Combining Hide and Move Silently

[Hibou]

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?

[Poseptune]

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.

[brainface]

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.

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.

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?

[Poseptune]

Arcana Unearthed does it that way.

Maybe that is where I heard of it.

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?

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.

[SDragon]

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.....

[Xeviat]

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.

[CYMRO]

The skills would be Perception and Stealth.

That makes a lot of sense.

[Poseptune]

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.

[Ishmayl-Retired]

"Stealth" (which is the same as Arcana Evolved's "Sneak") is what I'm using in Shadowfell instead of Mv Silent and Hide

[Epic Meepo]

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.)

[Xathan]

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.

[Hibou]

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.

[Poseptune]

OK then. I have no further comments at this time.

[Matt Larkin (author)]

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).

[Epic Meepo]

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.

Or just give half the bonus all the time.