combining skills into Stealth a good thing?

[Goken100]

I've read a few people mentioning how Spycraft and other rules suggest doing away with Hide and Move Silently and replacing them with Stealth. I believe there might be a similar thing with Spot and Listen into something like Sense.

Everyone that's mentioned it has thought its the most obvious and nifty simplification ever. I don't see what the big deal is, and would be somewhat reluctant to try it out. All of the above named skills are skills that almost all characters try to grab some of in my experience. From the entire list of skills, they are the most demanded. So if 4 skills become 2, won't those be maxed out entirely too often? Isn't that a bad thing? I would think that skills should be comparable in value at least some of the time.

What does everyone think? Has anyone tried it out?

 

[Question]

Well it does have the effect that rogues/rangers/etc would be a LOT less starved for skill points(even with high int), so you could see rogues with very high stealth/sense skills, and also having maxed out disable device, search and diplomacy. There might be a balance issue with number of skill points gained per level.

 

[frankthedm]

If you make the desision to combine spot and listen into "Notice" most creatures and the classes with spot and listen as class skills need to have their skill points reduced by 1. If the system gets streamlied so do the skill points.

 

[Joshua Randall]

I can usually rationalize having Spot and Listen as separate skills (the eagle has great Spot, the bat has great Listen).

But having Hide/Move Silently as separate skills is harder. You are loud, but good at hiding behind bushes? You are too brightly colored to hide, but you're really quiet? What would be the point?

So I endorse combining Hide/MS, but not Spot/Listen.

 

[TheNovaLord]

They could probably do it with a few skills

move sil/hide should be combined and used as an opposed roll against perception (listen/spot/scent) combination

The skill list is a bit long. I certainly think some of the knowledges should be combined as well (like spellcraft/know,arcana)

to counter maybe dont add Int bonus to number of skill points (Int is used in a fair number of skills, so wont be a dump stat more than it is).

I think the more hi-tech, modern, scifi you get some of these skills need to be combined otherwise the skill set gets to big.

For example swim should be a feat, and you use the 'athlectics' skill (which is mainly used for climb and jump as well). Everyone can jump or climb, not everyone can swim, so without the feat you cant succeed in a DC over 10. Hmm, dont know if i have explained that well?

JohnD

 

[JiffyPopTart]

The reasons I like to combine hide/move silent and spot/listen are twofold....

1. It makes the game go faster, by only asking for one roll instead of two when checking sneakiness.

2. Its double jeopardy for a character who is hiding. You get two chances to become aware of them (spot and listen) every time they move. This has always, to me, been similar to saying you get two swings for every attack and only have to connect on one to hit the other person.

DS

 

[JiffyPopTart]

I can usually rationalize having Spot and Listen as separate skills (the eagle has great Spot, the bat has great Listen).

An eagle sees a mouse on the ground from great heights and swoops down and eats it.
A bat hears a blip on his sonar to find a mosquito flying through the air and swoops down and eats it.

Same result. Same skill.

DS

 

[Stalker0]

Spot/Listen I can understand as two different skills, but as mentioned its extrodinarly rare to use hide alone without MS and vice versa. I guy with a +30 to hide and +0 to MS is NOT stealthy.

 

[javcs]

Another point for combining Hide and Move Silently is that they're on skill lists together, by which I mean I can't think of a class that's got Hide but not Move Silently, or vice versa, as a class skill.

Spot and Listen however aren't always together (ie Barbarian), but are together a lot.

Anyways, @Sabathius42, if I'm interperting your logic correctly, one could conceivably have a character who's been deafened (no successful Listen checks for him) perceive an opponent on the other side of a stone wall or around a curve or within a darkness effect by the 'perception' skill - the combination of Spot and Listen, yes, I will concede that the character(not deafened) could probably fairly easily hear the aforementioned opponent, he shouldn't be able to see the opponent.
If I'm misinterperting your meaning, please, clarify it.

 

[Legildur]

The eagle and bat example could be explained through racial bonuses to skills "A bat has a +4 racial bonus on Spot and Listen checks. These bonuses are lost if its blindsense is negated" and "Eagles have a +8 racial bonus on Spot checks."