Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Passive perception checks feel weird

Why?

You can come back at a higher level, you can use items or buffs to buff your starts and break through, if you level up especially you should be given the option to interact with it again. Feeling like you missed something is absolutely perfect for replayability, suspense and immersion.

Ah! I didn't pick that up reading your comment! Agreed then

So I'm curious, what difference does it make if we have a DM tell us to roll a check, and fail it, and the game, the DM we have, rolls it for us, instead of breaking the flow of gameplay with "Roll a x check"?

Hmm, so in a pen and paper I go into a room and the DM has to describe it to me in his words. He tells me to roll for perception or I ask him and he gives me extra info. In the game I enter a room and see it completely, the visuals do not need explanation. I roll a check out of nowhere and suddenly a lever, a button or even big container pops up. That is somewhat odd. And the game does not tell me really well what I just noticed. The DM would tell me there is a button. In BG3 it might be that skeleton, this button, that vase.
I do not actively need to roll the check and I do not even have to notice it as a player, it can be passive. I just want to be notified what I did see and what it is for. Otherwise it is pretty confusing and/or infuriating. This is a game design problem for me not only related to skillchecks, but generally the game does not tell you a lot what you can and should do and what things are for. That is one of my biggest gripes with the game and quite breaking for me, too. I hope this somewhat explains how it relates to perception checks and how they are implemented.

There's nothing inconsistent with these two scenarios. In one case, it has to be explained, because you cannot physically see it, and the DM won't be telling you what you didn't find if you fail the roll. The same thing happens here, when you fail a roll, you don't get a clue about what you missed. The impetus is the same either way, the "DM" is asking you to make a roll.

Now, I have had the "that's interesting", to paraphrase it, but I've always managed to figure out what was interesting. That there are videos explaining it means that someone else did too. At some point, it becomes the responsibility of the player to figure things out, or it becomes an interactive movie, instead of a game. Now, a caveat, perhaps they could add better explanations for things like trapping, etc., but if players just close the window when a tutorial flashes up on the right side of the screen, instead of opening a box to read, or has tutorials turned off, the game can't really share that knowledge.

For my Feedback on the passive perception checks.

The main issue is an UI one. I don't know what I have just discover (I'm not able to see it, really) - Make an entry in the log, make a zoom animation, paint it in yellow.

For the debate I'm okay to see the failed test - You could have your party splitted and want to make your budy come to make their roll. It is not realistic at all, but that most of rollplayer do

Thank you !

Just as an aside from the main topic - there's another way down

I meant in the actual tomb itself. Youre next to the door, can see into the private room with the sarcophagus that holds the undying rezzer dude, the dead scribes are all over the floor having never risen and the 4 of you are bunched up at what you know is a fake wall, pressing your noses to the stone. You get a key off a scribe and then you ostensibly find the keyhole to use it in when you walk over there. I have never failed that before so we looked around for a bit and then left because its multiplayer and we quickly exhausted our low-level effort to finding an alternate, if there is one.

People don't need to propose new solutions to fix how Larian has done passive perception. 5e already does so, and does so better than what we currently have. Passive perception isn't a roll. It's a flat number. If your passive perception is high enough, you just notice the things, no check needed. It's one of the big reasons to have a rogue go first, when they have expertise, they have a very high passive perception, and so can spot all of the dangerous traps.

Ahh sorry misunderstood - and yes that is a pain, given that you get no second attempt. It's reasonable if all that is behind a failed perception chest is just a chest with average loot or something similar. But locking away content behind a one off perception check with no other recourse is a bad idea.

Considering its the person who performs resurrections and youre level 1 in the game and your odds of being a veteran of the game enough to try to find a new way in are pretty low, thats a weird one to have a failure for. Sure, roll, DC is 1, let people get the zing of I found it! Passive perception should be picking up half this stuff. to make people feel better "Passive Perception succeeds!" while other people roll and get jeeloss of your high score. Ill go back on my next playthrough and see if theres an alternate way in out of curiosity but its still pretty weird thing to make missable.

Passive perception at pnp DND dont force a roll actually. Any good DM will know what the passive perception of his players are and if he would have to ask what they are players tend to metagame until they find whatever it is that they are in danger of missing.

Im all in favour of not showing the roll at all, because I notice the same behaviour on my part xD it doesent feel natural.

Also if you know a roll is coming up because you already saw 1 person roll and fail that testyou can buff your guys to raise your odds of passing that check. Which kinda goes against the whole 'passive' part of passive perception

There is no such thing as a passive perception CHECK in 5e... there is passive perception, but that's a static number, and everything that has a lower to-notice-DC then that number, you just, well... see. So, before anything, the characters should atleast enter some form of active perception/search stance to actually do checks for their surroundings, which should - of course - be hidden rolls.

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.

Actually, passive perception checks not only can exist outside of pnp, but do, in fact, exist outside of pnp. DDO has a racial ability called "Nothing is Hidden". It is literally a passive perception check that will reveal traps and secret doors automatically, if you pass the passive roll. On top of this, DDO has what was in the game before that was added, a "Search" button, so that you can do manual checks. A search button shouldn't be too hard to add here, even though I don't find the passive check all that weird.

Thats a good point about the difference between passive and active perception 🤔

Would love the option in bg3 as well, so i dont have to check every wall and every cavity to see if there isent anytjing hidden there 😂

Nah, you'd still have to do it, but at least there's a way to do it if an active search is added.

Well I hope they do something to improve the system. Most of the walls havent been returning my calls 😭

I think the system as it stands has a number of issues that ought to be addressed.

First and foremost is the Alt key needs to renew the blue glow whenever you press it, because hidden levers in dark dungeons are the literal equivalent of my favorite line from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy ( every time you push one of these little black buttons labelled in black on a black background a little black light lights up black to let you know you've done it!)

Second is the issue highlighted in the crypt where I can spot one gargoyle head trap but somehow am unable to deduce the rest are also the exact same trap. I think Perception should have a much bigger radius (like 15m in light, 10m dim, 5m dark), and follow 5e to be passive. That automatically means if I see one, I see them all, saving the frustration of attempting 8 checks with 10% fail rate at max Wisdom and proficiency. That's a 57% chance to fail at least 1 under the best possible conditions, which is nuts. No rolling allows for higher DC which makes party role more important rather than just pulling all 4 of us over now I know I missed something.

Third is the issue of group fail flat out boning you. I haven't played long enough to know if BG3 works like Kingmaker where levelling up resets the check for you, but it really should. But also I'd like to have an active option with much lower range, much lower DC, and higher investment. As in, I toggle a button to actively search that halves movement speed, only searches 2m, but has a DC of 2. That way completionists don't feel the need to savescum, or drag a full party around every inch, and the "natural" roleplayers can just leave the button off.

And last, the failed alerts ought to be toggled in the Options. It's a divisive issue and both camps are hard to reconcile; some REALLY don't want to know and maintain replay value and others want to complete everything as they go and find dead ends MADDENING. In the end player choice is king, and the change shouldn't be overly difficult, even if the check stays in the log and only the graphic is hidden.

Anyway, just my 2 cents for a first post...