Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="ruleslawyer" data-source="post: 938817" data-attributes="member: 1757">I totally disagree.The default assumption is that Spot and Listen are cross-class skills for the "common adventurer." Why? Because Hide and MS are cross-class skills for the common adventurer. Basic balance. Why should adventurers be worse at hiding and sneaking than at spotting and hearing sneaking creatures?Reasons why druids, monks, rogues, and rangers get Listen and Spot, and clerics, wizards, fighters, and bards don't:Druid and ranger: Wilderness characters. Listen and Spot are far, far more important in wilderness settings than in dungeon settings for purposes of determining encounter distance, which is a crucial element of wilderness adventuring. These characters are supposed to be better than "civilized" characters in an outdoor setting; it's an element of play balance for the druid, and somewhat for the ranger.Rogue: Obvious. In addition to being the skill monkey, the rogue is also commonly the party scout. This is a function that is not commonly given to wizards, priests, or fighters in the D&D paradigm, or the fantasy literature upon which that is based. It is the rogue, not the cleric, wizard, or fighter, who should be looking out for the orcs and oozes.Monk: OK, I really don't have much justification for this one, but then I think most monk abilities are hard to justify without relying on the monk's chop-socky film archetype, within which it makes perfect sense that the monk have superior Listen and Spot abilities. All too many kung-fu film cliches involve blindfolded fighters, halls of mirrors, and similar stuff.The cleric, wizard, and fighter: Where's the justification for exceptional senses? The cleric specializes in defense, support, and turning undead; he's neither a scout nor survival character. The wizard specializes in, well, spells, and gets no real skills outside knowledge, craft, and arcane skills. He's a bookworm. The fighter? I'll accept that you certainly could house-rule that the fighter gets Listen and Spot, but the standard fighter archetype is a tank warrior, not a scout nor wilderness character. (Note that fighters don't get Survival.) Again, I think that the ranger, druid, monk, or rogue should be better at spotting and listening than should the fighter.But this isn't going to go anywhere... think what you will.</blockquote>

Verification