I'm toying with the idea if including passive skill checks (ala 4e) in my Legacy of Fire game.
It seems reasonable that a character would notice things with Perception or Sense Motive without having to make an active check.
Likewise it seems reasonable to me that a character with high knowledge skills would have some background that the DM could throw at them.
Does anyone have a strong opinion on this? I'm thinking about maybe not a passive 10, but at least a passive 5 to automatically get knowledge or perception or sense motive.
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There is sound reasoning in passive checks. Back in the early 1980s, GMs would allow characters with high Intelligence (or high Wisdom based on the situation) to automatically perceive things passively, or without any necessary roll.
Its totally a good sign when the GM knows their player's characters well enough to just say, "Daewyn, you would notice that the leaves on one of the trees aren't swaying the same way in the wind as the others. It catches your eye."
No issues here. GMs using a 5 or 10 plus the PC skill bonus are probably calculating this fairly, if indeed such a mechanic is needed. I think a shift of the pendulum to a happy medium between needed to roll, and just coming forth with it can really help facilitate play in interesting ways.
Thanks for asking. This of course, is just my view. It always struck me as odd when the GM asked for rolls for things that were likely to notice anyhow. And, as a GM, I find that this provokes a great opportunity to centralize the action on a particular character's perceptions, increasing involvement as you describe the perception first to that PC.
Just my 2 cents, and I don't think the 4e mechanic is anything new.
-Pax
There is sound reasoning in passive checks. Back in the early 1980s, GMs would allow characters with high Intelligence (or high Wisdom based on the situation) to automatically perceive things passively, or without any necessary roll.
Its totally a good sign when the GM knows their player's characters well enough to just say, "Daewyn, you would notice that the leaves on one of the trees aren't swaying the same way in the wind as the others. It catches your eye."
No issues here. GMs using a 5 or 10 plus the PC skill bonus are probably calculating this fairly, if indeed such a mechanic is needed. I think a shift of the pendulum to a happy medium between needed to roll, and just coming forth with it can really help facilitate play in interesting ways.
Thanks for asking. This of course, is just my view. It always struck me as odd when the GM asked for rolls for things that were likely to notice anyhow. And, as a GM, I find that this provokes a great opportunity to centralize the action on a particular character's perceptions, increasing involvement as you describe the perception first to that PC.
Just my 2 cents, and I don't think the 4e mechanic is anything new.
-Pax
That's kind of what I thought too. That the storytelling would be enhanced a bit as the PC enter a room or see a monster or cross a plain, to be able to point out what specific PCs notice. But then make it clear to them that if they want to try to dredge out more information by an active check, there's always that opportunity for them.
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It can be, and it can also be a very annoying new set of rules. In the first 4E game, me and another character both had the same exact number for our oppossing skill checks. So whenever it came to passive checks with those skills, it was always a toss up. I'd went out of my way to max out certain skills of perception and empathy type skills, and it turned out that I just wasn't really any good with it outside of combat, (ie I literally could sense an invisible thief behind a curtain, but couldn't tell when the warlock in my own partty was 100% BSing and actually a Tiefling rather than a Human.
They can save time, and can also help with player suspence, but I think they really only work well if used rarely and only when the players don't know they are even being used. 4E also wasn't very clear or expansive on how they really worked, (like in this case, do this. . . ), so it needs to be a little more clean cut.
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The other bad side is that it means certain people will ALWAYS do/know/see something and other cheracters will NEVER do/know/see the same thing. With the passive skills, there is no small chance you can pull it off. Rangers and Rogues will always notice something (and no one else will). [I mean this in the sense that if there is a clue, it is always going to be the Elf Ranger that spots it and never the Fighter, because they simply don't have a chance, not that a high passive skill means 100% success, though this is also somewhat true]. The second thing is that most of the passive skills are either the ones that are generally seen as much more fun to use (Bluff, hide, intimidate, sense motive), than the others (knowledge, craft, spellcraft).
Additionally, it also kind of puts classes that don't have high passive skills at a distinct disadvantage, besides always failing at them. Because those characters with high passive ratings are almost always going to succeed, they don't have to worry about rolling a 1, or rolling low. They either do or they don't, but there is no critical failure, while some classes get stuck with a lot of less fun rolls that can also go really bad and in general just don't get much spotlight time. It is a little unfair, because passive skills just do not apply to all skills well.
This is a two-edged sword.
The good:
Quickly arbitrating who sees what, or hears what, etc.
No dice have to be rolled.
The players don't know when you're making their perception checks.
The bad:
Guaranteed success: If the DC is 15, and the character has a 15, he will always always always succeed.
Guaranteed failure: If the DC is 15, and the character has a 14, he will always always always fail.
IMO, the bad outweighs the good.
Ranger: Hey, Dave, do you see that goblin hiding over there?
Cleric: (looks and sees nothing) Nope. Nothing.
Ranger: That's odd. Try again. He's right there. (points)
Cleric: (looks again) Nah, still can't see him.
Ranger: Right there. Under that pine tree, behind the red peony. Crouched in the tall grass there.
Cleric: (looks a third time) Nothing.
Ranger: Here, let me draw you a picture. (draws a very detailed sketch of the tree, the grass, the peony, and the crouching goblin)
Cleric: (looks at the picture, then looks for the goblin again) Nothing. I got nothing.
Ranger: Cripes, Dave, what's your Perception skil?
Cleric: 12.
Ranger: Mine is 13, only 1 more than yours. I can see that goblin plain as day. What's wrong with you?
Cleric: (looks one last time). Still nothing. Maybe he's an illusion and I'm too wise to fall for it...
OK, Yeah, I know that's hyperbole. Long before the end of that conversation any sand DM would switch to active rolls, and give Dave's cleric a +2 from the Ranger aiding his perception check.
But it illustrates the point: With passive perception, there is no randomness. No chance that, just this once, the cleric sees the goblin first while the ranger was busy picking his nose. Or whatever.
With passive perception, there is no chance that neither sees the goblin - the goblin's ambush is guaranteed to fail the instant the DM decides his stealth check was a 13.
It just seems to take all the randomness out it.
And what's worse, when the DM makes the adventure, he knows the passive skill checks of his players. It's very very tempting to say "This trap gets a 20 so I can be sure it goes off, and this trap gets a 10 so I can be sure they find it" etc.
In fact, if the DM is going to write for passive checks, we might as well get rid of the checks entirely. Just let the DM script it. "The ranger sees a goblin under the tree, but the cleric can't see him."
You don't need checks if you're going to decide in advance what they see and don't see.
And if you write the adventure in advance, knowing exactly what those passive skill checks are, it's exactly the same thing.
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That is actually another good reason against passive skills I hadn't thought of. In the last example, "Cleric: (looks one last time). Still nothing. Maybe he's an illusion and I'm too wise to fall for it...", there are times in any game where PC just don't get what the DM is suggesting, and take it and run the complete opposite direction.
Or in cases where someone is suppossed to be good at something and fails while someone that shouldn't be that great and succeeds essential tells the players that whatever check they are suppossed to be making passively, is not the real check the DM is using, or something like that, and may just not understand what the DM is doing with the game.
Also a very good(funny) example. . .
This is a two-edged sword.
The good:
Quickly arbitrating who sees what, or hears what, etc.
No dice have to be rolled.
The players don't know when you're making their perception checks.The bad:
Guaranteed success: If the DC is 15, and the character has a 15, he will always always always succeed.
Guaranteed failure: If the DC is 15, and the character has a 14, he will always always always fail.IMO, the bad outweighs the good.
Ranger: Hey, Dave, do you see that goblin hiding over there?
Cleric: (looks and sees nothing) Nope. Nothing.
Ranger: That's odd. Try again. He's right there. (points)
Cleric: (looks again) Nah, still can't see him.
Ranger: Right there. Under that pine tree, behind the red peony. Crouched in the tall grass there.
Cleric: (looks a third time) Nothing.
Ranger: Here, let me draw you a picture. (draws a very detailed sketch of the tree, the grass, the peony, and the crouching goblin)
Cleric: (looks at the picture, then looks for the goblin again) Nothing. I got nothing.
Ranger: Cripes, Dave, what's your Perception skil?
Cleric: 12.
Ranger: Mine is 13, only 1 more than yours. I can see that goblin plain as day. What's wrong with you?
Cleric: (looks one last time). Still nothing. Maybe he's an illusion and I'm too wise to fall for it...OK, Yeah, I know that's hyperbole. Long before the end of that conversation any sand DM would switch to active rolls, and give Dave's cleric a +2 from the Ranger aiding his perception check.
But it illustrates the point: With passive perception, there is no randomness. No chance that, just this once, the cleric sees the goblin first while the ranger was busy picking his nose. Or whatever.
With passive perception, there is no chance that neither sees the goblin - the goblin's ambush is guaranteed to fail the instant the DM decides his stealth check was a 13.
It just seems to take all the randomness out it.
And what's worse, when the DM makes the adventure, he knows the passive skill checks of his players. It's very very...
I think you are simplifying a little more than I was planning on. I was thinking that if it was something they would notice on a 5 die roll, I'd just include it into the narrative, but the PC's would still be free to (and be expected to) make active checks when they thought the situation would warrant it.
So the PC's are traveling down a dark hallway. 2 PC's in the party have Perception skill of 12. They might be assumed to notice DC 15 data, but unless they are actively looking, nobody will notice a DC 20 trap. If they are alert and say that we're going to examine the hall to check for traps, and they roll dice, they have a chance to see the DC 20 trap.
It always seemed odd to me that unless you actively listen, you have no chance of hearing things in another room. Or the converse, that the DM says "everyone make a perception check" thereby alerting them to the fact that there is something that they should be trying to perceive.
It always seemed odd to me that unless you actively listen, you have no chance of hearing things in another room. Or the converse, that the DM says "everyone make a perception check" thereby alerting them to the fact that there is something that they should be trying to perceive.
I definitely hear what you're saying.
No, you certainly don't want to give the players no chance to observe something obvious, like noisy stuff going on in the next room, and you absolutely should give them a chance to make perception checks, or any other skill checks, whenever the situation calls for them.
I also understand the concern that, as a DM, we don't want to say "OK, perception time" and then, if they roll poorly, suddenly they are all over the place, listening, searching, trying to figure out what they msised, when they should be continuing on like nothing happened (because as far as their characters know, nothing did happen).
It's lose/lose for the DM.
Either way sucks, really.
But there is a middle ground.
Teach your players to build the story cooperatively with you.
Stop trying to fool the players, or trick the players, or deceive the players.
You don't need to convince the players that they didn't hear anything in the next room.
You only need to convice the characters.
If you and your players are working together to build a collaborative story, one in which their characters face challenges that their characters overcome, then they will be more than willing, as players, to continue on, obvlivious to the missed perception checks.
It's a matter of separating the players from the characters. Of teaching the players that it's OK to have their characters be fooled once in a while. Espcially of teaching the players that the game is about their characters vs. the dugneon full of bad guys, and it is not about the players vs. the DM.
If the players really understand this fact, and if they trust you not to kill them off because of a missed roll, and if they realize that the story might even be more interesting if their characters walk into an ambush than it would be if the use metagame knowledge to foil the ambush, then they should have no trouble saying "Well, gosh, I wish one of us would have made our perception check so we could have prepared for the ambush on the other side of the door. But we didn't, so I open the door and stick my nose right into the ambush."
In that case, why not just let them roll when they need to roll?
It always seemed odd to me that unless you actively listen, you have no chance of hearing things in another room. Or the converse, that the DM says "everyone make a perception check" thereby alerting them to the fact that there is something that they should be trying to perceive.I definitely hear what you're saying.
No, you certainly don't want to give the players no chance to observe something obvious, like noisy stuff going on in the next room, and you absolutely should give them a chance to make perception checks, or any other skill checks, whenever the situation calls for them.
I also understand the concern that, as a DM, we don't want to say "OK, perception time" and then, if they roll poorly, suddenly they are all over the place, listening, searching, trying to figure out what they msised, when they should be continuing on like nothing happened (because as far as their characters know, nothing did happen).
A game mechanic way of dealing with this, if the player/DM co-operation way doesn't work for you, is to have all the players make, say, ten D20 rolls and write them down on a piece of paper. As an appropriate passive test situation comes up, use the next number on the list for the check and add the appropriate character's modifier. You don't alert the players by calling for a roll or rolling yourself, the random element is maintained, and the players have still made their own rolls (which many prefer to do).
I always "hated" the elf's and dwarf's autodetect features and began to do "passive checks" for these features only. I assume they take 10 and jsut compare the passice score to the search DC for such features. With 1 elf and two dwarves in my group, its rather annoying to roll for every room to make search checks to detect things. Saves some time and (that's "funny", I don't know why) but I no longer forget to roll.
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A game mechanic way of dealing with this, if the player/DM co-operation way doesn't work for you, is to have all the players make, say, ten D20 rolls and write them down on a piece of paper. As an appropriate passive test situation comes up, use the next number on the list for the check and add the appropriate character's modifier. You don't alert the players by calling for a roll or rolling yourself, the random element is maintained, and the players have still made their own rolls (which many prefer to do).
I've done this before - it worked great.