D&D 5E Stealth, Spot, and Listen

[Blackbrrd]

I like Alertness and Investigation duo much better than the Spot, Listen and Search trio.

I don't really think diplomacy is such a powerful skill. Sure it's useful, but if you aren't adhering to the truth, it's a bluff check and if you are trying to make somebody do something they don't really want to, it's in the territory of intimidate. If you want information, you won't find the right people to ask without other skills like streetwise or knowledge nobility.

 

[mlund]

I actually kind of hate intimidate as a skill. It's too much an attitude (player choice) and aptitude (character attributes or a social perk of a background) and less of a learned skill. It's a form of persuasion with a lot of nuance. The effectiveness of a threat in terms of skill is way more about what you know about the intended victim and your general communication skills.

I actually think Knights of the Old Republic got this right in creating dialogue sequences: Intelligence or Awareness to find the leverage (if necessary) then Persuade - sometimes with the descriptive subheading (intimidate) indicating that you're taking the figurative strong-arm approach or (lie) with indicating you're shoveling B.S. the whole way.

I could see a general social suite looking something like this:

Awareness
Commerce
Etiquette
Persuade
Streetwise

Awareness and Persuade are very general, broad skills specifically targeted towards input and output in social settings. Etiquette pertains to the specific ins and outs of any polite/high society you've been able to become acquainted with - this would include history, heraldry, customs, nobility, gathering information, and local knowledge. Obviously in some situations Etiquette or Persuade would solve the same challenge - but Etiquette might have a significantly lower or higher DC than a Persuade check depending on the context. Streetwise would basically have the same effect, but among the lowest classes. Merchants and Clergy might fall into either or both categories depending on their individual backgrounds.

Commerce can handle things like appraisal, finding goods and services, gathering information related to trade routes, and again overlap with Persuade in matters of haggling. Commerce gives you a lower DC to financial negotiations than a normal Persuade check.

It would also be interesting if having a skill in common in your background gave some sort of bonus opportunity to interacting with NPCs on a more complex or extended level. For instance, demonstrating competence with religion/lore/commerce would be a substantive success in making a positive impression on a priest/sage/merchant. Someone who knows about cows gets along easier with ranchers, and someone who understands crops finds common interest with a farmer. Etc.

- Marty Lund

 

[Jester David]

The difference, of course, being that you're not spreading your trained skills so thinly.

And you don't need to necessarily identify them. A DM can handle this sort of thing. It's never posed a problem in any game I've run where the senses are combined.

-O

I don't think 5e is necessarily a game where you need to have all skills trained. That's not the point. Really, skills are an optional system and are a bonus to skill checks that are equal to a high stat and make you really good at one thing. In 5e you shouldn't every say "make a Perception check" it's "make a Wisdom check".

The narrower they are the better. Otherwise that one skill becomes the must-take.
Perception is such a useful skill, so in a game where the math of skill checks means a +3 will really tip your odds making it apply to everything makes it too good. Being trained in a skill is really a bonus, a perk for when those situations come up.
Breaking it into spot and search and listen makes sense, so that one person can be really good at hearing things while another has keen eyes.

 

[Li Shenron]

I don't think 5e is necessarily a game where you need to have all skills trained. That's not the point. Really, skills are an optional system and are a bonus to skill checks that are equal to a high stat and make you really good at one thing. In 5e you shouldn't every say "make a Perception check" it's "make a Wisdom check".

The narrower they are the better. Otherwise that one skill becomes the must-take.
Perception is such a useful skill, so in a game where the math of skill checks means a +3 will really tip your odds making it apply to everything makes it too good. Being trained in a skill is really a bonus, a perk for when those situations come up.
Breaking it into spot and search and listen makes sense, so that one person can be really good at hearing things while another has keen eyes.

I like what you say. I only (partly) disagree with the idea that skills are an optional system.

In theory they are optional (and definitely those +3 bonuses are NOT required to play the game), however they are used for a mandatory feature of the Rogue class, thus you can't really play completely without skills... unless you house rule the Rogue.

 

[NunyaBizness]

Personally I feel on my own little homebrew, listen search and spot, taste analysis, smell all the senses are static abilities based on a race. ( I use a %skill based classless system, but it can be changed to a static d20 number rather than percentage though i tend to find that with d20 the 'heroic' difficulty was far too low to what was acheiivable by level 10 making later adventuring post 10 boring dull and easy)
Without going too much into it each character has: Perception/Awareness of between 70-85% of which whenever the character wants to spend their turn listening, searching, looking, smelling, tasting to identify something or somewhat they roll this sense score. Modifiers are applied to this based on the difficulty of what they are wanting to detect, as well as additional modifiers based on distractions (ie trying to hear a conversation through a window during a storm - light obstruction -10% - Heavy rain+thunder -40%. Other modifiers may include, target conversation is in hushed tones. Its so flexible based on a real scenario.
The base score of 70-85% is halfed (to 35-43%)if its a passive action. I.e the characters arent actively listening for something in particular, theyre just playing cards, while a guard stands watch (actively using perception for full bonus).

It was based on the premise that our senses are static, they dont improve, they dont decline (unless through accident or age). Even the blind or deaf dont actually gain better hearing or sight because they lose a different sense, they just rely on it more so they notice more though this could be argued on how a spot search or listen skill would improve, but hey going from 1 rank to 20 is a massive difference!)

Mainly these senses are static and in the hands of the GM.
A 'passive' halfed base percentage never contests another skill. But an 'active' one does. For example:
A party of Adventurers camp up for the night, make their stew and huddle around the camp fire, Hank takes first watch and patrols around the camp keeping watch and listeing out for intruders. Hanks Perception is 'Active' at 75% (human 75% -10% of Eric's snoring and +10% from being within the illumination range of the fire)
Presto is fumbling around with his hat and testing out some minor tricks. Sheila and Diana are talking about boys, while Eric is fast asleep snoring his head off while Bobby feeds Uni. Everyones senses are 'passive' as their attentions are elsewhere spending the round doing something else, while Hanks 'active', devoting 100% attention to guard duty.

Bob the antagonist thief notices the fire with a 'passive' perception check of 35%, +20% from illumination in a dark wood, +10% to the snoring of Eric, their is no additional modifier for conversation of Sheila and Diana as only the largest factor in each of the sense aids in any way (Eric's snoring is far louder than Sheila and Diana's chit chat and presto's muttering of incantations). rolls 40% its under 65% so hes noticed the camp.

Bob rolls his stealth check! rolls 84% Yikes its a fail aginst his 62% skill even with the +20% from cover of darkness!
The Gm rolls Hanks Perception of 75% and gets 68%! Hes heard something, but the stealth roll wasnt a fumble, so Hank knows somethings making some noise but not what it is, Could be an animal or something.
The Others with Passive percetion dont get to roll unless it was a fumble, Its all down to Hank.
Bob starts moving again fearing he'll be detected and rolls a total of 42% a Succeeding his skill chance by 40%
Hank invetigates using perception rolling his 75% skill but now with the additional penalty of Bob's skill success of 40% bringing his skill to 35%. Hank rolls a 46% and fails to notice Bob. Hank not knowing about the modifier is confident that it was nothing and continues to keep watch.
Bob continues for one more around as he begins to rifle through someones pack. His Stealth roll of 00% oh no a fumble! Even passive listerners get to roll!
The Others roll their passive perception rolls, Eric is asleep so he needs to crit this to wake up (10% of total skill) passive of 35% -10% from current noise hes already sleeping though for a total of 20%, he rolls a 99, a fumble, he farts, rolls over (but not into the fire, GM isnt cruel) but the Gm applies a further -10% check to everyone else as theyre now distracted by Erics smelly fart.
Sheila, Bobby, Diana fail to succeed but Uni's heitened sense detect and she bleats out a warning!
Hank rolls again this time unhindered by a stealth skill and succeeds, spotting Bob and raises the alarm!

(ok this system doesnt really work as well on a skill ranked system of DnD/PF due to the obscene difference of levels which is why I started rewriting my whole system out to RQ SRD when it went OGL)

 

[Stormonu]

I kind of like the way nWoD handles this - you have a broad skill, say Perception, and you can tack a specialty onto it, like say, Hearing. For most checks, you'd make a Perception check with a +X bonus. But when the check is based on hearing something, you would make something akin to an X+2 check. This allows for some specialization without going overboard (since you can't increase the bonus of the specialization).

As for Diplomacy, I want it renamed to Persuade, and let it cover things like Bargain, Diplomacy, Gather Information, Intimidate, Manipulate, Seduce and Torture (yes, Torture as a form of Persuasion).

 

[Sunseeker]

Personally, I'd rather they just collapsed the skills together and saved any possible confusion.

-O

Hmmmm...Perception you say?

 

[Argyle King]

I think the problem is that you have one stealth skill, but multiple skills to oppose stealth. If there are two skills on one side of the equation, there need to be two skills on the opposing side as well. If you have spot and listen on one side, I feel there should be stealth (for being quiet) and camouflage (for being unseen) on the other side.

 

[billd91]

I think the problem is that you have one stealth skill, but multiple skills to oppose stealth. If there are two skills on one side of the equation, there need to be two skills on the opposing side as well. If you have spot and listen on one side, I feel there should be stealth (for being quiet) and camouflage (for being unseen) on the other side.

That really just leads to two opposed checks for anyone trying to be sneaky and little chance for success because the observer now has two chances to notice him, needing to succeed at one or the other. The sneak, however, needs to beat the spot and the listen. It's better, from a game flow perspective, to just have one opposed roll. Let the observer apply whichever of his spot or listen is higher.

 

[Argyle King]

That really just leads to two opposed checks for anyone trying to be sneaky and little chance for success because the observer now has two chances to notice him, needing to succeed at one or the other. The sneak, however, needs to beat the spot and the listen. It's better, from a game flow perspective, to just have one opposed roll. Let the observer apply whichever of his spot or listen is higher.

I find that to only be true because D&D doesn't have facing.

Otherwise, whether or not you are seen can still be very important -even if the enemy is aware you are near. Also, if it were possible to be quiet and get the drop on someone -to the extent they don't even bother to look toward you- you might not need to make any effort toward not being seen.