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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Al" data-source="post: 1577255" data-attributes="member: 2486">I hardly think that that's justified.  A few miscellaneous aberrations have the above, but the lion's share of high level opponents: fiends, high level NPCs, undead don't; and even dragons have Blindsense, which still permits sneak attacks.  Even if the regularity of these are causing problems of Hide, it's an argument for altering these specific abilities rather than Hide itself.  Change the problem areas rather than the entire system. Granted.  The point was directed at Cyberzombie, who specifically said that a multi-purpose rogue was a desirable aim. Re: Invisibility.  This may or may not be a House Rule; either way I'd argue it's a workable and sensible clarification in the spirit of the rules. Therein lies two problems.  Firstly, there will be substantial buying up of cross-class Sneak, since it is still a bargain at 1sp/level.  Many will multiclass to get the higher skill caps, at a cost of 2sp to maintain maxed-out Sneak; effectively tantamount to the current system for class skills.  However, the second problem is that under your more moderate system there is a dichotomy between Sneak and Sense & Spot whereby two detection skills are needed to oppose a single Sneak skill.  There is thus a mismatch between the applications of Stealth (one skill) and its naturally opposed skills (two).  It is equivalent to splitting Sense Motive into two skills in terms of mechanically impact.  This makes Stealth even *more* attractive.  Under the new mechanism, nearly everyone with the exception of clerics, paladins and tank fighters would be advisable to take Stealth. If only one sense is appropriate.  For example, tiptoeing past a sleeping guard, or moving out of line of sight, or approaching a deafened foe, or interacting with a hearing-based Blindsighted creature.  Admittedly, this cleared up by retaining the two detection skills, but this causes the opposed skill mismatch, as outlined above. Au contraire: he needs to multiclass to get access to the class skill max ranks, taking but a single level of Ranger, Rogue etc.  Doing so and then being forced to sink 4 skill points per level to get stealth was prohibitive; doing so and then buying up stealth at full ranks for just 2 skill points is definitely worthwhile.Essentially, no matter whether you retain two or one detection skills, the loss of 'cross-class division', a useful term employed by dvvega, will ensure that nearly every character in the game, with a few exceptions, will buy up Stealth- and possibly even multiclass to buy Stealth up to the class skill maximum ranks level.  Were I playing a rational finesse fighter, I would certainly do so.  This reignites the 'front-loading' effect of the old 3e, by allowing access to full class skill ranks without the current associated penalties.  Giving the rogue +1sp is, indeed, trivial; allowing a multiclassed stealth1/non-stealthX class +2sp is clearly significant.  Moreover, depending on which variation is used, more problems arise.  Retaining two detection skills avoid 'clunkiness', but has the dichotomy of using two detection skills to oppose one skill.  Nothing other skill in the game is opposed by two to one- and I am certain that you can surmise the reasons.  Each opposed skill is opposed by another one: Disguise and Spot, Listen and Move Silently, Hide and Spot, Bluff and Sense Motive etc.  There are very sound reasons why one is not opposed by two.  Alternately, rolling the detection skills into one generates 'clunkiness'.  A myriad of scenarios: the sleeping guard, the kobolds in the next room, the deafened opponent, the Silenced rogue and innumerable others become intractable and dispute-ridden.This system encourages multiclass cherry-picking of stealth skills; it reduces cross-class skill division; it propagates Stealth to become standardised; and is forced between the Scylla of mismatched opposed skills and the Charybdis of clunk.  To what end?  Nail has, himself, argued that the +1sp to the rogue is no substantial cause for concern and essentially a minor change.  The only major problem tackled is that of the relatively rare and easily circumventable Tremorsense, Blindsense, Blindsight and Scent (yes, animals are common, but the proportion of high CR animals is trivial, and even at low CRs are not an archetypal foe.  Moreover, since they cannot communicate, Hide and Move Silently will still be a great use against the animal's allies).Rather than upsetting the whole system, why not just HR the "rogue detectors", and, if you're hell-bent on it, add one skill point to the stealth classes.  It solves all the postulated problems without unleashing the clear problems of rolling Hide and Move Silently together.</blockquote>

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