Sadrik
First Post
If I undrstand your suggestion, Sardrik, a spotter rolls against a dc and the skill of the opponent would have little effect. I want my character to have a much harder time noticing Grisendorf the master assassin sent to eliminate my troublesome character, than Blarb, the orc with the peg leg that I pissed off at the bar. It doesn't really make sense that it would be equally difficult to spot both of them. The "trained sneaker" is going to know how to mitigate hindrances and make the most of opportunities and should "realistically' be harder to see.
Yes the trained sneaker is more concerned about where he is sneaking rather than who is sneaking. So for instance, if Grisendorf is sneaking in a brightly lit room, it may be very difficult for him to sneak. If Grisendorf is sneaking in a dark cave it is very easy. The sneak check only tells if the sneaker successfully hid in the terrain. Blarb on the other hand is not trained in sneaking and has a very low DEX. He is going to have an extreme time (if not impossible time) hiding in the lit room and may even have difficulty hiding in the dark cave.
The thing that feels different here is that the spotter is not opposing a pure skill roll. The spotters Arbon the keen and Shump one-eyed is opposing how hidden in the terrain both Grisendorf and Blarb are. In the brightly lit room it might be pretty easy for Arbon and Shump to spot either one. In the dark cave it might be nearly impossible to see, but Arbon the keen might be able to figure out where Blarb is.
Of course there could be modifiers to the spotting roll, I could see a rogue having a hide in shadows feature that gives spotters a penalty to seeing them. Things like invisibility and blindness would give a penalty to spot as well. In essence this is a surprise roll. So all the factors that come into a surprise roll would come into play here too.
Distance
Hidden/not hidden
Lit/shadows/dark (dark could be invisible and blind too)
Concealment/cover
Surprise rolls are the same as this spot roll concept. This just broadens to sneaking, and gets rid of the swingy nature of opposed rolls and kills the outlier problem in one fell swoop.
As far as +40 outliers, I think it would be simpler to just keep a tight reign on the math.
Keeping the math tight only mitigates one factor. The other one is the swingyness of opposed rolls. Again think of the example where spell DCs are opposed rolls. The caster casts a spell and rolls a 20 so the the DC is impossible to beat or the caster rolls a 1 and the DC is an autopass. Opposed rolls are not good, in every case, even the arm wrestle.
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