Search, Spot, Listen

[Virtue]

Me and my gaming group sometimes wonder why are these not class skills for all classes

What is your guys thoughts?

 

[Shadowslayer]

Me and my gaming group sometimes wonder why are these not class skills for all classes

What is your guys thoughts?

Doesn't make sense, particularly spot and listen. Search...maybe. ANyway, if you houserule them so that they're available to everyone, you won't wreck anything.

One rule I heard was that anything on the Commoner skill list is fair game for anyone regardless of class. That sounds good to me.

 

[MarkB]

Me and my gaming group sometimes wonder why are these not class skills for all classes

Because some classes focus on making the most of your senses, and others don't.

 

[Kerrick]

Me and my gaming group sometimes wonder why are these not class skills for all classes

What is your guys thoughts?

Our group has wondered the same thing. Our DM ruled that they're on everyone's skill lists. It doesn't take any special skill to root through a chest to find something, see someone on a rooftop with a crossbow 3 blocks away, or hear the guy behind you whispering to his friend.

 

[FalcWP]

Our group has wondered the same thing. Our DM ruled that they're on everyone's skill lists. It doesn't take any special skill to root through a chest to find something, see someone on a rooftop with a crossbow 3 blocks away, or hear the guy behind you whispering to his friend.

No, it doesn't. Which is why all three skills can be used untrained.

The one thing I personally houserule is that Fighters and Warriors both get Listen and Spot as class skills. It just strikes me as odd that the typical caravan guard or military veteran is atrocious at seeing or hearing an ambush. But even allowing that is more due to the fact that I love skill points and class skills a bit too much; there's nothing particularly wrong with having people invest cross-class skill points into those skills. My DM doesn't houserule it that way; if my Fighter wants to get ranks in Listen or Spot, he has to buy them cross-class. It tends to work out well enough; a decent Wisdom score, a number of ranks, and possibly a few levels of Ranger or another class with those skills, and you'll be ok.

 

[Wolfwood2]

Me and my gaming group sometimes wonder why are these not class skills for all classes

What is your guys thoughts?

Niche protection. If everybody could do it, the ability to do so would be less cool. Only things that are inherently unimportant (like the skills necessary to make a living embodied in the Craft and Profession skills) to the adventuring lifestyle are allowed to everybody.

The ranger may not be able to kick as much butt as the fighter, but he's got a lot better ability to spot abmushes and notice details. It's all about the balance of coolness.

 

[KarinsDad]

I used to have a house rule that PCs would gain a rank in Spot, Listen, and Sense Motive automatically every 3 levels (i.e. a rank of Spot at levels 1, 4, etc., a rank of Listen at levels 2, 5, etc.).

It was not so much whether it was a class or cross classed skill or not, it just made no sense to me at all that high level Adventurers would be blind, deaf, and stupid after surviving hundreds of combat and NPC interactive encounters.

Since it was not a cross class becoming a class skill issue, those classes that are really good at this type of thing benefited nearly as much as those who were not (i.e. it cost them less to max out these skills since they got some ranks for free, hence, they could boost other skills).

 

[Mistwell]

We used to use Sneak (a combo of move silently and hide) and Perception (a combo of Listen and Spot), and any class that had one skill of a combo of it's list got the combo skill on it's list instead. I found it worked pretty well but the use of WOTC modules that didn't use these combos threw things off too much for the DMs ease of use.

I still think it was a good idea.

 

[Nail]

In a previous game, we (like Mistwell) changed Spot and Listen -- although in our case we brought Blindsense, Blindsight, Tremorsense, etc into the skills as well. We ended up with a Spot skill and a Sense skill.

After gaming for quite a while, we realized the downsides: extra hassle (for DM prep) + far easier to remain hidden. (1 roll instead of 2)

 

[mosaic]

What about a Surprise save based on Wisdom? Different classes could have different progressions, but everyone would get better as they gain levels. You could also have a feat that improve the Surprise save by +2, kinda like Greater Fortitude or Iron Will.

The catch is, Wisdom already has an associated save - Will. But if you bump that down to Charisma where it belongs ...