A few basic rules questions...

[Kae'Yoss]

Practice?

Characters do not have to practice getting better at saves or BAB.

They learn via experience.

Hm.. I don't know your campaign, but all (A)D&D campaigns I play in offer a lot of opportunities for Characters to "practise" their Saving Throws and Attacks. And they usually take them.....

It's unfortunate that part of DND is "learn by buying". Sigh.

If you abolish the skill system as it is in D&D and incorporate a system where every skill is increased automatically (with the rate of increase depending on class), you take away a lot of opportunites of character creation and customization! And that's never a good thing. Imagine a RPG where you see the DEX and class/level of the character and know exactly how good he is in picking pockets.

But, not good enough that a Wizard with 13 Ranks in Search could not find the DC 25 trap?

That's just lame. When talking skills, anyone with enough total to roll the DC should be just as good as any other character. You buy the skill ranks, you should get the same advantage as everyone else.

Thieves just have a knack in knowing traps, trap desing, and how they're generally hidden: while others just search, a thief knows what signs indicate that there might be a trap around.

It's similar to the track feat: without it, you can find tracks, but only the easy ones. You may be good in searching in general, but you don't know what to look for when spotting a track. And said Wizard with 13 Ranks in Search maybe is quite good in Searching, but he doesn't know what signs to look for when looking for a trap.

This is an extremely poor counter argument.

That's my opinion about it. I dislike AD&D2e because there were more special rules than regular ones, way to much restrictions and exceptions. I like 3e because they got rid of that nonsense and made the rules more consistent and general, so you don't need special rules almost every class, and tables for every abilty score (sometimes with special rules for certain classes). And I don't want to start putting those special rules for everything back, or we'll have AD&D 3e before we can say "cut it out"!

Why not? What exactly is wrong with acquiring a little perceptive ability slowly over time? We've played that way for over a year now in our group and have had zero problems with it.

Sure. If I get a benefit without giving up another benefit, I don't complain. If someone tells me I get a bonus on some skills for free, I don't object. If he tells me I get only strong saves and BAB on my class, I wouldn't say no. But that doesn't make it a good rule.

I guess this is the key question for your position. What is wrong with it?

First, it would mean, that everyone would get more perceptive over time, and that is simply not the case. Sure, it's not bad (and some go as far as calling it a critical point of survival) to get better at those skills, but it doesn't mean that everyone will do it. I'm sure that even if you'd make listen, spot and sense motive class skills for every class and gave everyone three additional skill points, not veryone would max them out!

Second, it is not a vital point of survival. Not every party out there is ambushed every second encounter, and you would be surprised how many parties survive the encounter with that predator even if they won't notice it before it pounces on one of them! Saves are a vital point of survival, and therefore have an automatic progression. If you fail your save, you are directly harmed because of it. If you fail your l/s/sm check, you don't suffer directly because of it, and it may even be of no indirect consequence, since it may just mean that you haven't seen that your former fellow student from the Bardic College was among that troupe of minstrels that you passed by.

Third, they are skills and should be treated as such. Like every other skill, they are used to accomplish something (while a save is used to avoid something). If you take them out of the normal system only because some uses of it (the ones that let you spot a danger) might improve your survival prospects, you are on the best way of having the same situation as in AD&D: more special rules than regular ones. Because, the thieves might complain that their search and disable divice checks are vital for party survival (if you don't find that trap, or make a fumble when you disarm it, you may be dead on the spot) and deserve a similar treatment. (when you grant the "traps" ability to all, as you proposed, the whole party would argue like that). And often traps are a hazard encountered more often than ambushes, and not being able to deal with them would be more fatal than not being able to deal with sneakers in such campaigns.
And l/s/sm are not the only skills everyone would arguably better without variantion: animal empathy, concentration, wilderness lore and innuendo are also things I could argue you don't intentionally improve, but get better as you gain experience.

You've also suggested a "weakening of rogues and assassins argument", but when you do that (see below), you change the discussion from an inherent one (having some skill) to an on par one (having equal skill) which I am not suggesting.

When you automatically give listen and spot bonuses, people will be better on average than they were before, making it easier for them to spot sneakers. This means of course that it gets harder for the sneakers to sneak up on someone. That's true even if you don't give them +1 per class level (and you did suggest that everyone can still improve the skills further, so one could easily get on par from there)

You are mixing up two different systems. On par and inherent do not mean the same thing. An on par system might mean making perception skill class skills for other classes and giving them extra skill points, so that they can be +15 to Spot when the Assassin is +15 to Hide.

Inherent means gaining perception ability like BAB where this is what you get. So, you are +4 or +7 or +10 to Spot when the Assassin is +15 to Hide. An inherent system also does not mean that there cannot be complimentary skills so that characters who want to improve even more than inherent allows them. In fact, that would be the best of both worlds.

The way you described it, people get bonuses per level and can improve on that. So they have an advantage to the sneaker, who gets no bonus on hide and move silently, and could actually get a higher level/rank-dependant bonus on their skills than the sneakers get: A rogue at 12th level can put 15 ranks in spot, and would get a bonus (let's say, +3) on top of this, having listen +18 (+ wis). But the rogue who wants to sneak past him can only have +15 (+dex) on move silently, so it is likely that the spotter's chance at success is greater than the sneaker's, although they have both maxed out their class skill.

At 9th level in my current Inherent system, all characters are +3 to Spot, Listen, and Sense Motive over not using the house rule. Is that SO unbalancing for mid level characters? The same level Rogues are still often +12, +15 or even more to Hide. The PCs are just +3 to +8 to Spot as opposed to +0 to +5 to Spot.

That's an improvement of your chances by 15 %. That's +9 worth of skill bonus. You'd need two or three feats to accomplish this otherwise

Also, a rogue could max out those three skills for +15+wis on those feats, where they have only +12 on their other class skills. Meaning they could actually be better on detecting a sneaker than to sneak themselves, and with the same training!

Btw, a caveat to this. I do not always give Spot or Listen rolls to every PC. You roll enough dice and you are bound to have someone roll high. Instead, I tend to have the closest PCs have a chance to notice or I give penalties to the PCs who are further away.

You should not cheat a player of his roll only because you fear that he may be lucky (luck is already against the players, so don't make it worse!).
But of course people who are farther away from the action have less chance of success, so the DC should be higher for them (or they should have a penalty. It results in the same in the end)

I totally agree that an On Par system would not be good.

Over Par is even worse: If others of your level can be better countering your best ablitity than you are using said ability (not taking into account ability scores, of course), you're pissed!

But, I also think that a difficult to acquire and even when acquired, it is not sufficient system, like 3E perception, is nearly as bad.

If you think it's to hard for someone to aquire something, make it easier for him, but don't give it to him for free!

In fact, I created a 2E Perception Roll house rule since perception was totally lacking in 2E except for thieves. Duh!

I know. The thief class is a part where 2e really stank: with sneaking and backstabbing, you were totally at the mercy of the DM, because it was all to easy fooling you of that, but when it comes to picking pockets, a thief of a certain level could rob everyone blind, no matter how perceptive they were, and the success would only depend on the thieves skills: stealing from a sleeping hobo was as easy as from the most paranoid of wizards!