lbxzero wrote:
I live out in the country. Here is my perspective of animals and perception. Animals may have special sensory boosts to perception, but most don't have perception as a natural skill. What is easily confused as perception is really paranoia and lack of trust. It is a skill that is learned for most. Each animal may have special gift in a field, but that is more like how ss'ressens have a bonus to balance checks.
The issue I have with perception is that it is over generalized. It is a single rank to represent a character's skill in sensing something. That something comes from training. The issue is that there are so many bonuses to that perception vs stealth checks. Being actively attentive invokes the roll, which is right. Choosing to focus on fewer senses should provide a bonus to perception. And then for stealth, the environment and resources to camouflage provides bonuses for each senses.
So much is rolled into perception and stealth, it helps in generalizing, but it is hard to be strategic with stealth when all senses are rolled into one result versus another result. Perception is the detection of a disturbance in the room, not the recognition of the disturbance. It is like an animal responding to a pebble falling off a hill. They may detect it on the silent hill, but it doesn't know what caused it. The animal is paranoid,forced to make a mettle check. It such case, this creates a strategic use of stealth to force a creature into a trap. Then you have the issue of GMs getting angry that the players are restricting the NPCs' actions.
This comes to a choice of how perception/stealth mechanic is suppose to be in the game system. If it is intended to be used strategically, it needs to be handled strategically. A list of bonuses to perception and stealth need to be worked out just like attack versus defense and how the quality of the equipment adjusts the outcome. Then, you could add to stealth a mechanic just like etiquette to show experience in different forms of hiding, such as crowds or shadows. When aiming for strategic purposes, you can't over-generalize perception and stealth.
While in the abstract, I agree, one skill for perception and one skill for stealth is generalizing a lot, I think it is the way to go. There is always a line to be drawn between "realism" and playability; and when playing a fantasy game with dragons and spells, I tend to lean more towards enhancing playability over "realism" since if you go for realism, where do you draw the line? Pretty soon you're playing GURPS.
If anything, I think stealth is still to specific and confusing. Most people seem to play it as the complete stealth package, which is how I think it should be for playability. But at times there are break-outs for visual stealth vs. auditory stealth. In the spell, "form of shadow" you get a +2 on stealth in shadowy areas, but then there is an adaptation to give +2 to your stealth when trying to move silently. What? Wasn't moving silently already built into the stealth role modified earlier? What's the point of boosting one application of stealth and not another? How many rolls do people get to detect you?
P: "I go to sneak past the creature"
GM: "OK, what's your stealth - hide"
P: "we'll I've got a spell, and a cloak, and a talent, and I've really worked on this, so I'm pretty good - I get ##"
GM: "OK, what's your stealth - move silent?"
P: "Ummm, well, the cloak probably doesn't apply, and the spell probably doesn't. Does the rune? How about the talent? I get ##-6 I guess. Good thing I rolled well"
GM: "OK, now what is your stealth - scent? I mean, we've got 5 sense... It's pretty still in here too so we'll have to see if he feels the wind of your passage..."
GM: "Oh, and since you're moving at half movement all these rolls will have to be rolled as you go down the passage toward him, as you pass him, and then once you're past him going further in."
P: "Right, so eventually I miss something and fail. Great game"
That's part of what prompted me to ask this question in the first place actually, that I've realized isn't clearly answered in the rules. How often do people get to make checks? In D&D it was like once a round, and since you had to move slowly to hide, that could quickly lead to so many checks that if you weren't obscene, you would easily be detected.
I've been thinking about the scene of an open, well lit courtyard, trying to sneak past the guards at the main entrance of an important building. Normally, impossible. No cover. But with the "Chameleon" tier III spell, you could actually slowly walk across the courtyard and through the entrance at 10' per move. That's what the spell is freakin' for. So that would mean a long time out in the open. Now I figure in most instances the guards would be martial types and probably wouldn't have perception as a skill. Plus they're probably pretty lax since they know it is "impossible" to sneak across the courtyard. Throughout the time you're slowly sneaking across the courtyard. In previous games every person in site would get a check, someone would get lucky, and you would get killed. I like in this game that you go against their passive perception, so there aren't a million roles. Just all of yours. Do you roll once for going across the entire courtyard, through the doors, and into the building? Every 10 feet? If it's every 10 feet, odds are you will eventually biff a role, unless your average roll significantly exceeds their passive perception, just because of the number of roles you have to make. Then you have to factor in sight and move silent (which chameleon apparently doesn't help with?)?
The other possibility would be to use the adapted version of "shadow form" that dims bright light around you to shadowy, which would give you the ability to hide as you skirt the yard and building (I would think), but then, wouldn't that shadowy area moving across the courtyard attract some attention? I mean, doesn't that ability sort of defeat itself?
Just some additional thoughts.
