Determine Direction an Arrow came from

[francisca]

I may have come off a bit too snarky. But just because there's a spot skill doesn't mean you have to use it for every instance in which characters use their eyes. I guess I was having flashbacks to the time my GM had me roll a series of spot checks, which when I finally succeeded revealed that the room my PC was in had a window through which he might be able to escape. Not a little, up in one corner, 2' by 1' window I had to squeeze through, but a big normal window with curtains and windowframe and you know, pane glass. Bah.

Overuse of skills is as bad as not using them at all.

Let me be a bit more specific.

The characters walk out of a tavern, one gets popped with an arrow and drops. You've already established the obvious, it came from in front of the chars.

Across the narrow street, all of the buildings are 3-4 stories high with multiple windows. What I'm looking for is a check for the other char to determine where to look for the sniper. If he gets it right, thats when the sniper's hide vs. PC's spot check comes in. At least that is how I see it.

Are you suggesting just to forget the first check and roll the hide vs. spot with the PC taking -20?

Thanks for your input, and I've seen snarkier. No blood, no foul.

 

[Camarath]

Across the narrow street, all of the buildings are 3-4 stories high with multiple windows. What I'm looking for is a check for the other char to determine where to look for the sniper. If he gets it right, thats when the sniper's hide vs. PC's spot check comes in. At least that is how I see it.

Are you suggesting just to forget the first check and roll the hide vs. spot with the PC taking -20?

I do not believe there is a check to determine where to look or a penalty for not knowing where to look in the rules when using the Spot skill to spot a Hiding foe. In other words IMO there should only be one check the Sniper's Hide vs the PC's Spot.

 

[Herpes Cineplex]

^^^^ Agreed: it's certainly much faster that way. The sniper attacks, the target falls down, and at that point the uninjured observer tries to figure out where the arrow came from.

So the sniper rolls Hide, with a -20 to his roll because he just shot a guy, plus whatever circumstance bonus you're giving him for camoflage, picking a good spot to shoot from, and so on. The observer rolls Spot, minus whatever range penalties apply. Either the sniper gets spotted or he doesn't. Everything's taken care of with just the one opposed roll.

I don't really see that adding another step in there for the observer to "narrow down" the possibilities adds anything to the game. He knows the general direction the attack came from, so he's technically already narrowed down the possibilities as much as he needs to: now it's time to find out whether he can find the sniper or not, so you may as well get on with it.


...actually, I can think of one reason why you'd want the observer to make a "narrowing it down" spot check: it lets you set a specific DC for the first Spot roll, which can be set arbitrarily high in order to give the observer an increased opportunity to fail (since a failure on either the observer's first or second roll means the sniper will get away, this system favors the sniper).

And really, that sounds unfair to me. I wouldn't do it in a game I was running, and I'd think less of a GM who tried pulling it in a game I was playing in.

--
keeping it fair and simple is much preferable

 

[Red Baron]

Really, the Spot check is going to have to be made within just a few seconds or so of the shot, or the sniper will have moved out of the way and gotten total cover. Under these circumstances, your PC has very little time to discern much in detail if he wants a chance to spot the culprit.

Fortunately, we already have a good, simple mechanic in place for these kinds of things: "favorable and unfavorable circumstances." If the PC says he takes a quick glance to try to figure out the angle of the shot, give him a +2 circumstance bonus on his Spot check to make the sniper out across the road. Easy as pie. (At least, that's how I'd handle it under the circumstances.)

 

[francisca]

Really, the Spot check is going to have to be made within just a few seconds or so of the shot, or the sniper will have moved out of the way and gotten total cover. Under these circumstances, your PC has very little time to discern much in detail if he wants a chance to spot the culprit.

Fortunately, we already have a good, simple mechanic in place for these kinds of things: "favorable and unfavorable circumstances." If the PC says he takes a quick glance to try to figure out the angle of the shot, give him a +2 circumstance bonus on his Spot check to make the sniper out across the road. Easy as pie. (At least, that's how I'd handle it under the circumstances.)

Ah, that does make sense. Thanks for your feedback.

And thank you to everyone else who took time to reply.

 

[francisca]

...actually, I can think of one reason why you'd want the observer to make a "narrowing it down" spot check: it lets you set a specific DC for the first Spot roll, which can be set arbitrarily high in order to give the observer an increased opportunity to fail (since a failure on either the observer's first or second roll means the sniper will get away, this system favors the sniper).

And really, that sounds unfair to me. I wouldn't do it in a game I was running, and I'd think less of a GM who tried pulling it in a game I was playing in.

--
keeping it fair and simple is much preferable

And that's why I asked for some help here in these forums first.

Thanks for your input.