How to handle Passive Perception and Passive Insight when both scores are so high it takes all the fun away?

Question

Currently I am playing a lvl4 Ranger with the Observant Feat. Meaning my Passive Perception lies at 20 and my Passive Insight at 17.

So my DM recommended, which was awesome for me at first, to roll, and if it is lower use my passive score, as anything else would not make much sense. Seems legitimate to me.

BUT, to be honest, this takes every fun out of the game if you have two important and pretty often occuring skill checks, which basically never fail, and it takes away all the happiness and hype of a successful perception/insight check...

But on the other hand, it does not make any sense when I roll a 4 for perception or insight and fail, when my passive scores are THAT high as for an extremely observant character which for a change TRIES to look and its so much worse..

I dont know how to play this in a way that makes sense, but does not take all the fun out of these checks.

Answer 1

There's a different way to use Passives.

Straight out of the Player's Handbook...

A passive check is a special kind of ability check that doesn’t involve any die rolls. Such a check can represent the average result for a task done repeatedly, such as searching for secret doors over and over again, or can be used when the DM wants to secretly determine whether the characters succeed at something without rolling dice, such as noticing a hidden monster.

https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/basic-rules/using-ability-scores#PassiveChecks

A passive check is partly meant to represent your average results. It does not represent all of your results.

Yes, it is specifically used to defeat Stealth and notice some traps--but for other checks? It's not the floor of your results. If run with my interpretation, that's just how you perform if there's no time pressure.

So if you have plenty of time to search a room, you would use your Passive Perception. If you have plenty of time to keep talking to someone to get a sense for what they think and how they feel, you would use your Passive Insight.

This has generally been my approach to using passives, and my players are quite happy with it. Even ones with the Observant Feat. Because they still get that benefit against Stealth and Traps...and if the party is willing and able to take the time to carefully search an area, the player gets to benefit from using their boosted Passive.

But when there's time pressure, when you need an answer right now, the d20s still hit the table and decide what happens.

Answer 2

The DMG suggests using higher DCs

It looks like your DM uses a rule similar to the "Automatic Success" variant:

a character automatically succeeds on any ability check with a DC less than or equal to the relevant ability score minus 5. So in the example above, the fighter would automatically kick in the door. This rule doesn’t apply to contests, saving throws, or attack rolls.

In this case the DM shouldn't even ask for a dice roll, if the DC is low enough. It flows very natural with Perception, when the DM just describes what player's character see without any dice rolls.

The +5 bonus from the Observant feat is not a big deal. It is a rough equivalent for Advantage:

Here's how to determine a character's total for a passive check:

10 + all modifiers that normally apply to the check

If the character has advantage on the check, add 5.

Keep in mind that the automatic success doesn't work in a contest — an NPC still get their Ability Check. However, empowered by the Observant feat, your Perception raises to the dangerous limit (more below).

"Can I hear his heartbeat?"

The DMG's advice is to use higher DCs if the game becomes boring:

The downside of this whole approach is its predictability. For example, once a character’s ability score reaches 20, checks of DC 15 and lower using that ability become automatic successes. Smart players will then always match the character with the highest ability score against any given check. If you want some risk of failure, you need to set higher DCs.

As a player, you can facilitate this approach by trying difficult actions. Unfortunately, since you have a +5 Wisdom (Perception) modifier, your maximum possible DC is still 25, while your minimum is 20. This breaks the 5e bounded accuracy, so I suggest to revisit the automatic success rule.

Situations can be very different

Talk with your DM and make a decision. Probably the DM shouldn't even ask for a roll when using the passive score is appropriate. Along with that, the check should be made when the situation is tense and unpredictable — when time is the essence, or when the danger is imminent.

Alternatively, you can use the "Automatic Success" from the DMG as is. It leaves larger DC range for dice rolls and is not affected by the Observant feat.

Answer 3

Option 1: Maybe Observant isn't for you

You built your character around seeing everything (Observant doesn't even help Perception rolls, just passive Perception, so it's explicitly there for noticing everything without even trying), and now you're annoyed that you're seeing everything? If you really hate it, maybe ask to respec away from the feat?

A couple options to use instead of Observant:

• Skill Expert (Tasha's) - If you don't already have Expertise in Perception, this is the most drop-in replacement for Observant. You'll lose the ability to read lips (though frankly I think that feature can, and should, be accessible via downtime training, roughly equivalent to learning a new language, costing time and money, not feats), and you'll have no benefit to passive Investigation (a thing never referenced anywhere but Observant, and something that doesn't make a whole lot of sense with how Investigation is described in PHB and DMG), but:

  1. You'll still get your half-ASI (and it can go to any stat, not just Int/Wis)
  2. You'll get a benefit that applies to both passive and active Perception checks, so rolling will still beat passive Perception 50% of the time.
  3. While it's not as good on passive Perception at your level (being only worth a +2, not +5, though it'll bump to +3 at next level up), as you level up, it improves (matching Observant at level 13, beating it at level 17)
  4. As a kicker, you get an extra skill proficiency

• Skulker (PHB) - Provides no improvement to Perception, but by eliminating disadvantage on Perception due to dim light, it makes both passive and active Perception more reliable (especially if you have Darkvision, so lighting conditions never affect your Perception checks). This definitely not the way to go for arbitrary characters who want to see better, but given the other benefits are extremely useful to Stealth-oriented characters (e.g. Rangers & Rogues), it might be a better choice. It's also the only meaningful choice if you already have Perception Expertise (knowing you have passive Perception 20 at level 4 could mean Wis 12-13 + Perception Expertise, or Wis 16-17 + Perception proficiency).

Option 2: Enforce the obscured vision rules more strictly

If you don't want that, I will note that if you apply the obscured vision rules properly, adventuring underground, at night, or otherwise in dark areas, and aren't announcing your presence to any/everyone nearby by carrying light sources, you'll be at disadvantage on Perception checks, which will drop you from passive Perception 20 to passive Perception 15, low enough to miss some stuff. Without Darkvision, you're blinded in darkness (can't notice anything that relies on sight), and at disadvantage in dim light; even with Darkvision, you'd be at disadvantage in darkness (because it counts as dim light to you). So even with Darkvision, you've got a choice:

1. Carry a light source and see "everything" within the radius of dim light it casts (still limited relative to what you'd see in daylight), but ruin your stealth (carrying around a torch/lantern in a dark dungeon is announcing your presence to any enemies with line of sight to where the light falls; I'd consider any attempt to achieve surprise an automatic failure if you're carrying anything brighter than a hooded lantern in hooded mode)
2. Don't carry light sources, take disadvantage on Perception in fully dark areas, miss stuff, but benefit from stealthiness

Just make sure you don't pick up the Skulker feat (which undoes the effect of dim light on Perception) if you want darkness to continue to penalize you.

Other things that create lightly obscured regions (patchy fog, moderate foliage, etc.) also impose disadvantage and can't be countered by carrying lights, so if the DM makes sure that (sometimes, you don't want to overdo it) you've got mood fog around, you'll miss stuff as well.

It even makes rolling a little more valuable. Disadvantage is only equivalent to -5 on passive checks and active checks when you need exactly an 11 to succeed. Without advantage or disadvantage, rolling only improves on your passive Perception 25% of the time; with disadvantage, the roll is likely to improve on your passive up to 35% of the time. The roll will still typically be worse, but at least it will help a little more when you've got disadvantage.

Answer 4

I'll focus on Perception, but most of this answer works for both Perception and Insight... And most any skill.

You're going to have to work with your DM

If the DM sets up the rules that since your passive is so high that it always succeeds, then you'll need to have a conversation explaining that it's not enjoyable for you. Then work together to create a system that lets you see everything, but still get the thrill of a high roll.

Perception (active and passive) is a just a skill like any other

Perception is just a skill, like Animal Handling and Survival. It just happens to be used more frequently than most.

When a character takes the Observant feat, that means they ignored all other feats in order to focus their character on, well, being observant. They wanted to notice all the little details in the world around them. So it's hard to then say that they also want to experience highs and lows when rolling a die. It's hard to ask for bionic legs and still want to run a fair race.

High skill scores don't mean high Return On Investment

Perception is a skill, and like I answered for this other question, skill checks are simply pass/fail. RAW, they are not on a sliding scale.

In other words, just because the player's passive score automatically passes the skill check, doesn't mean they see more/farther/better. They just see something that other's would not. It is only through convention and example that people think that, "because you rolled so high" is part of the rulings for skill checks.

If someone is concerned that the bonus for a skill is too high, just remember that auto-succeeding does not mean that character becomes Sherlock Holmes. Yes, they notice a trap exists, but they don't suddenly understand its mechanics, how to disarm it, what the "payload" will be, and so forth. That will take investigation.

You can succeed on passive and fail on active

I cannot find the tweet/story from Jeremy Crawford, but he describes passive as an always on skill, whereas active is only when called for. So even if a character is looking for one thing, it doesn't mean they can't see something else; or see that thing out of the corner of their eye. Even if you're actively looking for other cars while driving, your passive senses tell you that there is a pedestrian about to cross the street.

Passive and active skills can give different results

Building off the last two points, a tool I use as a DM is that you can get more details from an active skill than a passive skill.

By this, I mean that if the character senses something passively, they know of its existence. But if they sense it via an active skill check, they can decern more.

As an example; say you lost your keys and are searching the house for them. If you succeed with an active Perception check, you find them on the table where you left them. But if you fail the active check, but still beat the DC with a passive Perception check, then, while tearing apart the couch you threw a cushion that bumped the table and you think you heard the jingle of keys. The active score found them directly, whereas the passive score guided you to their probable location. It is important to note that the DM is not changing the DC, but changing how much information is given.

In a dungeon setting this would be like spotting the trap you're actively watching out for versus passively noticing something odd about the stonework.

In terms of Insight, this would equate to passively knowing someone is acting shifty versus actively spotting a tell that someone is lying. Or knowing someone is holding back information versus spotting that they keep looking at a certain picture on the wall when discussing where something is hidden.

In the end

You chose to create a character with high passive skills. You need to work with the DM and hopefully create a system that rewards you for high rolls without minimizing the abilities of the character.