# Active Perception and Passive Perception



## Oompa (Mar 7, 2010)

Hey all,

This might be a simple problem but i am quite struggling with it..

So we have a active perception ( a player rolling a perception check to notice stuff) and we have passive perception ( a player knows certain things are around him if his passive perception is high enough)

Now lets say we have a hallway (The Gauntlet out the SOW second adventure), the hallway has 4 pressure plates in the beginning of the hallway which the players need to avoid to not activate the turrets..

These plates have a dc of 22 to notice them..

So my highest passive perception check in the party is 18-19, not enough to automaticly see the plates.. but here comes my question..

My party does not use perception, every chamber they enter, every hallway.. they just walk into it.. Now it is clear that the players are going to step on one of the pressure plates, cause they won't notice it..

I told them earlier in the game that should use perception more often so they would notice more stuff around them.. am i going to repeat this everytime a situation like this occurs? Or should i roll a perception check secretly and than tell the players they spot it at the last moment because of a perception check..

Any advices?


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## UngeheuerLich (Mar 7, 2010)

In the development of 4e, the intention of passive check was that you don´t need to roll. But then there were many complaints about this making traps and such redundant.

Then the DCs were lowered so much (by 10 points) that everyone detects those traps when using passive checks.

So make sure your DCs are updated so that they are low enough to be detected by passive perception. And when someone beats them with their passive score, give them an automatic roll or something. (usually a 70% chance to detect the trap)


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## Oompa (Mar 7, 2010)

UngeheuerLich said:


> In the development of 4e, the intention of passive check was that you don´t need to roll. But then there were many complaints about this making traps and such redundant.
> 
> Then the DCs were lowered so much (by 10 points) that everyone detects those traps when using passive checks.
> 
> So make sure your DCs are updated so that they are low enough to be detected by passive perception. And when someone beats them with their passive score, give them an automatic roll or something. (usually a 70% chance to detect the trap)




So basicly you are saying, make the dc 12 for passive checks, everyone who notices something is wrong gets an chance to make an active perception check at dc 22 to see what is actually wrong?


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## Benlo (Mar 7, 2010)

That works. Also, if you're really worried they'll get themselves hurt doing this, if the trap is weak enough to where they can mostly shrug it off, you might be better off letting them trip it and learn their lesson. If it's more dangerous than that, do what I do: Just point at a player and say "YOU, do (insert check here) check." If they get it, they get it, if not, play accordingly. It can sometimes get them excited that something big is about to happen if I get the checks out of them myself.


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## Gruns (Mar 7, 2010)

*My take...*

After DMing 4E exclusively since its release, I have found passive Perception to be pretty much useless. I know the Perception skills of my players, and I set the DCs. Soo... Essentially I KNOW if something will be spotted, or if it won't. Therefore, if I put a quote/unquote "secret" door in an area that I expect the players to find, I make the DC within range. If I put a secret door in an area that I don't want them to automatically find, I make it slightly higher than their best Passive check. For example, after the Big Bad Evil Guy fight, the PC's don't find the treasure they were sure was supposed to be here. A little snooping around (Perception roll, perception roll...) a-ha! There's a hidden trapdoor that happens to contain the fat loot.
In the case of traps and whatnot, I almost always make the DC higher than their highest passive. However, I leave a clue or two for them to know that something is amiss, usually in the form of something that their Passive Perception can pick up. "The light reflects oddly off the wall to the left of this room, and you notice a smattering of little dimples and tiny holes throughout." (DC15) This may get them to actively look for, and find the myriad of poison dart traps on the right side of the room (DC18), ready to unleash their payload as soon as the pressure plate in the center of the room (DC20) is tripped.
But all in all, I don't think passive Perception works as the designers intended for someone that writes their own adventures. I do see the benefit in bought adventures though, sort of, as it gives the writers a consitent DC target number. However, I think even then I'd prefer DC's to be "1 less than highest passive Perception in the group" or "2 higher than the highest..." etc... The trick is trusting your DM to know what is imperative to be Perceived automatically (or at all), and what isn't.
Later!
Gruns


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## Benlo (Mar 7, 2010)

That's a good way of doing it, Gruns. Tell them something is amiss, like scorch marks on the floor near a trap, or one area of the tiled floor seems a little discolored.


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## fba827 (Mar 7, 2010)

(evil dm mode)

Eh, if their passive perception won't notice it AND they aren't using active perception, then let them step on a few pressure plates.  They'll pick up on it and start to use active perception more often, or be dead, eventually.  It's "trial by fire," "sink or swim," and whatever other term you want to use...

(/evil dm mode)

But slightly more seriously, perhaps for the first couple rooms, just lower the dc slightly to the point of "you think something is amiss, there are scorch marks" or "you notice scraping against where the floor meets the wall" thus cluing them in to use active perception.  But just do this for the first few rooms to get the idea that there are traps, and lots of them.  after that, just go with it as written.

(for justification, you can say that the traps near the entrane get trigged much more often by wayward creatures, thus there are more signs and residue around of previously triggered traps - hence making it easier to notice.  but traps further in aren't triggered nearly as much since no one ever makes it down that far, thus, less evidence to notice).


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## Mentat55 (Mar 7, 2010)

I use Passive Perception as the DC for enemies trying to sneak up on the PCs.  I also have given traps and hazards a Stealth modifier, instead of a Perception DC, and I just roll it against the PCs' Passive Perception.  If the PCs actually say, "I want to search around, make sure nothing is amiss," then they roll their Perception checks and I use a 10+Stealth modifier DC for traps/hazards/etc.


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## Starfox (Mar 7, 2010)

For traps, there are basically two kinds:

The tactical trap. This is placed as a part of a normal encounter and intended to be spotted. Basically, this kind of trap is terrain: charge and suffer the tripwire.

The hidden trap: This is the static hidden trap trap intended to do damage. It is an encounter in itself or in conjunction with other traps, but rarely with monsters. It lowers the pace of the adventure and is very much discouraged in the 4E DMG. If you use one of these it, foreshadow it so your players have a chance to spot it. Make sure that its lethal enough to be at least a semi-worthy encounter. For this kind of trap, I'd disallow passive checks or have the trap roll Stealth against the players; having an auto-spot rule makes this kind of trap pretty pointless.


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## Amaroq (Mar 8, 2010)

I think the problem here is entirely in a "way that we construct things" manner.

Its perfectly fine for a printed module to use a static check vs Passive Perception, because the writers don't know the Passive Perception numbers of the party that will be going through it. 

However, as a DM, with full access to the player's Passive Perceptions, I really shouldn't be picking numbers, because I'm essentially picking the characters that will spot what needs spotting.

To work around that, I use a lot more active-roll-vs-Passive-Perception mechanics, or a bit more "Make the characters roll Active Perception". 

In fact, I've even scripted a few things where the script reads "Ask the players for Active Perception checks. Regardless of the results, ..." or .. "The player with the highest roll notices .."

As noted earlier, it keeps the players on their toes, and triggers some anticipation about what's about to come up ..


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## UngeheuerLich (Mar 9, 2010)

Don´t forget, you add +2 to the spot DC for beeing far away, so it can make a difference forn some traps. (notice /= notice early enough)


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## AbdulAlhazred (Mar 9, 2010)

Starfox said:


> For traps, there are basically two kinds:
> 
> The tactical trap. This is placed as a part of a normal encounter and intended to be spotted. Basically, this kind of trap is terrain: charge and suffer the tripwire.
> 
> The hidden trap: This is the static hidden trap trap intended to do damage. It is an encounter in itself or in conjunction with other traps, but rarely with monsters. It lowers the pace of the adventure and is very much discouraged in the 4E DMG. If you use one of these it, foreshadow it so your players have a chance to spot it. Make sure that its lethal enough to be at least a semi-worthy encounter. For this kind of trap, I'd disallow passive checks or have the trap roll Stealth against the players; having an auto-spot rule makes this kind of trap pretty pointless.




Basically you're onto the whole nut of the thing there Starfox. There's NOTHING wrong with the active/passive perception system. It is a matter of DMs understanding how to use it in the best way.

Where you have something (trap, secret door, etc) there are 3 possibilities essentially. Either the thing can (and thus will) be spotted by the passive perception of a party member. These kinds of 'hidden things' are only "hidden for dramatic effect" as they aren't really hidden at all. This could be like Starfox says a tactical trap where the thing really just serves as some sort of terrain or the entire point of it is to make the rogue disarm it while a fight is going on or make it a choice to disarm, avoid, or just bull through.

The second situation is where an active check by the party's high Perception spotter will find the hidden thing. This is probably your more normal trap that might show up on its own or as part of an encounter where it is intended to be dealt with while its active (a magic crossbow turret that acts pretty much like a monster that COULD be nerfed if a PC is smart). These types of traps may well be foreshadowed (IE there are skeletons of past victims or blast marks or whatever nearby that clue the PCs in to make an active check). Otherwise they could be on a door or some other area that the PCs normally will check anyway and if they are dumb and don't check the door for traps then they get the booby prize.

The third, rare, situation is something so well hidden it cannot be detected by any means at the party's disposal. A trap of this kind would be rare. It is a fait accompli that the characters will set it off except possibly by sheer luck. It could be used as a plot element of some sort that is meant to be found later by other means. Maybe a secret entrance used by a monster or something that later explains how the monster escaped or entered an otherwise secured area. Some special magic or ritual could later reveal it as part of an expostulation or the party could end up on the other side of the secret door where it is obvious and they suddenly solve a mystery it caused. An unfindable trap could serve a similar purpose or it could be actually deployed BY the PCs as a defensive measure or something.

So the only issue with this whole perception thing is for the DM to understand these three cases and what they are good for and use them creatively in adventures to achieve his goals.

Easily spotted traps can be used to give the PCs hazards to deal with or just for 'flavor' or to show that an area is dangerous. Findable traps are the standard type that punish PCs that don't look for traps. Unfindable ones are plot devices.

Within the findable traps category you might make some that are very difficult to find with an active check and others that are pretty easy but could still be missed. The former type will reward repeated searching but you will need to foreshadow them in order to make it obvious that more searching is a good idea. The later type are there often to let the rogue 'shine'.


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## KarinsDad (Mar 9, 2010)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> There's NOTHING wrong with the active/passive perception system. It is a matter of DMs understanding how to use it in the best way.




Uh huh.

If DMs do not envision the system the way you do, then they do not understand the best way to use the system.

This is just wrong on so many levels.


The problems with 4E Perception are the same problems that have existed for a long time in DND with regard to Spot.

1) The DM creates something hidden. The Passive Perception game mechanic is basically worthless because if it is below that number, the PCs always find it. Why bother? Just tell the PCs that something is there.

2) The concept of foreshadowing is just another way of saying: Roll your Perception. It might be a slightly cooler way, but it boils down to the same thing.

3) The chance to find something hidden is dependent on the DC of it combined with the number of players rolling and their Perception bonuses. If the DM wants the party to have an ~50% chance to find something, that can be blown out of the water if fewer or more PCs actively attempt Perception than the DM expected. In the case of fewer PCs (or none), then it becomes a case of the DM either letting it slide, or throwing out clues, or fudging or whatever. I prefer just letting it slide. If I wanted the PCs to auto-find something, I would just allow them to find it.


So my preferred system is to only use Passive Perception in "within range" situations. In other words, if the PCs with the high Passive Perception get within range (e.g. 6 squares in a given situation or whatever), they auto-spot something. If they don't get within range, they don't. If within range is a long distance, I don't even bother with Passive Perception DCs. I just tell the PCs what the observant PC(s) notice. Passive Perception is a rule and game layer that really isn't needed.

I use Active Perception for everything else. It is either obvious to some or all of the PCs, or you have to roll and you have to tell me you want to roll.

So in the case of a hidden door or a hidden trap, they are typically hidden for a reason. It will almost always be an Active Perception required to spot them.

In the case of a hidden trap that is not intentionally made to be a trap (like a dead fall outdoors due to a natural sinkhole or something), then it often becomes a Passive Perception (or Active Perception if the player wants to) based on "within range". The DC is typically not high for these situations, so they fall under the Passive Perception result of the most observant PCs. But, that does not mean that they auto-spot it. They only auto-spot it if they get close enough. If a different unobservant PC walks into the area and the observant PCs are not close enough to see it and nobody either tries to make an Active Perception or fail their rolls, then the unobservant PC walks into the trap.

Another way of handling this is to make the Perception DC a set number and then increase it by 2 for every square away from the hidden object. That way, the DM knows ahead of time exactly how close each PC has to get in order to make a Passive Perception automatically.


So in response to the OP, I never tell my players to roll Perception and I rarely have hidden traps or other things which a Passive Perception will make unless I also want an Active Perception from the less observant PCs to have a fair chance of finding it.

Hidden things should be hidden. They should rarely be auto-found. The DC for hidden things should often be higher (and somethings a lot higher) than the best Passive Perceptions in the party. If they are not higher, then they should be ranged based Perceptions.

Otherwise, why bother? Just tell the group that they spot the trap if it is easy to spot.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Mar 9, 2010)

KD, I think you're making it too hard. Like I say, there are a few different reasons for something to be 'hidden' and not all of them require that it be hard to find something. 

A trap could be something that is just supposed to be totally obvious and needs no perception to spot, that's fine. 

It could be cinematic to make it 'hidden' but not really hidden from the characters, so it has a low DC to spot, which is fine too, its the same as something that isn't hidden except thematically you are telling the players that they have found something 'hidden' and thus it is an atmosphere thing or maybe a plot device to explain why some NPC didn't find it at some point or make the story work around why nobody else has spotted this thing before. The PCs are just that good that they 'find' the thing when others didn't.

It could be a trap you only want the higher perception character(s) to spot automatically, in which case the DC would be in a range where someone well trained in perception will spot it automatically but most untrained characters won't. This could well be your case where the outcome depends on who goes where. Its primarily designed to let the high perception character shine and give him an advantage that he has earned vs the lower perception people. 

It could be something well hidden that needs an active check. Like I said before you want either foreshadowing or to have the trap on some point that the PCs will normally check or else you might as well just make it unfindable and unavoidable and rack up some damage on them. Again this will probably let the high perception character shine, but depending on exactly what the DC is its probable that other PCs will have SOME chance to find the thing. Personally I find this type of trap to be the least useful because you are just relying to some extent on luck. Hey, you got a crummy roll on that check, well too bad you're now taking X damage... It CAN be exciting if the effects of the trap are not too severe or the trap just redirects the PCs (like maybe its a slide or something and if they trigger it they just go to a different area or something).

The unfindable case is again as I said before primarily a plot device. Its a perfectly legitimate setup but I would never use it with a damaging trap that the PCs will run into as again its just some auto-damage, so why bother? At best it could be some kind of element of a combat encounter that is really essentially a hazard, but in that case it seems boring to have it unfindable. The PCs should at least have a CHANCE to know the full tactical situation they are entering. 

Since the existing perception skill mechanics seem to adequately support all these possibilities I'm not real sure what the issue is. 

As far as conditions and modifiers for spotting things you will note that traps themselves always specify this kind of thing. They will say that a DC is X for an adjacent character to spot the trigger plate or whatever. There is a general rule for distance and perception penalties but it is pretty mild (-2 per 10 squares I think). Its perfectly normal to have more rigid requirements for specific things and that was obviously considered when the system was written as evidenced by the way traps are written up. 

So yeah, I still don't see the mechanical problem. I can see where the system requires the DM to think about how to use it, but I guess I don't really see where that is a flaw in the system or that it really has much to do with what mechanics you use. Any way you slice it the DM needs to think about how he's designing his adventure. There's no free lunch with any system. I mean if you think about the old style thief mechanics from say 1e its all basically the same. There was a probability to find a trap. The same possibilities existed then as now. The current system just has a better mechanics where you can have passive detection IF you want it. If you don't want it, then set the DC accordingly.


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## chitzk0i (Mar 9, 2010)

I would have the DC vary from one pressure plate to another.  Maybe the PCs find a broken one with their passive perception or they see some other clue that will tip them off and get them to make active rolls.  Have most require a roll of 12-14 from their best perception, but some require a 15+.  Also, you want the PCs to actually move into the hallway, so make sure to enforce the -1 per 10 feet on perception checks.


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## mneme (Mar 9, 2010)

++Mentat.  If you want some variation, just have the trap roll to hide from the PCs rather than the other way around.  The purpose of passive perception is, largely, to act as a defense -- so we can have one roll for everything rather than a bunch of little rolls.

Re static DCs against passive in a mod--agreed that this can be fine in a pre-made mod, as it just means that a party with good perception gets to avoid one of the hazards.


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## KarinsDad (Mar 9, 2010)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> KD, I think you're making it too hard.




Not hard. Different.



AbdulAlhazred said:


> Like I say, there are a few different reasons for something to be 'hidden' and not all of them require that it be hard to find something.
> 
> A trap could be something that is just supposed to be totally obvious and needs no perception to spot, that's fine.
> 
> It could be cinematic to make it 'hidden' but not really hidden from the characters, so it has a low DC to spot, which is fine too, its the same as something that isn't hidden except thematically you are telling the players that they have found something 'hidden' and thus it is an atmosphere thing or maybe a plot device to explain why some NPC didn't find it at some point or make the story work around why nobody else has spotted this thing before. The PCs are just that good that they 'find' the thing when others didn't.




Your first two examples here are the same thing. There is no need for a Passive Perception rule for these. The DM just describes the obvious stuff in whatever manner the DM wants to for plot, cinematic, or whatever other reasons.



AbdulAlhazred said:


> It could be a trap you only want the higher perception character(s) to spot automatically, in which case the DC would be in a range where someone well trained in perception will spot it automatically but most untrained characters won't. This could well be your case where the outcome depends on who goes where. Its primarily designed to let the high perception character shine and give him an advantage that he has earned vs the lower perception people.




The problem with this approach is that the higher perception characters always spot the hidden thing. There is no mystery. There is no chance for the lower perception PCs to accidently fall in the trap or step on the pressure panel.

As a general rule, I've never like auto-successes where there is no active attempt. For example, auto-success on a climb? Fine. The player is actively deciding to climb. Auto-success on a perception? Not so cool. Especially when we are talking about something like a hidden trap. The "in game" designer of the trap went out of his way to make it hidden, but the DM allows an auto-success. That just doesn't sit well with me.

If a DM said "Oh yeah, the Elf spots a trap across the room" when the PCs walk in a room, I would wonder "Who designed that trap? Barney Fife???".

So a solution where the auto-success is based on proximity gives two possible chances to find it: the perceptive PC gets close enough, or any PC tries Perception and makes the roll. It gives one a real REASON for having the Passive Perception rule at all in the first place.

As for active checks, remember, Perception is now a Minor Action. Even a low Perception PC can sometimes afford a minor action in a given round and get lucky.

Not that all players will do this, but the option is available.



AbdulAlhazred said:


> It could be something well hidden that needs an active check. Like I said before you want either foreshadowing or to have the trap on some point that the PCs will normally check or else you might as well just make it unfindable and unavoidable and rack up some damage on them. Again this will probably let the high perception character shine, but depending on exactly what the DC is its probable that other PCs will have SOME chance to find the thing. Personally I find this type of trap to be the least useful because you are just relying to some extent on luck. Hey, you got a crummy roll on that check, well too bad you're now taking X damage... It CAN be exciting if the effects of the trap are not too severe or the trap just redirects the PCs (like maybe its a slide or something and if they trigger it they just go to a different area or something).




This I think is the real intent of Perception. Find something that is hidden. But, I think foreshadowing has to be done really carefully or the DM might as well just say "Roll Perception".



AbdulAlhazred said:


> The unfindable case is again as I said before primarily a plot device. Its a perfectly legitimate setup but I would never use it with a damaging trap that the PCs will run into as again its just some auto-damage, so why bother? At best it could be some kind of element of a combat encounter that is really essentially a hazard, but in that case it seems boring to have it unfindable. The PCs should at least have a CHANCE to know the full tactical situation they are entering.




Actually, auto-damage is one of the few reasons for the unfindable case. The unfindable hidden trap outside the findable hidden vault that not only auto-damages the PCs, but also makes them wonder why a trap is just sitting in the middle of a corridor somewhere.

But there aren't many good reasons for the DC being so high that the PCs cannot find something hidden. Like you say, why bother?

The vast majority of DCs that the DM introduces in the game system should be ones reachable by at least one PC in the party unless it is something special like a slippery cliff that the PCs should be climbing in 10 levels, not today.



AbdulAlhazred said:


> Since the existing perception skill mechanics seem to adequately support all these possibilities I'm not real sure what the issue is.




The issue is that Passive Perception is auto-success and a waste for case #1, auto-success for some PCs in case #2, and not useable in case #3.

For all intents and purposes, Passive Perception if used as written is a totally worthless rule. I just add the proximity element to make it worthwhile again.



AbdulAlhazred said:


> As far as conditions and modifiers for spotting things you will note that traps themselves always specify this kind of thing. They will say that a DC is X for an adjacent character to spot the trigger plate or whatever. There is a general rule for distance and perception penalties but it is pretty mild (-2 per 10 squares I think). Its perfectly normal to have more rigid requirements for specific things and that was obviously considered when the system was written as evidenced by the way traps are written up.
> 
> So yeah, I still don't see the mechanical problem. I can see where the system requires the DM to think about how to use it, but I guess I don't really see where that is a flaw in the system or that it really has much to do with what mechanics you use. Any way you slice it the DM needs to think about how he's designing his adventure. There's no free lunch with any system. I mean if you think about the old style thief mechanics from say 1e its all basically the same. There was a probability to find a trap. The same possibilities existed then as now. The current system just has a better mechanics where you can have passive detection IF you want it. If you don't want it, then set the DC accordingly.




Guess we'll just have to disagree here.


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## Nytmare (Mar 9, 2010)

My understanding of Passive Checks were that they were simply a shorthand for taking 10 while doing something else.  Taking a look at the averages for an indistinct stretch of time is a heck of a lot easier than breaking the entire thing down to 3 action rounds.  

As such, I always assumed that they should kinda stop happening when you zoomed in to the granular, round by round slugfest of the battlemat.  They make sense as a DC, but not for filling in for an active action.  

Deciding to "take 10" on the battlemat should mean that you are spending 10 standard actions rolling a d20, no?

[EDIT] Otherwise, wouldn't you treat every d20 roll as bottoming out at 10 since you could use your passive action as a crutch?


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## Prism (Mar 9, 2010)

Perception can take a standard action or one minute to do. If its something that can be noticed with a standard action like a hidden monster I apply passive perception. If its something hidden like a secret door that would normally take 1 minute to search for I don't allow a passive perception - I might if they stood right by it for a minute or so, or rested in the room. For traps I mix and match them depending. Sometimes I allow a clue with a passive roll and then maybe require a full active search roll taking a minute to find the lever that disarms it or secret door that bypasses it. Other times I won't. If the rogue doesn't actively search for traps on a locked chest I'm not usually going to hold their hand and let them notice it with a passive check


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## mneme (Mar 9, 2010)

Nytmare said:


> Deciding to "take 10" on the battlemat should mean that you are spending 10 standard actions rolling a d20, no?




No, thats taking 20 (taking 20 standard actions rolling a d20, with no failure result).  Taking 10 means you're taking a slightly worse than average result in an unstressed situation in one action.

But passive perception, while it derives from that, is actually somewhat different, as I mention upthread--the real reason it exists at all is so you don't have to roll two opposed d20s when the probability of success if you just roll one d20 for the "attack" is more or less equivalent.  The fact that stealth rolls actively against passive perception, and similarly for bluff vs passive insight makes those skills more reliable while keeping the overall 2 person reliability the same.

The problem, of course, comes when you then try to use passive perception/insight to solve the age-old question if "how do you handle someone's character not noticing something without the player knowing it".  (not to mention "how do we stop a game from turning into "take 5 steps, make a perception roll" snoozefest").  The -best- solution to that problem is to make it an active check and have good enough players that they don't metagame it (thus letting them spend encounter-level or daily level resources to boost the check if they want--at a cost of denying the players clue-based retries as they either succeed or fail).  

Failing that, KD's solution of circumstance bonuses based on player actions is actually pretty good; it rewards good play (and playing to a character's strengths) rather than good die rolling; one can enhance it by having different decriptions depending on the highest passive perception--no perception lets you get all the info, but the better your perception is, the better a clue you get that there's something to see here.


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## LostSoul (Mar 10, 2010)

When I write up dungeons I have some traps that can't be detected with Passive checks.  The PCs need to _do something_.  I also use wandering monsters, so there is a point to the time that's wasted while searching for traps.

To get around the "Why don't I just decide if they see the trap or not, since I know their skill mods" thing, I give the dungeon a level and then set traps and monsters in it based on that level.  When you make the dungeon you won't know if the PCs will see the trap or not because you won't know what level they are.

You also don't care.


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## N0Man (Mar 10, 2010)

The way I like to play it is that the DC should be based on what makes sense on the setting or situation.  The DC might also just be to spot a clue.

Some should be tough to see, and only viewable through a normal trained Spot Check success, but what if you have a super perceptive character that can passively perceive what others have to roll for?

It sounds like some of you are promoting that you should raise the DC to high enough so that your perceptive character still has to roll for it, and can't see it automatically.

If that's the case, then why bother putting points in it at all?  If you are just making it so they can't do it passively, all the players might as well not even train it, never bother to put a feat to improve it, or use a background for it.  It completely defeats the purpose of deciding to have that concept.

If a player builds his character for a theme, and to be good at something, then he should reap the rewards for it.  It shouldn't be a constant auto-win every time, but inflating the difficulty to keep people from auto-succeeding is cheap and unfair to players.

This doesn't apply to just Perception, but to any skill.  Let your specialists be rewarded for specializing.  Make them feel like their choice paid off.


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## Colmarr (Mar 10, 2010)

N0Man said:


> The way I like to play it is that the DC should be based on what makes sense on the setting or situation.




Not to mention that the DMG includes target DCs for all levels of play.

If a DM can't divorce themselves from the metagame enough to include a trap even though it can/can't be spotted by the players, then that's hardly a fault of the system IMO. 

Passive perception no more complicates trap use than the "send the rogue ahead to scout for traps" tactic did in previous editions. Any trap you placed needed to be weighed against the Search modifier of the rogue.


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## Prism (Mar 10, 2010)

N0Man said:


> It shouldn't be a constant auto-win every time, but inflating the difficulty to keep people from auto-succeeding is cheap and unfair to players.




I don't think this is a problem with home created adventures since you can vary the DC or simply not allow passive perception for some traps and secret doors. With modules its pretty much an auto success even without pushing wisdom. I like the idea of rolling the traps stealth in this case rather than a set DC


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## Jhaelen (Mar 10, 2010)

Prism said:


> With modules its pretty much an auto success even without pushing wisdom.



Quite true. The Spot DCs in modules make zero sense. Apparently the authors always use the (revised) DC values from DMG p.42 which can result in extremely silly situations.

I especially hate it if set DCs are given to spot hidden monsters. I've never seen DCs that actually take the monsters Hide skill into account. How weird is that?!


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## Prism (Mar 10, 2010)

Jhaelen said:


> Quite true. The Spot DCs in modules make zero sense. Apparently the authors always use the (revised) DC values from DMG p.42 which can result in extremely silly situations.
> 
> I especially hate it if set DCs are given to spot hidden monsters. I've never seen DCs that actually take the monsters Hide skill into account. How weird is that?!




Having said that, every trap I have seen so far in a mod is designed to be seen first really. The difficulty is trying to disarm it while fighting monsters or using a skill challenge as it delivers ongoing effects. For that I'm pretty happy with the trap being obvious to the average spotter- thats not the main challenge. I have yet to see one of the old school hidden 'get em once' traps being used in a mod. Although mentioned as minion traps in DMG2 these would be pretty dull if auto spotted via passive perception. The same goes for secret doors. I'd still like the players to actively search for traps on chests or for secret doors - otherwise why bother - which is probably why the modules don't really have this stuff anymore

I hadn't noticed that about monsters not actually getting their stealth skill. The modules seem to follow the formula to closely sometimes (always?)


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## BruntFCA (Mar 10, 2010)

I think KD and N0man make the best points.

I just rolled a rogue with  a high perception, ye its a total waste of effort if my char can never be "good" at it, since it auto moved up.

KDs solution is easily the best. For example, do you put the squishy spotter in front of the party or the dwarf fighter?

Also it can make for some great setups, you charge.....once you move 10 feet closer to the enemy you notice 2 thin strands of wire across the room!

So you can continue charge,....stop try to disarm.....or acrobatics over. Also it makes a difference as *who* charges first, maybe the rogue could spot/avoid it...but what about the rest? Does the rogue continue on his own, only to get flanked?

Also the suggestion of making "stealth" checks for the traps is a good one.

I always remember traps being quite fun in 1/2e....must have just been good DMs. Now Tomb of Horrors is coming out.....I hope they spruce up the system or use something like what KD is suggesting.


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## DracoSuave (Mar 11, 2010)

My job as a DM is to make sure people have fun.  Not to make sure everything has to involve a die roll.  This is an important point.

So... if a player goes out of his way to make a super-perceptive character, I'm not going to up the DCs of things just so he can roll dice.  Who cares?  I just tell him what he sees and he knows he sees it and others don't because he's superperceptive.

That's WHY he's doing it?  Why punish the group because a player wanted to maximise a useful skill?  That thinking makes no sense.

What I -will- do, is include more lurkers, more monsters that make his perception save the day.  It doesn't -always- see everything, and if he's taking perception high, he's using minor actions to see it.  So he's seeing the lurkers, and the party goes 'Oh!  Lurkers!' and the player gets to feel like he's the hero of that encounter by getting Distant Early Warning on a couple lurkers before the third teaches the party -why- it would have been bad for all three to get through.


A good DM rewards player decisions by making them matter, not invalidates them by making things arbitrarily harder for no other reason than a sense of entitlement that 'everything must be rolled'


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## Prism (Mar 11, 2010)

DracoSuave said:


> So... if a player goes out of his way to make a super-perceptive character, I'm not going to up the DCs of things just so he can roll dice.  Who cares?  I just tell him what he sees and he knows he sees it and others don't because he's superperceptive.




Its not so much the problem with the actual DC but with the static nature of the passive check. Lets say as the DM you follow the guidelines to some degree and set the DC for spotting traps, secret doors and opponents to 19 for your 8th level party. The 14 WIS perception trained ranger will spot everything all the time with their +11 check. The 10 WIS perception trained rogue will also see everything. The untrained WIS 20 cleric also sees everything. The ranger doesn't feel special at all even though they are considered the party spotter. 

So you decide to change the DC slightly to 20. Now the rogue and cleric see nothing and the ranger  probably feels important again. The rogue wonders why he bothered training perception at all. The cleric still has other things going on with 18 WIS and probably isn't as bothered

So what do you do? You vary the DC? This is exactly the problem - you are choosing who gets to see each thing with no random element and no dice rolling. Surely that is fine sometimes but everytime? The players will possibly begin to feel out of control of the situation. The DM decides if the ambush should or should not be spotted. 

It should be just as important to roll perception, which is often a vital skill just before an encounter, as any other roll. Static scores or 'take 10' if you like should be reserved for mundane, unimportant tasks - not vital perception rolls

If I was playing the rogue above I would want to thing that sometimes we would all spot something, often the ranger would see something I missed and occasionally I would see something the ranger missed. We are only +2 apart in skill level. How does that work with passive perception?


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## Amaroq (Mar 11, 2010)

Hmmm, good points, Prism. I may have to rethink having encounters roll Stealth against passive perception, as that doesn't solve the "the ranger sees everything the rogue sees and more" problem.


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## Mengu (Mar 11, 2010)

Passive Perception: The excuse that the DM uses to tell you about stuff.

Aggressive Perception: The tool you use to find and shoot the hidden gnome.


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## Nichwee (Mar 11, 2010)

If peeps really want to put the interest back into the idea I would make it that the Passive Perception is used by the DM to go "All those with PP of X or more make an active perception check" and then use those to determine who, if any, spotted something hidden.

Basically all those of PP high enough know something looks out of place but can't work out why, so they all nake an active check to see if any of them spot why they think it looks off, or if they just shrug it off and assume they are being paranoid.

This trick works best if you trust your players not to metagame the fact you just highlighted that an active perception is a good plan, or you do it sporadically when pointless to keep players guessing, or you just roll the needed checks for them so the players don't even know why those 3d20 just got rolled. And then announce, to any PC who spotted something, what they saw.


In our group we normally use the idea that the PP is just a lower limit to the check when we would/do make one anyway (such as 'on watch' or when we are searching a room slowly = PP for quick look around, roll for active look around, highest is our result). However we/DM will impose our own penalties due to RP such as "My character was doing XYZ so I don't get a check at all"/"My character was doing XYZ as well, any penalties?""Take a -5!".


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## Kingreaper (Mar 11, 2010)

Amaroq said:


> Hmmm, good points, Prism. I may have to rethink having encounters roll Stealth against passive perception, as that doesn't solve the "the ranger sees everything the rogue sees and more" problem.




A possible solution: Flip a coin, or roll a D6, or whatever, to decide if any given character was looking in the right direction.

Then, sometimes the Rogue spots something the ranger doesn't. Why? Well, the ranger, while very perceptive, also has a love for fine upholstery, and the curtains in the room were simply exquisite.


It ends up working similarly to why multiple PCs might have Heal trained. Sure, only one of them needs to use it, but that one's not always gonna be where it's needed.


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## Colmarr (Mar 11, 2010)

Prism said:


> If I was playing the rogue above I would want to thing that sometimes we would all spot something, often the ranger would see something I missed and occasionally I would see something the ranger missed. We are only +2 apart in skill level. How does that work with passive perception?




Two words: Active stealth.

Sometimes the ranger will passively spot a hiding enemy that the rogue doesn't and vice versa.

And again, this problem only arises if the DM sets their DCs with the PC's perception scores in mind. If you raise the default DC from 15 to 16 or 17 because you know the ranger has passive perception 17 and the rogue 15, then that's a failure of immersion by the DM. 

If you raise the default DC to 16 or 17 because you know the Whitefang kobolds are masters of misdirection even by the standards of their scaly kin, then there's no problem at all.

But even putting that answer aside, if two characters are only 2 points apart in Perception bonus, then it's unreasonable of one or both of them to feel that they should be substantially better or different to each other. It's not a problem with passive perception - it's a problem with player expectations.


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## Kingreaper (Mar 12, 2010)

Colmarr said:


> Two words: Active stealth.
> 
> Sometimes the ranger will passively spot a hiding enemy that the rogue doesn't and vice versa.




Not with passive perception, unless you add some randomiser on the other side.

The one with the higher score will ALWAYS see what the one with the lower score sees, making the lower score irrelevant.

That's where keeping track of (and even just randomising) who actually has a CHANCE to see it becomes useful. Because sometimes the rogue and the ranger don't have the same field of view, and then the redundancy becomes useful.


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## DracoSuave (Mar 12, 2010)

Kingreaper said:


> Not with passive perception, unless you add some randomiser on the other side.




Active Stealth.  The above still stands.



> The one with the higher score will ALWAYS see what the one with the lower score sees, making the lower score irrelevant.




Unless the stealth roll is between both, in which case, the stealthed character is hidden from the lower character, and not the higher character.  This matters a great deal when 'combat advantage' tends to mean 'massive damage' with stealthy monsters.



> That's where keeping track of (and even just randomising) who actually has a CHANCE to see it becomes useful. Because sometimes the rogue and the ranger don't have the same field of view, and then the redundancy becomes useful.




That is correct, for things that are above the Ranger's PP.


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## DracoSuave (Mar 12, 2010)

Prism said:


> Its not so much the problem with the actual DC but with the static nature of the passive check. Lets say as the DM you follow the guidelines to some degree and set the DC for spotting traps, secret doors and opponents to 19 for your 8th level party. The 14 WIS perception trained ranger will spot everything all the time with their +11 check. The 10 WIS perception trained rogue will also see everything. The untrained WIS 20 cleric also sees everything. The ranger doesn't feel special at all even though they are considered the party spotter.
> 
> So you decide to change the DC slightly to 20. Now the rogue and cleric see nothing and the ranger  probably feels important again. The rogue wonders why he bothered training perception at all. The cleric still has other things going on with 18 WIS and probably isn't as bothered
> 
> So what do you do? You vary the DC? This is exactly the problem - you are choosing who gets to see each thing with no random element and no dice rolling. Surely that is fine sometimes but everytime? The players will possibly begin to feel out of control of the situation. The DM decides if the ambush should or should not be spotted.




The thing to understand here, is that this is the players' choice.  They have decided they want someone who autodetects most things.  And I'm cool with that, it speeds up play.  But, I introduce higher levels of detail that are valuable to the party to -reward- this sort of character creation.

Your way:

Ranger has Passive Perception 24.  So to make a roll for something, you need to exceed that.
Secret doors are DC 25.  The characters roll off, and if any player finds it, the ranger does.  The door gets opened after the warlock finally makes a difficult Thievery check to unlock it.

My way:

Ranger has Passive Perception 24.  The door's DC is 20.  The ranger automatically finds it, but does not automatically find a certain loose panel.  The Thievery DC is difficult for the warlock, but the ranger's finding the loose panel allows for a bonus to the warlock's check, as that panel can be jimmied open and the inner workings used to circumvent the lock itself.


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## Merlin the Tuna (Mar 12, 2010)

On the subject of auto-detection...

I don't actually have a PHB -- does 4E perception still use the 3.5E rule of characters taking -1 to Spot/Perception per 10 feet?  If not, that seems like it would be a reasonable compromise for passive perception.  So if the Rogue has a passive perception of 20 and the DC to find the hidden panel in the wall is 20, he'll find it automatically, but not until he's standing right next to it.  If the DC is 19, he'll notice it as he walks by from a few feet away, and so on.


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## Prism (Mar 12, 2010)

Yes you still apply a penalty for being a distance away but I think its 10 squares iirc.

This has been a useful thread for me. I have come to a few conclusions about what I will try over the next few weeks. I am going to use passive perception without raising the DC for many things - appraising the general details of a room, spotting clues I might give about a hidden trap, seeing a non hidden encounter type trap, noticing something important about an opponent or in a skill challenge.

However I'm also going to mix in some hidden stuff - stuff that will require a full 1 minute search for as per the PHB. Things like secret doors, hidden one off minion traps, extra treasure which has been stashed. If the players want to find a shortcut via a secret passage I want them to decide to search in the right place rather than just give them it without effort on that part. I want the players to feel they were sometimes lucky, or made a good call to search an area than give them everything on a platter. I like the idea that sometimes passive perception can give you a clue but an active is needed to make it easier. We enjoyed this aspect in previous editions and I don't want to remove it totally

This of course goes against the advice in the DMG to apply passive perception as soon as they have the chance of spotting a trap. However thats because 4e assumes traps are now in combat encounters and you don't want to trick your players. Secret doors seem to have all but disappeared and if they do exist it seems expected that the party finds them (whereas I aim for the opposite)


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## KarinsDad (Mar 13, 2010)

DracoSuave said:


> The thing to understand here, is that this is the players' choice.  They have decided they want someone who autodetects most things.  And I'm cool with that, it speeds up play.  But, I introduce higher levels of detail that are valuable to the party to -reward- this sort of character creation.
> 
> Your way:
> 
> ...




I think "your way" can be used in "his way".

There is nothing special about "your way" example except that you decided that you would throw in an extra panel that you didn't throw in for "his way". That same panel could exist in "his way".

The PC rolls DC 25 and finds the secret door. The PC rolls a different DC 28 and finds the secret panel.

And doing it "his way", the PC might find the loose panel without finding the secret door (he fails the first check, but makes the second). Then it becomes a bit of a mystery for the players to explore.

That option cannot happen in "your way" because your system (like Passive Perception in general) erroneousnessly assumes that if something is slightly easier to noticed, it will typically be noticed if the slightly more difficult to notice something is detected.

That's far from true. I can find the lost keys hidden under the chair and never notice the glasses sitting on the arm of the chair.


And your method ignores his point that the Ranger is +15 to the roll whereas the Rogue is +13 to the roll. The Rogue rarely feels special because the Ranger is just a hair better. But the Rogue also dedicated a lot of resources to Perception. Why exactly did the Rogue dedicate all of these resources, just to be equaled or outshined by the Ranger most of the time?

If a roll is made most of the time when it's something worthwhile, than the chances of the Rogue making it when the Ranger does not occurs more often than when some high percentage of the Perceptions are Passive Perceptions. The player's belief that the Rogue's Perception skill is valuable is increased.


There's nothing wrong with rolling the dice to get random results. It's really what makes the game interesting and unique. Blurting out a bunch of info because a player maxxed an ability? Not so interesting.


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## Amaroq (Mar 13, 2010)

Agreed, KarinsDad. 

After reading your argument, and Prism's earlier, I think I'm going to have to move back to the old "hidden Spot check behind the screen" method to see who notices, or doesn't.

That's fine with me, it gets me out of some habits that may be making the game less fund for some of my players - in particular, less rewarding for the second-highest-Perception player as described in your post.

I don't really like Kingreaper's method of randomizing who saw things, because while it works for the "Okay, who finds the secret door?" case, I like to write items like traps where it matters which players, plural, have spotted it, and I want it to be possible for either the #1, the #2, both, or neither to make the spot.

So, I think its back to ye olde "behind the screen roll" for me!


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## DracoSuave (Mar 13, 2010)

KarinsDad said:


> I think "your way" can be used in "his way".
> 
> There is nothing special about "your way" example except that you decided that you would throw in an extra panel that you didn't throw in for "his way". That same panel could exist in "his way".
> 
> ...




Bad analogy.  

You're claiming it's glasses vs keys.  A more accurate analogy would be the ability to find the chair.

The panel is part of the door... you can't find the panel on the door without finding the door.



> And your method ignores his point that the Ranger is +15 to the roll whereas the Rogue is +13 to the roll. The Rogue rarely feels special because the Ranger is just a hair better. But the Rogue also dedicated a lot of resources to Perception. Why exactly did the Rogue dedicate all of these resources, just to be equaled or outshined by the Ranger most of the time?




Then in such a case, there's a chance the Rogue would find the door, the ranger would always find the door, and there's a chance either could find the panel.

But on the other hand, I don't feel so bad about this.  The rogue knows he's going to be a little less than the ranger from the get-go (unless the ranger is Str/Dex) because the players get together on this from the beginning.  There'll be lots of things the rogue and the ranger BOTH autosee, and that's not a problem.

It is my job to bring fun to the table, but it's not my job to make a rogue feel equal to the ranger in what the ranger should be better at.  The rogue's still likely gonna be the one to open that door anyways.



> If a roll is made most of the time when it's something worthwhile, than the chances of the Rogue making it when the Ranger does not occurs more often than when some high percentage of the Perceptions are Passive Perceptions. The player's belief that the Rogue's Perception skill is valuable is increased.




Yes, but it has to be -worthwhile-.  If the Ranger puts all that effort into it, and still has to make the same roll to do -exactly the same stuff- he'd have been able to do if he hadn't, then he's wasted his time.  It'd be like a character building a cold-mage, and your answer is tons of cold resistant stuff.  It's not letting him be cool, it's just raising the bar arbitrarily because of a 'sense of justice' that 'everyone should be allowed to roll.'



> There's nothing wrong with rolling the dice to get random results. It's really what makes the game interesting and unique. Blurting out a bunch of info because a player maxxed an ability? Not so interesting.




That's not what I'm suggesting.  I'm suggesting blurting out some info, and then having info above and beyond what they'd get to make his high skill feel high.

Then use this case for other skills.  Not -everything- has to be randomly rolled.  The existance of dice is hardly unique to this game.  In fact, most roleplaying games have some form of random generator.


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## KarinsDad (Mar 13, 2010)

DracoSuave said:


> The panel is part of the door... you can't find the panel on the door without finding the door.




Err, what?

You find the panel on the wall without seeing that it is actually on a secret door.

Here, I'll draw you a picture.


```
---
   | |
   | |
   ---
```

That's the panel. You missed the secret door, so all you see is a panel on the wall. It's actually in the center of the secret door, you just don't know that as a player.



DracoSuave said:


> Then in such a case, there's a chance the Rogue would find the door, the ranger would always find the door, and there's a chance either could find the panel.




Which prevents the possibility of "neither of them from finding the door, but one or both from finding the panel".

The mechanics get in the way of an interesting game possibility.


Obviously you can play it anyway you want, I just find the entire concept of Passive Perception being auto-info inferior to other better mechanics that allow for more.

There's already a mechanism for auto-info. It's called the DM and his explanations of what the PCs observe.


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## Nytmare (Mar 13, 2010)

KarinsDad said:


> There's already a mechanism for auto-info. It's called the DM and his explanations of what the PCs observe.




Er, I'm riding the fence on most of the arguments being thrown about, but what makes DM prerogative superior to DM prerogative with a simple guideline?


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## KarinsDad (Mar 13, 2010)

Nytmare said:


> Er, I'm riding the fence on most of the arguments being thrown about, but what makes DM prerogative superior to DM prerogative with a simple guideline?




It's not that superior.

But if the DM has already decided that the Rogue and the Ranger spot the secret door automatically, does he really need a skill mechanism to remind him of that?

And of course, did Elmer Fudd design that secret door? What is so secret about a door that is obvious to half of the party from across the room?

If people want to use Passive Perception and think they are actually getting a benefit from it, go for it. I just think that this particular game mechanic doesn't add anything real to the game. If it is used with proximity rules or something similar, then it adds something worthwhile to the game.


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## DracoSuave (Mar 14, 2010)

KarinsDad said:


> It's not that superior.
> 
> But if the DM has already decided that the Rogue and the Ranger spot the secret door automatically, does he really need a skill mechanism to remind him of that?
> 
> And of course, did Elmer Fudd design that secret door? What is so secret about a door that is obvious to half of the party from across the room?




Are we talking about D&D 4th edition characters here, or Warhammer characters?  The former would be able to spot things like a well concealed secret passage, and this is hardly a new thing in the game; Passive Perception just replaces the ubiquitous 'I take 10 to spot' roll that was perfectly legitimate in a previous edition.  If it -does the same thing- and -uses the same system-... it's definately not inferior to the way things were.

Plus, lots of game systems introduce autosuccess mechanics for certain actions when your skill is high enough; this is seen as a design+ rather than - because its a threshhold where the player's character is simply -too good- to be fooled by stuff.

I don't see what the problem is... allowing them to see the heroic level stuff automatically then allows you to focus on the -cool- paragon level stuff going on that they'd not get access to at that level.

An analogy using a different skill:

Let's say you have a guy who can take 10 to climb a simple brick wall.  Great.  Now, do you then make all simple brick walls a higher DC just to make the guy roll, or do you *kick things up a notch* and let him autoclimb those simple walls most of the time, but introduce slippery walls covered in moss that lead to awesomer things?  

And when he can climb those automatically, do you punish everyone by making those walls impossible for everyone else, or do you let him accomplish these heroic feats, and move on to walls with spears firing out of them randomly... that have gouts of flame going down lines in an intricate but almost unfathomable patter?

In other words... do you just make things more difficult arbitrarily, or do you nod, let the PC -be- awesome, and then give them things that test their awesomeness?



> If people want to use Passive Perception and think they are actually getting a benefit from it, go for it. I just think that this particular game mechanic doesn't add anything real to the game. If it is used with proximity rules or something similar, then it adds something worthwhile to the game.




That's a subjective argument.  

Some games do not benefit from more random rolls.  Some games benefit from simply being able to say 'Yes, you can do that all the time now, let's move on to bigger and badder challenges.'


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## KarinsDad (Mar 14, 2010)

DracoSuave said:


> Are we talking about D&D 4th edition characters here, or Warhammer characters?  The former would be able to spot things like a well concealed secret passage, and this is hardly a new thing in the game; Passive Perception just replaces the ubiquitous 'I take 10 to spot' roll that was perfectly legitimate in a previous edition.  If it -does the same thing- and -uses the same system-... it's definately not inferior to the way things were.




So your argument is that an inferior game mechanic from the new version is good because it is superior to the inferior game mechanic from the previous version? 



DracoSuave said:


> An analogy using a different skill:
> 
> Let's say you have a guy who can take 10 to climb a simple brick wall.  Great.  Now, do you then make all simple brick walls a higher DC just to make the guy roll, or do you *kick things up a notch* and let him autoclimb those simple walls most of the time, but introduce slippery walls covered in moss that lead to awesomer things?
> 
> ...




Precisely. The skills become more difficult.

That does not mean that there should be a bunch of automatic stuff lying around which if the player actually rolled the dice, wouldn't be automatic.

Where is the Passive History rule? The Passive Arcana rule?

They don't exist. Someone at WotC thought that auto success should occur for Perception and Insight, but forgot about Athletics, History, Stealth, and a bunch of others.

Why? Because auto success doesn't make sense until it really is auto. When rolling a 1 is a success, then it should be auto success.

Not before. 

And that rarely happens in the game system because the DCs increase as the PCs go up level. As you yourself said, the DM increases the difficulty to allow the skilled PC to be awesome.

But if the player says "I am going to look around" and rolls a 2 on his Perception, do you as DM say "Well, he failed the roll, but his Passive Perception would have noticed xyz, so I will tell him xyz even though he failed the roll?"

Effectively what you are doing here is turning his failure into a success, his 2 into a 10. You are removing the randomness from the game which is what allows for unusual and interesting things to happen.

The Ranger misses the pit trap and falls into it. Now the situation is interesting. This doesn't happen if the DM makes the pit trap an auto-detect.

It matters not if it is Climbing or Perception. If there is a chance of failure for the skill, then there should be no automatic.

The game should be consistent. If a DC 20 is needed and the PC does not have at least +19, then a roll should be used. The skill should not be automatically successful. The skill system should work the same regardless of which skill we are discussing. Roll dice, add modifier, see what DC you made.



DracoSuave said:


> Some games do not benefit from more random rolls.  Some games benefit from simply being able to say 'Yes, you can do that all the time now, let's move on to bigger and badder challenges.'




Precisely. One puts difficult secret doors in as a bigger and badder challenge, one does not put in simple secret doors that can be spotted with Passive Perception.


Let me ask you a serious question. Would you be arguing that Passive Perception is a good rule if the rule did not exist at all? Would you be on the House Rules Forum writing that it was a cool idea?

I sometimes wonder if people who support some of the weaker WotC rules do so because they are actually in print.


Why is autodetect a good rule? Why not roll the dice and sometimes, the Ranger rolls a 3 and misses something?

Why should the Ranger get an auto-success with a +10 Perception against DC 20 when the climbing Fighter does not get an auto-success with a +10 Athletics against a DC 20 wall.

Why should the player of the Ranger get a free pass here that other players do not?

What's so special about Perception and Insight that they effectively become "Roll a D20, if you roll 9 or less, it becomes a 10"? Why such a hefty skill boost for these two skills?


Note: I am not arguing that the DM should not reveal obvious stuff. I'm arguing that PCs should not auto-detect traps and secret doors and other such game elements because if they auto-detect them, then they weren't secret to begin with. Duh! In that case, it's not a secret door, it's a door.


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## Dr_Ruminahui (Mar 14, 2010)

Personally, I like have a mechanism that means I don't spend hours on end playing a thief by going:

DM - you come to a door
PC - okay, I listen and search for traps  <Roll twice>
DM- nothing
PC - Okay, I open the door.
DM - nothing there.  You see a short hall with a door at the end.
PC - I search for traps in the hall. <Roll>
DM - Nothing.
PC - Okay, I advance to the door, listen and search for traps.  <Roll twice>
DM - You don't find anything.
PC - Okay, I...

ad infinitum until you forget to say you are searching and there just happens to be a trap there.

For me, that isn't good game design.  Passive perception allows me to avoid a lot of that.

Besides, your whole argument seems to hinge on DMs knowing their players perception scores... much of your logic doesn't seem to hold up where a DM is planning an adventure without such knowledge (say, for a new party, or as part of an event).


That said, I do like your proximity rules - it does make sense that a player should have a chance to detect the slight air movements under a secret door from up close, but not from across the room.  That said, I don't feel that such rules make passive perception less valuable.


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## Nytmare (Mar 14, 2010)

KarinsDad said:


> Where is the Passive History rule? The Passive Arcana rule?
> 
> They don't exist.




They're there, you just aren't using them.

I'm going to say this again, now that I have a book in front of me and can quote it.  Passive checks are taking 10.  Taking 10 is something that you can do right up until the moment that combat starts.  You can passively climb, you can passively think about history, you can passively do whatever you want, but the moment the fight starts you stop doing things passively, and start rolling dice.



			
				PeeAichBee said:
			
		

> *Take 10*
> When you’re not in a rush, not being threatened or distracted (when you’re outside an encounter), and when you’re dealing with a mundane task, you can choose to take 10. Instead of rolling a d20, determine your skill check result as if you had rolled the average (10).
> 
> When you take 10, your result equals your skill modifiers (including one-half your level) + 10. For mundane tasks, taking 10 usually results in a success.
> ...


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## Prism (Mar 14, 2010)

DracoSuave said:


> Passive Perception just replaces the ubiquitous 'I take 10 to spot' roll that was perfectly legitimate in a previous edition.  If it -does the same thing- and -uses the same system-... it's definately not inferior to the way things were.




The difference with perception was that in 3e the part of the skill we are talking about was search and search took a full round action per 5' square to do. So when you opened the door to a room you would firstly deal with any creatures in the room and then when you have more time to search you would spend a few minutes doing so. If there was a hidden pit 10' into the room the monsters were going to try and lure you into, or a secret door they were going to flee down you generally wouldn't know. In 4e you simply see all this the moment you open the door, assuming someone has a trained perception, including the small needle trap on the chest full of treasure.

I want the party to make some effort to search - they should feel a greater reward finding something they choose to search for rather than being given everything. I'm happy with the party using a passive perception to hear some monsters moving behind the door - I just don't like the idea of revealing every hidden aspect of the room the second they open it. How are you actually ever supposed to spring a trap on a party unless you purposely push the DC's higher than anyones passive check? For me passive perception is just a way of saying to the players 'don't worry about it - i'll tell you everything you need to see so nothing will catch you out'


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## Prism (Mar 14, 2010)

Nytmare said:


> Passive checks are taking 10.  Taking 10 is something that you can do right up until the moment that combat starts.  You can passively climb, you can passively think about history, you can passively do whatever you want, but the moment the fight starts you stop doing things passively, and start rolling dice.




You haven't mentioned this bit 'and when you’re dealing with a mundane task, you can choose to take 10'

By their nature all take 10 checks and by your comparison are 'mundane' tasks. Is this perception is supposed to be? Noticing a deadly hidden trap is mundane. A secret door which took dwarven craftsmen weeks to construct is mundane to find?


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## KarinsDad (Mar 14, 2010)

Nytmare said:


> They're there, you just aren't using them.




I was totally unclear and misleading there.


Perception appears to be a special case for the Passive Check rules. Take 10 cannot be used with the other skills in an encounter. The entire section on Take 10 and Passive Checks (i.e. using the Take 10 rules) in the PHB discusses when the PCs are not in an encounter (the sole exception being monster checks at the start of an encounter).

However, the DMG seems to change that. It discusses using Passive Perception to discern hidden objects and significant details within an encounter area. The Traps section states that Passive Perception is used to notice traps. It does not state that the PC cannot do this if they are in an encounter. According to the original rules (pre-PHB 2), traps would have almost never been found in an encounter (shy of triggering them) if this were not the case since Active Perception used to take a Standard Action. It's clear that the designers wanted to allow Passive Perception during an encounter to minimally find traps and possibly to discern other details about encounter areas.

Additionally, Passive Perception can be used for hidden objects. That means that unlike the Passive Checks for other skills that are limited to Opposed Skill uses of the skill, Passive Perception can be used not just against creatures, but against objects as well. It appears that the intent is that any Perception DC in the game system can use Passive Perception at any time for nearly any reason.

The other skills do not have this advantage.

Passive Perception appears to allow for auto-success at any time in a game (with the possible exception of Skill Challenges where there is no mention of using Passive skills except for settings DCs of enemies). Other skills only allow auto-success (if the DC is low enough) if the PCs are not in an encounter.

That is how the rules differ for Passive Perception and the other skills. Passive Perception often allows for auto-success for anything that the player could use perception for. It effectively allows for Take 10, even within an encounter.


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## Nytmare (Mar 14, 2010)

Prism said:


> You haven't mentioned this bit 'and when you’re dealing with a mundane task, you can choose to take 10'
> 
> By their nature all take 10 checks and by your comparison are 'mundane' tasks. Is this perception is supposed to be? Noticing a deadly hidden trap is mundane. A secret door which took dwarven craftsmen weeks to construct is mundane to find?




Yes.  Noticing it because you're strolling down a hallway and you passively beat the DC automatically means that it's a mundane task.  

Noticing it while swinging upside down from a burning vine while fighting Tiamat is not a mundane task.

The difficulties the rules suggest rank a "hard" task as something that most focused, trained, mega-ultra-olympic-caliber characters can do passively without breaking a sweat.

If you want a level appropriate "hard" task to not be a diceless cakewalk for that character, the task should not be handed to them under conditions where they will be able to take 10.

If you want it to be something that's nigh to completely impossible for the trained character to accomplish, feel free to crank that number up to whatever makes you happy.


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## Nytmare (Mar 14, 2010)

KarinsDad said:


> Perception appears to be a special case for the Passive Check rules.




Huh.  Well ignore 90% of what I've said then.


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## Prism (Mar 14, 2010)

Nytmare said:


> The difficulties the rules suggest rank a "hard" task as something that most focused, trained, mega-ultra-olympic-caliber characters can do passively without breaking a sweat.
> 
> If you want a level appropriate "hard" task to not be a diceless cakewalk for that character, the task should not be handed to them under conditions where they will be able to take 10.
> 
> If you want it to be something that's nigh to completely impossible for the trained character to accomplish, feel free to crank that number up to whatever makes you happy.




Nope, what I like is a task that the trained character can sometimes do and sometimes can't. Using passive perception as is, that character will be able to always do it (or not) based on the DC's I choose ie DMG1 (they will never do it) or DMG2 (they will always do it). I don't want to make something too easy or too hard - just variable like everything else in the game

I have no problem asking the players to roll a perception check to determine this rather than use passive perception but thats not what the rules say. I just don't what to run or play a game where the DM is in complete control of what the players see. As KarinsDad pointed out - you are supposed to use passive perception in an encounter too - the only skill that allows this take 10

I get the idea that some players here like the idea that they can walk through a dungeon spotting every trap, hidden monster or secret door without even a roll. Seriously? This is what passive perception allows for with the newer DC's. Once you get used to this what happens when the DM raises the DC for a particular trap and you find it the hard way since you don't check any more? Do you blame yourself for not being careful or do you get annoyed at the DM for not using advised DCs?


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## Nytmare (Mar 14, 2010)

Prism said:


> As KarinsDad pointed out - you are supposed to use passive perception in an encounter too - the only skill that allows this take 10




Please see: 



			
				Nytmare said:
			
		

> Huh.  Well ignore 90% of what I've said then.




Or you can continue to take 10 on beating this dead horse.


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## Kingreaper (Mar 14, 2010)

DracoSuave said:


> Unless the stealth roll is between both, in which case, the stealthed character is hidden from the lower character, and not the higher character.



And the lower character has done nothing useful. Just like if they HAD spotted it, they'd have done nothing useful with their skill.

The only time the character with lower perception has it do anything useful is when the player with higher perception CAN'T spot the thing.




Amaroq said:


> I don't really like Kingreaper's method of randomizing who saw things, because while it works for the "Okay, who finds the secret door?" case, I like to write items like traps where it matters which players, plural, have spotted it, and I want it to be possible for either the #1, the #2, both, or neither to make the spot.



You misunderstood me then. I wasn't suggesting "roll to see which one spotted it"; that would be pointless and achieve nothing.


I was suggesting "roll one stealth; then, for each person whose passive perception is high enough, roll a die. If it's X (for a D6, either 2 or 3 probably) or above, they've spotted the thing. If not, they were distracted/looking the wrong way/whatever.


If the higher Passive Percep character fails to second roll, all of a sudden the lower percep one is USEFUL.


In a combat situation the second roll would be unneeded (just check Line of Sight, that should be complex enough in most combats)


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## Amaroq (Mar 15, 2010)

Thanks, K, sorry for misquoting-you-by-implication.

Regarding the rest of the conversation, maybe we're right back around to this being a "How the DM is using it" issue. The DM could quite conceivably draw this up as:

*Secret Door*: Not visible to Passive Perception if the party simply enter, walk through, or fight in this room. Requires an active Perception check of X to spot. If the party take a 5-minute rest in the room, a Passive Perception of at least Y will reveal a discolored panel that might convince the party to make an active Perception check. (_If multiple characters exceed the target PP, you might roll randomly to determine which one notices it first - but a great DM will have the player who currently looks least engaged find it, as a means to re-engage him or her._)

*Trap-as-part-of-encounter*: Roll Initiative as normal. At the start of their turn, a character with a Passive Perception of X spots the suspicious holes in the wall if adjacent; they need X+2 to spot it from the doorway where they enter the room. When a character "spots" the suspicious holes with his PP, do not reveal it unless it his currently his turn; if it was not his turn, describe the holes to him at the start of his next turn by Initiative order. Characters which make an Active Perception of Y spot the suspicious holes in the wall. Characters with an Active Perception of Z spot the pressure plate which sets off the spear-trap. 

*Late-Arriving Lurker*: On the turn in which it reaches the combat, the Lurker rolls Stealth + M to arrive, Concealed, at the edge of the map. Find the first character after the Lurker's initiative whose Passive Perception equals or beats the Stealth roll. At the start of that character's turn, place the Lurker on the battlemat. If the Stealth check beats all players' PP, the Lurker begins its next turn still concealed, unless a character makes an active Perception check and spots him.

  . . . 

I think that tends to address most of the problems described: having two high-Perception characters is still useful, as it lets the party spot the trap or lurker a lot earlier in the round (e.g., with more characters having time to "react" to the information); it also randomizes who *feels* like they spotted it via the Initiative mechanic. 

For both the Trap and the Secret Door, we get a Passive Perception "clue" that something isn't as it appears in the room, but both require an Active Perception check to actually find the hidden item.

We _still_ have, slightly, the problem of the DM "setting" the required PP number(s), but at that point its much less important; in fact, its almost useful for him to know the highest PP in the party to ensure that he sets the number at or below it.

How does that feel to you guys?


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## Kingreaper (Mar 15, 2010)

I like it. Seems like a good general method.


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## Colmarr (Mar 16, 2010)

KarinsDad said:


> Someone at WotC thought that auto success should occur for Perception and Insight, but forgot about Athletics, History, Stealth, and a bunch of others.




The obvious explanation is that Perception and Insight are skills that have implied meaning as soon as the DM calls for a roll of the die.

PCs don't need to roll Perception or Insight unless there's something to perceive. As such, a DM-initiated roll carries meaning even if the roll is failed. The same is not true (or is true to a much lesser extent) of the other skills you mentioned. 



Of the ways* that that meaning can be combatted:
there is no passive skill use - PCs automatically fail Perception or Insight checks unless they actively choose to take them;
there is passive skill use - there is no roll and it assumes the PC rolled a 1 on their skill check;
there is passive skill use - there is a roll and the DM throws in fake Perception and Insight checks to keep the PCs on their toes; or
there is passive skill use - the DM rolls all Perception and Insight checks before the session
WotC's choice of implementing passive Perception and passive Insight seems to me to be by far the best solution. YMMV.

* (of course there may be others, but those are the four that sprang immediately to mind).



KarinsDad said:


> That is how the rules differ for Passive Perception and the other skills. Passive Perception often allows for auto-success for anything that the player could use perception for. It effectively allows for Take 10, even within an encounter.




This seems to be a different argument to the one you put forward at the start of the thread**. You initially argued (paraphrased; correct me if I'm wrong) that passive perception/insight are bad because they are too intrusive to the DM meta. 

It has since been pointed out that the same accusation can be levelled at passive history (ie. take 10), and now your argument seems to centre on the fact that the rules differ between Perception/Insight and the rest once an encounter begins. 

To be clear, are we now confining the discussion to how things work during an encounter?

** which isn't per se a bad thing, but it can muddy the waters.


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## On Puget Sound (Mar 16, 2010)

We have a super perceptive ranger and a cleric with fairly good perception.  It's hard to hide anything using standard DCs and passive perception, so I mostly don't try.  Lurker monsters can still surprise them sometimes, but hidden traps are a waste of notebook paper for this group.  If I use a trap, it's one that they can detect but can't necessarily avoid if they want to get where they are going, or one that will trigger during a combat.  

It's kind of fun to let the ranger smell something coming, feel a vibration in the floor, or otherwise get to feel cool about her perception being so high.  And in ambushes, she gets to act in the surprise round.


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## Zaran (Mar 16, 2010)

> Noticing it while swinging upside down from a burning vine while fighting Tiamat is not a mundane task.




Actually, I believe that if your Passive Perception is still high enough to beat the DC even with all those negative modifiers you should still be able to notice it passively.


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## BruntFCA (Mar 19, 2010)

I just watched the DM in the Robot Chicken Vids at wotc.

He seems to do what KD as been suggesting. Over and over again, he only seems to allow the PC to make perception checks and even notice things when they get closer; watch it and see.

As a good DM he's "peeling the onion" as it were and keeping the suspense. The idea that some PC sends out some "radar like " ping and notices everything in the room is really silly as far as I'm concerned.

As for rangers scouting ahead its a good idea sometimes. Only how does he stay stealthy? If he's carrying any light he can't stealth, if he's not got any light, it will mess up his perception. MOst PC classes don't have dark vision, just another thing to think about.


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## Colmarr (Mar 19, 2010)

BruntFCA said:


> As for rangers scouting ahead its a good idea sometimes. Only how does he stay stealthy? If he's carrying any light he can't stealth, if he's not got any light, it will mess up his perception. MOst PC classes don't have dark vision, just another thing to think about.




One of the interesting changes to 4e was not only did most PC races lose darkvision, but so did most other races.

As such, it's quite rare to be adventuring in a lightless environment. Of course, when you _do_ come across one, that will pose some difficulties for your scout


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