Handbooker Helper: Passive Abilities 

yea i was just thinking someone should hire her to do some fairy tail audio books kids would go right out

She sounds like the voice from the smite champion videos

I know. Just want to listen to her blab on and on as I fall asleep. Like...read me a book or something. I could listen to her all day.

Cleaning can wait . . .

Her voice is so smooth she could change her name to Smoothalee... 😎 > I'll see myself out

Yeah man

Hey man, I like your first name

omniscient xt What the fuck are you on about?

Also, she's so sweet in real life too. When she thank everyone and was so greatfull, it was so sweet, and she thought they weren't on air, so it was her true response.

@@triccele She liked one of my tweets and ended up following me after i posted about my experience with Ghost of Tsushima

I read this not even 2 seconds before it happened

Nobody like this comment use me. It s at 420

*Grabs a megaphone and gets on another rooftop* "BUT PASSIVE PERCEPTION IS BORING"

The trick is to use that to your advantage as sometimes you just want to set the players on edge and asking for a random perception check is often a great way to do that

But that's.... Metagaming...

@@eddiemate Except, it's not. Players get at least the same sense of accomplishment from being told that their choices during creation and advancement have just paid off as they do from being told that a random die roll has. Just to take the classic example of a trapped corridor, the real fun of the trap is when the PCs realise something's up and it becomes an encounter. Otherwise, it's just, "You just got shot by an arrow trap. Roll [whatever] to take half damage." _That's_ boring. On the other hand, if you ask for a roll and they roll low, they're now convinced that the corridor is deadly. They just don't know how or why. That's _frustrating._ On the other hand, pointing at the players whose characters' passive Perception is above a certain benchmark and telling them, "You, you and you notice that the left-hand wall of this corridor is pierced by small, regularly-spaced holes." Now the players know something's up and have to use their PC's abilities, some creative thinking or a combination of the two to find out what that something is and how the party is going to deal with it. Essentially, you've created a dramatic question that must be resolved during the scene: an encounter. More generally, passive scores are great for packaging exposition inside a "Your character is awesome." moment. So if one PC has a high INT and proficiency in History, you might point to the player and say, "This looks familiar to you. The design of a Gryphon buggering a Dwarf was the coat of arms of one of the Lost Empire's most feared regiments."

@@Loswaith You can get the same effect by just asking the players what their passive score in something is, then giving them the old, "Okay, good to know."

I'm just sitting here waiting for Darin to make his triumphant return...

Her firbolg was beyond awesome.

My smell bag said: "YES". ❤️

Nila needs to show up again she's such a sweetheart

this could have been recorded way back when Sumalee was in the game. Remember Laura's HBH? it aired way after she gave birth but she was still pregnant in it. not that i wouldn't love the return of nila, she was astonishing!

Facts

if she comes back on, between her and cad....2 firbolg mums

I hope she and her family are still taking care of the graveyard and that they go back someday to figure out wtf is up with that forest and she gets to guest again that'd be so good :o

If she comes back as a guest i just hope that her family is okay.

Weirdly enough I don’t think I have ever run into an issue with a dm disliking my character’s high perception. And I do always have the highest perception. It’s one of my favorite skills to put the work into. I tend to even put expertise on it too which heightens my passive. I usually find my dms will take advantage of me being able to notice things rather than ding me for focusing on this skill. Then again, maybe this is because it makes sense with the character I play and the way I play them. I also will dump charisma so, just because I notice something, doesn’t mean I can communicate it. The other players also seem to enjoy my ability here. As for context, I usually play a ranger and sometimes a rogue. As I usually take a role of scouting ahead, I find this is a very useful skill and relevant to my class and making them shine.

Yes! All the yes!

Was also going to say this.

I want her to read a bedtime story

@@xLadyDangerx she would be wonderful for bedtime stories lol

I've been interested that dndbeyond shows you your passives for perception, insight and investigation. Reading up on where passive investigation would come up (it's like that eureka insight moment that comes out of nowhere) has been an interesting journey... now I just have to convince my GM in the game where I have a 23 passive investigation to check that more :P So many DMs really don't know about passive abilities - I might have to send it to mine!

my DM absolutely hated passive scores because of this issue. i had a cleric who at lvl 1 had 23 passive perception due to 20 wisdom, human variant, and human variant allowing me to acquire Observant. My friend ended up with an average 17 passive intimidation, while my other friend who is a monk had around the same in passive stealth. It only got worse as we leveled however due to my proficiency going up and, if needed, enhance ability which allowed me another +5 to perception because of the advantage it gave. We settled on no passive scores and i now have permanent addvantage on Perception and Investigation checks.

@@NR2GOODTV this is a prime example of the flaws associated with rolling stats. You aren't even allowed to get a 16 (before racials) with point buy

@@v1Valvanerth Which is the prime example of the flaws associated with point buy. Point buy essentially forces cookie cutter class & race combs so that you can have that +3 bonus. Since fighters get the most ASIs as they level, it's not surprising that Human Fighters are the most common race & class combination on D&D Beyond.

Be wary tho when your pc's make a character that end up having passive perception of 23 upto 28 and end up having to warp everything you wish to hide in another plane of existance for them not to notice it

@@bene5594 how the hell do you achieve a +18 on a perception modifier?

@@nirobu Expertise, high wisdom, observant feat

@@nirobu perception expertice rouge at level 4 or more with 14 WIS gives you 10(base)+6(proficiency times 2)+2(WIS mod)=18 pasive perception

@@lordilluminati5836 that's an 18 passive perception. I was talking about the 28 passive perception that ben was talking about. That means a +18 modifier to perception which i thought was impossible since expertise would give you at most +12 proficiency bonus with the maximum +5 wisdom modifier, until @Hoopster 151 reminded me that Observant grants +5 to passive perception too. So, i guess +22 modifier for perception would be the max? If it is, that's one perceptive rogue

william heinrich oh buddy there’s no one left

Hawkeye Gough hahahaha

Those 16 people are just wannabes xD

There seems to be a small group that just go around to every CR vid and downvote it. Sad.

Truly pitiful! What could people hate about little 5 minute tips? If you don't like something, just don't watch.

Y'all should be plane hopping and taking out lesser dieties at that level, your passive perception should be the thing your DM is least concerned with lol

We have already prevented a lesser evil Deity from killing a god to take its place. And perception is one of the most used skills in the entire game, as far as my experience. So I don’t see how passive perception could ever be the least of a DM’s concerns. I catch every trap before we set it off. Ambushes never happen. Basically, I disagree with your assertion that it is unimportant just because we are high level.

@@levishackelton4437 That doesn't sound remotely fun at all, and a pretty huge wet blanket for a DM trying to build a world and challenge for you to participate in.

I must have good passive stealth irl then... I can literally walk casually up to someone sometimes and startle them... Lmao.

Hahaha

Sean Nemo the most ridiculous I could come up with is a Rouge or other home brew class that allows expertise, put that on stealth with either +5 or higher dex bonus and you become passively stealthy enough to sneak around anyone who isn’t actively looking for you. Then by max level, that would be a 27 without advantage, which is really easy to get with magic items. So around 32 by 17th level or whenever the last proficiency boost is.

@@RikkuTakanashi Me too! I'm glad it's not just me

Haha! I accidentally do this to a friend irl and she screams every single time.

Her calming and gentle nature was just what the audience and players needed at that moment

that's the episode after... *sob*

@lucieeatssnekkers There there. The earth will remember him.

Happens to me all the time with this show. was watching both campaigns, and timed it so that I was in both underwater sequences at the same time.

The hairstyle and head shape would suggest it is!

@@Heritage367 he's also the one that breaks the game and ruins Matt's plans the most

And the black nails

@@Nata_Hanabi oh yeah that's 100% Taliesin

Really, who else would it be, if not the Immortal One?