Observant: Looking Good

Review by Sam West, Twitter:@CrierKobold

I have known DMs who struggle with Observant. It leans on a mechanic that is somewhat controversial (passive skills) with the bulk of its mechanical power, and comes with a bonus Wisdom that can often make it feel “free”. If you’re changing an odd Wisdom score to an even one for that sweet +1 to your wisdom modifier, why not also get a +5 to your passive perception and investigation, right?

The problem I think lies with what game elements observant feels like it makes obsolete. At level one, a variant human druid is likely starting with a +5 to their perception (+3 Wis, +2 prof. bonus), and a passive perception score of 15. With observant, this bumps it up to 20. Starting with a 20 passive perception means the majority of hidden creatures for the tier are going to feel like they’re automatically detected, and there are no countermeasures to deal with it outside of pumping up numbers higher and higher. Out the gate, it can feel like one player’s existence defeats any ambush set ups, and if they ever don’t notice something odd about the bushes along the path before goblins jump the group, can end up feeling like they took a feat that’s being promptly ignored. It can feel very much like a feast or famine mechanic: either no hidden creatures exist any more, or Observant doesn’t function the way they envision it should.

It doesn’t help that the passive skills aren’t consistently used table to table. Some DMs will record everyone's passive perception at the beginning of a campaign, and regularly use it to determine what players experience. Other tables will ask for group perception checks in place of passive perception entirely, which can make Observant literally fail to function. A new player picking up the feat because they like the idea of a Sherlock Holmes like rogue or cleric may find it acts purely as an ability score improvement with no meaningful text beyond that. The lip reading mechanic is cool and all, but I’m confident even at the most dedicated espionage tables, it will crop up only a handful of times a campaign.

Personally, I detest Observant. I don’t usually run a lot of ambushes and hidden monsters as I find player’s can find them frustrating to engage with. There is already a disconnect between what the players and DM see at every stage; we’re all imagining our own version of every scene in our minds, it's just the nature of RPGs. Observant asks me then to hide things specifically so one player can always find them just by existing, which isn’t exciting or engaging, it just changes how I have to present information for a player to feel like a choice they made in character building matters. It falls almost entirely on the DM to make the player’s feat feel “worth it” without them ever needing to actually try to use it. I’m not about that.

At some tables, Observant is going to be incredibly powerful. Noticing most hidden creatures throughout all tiers of play is valuable, and the lip-reading bit is a fun, flavorful tool to engage with. I wish the feat expanded on the lip-reading idea by opening up more ways information can be discerned beyond a +5 flat mod that the DM is solely responsible for tracking. I wouldn’t recommend taking it as I don’t find it to be particularly fun, but fun’s subjective. Maybe it’ll work perfectly fine for you and your group, and will regularly fulfill that hyper observant fantasy you’re going for.

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