Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jimlock" data-source="post: 5535799" data-attributes="member: 6674931">Good points. Hoever (perhaps even for the sake of argument), let me say the following...I believe that Hide as a skill, encompasses more things than just being able to hide behind a crate or in the shadows. It also involves one's ability to blend in with the environment around him, in order not to disturb the static image an observer observes, or to blend in with the motion as not to distort the moving image an observer observes. Furthermore, in contained spaces, other factors come into play. Blocking light sources and reflections can easily give one away. And while coming in the way of a torch's light is obvious, one need not do something so apparent to alter the light/shadow cast on surfaces. Reflections are also very important and not only on shiny surfaces. Light, shadow and reflection in a space, is an interlaced system of elements, that depends on every item/condition of space. The mass of a human body and its textures for example can alter dramatically the above mentioned balance. While we often think that we caught something with "the corner of our eye" in many cases we do not actually see the item/creature itself... but we perceive a change in the image before us... a change caused by something behind us...Obviously... bringing all the above factors in a table top game would be impossible... Even for a video game that would require a PC-farm so as to resolve all the calculations...IMO the Hide skill encompasses all the above. The bigger one's Hide skill, the more knowledge/awareness one has of all those factors, and the more he knows how to handle his body so as to cause the minimum alteration possible.Moreover, the study of a guard's/patrol's "patterns" and "weaknesses", and the ability to fool those, depends on experience and IMO are depicted in the Hide skill as well.This is not to say that the hide skill (the number) will be the only thing to determine the outcome of a situation.What is most important, (and above any number), is an adequate and detailed description of the site and the situation by the DM, with all the flavor and suspense so as to put players in the mood, by making them experience the very risks their characters are about to take. Consequently what is equally important., is that the player takes in the most information possible, puts the facts on a balance, and proceeds by describing with equal flavor and detail his Rogue's actions in the given situation......Yet somehow, in all this great storytelling, the hiding skill of the Rogue in question has to be reflected in the outcome things...No matter how well a players deals with the encounter, he can never actually simulate the experience of a Rogue (this obviously counts for all characters)...Lets take a single player and put him in a similar situation twice. The first time we'll give him a 1st level Rogue, and the second time a 20th level Rogue. And lets assume that the player, by using creatively all the facts given to him, succeeds both times in moving the Rogue past the guard/patrol unnoticed. If we give both the 1st  level Rogue and the 20th level Rogue 100% cover (meaning 100% of success, no roll), what is it that distinguishes the difference in experience and skill between the two characters? As far as i can tell, by ruling this way, a first level fighter in full plate, could succeed as easily if he is lucky enough to roll high on his Move silently check... as far as Hide is concerned, he performs equally to a 20th level Rogue! (in the given situation...)As i said in my earlier post , i'd make my player roll (or even take 10) no matter how easy the task is OR seems, and because i put player decision above all, i'm willing to give big bonuses so as to compensate for their creativity, bonuses that might even give them a near certain success. Even if the chances of failure are so minimal, a roll (or a take 10) is necessary, both because the Hide skill encompasses all the above, and because the relevant experience/skill of a character's level has to be portrayed in the situation somehow.I'm not a dice freak... quite the contrary actually... Don't forget that i'm talking about a single roll (or a single "take 10") all along... and as far as the old-schoolish way of playing... ican't agree more...  i play the game this way as well... even though my old-schoolness goes back to 2e only...<img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/erm.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":erm:" title="Erm    :erm:" data-shortname=":erm:" />Respect to the old school <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f60e.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":cool:" title="Cool    :cool:"  data-smilie="6"data-shortname=":cool:" /></blockquote>

Verification