The point is a player should know if their passive perception exceeded the DC for knowing if something was there. Passive perception is too hard to implement in any other way outside of pnp as its FOR something typically. If a rogue says "im going to check for traps" in a dungeon, the passive is used against the trap DC - in most cases it is a passive perception check. Passive meaning that it is infinitely rolled and auto-averaged but that is why it is that number. They will not notice a hidden door automatically because they arent a floating orb with lazers mapping the entire hallway, sci-fi style, as they go down. Passive means if rolled endlessly for a particular check you are trying to make, this is the average result. It has other things like perceptions against stealth and other tricky things a DM just has to make ad hoc decisions on given the circumstance like where they sat in the bar, are they drunk, whatever, pnp uses it in a very complex manner - some use it as you see everything, hear everything, and that is an incorrect usage of what that number represents. This needs to go away from "hidden" rolls, whatever that means, its a game you see your rolls. The question is if you have an auto-pass based on your stats, feats, and proficiencies or if you each individually passed your varying DCs.
In PNP yes, you might say "only those who were looking for traps, roll." They aren't going to do that in this game for perception, you can't. Arcana, history, sure - there are things only those trained should be rolling for and can be defined per item so you are not rotating out all NPCs for a whack at a nat 20. If these are going to be automatically triggered rolls, completely out of player agency, with no recourse to try a more active approach like a follow up investigation or...something, I don't know Id have to actually think about how it could work in a game more than I have, honestly. I just know that rolling is active, players do it, a DM can force a roll, but otherwise they'll say "Human Male, with your perception being so high, you actually notice ___". Anything else "everyone roll a perception check". Not sure why they'd remove your roll as a PC other than they don't want you rolling for everyone because you might not have your main selected when the roll triggers. Its stuff like that where I need to put it in the context of the game for what SHOULD happen. I know some things, some aspects, that should happen, but I'll need more time before I have a suggestion on how to execute it appropriately.
Last edited by Orbax; 21/10/20 04:24 PM.
