Replacing Perception with Thievery

[corwyn77]

Reading this thread, I suddenly had an epiphany of sorts:

What if there was no specific Perception skill, or at least not in the sense we know it now?

So, am I completely bonkers or is this something that could actually work?

I think it's freaking brilliant.

I already do this for tracking (appropriate skill for appropriate environment) but using this for everything is pretty cool.

 

[Plane Sailing]

So, my argument is that spotting things has nothing to do with detecting traps. Trap detection should be the sole province of Thievery. Characters with Thievery trained should be the only ones who can notice the subtle signs of a trap. Bob may see the trap, but he ignores it. Tim the Thief, however, stops Bob in his tracks and says, "Watch out! Trap!"

I like this argument, and intend to use it.

What if there was no specific Perception skill, or at least not in the sense we know it now?

What if, and bear with me on this one, your awareness of your surroundings and the task at hand are based on a skill applicable to the situation?

I.e. if you are in a natural enviroment, Nature is the go to perception check, while Streetwise would be used in an urban setting. Thievery would go hand in hand with checking for traps and History could be used to find the appropriate inaccuracies in the librarys filing systems and the discrepancies in the frescoes of the church, revealing a lost journal or a hidden door.

And I really like this too - more of an issue to integrate into the game, but it seems to me well worth doing.

Not least because it eliminates an uberskill (perception) and brings a lot of other interesting skills more to the fore.

 

[Kzach]

Not least because it eliminates an uberskill (perception) and brings a lot of other interesting skills more to the fore.

What would help a lot would be a list of things that each skill can apply to; out of the box thinking would be needed, however. I've been thinking about starting a thread for just this purpose and to further investigate the whole concept of the above but I feel I need to work it through my head a bit more and fine tune the concept.

For instance, would it be better to have Perception as a general skill, applicable to any situation but only giving general information, with other skills having a closer affiliation with the problem giving much more specific information, or would it be better to simply have the two as different DC's (higher for Perception, lower for specific skill)? Or would it be ok to go so far as to have both (ie. general information from perception on a higher DC)?

 

[Plane Sailing]

I almost feel that my preferred solution would be to ditch perception altogether!

If I were to keep perception, probably give perception a much higher DC (more than the difference between trained and untrained)

 

[Kzach]

I almost feel that my preferred solution would be to ditch perception altogether!

If I were to keep perception, probably give perception a much higher DC (more than the difference between trained and untrained)

Personal opinion, of course, but I do think there's still a place for a catch-all "notice something" skill, it's just that it would no longer be the be-all-end-all skill that it is now. Instead it would be replaced by a generalised skill that provides generalised knowledge.

The question then is, because the skill is now weakened significantly, do you then still weaken it by offering different DC's?

I'm starting to lean towards yes. My reasoning being that once you alert the group to SOMETHING, they'll obsess over it until it's figured out, using every other skill under the planet to do so Which somewhat defeats the purpose of specific vs. general.

So if you both increase the DC (I don't think the DC should increase by more than 5 as that puts it beyond the realm of reasonable achievement) and make Perception generalised, whilst being somewhat lenient in allowing other applicable skills to the situation give specific knowledge, the player can then choose between a skill that gives them a small chance at noticing ANYTHING, or a skill that gives them a very good chance at noticing very particular things.

Then you'd have the situation of Bob the Perceptive saying to his thief pal, "Hey, what's that thing?" Or Bob's thief pal, Tom the Trapspotter saying to Bob, "Don't step there, that's a trap trigger mechanism."

 

[Plane Sailing]

I suppose it depends what 'siginificantly weakened' amounts to in practice!

If Perception is a "you notice something seems out of place, but you can't put your finger on it", then I'd keep the DCs the same; it alerts the player to an issue, and they can then roleplay the PC taking whatever actions they think are appropriate.

This would make Perception a bigger benefit to players who are good at engaging with the game in terms of saying what they will do and how they will do it, but I'd see that as a bit of a positive.

 

[Mesh Hong]

In a lot of ways, this would be a good way to do it. Where you run into trouble is with the more mundane stuff like looting through someone's office, which doesn't really fall nicely under any of the existing skills.

You could change Perception to Search.

The Search skill could represent a methodical and definite investigation, for examaple a rummage through a room, or a co-ordinated sweep through an environment. Its DC could even be modified by time; quick / thorough / painstaking (hard / moderate / easy).

This could be a useful addition that might compliment the other changes suggested in this thread. What do you think?

 

[Kzach]

You could change Perception to Search.

The Search skill could represent a methodical and definite investigation, for examaple a rummage through a room, or a co-ordinated sweep through an environment. Its DC could even be modified by time; quick / thorough / painstaking (hard / moderate / easy).

This could be a useful addition that might compliment the other changes suggested in this thread. What do you think?

Although the hard = quick, moderate = thorough and painstaking = easy DC idea is solid, I don't think there's any benefit to changing Perception to Search when ultimately they amount to exactly the same thing, ie. the character finds/notices something that is important.

It also suffers from the same issue that sparked my original post, that being that Search a is term used to describe the action, not a skill that represents knowledge of what you find or see. A good example is Google. If I'm searching for something I have a decent knowledge about, like computers, RPG's, MMA, Apple products, writing or history, I can generally find what I want with Google and find it quite quickly. But one of my best friends who I know has little real knowledge about any of these things, could spend an hour looking for information about any of the above and still not come up with a satisfactory result (I use this as an example 'cause it's actually happened several times where he's just ended up asking me to do the search ).

In that example, he might have a high Search/Perception skill, but I have ranks in History, Gaming, Computers, Martial Arts, etc.

 

[Mesh Hong]

I don't think there's any benefit to changing Perception to Search when ultimately they amount to exactly the same thing, ie. the character finds/notices something that is important.

You right of course, I realise now that all I have done is given the problem a new name. I might as well have called it Barry, it would still have been the same old perception skill underneath!

 

[Stalker0]

You could change Perception to Search.

The Search skill could represent a methodical and definite investigation, for examaple a rummage through a room, or a co-ordinated sweep through an environment. Its DC could even be modified by time; quick / thorough / painstaking (hard / moderate / easy).

I think removing search was one of the best things they did in 4e. And I believe if you all are going with the idea of using other skills for perception...then just send perception to its grave. The system will be cleaner that way and less confusing.

To me, the big question with this idea is:

1) Should wisdom always be used for these "perception checks"?

For example, I am using streetwise to be on the look out for stealthy gang members. Do I use the core skill (which is charisma) or do I swap our charisma for wisdom?

Its the old verisimilitude vs mechanical ease argument. My first instinct is to say you have to use wisdom for perception, it just doesn't make sense any other way. But in 4e with a single feat I can swing a sword with my "raw awesome" (aka charisma)...so its really not that much of stretch to allow charisma for city perception checks.

Finally, with elves you could change their skills to this:

Skills: +2 to nature. Special: Elves receive +2 to any skill check when used for perception.

Though if you do that they technically get +4 to perception in outdoor areas...which may be fine