D&D 3.x 3.5E Spot Distance

[Gizzard]

I was just looking in my 3.5E DMG for the 3.0E "Spotting Distance" table and I see it's no longer there. Did it get replaced with something else in some other part of the book?? Or is Spotting Distance somehow obsolete? It seems like a strange omission.

 

[Steverooo]

I think they finally realized that it was extraneous, and contradictory to other, existing rules. Spot opposes Hide DC (if used, otherwise = 0) - 1/10' distant, - cover/concealment modifiers. How far off you can see someone depends on your Spot skill.

-1/10' is awfully high, IMO. I've always though it should be 30 feet...

Terrain modifiers are in the DMG. Size modifiers for small or large+ critters would also apply.

 

[MichaelH]

Yes, they are in the Terrain section of chapter 3. So, for example, on page 87, in a forest, the maximum spotting distance is 3d6x10 ft. (less in more dense forests).

 

[buzzard]

Yes, the -1 per 10' is quite ridiculous. I am arguing with someone about an encounter is a LG module, and his defense has come to rest on this. The encounter involves a heavy cavalry squad in open plains. They are not hiding (rather hard to make a horse hide after all), and are approaching in open terrain. My my reasoning they should be visible at least half a mile out, or likely further. He has resorted to the spot rule. However if one resorts to the spot rule, you could never navigate anywhere since normal people couldn't see landmarks further than a few hundred feet away.

Is there a rule which changes this idiotic state of affairs? I've looked under the terrain section of the SRD, and it mentions the max spotting range (quite far in plains of course), but nothing is mentioned to obviate the silly -1 per 10' rule.

buzzard

 

[Staffan]

-1/10' is awfully high, IMO. I've always though it should be 30 feet...

I don't think a linear penalty works. Perhaps something like -1 at 10', -2 at 20', -3 at 40 ', -4 at 80' and so on would be better. Frankly, the difference between someone at 10 and 20 feet away is a lot bigger than the difference between 100' and 110' away.

 

[Spatula]

Is there a rule which changes this idiotic state of affairs?

Read the skill description. The Spot skill isn't used unless the target is hiding or obscured.

 

[Gizzard]

I don't think a linear penalty works. Perhaps something like -1 at 10', -2 at 20', -3 at 40 ', -4 at 80' and so on would be better.

Here is one (more slowly growing) series I came up with and some discussion of why series turn out to be not as cool as they look at first:

10' -1
20' -2
30' -3
50' -4
80' -5
120' -6
200' -7
320' -8
520' -9
840' -10
1260' -11
2100' -12
3360' -13
5460' -14

This implies that a commoner Taking 10 on his Spot would notice someone (who wasn't hiding) at about 3 football fields length. He'd notice a +4 size creature (Gargantuan? Collosal? Huge? I can't find this chart either right now) out to about a mile, which makes some sort of sense. At least people can navigate around by landmarks. So for this case, the table seems to work.

The horrible problem with this scheme though is that each further rank a character puts into Spot pays exponential dividends. Should a character with 10 Ranks in Spot be able to see a medium creature at 16 miles while Taking 10? He will if you use an table that doesn't grow linearly.

I suppose this is why the -1/10' penalty is the way it is; you have to keep the growth linear in order to keep the Spot skill from going nuts.

 

[Norfleet]

Should a character with 10 Ranks in Spot be able to see a medium creature at 16 miles while Taking 10? He will if you use an table that doesn't grow linearly.

I suppose this is why the -1/10' penalty is the way it is; you have to keep the growth linear in order to keep the Spot skill from going nuts.

Yes, actually, a character with 10 ranks in spot SHOULD be able to see a medium creature at 16 miles while taking 10. This is not, however, as atrocious as it sounds: If both creatures are on the ground, the horizon distance will be less than his maximum spot distance, so the creature will gain 100% cover due to the curvature of the planet, and thus cannot be spotted at all. However, the spotter would easily be able to detect any medium creature approaching on the horizon. If, on the other hand, the spotter, or the creature being spotted, is airborne or on top of a tall mountain, and visibility is completely clear, with no clouds or fog intervening, then there is no reason why somebody with 10 ranks in spot, the equivalent of eyes like a hawk, should not be able to spot a medium sized creature. Keep in mind that a spy satellite can pick a man-sized target out from 40 kilometers overhead.

 

[Mr. Patient]

I'd like to resurrect this old thread because I'm still a bit confused about Spot in 3.5E.

I see that the terrain entries in the DMG all list maximum spotting distances, and I also see that the PH specifies a -1 penalty to Spot for each 10' of distance. What I don't see stated explicitly is the base DC for Spot when the target(s) aren't hiding. Steverooo suggests that it's 0, which makes sense to me, but the only rules support for this that I find is Table 4-3 on p. 64 of the PH, which shows a Spot DC of 0 for "something large in plain sight" (don't have the book in front of me, but it's something like that). Is it stated explicitly anywhere?

Also, there is the question of applying size modifiers for creatures that are not hiding. Is there any explicit rules support for this? The closest thing I can find is the Forest entry in the DMG, which tells you to treat a forest fire as a Colossal creature, giving -16 to the Spot DC.

And this may be a stupid question, but in a wilderness setting, if both sides fail their initial Spot checks at the max distance, when do you reroll? The 3.0 DMG gave guidance on this, but I can't find anything in 3.5E.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Stalker0]

Man, I'm bummed they took the encounter distance out... it was complicated to get the hang of, but once you did it wasn't bad at all.

And the reason they use -1 per 10 ft is its just plain easier to use than a exponential scale. And frankly, I don't get that much more bang for my buck with the newer scale. This is one of those DM fudging moments.