I had a thought the other day about doing this. What if the Hide and Move Silently skills were to be turned into one single skill called Stealth (or something similar), kind of like what you see in the Baldur's Gate series? The lists of DCs for each skill could simply be combined, and if a PC were to try to attempt to do both forms of 'Stealth' at the same time, the DC could just be increased by a certain number. The main advantage to doing this is that a character would have more skill points, since they wouldn't need to divide the spending between two skills.
What are your thoughts?
I am not 100% sure, but I think this is how 2nd edition handled Hide and Move Silently.
The problems I see are. Why would daylight effect how silently you move? Why would pebbles on a walkway effect how well you hid? Combining the two skills would probably lead to higher DCs as well. The two are usually used together, but there are situations that will effect the DC of one of these skills, but not both.
Arcana Unearthed does it that way.
I don't really see the problem--it kinda annoys me that "stealth" is basically one skill that requires two skill points.
QuoteThe problems I see are. Why would daylight effect how silently you move? Why would pebbles on a walkway effect how well you hid? Combining the two skills would probably lead to higher DCs as well. The two are usually used together, but there are situations that will effect the DC of one of these skills, but not both.
I'd figure you'd just add the penalties. Maybe sneaking over pebbles is -5 to your check, and daylight is -10. sneaking over pebbles in darkness gives you a -5, sneaking in daylight gives you -10, and sneaking over pebbles in daylight gives you -15. Something like that?
Quote from: brainfaceArcana Unearthed does it that way.
Maybe that is where I heard of it.
Quote from: brainfaceI'd figure you'd just add the penalties. Maybe sneaking over pebbles is -5 to your check, and daylight is -10. sneaking over pebbles in darkness gives you a -5, sneaking in daylight gives you -10, and sneaking over pebbles in daylight gives you -15. Something like that?
Well that is my point it would lead to higher DCs. Say you were walking down a bright smooth hallway (no breaks in the wall to hide), you suspect that their are some guards around corner and you want to sneak up on them. According to the skill, penalties would have to be applied to your stealth check. So because you are unable to hide the guards around the corner can hear you. Now you could offset this example with a bonus for no line of sight. So we have a bonus for no line of sight that might offset the penalty for not being able to hide, but what if the hallway was now a dim, maybe even unlit, hallway. Now because they can't see you the guards will have a harder time hearing you.
Which brings me to another issue if you combine these two skills into one, what opposes them? Spot? Listen?
I haven't seen the Arcana Unearthed rules on a stealth skill so I don't know if they have already addressed my examples.
this is how i would handle it:
leave the skills as-is, but make it so that for every rank you put into one, you get a rank in the other.
if you want to, just say its one skill with conditional rules.....
The only way this would be fair is if you consolidated spot and listen into a raw "perception" skill. Perceptive characters in fiction tend to be described as perceptive in both, so it might not be that bad.
There are a few issues to deal with though. Small creatures gain a size bonus to hide: will you keep that to stealth? (I could justify move silently bonuses to small creatures and penalties to large creatures) You may find some odd issues, like elephants (elephants are very silent, and they can hide in jungles, but that's more a property of the jungle I'd say).
So, if you combined spot and listen, and hide and move silently, you'd probably be fine. The skills would be Perception and Stealth. Just be careful for issues, and know that more characters will be perceptive and/or stealthy now.
QuoteThe skills would be Perception and Stealth.
That makes a lot of sense.
That is what I was hinting at. You couldn't change Hide and Move Silently without changing other things as well, such as Spot and Listen. I hadn't even thought about size. What if a race has a bonus to Spot or Listen, but not both? Or a bonus to one and a penalty to the other (though I don't know of any race)? I am just trying to point out that there is a lot more to think about than just combining two skils. The DC bonuses and penalties will have to be ironed out. If it is done well it could be a great mechanic. Done poorly and you will see a lot more sneakity failure both with NPC and PCs.
Though perception would greatly help the fighter. Only has to use half the cross-class skills to be able to see the ninja goblin stalking him.
"Stealth" (which is the same as Arcana Evolved's "Sneak") is what I'm using in Shadowfell instead of Mv Silent and Hide
My only caution would be this: if you start combining pairs of good skills (like Hide and Move Silently), you're also going to need to combine pairs of crappy skills. When forced to choose between the two, who would ever put ranks in, say, Forgery by itself, when one could instead put ranks in the Hide and Move Silently uber-skill.
(Incidentally, I've always thought that Open Lock should be a function of Disable Device.)
I like the Mutants and Masterminds approach, where Hide and Move Silently are combined into Stealth, and Listen an Spot are combined into Notice. And Meepo, I don't think that would be a problem - it would actually encouarge using more 'crappy' skills, since you'll have one more free skill point (or two more free skill points) per level.
Well, the way I saw it was that they would be combined, but technically it would still function as two different skills until you needed to do both kinds at once, in which case the DC would increase by so much. So you could make a Stealth check just to hide from sight, or just to creep by a closed door without being heard, and if you wanted to you could do both at the same time with a little more difficulty.
Yeah, making Listen and Spot one skill called Perception or the like is also a good idea for this. I think I'm going to start handling those skills in this way - maybe people will start picking up ranks in more obscure Knowledge divisions or Profession or something else for a reason other than to qualify for a feat or PrC.
OK then. I have no further comments at this time.
Even AD&D had seperate skills. But most other games have a single Stealth skill. Generally, they also have single Perception skill/ability, or else perception just goes off a stat.
It's a good idea, but you'd have to fix several things since the game isn't designed in that way. For creatures with bonuses to Listen and not Spot, you could either give the bonus when making Perception checks to listen, or just give it all the time. The first way has precedent in things like Survival where you get synergy bonuses some of the time (i.e. when above ground, when following tracks, when underground, and so forth).
Quote from: Phoenix KnightFor creatures with bonuses to Listen and not Spot, you could either give the bonus when making Perception checks to listen, or just give it all the time.
Or just give half the bonus all the time.
Meeps>
I disagree that it makes it a superskill to combine the two into one. They're definitely related, and it seems very unlikely (in fact, almost impossible) that in real life, one could do one without at least attempting to do the other. In my opinion, there are may other skills that could already be called "superskills." When compared with "Escape Artist" as a skill, "Stealth" seems actually much less powerful, since escape artist lets you both escape physical bonds (manacles and/or ropes), as well as squeeze through small passages, which don't have anything to do with one another.
Mezerous>
I like your thoughts. I think it would be a good idea, just to give players more diversity in other, non-combat related skills. It's no secret that skill selection tends to favor combat, and if you don't have to spend so many separate points on similar skills, you could focus on things like craft, knowledge, ride, or other fun-but-relatively-less-used skills.
Aye, I thought it might be a good idea. In most cases bonuses to Spot or Listen could still affect Perception (or Hide/Move Silently bonuses could affect Stealth), but only in those particular conditions. In the case of perception and a rarer blind or deaf creature/character, one could simply take an extreme penalty to the skill, bar that section of it off altogether, or explain why they can still use Perception for those effects.
I like how it might help unique skill choices. I've always been one to pick up points in Use Rope, Heal, Profession(Herbalism) or Craft(architecture) or the like for fun more than for what it qualifies me for, and maybe if I do this it'll aid in making more 'fun' characters in my campaigns.
Quote from: IshmaylMeeps>
I disagree that it makes it a superskill to combine the two into one. They're definitely related, and it seems very unlikely (in fact, almost impossible) that in real life, one could do one without at least attempting to do the other.
It makes a superskill in the sense that it throws the skill point balance out of whack. Hide and Move Silently used to require one-fourth of a rogue's base skill points, but Stealth only requires one-eighth of a rogue's base skill points. Same for Listen and Spot as compred to Perception.
So consider a rogue with both Perception and Stealth. Something that used to expend one-half of that rogue's base skill points now only expends one-fourth of his base skill points. You can either call that "superskills" or you can call it 2 extra skill points per level for sneaky, observant rogues. Either way, most non-rogues just got hosed unless some non-rogue class skills were also combined to effectively increase those classes' skill points per level.
That is a point I hadn't thought of... I'll try to come up with a rebuttal ;)
Well, I guess one thing you could do, for that very specific situation, if you're going to make those changes (Perception and Stealth), then you could lower the rogue's skill point gain per level by 1/4.
You would have to do the same with the bard and ranger if you are going to take away the rogue's skill points.
The truth is there are number of under-powered skills that could very easily be combined, and are in many games.
One example, Knowledge (local) and Gather Information have very similar in game functions. You do different things with them, but there's no real reason you couldn't have a single Streetwise skill.
Other game systems combine Balance, Climb, Jump, and Tumble (and sometimes Swim) into a single Athletics skill. I don't really recommend that here because that really would be a superskill.
One could argue that Knowledge (nature) and Survival belong together.
Search might go in Perception. Even Sense Motive might fit.