Active vrs. Passive Perceptions. Problems?

[yawnmummy]

Hello All,

In the course of interpreting what appears to be a pretty run of the mill question (Active vrs. Passive Perception), and finding the answer, a horrible thing happened: the Observant Feat.

The Answer I found, that I was happy with:


Note that Jeremy Crawford backs up this reading in this April 2014 podcast (at about 23:20): Passive perception makes a floor and if your passive perception beats the DC, you're already aware and shouldn't be rolling.

The Observant Feat, for reference:


Quick to notice details of your environment, you gain the following benefits:
○ Increase your Intelligence or Wisdom by 1, to a maximum of 20.
○ If you can see a creature's mouth while it is speaking a language you understand, you can interpret what it's saying by reading its lips.
○ You have a +5 bonus to your passive Wisdom (Perception) and passive Intelligence (Investigation) scores.


The issue I have:


Passive perception is a bit odd, it's basically your Perception with a roll of 10. I don’t find this game mechanic particularly useful or consistent (why don't other skills have a floor of 10?), but I can kind of imagine how your senses can't really fail moment to moment.

But add +5 to that floor, and many character's "Passive" perception is actually better than most of the rolls they can produce. (Base Roll of 15 now). This start to trivialize the whole skill (IMO).

I've read how it was handled in 4E, where "Passive" perception provided general awareness and details, and active more specific. Ex. Passive: You are aware of something out of the norm. Active Perception/Investigation: What about it is out of the norm. I'm thinking of house ruling this.

Am I mis-reading / mis-understanding anything above? What do you think?

[RSP]

Hello All,

In the course of interpreting what appears to be a pretty run of the mill question (Active vrs. Passive Perception), and finding the answer, a horrible thing happened: the Observant Feat.

...

I've read how it was handled in 4E, where "Passive" perception provided general awareness and details, and active more specific. Ex. Passive: You are aware of something out of the norm. Active Perception/Investigation: What about it is out of the norm. I'm thinking of house ruling this.

Am I mis-reading / mis-understanding anything above? What do you think?

You’ve pretty much got it. The Observant bonus is a good bump, but at the cost of a feat, and if the Passive Perception doesn’t notice it, it does nothing to help an active roll.

[Keravath]

This topic gets a lot of discussion :)

However, there are passive versions for EVERY skill. It is up to the DM whether they want to use them and whether they are appropriate to the situation.

Usually the use of passive skills is for actions that can be repeated either due to lack of a time limitation or lack of a penalty for failure or when the DM just doesn't want to roll dice to give things away.

One other thing to keep in mind is that "passive" does not refer to the actions of the character ... it refers to the actions of the player ... when a passive check is made the player is doing nothing. However, in many cases, in order to succeed in a passive check the character has to be doing something. Passive perception doesn't get used if the character isn't looking for example ... if they are sleeping, meditating, reading their book, mapping while traveling, passive perception doesn't apply. The character actually has to be actively looking.

Some folks get this confused in thinking that the character that isn't even trying to look (passive) can get a better result than a character that is actively looking. However, in the first case the character that isn't even looking might not even get a chance to notice anything while a character that was actively looking or searching might use the passive perception first to see if they notice something and then either get the narated results without even knowing that a check might have been required if they had a lower passive perception .. or if their passive isn't high enough the DM might ask for a die roll.


Some examples:

Perception
You noted the passive perception - it can be applied to noticing things like secret doors or traps or anything you might come across which might require you to see or hear things around you.

Investigation
A DM could use passive investigation first if a character searches a room and they have enough time to search AND they say that they are looking in the relevant area. e.g. DC 15 hidden drawer in a desk ... PC with 15 passive investigation says they search the room looking at the walls and bookcases but don't mention the desk. They don't find anything but the DM might ask for a roll just to hide the fact that there was nothing to find where they looked. Another character with DC12 passive investigation searches the desk ... the DM would ask for a die roll ... they roll low and don't find anything. The character searching the walls decides he should look at the desk too and the DM tells him he finds a secret drawer since his passive investigation exceeds the DC.

Thieves Tools
There is a locked door, the rest of the party stands around while the thief figures it out. Unless there is a negative effect for a failed attempt then the theif can take as long as he likes. In this case a passive thieves tools check against the lock DC is appropriate just to smooth the story narration.
e.g. Level 7 rogue with expertise in thieves tools and an 18 dex has a +10 to open locks. His passive thieves tools is 20. The party comes across a locked storeroom door with a DC18 lock, no guards, no traps, no time pressures. The player says they try to pick the lock and the DM narrates that the lock is a bit tricky due to some rust but after about 5 minutes of fiddling with the tumblers the lock pops open. Make the rogue feel good about having invested in being excellent with thieves tools rather than ... rogue rolls a 3 ... 13 won't open the lock .. the level 4 heavy armor fighter with 8 dex and a criminal background tries the lock and rolls an 18. Wow look I picked the lock ... I am great! ... same thing happens all the time when die rolls controls the results ... whereas, with passive skills at least most of the time, the actually skilled character is going to succeed and advance the story without having the rest of the party try to roll dice ... maybe everyone fails.

Insight
If you are talking with someone for long enough the DM might use a passive insight check to indicate if there is something "off" or inconsistent about the person the character is talking with. Maybe passive insight 15. This avoids the whole issue of the players saying I want to use insight now to see if they are telling the truth.

[Kane0]

Passives can be used for more than just perception, Investigation and Insight being other examples at the DMs discretion. Perception is just the most common.

Passives are great for things that characters don't put conscious effort into doing, the autopilot sort of check as opposed to a considered action. Kind of like the difference between hearing and listening? The feat is strong but limited in that way, I wouldn't call it OP.

[RSP]

This topic gets a lot of discussion :)

However, there are passive versions for EVERY skill. It is up to the DM whether they want to use them and whether they are appropriate to the situation.

Usually the use of passive skills is for actions that can be repeated either due to lack of a time limitation or lack of a penalty for failure or when the DM just doesn't want to roll dice to give things away.

One other thing to keep in mind is that "passive" does not refer to the actions of the character ... it refers to the actions of the player ... when a passive check is made the player is doing nothing. However, in many cases, in order to succeed in a passive check the character has to be doing something. Passive perception doesn't get used if the character isn't looking for example ... if they are sleeping, meditating, reading their book, mapping while traveling, passive perception doesn't apply. The character actually has to be actively looking.


No. Passive Checks are used when an action is constantly repeated or when the DM wants to make a check in secret (hence why PP is a “floor” - anything the character would make a normal check for should have already had a secret PP check for, therefore the character would notice anything under their PP).

It has nothing to do with the character having to be “actively looking.”

The repetition use isn’t for when trying to do the same thing with no penalty for failure or lack of time limitation - that’s just called succeeding with no roll after a DM determines how much time it took: if you have endless time to pick a lock and you’re capable of picking it, you pick it; using Passive Tool proficiency could mean you actually can never pick it even though it’s within your skill level.

The proper use of the Passive check for repetition is when doing something repeatedly but in different circumstances, such as declaring a character checks for secret doors in every area of a dungeon: rolling every 5’ is ridiculous and will slow the game down needlessly, so you just take the Passive score for every check, or say you want to use Insight on every person you talk to at a crowded bar: you’re using the same check over and over but in different situations (with different people, searching but in different areas, whatever).

[Tanarii]

Passive check just means you the player don't roll a die for the check. It's got nothing to do with if the character is passively or actively doing something.

It happens when:
- your character is taking an action over and over again, but not the exact same task*.
- the result of the roll must be secret from the player.

The first one is a time saver for the player. The second is so the player cannot guess if they might have failed vs there is nothing for them to succeed on.

Hidden things are often both, so they tend to be passive perception or passive investigation. So while Crawford is wrong by RAW, in that passive perception is neither about the character passively doing something nor automatically a floor ... in effect it's almost always the case passive perception (specifically) is a floor.

Example: if you are for some reason denied passive perception when you might detect a threat, if you later take an Search Action you would be rolling without the effective "floor". Examples given for being denied passive perception from PHB are Marching Order puts you in a position you can't see the threat, or Mapping, Foraging, Tracking or Navigating. But that's going to be an extreme edge case for Perception.

*if you're doing the same task over and over again, that's the automatic success rule, takes ten times as long to auto succeed. For example, picking a lock until you open it, or searching a specific limited area for a hidden thing (trap, compartment, secret door) until you find anything that you can find. Contrast the latter with going down a hallway at normal speed looking for traps or secret doors ... same "action", different task of searching a new area each short period of time, so passive.

[Grey Watcher]

Hello All,

In the course of interpreting what appears to be a pretty run of the mill question (Active vrs. Passive Perception), and finding the answer, a horrible thing happened: the Observant Feat.

The Answer I found, that I was happy with:


Note that Jeremy Crawford backs up this reading in this April 2014 podcast (at about 23:20): Passive perception makes a floor and if your passive perception beats the DC, you're already aware and shouldn't be rolling.

The Observant Feat, for reference:


Quick to notice details of your environment, you gain the following benefits:
○ Increase your Intelligence or Wisdom by 1, to a maximum of 20.
○ If you can see a creature's mouth while it is speaking a language you understand, you can interpret what it's saying by reading its lips.
○ You have a +5 bonus to your passive Wisdom (Perception) and passive Intelligence (Investigation) scores.


The issue I have:


Passive perception is a bit odd, it's basically your Perception with a roll of 10. I don’t find this game mechanic particularly useful or consistent (why don't other skills have a floor of 10?), but I can kind of imagine how your senses can't really fail moment to moment.

But add +5 to that floor, and many character's "Passive" perception is actually better than most of the rolls they can produce. (Base Roll of 15 now). This start to trivialize the whole skill (IMO).

I've read how it was handled in 4E, where "Passive" perception provided general awareness and details, and active more specific. Ex. Passive: You are aware of something out of the norm. Active Perception/Investigation: What about it is out of the norm. I'm thinking of house ruling this.

Am I mis-reading / mis-understanding anything above? What do you think?

Passive Perception is intended to solve this problem (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0003.html) without having to write a whole new sub-system just for perception. Whether it's a good solution, I leave to you.

Not sure why they dropped Taking 10 as an overall mechanic, though.

As for the whole "Passive Perception is a floor" thing, I wouldn't handle it that way. If you roll a nine or less, your active Perception does come off worse than your Passive.

My personal handwave for this is as follows:

Imagine I am crossing the street. I make a Perception check to see if a car is coming. Passive Perception is just relying on my peripheral vision to notice movement, without making any effort to look around than I did on the sidewalk. Active Perception is me stopping to look both ways. How is it that active can end up worse than passive. It's possible I'll be unlucky enough to be looking exactly the other way when a speeding car comes, something that would've registered in my peripheral vision if I were going Passive. Is it a bit of kludgy handwave? Yeah, but it is a handy in-fiction way to justify the game's mechanics.

[Tanarii]

Imagine I am crossing the street. I make a Perception check to see if a car is coming. Passive Perception is just relying on my peripheral vision to notice movement, without making any effort to look around than I did on the sidewalk. Active Perception is me stopping to look both ways.
This analogy fails, because passive perception is you stopping to look both ways at each and every corner you cross. You're just not rolling on each on because your player doesn't need to roll dice for you taking an action repeatedly.

(You are a PC for this example :smallamused:)

Edit: a person who generally fails to look both ways properly would be represented by a low Wisdom, which is a lack of natural talent or training in awareness of the world about you and things in it in 5e. And no focus on Perception of course (ie no proficiency).

[Pelle]

Edit: a person who generally fails to look both ways properly would be represented by a low Wisdom, which is a lack of natural talent or training in awareness of the world about you and things in it in 5e. And no focus on Perception of course (ie no proficiency).

And someone with their earlplugs on and looking at their smartphone while crossing will not get an active nor passive check at all. (just like Drawing a Map, etc)

[Grey Watcher]

This analogy fails, because passive perception is you stopping to look both ways at each and every corner you cross. You're just not rolling on each on because your player doesn't need to roll dice for you taking an action repeatedly.

(You are a PC for this example :smallamused:)

Edit: a person who generally fails to look both ways properly would be represented by a low Wisdom, which is a lack of natural talent or training in awareness of the world about you and things in it in 5e. And no focus on Perception of course (ie no proficiency).

Eh, you're right insofar as that, specifically, is not the best example, but I haven't been able to think of a better one that doesn't require a ludicrous amount of exposition. Active Perception is for things like "I look out the window to see if I can see anybody" or "I look at the table to see if the Mik-Guh-Fan is on it." Passive is for just "I'm keeping an eye out for anything interesting and/or out of the ordinary.

To go with the road example, and active check might be called for if, say, I'm looking to see if my sister's car is on the road. (Success might mean I notice it from down the street, while failure means I don't see it until/unless it pulls up to a stop right next to me.) I guess, it's that I think of AP as "looking for something at least somewhat specific" whereas PP is for just "keeping an eye out".

But my point is that, a less-than-10 Perception roll represents just the misfortune of looking away at exactly the wrong time. (This is starting to get into the other tricky part: when do you use Investigation instead? My general rule on THAT is it's Investigation if you are manipulating the thing (rifling through a drawer, probing things with Thieves' tools, etc.)

[Man_Over_Game]

I actually throw out how passive perception is used officially and use it in other ways.

According to Jeremy Crawford, it's "Always On", and since your passive perception will always be applied before your active perception, you'd only ever need to make an active perception check if your passive isn't high enough, which completely supersedes the 11th level Rogue skill, especially if you consider every skill having a passive counterpart.

I have a lot of complaints about it and his decision, but it is what it is.

If you guys want more direct, formal answers, there's a LOT of objective resources on it on RPG Stack Exchange:

When is Passive Investigation used? (https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/131239/when-is-passive-investigation-used)
Does passive perception supersede active perception? (https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/48281/does-passive-perception-supersede-active-perception)
How to avoid the determinism of Passive Perception (https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/95069/how-to-avoid-the-determinism-of-passive-perception) (I use a similar system as mentioned in here in my own games, using Passives as a defensive stat that my mechanics/traps/clues/puzzles roll against)
What changes if you eliminate Passive Perception? (https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/112811/what-changes-if-you-eliminate-passive-perception)
How do I deal with extremely high passive perception? (https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/114794/how-do-i-deal-with-extremely-high-passive-perception)

I get the feeling that it was added to make events between battles more straightforward and faster, but it wasn't well designed, especially when considering 5E's usual focus to make everything evenly balanced.

Either all the other skills have blatantly less value, or the rogue's level 11 feature does nothing. Pick your poison.

----------------

Generally, I'll use Passives for things that you can miss, like the cough of an enemy indicating he's sick with a passive Medicine check, or the glint of something moving in the water with a passive Perception check. This also works with things like Stealth, which utilizes someone actually rolling against your passive to avoid being seen in a 6 second time-frame.

[Tanarii]

Eh, you're right insofar as that, specifically, is not the best example, but I haven't been able to think of a better one that doesn't require a ludicrous amount of exposition.It is very hard to come up with examples. Because passive checks and active checks are exactly the same thing in terms of the in-universe actions taken. They are purely a mechanical conceit to save the player from rolling dice, or from gaining metagame information.

And in the case of perception, one or both of those are almost always the case. So the check is usually passive. And even when it's not (Search action to find a creature that just disappeared) there was usually a check to beat passive in the first place.


(This is starting to get into the other tricky part: when do you use Investigation instead? My general rule on THAT is it's Investigation if you are manipulating the thing (rifling through a drawer, probing things with Thieves' tools, etc.)Yeah, that's a bit more difficult. But it's not supposed to be (physical) search vs spot. Investigation can be done at a distance.

Really it's just down to deductive reasoning vs just looking. Seeing a "clue" doesn't do you any good if you don't comprehend it. Figuring out that something *should* be there, but also figuring out how it works. So different methods, but also different goals

But it's definitely easier to just short-hand it as something else like you do. Or in my case, I tend to make it generally Investigation = "search for traps/secret doors" and Perception = "spot hidden creatures". Although I do pay attention to what the player Approach and Intended Outcome.

[Pelle]

According to Jeremy Crawford, it's "Always On",

It's not really always on, but it's normally assumed that the characters are always paying attention and looking around whenever they enter a new room etc, making it so in practice. If your character is specifically not paying attention, or busy, it's not on.

[Tanarii]

It's not really always on, but it's normally assumed that the characters are always paying attention and looking around whenever they enter a new room etc, making it so in practice. If your character is specifically not paying attention, or busy, it's not on.Yup. And the PHB adventuring has great examples of common adventuring situations and tasks that cause you to lose passive perception.

Assuming you play anything like classic D&D. Non-grognards might have missed it after skimming past all that marching order and mapping nonsense. :smallamused:

[Man_Over_Game]

Yup. And the PHB adventuring has great examples of common adventuring situations and tasks that cause you to lose passive perception.

Yeah, but when most groups have at least one Outlander, a Ranger, or a Druid, there are often not a lot of things you can really be doing other than paying attention to your surroundings. When there's nothing to forage, and someone's already got the map taken care of, what else is there to do other than look for stuff?

[Tanarii]

Yeah, but when most groups have at least one Outlander, a Ranger, or a Druid, there are often not a lot of things you can really be doing other than paying attention to your surroundings. When there's nothing to forage, and someone's already got the map taken care of, what else is there to do other than look for stuff?
Only rangers don't require loss of passive perception when foraging, navigating or tracking (but not mapping). And they have to be in their Natural Explorer terrain. Anyone else, including someone using the Outlander's Wanderer feature, still can't use PP if doing any of those tasks. Also, that means they'll be automatically surprised in an ambush.

That's not even including Marching Order allowing you to detect the threat. Although that's generally a bigger issue underground.

Lots of people hand-wave that stuff, but it's actually fairly important application of the rules with a pretty big impact.

[Louro]

The most common way DMs have been handling this is using Passive Perception whenever you don't want your players to roll, as in secret rolls or repetitive tasks. And using normal perception whenever they declare they look for something.

PP is a DM tool rather than a player feature.

[djreynolds]

[QUOTE=Grey Watcher;23469871]Passive Perception is intended to solve this problem (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0003.html) without having to write a whole new sub-system just for perception. Whether it's a good solution, I leave to you.

Not sure why they dropped Taking 10 as an overall mechanic, though.

QUOTE]

First off very funny, that's a good little comic and great reason why passive perception is their

I think perhaps players take 10, but perhaps do not know they do.

For instance, if players are cautiously moving through a dungeon at a walking pace, then passive perception is up and in essence they are taking 10.

Whereas if you making a map on the road, you are focusing on the map, and not taking 10. Or if you are moving fast, you're not taking 10.

I think its a combination of what speed you are moving at and any actions you are taking while you move. A foot soldier on a patrol maybe focused and is taking 10 while moving. While the guy on comms or the leader looking at the map maybe moving slowly but and are not taking 10, and take a penalty on their passive perception or are not granted passive perception for a set time.

Exploring, I think, can be seen as combat, you have movement and an action. DMs should ask players in a dungeon what are you doing?

So if you are dashing through the jungle, you are moving and your action is dashing, you're not taking 10, and have no passive perception.

If a players are in the library looking at the books and/or jawjacking about stuff, then that's their action and they are not paying attention, I might say you stepped on a trap or I'm rolling a 20 sided dice and the player nervously says "Oh I'm looking for traps." And I say, "No, you just got hit by arrow"

[Tanarii]

from what I can tell and IMO, the main reason the game moved from take 10 and take 20 to passive checks and automatic success, is a shift in design philosophy to make it clear that

- the DM calls for checks when she thinks there is a question of resolution. The player doesn't declare the check or dice.

- ability checks aren't some kind of underlying structure of the in game universe, always happening. They are something used when there is a question of resolution.

Functionally, they're very close to the same thing. With the added benefit that passives also can be used for secret things, and automatic success isn't bound by 20+bonus, just DM judgement on if the PC can succeed.

[djreynolds]

from what I can tell and IMO, the main reason the game moved from take 10 and take 20 to passive checks and automatic success, is a shift in design philosophy to make it clear that

- the DM calls for checks when she thinks there is a question of resolution. The player doesn't declare the check or dice.

- ability checks aren't some kind of underlying structure of the in game universe, always happening. They are something used when there is a question of resolution.

Functionally, they're very close to the same thing. With the added benefit that passives also can be used for secret things, and automatic success isn't bound by 20+bonus, just DM judgement on if the PC can succeed.

True, I don't care about the rogue tight-rope walking somewhere, just explain how you did it, make it sound cool. Make it epic

I care about the fat cleric who's going next, that's the fun stuff for a DM