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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DrSpunj" data-source="post: 1575484" data-attributes="member: 994">Hi, AI! Good post! I want to respond to all of it but don't have time for a long post here so I'll tackle the most important ones, IMO.Since we're keeping two detector skills (Spot & Sense instead of Spot & Listen) but combining Hide & Move Silently into Sneak we're only effectively giving a net +1 SP/lvl. That only directly affects Bards, Monks, Rangers & Rogues. It's significant, but Skills are what these classes excel at (or, in the Monks case, give a bit more parity) so we don't feel it's out of line. I don't think a single extra SP/lvl is enough for Rogues (or any other class) to become masters at both thievery & social skills or some other combination. (And I *do* think the Fighter deserves more feats, but that's a different thread. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />)IMO, they don't. They *do*, however, require separate detector skills. If a mage uses Still Spell but not Silent Spell or is sneaking past a guard without line of sight then an opposed Sneak/Sense check is in order. The dichotomy is retained with two detector skills vs one stealthy skill.I need some help here, as I didn't understand what you've said to be a House Rule. That's the interpretation I have of the RAW (clarification: the DC 20 Spot to see an invisible creature in combat means you've pinpointed their square, but they're still invisible & have total concealment from you, so 50% miss chance applies). What is in the RAW to complicate this interpretation? (Maybe we need to start a different thread in Rules or someone could point me towards a previous discussion on the subject? Thanks.)Again, while some others have posted here combining our Spot & Sense into a single Perception skill, we thought a long time about it and decided we'd rather keep three skills: Sense, Sneak & Spot. The reasons for that are pretty well laid out in the first thread Nail linked to in his first post. So we're going from 4 SPs to 3 SPs, definitely less but certainly not the bargain you're thinking it is.And you're right that many other classes may want some Sneak ranks along with some in Spot & Sense. Adventurers of every class often find themselves in places they shouldn't necessarily be, so a few ranks in Stealth seems appropriate to me. It's still a cross-class cost and there are still ACPs involved for many characters. Adventurers also have to be aware of their environment as much as possible if they want to survive to higher levels, so ranks in Sense & Spot are a good investment as well.I know I've read some House Rules from someone here that every PC gets a rotating +1 at every level to Listen, Spot & Search because they are skills that every adventurer, regardless of class, practices all the time as they level & continue to survive. We talked about something like that but decided for this game that we'd rather try this system out. So far it's worked well for us but we're only at levels 6-7 right now. It will be interesting to see how these changes hold up at higher levels.Actually, I have trouble picturing them, so I'd appreciate any that you or someone else could elaborate on. I've been thinking Hide & Move Silently needed to be combined from the day 3.0 was released, and was very pleased to exactly that done by Monte Cook in Arcana Unearthed. How commonly does one need to Hide but can be as loud as they want to? Or need to be very quiet but can otherwise move around freely without a chance of being spotted?Please keep in mind that we have Sense and/or Spot to oppose this Sneak check scenario, whichever of the two is most appropriate is the one we use. If both are appropriate the player gets a +2 to whichever detector skill they use to represent using both skills (effectively all your senses) together.Again, we're only halving the stealthy SPs, not the detecting SPs. And a finessed-based fighter is actually now LESS likely to multiclass IMO since he can now better afford a few ranks of Sneak since his cost is halved while he sticks with Fighter levels to keep getting the feats & HD that matter to him. If he really wants more SPs to spend on other non-Fighter skills besides Sneak then he should multiclass into Ranger or Rogue since they're the Skill Monkeys.The precedent may not be there in D&D, but it certainly is from other RPGs. We're trying out the Open Lock & Disable Device combination to see if it works. Nail doesn't use a lot of locked doors and/or traps in his game and we don't have a dedicated Rogue so it hasn't come up much one way or the other (and you still get use the correct primary ability, the 3.0 DMG actually talks about pairing different abilities with skills for some situations though I'm not sure if that was cut in the revision, either way, it works for us). As to the others, check out White Wolf's stuff. They have many of the skills you describe like Athletics/Acrobatics, Etiquette, Enigma/Rituals, etc. While much of that goes too far for the game we're playing in right now, I could easily see combining similar skills in the manner you describe but the repercussions would have a significantly greater impact.We're not interested in making D&D more like Werewolf. We're interested in fixing some problems that we believe are in the Core rules.Your opinion, and thank you for taking the time to post, but problems do exist in our game. We're coming from two different viewpoints and it's always good to hear the other side.I'll end by saying that subdividing Perform made things more clunky for the Bard, IMO. Bump the guy to 6 SPs and then effectively take those away by making him spend them on more skills. While it's true that he isn't forced to spend SPs on more than one Perform skill, to be able to swing a weapon in melee or fire a Xbow while using his Bardic Magic every Bard I've ever seen or heard about takes Perform(some Vocal type). Putting extra ranks into Lute or whatever is mechanically pretty pointless unless you have a magical instrument, but my mental imagery of a Bard includes the ability to at least play a few different instruments (especially since the basic mechanics of music are the same, just the execution of making it that differs between them) so the Bard ends up being effectively penalized. YMMV. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />Thanks!DrSpunj</blockquote>

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