This is something that's been eating at me for awhile, especially since I'm gonna be running D&D soon and Iif i'm gonna houserule it, now's the time.
Why, oh why, oh why does D&D 3X split skills into Hide, Move Silently, Spot and Listen? Is a person skilled at being unseen going to for some reason make noise like a herd of elephants when creeping through the underbrush? Is the razor-eyed scout, first to see even the tiniest blur of movement from an ambush, going to be deaf as an old granny? I really hate having the skills splt, it's unnecessary detail, it's a point-waster when allocating skills, and it doesn't seem to me to have any return that justifies the trouble.
What I propose is to combine them--hide and move silently into Stealth, spot and listen into Notice. If a person has a circumstance penalty or bonus that would previously have affected only one or the other, then just limit the modifire to appropriate situations. But most of the time. I'll be willing to bet that the two factors will be pretty intertwined in common-sense terms. Like, if I'm trying to sneak up on yo, then seeing me or hearing me could give me away. So wearing clanky armor (for instance) would inhibit my sneaking under the new rule. If I'm completely still, it wouldn't, unless I try to move.
Does anyone know of any good reason for the skill division in the rules as written? And is there any factor that would make my tweak ill-advised? Let me tell you the factors I have considered:
Skill Point Balance. Now it's going to be half as expensive for those damn sneaky rogues to buy up their sneaking skill. But! It'll be cheaper for the guy trying to detect the thief, to buy uphis Notice skill, so it balances out. The only folks that are affected are people who aren't in the game at all, not spending skill points to hide OR to find. Those folks will now by slightly gypped as the hiders and finders now have more points to spread around and compete in other areas. However, it will make it easier for these third-party folks to dabble in the cat-and-mouse game themselves, since they now only need buy one rank to have a point in all-around detection skill.
Personally, I look at the reduced expense as a feature, not a bug. I tend toward pl;aying highly-skilled characters, and it's difficult even with the skilled classes to find enough points to be decently effective in a wide range of skills. This frees up a few points. Handy for the rogue or ranger, absolutely a lifesaver for the less-skilled class who just wants a few blessed (cross-class!) ranks in noticing.
Nuance/customizability That is, what if you want to have a guy who can be practically invisible when he wants to, but is crap for creeping upon folk? Or the ranger with ears to hear a pin drop, but his eyes ain't what the used to be? My answer is, well, so? D&D doesn't have a flaw/disad system, which is really what you want if you're looking for this kind of thing to be a factor. As is, we've got a lot of abstract and generalist character attributes, so why shouldn't hiding and finding be any different? There's no distinction made between evasive nimbleness and precision aim, for example. It's all just dex. If you want one to have primacy over the other, you'll probably take a feat. SO the same with the newly condensed skills. take or invent a feat that'll reflect your keen eyesight over your dull hearing or whatever. And meanwhile, everything else about these skills is much cleaner, simpler, and more fun.
So! Great idea? Terrible idea? Well-meaning but disastrous? Any crucial thing I've left out of my deliberations? I await your replies.
Peace,
-Joel
Great idea. I like that you thought out the reasons for the skill bloat, and decided to fix it.
EDIT I believe that Starwars d20 Saga Edition also proposes to simplify the d20 skill list.
WoWRPG did combine hide & MS into "stealth," but interestingly did not combine spot & listen.
I think what it boils down to is that D&D originally had separate rolls for "Move Silently", "Hide In Shadows", "Hear Noise", and different rules for sight. It was a sacred cow.
Crush spot and listen together into "notice", hide and move silently into "sneak", get rid of appraise, use rope, sleight of hand and gather information. Those're my house rules for D&D skill lists.
A sacred cow who is well past the time to slit its throat and toss it on the BBQ. The mental backflips they do in the skill section basically boils down to what you are suggesting anyway Melinglor. The only catch is that you should have some modifiers for 'Notice', since it is an abstract of sight and hearing, in the case of Silence spells and Invisibility spells and the like.
Why are Spot-Listen and Move Silently-Hide treated as separate skills? Because 3.5 is a steaming pile of dogshit? :D
Actually, True20 has more generic "Stealth" and "Notice" skills if you are looking for something more compact, but still in the d20 family.
Well, there are good reasons for keeping it the way it is:
- Size modifiers for hide checks.
- double (!) armour penalty for move silently checks.
- no armour penalty for spot & listen
Those are big factors, if you handwave them, you can go right back to rolling 1D6. Which is okay too, but has niothign to do with playing 3.5.
Changing it is not worth the hassle.
Quote from: Tyberious FunkActually, True20 has more generic "Stealth" and "Notice" skills if you are looking for something more compact, but still in the d20 family.
Yeah, this is what I usually do.
If you strip the concepts down to the essentials, this is what's left.
Quote from: SettembriniWell, there are good reasons for keeping it the way it is:
- Size modifiers for hide checks.
- double (!) armour penalty for move silently checks.
- no armour penalty for spot & listen
Those are big factors, if you handwave them, you can go right back to rolling 1D6. Which is okay too, but has niothign to do with playing 3.5.
Changing it is not worth the hassle.
Or you could just throw penalties on depending on situation. Staying perfectly still and lying in ambush? No armour penalty. Sneaking past the guards? Armour penalty.
These factors do not seem as large as you make them out to be.
QuoteThese factors do not seem as large as you make them out to be.
As I said, if you drop that detail, you can drop skill levels altogether and go back to NWPs, or what Mike Mearls recently proposed in his blog.
Quote from: SettembriniAs I said, if you drop that detail, you can drop skill levels altogether and go back to NWPs, or what Mike Mearls recently proposed in his blog.
But you don't
have to. What's with the extreme polarization on roleplaying discussion boards? It's really starting to freak me out.
Really, it´s along the same lines as using True20.
I´m not polarizing in this thread, just pointing out, that detail will be lost.
And in my case I don't need that level of detail in my present game so I simplify. It varies from group to group, game to game, and it's no sweat really.
It can be annoying to have so many skills and not enough skill points, but it's extremely easy to change this. True20 and Spellslinger did it, and I suspect a lot of other d20 games had their own mods. Nothing to be seriously pissed off, IMHO.
EDIT: There's also the issue that these skills particular skills are heavily used in D&D. Breaking them down in as many different skills as possible can be an attempt at game balance. On the other hand, there are several skills that don't see enough use, and it wouldn't hurt to turn them into a single skill.
I've seen d20 variant games that do it, but I wouldn't do it without changing around other skills.
Let's face it: spot is probably the most valuable single skill in the game. Giving you more bang for that buck in the existing environment would not be the way to go.
It is, obviously, a sacred cow, dating back to the old "thief skills" from OD&D.
True20 has it right, going with Stealth for everything to do with stealth, and Notice for everything to do with perception.
RPGPundit
Quote from: MelinglorWhat I propose is to combine them--hide and move silently into Stealth, spot and listen into Notice.
Many d20 systems do that and it works just fine.
Quote from: MelinglorWhy, oh why, oh why does D&D 3X split skills into Hide, Move Silently, Spot and Listen?
Because it's crying out for help.
I remember getting
Redline (one of FFG's Horizon games) and seeing a few reg'lar d20 skills condensed into one, and thinking,
DUH, that's only the bestest idea EVER. And while the bestest idea EVER was actually the decision to record and sell The Human League's breakout single "Don't You Want Me?", the compression-of-bloaty-butted-d20-skills idea is a close, close second.
How good am I at noticing stuff? How good am I at not being being seen? Will I get blown up by John Cleese? That's all I really want out of a character, and all I want out of my characters as a GM.
Fuck a duck, man, I need some sleep. THIS IS WHY I DON'T DRINK, KIDS!
Quote from: MelinglorWhat I propose is to combine them--hide and move silently into Stealth, spot and listen into Notice.
When our group was thinking of creating R&R, this is the first thing that came to mind, and all the rules for it were written in the span of about 5 seconds.
So, how about simplifying two weapon fighting now? :)
Quote from: Dr Rotwang!Fuck a duck, man, I need some sleep. THIS IS WHY I DON'T DRINK, KIDS!
Whaaa? Am I the only one that had pictured the good Dr. as perpetually draining bottles of Lonesome Charlie while he posts???
Quote from: blakkieWhaaa? Am I the only one that had pictured the good Dr. as perpetually draining bottles of Lonesome Charlie while he posts???
Dude, I'm such a teetotaller that I make the Womens' Christian Temperance Union (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woman's_Christian_Temperance_Union) look like a bunch of pantsless, barfing fratboys.
What I don't get is why it's such a problem. My fav game is True 20, so I have no problem with combining the skills, but I have had no trouble at all playing them as separate either. Why is it such a problem? My rangers and rogues have had plenty of points with which to keep the skills high enough, and we have had no trouble knowing when to use each one. Rolling the die twice (or two dice) doesn't really take any appreciable extra effort. I don't see the problem.
Quote from: SigmundRolling the die twice (or two dice) doesn't really take any appreciable extra effort. I don't see the problem.
Eh, it's not about that, to me -- it's about too many skills and feeling like I don't have enough points for 'em.
For me a lot of it is about twice the work and page space (and it isn't just "roll the dice") for little payoff.
Well, it looks like True20 blazed the trail before me. Which is great, except that I don't own it. Not that I wouldn't love to try it sometime, but right now I'm working with what I've got, which is the D&D 3.5 core books. So the solution for right now would be simply to mod those rules, rather than buy new ones.
Looks like a lot of folks like my line of thought, which is encouraging. As far as the naysayers go: Say why the nay! That is, what reasons do you believe this mod will fuck things up? Specifically:
Quote from: SettembriniWell, there are good reasons for keeping it the way it is:
- Size modifiers for hide checks.
- double (!) armour penalty for move silently checks.
- no armour penalty for spot & listen
Those are big factors, if you handwave them, you can go right back to rolling 1D6. Which is okay too, but has niothign to do with playing 3.5.
It seems pretty extreme to say that if I condense these two sets of skills, I'm not playing 3.5 anymore. And my answer to the circumstances you raise is, as Redfox said, to use the modifiers based on the situation. You still only take an armor penalty when moving; you're just basing the check on a broader skill instead of a more specialized one. Just like a Dex mod is a bonus you can plug into any Dex-based situation, Sneak would be a bonus you can plug into any sneaking-based situation.
I thought I had made this clear in my original post; if not I apologize. I do notice in reviewing the post that in the process of explaining it I invented the word "modifire." Which is awesome.
Quote from: Caesar SlaadI've seen d20 variant games that do it, but I wouldn't do it without changing around other skills.
Let's face it: spot is probably the most valuable single skill in the game. Giving you more bang for that buck in the existing environment would not be the way to go.
I've considered this, Caesar, but concluded that any imbalance created would be minimal. While the cost/benefit ratio of the skill is improved, so is the c/b of the primary opposing skill, Hide. And it's for just your concern that I'm keeping Notice cross-class; my first instinct was to open it up to anyone. Many's a time I've made a non-rogue, non-ranger character only to curse the Gods of Spot and Listen, for making me spend my precious few skill poiints at double rate and half the maximum, for the prize of being aware of my environment. I think collapsing them into two eases the burden on these chars while still keeping Notice still mostly in the realm of the more "observant" classes.
Question, though: What
would you change with the other skills to make this houserule work?
Quote from: PseudoephedrineCrush spot and listen together into "notice", hide and move silently into "sneak", get rid of appraise, use rope, sleight of hand and gather information. Those're my house rules for D&D skill lists.
This is interesting. What is it about Appraise, Use rope and Slight of Hand that makes you nix them? What are the effects, and how do you compensate for their loss?
Peace,
-Joel
PS: I agree that it's a total sacred cow. Like a frikkin' vestigial organ.
Quote from: MelinglorI've considered this, Caesar, but concluded that any imbalance created would be minimal. While the cost/benefit ratio of the skill is improved, so is the c/b of the primary opposing skill, Hide. And it's for just your concern that I'm keeping Notice cross-class; my first instinct was to open it up to anyone. Many's a time I've made a non-rogue, non-ranger character only to curse the Gods of Spot and Listen, for making me spend my precious few skill poiints at double rate and half the maximum, for the prize of being aware of my environment. I think collapsing them into two eases the burden on these chars while still keeping Notice still mostly in the realm of the more "observant" classes.
I think those are good points. Moreover, I'd see it less as unbalancing Spot to make it more useful, but more like nixing useless skills so that every skill is of awesome utility.
I'd probably trim still further.
You're perfectly hidden, but step on a twig. SNAP!
You can see them perfectly, but can you hear them over the rumble of the engine?
You can hear someone accidently kick an empty glass bottle, but can you see them in the overgrown alleyway?
You can hear voices, but where in the hell are they coming from?
Seriously, cramming them together may be fine for reducing the amount of rolls and skills out there, but they honestly belong in seperate categories.
Sight != Sound
Hidden != Silent
Silent != Hidden
Sound != Sight
Quote from: T-WillardSeriously, cramming them together may be fine for reducing the amount of rolls and skills out there, but they honestly belong in seperate categories.
Gaming isn't a religion, and there are no absolute truths.
Quote from: MelinglorThis is interesting. What is it about Appraise, Use rope and Slight of Hand that makes you nix them? What are the effects, and how do you compensate for their loss?
They don't have effects, unless the DM is really being a skill-nazi for whatever reason. I've never seen anyone actually use Appraise, while Use Rope and Sleight of Hand have such marginal uses that they come up a handful of times a campaign.
They can also be better represented by other skills that cover more broad areas of expertise, specifically the "profession" skills. Profession (Mountebank) or (Gambler) cover sleight of hand, while Use Rope can just be Profession (Sailor). The parts of Use Rope that deal with climbing (will this knot hold as we climb down the rope?) should be part of the Climb skill anyhow.
Quote from: RedFoxGaming isn't a religion, and there are no absolute truths.
Gee, thanks for joining us, Confucious.
Redfox: That's cool, what other skills are on your hitlist? I'm thinking this thread will benefit by oipening it up to general D&D skill reform.:)
Pseudoephedrine: I would disagree on Sleight of Hand; if you're a rogue who picks pockets it does get used. However, I'm more than open to exploring alternate means of providing pickpocketry. Your proposal for solving skill bloat with Profession is intriguing. WHat other skills do you see being covered by Mountebank (I so want that prof just for the name!) or Gambler, to use the examples you mentioned? And can you think of any other profession that would cover Use Rope, for the wannabe Boy Scout who's also a landlubber? I'm drawing a blank.
Folding rope use while climbing into Climb skill is elegant. In fact, that could be a good guideline for collapsing unwanted skills: collapse them when possible into the skill they synergize with. Nice rule of thumb anyway.
I'm not sure what I think of Appraise. . .I see your piint about infrequent use, but it still seems like it should be there. No other skill covers it, except Craft, and not all appraisers are crafters. And in theory a lot of mileage could be got out of Appraise, if, for instance, not all merchants are honest and one's own skill was essential in rooting out fraud. I imagine there must be groups that do this, and it sounds like the most fun way to run the skill.
T-Willard
Trust me, I've considered all that. if you read through the posts, you'll see that I as well as a couple of others have described the best way to handle that--through situational modifiers. If you're not visible then no eyesight bonus to the Noticer. If you can't be heard, then no hearing bonus, or no maybe check at all if you'r behind the guy. If the task would be more or less difficult due to whatever sensory factory, there's good ol' +2/-2.
Sure, the odd situation might call for a tricky ruling, but I think it's worth it. Hearing may be different from seeing, but that level of detail in game mechanics doesn't interest me. You might as well add "Smell," "Taste" and "Feel" to the list. (Heh, I can just imagine all the use that Feel would get. . .and of course Smell and Taste would get a Synergy bonus!:D )
I'm comfortable with the change; none of the objections so far have been convincing.
Peace,
-Joel
Others on the list?
I'd be mighty tempted to collapse Knowledge (Arcana), Knowledge (The Planes), Spellcraft, and possibly even Concentration together into a single skill.
I'd roll Sense Motive into Spot (or the new "Notice" skill).
Handle Animal would be folded into Ride and Survival, depending on whether the animal was a mount.
Decipher Script would be rolled into Speak Language.
I can understand if ya'all want to combine spot/listen and hide/MS, but I still don't personally see the need. I like them the way they are for DnD. I don't feel they are a waste of space or useless.
Quote from: MelinglorPseudoephedrine: I would disagree on Sleight of Hand; if you're a rogue who picks pockets it does get used. However, I'm more than open to exploring alternate means of providing pickpocketry. Your proposal for solving skill bloat with Profession is intriguing. WHat other skills do you see being covered by Mountebank (I so want that prof just for the name!) or Gambler, to use the examples you mentioned? And can you think of any other profession that would cover Use Rope, for the wannabe Boy Scout who's also a landlubber? I'm drawing a blank.
Craft (Traps) seems like it would cover knots, and it's already in the game as a common skill for kobolds. Heck if knots play such an important role in game, a few ranks outright in Craft (Knots) wouldn't be out of place.
For Profession (Gambling), I think sleight of hand, calculating odds, figuring out the rules to games (for example, a chess puzzle in a dungeon) and playing games of skill and chance should all fall under it. We have a PC shooting for Fatespinner right now who's got ranks in Profession (Gambling) and those are more or less exactly what he does with the skill.
Mountebank might roll in sleight of hand with synergy bonuses to spellcraft checks to spot illusions and to perform checks. It covers forms of performance like magic tricks otherwise not covered by Perform.
QuoteFolding rope use while climbing into Climb skill is elegant. In fact, that could be a good guideline for collapsing unwanted skills: collapse them when possible into the skill they synergize with. Nice rule of thumb anyway.
Hah, thanks. In my experience, there are two situations where knots become important to PCs. One is climbing, and the other is tying up prisoners. I think the former is properly part of the climb skill, while the latter is best represented outside the skill system.
QuoteI'm not sure what I think of Appraise. . .I see your piint about infrequent use, but it still seems like it should be there. No other skill covers it, except Craft, and not all appraisers are crafters. And in theory a lot of mileage could be got out of Appraise, if, for instance, not all merchants are honest and one's own skill was essential in rooting out fraud. I imagine there must be groups that do this, and it sounds like the most fun way to run the skill.
Profession (Merchant), which would also cover haggling and perhaps give a synergy bonus to Knowledge (Local). As it stands, Profession is one of the least important skills to PCs because it doesn't have any synergy bonuses, nor is it essential to anything the PCs do. I'd rather not replace every skill with Profession (blah), but I think making them more useful by allowing five ranks to give a synergy bonus to one other skill of the PC's choice would make them a relatively good investment.
Quote from: SigmundI can understand if ya'all want to combine spot/listen and hide/MS, but I still don't personally see the need. I like them the way they are for DnD. I don't feel they are a waste of space or useless.
That's cool. I don't think it's
necessary for me. I can (and do) play and run games with the full skill-set. But I'm awful tempted to trim it down some for simplicity's sake, because it does bug me a bit.