Author Topic: Spot, Listen, Search, Hide, and Move Silently vs. Perception and Stealth  (Read 10888 times)

Offline Endarire

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Greetings!

Pathfinder consolidated the perception skills into Perception [WIS] and the stealth skills into Stealth [DEX].  This means fewer skill points spent by skill monkeys, but also fewer skill points needed to detect them.  Thus, more people can afford to max Perception as 1 skill instead of 2 or 3, and Pathfinder's skill system says max ranks = your HD.

How do y'all feel this changes balance?  Is it for the better or worse, and why?

Offline veekie

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Re: Spot, Listen, Search, Hide, and Move Silently vs. Perception and Stealth
« Reply #1 on: December 04, 2012, 06:41:55 AM »
Skill consolidation is good(because if two things are rarely used independently and derive from the same factors, they should be combined to save on management difficulty). However, it did undermine role protection for skillmonkeys, for the simple reason that it is much easier for other classes to cover the spotter role(you don't even need the class skills, just 1 skill point per level and a positive Wis). The rogue DOES get an edge there in Trapfinding at least.

Stealth wise however, it's good, Stealth is a skill where the whole party needs to be able to participate, or the whole party fails/sits out while the person good at it does their thing alone.

Overall, a mixed bag, but it makes having a varied group easier.
« Last Edit: December 04, 2012, 07:39:21 AM by veekie »
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Offline RobbyPants

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Re: Spot, Listen, Search, Hide, and Move Silently vs. Perception and Stealth
« Reply #2 on: December 04, 2012, 07:33:40 AM »
but also fewer skill points needed to detect them. 

...

How do y'all feel this changes balance?  Is it for the better or worse, and why?
Actually, it doesn't mean you need fewer skills to detect them. You've only ever needed one, except in cases of things like Invisibility and Silence, and those are magic effects, not skill effects.

The crappy thing about the 3.x stealth system is that detection only requires you to beat one of your opponent's checks, not both. So, if two people are about matched on their Spot/Listen and Hide/Move Silently, then the hiding person has a 50% chance to make one check and only a 25% chance to make both.

If you have a 70% chance to make one check, there is a 49% chance you'll win both checks. So this means the hiding person needs to be five points ahead on both skills to have a better than even  chance of not getting detected. Consolidating these into single skills is a good thing. Thinking that you need to be five points ahead on the d20 in two skills to have a 50% chance of success on an opposed roll is not intuitive, and most gamers wouldn't think of it.
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Offline Waazraath

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Re: Spot, Listen, Search, Hide, and Move Silently vs. Perception and Stealth
« Reply #3 on: December 04, 2012, 08:05:03 AM »
I like it. I'm using it for the first time with my current gaming group, and skills get actually sort of usefull when merged (perception, stealth, but also athletics, rethorics, etc.).

Balance wise, the skill system of 3.5 is meh, skills are rather weak, and improving skills makes 'skill user' more a useful character concept.

Offline Unbeliever

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Re: Spot, Listen, Search, Hide, and Move Silently vs. Perception and Stealth
« Reply #4 on: December 04, 2012, 08:48:17 AM »
Skill consolidation is good.  There's no sense to separating them out.  My best guess is that it's just a carryover from the ol' Hide in Shadows/Move Silently mechanics from olden times.

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Re: Spot, Listen, Search, Hide, and Move Silently vs. Perception and Stealth
« Reply #5 on: December 04, 2012, 09:35:50 AM »
My best guess is that it's just a carryover from the ol' Hide in Shadows/Move Silently mechanics from olden times.
That's exactly what it is. Anyone who played 2E and moved to 3E would have noticed a lot of carry over. Similarly, anyone who did so and switched to 3.5 would have seen some of it go away.

This includes stuff like rolling for HD affected by Sleep, Damage Reduction applying depending on the strength of your magic weapon (DR 10/+1, DR 10/+2), the Innuendo skill, Heal fully healing you, Harm reducing you to 1d4 HP, and a bunch of others.
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Offline ksbsnowowl

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Re: Spot, Listen, Search, Hide, and Move Silently vs. Perception and Stealth
« Reply #6 on: December 04, 2012, 10:47:15 AM »
That's exactly what it is. Anyone who played 2E and moved to 3E would have noticed a lot of carry over. Similarly, anyone who did so and switched to 3.5 would have seen some of it go away.

This includes stuff like rolling for HD affected by Sleep, Damage Reduction applying depending on the strength of your magic weapon (DR 10/+1, DR 10/+2), the Innuendo skill, Heal fully healing you, Harm reducing you to 1d4 HP, and a bunch of others.
See, I want MORE of that old-edition feel/mechanics in my game.  To the point I house-rule a bunch of 3.0 stuff back into my games.

That said, I do like the Max ranks always = HD thing.  Though I don't like the no x4 skill points at first level thing (you can ONLY be trained in these 3 things, not a little in several things).  And no synergy bonuses? Blech.  In a future campaign I might change the cross-class max to equal your HD, and 1 skill point always equals 1 rank (ie - no cross-class tax), but everything else about skills would stay the same.

Offline awaken_D_M_golem

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Re: Spot, Listen, Search, Hide, and Move Silently vs. Perception and Stealth
« Reply #7 on: December 04, 2012, 05:51:58 PM »
4e too.


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Offline Jackinthegreen

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Re: Spot, Listen, Search, Hide, and Move Silently vs. Perception and Stealth
« Reply #8 on: December 04, 2012, 06:10:49 PM »
If anything consolidating skills helps make skillmonkeys better at their jobs because the skills themselves tend to be more useful more often, thus they're more powerful in terms of both breadth and depth.

Offline Halinn

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Re: Spot, Listen, Search, Hide, and Move Silently vs. Perception and Stealth
« Reply #9 on: December 04, 2012, 06:58:23 PM »
Also, even with the 8+int skill points rogues get, they're having a tough time getting all the skills they want in 3.5. Just basics for a standard social, stealthy trapfinder is Bluff, Diplomacy, Disable Device, Disguise, Hide, Move Silently, Open Lock, Search, Sleight of Hand, Tumble and Use Magic Device, which is 11 skills. Then on top of that, you might want "silly" stuff like Appraise, Balance, Intimidate, Gather Information, Spot and Listen. PF condenses first list to 9, and the second to 2 (mostly because a bunch of those are included in ones that are rolled into the first list)

Offline dman11235

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Re: Spot, Listen, Search, Hide, and Move Silently vs. Perception and Stealth
« Reply #10 on: December 05, 2012, 01:53:46 PM »
Skill consolidation is good.  When bauglir gets here, hopefully he'll link to his skill fixes that I helped with, because that's what I use.  Basically, it's a look at what mechanically needs doing, and seeing where things overlap.  If they do, then boom: same skill.  We got it down to below 20 skills total, and that includes the different knowledges (no longer an infinite number of knowledge skills).  Profession as well.  Skill synergies went away as well, since they should not apply.  If there's a synergy, there's a good chance that they are actually the same skill, effectively.
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Offline ksbsnowowl

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Re: Spot, Listen, Search, Hide, and Move Silently vs. Perception and Stealth
« Reply #11 on: December 05, 2012, 02:05:47 PM »
Skill synergies went away as well, since they should not apply.  If there's a synergy, there's a good chance that they are actually the same skill, effectively.
I did the High Jump and Long Jump in HS track.  I'm still not good at Tumbling...

Needless to say, I disagree.

Offline Unbeliever

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Re: Spot, Listen, Search, Hide, and Move Silently vs. Perception and Stealth
« Reply #12 on: December 05, 2012, 02:31:25 PM »
Skill synergies went away as well, since they should not apply.  If there's a synergy, there's a good chance that they are actually the same skill, effectively.
I did the High Jump and Long Jump in HS track.  I'm still not good at Tumbling...

Needless to say, I disagree.
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Offline FlaminCows

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Re: Spot, Listen, Search, Hide, and Move Silently vs. Perception and Stealth
« Reply #13 on: December 05, 2012, 02:36:54 PM »
I think it changes it for the worse. The trouble is that skills need to be balanced against each other, at least to a certain degree. 3.5 isn't great for this, of course, but the consolidation doesn't help. Perception and Stealth are just too cheap for what they do.

What do I mean by this? Well, in Pathfinder everyone takes Perception. Furthermore, the Wis-based characters are a lot better at it than the Rogue is. Skill consolidation makes sense where there is a skill that is too weak, like merging Jump/Climb/Swim into Athletics or folding Use Rope's paltry uses into Climb and Escape Artist. Search, Spot, Listen, Hide, and Move Silently are fine as they are.

Offline ksbsnowowl

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Re: Spot, Listen, Search, Hide, and Move Silently vs. Perception and Stealth
« Reply #14 on: December 05, 2012, 04:41:46 PM »
I think it changes it for the worse. The trouble is that skills need to be balanced against each other, at least to a certain degree. 3.5 isn't great for this, of course, but the consolidation doesn't help. Perception and Stealth are just too cheap for what they do.

What do I mean by this? Well, in Pathfinder everyone takes Perception. Furthermore, the Wis-based characters are a lot better at it than the Rogue is. Skill consolidation makes sense where there is a skill that is too weak, like merging Jump/Climb/Swim into Athletics or folding Use Rope's paltry uses into Climb and Escape Artist. Search, Spot, Listen, Hide, and Move Silently are fine as they are.
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Offline Unbeliever

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Re: Spot, Listen, Search, Hide, and Move Silently vs. Perception and Stealth
« Reply #15 on: December 05, 2012, 05:09:26 PM »
I think it changes it for the worse. The trouble is that skills need to be balanced against each other, at least to a certain degree. 3.5 isn't great for this, of course, but the consolidation doesn't help. Perception and Stealth are just too cheap for what they do.

What do I mean by this? Well, in Pathfinder everyone takes Perception. Furthermore, the Wis-based characters are a lot better at it than the Rogue is. Skill consolidation makes sense where there is a skill that is too weak, like merging Jump/Climb/Swim into Athletics or folding Use Rope's paltry uses into Climb and Escape Artist. Search, Spot, Listen, Hide, and Move Silently are fine as they are.
The problem is that you're blaming the wrong thing for the problem.  First off, I think it's kind of silly that sneaking around requires 4 rolls (Hide v. Spot, Listen v. Move Silently).  Very few, if any, other games do it that way.  It's clearly a vestige of an older, clunkier system.  The idea that sneaking should be broken up into its constituent parts (and remember, this is a game without a dodge or parry mechanic) is a bit bonkers.

Secondly, Perception is just an all-around useful skill for someone who is clamoring around ancient ruins and worrying about orc ambushes.  That's not much of a stretch.  Stealth has limited application as nobody who generally wears a lot of armor will be able to use it very successfully.  I don't know if skills really can be balanced against each other in this or any game.

Thirdly, and probably most importantly, you're blaming a problem, and a non-trivial one, namely that characters who you would think are good at something aren't necessarily b/c good at a skill is driven by other things than class/archetype, at the feat of skill consolidation.  It's instead a function of other things, such as MAD v. SAD. 

That being said, is Perception a class skill for everyone in Pathfinder?  I know PF makes cross-class skills less of a big deal, but in 3.5, absent making a commitment to being perceptive, the Cleric is never going to be as perceptive as a Rogue -- cross-class ranks will create a huge gulf.  And, for the love of Moradin, let us not pretend that Pathfinder was the one who came up with skill consolidation, it's been kicking around for a long time.  Even in Pathfinder there should be a 3 point swing there.  At high levels the Cleric's super awesome Wisdom will outpace that, but by the same token the party scout will be able to throw fairly trivial resources into the +X to Perception/Spot/Listen items to keep the separation.

So, a high-Wisdom character who wants to be great at Perception will be behind someone like a Rogue, unless she puts resources into it.  That is, unless she invests a feat, takes a class where Perception is a class skill, and gear in being good at it.  And, that's fine, she's then said by virtue of the system "nobody sneaks up on this Cleric!"

Or, she could just play a Druid, who get it as a class skill ... fucking Druids :/

Offline dman11235

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Re: Spot, Listen, Search, Hide, and Move Silently vs. Perception and Stealth
« Reply #16 on: December 05, 2012, 05:56:58 PM »
I think it changes it for the worse. The trouble is that skills need to be balanced against each other, at least to a certain degree. 3.5 isn't great for this, of course, but the consolidation doesn't help. Perception and Stealth are just too cheap for what they do.

What do I mean by this? Well, in Pathfinder everyone takes Perception. Furthermore, the Wis-based characters are a lot better at it than the Rogue is. Skill consolidation makes sense where there is a skill that is too weak, like merging Jump/Climb/Swim into Athletics or folding Use Rope's paltry uses into Climb and Escape Artist. Search, Spot, Listen, Hide, and Move Silently are fine as they are.

You're only doing one part of the solution then stopping, and calling the whole solution bad because where you stopped created a problem.  You have to look at the whole solution, not just a single part.  In addition to the hide/MS and spot/listen consolidation, there's knowledge consolidation, athletics consolidation, misc. consolidation, and (in my fix and others) power boosts to certain skills.  There's also the issue of skill points: most (if not all) consolidation fixes include reduced skill points for all classes.  So even though you need fewer skill points to do everything, you also have fewer skill points to do it with.

In the end, consolidation reduces clutter, streamlines the table time, and makes more sense.
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Offline awaken_D_M_golem

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Re: Spot, Listen, Search, Hide, and Move Silently vs. Perception and Stealth
« Reply #17 on: December 05, 2012, 08:18:47 PM »
Skill synergies went away as well, since they should not apply.  If there's a synergy, there's a good chance that they are actually the same skill, effectively.
I did the High Jump and Long Jump in HS track.  I'm still not good at Tumbling...

Needless to say, I disagree.

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Offline Prime32

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Re: Spot, Listen, Search, Hide, and Move Silently vs. Perception and Stealth
« Reply #18 on: December 05, 2012, 08:25:27 PM »
One reason I support the merge into Perception: it makes it easier to handle exotic senses.

Offline veekie

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Re: Spot, Listen, Search, Hide, and Move Silently vs. Perception and Stealth
« Reply #19 on: December 05, 2012, 09:47:35 PM »
I think it changes it for the worse. The trouble is that skills need to be balanced against each other, at least to a certain degree. 3.5 isn't great for this, of course, but the consolidation doesn't help. Perception and Stealth are just too cheap for what they do.

What do I mean by this? Well, in Pathfinder everyone takes Perception. Furthermore, the Wis-based characters are a lot better at it than the Rogue is. Skill consolidation makes sense where there is a skill that is too weak, like merging Jump/Climb/Swim into Athletics or folding Use Rope's paltry uses into Climb and Escape Artist. Search, Spot, Listen, Hide, and Move Silently are fine as they are.

You're only doing one part of the solution then stopping, and calling the whole solution bad because where you stopped created a problem.  You have to look at the whole solution, not just a single part.  In addition to the hide/MS and spot/listen consolidation, there's knowledge consolidation, athletics consolidation, misc. consolidation, and (in my fix and others) power boosts to certain skills.  There's also the issue of skill points: most (if not all) consolidation fixes include reduced skill points for all classes.  So even though you need fewer skill points to do everything, you also have fewer skill points to do it with.

In the end, consolidation reduces clutter, streamlines the table time, and makes more sense.
Indeed. for consolidation, you are not considering the 'realism' side of the matter(can someone be good at once, but bad at another? Why sure they can, you have traits, specialization and flaw rules to do that stuff), you are considering  whether these rules have any reason to be distinct.

Perception and Stealth are easy, their component parts are never used independently. It also makes effects like Invisibility and Silence fairer, since they now apply a large but not overwhelming bonus to a skill.

Athletics and Acrobatic skills meanwhile are trickier. You certainly can and do use them independently, but the question is how many characters should be good at only one component of Athleticism? How often is each component skill used relative to other skills? There is an argument in both directions, depending on your anchor for skill usage, but un-combined skills should go along with higher skill point availability.

The same goes for social skills, but in reverse. Diplomacy basically covers all your negotiating needs, while Intimidate has rather little use out of combat. Could you split up diplomacy to make a more involved minigame? Sure. Does the game need it? Maybe yes, maybe no, diplomacy is not one of the bigger features of D&D.
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