combining skills into Stealth a good thing?

[FrostedMini1337]

I'm against it.

When the guards in mail are running down the hall towards me, I don't need to be quiet, I just need to hide my ass. When the guy is sleeping, I don't need to hide myself, I just need to be quiet before I stab him in the face.

I hear people say that you always make 1 with the other, but IME we don't. Very rarely do we sneak past something that doesn't have one of its sense impaired, so having a skill for each on seems appropriate for us. If you are going to roll them together, I'd recommend rolling other skills together as well and cutting down skillpoints, to keep everything in proportion.

On other boards I've heard people cry that rouges need the 2 lumped together so that they can spend the skillpoints elsewhere. I am thankful no one has brought that up yet, because it just starts a bad time.

 

[nameless]

Lumping them together makes 4 of the best skills into THE 2 best skills. Right now it costs a bundle to be really good at all 4 skills, and most characters with them on the skill list invest heavily in those skills anyway. If it cost half as much to be that good, everybody would max out "perception" and "stealth" regardless of cross-class penalties.

That's my rationale, anyway. I like having the granularity, personally, but it strikes me as a diversity/balance issue to make the most useful abilities the most costly.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

If it cost half as much to be that good, everybody would max out "perception" and "stealth" regardless of cross-class penalties.

That's my rationale, anyway. I like having the granularity, personally, but it strikes me as a diversity/balance issue to make the most useful abilities the most costly.

I disagree.

The thing about the "stealth" skills is that most DMs and campaigns will call for those skills the most often. Ask for a more diverse group of skill checks and you'll see the PCs putting points into more diverse skills.

And if the "stealth" skills are the only ones you end up using on a regular basis ... well ... why shouldn't you make it easier for the PCs to use them?

 

[Xath]

Here's the problem that I have with Spot and Listen as two separate skills. Spot is seeing things, and listen is hearing them. In the PHB, their basic purposes are to defeat hide and move silently. But for non-hiding related spot checks, where are the other senses? Touch? Taste? Smell? (yes, I realise that there is a "scent" ability, but people can still identify things by smell) Where do they fall? That's why I like the idea of one "Notice" skill.

However, because of the nature of Spot and Listen (as counters to Hide and Move Silently) if you lump one group together, you have to lump them both together. It does place skill-heavy classes at an advantage, but there are a few things you can do.

- Make the new 2 skills cross-class for everyone so that they still cost 2 points to get.
- Reduce the number of skill points per-level by one for classes that have these skills as class skills.
- Don't worry about it, because no matter what you do, your players will find some way to cheat the system.

 

[satori01]

I have combined Move Silently and Hide into a Sneak skill for over 2 years now, I love it. Skills and Feats are the principal way players can define, customize, and accent the personality of their characters. Anything that encourages game breadth, such as having an xtra skill point, or cutting down on the cross class cost of cruical skill is a good thing. Frankly Spellcraft and Knowledge Arcana are redundant imho opinon.

As for combining Spot and Listen, that I do not like . A blind man having high Listen and no Spot makes sense. A blind man having the same 'Perception' skill as a fully sighted/hearing person does not.

 

[Xath]

As for combining Spot and Listen, that I do not like . A blind man having high Listen and no Spot makes sense. A blind man having the same 'Perception' skill as a fully sighted/hearing person does not.

I don't see where this makes a difference. If you combine Spot and Listen, obviously a character with a flaw such as blindness or deafness would take a penalty to the skill (my top of the head guess is a -6). But such character could still invest skill points and become very well honed at the skill anyway.

 

[Xath]

And since this thread is about skill combinations, I'll add one to see what people think:

Our group combined Open Lock and Disable Device into one skill (because what is opening a lock but "disabling" the locking function).

 

[BiggusGeekus]

And since this thread is about skill combinations, I'll add one to see what people think:

Our group combined Open Lock and Disable Device into one skill (because what is opening a lock but "disabling" the locking function).

No argument here.

The more skill checks the better.

 

[FrostedMini1337]

Lumping them together makes 4 of the best skills into THE 2 best skills.

Neh. Tumble, UMD, and Diplomacy are still up there in total usefulness.

 

[Sidekick]

I haven’t done this, but I have amalgamated Open Lock into the Disable Device skill. I just couldn’t see the rationale for having two separate skills for that. Also it means that the rogues have more points for listen, spot and so forth.

I think that using a ‘sneak/stealth/ skill is quite good, but as people have said, if you do that then you need to incorporate Listen & Spot into a ‘Perception’ skill.

And then what about Search? Why is that not perception. Argg it breaks my brain so I don’t bovver.