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Message: <blockquote data-quote="WalkerWhite" data-source="post: 1087676" data-attributes="member: 7804">I am interested in getting some feedback on this rule idea.  The problem has to do with the fact that there are two passive skills for detecting stealth characters: Listen and Spot.  These correspond to the two stealth skills: Move Silently and Hide, respectively.  The result is that guards have a huge advantage.Suppose we have a guard and a rogue.  Both have equal ranks in Listen/MS and Spot/Hide.  First, let's just look at one of those pairings: Spot/Hide.  The active skill, Hide, sets the DC.  So, given the discretization of the d20, that means the passive skill Spot gets a 2.5% advantage for ties.  Hence the probability that the guard succeeds in his Spot check is 52.5%However, if we just want to know whether the guard detected the rogue, the probability changes.  The guard only has to succeed on one of the two skills.  Therefore, the probability is52.5% + 47.5% * 52.5% = 77.4375%This is a huge advantage, considering that they have equal ranks.Our group has been talking about how to handle this.  Some people claim that this is not too bad, since Listen does not reveal too much information; however, you do not need to be pinpointed for the guard to call an alarm.  Others suggest that we make Listen only an active skill; but this prevents having interesting things like guards that can only Listen, not Spot.  Still others argue that we should combine the two for abstraction purposes, even though they clearly do different things.I want to preserve both skills, but eliminate the huge advantage.  So my suggestion is to do something like two-weapon fighting.  Every creature favors one of the two skills.  Humanoids favor Spot, while many animals favor Listen (and a player may choose which one his character favors).  If both are being used simultaneously, then there is a minor penalty (-2) to the favored skill, and more (-4) to the unfavored one.  A character can concentrate exclusively on one of the two skills for no penalty on the favored and a major penalty (-10) to the unfavored one.Let's say our guard favors Spot, but is using Listen as well.  We give him a -2 to Spot and -4 to Listen.  Then, his advantage on the rogue is42.5% + 57.5% * 22.5% = 55.4375%which is pretty close to a single skill.  Now  suppose that the guard only managed to hear the rogue, and he wants to find exactly where he is.  He then concentrates exclusively on Spot for no penalty, but gets a -10 to Listen.  Then his probability on getting any more information is52.5% + 47.5% * 2.5% = 53.6875%This is less than before, but the guard has more control on which skill picks up the rogue.Comments?</blockquote>

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