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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 6911647" data-attributes="member: 29398">Well, that's because in most cases non-Thieves aren't intended to be able to use sneakery skills; and for "spot" (not an actual thing in 1e) you'd just say you are looking for something and the DM would quickly determine odds of success (whether existent or not), roll some dice, and tell you what you found or didn't find.Often what I'll do is if it's known there's something there I'll give a roll-under check to the character to see how much detail they can pull.  An example might go:DM: As you approach the door you hear some noises behind it.Fighter: I stop and listen closer.DM: OK, roll under {usually intelligence, sometimes wisdom, depending}. [roll is 19, way over Int] Yeah, just some indistinct sounds.MagicUser: As I don't have all that clunky armour, I move a bit closer and listen. [roll is 2, where lower is better]DM: You hear large things being moved, and a few voices; quite possibly speaking Orcish.Now were it a Thief listening they'd use their "hear noise" d% roll instead, and even if that failed they'd still get a d20 roll like everyone else.Well, not necessarily.  I'd rule it that even if a non-Thief rolls as well as possible for this their sneaking still wouldn't be as quiet as a trained professional Thief who had passed a move-silently check...but possibly quiet enough, depending on circumstances.  (also don't forget some other classes do get some overlap skills with Thief - Monk and Ranger come quickly to mind)I mean, think about it - real-life me or you could try moving quietly down a hallway and might even succeed; we just wouldn't be nearly as good at it (or nearly as quiet even on success) as a trained Ninja.Most things attempted at very low level fail most of the time - nothing new there. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Entirely depends on circumstances.  Failing the roll just means the Thief has reduced herself to the same status as any other character, thus if the Thief is in a position unlikely to be seen anyway then I-as-DM do some random rolling to determine if she's seen or not; and if the Thief is in a position where she can't help but be seen then yeah, she's gonna be seen.Lan-"these sort of things are why DM screens exist"-efan</blockquote>

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