hawkfire's page

No not ALL Range Rules. The -4 for being engaged in melee does not apply. Reach weapons merely use the same rules as ranged weapons to determine cover, nothing else.

hawkfire wrote:

Then use the rules as a guideline and add some common sense to your decision making.

Well, that's great. Why have rules, then?

"The Most Important Rule" according to the Core book? Page 9.

Remember that these rules are yours. You can change them to fit your needs.

Perception (Wis) Page 102.
....The DC to notice such details varies depending upon distance, the environment, and how noticeable the detail is. The following table gives a number of guidelines. [How about these guidelines or Apples!]

Yes then we must "follow" these rules and not come up with guidelines or house rules to fix some ambitious or broken rules. ;-)

Drahliana Moonrunner wrote:

Orfamay Quest wrote:

Drahliana Moonrunner wrote:

And again for the most part the rules are only meant to be applied for tactical distances, and

... and they fail utterly at that, too. That's the problem.

If you're going to make a blanket statement like that, back it up.

Read the thread. There's 139 posts prior to yours that do a very good job of listing examples of how the Perception rules fail utterly. To see a normal human at anything over 300 feet requires a very high degree of both skill and luck. To see a building at anything over 500 feet requires practically superhuman abilities. But at the same time, almost anyone can read the fine print on a newspaper fifty feet away.

Quote:

The modifiers for Perception DC's seem very straight-forward to me.

I agree that they are straightforward. That doesn't mean that they're not broken as anything.

There are two fundamental problems. The first is that the size modifiers do not cover a useful range; a thousand-foot skyscraper and a sixty-foot dragon are both Colossal. The second, more serious, is that the difficulty of seeing something in the real world varies with the square root of the distance, but the penalties imposed by the rules use a linear model. The bad model makes the ruleset fundamentally and utterly broken.

So your saying a normal human cannot see the Sun. Since to see a building at anything over 500 feet requires practically superhuman abilities.

Irontruth wrote:

thejeff wrote:

DrDeth wrote:

Lemmy wrote:

These statements are usually made just to poke fun at the rules and their flaws. There are plenty of cases where the rules either make no sense or just contradict themselves... The sun might be exaggeration, since that thing is many times bigger than Earth. But what about clouds? Chances are they are impossible to see as well, according to RAW. XD

tl/dr: It's just a hyperbolic joke being used to make a valid criticism. Humor has always been used to criticize real issues, after all. ;)

There's no valid point here, at all. The rules here do make sense and do not contradict themselves. (and in fact the rules rarely do so)

"Perception is also used to notice fine details in the environment."

The sun is not a "fine detail" nor are clouds. There is no need to make a perception check in the first place.

The issue is that people just are not reading the rules.

We've discussed that at great length. The sun is the reductio absurdem case and it's easy to dismiss as you suggest.

There are actual problematic cases that have been brought up. How far off can you see a colossal dragon in flight?
Is it "obvious" and therefore impossible to miss no matter how far away, as long as it's line of sight?
Or do you follow the standard perception rules and past a few hundred feet they're effectively invisible?

(Luckily, despite his high perception, the dragon will have a hard time spotting you, since you don't have the size penalty. :)

Conversely, it might be that the DC isn't to notice the dragon, but rather to make out any details on the dragon (such as color).

Doesn't really help the situation. As Tacticslion points out then you automatically notice the dragon at any distance - and it spots you as well.

And honestly, needing a good roll or high perception to perceive even the color of a colossal dragon more than a few hundred feet away is a bit of a stretch.
However you define what you have...

-Doesn't really help the situation. As Tacticslion points out then you automatically notice the dragon at any distance - and it spots you as well.

Then use the rules as a guideline and add some common sense to your decision making.

So can one see a rocket launch into space if you are sort of near NASA in Florida. Common sense and no math to calculated, that one cannot see the rocket launch from Florida while sitting Spain.

So with the huge dragon, as a GM tells the story and use some common sense. Determine when they can see the dragon and how far. Use everyday experiences such as a jet in the sky. How far out can one see a jet. How far can on spot a bird at the same distance. Now as the GM gage is the an easy spot or is it so far out the D.C. is higher.

They say a candle light in the night can be seen miles a way. The same candle during the day will be hard to stop not too far away. So use the rules as a guideline to make a reason GM call.

So, here's the thing: I occasionally see people remark that, by the rules of altering Perception DC's, the sun's distance from the planet (whichever planet your game takes place on) should render the sun completely unnoticeable due to the +1/10 feet Perception DC modifier. However, this supposes that the sun is a "Detail" (Perception DC is based on the "Detail" one is trying to notice) with Perception DC anywhere close to zero. Whatever the DC Modifier to notice the sun is, the DC it's modifying is, let's say, a negative number that is at least twice whatever the modifier is.

But that's all rules talk. The Perception DC to notice the sun is likely a very large negative number, but is even more likely just-not-a-thing. Why would you ever need to make a Perception check to notice the sun? (Barring shenanigans, which I am open to having described if you can think of one!)

Humorous to think about a character not spotting the sun on a sunny day. But a mute argument...

Perception is a stated:
Your senses allow you to notice fine details and alert you to danger. Perception covers all five senses, including sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell.

Perception is also used to notice fine details in the environment. The DC to notice such details varies depending upon distance, the environment, and how noticeable the detail is.

So the sun is a "Detail" but are you looking for "fine detail" of the sun?
Looking at the sun for "sun spost" is looking for "fine detail" in the environment. You are also looking into danger. Roll needed and you hamper your vision staring at the sun.
Looking for the sun in the sky on a clear day, you are just looking at the environment and no "fine detail". No roll needed.

No let's say there is a magical over cast which sort of conceals the sun's exact location in the sky. According to the rule if you read them as is, then one would never stop the location of the sun.

However using common sense and the rules as guidelines. Then the GM makes a call, Such as to gauge where the sun is in the sky to help determine how much daylight is left in the day. GM magical cloud cover make aDC roll of X. May also use survival.