D&D 5E Doubt about perception, sight, hearing, and smell.

[maritimo80]

DOUBT ABOUT PERCEPTION, SIGHT, HEARING AND SMELL.


A character is a forest camping and agreed. How many feets away from him with his passive perception (or active, if you are looking for something) can sense an enemy (whether by sight, smell or noise)?


That would change in accordance with the terrain. How far in the case of desert, city, cave, closed environment, open space?


I am master and the characters are complaining saying "put the enemies too close", ie, active perception only let them act a few meters.

 

[Astrosicebear]

Darkvision typically on PC races is limited to 60'. Sometimes 120'. With or without darkvision, I typically allow passive perceptions at about 60 feet unless its something in clear view, or obvious (volcano erupting, meteor falling, etc). Low-light may extend to 120' in these c'camping' situations depending on cover.

 

[Paraxis]

It doesn't matter if perception is passive or not. Passive perception is just something used to speed up play instead of having character make checks all the time, or have to tell the DM they are looking out for danger, they are adventures in a world with things constantly trying to kill the they are always looking out for danger.

What it seems you are looking for is encounter distance rules which should be in the DMG when it comes out in December. Until then you could adapt the rules from older editions, here is a link to the rules from 3e.
http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD3e:Vision

Limits of vision should be a place to start.

In 5e I would say whatever is extreme range for you compare to passive perception -5 (for having disadvantage), regular passive perception at about half extreme limits of sight.

 

[Hannerdyn]

My guess is some of this will be in the DMG (it has been in prior versions), but 5E does seem to strive for a philosophy of 'as the DM, do what makes sense'. For guidance you might open up a 3 or 4E DMG and see what they say about perception range, etc.

I've had to write my own rules for scent from a tracking perspective; it relies on range for only new scents, but relies on time for picking up familiar scents, like a bloodhound picking up a trail.

 

[Mistwell]

We use 60 feet normal, and 120 feet with disadvantage.

 

[Morrus]

I've removed the all-caps from your thread title. No need to shout!

 

[Henrix]

Just think about how it would be in real life.

If a sound could reasonably be heard, like somebody stepping on a branch in the forest, roll perception.

How far away can it be heard? That depends on a lot of things. If the weather is nice it can be heard quite a distance. If it's raining not all so far. If the PCs are sitting around the camp fire singing they'll have a harder time.

A cigarette glow can be seen for hundreds of meters in the dark. Really.
Someone in dark clothes standing motionless in a dark forest night might well not be seen from 5 feet.

Having hard rules for all that and a strict limits easily becomes ridiculous.
The DM must judge what is reasonable - perhaps by talking with the players.

 

[Blackbrrd]

Depends on the terrain. Typically pre made modules assumes encounters start much too close. Try to vary the encounter distance to let different characters shine.

 

[Nebulous]

My guess is some of this will be in the DMG (it has been in prior versions), but 5E does seem to strive for a philosophy of 'as the DM, do what makes sense'. For guidance you might open up a 3 or 4E DMG and see what they say about perception range, etc.

I've had to write my own rules for scent from a tracking perspective; it relies on range for only new scents, but relies on time for picking up familiar scents, like a bloodhound picking up a trail.

Yeah, DM fiat. I would also adapt the "Close, Nearby, Far Away" ideas from other games.

 

[RotGrub]

I think the DMG will have initial encounter distances listed. Previous editions had you roll a few dice to determine how far away a random encounter was.

I love it when the PCs spot a few trolls several rounds away. This gives characters with bows a chance to shine.


I'd also like to point out that the DM is not required to use passive perception. It's just an option for the DM to speed up play He can always roll those checks if he wants too.