Making 1 skill from 2, good or bad?

[FrankTrollman]

Hide is mostly a passive skill; you Hide in one spot and wait.

That's not what the rules say, though.

In the rules, when you aare sneaking past a guard, you need to make a Move Silently check to avoid being heard, and a Hide check to avoid being seen. if you roll really low on either check, one of the guards is probably going to detect you (either by seeing or hearing you), and the alarm will be raised.

It sounds like you've made some house rules to get around that problem - and made it into a single roll to avoid detection (with the relevent roll being determined by what you are doing). But that simply reinforces Monte Cook's point that you shouldn't be making 2 rolls every time you attempt to slip past a guard.

And the most streamlined way to avoid making two rolls is to only have one skill.

Now the Search/Spot thing is a whole different can-of-worms. I think that most of the ways Search is different from Spot should be folded into Disable Device - there's really no reason to be making two checks there when almost all devices have the same DCs to find and disable and you can take 20 on the Search skill. So you could fold most of Search into Spot (and/or Wilderness Lore) - but you'd have to expand Disable Device a bit to take up the remaining slack.

-Frank

 

[SylverFlame]

Well, let's do a run down:

Spot and Listen combo: No, they are completly unrelated and should remain so.

Spot and Search: No, because spot means you find the cubby hole, but don't reach your arm inside. I am, however, in favor of a synergy bonus here. It just makes sense that being good at one makes you better at another.

Move Silently and Hide: Again, no combo. BUT this one also deserves a synergy bonus, and here's my reasoning. Hiding means you have to be motionless, though if you do move, maybe because you've been waiting for the ambush for an hour or more and need to shift your legs you have to do it quietly. As well, with move silently no one does it going down the middle of a well lit street so some amount of hiding is implied (to me, that is).

So my ultimate answer is that synergy bonuses should be looked at when skills that can mesh shouldn't necessarily be meshed.

EDIT: This is technically meta, but I'll stick it here. How the *bleep* do I subscribe to this thread? I haven't been on site in a while and haven't gotten use to all the changes yet. Thanks.

EDIT 2: Stupid me. Just saw it. Need sleep...

 

[FrankTrollman]

Hiding means you have to be motionless

No.

It means nothing of the sort:

You can move up to half your speed and hide at no penalty. When moving at a speed greater than one-half but less than your normal speed, you take a -5 penalty.

How that involves being motionless I have no idea - but it doesn't.

-Frank

 

[ciaran00]

Spot and Search: No, because spot means you find the cubby hole, but don't reach your arm inside. I am, however, in favor of a synergy bonus here. It just makes sense that being good at one makes you better at another.

This is why I rolled these two SAME skills into "Observe." No one is better at RUMMAGING THROUGH THINGS. It's a general awareness of one's surroundings (whether or not you're running your silly hands through it). Detective-work. Don't tell me Spot is better eyesight because there is no reason why eyesight gets BETTER as you get older.

I have another suggestion. This one, I guess, comes from Poker. I have roller Bluff and Sense Motive into one (I call it "Bluff" and often Bluff checks are made opposed). This is because, from my own personal experience, the better I am at hiding what I am feeling, the better I can detect this same line of activity in other people.

Lastly, the Craft and Knowledge skills are prime for some consolidation. In our game, we have six fixed Crafts in which you can pick up specialties every 5 or 10 ranks (based on how powerful of a skill it is). Knowledge we have knocked down to seven: Arcana, Engineering, Military, Nature, Necrology, Planar, and Religion. Arcana covers trivia. The rest is self-explanatory.

ciaran

 

[bensei]

... the Hide and Move Silently ... are the same roll and made at the same time in all cases.

This is not correct. A character can never hide in plain site, unless he gains this ability by a class (3.5). Thus passing past a guard when the is no place to hide does not allow a hide check. You simply cannot hide.
You can, however, make a move silently check, e.g. if you are invisible or if the guard is blind(ed) for some reason.

 

[Aaron2]

In the rules, when you aare sneaking past a guard, you need to make a Move Silently check to avoid being heard, and a Hide check to avoid being seen. if you roll really low on either check, one of the guards is probably going to detect you (either by seeing or hearing you), and the alarm will be raised.

Ordinarily, a guard is standing in a area (say, in a castle), where he has a good view around him. You can't Hide when being observed. So, if the guard is standing in front of a door in a hallway, you just can't move past him and Hide to avoid being seen. You need cover or concealment to hide. The only time you need to Hide while Moving Silently is when the cover, such as bushes or tall grass, come right up next to the guard. That just isn't that common of a situation. You also might be able to do so in a darkened alleyway unless the guard is an orc or anyone else with Darkvision.

You can use the Bluff distraction trick, but your better off moving from 100% cover to 100% cover. That way the Hide is automatic.


Aaron

 

[der_kluge]

What about escape artist and tumble? I could see those being somewhat similar, mostly because for both you have to be flexible. I might consider doing that one, mostly since Escape Artist is nearly useless as it never comes up. Was trying to find a way to roll Forgery into something else as well, since no one ever takes that skill.

I do like the idea of rolling Spot/Search into one. I think Search is also used to find valuables in a pile of treasure, but that sounds like the domain of Appraise to me.

I also like the idea of rolling Hide and Move Silently together, because as someone mentioned, more often than not both get rolled at the same time.

I'm interested in this because I revised the language skills (I require ranks in them now), so that taxes my PCs skill point reserves, so rolling things together might give them more points to allocate; points I took away with some of my house rules.

ciaran00, which ability score do you base your Bluff on if it includes both Sense Motive (Wis) and Bluff (Cha)? That's an interesting take, but I do see those as separate skills. Even in poker, you might be able to put on a great poker face (Bluff), but not be able to read any of your opponents (Sense Motive).

 

[Grayhawk]

I have another suggestion. This one, I guess, comes from Poker. I have roller Bluff and Sense Motive into one (I call it "Bluff" and often Bluff checks are made opposed). This is because, from my own personal experience, the better I am at hiding what I am feeling, the better I can detect this same line of activity in other people.

Is this a class skill for Paladins?

 

[DreamChaser]

This is why I rolled these two SAME skills into "Observe." No one is better at RUMMAGING THROUGH THINGS. It's a general awareness of one's surroundings (whether or not you're running your silly hands through it). Detective-work. Don't tell me Spot is better eyesight because there is no reason why eyesight gets BETTER as you get older.

I have another suggestion. This one, I guess, comes from Poker. I have roller Bluff and Sense Motive into one (I call it "Bluff" and often Bluff checks are made opposed). This is because, from my own personal experience, the better I am at hiding what I am feeling, the better I can detect this same line of activity in other people.

A person can be better at rummaging through things. You learn to move things about in an orderly manner so that you don't end up covering a thing with something you've moved. BUT...

Search is not only about rummaging. It is about seeking for things, likely using senses other than your eyes. You touch the wall, you look at the wall, you tap on the wall, you feel for air currents and by that (and your training as to what to look for and how to interpret it--thus intelligence) you find the secret door, or the trap, or the hairline fracture in the floor.

Spot on the other hand is about looking, only looking and not doing anything but looking. It is a skill that relates to how you focus your eyes and how good you are at using your peripheral vision. It is even then less active and more instinctive--thus wisdom.

Bluff and Sense Motive have nothing in common, aside from being opposites. One is charisma based because you are using your ability to influence others to disemble or out right lie. Sense Motive is wisdom based because you are using your awareness of a person with whom you're interacting to fuel your instincts and decide how honest they are being.

My major concern with combining skills is that a person should be able (even if most people don't choose to go this route) of being able to walk quietly but have no skill at hiding. That and the fact that the origin of this whole thing is Monte's Stealth skill. Now don't get me wrong, I like Monte's stuff for the most part, but he makes FR look low-powered when it comes to his love of power gaming systems. I shudder at the idea of exporting anything from AU directly into another game. The power curves, IMO at least, are completely different. The combination of MS and Hide into Stealth in the core, frees up the rogue to become good and one more thing. With the number of skill points they have, this allows them to start stealing the thunder of other class's skills.

Just my view.

DC

 

[Grayhawk]

The combination of MS and Hide into Stealth in the core, frees up the rogue to become good and one more thing. With the number of skill points they have, this allows them to start stealing the thunder of other class's skills.

A valid point.

Which is why I'll propably end up with something like what we're discussing here, as part of my reason for combining skills is the freeing up of skill points, to allow for greater customization. (The other part being the removal of redundant skills for an overall streamlining of the skills system.)