Can you point me towards a final adjudication on Passive vs Active Perception? It REALLY doesn’t make sense to me that actively looking should be HARDER than noticing things.
I summon elder @Wizards_DnD statesmen by name: Is the intent to only have characters roll for difficulties higher than their passive?
Because the rationale would be that you have a baseline 50/50 chance of noticing something (10+ modifiers) and rolling gives you a CHANCE to notice decently hidden?— B. Dave Walters @TheoKairos DM (@BDaveWalters) July 4, 2018
A check requires an action. So, PC enters room. Passive notices anything there. Check needed for anything that has DC above passive.
— Mike Mearls (@mikemearls) July 4, 2018
This is a good. For me, the issue is always giving the party a clue something is up by asking someone to make a check. In a real life situation even in a fantasy context, no DM says “Make a roll, oh it’s low, ok, you see nothing!). They wouldn’t have a damn clue, passive or active. One thing I do to alleviate this, is I ask them to make perception rolls with all modifiers before the game. Usually 3 (I also ask them to make stealth too for the same reason I am abut to explain). When something comes up in game and they don’t see anything passive, and I don’t wish to alert them to active, there is a grey area. But I don”t wish to give them a hint if they aren’t being creative, careful, so I use their pre-generated rolls, before the game, usually randomly (I roll a d4 and take away 1, then check off one used. I find they usually have one shit roll, so they are never sure.). That way, no one calls DM bullshit when the hags capture everyone. Everyone is happy, life is fair, and my baddies, and traps and other cool happenings get to surprise the party when they aren’t being super attentive.