In the beginning, when a party of adventurers encountered a group of monsters, both sides rolled a six-sided die. If a side rolled a 1 or 2, that side was surprised and had to stand by while the opposing side got a free round of attacks (or of fleeing, if the opposition looked scary).
As the game developed, certain characters and monsters changed the chances of surprising or being surprised. Rangers made it less likely the party would be surprised. Bugbears surprised more often. The Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rules became a marvel of incomprehensibility when it came to the surprise rules, with a wealth of competing and incompatible subsystems. Everyone sighed in relief when the 2nd Edition rules were released, and the surprise rules all used the same system. It still was “roll a dice, if you roll low you are surprised”, however.
Things changed with Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition. This set of rules had a comprehensive skill system, with Listen and Spot skills that allowed a character to detect whether a monster was Moving Silently or Hiding. The “both sides roll a surprise die” rule was gone. Instead, it was the interaction between skills that determined whether a battle began with a surprise situation. In addition, the role of the Dungeon Master in determining whether surprise was even possible was made stronger; many situations had neither group even attempting stealth, and thus surprise would not occur.
One interesting point about 3rd Edition: These checks were opposed checks. Thus, a 1d20 + skill modifier vs. 1d20 + skill modifier. This will become relevant shortly.
Fourth Edition introduced Passive Perception. Instead of requiring the player to make a check whenever there was something hidden around, it was assumed the player rolled a 10. This rule has carried on into the current edition of Dungeons & Dragons. Each character has a Passive Perception score, equal to 10 + their Wisdom (Perception) modifier. Whenever something is around that the characters might notice, the DM can compare its Dexterity (Stealth) check to the characters’ Passive Perception scores, and quickly determine if they notice it.
The Joys
This is a simple system.
The system is at its best when dealing with creatures. In this case, it is incumbent for the creature attempting to be unseen to make the roll. The fact that there’s a roll involved brings in an element of chance and risk. Good D&D play tends to not like “sure things”.
The reason that the rolling goes into the DMs hands is so the players aren’t alerted to when something important is coming up. Getting the players to make Wisdom (Perception) checks when they’re walking over an ordinary floor tends to give the game away.
It has the advantage of not being an opposed check. Why is this important? It’s because of probability. For each +1 in the check bonus, there’s a flat 5% increase in the possibility of success. When you’re dealing with opposed checks, the chances change in a non-obvious manner, with even a small differential causing a great advantage to the more skilled participant. When most of the game uses flat rolls, having an opposed roll is very noticeable: the check doesn’t work the way you expect.
Because the Dexterity (Stealth) and Wisdom (Perception) checks use the same system to derive their bonuses, and thus the Passive Perception scores, they’re comparable: both bonuses exist within the same range. (This was a major flaw with D&D 3rd Edition, where skill checks weren’t even comparable. If you remember the system, consider all the synergy bonuses Diplomacy could get!)
It also makes determining whether a Dexterity (Stealth) check succeeds very easy – you don’t need to get everyone to roll to see if it succeeded. Just compare against Passive Perception scores. Most DMs make a note of their players’ scores at the beginning of each session.
Of course, a player can always use an action to make a Wisdom (Perception) check when they need to see a hidden creature!
The Horrors
Traps give the system a few problems.
One of the problems here is that it’s not clear what the difference between Wisdom (Perception) and Intelligence (Investigation) is. Some traps require Wisdom (Perception) and others require Intelligence (Investigation)? Even the rulebook flounders around on this one and doesn’t give a clear answer; and the adventures tend to make Wisdom (Perception) king and make Intelligence (Investigation) a poor cousin. In my games, I tend to go with Intelligence (Investigation) as the main trap-finding skill.
Another problem – and this doesn’t worry me that much, but does some of my friends – is that traps you can spot with Passive Perception become irrelevant unless you set the DC at a very high level. And there’s no die roll involved. Now, I like a party to be able to find traps if they’ve built characters who are good at finding them. It’s a reward for their effort. It also pays to have traps that are significant even when found. A pit in the middle of a room which can be walked around isn’t that interesting; a pit in a 10-foot-wide corridor blocking passage even when found is interesting, as the players now must negotiate it. The “trick” here is to think more about traps.
The more significant problem is that there’s no dice roll involved. The trap has a detection DC. The character has a Passive Perception score. Compare one to the other. It’s dull and boring, and entirely too predictable. Designers set DCs at levels that are stupidly high, just because they’re sick of the players finding traps.
The problems with Passive Perception are made even worse by two feats: Alert and Observant.
Alert says a character can’t be surprised. However, it doesn’t say the character knows where the monsters are. This gives rise to the following situation: “Roll initiative!” “I win!” “Why did we roll initiative?” “You don’t know.” “I don’t know what to do!” I don’t like feats that lead to this sort of situation – and I hate even more feats that just flat-out stop a situation from happening.
Observant gives a +5 bonus to Passive Perception (and Passive Investigation, whatever the latter means…). This is a massive bonus, which just breaks the mathematics of the game. It’s game design I really dislike. The design process probably went like this: “We’ll give the Observant character advantage on their Wisdom (Perception) checks, but only the passive ones. Oh, advantage doesn’t mean roll two dice when applied to a passive check, it’s a +5 bonus instead. We’ll just say it’s a +5 and leave out any mention of advantage.” This leads to situations where a characters Passive Perception score is in the low twenties or even higher. It’s not too bad against monsters, as they still have a chance of hiding, but against the flat DC of traps? Not so good.
It’s not entirely defined what happens when a player uses an action to spot a hidden creature (and makes the check). They’ve used their action. Can they do anything else? Can they point it out to other players?
Variations
If I could have my way, I’d likely ban a few feats from the game, Alert and Observant being two of those (along with Sharpshooter and any feat that removes the penalties of missile weapons, but that’s another article!). This would normalise the mathematics, and remove strange exceptions and the situations they create.
The most significant variation I’d add would be to change how detecting traps worked. Instead of using a flat DC, I’d incorporate a roll into it. Thus, a trap would have a detection DC of 1d20 + 6, or +10, or +12, depending on how hard it was to detect. That way, it introduces an element of chance, allowing characters with good Passive Perception scores to still detect traps more often, but removing the certainty caused by having a good Perception DC.
Yes, you could put the roll in the hands of the players, but the idea of keeping danger hidden from the players unless they detect it is a strong one. If you disagree, throw out Passive Perception and go back to requesting Wisdom (Perception) checks when the players need to notice something.
My house rule for what happens when a player perceives a hidden creature using an action is that it gives advantage (and thus a +5 bonus to Passive Perception) to all other checks of characters. This might allow them to automatically spot the hidden creature. At the very least, the square it occupies is identified and can be attacked.
Those are a few of my thoughts on Passive Perception. To listen to the podcast that inspired this article, go visit Down with D&D. It’s a fascinating podcast, well worth listening to!
As far as which skill to use for trapfinding, we tend to follow the suggestions from the _Unearthed Arcana_ traps article:
* Wisdom (Perception) to find a trap if searching, or passive Wisdom (Perception) to notice one when not searching;
* Intelligence (Investigation) to determine how the trap operates and to understand how to disable or bypass its trigger mechanism;
* Dexterity (thieves’ tools proficiency) to actually disable or bypass the trap.
My main problem with passive Perception is that 45% of the time, actively searching means you get a worse result than you’d have gotten by just blundering along while making no effort to search at all. I suppose that’s plausible — you might get focussed on the wrong thing — but it’s still frustrating.
Jeremy Crawford did a great job covering Passive Perception on a recent Dragon+ podcast. Here’s a thread from the D&D Beyond forum that highlights important points.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/dungeons-dragons-discussion/rules-game-mechanics/2793-stealth-advice-from-jeremy-crawford
The most valid being, even if you roll below you PP score, you always take the greater score. Ie: fighter has +1 mod to WIS (Perception). Rolls a 6, which results in a 7. The DM should then use that character’s 11 in Passive Perception as the result vs the monster’s stealth roll.
Of course, if RAW doesn’t work, then adjucate appropriately for your group.
Thanks for the pointer; that seems like a good rule to use.
I use it like this in my games, even if it’s my interpretation as a DM:
1) Passive Wisdom (Perception) notices something is amiss (maybe residue left behind by a fire trap, or a scrape along the floor that is a result of a nearby secret door, a spray of dried blood droplets near a scythe trap, etc.). It’s up to the PC to find out what exactly it is through further active investigation.
2) The PC must make an Intelligence (Investigation) roll to determine the cause of what is amiss.
3) There is no such thing as Passive Intelligence (Investigation) in my game, so the Observant feat instead grants a +5 bonus to Passive Wisdom (Insight) instead.
4) Passive Wisdom (Insight) notices something something fishy or off about the lying/obscuring/emotional creature you’re communicating with, like a detail that doesn’t make sense, or they’re hiding something or leaving out information, or there is some other emotion that the PC picks up on but is not readily apparent.
5) Active Wisdom (Perception) and Wisdom (Insight) may be used when Passive values don’t find anything (because the PC(s) with the successful scores doesn’t reveal the information to the other PCs or they’re not in the current scene/room/area).
6) Rolling a 1 or 20 on an Active check doesn’t do anything special.
I greatly dislike systems that encourage the player not to look actively. For this reason, I prefer to have traps be well hidden, such that Perception won’t automatically reveal them. Not always, but for most traps they can be so well concealed that no cursory glance will reveal them. You have to really study the area, which means Investigation. That gives traps a chance to be fun and surprising elements.
I agree with this. I’m considering a follow-up article looking at the role of traps, which is more than just “this is how traps work”. 🙂
I just don’t get the value. Maybe for a published adventure where a lot of different characters need to be supported, but for my campaign I know if I want the PCs to see the thing or not, if I do they see it – the end. If it’s something that they roll a perception check to determine then it’s optional, extra information, loot etc. Some stuff is discovered just by examining something hinted at.
I guess what I’m saying is passive perception makes some simulationist sense, but zero narrative, dramatic or gameplay sense. So I never use it.
Passive Perception is very useful when a creature hides. Do you want all your players to have to roll Wisdom (Perception) checks or just check against Passive Perception? But for “stuff you can find”, I agree that I prefer having the characters roll.
I agree that I don’t like Passive Perception. I think adding a 10 to a bonus makes no sense. I would think about using a bonus + PB as a Passive, and just have them make a simple roll for an active check. Alert and Observant can then stack properly. I also make the distinction between Perception and Investigation. Perception is to notice something using ONLY their senses (sight, hearing, smell) and I use Investigation as actively searching and manipulating the environment in some way. The difference being one is looking at a pile of rubbish, while the other is actively rummaging. Some traps are noticeable, some take searching. I want to add that lacking proficiency with something in the game usually causes you to roll with disadvantage, but not when you lack proficiency in a skill. But at level 1, a non-thief character has nearly an identical chance as a thief at picking locks. I use the Sleight of Hand for locks, traps and pickpocketing and allow thieves tools prof to stack double. I think the best thing we can do to help, is to make sure player decisions matter.
Thanks for the article; looking forward to the traps follow-up!
One idea for the player winning initiative without knowing what’s coming: You could play it as they sense something is off (so they aren’t surprised), and by inning initiative they can dodge, or jump (move) back into cover, raise their shield (I’d give them a save or something here).
“If I could have my way, I’d likely ban a few feats from the game, Alert and Observant being two of those (along with Sharpshooter and any feat that removes the penalties of missile weapons, but that’s another article!). This would normalise the mathematics, and remove strange exceptions and the situations they create.”
I thought the idea of D&D 5e was that you can do exactly that. Make the (permanent) ruling that you’re not using that, and have something that works for you.
“Passive Perception is very useful when a creature hides.”
If an NPC/monster is hiding, I’m more likely to make a ruling based on character level/attitude of looking around/actions, versus a dice roll or this thing. It rewards players for being engaged and thinking about the situation. And yep, players will benefit from doing same against NPCs/monsters.
Yeah, I feel like the main benefit of passive perception is in eliminating gotcha traps. No more ” you didn’t say you were searching this particular square of hallway, therefore you fall into a pit trap and die.” Now we assume that skilled adventurers are always looking out for trouble, even when they have not requested the GM’s permission to roll a perception check for every 5 ft. Square that they traverse.
I do agree that having the trap roll against the pc’s passive perception makes sense.
I add another level to it. I treat it as your passive score is when you take your time on it or are calmly doing it at your leisure. If they aren’t doing that, i treat it as if they have disadvantage. So minus 5 to the score. This actually makes Alert and Observent more accurate for me. Because for those with observant instead of having better scores than they roll, they have scores as if they rolled constantly.
Passive Perception is more the “hey, DM, i am gonna watch for traps while we wonder though the dungeon passively” or “i stand watch.” Then the disadvantaged score is for when you aren’t even doing THAT. It’s basically taking a 10.
As for Passive Investigation Vs Perception… I use PP for noticing visual things, PI is for figuring something out. Like if they walk into a room and the DC for a puzzle is 10, and their passive investigation beats that, i give them a nudge in the right direction (which my players appreciate since i sometimes make my puzzles too hard for them).
What do you do when a character has a passive perception of 22 at 4th level? It breaks the math of the game. He uses it for everything and it beats all the DCs unless I deliberately have a 23+ trap. I’d be happy with what Merric said, if a handful of certain feats in 5e simply didn’t exist. Pisses me off that the game hard codes “You can never be surprised” or sharpshooter eliminating all penalties at passive range and cover.
If we define Passive perception in simple words then we can say that it is the perception that is used mostly when you otherwise wouldn’t notice something and is also considered as perception defense against hidden things which might be people or the objects.
It is said that this type of perception promotes pessimism because we tend to believe in something that we are not completely aware of rather make an assumption on the basis of little knowledge.
Calculating Passive Perception can be done by considering Wisdom.