listen and spot checks. Active vs Inactive checks?

[Jurble]

Hey guys,
so im getting ready for game night tomoz night and i had a thought i couldnt answer.

A character has skill in listen and spot checks. So if they say "i want to do a spot check" you use those modifiers on the d20 roll.

So my question is when they are meandering down a hallway unaware of the goblins with nasty swords in the darkness ahead, and i decide to roll listen/spot checks for them, what value is it at considering they are not focusing on the task they just "happen" to overhear the goblins or happen to notice them skulking in the corner?

Thanks for the help!

Marc

 

[Pinotage]

Hey guys,
so im getting ready for game night tomoz night and i had a thought i couldnt answer.

A character has skill in listen and spot checks. So if they say "i want to do a spot check" you use those modifiers on the d20 roll.

So my question is when they are meandering down a hallway unaware of the goblins with nasty swords in the darkness ahead, and i decide to roll listen/spot checks for them, what value is it at considering they are not focusing on the task they just "happen" to overhear the goblins or happen to notice them skulking in the corner?

Thanks for the help!

Marc

There are two types of checks in these circumstances. Active checks, which take a Standard Action, and involve a character deliberately attempting to spot something, such as the location of a enemy he knows is hidden somewhere in the shadows. The case you describe above is called a reactive spot check, and is a free action. Characters get spot and listen checks in reaction to certain events. There is no penalty for this kind of check, but you could apply one if the character was actively involved at the time the check was required, such as in searching for a secret door and taking 20 to do it.

In the case you describe ahead, I'd roll the spot and listen checks at no penalty. They're not actively involved in something, just walking towards the goblins in the darkness, and hence can make spot and listen checks normally. Presumably at least they're paying attention to possible threats.

Pinotage

 

[Ravellion]

Pinotage is correct. An added detail is of course that the goblins may be hiding. It clearly says in the Hide skill that the method of determining whether hiding is successful is an opposed spot check.

Note though, that every 10 feet imposes a -1 penalty to spot and listen checks 9which Ialways find a bit harsh, but that's the rules)

 

[Ambrus]

I believe the standard penalty to spot and listen checks for being distracted is -5. Now if I could just find the official entry that confirms that.

 

[Celebrim]

Note though, that every 10 feet imposes a -1 penalty to spot and listen checks, which I
always find a bit harsh, but that's the rules)

Not only is it a bit harsh, but it doesn't make alot of sense if you actually apply the penalty. My favorite example is a thunderclap. How loud does a thunderclap have to be in order that everyone hears it within 5 miles?

Answer: DC -2640

As an artifact of this, a person with keen hearing might have a chance of hearing the thunder clap a few hundred feet beyond the point where it would be heard clearly by everyone, but beyond that it would be inaudible even for someone with a +80 listen bonus. Does this actually make sense considering the magnitude of the sound?

Does a battle with a DC -20 to hear, suddenly become inaudible at 300 ft and a roaring din at 200 ft?

Is a person sitting in an open meadow easy to see at 200 ft. but suddenly impossible to see just 100 ft further on (the length of a football field)?

The fact of the matter is that the penalty to spot and listen checks works pretty well for the case of poorly lit dungeon environments composed of rooms generally smaller in thier dimensions than 80', but doesn't really work outside those parameters. To solve those problems and to keep the DC's of events sane, I use the following rule.

There is a -1 penalty to spot and listen checks per 10 ft. beyond the first 10' out to 100 ft., at which point the penalty falls to -1 per 100 ft out to 1000 ft, and then -1 per 1000 ft out to 10000 ft. and so forth. The rule isn't perfect, but it does work alot better for situations like a sniper 300 ft away - a -30 penalty to spot under the official rules, but only a -11 under my version.

 

[werk]

Not only is it a bit harsh, but it doesn't make alot of sense if you actually apply the penalty. My favorite example is a thunderclap. How loud does a thunderclap have to be in order that everyone hears it within 5 miles?

Answer: DC -2640

Good thing a thunderclap's move silent skill is -80,000

I'd say your point is valid Celebrim, but these are opposed checks, and if it is not trying to hide or be silent (like thunder or open combat) then it would just be detected, right? No opposition so the person spotting or listening succeeds.

 

[dcollins]

So my question is when they are meandering down a hallway unaware of the goblins with nasty swords in the darkness ahead, and i decide to roll listen/spot checks for them, what value is it at considering they are not focusing on the task they just "happen" to overhear the goblins or happen to notice them skulking in the corner?

No difference in the scores for active vs. inactive Spot/Listen checks. The characters are assumed to be looking/listening for danger to some degree all the time, as indicated by how many skill ranks they bought.

 

[Celebrim]

I'd say your point is valid Celebrim, but these are opposed checks, and if it is not trying to hide or be silent (like thunder or open combat) then it would just be detected, right? No opposition so the person spotting or listening succeeds.

The point is to be able to provide some guidance as for when it would just be detected. Suppose the fighter is clanking along in plate mail. How close does he get to the orcish gaurd post before the orcs are certain to have heard him? Without a consistant set of rules for hearing things, this is left completely to DM fiat. That's probably fine for experienced DM's, but it also would be nice if the game rules could approximate the situation.

My assumption is that if you aren't trying at all to hide or be silent, then it is as if you've taken 0 on the roll. So imagining that the fighter's armor check penalty works out to something like -8, then even if you aren't paying attention you ought to hear the plate mail bound fighter clanking along from at least 90' away. If you are actively listening its otherwise quiet, and have average hearing then you can hear the fighter clanking along at intervals starting about 300 yards away. ("Hey, Grug, what's that? What's what? Did you hear something? Hear what? There it goes again! What? A kinda clanking sound, like someone's beating on a tin pot. I don't hear anything. No, wait...") That sounds like a pretty long ways to the average person living in a city, but if you've done any hiking in the wilderness at all you'll know that you can usually hear the conversation of a group of humans from that distance or further if you yourself are being quiet. I figure clanking metal is about as noisy.

Like I said, it isn't perfect and keeping track of such stuff all the time could slow the game down, but when I need it works better for me than the existing system.

 

[shilsen]

I believe the standard penalty to spot and listen checks for being distracted is -5. Now if I could just find the official entry that confirms that.

Check under the Listen and Spot skill descriptions

 

[VorpalStare]

With regards to Celebrim's Post, the problem with the spot and listen rules is that they do not follow the laws of physics that we are all familiar with. Strictly speaking, sound (and light for that matter) diminish in amplitude with the inverse square of the distance between the source and reciever. So for example, a clap of thunder is four times as loud at 1 mile as it is at 2 miles. Of course, the real world is even more complicated than this, because hearing (and sight) are designed to separate useful information (signal) from background clutter (noise). The mathematics to resolve these issues realistically ends up involving calculus and logarithms and other esoteric things that noone wants to deal with in a game.

As a result, we have a relatively simple game mechanic of opposed rolls for spot and listen checks that is easy to use and is relatively balanced in that it is approximately as easy to improve your ability to hide as it is to improve your abilty to spot things, for example.

If you want to look at this realistically, I just googled to the following site: http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/~jw/dB.html
Of course, this stuff will scare your players away from the game faster that saying "DemiLich" out loud.