk or something to even exotic creatures and monstrosity like Displacer Beasts for Cloak of Displacement and then maybe in private the wizard reveals that he had known he was Elkazarum ever since those last days ago back in the tavern but wanted to see him as more than just a powerful caster but also as a partner or friend. Don't know how DM rules that or if roll is made but with that bond of trust Elkazarum might give one last request for the wizard in exchange for this scroll, that plot thread or hook the DM sets up. They go do things for Elkazarum but cannot say why to the party. What if it's to go this other town to cast raise dead, uh oh was Elkazarum evil? You got this moral quandary or you go into this dungeon where some fey and fiends are fighting over powerful treasure inside and you need to fight the hag coven leading the fey but bring no harm or as little as you can to the fiends. The paladin entering in wants to get rid of the fiends but wizard is like "you can't, not right now" and the paladin trying to find out why isn't told and just has to trust the wizard but when does all this just for the scroll? I mean what does it those actions say? Then passive investigation I imagine the PC touching and moving stuff around. Maybe they see something off like feeling the light breeze or seeing the object never casts a shadow and it calls for an active roll to discern what is happening. Investigation in the PHB on page 178 describes it as looking around for clues and making deductions based on those clues. Deductive reasoning, if all men from Caldaria braid their beards and the half-orc bartender your talking to way over in this city on the other side of the map has a braided beard, then the player would reduce he is Calderian and might inquire how to get there like a ship or caravan. But maybe that feels off like investigation should be for objects or locations not creatures. So hear the PC is looking at say this hairbrush and it looks really fancy but holds small compartment for a dart and earlier the Ambassadors life was threatened by a poisoned dart that almost sparked these two kingdoms into a war and you connected the dots that the owner of the comb must be close to the assassin who tried to take down the ambassador. So many ideas with it, but yeah just a flat floor or never not seeing anything below a 15 or something is boring, the Ranger with dungeon delver in their favored terrain could still have there perception for spotting the enemies while they look for traps but instead of just "tells everyone about the traps" they have to decide if they want to try making those checks to see if they spot them or not and maybe risk getting surprised. DM rolls if hostile creatures are near and then might roll their stealth sneaking up on the bard who is trying to looked down the left hallway for that trap the ranger said she saw and maybe the bard doe see it too or maybe is confused. But anyway he gets surprised. Tons of way it could be played, if rogue has profiency or expertise in stealth is it like they know how to think and get into the brain of stealth? I mean the Swashbuckler is already adding their charisma to their initiative so maybe the DM describes to the rogue as they walk through the busy streets, the menagerie of crowds, merchant stands, a parade float with the effigy of a Gold Dragon you're mind thinks of all the perfect places and opportunities to disappear, add your dexterity score to your passive perception. But anyway just a lot of ideas and ways to approach it.
I wonder if after a particularly tough battle or maybe just at the beginning of a play session, the DM has all players roll a %. 90% of the time, you're "on the ball" and Passive Perception stays as-is. But 10% of the time, you're character is just out of sorts and will be rolling Perception Checks, at least for some set length of time - or maybe after a future Long Rest, etc. It could be 90/10, or 80/20, whatever fits the scenario the DM has in mind. That would account for a normally excellent Passive Perception being sub-par once in a while.
I always make people roll separate perceptions, because who knows may be very important. If you play in a game where everyone is a trusting group yeah sure whatever. One person knowing something doesn't equate everyone in the group being informed. I recall a vampire game I ran and I told one PC they were being followed in a car. He told everyone and someone decided to turn around and shoot at the car killing people having no clue why they were being trailed. Next time he noticed something out of place, he did not tell anybody, until he figured out what it was.
Hot take: Only use passive checks out of combat and it will 100% improve the roleplay! Passive checks can be used with any skill and the situation gives them advantage/disadvantage. That means if you only use passive checks there will be nothing like a wizard (athletics -2) with 1 hand (disadvantage) lifts the huge boulder (DC15), but the barbarian (athletics +5) was unable to. Using passive checks consistantly means that a character who is good in certain things will consistently be good at that and who is bad at things will be consistently bad at that. That happens when because the system makes it absolutely clear how much more luck (d20 with a scale of 20) matters than character building choice (skills at beginner levels have a range of -2+0 to +3+2, which has a scale of 7). Luck is almost 3 times more important for anything the character wants to succed at than actually be good at what they want to do. That's just the game system saying that to your face. And rolling against each other, meaning two high range dice rolls and two low range modifiers means that luck becomes even more important, that's why you should almost always use passive scores as DCs for the opponents. And what do I mean by improving roleplay? The characters can influence the check by things that they do, meaning they can give themselves and their opponents advantage/disadvantage depending how they are doing things. For example if they take the time, resources and get camouflage they will get advantage with stealth checks when staying put, but after sneaking in somewhere they will definitely look suspicious, that's a concious choice that the players can make and not the luck (dice roll) determines. And the opponents will also use their passive perception against them, and they will also get situational modifiers on their checks, for example the guards' perception will have auto-fail, advantage, normal and disadvantage, autosuccess distance ranges for their perception. That means since the world functions like this the characters will know this beforehand and the DM will be able to ask the party about what they are going to do if they feel the guards come dangerously close. And since the players are situationally aware they can make a distraction and determined by what that is will trigger some "consequences", like trigger some sounds in the distance will lure them away, but make them more alert. That is what roleplaying your character is. What DnD advocates in roleplay's place is rollplay: asking the dice to determine things instead of the players and DnD by default uses rollplay over roleplay, which is not bad. It just creates a lighthearted shallow party game atmosphere. But anyone who want something deeper and/or more consistent experience I highly advice to abandon active checks outside of high drama/pressure situations which can be fun in itself.
To me, passive means things are in front of you or people are doing things in front of you and you will naturally notice a certain percentage without trying to.
So rolling for perception should be used when people need more clues? Like if there’s a mystery section? Because I’d run a short session and quicken the action by getting rid of perception checks all together.
My take on passive scores is that they actually are, or should be, the difficulty class for someone else's checks. They should NEVER be directly compared to other passive scores or fixed DCs. This also means that passives, as checks, should never come into play unless there is an actual chance at failing. No need for a roll if you automatically succeed. So, passive Perception should be used by the DM as the DC for his own checks. For example, if there is a trap with a DC 21 to be noticed, the DM can ask players to roll Perception checks against that DC, risking that they would realize that there is something to be found there, or roll a "trap" check (21 - 10 + 1d20 or 11+1d20) against all players' passive Perception scores, to see if someone would notice it. Same for an ambush, but he would roll the enemy's Stealth check against the players' passive Perception instead. It works for all possible checks, actually. Every check can be turned into a passive score and every DC or passive score can be turned into a check.
Throw passive perception in the trash along with attack of opportunity. Use the story to tell interesting things going on. If people should see something, let them see it. Stop using perception to give plot and or story info. I agree with your points coach. I think the only time PP should ever be used is against stealth. But that's just me. Good Vid!
Personally, the way I look at it in an incredibly simple way is, passive stats are for when someone is doing something to the character, active stats are the character attempting to do something. Its for this reason that I actually really hate the Rogue's reliable talent feature, since it completely undoes that entire concept.
I have a character with crazy high passive perception and investigation and above table we joke that he has super observation haki (alla One Piece) and can perceive a fraction of a second in to future. None of that is in game though and I roll just like everyone else but do usually get more information than anyone else.
Without using the passive stuff you'd have to keep swamping the game with talking about what you are looking for all the time. You should only need to ask for checks (explicitly or hopefully by rping) when you do something your character would not be doing all the time anyways. Yes, there are Inquisitive Rogue and Observant. You should not be forced to keep talking about looking around taking away time from players who could actually do something interesting with the time. And yes, pretty much independently of it, I like to deal with passives as floors as well. If that requires adjusting DC, succeed by passive if that beats the high DC, roll if not, or whatever -- I like having skill experts. Everybody seems to understand that being strong in combat is important at least by default while half the player base seems to be anoyed by playing with skills (or want them to be for comedic relieve failures mainly). I don't get it. Just don't make it all Perception. Other skills should give you stuff automatically, too. Yes, I do think somebody with expertise in Animal Handling and a decent WIS score should succeed in most stuff with animals automatically -- and the DM should make it clear that it happens because of their great expertise. Let out of combat stuff that is not calling out the utility spell be important, too. I hate that there is so much encounter focus and RNG slapstick. And (almost? you still probably need Stealth Checks to make the heavy armor matter) never do group checks. Let the group's expert do it if it is something the characters should notice without the players asking, have the group chose one if they actively try, allow a second char to assist granting Advantage only if there is good grounds for it. And if you have a player come with a Passive Perception 23 at start, about to become 32 later, character, be ready to play into it (and not remove the stuff they should get limelight defeating it from) or tell them that they should make something else as this is not how you run your game. If the Animal Handling expert is not for your game just tell them -- and probably ask them about their expectations as probably they are looking for another type of game anyways.
You begun by saying that players can't just take PP as their skill floor and how this is wrong, then you say that you won't make your rogue do an active check to walk across the narrow bridge (??). That is not how PP works. Passive skill checks are for two scenarios: a) where there is no immediate consequence for failure. Example: picking a lock on a non-alarned door. Here you can just "take 10" to open it if your skill is high enough. b) where getting the player to make a roll, where they had not specifically said they were trying to use a skill, gives them information their character wouldn't have (e.g. if I know I just failed a perception check, I will act differently).
I think you might have misunderstood my stance, I’m not trying to use passive perception in the way that you’re “supposed to “I was just giving example as to how are used it. There’s plenty of times I have players do stuff without making checks, but it’s not a passive perception number that I’m looking at for a passive score 😇
Passive Scores _aren't_ the floor ... Passive Scores with -5 for *_Disadvantage,_* are the Floor. And that's assuming the Character is relatively Passive, going about their business in a normal, relatively controlled manner (even if they may be suffering Disadvantage for lighting, or moving fast, or whatever). If they are in a super intense, dangerous, or chaotic situation, then they're going to have to roll (with Disadvantage), or if they're trying to accomplish something above what they are ordinarily capable of (i.e: something above Average Difficulty _for them_ ), then they Roll a straight roll (or with Advantage, if someone is helping them, etc.).
I'm just more confused now. You say it's not the floor, but Crawford says it is the floor. I get your point with a 32pp would just see everything. Maybe it's better to just rule it out of my game. I have a player who's always asking if her pp would notice things when I ask for a roll. I feel frustrated. "Sure, you've been focusing all of your attention in front of you, but you notice the rogue sneaking up behind you, as if you had eyes in the back of your head" That seems to be how Crawford explains it.
Dungeon Coach out here complaining that a rogue gets to see things, but the wizard can no save force cage anything to win any encounter pretty much instantly
First I have to say I would never use the unmodified passive as a floor. The floor is at a negative to that passive. -5 to the score. If a person is not expecting it and has no reason to. -10 if they have exhausted themselves are asleep or out of it. If the person has choose an a feat that specifically affects the passive then that is the floor. Taking that means you want to be always alert or on your game. And unless you do something to negate it (like getting drunk) you are on. But passives are always targets and more like a warning in most cases unless you are on alert. If you was watching the Rogue as they are tied up you can bet they have to beat your passive to have a shot. Now as far as reliable talent is concerned- it is a superpower and effectively like a spell in effect. You are McGuyver (the original) or a Star Fleet Engineer and can take a hair pin and a hair off the party Barbarian and get the lock open, sneak past the guards and have the Princes purse in your pocket without a check because that is what they do. Amazingly enough you are still going to have problems - cause that is how heists go.
What are YOUR thoughts on Passive Perception in D&D? The good and the bad!
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I am way late to the party… I use passive skills like an Armor Class and active skills like an Attack roll.
EG: Goblin sneaking up on the party.. goblin rolls stealth against the passive perception
Ranger is actively aware and looking for the goblin sneaking up on the party it’s an active perception roll vs the goblins stealth roll
Very scenario based but it works for our table
You not using Perception Checks right is dumb. Yes it is a floor because why would your active check ever be below your passive skill? I find a lot of your homebrew to be terrible and you are clearly not a game designer. Do you even play DnD anymore? So why comment about DnD stuff when you clearly don't care for the product?
Passive skills are there so you don't have to ask for a bunch of dumb rolls all the time. Passive skills represent a character taking their time to do something that is repeatable and has no consequences for failure immediately. Why can't you make multiple searches in one room. The Search Action is an action that is done within 6 seconds. Which means all your players could keep rolling perception every square until they find your traps.
Traps are meant to be foiled, dude. People bump up their perception and take the Observant Feat to be able to spot dangers. You are saying f it to core rules and making up your own crap which I find offensive. The balls on some people who think they are better at someone else's job. I seriously dislike DMs like you that turn my DnD game into sh$t I cant even recognize. Tired of RUclips DM grifting.
I think similar to the last point, passive perceptions/insights etc are there for making a check when the players are unaware a check is being made. If a player doesn't have the presence of mind to actively watch or actively question the validity of something an NPC tells them, that's when passive is used as the act of asking for a check can tip players off that something is wrong.
This is the most succint way I have been able to put it for how I run things in my games. It's there as a general "omnipotent" tool of the nature of the game to help them out. I can't expect my real life players to be as excellent at certain things as their epic heroes would be, so passive checks are there to represent those things. And then, as Coach says, if they actively point something out, or want to specifically try something, then we get bonuses to their checks, or get into rolling.
Full honesty, this strikes me as your adaptation of the rules, not what the rules intended. As JC said in the tweet, the players roll to notice things that their passive didn't already find.
By simply walking into a room, you notice things. You do this without looking, without even trying. Just today i walked down stairs and noticed a moth on my ceiling. I wasn't looking for one, but my passive perception noticed it. You are correct in that a passive perception isn't technically a 'floor', because anything noticeable by your passive perception number you should have already seen, you already noticed it.
Rather, when characters enter a room, the DM should look at everyone's passive perception (assuming they're using that rule), apply modifiers, and then describe everything that number would reveal. Anything above that number (hidden traps/ambushes/hidden books) you don't describe unless the party goes looking and rolls higher.
Don't take my word on this, I quote:
In a Sage Advice podcast segment, Jeremy Crawford (Lead Rules Designer for D&D) clarifies this:
Passive Perception is always on. It’s impossible to roll an active Perception check that is below your passive score. If you’re rolling, it’s just to see if you can roll higher than your passive score.
dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/james-haeck-dd-writing
Design your games with your parties in mind. If you have someone with a really high passive perception score, add in less traps and more 'hidden rooms'. Reward the score, but keep the modifiers in mind. "What's that, you have a passive perception of 18 and darkvision? Cool, but your did not use a light, so you count as in dim light, so your perception is at disadvantage and you suffer a -5 passive perception, sorry, you needed a 15 to spot that trap, you trip it."
There is no 'passive attack', attack rolls represent a combination of things, not just you swinging a sword. And in terms of the other abilities, IE "Passive athletics." Sure, if time isn't an issue and you can spend as much time as you'd like prying open a gate, go ahead and use it. Say what you will about "Oh maybe you just weren't on point at that moment." That moment is a life or death moment with enemies abound and a wrong step meaning death. You're on point. Your character is a highly trained and skill adventurer in the middle of a dungeon full of monsters, they're not thinking about other things at that moment. They're trying to stay alive.
Was looking forward to seeing the other side of the argument, great points made!
I think my biggest hung up is that nobody is ALWAYS perfect, never being distracted of off their game etc.
@@TheDungeonCoach I think we have different definitions of the word 'perfect'. On a D20 perfect is a '20' a passive is a '10' (average-10.5).
It's an average, a baseline. This is, on average, what your score is and what you'll notice. Now you can say what you will about "Sometimes you roll below average", and I'd agree. But here's the thing. Looking and hearing aren't something you do once.
You don't walk into a room, look around and then shut your eyes. You don't notice what you can hear and then plug your ears. Every second you have your eyes open, every second you're hearing, that's you perceiving. You're doing the task over and over and over and over and over and over again without even realizing it or intending to.
So the average is the proper score to use. It's the average of what you see, what you hear, what you feel, and what you smell every single second you're in that room.
It's not a question of "perfect", it's simply a question of how trained you are in picking out details. What, on average, does your mind do and notice without even trying? What do your senses notice, on average, REGARDLESS of your mindset or the conditions you're under?
I think the problem is that passive perception is described as doing three separate things, across at least 2 sections of the book. And that is why the survey split.
1. A passive check(generic) CAN represent the average of a task done repeatedly eg looking around a room
2. The gm wants to secretly determine whether the characters succeed a generic task without rolling a die
3. Passive perception is specifically called out as the DC against which to hide
The first two as per the text are at DM’s choice and are to improve and smooth gameplay at the table. Only the third one is an actual rule with a specific procedure.
@@davidmc8478 I agree it needs to be rewarded in the dmg. You have to look at outside sources and quotes from JC to determine how it should work. But the information is there and this video is definitely incorrect in that context.
But it’s an optional rule, and, as with every rule, is subject to modification by the DM as he so wishes. Just clarify with your players how it’ll work at your table before the game starts.
Fun fact: the Crawford thing people keep referring to is out of context. It's specifically about stealth, the only core rule where passive perception is definitely used, not all perception checks.
There are a few situational penalties to Passive Perception that I think are often overlooked:
- Lighting: Dim lighting gives you disadvantage to sight based perception checks, which would be -5 to passive. Torches and the Light cantrip is bright only out to 20 feet and dim beyond that. Characters without darkvision should be getting the penalty unless they are in fairly close proximity to the object in question.
- Move Speed: If a character moves more than 40 feet in a turn (including dash option), then they get a straight -5 to penalties. Also, when actively looking for traps while wandering a dungeon, the party must move at a Slow speed unless someone has the Dungeon Delver feat.
If a character is being chased through a cave system, they will have a total of -10 to their passive perception to detect ambushes and traps.
Also, a high passive perception means they notice quick details, such as a loose floorboard a disturbance in the dust in the wall. I do not let this mean they automatically know its a trap or secret door. It will let them know that they ought to stop and take a closer look, which is always an active check, and depending on the situation, I may have them use perception or investigation. This creates great tension when they know something is off, but fail the follow up investigation checks.
This. Im so tired of all the hate on passive perception. There's other parts to traps than perceiving them. Like figuring out how it works (investigation) or disarming it (thieves' tools) or avoiding it (acrobatics/athletics), etc.
DMs who rely solely on perception or whose game falls apart because of a 30 PP is either inexperienced or lazy.
You forget that darkvision gives sight in darkness as if it were dim light, meaning they get -5on passive perception and can't see colors. In case someone brings a light source they can see without malus in the lit area. Beyond the range of the torch they still have -5. So yeah, maybe bring a torch or something👍🏻
I use Passive as "you hear a buzzing to your left. You don't know if it's a bumblebee or a murder hornet, but you hear it. Roll perception
For me Passive Perception vs Perception is like See vs Look. You are seeing everything before you, but you are only looking at a portion of what you see.
My favorite use for Passive Scores is as a DC for contested checks, as I don't like the variability of two folk rolling dice against each other.
For PCs, this is largely only Perception, because I don't want the players alerted when someone rolls Stealth against them.
My favorite example for NPCs is "Passive Deception" being the DC for an Insight check to tell how forthright they are being.
The other really important one, in my opinion, is Insight. Instead of players yelling "INSIGHT" every time an NPC says something, in order to "Insight check" whether they are lying, I just secretly have lying NPCs roll Deception against the players' passive Insight. If the Deception check succeeds, I don't tell you anything. If the Deception check failed, I will tell you that you noticed something or simply roleplay the NPC in way that is flustered and unconvincing.
I feel that the main reason that some DMs/PCs have a problem with passive checks is that they either think of it as a way to be lazy about things that they'd rather not bother with. But my problem with this is that it assumes a degree of overlap between the Player and the Character that just isn't possible.
If a character has a high passive perception, it means that the character, even when not actively scanning their surroundings for threats, has a base line of how much they instinctively pay attention to such things.It represents a combination of the character's personality and their experiences/training. If joe schmoe sits down for dinner at a local bar and grill, they may let their guard down while they eat, but the seasoned adventurer, a veteran of the war against the cult of vecna, with ptsd that is sitting there eating at the next table will have his head on a swivel, and expect every shadow to have an enemy. But the player, having already described their character's personality and given the DM their character's passive perception score, shouldn't need to start every single scene with a description of how much paranoia their character has. It should be something that can be assumed, and let them save the description for moments the player knows/feels it should be relevant.
And on a similar note, I'm playing a character that has a 20 Cha and is an expert in persuasion, it doesn't change the fact that IRL I'm an introvert with poor conversation skills. I can't count how often my character that should be very persuasive and charming doesn't even get a request for a persuasion check from a DM that wants me to role play EVERY interaction, and effectively make my incredibly persuasive character, completely awkward in conversations meant to convince an NPC to be helpful. But if we worked out what the character's passive persuasion check should be, he'd have a 21 for it. How does this make sense when coupling the stats of the character to the way the character is forced to interact with the world? If I can't get my DM to acknowledge that the character has a charming personality that I the player lack, and actually let me roll for these things in the first place, then how am I supposed to get them to let me use a passive check for it?
Don't get me wrong, roll playing shouldn't replace role playing. But if it's a bargaining session to haggle with a shop owner, maybe let the character's scores matter, and not be ignored in favor of my IRL lack of conversational skills.
This video is basically just "I don't like to use passive perception" followed by 15 minutes of reasons why you actually use passive perception for most of what it's actually used for, but without caring about the specific number... The problem exists almost entirely because DMs aren't actually running it right (module mileage will vary).
1. Passive scores in general are primarily the average result for repeated tasks or to roll in secret, like when you run an old-school dungeon crawl and don't want to roll perception checks for every single tile; you only need to worry about travel pace and lighting. Source: PHB, page 175.
2. The only passive skill with regular use in the core rules is stealth vs passive perception for sneaking around. The rest are niche exceptions. Source: Read the book. Confirmed also by CTRL+Fing a digital DMG for the word "passive".
3. **Crawford did not say that passive skills are the floor to your success,** that's taken out of context from a podcast in which he was specifically talking about passive perception against stealth checks. Not all perception checks, and not all skills.
4. Perception is for noticing clues, investigation is for actually understanding them. For most hidden traps, detecting it should be "The dust around this specific tile is absent", not "You found the pressure plate trap". Source: DMG, page 104 (Concealed Doors); DMG, page 238 (INT vs WIS checks).
5. Using passive perception for a trap is an OPTION, not a default rule, as indicated by "you can" language with regards to perception and traps. It is a choice that is up to the DM. If you run fewer but more effective traps, you can just roll for it instead of using the passive. If your dungeon has a 1d4 poison damage dart trap every other tile, just use passive and be done with it.
In summary, passive perception should be used for noticing things like the signs of a trap, not the actual trap itself, with clues that do not actually tell you whether it's a trap. "A misshapen rug" could be literally anything. Let your investigators learn more, or let the Barbarian simply spring the trap all by himself, or however they wish to handle the situation. You should only be using passive perception if you would otherwise be making a lot of perception checks from multiple players.
If you want to get a bit looser with things, passive perception could simply reveal *less* than the active perception roll, prompting players to try to learn more (or not). It could also simply give the players who spring traps the chance to do something just before it's set off, while those with low perception do not. Those are options that don't spit on the rules or different builds because you failed to run them right.
If that's not good enough, because "A high passive clears too many checks too easily since 10+mods is pretty high", then you can start with some homebrew.
- Passives start at 8 instead of 10.
- Increase reasonable DCs against PASSIVE perception only (like it is in the Lost Mines of Phandelver, with DC15 vs passive, and DC10 vs active, to find secret doors).
Whatever you do, don't set out to nerf the skill monkey playstyle and waste the time of players who are simply building characters in a way you don't like. Killing the reliability of skill-focused builds because you "Don't like reliable talent, rolling dice is fun" is how you either end up training your players to be DPR combat min-maxers or you make them all play casters who have more reliable spells.
It might just be how I see it but I feel like the name passive perception tells you when to and when not to use it. example: If you walk into a room and are trying to see if there are any traps or anyone hiding, you aren't being passive but active. If you're already in the room and someone tries to sneak up behind you, you aren't actively looking for someone then your perception is passive. This is generally how I use passive skills. Occasionally I alter how I use it for narrative or mood settings reasons.
Best explanation I have seen.
It's a way for the DMs to determine a DC that their own NPCs have to beat when interacting with a player.
-Enemy rogue hides (Stealth) in combat. He has to beat your passive Perception to do so. You MAY use your Action to 'actively' find them.
-Evil cultist is trying to pass-off (Deception) as a normal street merchant. He has to beat your passive Insight to do so.
-Silly prankster tries to scare (Intimidation) your horse and cause you to fall off. He has to beat your passive Animal Handling to do so.
Player: Its dumb that I have to roll this check, I've done this a million times! I shouldn't have a chance to fail by now!
DM: Have you ever choked on your own spit?
Player:
Player:
Player: fair
I use the 3 Clue Rule (from The Alexandrian) in my games, in addition to a node system of plot points. I use passive skill checks to ensure that at least 1 clue is always found at each node. I may ask for a roll, but that is only to determine how long it takes (which could have consequences), if they are noticed during the check (do they raise suspicion) and consequences (Do they have to ask for a favor or earn the ire of someone powerful). That way passives have a place at the table when it comes to plot points but they also get to roll. I also use them as passive DC checks for NPC's or Challenges that may hurt or hinder the players.
I find players actually enjoy it when I can point and say "With a History roll of 2 (total of 9), your time spent in the Dwarf library is challenging. The noises of festivals outside, along with a suspicious librarian following you everywhere hinders the speed of your research. It takes 4 days to assemble an accurate translation of the Poem of Light, giving you a better understanding of where to go next. Sadly this has given Atriex the Black a head start on the search but now at least you also know where to go."
Here the player's passive history score guaranteed they would get a clue even with a low roll. Thus their investment feels important but they also get to roll their dice and feel engaged. This would be the point where the player could ask "Anyway to speed this up?" and we could discuss an option to sneak in at night, possibly gaining the ire of the Dwarf Librarian and offending their Dwarven sponsor. Risk vs reward and the chance for a skill check for the player or the group and a potential new complication/enemy to be made.
The way I do passive perception is that it acts like a spider sense. The player gets a sense that something is wrong. You then roll to figure out exactly what it is. It helps you build suspense as a DM.
(Edit) Example below 👇
I talked about your spider sense in the video!!
@@TheDungeonCoach that is the danger of commenting too early on a video haha. Thanks for all your hard work!
@@TheDungeonCoach I liked the way you explained it with traps. An example from in game about how you can use it to build tension is, when a monster is sneaking up on them. My players were in the forest fighting as shadow demon that I gave the ability to shadow stride. I would roll stealth for the demon and if it was below this players passive perception I would say that he got an ominous sense that he was being watched or that he heard a twig snap or rustling leaves. If he failed his perception check against the demon's stealth I would say that he saw something out of the corner of his eye but when he looked there was nothing there. Then the demon got to attack with advantage. If he passed the perception check he would see the demon and could choose to alert the party or attack etc.
@@RobearRich This is M'uaah
*chef's kiss
I'm definitely doing PP and PI like this forever and ever from now on, you can feel the suspense just from reading it!
@@nairocamilo Yeah, the best is when the spider sense goes off but they fail the active perception check. It really ratchets up the suspense.
“Passive perception is on whenever you’re conscious and aware.”
“It’s always on-that’s the baseline. Now, this brings up questions because then people were saying, ‘how it is when I make an active perception check I might get a roll that’s lower?’ Well, you aren’t. Yes, that roll is lower, but remember your passive perception is always on. So it really represents the floor of your perception.”
“If you make an active perception check, and get a number that’s lower than your passive perception, all that means is that you did a lousy job of this particular active search, but your passive perception is still active. You’re still going to notice something that blips onto your passive perception radar. Really, when you make that roll, you’re rolling to see, ‘can I get a higher number?’ If you fail to, your passive perception is still active. It is effectively creating that minimum.”
- D&D Lead Rules Designer Jeremy Crawford, D&D Podcast 4/27/2017 @ 22:14
I use passive perception for counter stealth checks if not actively looking and to just notice things in plain sight. Otherwise I use rolls for everything else. Even for noticing traps, I have them roll to make it interesting, plus it allows for the abilities that make you take a 10 instead of a low roll to have more impact.
Whenever I use Passive perception. If you are over I'll tell you something vague that is happening. You think someone may be in the room. Or in the case of slieght of hands, you think someone may have taken something off you. You may notice something but you're not 100 percent clear what you noticed. So if someone stole something off of you. You notice someone did something, but you may not know who, or what. Something's off about this room, you think you saw something out of place in the room. Then the Pc may roll to actually know exactly what it is. It's a pressure trap not just a loose brick that seems out of place.
I love your videos and all your creative ideas. Thanks for putting so much content on RUclips for free
Wow, thanks for that Bradley! I appreciate the appreciation!
I like to treat passive scores in a similar manner to DCs. Part of this is having the score set at 8+skill modifier instead of 10+skill modifier. It also means that npcs have to try and beat it. You can't have a passive score vs a passive score.
I came into this vid ready for a fight. Alas, I actually agreed with everything you said. Dammit.
Damn! We shall have to disagree on something else then… hmmm
As a new player, attempting to DM with a bunch of other new players, going through the rules, this one did confuse me, for all the reasons you highlighted, hence why I stumbled on your video looking for an explanation. thanks
IMO, there should be more mechanical weight to building passive abilities. if you have 20+ passive perception you should just get blind sight. 20+ insight? maybe passive detect thoughts or detect evil and good. 20+ passive investigation? passive locate objects or find traps.
As a Legacy Player with 30+ years and over 800+ D&D modules; yes you are correct! the average 5E player has less than 100 hours of experience and a 5E level 20 character is only level 8 or 9 in past versions of the game. Passive Perception is made for DM who have less than 100 hours of gameplay experience.
God I love this comment SO MUCH!!! Uhg Thank you for that!!
I like the idea of using passive checks to avoid total failures after you roll if it's contested by an appropriate check. The idea of failing an insight check outright feels kinda bad, especially when you have a good passive insight. So the idea that you still get SOMETHING, vague or otherwise, is a good incentive to push things further the way your character would. I feel like this should just be standard.
I think the purpose of the dice is to create tension, and drama and introduce a level of randomness to symbolize the fact that not everything is in your control. I think passive skills should be "how good would you be in a low tension environment". The rogue with expertise on the tightrope wasn't suddenly inept if they rolled super low, they just got UNLUCKY and a gust of wind blew right as they were in the middle.
Eg. A Paladin with proficiency in Athletics might be able to climb that exact same wall if it was in the gym, but while it's dark and rainy and they're trying to be super quick maybe not. The rogue might be able to slink along the rooftops unnoticed just fine on a normal day, but maybe not if they just committed a crime and are fleeing. The cleric might know all about their religion and how to stop a fiend normally, but in the heat of battle, in a couple seconds, with adrenaline pumping and fireballs being lobbed around maybe not.
That was exactly the video I searched for. Great advice, I'm definetly gonna play with your ideas in the future...
I didn't know how to use passive perception correctly until I ran Mines of Phandelver. Between that campaign were I regularly used psasive and my previous campain where I used active, I noticed that rangers and druids seem to generally have the highest passive perception. Which is great for those classes and makes a lot of sense. Using passive you can regularly have your Ranger notice things and it makes them feel special especially given how weak the class was designed.
Thanks for the vids!
I got you!
nat 1 perception check : you looked around you and you have noticed that the sun looks bright, you adored looking at it and thinking of it's beauty you notice that their is some smoke coming out of your eyes, you see nothing else ... for a while
in my early days of dnd, i had a player roll without my asking for a roll, i asked "what are you rolling for?" deer in headlights. "nat one perception." "looking for?" "a branch." they were in the woods, so he did go blind to trees and branches for the session.
I like Passive scores. I use them as what the characters can do in a neutral sub-conscious state. No Pressure. No opposition. Just things their body pulls off automatically. Active skills and rolls are when you have to put thought, knowledge, and intent into the Skill.
Using real life situations. I am Passively Sneaky and many times I simply walk into a room and then scare my family or friends as they finally notice me. My passive stealth was higher than their passive perception. But if they weren't relaxed and was constantly thinking about perception, like being on guard duty, then my passive stealth is negated and I would have to actively be sneaky, thinking about line of sight and noise, to still sneak pass them.
Similar for passive insight. Say you go to the market place and asking about a ware there. The merchant tells a marked up price using a his passive deception as he off handedly says 'handmade' be they go to another customer. Your passive insight beats the deception and you get a mental bell that the price or 'handmade' wasn't 100% sincere. Weather to investigate deeper for any reason would incur Active rolls.
Too much rolling. If the character is not the actor(not actively attempting to perceive something) and don't have a feat that breaks this rule, then they don't roll perception. If something is sneaking up on them, that entity rolls stealth and you compare to passive perception. If someone is making noise down the hall, you roll their check and compare to passive perception. The DM should never, ever, call for a perception ROLL to indicate that the character might "passively" notice something. Seems kind of obvious when you read the words huh?
Cyberpunk asks players at the beginning of a game session to roll "passive skills" at the adventure start, and give them to the game master. When the game master needs to test against a player's skill, he can instead roll on a matrix of all the player's pre-rolls to determine which to use, and never ask the players to tip them off their character just made a check.
Yea! I love a system like this, I have this system in my "secret roll" method video, I have defiintely used it before
This is a super rad video for DMs! Straight to the point, tight elaboration, perfect reference.
I LOVE the autosuccess example for passive acrobatics, great, simple, and FAST way to give props
When it comes to passive perception, or passive any skill, I usually take into consideration the character as a whole to determine if this is something they would perceive. Perception can't be a blanket "I perceive ALL THE THINGS!". For instance, if the players are exploring a dungeon and they come across an little alcove with some mundane objects in it, then more than likely the cleric or character with religious proficiency would notice they were antique tools used in the rituals of an old god of humans before the current town's inhabitants occupied the region. The thief in group would probably not know that (assuming they never described their character as studying or having come from a religious background) even though the rogue has the highest perception.
Also, I do adjusted DC checks. If actually examining the alcove, the rogue might have a DC 25 or 28 to recognize something about those tools while the priest's DC would be a 12 or 15 to know what they are due to their background and education in the clergy.
I pondered about this topic for some time and decided, that passive skills are often times "by chance".
Like, passive investigation is, for example, you read something, and "by chance" something, maybe a phrase or a certain way of how words are used, triggers you as something of interest, leading to finding another book that provides information on a topic, but the book itself wouldn't usually be considered in that topic. Maybe it's a Situation like in BBCs Sherlock Holmes "You said it was a hound. Not a Dog, but a _Hound_ ."
Or passive perception, while looking around a room underground "you notice an air flow", which could lead them to a hidden door, but they still have to actually look for it.
Nat 1 does nothing special on skill checks. The rogue has a passive perception of 32. Realistically, when is the DC going to be higher than them rolling a 1?
I was the first like!! I’ve never done that
I appreciate that!! Really does help! Great timing!
Is an involuntary skill that alerts you to a change in the environment (within you base speed range). You can use it to smell a fire or dead body, or hear a twig crack or a door squeek, or feel a tremor in the floor as the statue comes to life, or you taste a poison you just ingested.
Two of my players will tell me at the end of an event, "I would have noticed that anyway with my passive perception." I just tell them to have fun with that and continue to ignore it. Truth is, I forget it even exists half the time.
Hey Coach. I don't normally comment on your videos because I like and enjoy most of them but I think this one was really well done and I liked it a lot.
I look forward to more videos of this caliber and I hope you will do that natural one natural 20 video in the same way you did this one.
Thanks for a great watch!
I like the idea of the perception check to be determining how the trap works, and not whether the PCs find the trap.
I definitely agree with you coach and this helped give me some extra ideas about how to reward my players’ high skill scores without ruining the game
Someone trailing the group sounds like the shadowing party rolls stealth and attempts to get over the PC's passive perception. I don't like the idea of 3 armor clad horsemen just rolling up on the group and the only reason I don't know is I didn't ask for a perception ck every 3 minutes. You could always word the success different, like you notice that birds are being displaced from behind you, or you see glints off the moonlight from a vague direction. If you get clever you can wrap it into the overall narration of what the scene looks like so they think you're just laying out the scene. "I thought you were just explaining what the surrounding looked like". "I certainly was, I just threw in a major hint you pasted up"
Haven't finished the vid, so idk if you mention it, but dim light causes disadvantage on perception. So that's a -5 to the passive. Even with darkvision, complete darkness is treated as dim light, so the passive is reduced.
I try to use passive perception to prompt players to make a check if they so choose. "You enter the crowded tavern to the din of uproarious laughter, the impassioned regaling of fables and tales, and clanking of glasses and silverware. Amongst the conversations Bob, with his keen elven hearing, hears what sounds like a familiar voice (Bob then rolls perception and gets a 5 even though his passive is 13). But upon trying to pinpoint the origin of the voice, he loses the conversation amongst the chaotic noise, or perhaps he was mistaken altogether." And I also think that based on a character's actions, the DC for using their passive perception can vary, "as the party enters the abandoned laboratory, Steve sees beneath the thick veneer of cobwebs and dust what appears to be a control console that most everyone else had passed over". As Steve focuses on the levers and dials, curiously twisting and switching them, the DC for him to notice the ceiling grate sliding open using his passive perception is now higher than it is for the rest of the party, who are continuing to investigate the layout of the room itself. I'm sure we've all encountered situations in real life where, for example, we notice a spot on the ceiling, but upon staring at it can't quite tell if it's a bug or not, and as we get up onto the chair and really focus on it and realize there's also some water damage in the corner that we hadn't seen before, we're not as tuned into the sound of the cat hacking up a hairball in the other room; but our girlfriend just leaped into action to stop the cat because all she was doing was drying her hands on a towel, which didn't really shift how she was focussing on her surroundings.
I think a wide range random flat probability generator where the result of a roll is often more important than how trained someone is at something, especially when it comes up all-or-nothing checks and it's been a problem since original dnd, basically I don't like d20s
do you play other systems? Like, do you have recommendations for more "sensible" die-rolling RPGs?
on a side note: I get to think the d20 is supposed to be used as a global narrative device instead of a defining factor is an action is completed or not. I think it's quite hard to explain, but if you realize that in the beginning only the gamemaster rolled dice, then one can understand that the dice is only a tool for the GM to describe what happens after the player decided on an action. Nowadays the game is much more focused on the players for that to not become a completely frustrating experience at its core...
Argh, I think I still botched my explanation, but there it is.
@@nairocamilo yeah, I think I know what you mean.
I often try to play bad rolls off as some external factor getting in the way, but sometimes it's hard to narrate how someone very trained in something fails, but then noob succeeds.
@@nairocamilo I've been playing rpgs since Morvold basic set in 5th grade, and I've a lot of different systems, and I think all of them have different issues.
With dnd, maybe using 2d10 for "d20" rolls helps average out the dice and make a bit of a bell curve but that introduces other problems where stacking bonuses can start to get out of hand.
When I run my games:
When the party enters a room I’ll probably ask for a perception check. I note their perception rolls and let the players know what they see/hear/smell/feel according to their rolls. I’ll then turn to my “passive perception 20 at level 1” player and let them know the details other players who didn’t roll high enough did not perceive. This includes non-magical traps and ambushes.
Also remember, just because they see something doesn’t mean they know what it is.
The direct quote from the book is: "Passive perception is a character's ability to notice what's happening around them without actively examining their surroundings." It doesnt say you find secrets, traps or find hidden things. It specifically states that you notice what is happening. Secrets and traps dont happen, they exist in their state and a trap springs then the saving throws to avoid them HAPPEN. A secret entrance simply exists, if found opening the door is what HAPPENS, if a stealthing or invisible individual is sneaking about that is whats HAPPENING. Its pretty cut and dry and as with most things in the DMG and PHB is worded fairly specifically.
Peace!! Love the free throw analogy and Spidey Sense flavors
Passive Perception is crucial to the Rogue's "Cunning Action: Hide" ability in combat, and rolling is only valid (IMHO) if a creature uses its action to search for the Rogue. Otherwise, its PP vs Stealth.
That goblin has passive attack roll of NAT 20 for stabbing that character.
But I agree with combining the passive numbers with the character information. A archetype ranger with 19 passive perception may notice that a tree is recently scarred high up, an interesting plant, or a wounded animal. But an archetype thief with 19 passive perception might notice someone in the shadows of a town, someone trying to blend into the crowd, or someone with a heavy purse. Different people pay attention to different things even if they’re the same level of perceptive.
And things are adjusted by the character themselves. Someone with 20 passive insight might notice that a servant is afraid of their lord enough to warrant a roll. But a passive insight 10 character might notice the same thing if they experienced the same trauma.
I use passive perception, but it does not replace active perception rolls I need my players to make. I had a player roll when I asked for a perception check and then say "I rolled a 12, but my floor is 16." My partner who was in the game as a player said, "Oh, he doesn't use passive perception as a floor." Then I heard the other player say, "Oh, so you ignore rules as written, I see," I then said, "No, it doesn't say that as a rule." He then quoted Jeremy Crawford and I reminded him that is Rules as Intended, not rules as written. Also, the part where Jeremy never said it was an actual floor. The best way I can explain passive vs. active perception is seeing the forest for the trees. If you are actively looking for something, your passive will miss it because you have switched your focus.
The way I use it is if I have a skill check in my DM notes, and your passive score for that checks exceeds the DC, all that happens is I tell you there is a check you can make here, and your character is pretty confident about being able to succeed at it.
That's all. No auto successes. But there's a LOT of reasons why I run passives this exact way:
-It does not step on the Rogue's reliable talent. I've got a rogue in all of the campaigns I've DMed that have reached level 10, and they felt AWESOME when they got reliable talent, because it was such a significant boost to their exploration skills. I would never want to take that away from them.
-It doesn't take the fun of rolling out of the game. If I have a check in my notes, you better believe it's going to be a check where if you fail, there will be consequences. So even if I tell the player there is a check to be made, it is still up to them whether or not they want to risk it, while knowing that choosing not to risk it is going to have consequences too.
-Players can still ask for checks themselves. If I don't ask for a check, they don't know if it's because I didn't have it in my notes, or because I set the DC so high that it's above their passives. So they know that if they stop asking for checks, they'll miss some secrets that could have helped them. And as it turns out, as a DM, I WANT my players to be asking for checks. Them taking initiatives means they are taking ownership of the story, and that is exactly what I want to happen. So a system that encourages players to ask for checks means a good system, to me.
And that works for every skill:
-Athletics: "oh yeah you can totally lift that bro, easy. Probably."
-Stealth: "those guards seem a bit drowsy, you're pretty sure you could sneak past them"
-History: "this reminds you of something, it's on the tip of your tongue"
-Insight: "this guy's giving you a weird vibe, maybe he's not being totally forthright"
-Persuasion: "you think this guard is gullible enough that you could probably convince him to let you go"
etc....
I really like this, even though I think the problem (including Coach's video) mostly comes from people not running passive skills *well,* and it's pretty reasonably within the perview of "passive skills are up to the DM".
The only time passive perception comes up in my game is when I need to determine which player is surprised in an ambush, or if a creature/npc is trying to sneak past or pick their pockets, etc. Ultimately, it's there to give the creature/npc something to roll their stealth against if the PCs are not looking for danger. We all know you can't just randomly ask player for a perception check, because now they know that something is up. That being said, you can subtract 5 or 10 (passive disadvantage) from the players passive perception if the player is distracted in some way. With a really clever npc, I'll have them create a diversion and then attempt the stealth check.
My only complaint with lowering the DC for players that specifically say something they are actively looking for (in your example saying that a player wanted to look behind to see if anyone was following or not) is that it may or may not align with the character's attributes.
Often times DM's use charisma based skills for this reasoning. I myself DM'd a group where a player was VERY charismatic (sometimes I was tempted to not even have him roll) but the problem was he always talked before he rolled. I always tell my players to roll the check before you speak, so that what you say matches the result. I dislike when players talk and give a 100% failsafe compromise with eloquent speech, and then they roll a 1. Like, how do you back that up! Because, this same player, had a character with a 10 charisma score (not the lowest in the group but definitely not the best), there was a disconnect caused when the players wrongly role play there character's stats.
For instance, again, I had a puzzle that took a long time for the players to think about it and ironically the player with the Intelligence and Wisdom dump stat figured it out!
I realize the latter example is hard to pull off without sort of "meta-gaming" (if this fall in that category) but I think with perception it should be the same as the other example.
If a player is active in the game and calling out detailed perception checks, AWESOME! But let's see if your character is too! What if the player with the smarted perception (in real life, maybe not perception but overall intelligence) had a character with the worst perception.
There can be a fine line but I feel like automatically rewarding a PLAYER and not a CHARACTER (using caps only to emphasis and not be argumentative) by lowering the DC or straight up not having them roll isn't the answer.
I don't know, I've always struggled with the idea of Player vs. Character Attributes. What do you guys think?
"Roll before you roleplay" sounds awkward in that it may force you to have a weird disconnect where the player must announce what they are mechanically attempting to do before they then engage with the narrative. "I would like to Charisma (Persuasion) the guard to let me through" followed by the 17, followed by the still awkward RP from the unclever introvert who said "Nice hat". Functionally, it mostly works as a solution, but it sounds wrong in practice.
I'm okay with a little reality bending around the roll. Maybe the guard goes "Whoa, thanks, I buffed and shined it myself! You're a swell guy!" and lets you through. Maybe that really ironclad "I have a letter penned from the king himself to let me through" followed by the rolled 3 makes the guard look like the dumbest baffoon when he goes "What's a king?". There are other options, of course, for how to contextualize the roll. Maybe just some suspicion, maybe some "Let me get the captain to be sure", and so on.
While watching, a really good solution struck me. Instead of treating passive perception as a skill floor, treat it as a skill cap! A very observant person has a high passive perception which means they should have a *chance* at noticing something difficult to see, but they might still roll low and not see it because they aren't looking for it. However, a not very observant person might not even have a chance to notice something.
For example, a creature is stealthing by and rolled a 13 for stealth. The party members weren't alert or watching for danger, so the all roll perception. A ranger with a passive perception of 17 rolled an 11 total, so he didn't see it. A different character with a passive perception of 12 rolled an 18, but he wasn't looking and typically isn't very observant, so it doesn't make sense he would notice it. Instead he is considered to have a roll of 12, his passive perception being the maximum he can roll while not alert.
Hey DC, great video, just wanted to ask how you use reliable talent in your games as, pretty similarly, me and my group don't enjoy the skill floor nature of it. I was wondering if you had an alternate feature or version of it you could share as some inspiration? Thanks!
The way I've viewed passive perception is a bubble of your senses around you that trigger when you aren't actively focused on it. But once you call out that you are searching, a low roll would be you hyper focusing on certain areas to the point that you miss the detail. What could have been you noticing a stalker through passive, becomes you passively being aware something is off, but you got too focused to actually pinpoint the issue.
The same would apply to other passive skills. Passive dex lets the monk cross the narrow ledge in their sleep, but if they ask to make a check, they could roll low and over-analyze or get too psyched out that they slip. But due to their passive dex, they could push back reflexively and end up back with the party on solid ground instead of falling like a less dexterous character would in that situation. Basically a redo for something they should not have feasibly failed at.
I'm new to DMing so I'm trying to figure out how I want to use it. Right now I'm using PP to give the character s little more information. Something like, "You notice some marks on the wall/floor." Then if they say they want to investigate those marks, I'll check their Passive Investigation. If it's not high enough (which it usually isn't), I'll ask for a roll.
The idea being that one may perceive indications of a trap but investigation is the skill that let's them figure out what it actually is.
Wait... There are stabby goblins in basketball? I need to start watching more sports.
In both my campaigns that I am in Passive Perception is used like "eyes in the back of your head", its what you notice out of the corner of your eye, while you might be doing something else.. A RL example would be taking your kids to the playground and having a conversation, but you notice your kid acting odd, so then you turn your focus (roll) and if you might figure out they are starting to put something they should not in their mouth, or you might need to start to head over, or call to them etc.. .. As a player I feel that its balanced for both.. I might notice something but I then need to role if I can figure it out ... Works for both my home games..
I love the spider sense idea. I’m totally going to use that.
How I use passive perception: it is their general awareness of whats happening around them, but only general. If they want specifics, they need to make an active roll. Moving through an alleyway and someone is sneaking in the shadows, but they roll below the passive perception, I'd say "You notice someone in the alley ahead. They're trying to hide, using the alley's trash for cover." "Who is it?" "Roll perception to get more details". *Success* "Given the way they move and their silhoette, you think its Lady Jorasa. The way her hand is positioned, you're certain she is carrying a blade". *Fail* "Too dark to see and they're using their cover too well to get much detail. All you can tell is that they're humanoid and watching you".
great video! totally agreed with almost all of your stances, it's still a dice game!
(7:55) - 32 Passive : Instead of always going to 'that' guy, you could use whatever the DC is and the player with the next highest Passive is the one to notice. This way other members whom have a high DC (16+...) can get the 'nod' of discovering things. And when those times of something truly 'obscure' or 'hidden' and a DC of 20/25+ is needed then 'that' guy gets to show off his exceptional perception
Has anyone here playtested with multiple actions per turn homebrews? I stole from Library of Ruina the idea of multiple actions per turn being represented by multiple initiative dice on a character and it's honestly a bit more fun than i first thought.
Had to change the way the combat works a lot tho.
That would completely change the balance of combat and make me nervous but if the group wants to play a campaign (or one shot) with that I would love to try that out lol... its basically 2 turns in 1
@@TheDungeonCoach oh did I tell you that some enemies can boost their highest initiative die to infinite value and thus have an uninterruptable attack at the start of the round?
Regarding the combat, I pretty much made a fusion of dnd and Library of ruina, and I accidentally made normal attacks too swingy (either they're bad or they're broken). Context: both enemies and players can use special combat cards which has multiple offensive and defensive dice on them (at a cost of course) and these are abused really hard by my players.
I did this because I made the mistake of trying to adapt this fight into dnd and now I'm sticking to my guns damnit.
ruclips.net/video/hbDNbq8dkeA/видео.html
That was a lot of time spent balancing E.G.O pages...
I had 20 passive perception on a character once, we never used it even once the whole oneshot.
this is usually handled by most active perception DCS being 5 or more points lower than passive Perception DCS. because actively looking is easier than passively looking
I think the big thing with passive scores is people end up treating them like their baseline. Like, say a character has a 20 passive perception. They might expect to never need to roll for any perception DC 20 or under. I tend to treat all passive scores as 'casual' scores. If you're not going out of your way to accomplish a task, that's the number that's applied. Spotting your keys on the dresser? That's passive. Looking to the dresser to find your keys because you need them? Active. Not seeing them and looking somewhere else around the room for your keys? That becomes an investigation roll.
Becomes a very 'gamy' distinction.
Huh, my ranger with the observant feat is on watch, if I say I'm looking for enemies I'll get a perception roll of 1d20 + 8. But if I say I'm staring up at the stars and relying on my passive perception, my roll will be an automatic 23. "DM, my lazy ranger is going to stare up at the stars and map out the constellations as they rely on his passive perception to spot things."
@@MJ-jd7rs I mean, if your Ranger is being lazy, then I don’t think his passive should apply. There’s a difference between casual and not paying attention. Perception is a combination of most of the five senses, so if your Ranger is focused on the sky, he’s not actually looking at anything that could help him. And that is kind of the problem with 5e combining Spot and Listen from older editions.
@@MagusAgrippa8 ehh, then "My ranger will do whatever he neesd to do so it doesn't require an 'active' check and I can rely on my passive."
Or just say you're not going to use passive while telling people not to take the observant feat, or use the rule as intended (which is not what this video does).
@@MJ-jd7rs By that point, I would call that metagaming. That’s no different than reading ahead in a module to get easy answers. Either way, it would probably result in the Ranger being forced to roll active checks regardless since he’d rather argue with the dm than pay attention during watch.
Loved the advice
I also like to reward more engaged players: birds that ask about get the early worm!
My approach to this is that there is no easy way to use Passive Scores other than a complete rewrite of the rules anchored on mechanics we already have in 5e.
Using Passive Scores
1. Quick Draw Technique
One DM decide if the player’s role-playing modifies the roll, two is character class capable of doing the task, three decide narratively keeping in mind the pace and agency surrounding such die roll, determine if a roll is even required, four if so when the passive perception is higher than the target DC give the character advantage on the die roll(s). DM roll behind the screen. *actively the player rolls the d20.
2. Detailed Technique
As characters explore searching and approaching different types of encounters, instead of asking for an ability check and comparing it to the target encounter DC. Instead DM roll 1d20 behind the screen with modifiers for the encounter compare the result to the character(s) passive ability score (the DM has for each character behind the DM screen). The formula to calculate the modifier on the DM's d20 roll is familiar to determining a passive ability score, take the encounter DC? -10. At the DM's discretion keep track if characters have been descriptively searching, moving slowly or if the encounter is within the character classes wheelhouse, in this case DM roll 2d20 use the lower of the two results giving the trap or secret door disadvantage to remain unnoticed. Also at the DM's discretion if the group is not searching descriptively, being chased or under time constraints, DM roll 2d20 and use the higher of the two results giving advantage to the encounter.
For example, if text indicates noticing a trap requires a successful DC14 Wisdom (Perception) check, find the modifier to the roll -10 DC14, DM roll 1d20+4 and compare the result to the passive Perception of characters who are in danger of triggering the trap (lower is better in this case).
3. Advanced DM Technique
When characters are actively searching for traps or secrets, trying to open a lock, or making any other Ability check is for the DM to roll a d20 when the players do. Players should know you’re doing this, but they shouldn’t see the result of the roll. Explain to them are many cases in which a character has advantage or disadvantage on the check without knowing it. The d20 the DM rolled could be helping the PCs attempt or hurting it or it could be the DM rolling a die just to keep them guessing.
Great video Coach, I'm excited for the release of your book in the coming months! 😀
As for other passive scores, I do use them based on the character's background. So, in a group, I have a ranger who was a bounty hunter. So, I use passive survival tracking when tracking humanoids. He's done it for so long, that he has become skilled at it. I have one who is a rogue with a criminal background specializing in pickpocketing, so when pickpocketing normal folks with little to no distraction, I use his passive.
Surprised to not mention that it makes a great DC for hidden enemies. If you walk into a room and the enemy is hiding, they can make a stealth check against the characters, passive perception, and anybody he beats a surprise during the first round you could potentially beat everybody and surprise everybody or he could be beaten by everybody and lose to everybody in the surprise round
Passive Perception is a Dungeon Master tool that is optional. But Jeremy Crawford and the Design team have sent confusing messages to the community on it. The rules have hard baked elements of P P and frankly the Observate feat would be better not to exist.
I think the problem with PP is that it shouldn’t have a plus 10 it should be a rule built into that perception skill that a players points in perception are their PP if I’ve boosted it to 32 it’s now 22 I notice anything below that the dice which symbolize me attempting to find or see something should always add to ,never become irrelevant.
I only use passive perceptions as dcs against stealth checks so that I can keep the element of surprise as a dm.
So one idea with passive checks like passive perception has to do with Activity While Traveling as described in the PHB on page 182 and 183 where it talks about things like marching order where maybe the ranger is in the back so they know when they are being follow or like people in front might notice a trap or ambush. With feats like Dungeon Delver the player could be on lookout for hidden creatures like most people are or hidden objects like a trap or door but the trigger they don't know, that is when they need to investigate. Players could be foraging for food or tracking something with survival, the wizard or cleric l could be in the middle of a ritual for detect magic or making some holy water and when not focusing on those things the score isn't applied, like the wizard is too busy ritual casting because it is long and short rests that have to do with gaining hit dice or preparing spells and getting them ready. The bard could be playing a song as they ritually cast leomund's tiny hut, the party finding a place close to a river for fresh water and some plants they could forage, maybe the druid is looking for an oak tree and rolls Nature check or could use a passive nature to know where best it would be found so they could get mistletoe for Goodberry or a separate bag for special mistletoe harvested with a golden sickle under the light of a full moon as described in the consumed spell components for XGtE 6th level spell Druidic Grove which is a reference to an actual real world druidic practice Ritual of Oak and Mistletoe so when this Druid is looking for like a oak tree, or holly or ash or something they are also trying to find the trees mistletoe is found on for Goodberry and all the while the Bard is playing their song, maybe giving bonus action inspiration. Could the druid during the 10 minutes the bard is ritually casting Leomund's Tiny Hut add the bardic Inspiration to a passive roll? Imagine giving that to the rogue with the Observant feat at level 6 and +2 wisdom and with expertise in perception checks. Like before they already had 23 passive perception but then they roll say a 4 and they got 27. Imagine before taking a rest and setting up watch the bard going up to the Paladin who is first watch and giving them an inspiration and it only lasts 10 minutes yes but I would still let the Paladin use that inspiration for the passive perception to keep an eye out for an enemy or they want to set up some traps because they know earlier they are being followed or something let's say and gotten it figured out so while you got the paladin awake and on watch the rogue or artificer are making this tool check to build these traps with the inspiration and instead of the DM asking for separate rolls for every trap the rogue makes they just take 10+ proficiency if tool or background make them good with making traps like theive's tools lets you disarm a trap so reverse reverse engineer that the knowledge of this rogue or artificer say they are making the trap and a trap that is harder to spot they add their wisdom, a trap harder to disarm without triggering adds their intelligence, it's like cutting the wire if you fail and cut the wrong one the bomb goes off or in this case the trap activates. Now you roll that bardic Inspiration and we'll say it's the artificer with a +5 intelligence and tool expertise so the base is DC 21. You add that d8 bardic Inspiration it could be as high as DC 29. Now the artificer is busy so they don't notice the goblin, no passive perception score is added but the paladin on watch they do and after surprise does the artificer help the paladin and maybe only make one trap have that high DC or risk and reward deciding to continue activity where action they can take for the next minute or 10 rounds is help or dodge. How much do they trust the paladin to take care of things? But anyway when finished it's the next morning and here is this group or bugbears that been following them and all caught up and maybe some of the goblinoid notice the trap maybe others don't and those ones go off but even if they don't and a hobgoblin can clearly see the trap they have some goblins try to disarm but they fail and end up taking damage and dying so decide to just go around but basically what players did was create a door way, so each of these goblinoids are walking single file to the the other side, here's the Wizard casting a straight like of grease or the barbarian or swashbuckler pushing back over enemies making this pile of goblin or sneak attacking raukish audacity to make the goblin pile instead. Maybe for something like passive insight the player says what they are listening for as the group is talking to the NPCs with social check or whatever else, the wizard is say looking for great powerful wizard, Elkazarum who it is rumored is the only person with a remaining scroll for the 8th level XGtE spell Illusory Dragon. So the party wizard, they want that spell and they know that only Elkazarum has access to it but he might not out himself because others could want the spell too so wizard as he is talking to these mundane NPCs maybe while the Bard is performing in the tavern in walks this tanner/leatherworker just coming in after a long days work and while maybe the ranger is trying to find a way to give his pet wolf leather barding the DM looks to the Wizard and says this man, you get this feeling he is more than just a tanner and then the wizard considers how will he confront this information. Maybe play things safe and gain trust, the party is helping this guy with making leather (which by the way I heard before the process stinks, and maybe first protecting beasts from attacks like wolves or bandits to going into the forest to find elk or something to even exotic creatures and monstrosity like Displacer Beasts for Cloak of Displacement and then maybe in private the wizard reveals that he had known he was Elkazarum ever since those last days ago back in the tavern but wanted to see him as more than just a powerful caster but also as a partner or friend. Don't know how DM rules that or if roll is made but with that bond of trust Elkazarum might give one last request for the wizard in exchange for this scroll, that plot thread or hook the DM sets up. They go do things for Elkazarum but cannot say why to the party. What if it's to go this other town to cast raise dead, uh oh was Elkazarum evil? You got this moral quandary or you go into this dungeon where some fey and fiends are fighting over powerful treasure inside and you need to fight the hag coven leading the fey but bring no harm or as little as you can to the fiends. The paladin entering in wants to get rid of the fiends but wizard is like "you can't, not right now" and the paladin trying to find out why isn't told and just has to trust the wizard but when does all this just for the scroll? I mean what does it those actions say?
Then passive investigation I imagine the PC touching and moving stuff around. Maybe they see something off like feeling the light breeze or seeing the object never casts a shadow and it calls for an active roll to discern what is happening. Investigation in the PHB on page 178 describes it as looking around for clues and making deductions based on those clues. Deductive reasoning, if all men from Caldaria braid their beards and the half-orc bartender your talking to way over in this city on the other side of the map has a braided beard, then the player would reduce he is Calderian and might inquire how to get there like a ship or caravan. But maybe that feels off like investigation should be for objects or locations not creatures. So hear the PC is looking at say this hairbrush and it looks really fancy but holds small compartment for a dart and earlier the Ambassadors life was threatened by a poisoned dart that almost sparked these two kingdoms into a war and you connected the dots that the owner of the comb must be close to the assassin who tried to take down the ambassador. So many ideas with it, but yeah just a flat floor or never not seeing anything below a 15 or something is boring, the Ranger with dungeon delver in their favored terrain could still have there perception for spotting the enemies while they look for traps but instead of just "tells everyone about the traps" they have to decide if they want to try making those checks to see if they spot them or not and maybe risk getting surprised. DM rolls if hostile creatures are near and then might roll their stealth sneaking up on the bard who is trying to looked down the left hallway for that trap the ranger said she saw and maybe the bard doe see it too or maybe is confused. But anyway he gets surprised.
Tons of way it could be played, if rogue has profiency or expertise in stealth is it like they know how to think and get into the brain of stealth? I mean the Swashbuckler is already adding their charisma to their initiative so maybe the DM describes to the rogue as they walk through the busy streets, the menagerie of crowds, merchant stands, a parade float with the effigy of a Gold Dragon you're mind thinks of all the perfect places and opportunities to disappear, add your dexterity score to your passive perception.
But anyway just a lot of ideas and ways to approach it.
I wonder if after a particularly tough battle or maybe just at the beginning of a play session, the DM has all players roll a %. 90% of the time, you're "on the ball" and Passive Perception stays as-is. But 10% of the time, you're character is just out of sorts and will be rolling Perception Checks, at least for some set length of time - or maybe after a future Long Rest, etc. It could be 90/10, or 80/20, whatever fits the scenario the DM has in mind. That would account for a normally excellent Passive Perception being sub-par once in a while.
If someone has a passive perception of 32, how do make enemies stealthy enough to sneak up on them? Say you are using a module someone else wrote.
I always make people roll separate perceptions, because who knows may be very important. If you play in a game where everyone is a trusting group yeah sure whatever. One person knowing something doesn't equate everyone in the group being informed. I recall a vampire game I ran and I told one PC they were being followed in a car. He told everyone and someone decided to turn around and shoot at the car killing people having no clue why they were being trailed. Next time he noticed something out of place, he did not tell anybody, until he figured out what it was.
Hot take: Only use passive checks out of combat and it will 100% improve the roleplay!
Passive checks can be used with any skill and the situation gives them advantage/disadvantage.
That means if you only use passive checks there will be nothing like a wizard (athletics -2) with 1 hand (disadvantage) lifts the huge boulder (DC15), but the barbarian (athletics +5) was unable to. Using passive checks consistantly means that a character who is good in certain things will consistently be good at that and who is bad at things will be consistently bad at that. That happens when because the system makes it absolutely clear how much more luck (d20 with a scale of 20) matters than character building choice (skills at beginner levels have a range of -2+0 to +3+2, which has a scale of 7). Luck is almost 3 times more important for anything the character wants to succed at than actually be good at what they want to do. That's just the game system saying that to your face. And rolling against each other, meaning two high range dice rolls and two low range modifiers means that luck becomes even more important, that's why you should almost always use passive scores as DCs for the opponents.
And what do I mean by improving roleplay? The characters can influence the check by things that they do, meaning they can give themselves and their opponents advantage/disadvantage depending how they are doing things. For example if they take the time, resources and get camouflage they will get advantage with stealth checks when staying put, but after sneaking in somewhere they will definitely look suspicious, that's a concious choice that the players can make and not the luck (dice roll) determines. And the opponents will also use their passive perception against them, and they will also get situational modifiers on their checks, for example the guards' perception will have auto-fail, advantage, normal and disadvantage, autosuccess distance ranges for their perception. That means since the world functions like this the characters will know this beforehand and the DM will be able to ask the party about what they are going to do if they feel the guards come dangerously close. And since the players are situationally aware they can make a distraction and determined by what that is will trigger some "consequences", like trigger some sounds in the distance will lure them away, but make them more alert. That is what roleplaying your character is. What DnD advocates in roleplay's place is rollplay: asking the dice to determine things instead of the players and DnD by default uses rollplay over roleplay, which is not bad. It just creates a lighthearted shallow party game atmosphere. But anyone who want something deeper and/or more consistent experience I highly advice to abandon active checks outside of high drama/pressure situations which can be fun in itself.
To me, passive means things are in front of you or people are doing things in front of you and you will naturally notice a certain percentage without trying to.
So rolling for perception should be used when people need more clues? Like if there’s a mystery section? Because I’d run a short session and quicken the action by getting rid of perception checks all together.
My take on passive scores is that they actually are, or should be, the difficulty class for someone else's checks. They should NEVER be directly compared to other passive scores or fixed DCs.
This also means that passives, as checks, should never come into play unless there is an actual chance at failing. No need for a roll if you automatically succeed.
So, passive Perception should be used by the DM as the DC for his own checks. For example, if there is a trap with a DC 21 to be noticed, the DM can ask players to roll Perception checks against that DC, risking that they would realize that there is something to be found there, or roll a "trap" check (21 - 10 + 1d20 or 11+1d20) against all players' passive Perception scores, to see if someone would notice it.
Same for an ambush, but he would roll the enemy's Stealth check against the players' passive Perception instead.
It works for all possible checks, actually. Every check can be turned into a passive score and every DC or passive score can be turned into a check.
so many of these videos basically boil down to: remember it's supposed to be role-playing first game second.
i've never seen traps as a Perception thing. I feel it goes more into Investigation, because traps are inanimate objects designed to be hidden
I would love to see goblins in all the sports, would make them much more fun to watch.
Throw passive perception in the trash along with attack of opportunity. Use the story to tell interesting things going on. If people should see something, let them see it. Stop using perception to give plot and or story info. I agree with your points coach. I think the only time PP should ever be used is against stealth. But that's just me. Good Vid!
Personally, the way I look at it in an incredibly simple way is, passive stats are for when someone is doing something to the character, active stats are the character attempting to do something. Its for this reason that I actually really hate the Rogue's reliable talent feature, since it completely undoes that entire concept.
Jeremy Crawford actually got way more into this back in 2017. Check out dragon talk on april 27 2017. EDIT: He says it's a floor :P
I have a character with crazy high passive perception and investigation and above table we joke that he has super observation haki (alla One Piece) and can perceive a fraction of a second in to future. None of that is in game though and I roll just like everyone else but do usually get more information than anyone else.
Robert and I also shared this idea.
Without using the passive stuff you'd have to keep swamping the game with talking about what you are looking for all the time. You should only need to ask for checks (explicitly or hopefully by rping) when you do something your character would not be doing all the time anyways. Yes, there are Inquisitive Rogue and Observant. You should not be forced to keep talking about looking around taking away time from players who could actually do something interesting with the time. And yes, pretty much independently of it, I like to deal with passives as floors as well. If that requires adjusting DC, succeed by passive if that beats the high DC, roll if not, or whatever -- I like having skill experts. Everybody seems to understand that being strong in combat is important at least by default while half the player base seems to be anoyed by playing with skills (or want them to be for comedic relieve failures mainly). I don't get it.
Just don't make it all Perception. Other skills should give you stuff automatically, too. Yes, I do think somebody with expertise in Animal Handling and a decent WIS score should succeed in most stuff with animals automatically -- and the DM should make it clear that it happens because of their great expertise. Let out of combat stuff that is not calling out the utility spell be important, too. I hate that there is so much encounter focus and RNG slapstick.
And (almost? you still probably need Stealth Checks to make the heavy armor matter) never do group checks. Let the group's expert do it if it is something the characters should notice without the players asking, have the group chose one if they actively try, allow a second char to assist granting Advantage only if there is good grounds for it.
And if you have a player come with a Passive Perception 23 at start, about to become 32 later, character, be ready to play into it (and not remove the stuff they should get limelight defeating it from) or tell them that they should make something else as this is not how you run your game. If the Animal Handling expert is not for your game just tell them -- and probably ask them about their expectations as probably they are looking for another type of game anyways.
You begun by saying that players can't just take PP as their skill floor and how this is wrong, then you say that you won't make your rogue do an active check to walk across the narrow bridge (??).
That is not how PP works.
Passive skill checks are for two scenarios:
a) where there is no immediate consequence for failure. Example: picking a lock on a non-alarned door. Here you can just "take 10" to open it if your skill is high enough.
b) where getting the player to make a roll, where they had not specifically said they were trying to use a skill, gives them information their character wouldn't have (e.g. if I know I just failed a perception check, I will act differently).
I think you might have misunderstood my stance, I’m not trying to use passive perception in the way that you’re “supposed to “I was just giving example as to how are used it. There’s plenty of times I have players do stuff without making checks, but it’s not a passive perception number that I’m looking at for a passive score 😇
Passive Scores _aren't_ the floor ... Passive Scores with -5 for *_Disadvantage,_* are the Floor.
And that's assuming the Character is relatively Passive, going about their business in a normal, relatively controlled manner (even if they may be suffering Disadvantage for lighting, or moving fast, or whatever). If they are in a super intense, dangerous, or chaotic situation, then they're going to have to roll (with Disadvantage), or if they're trying to accomplish something above what they are ordinarily capable of (i.e: something above Average Difficulty _for them_ ), then they Roll a straight roll (or with Advantage, if someone is helping them, etc.).
I'm just more confused now. You say it's not the floor, but Crawford says it is the floor. I get your point with a 32pp would just see everything. Maybe it's better to just rule it out of my game. I have a player who's always asking if her pp would notice things when I ask for a roll. I feel frustrated. "Sure, you've been focusing all of your attention in front of you, but you notice the rogue sneaking up behind you, as if you had eyes in the back of your head" That seems to be how Crawford explains it.
Dungeon Coach out here complaining that a rogue gets to see things, but the wizard can no save force cage anything to win any encounter pretty much instantly
First I have to say I would never use the unmodified passive as a floor. The floor is at a negative to that passive.
-5 to the score. If a person is not expecting it and has no reason to.
-10 if they have exhausted themselves are asleep or out of it.
If the person has choose an a feat that specifically affects the passive then that is the floor. Taking that means you want to be always alert or on your game. And unless you do something to negate it (like getting drunk) you are on.
But passives are always targets and more like a warning in most cases unless you are on alert. If you was watching the Rogue as they are tied up you can bet they have to beat your passive to have a shot.
Now as far as reliable talent is concerned- it is a superpower and effectively like a spell in effect. You are McGuyver (the original) or a Star Fleet Engineer and can take a hair pin and a hair off the party Barbarian and get the lock open, sneak past the guards and have the Princes purse in your pocket without a check because that is what they do. Amazingly enough you are still going to have problems - cause that is how heists go.