Observations and Interactions in 5E

[Zacchaeus]

You know when you are walking along the footpath and you trip over that crack that is about 3mm high.
Thats failing your passive athletics check.
When you break your hip as a result that is just because your old.

Of course - it could be because you were out drinking all night and you failed your constitution check...

Too true

[someoneinatree]

Great post Nickademus.

I try to use this framework when deciding between Perception and Investigation: Am I trying to get information from my senses? Or am I trying to synthesize information I have already received from my senses?

So for me - even when a character knows what they're looking for, if they need to use their primary senses to find it then they continue to use active Perception. But if they have some information and need to uncover its significance then it'd be Investigation.

Using the example of a chest with a false bottom - how they search for it would define which skill I'd request they roll. Eg. If they were knocking the bottom to see if it sounded hollow I'd use Perception. If they wanted to measure the height of the outside of the chest, and compare it with the depth of the inside of the chest to see if there was a discrepancy, I'd use Investigation. And if they had a high passive Investigation, I'd probably give that latter info to them for free.

EDIT: Just rereading that example I gave, I totally realised I could make an argument for both of those search methods to require BOTH Perception and Investigation. Which seems excessive. So yeah. Ultimately I would probably give weight to whichever would be the more difficult check and ask that to be rolled.

[Maasq]

Thanks for this, Nickademus. It's good to have all of this in one place and written in a style that is easy to read.

[Nickademus]

No problem. I'm glad you guys can make use of it. Justifies the time spent organizing it.

I try to use this framework when deciding between Perception and Investigation: Am I trying to get information from my senses? Or am I trying to synthesize information I have already received from my senses?

There is another way of looking at it too. If they are looking for something specifically, do they know anything (Intelligence) about about where a person would put it that might help them find it. For example, if looking for a false bottom to a chest, knowing to knock on it to see if it is hollow, measuring the depth inside to the height of the chest, and checking the weight of the 'empty' chest are all things the character might know to do but another character might not. Hence Intelligence (Investigation) also means using character knowledge from learning or assumed previous situations to help find things by knowing how they are hidden.

Though if the players start dictating how they are checking for stuff, I'd say that shifts beyond the scope of a roll and goes into them roleplaying out the check. At that point I'd ignore rolling and just give them feedback to the actions they are taking, old-school-like.

[Stormhound]

Mmmmm. Since I can't resist lobbing mental grenades, and it makes an interesting way to make a first forum post...

Here's one take on something like "Passive Athletics": it operates in a similar way to the tool knowledge discussed above, insofar as it grants the person a basic ability to appraise an athletic action, perhaps providing information about the relative skill of the person who made the attempt, or understanding why they succeeded or failed. Someone with high Passive Athletics could perhaps make an excellent coach.

Not that a GM would ever find any use for such a thing.

[damned]

Welcome Stormhound

[Swylderyn]

Hi, how can I add passive investigation and passive insight to the character sheet so that it's shown?

[Zacchaeus]

Hi, how can I add passive investigation and passive insight to the character sheet so that it's shown?

Hi Swyldern, welcome to FG.

You can add new skills to the skills tab by right clicking and select Create Item or click the small brown button at the bottom right of the skills tab and then on the green '+' button. However doing so in this case would just duplicate the skill that's already there since the passive investigation or insight skills are just the same value as the active skill.

If you are looking to add those skills to the front tab of the character sheet in the same way that passive perception is then you'd need to write an extension to do that. Damned has done some basic extension tutorials if you want to dive in there.

Otherwise when using passive skills you just need to know who amongst the party has the highest skill value and compare that to the DC that has been set for the characters to notice whatever it is. In official modules you might see something in a story entry which says that a secret door requires a passive perception of 15 to notice. If one of the characters has this value or higher then they automatically notice it. If no one has such a value then the door goes unnoticed.

[Swylderyn]

Thx for the clarification. Rules-wise I'm completely with you. I just noticed it is mentioned on the DnDBeyond character sheet.

[LordEntrails]

Note that the DM has access to the party sheet where passive perception is shown for all the characters. That's where I look it up