Director of Brand Strategy
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As Jason mentioned in the welcome thread, the Perception skill is pretty complicated as it currently stands.
I like that all five senses are included, but I think that it is part of what over-complicates things. Given that the races all have different conditional modifiers, it can get pretty wonky. I think that it mighth best serve the skill to remove the distinguishing elements and conditional modifiers (and I'd say the same for jump/tumble/balance within acrobatics) and just have a perception roll be a perception roll. Whether one sees or hears or tastes something, the end result is that they're aware of it, and which sense it was that tipped them off is primarily flavor in my mind.
Part of me also wants to see search returned as its own skill, because a ranger who can spot his quarry at long range isn't necessarily going to be great at investigating a chest to find a trap or weakness. I do, however, think that the inclusion of all five senses adds a nice bit of flair to searching, as it brings to mind a rogue feeling, sniffing, and perhaps even tasting a lock he suspects to be trapped.
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As Jason mentioned in the welcome thread, the Perception skill is pretty complicated as it currently stands.
mmm well in our game our GM ask us to roll perception and tell what kind it is... we roll if wehave a racial bonus we add it
it works pretty good for us... but we playonline, i don't know if many people have an issue with this
and yes they do roll secretly from time to time
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Director of Brand Strategy
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and yes they do roll secretly from time to time
I have found that rolling secretly is too much work for me with some of the condensed skills given all the modifiers that come into play. Opposed stealth/perception rolls are tough as I need to have each character's conditional modifiers for each and every elements of both skills in front of me, and it tends to take too much time for me to make them without slowing the game down. Maybe it's easier online, but at the table it gets really clunky. Even with an automated excel sheet it's tough, as I then have to make sure that I have everyone's modifiers up to date at all times.
Myself I could take search out of it, and leave the rest as is.
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To be honest, the simplest way to deal with Perception is to assume that your characters are taking 10 all the time, unless they state otherwise. And the specific sense modifiers are easily dealt with.
Amanus - Perception 15 (Hearing 17)
If a character asks to make a Perception check, great. If not, go with the default values.
I like that all five senses are included, but I think that it is part of what over-complicates things. Given that the races all have different conditional modifiers, it can get pretty wonky. I think that it mighth best serve the skill to remove the distinguishing elements and conditional modifiers (and I'd say the same for jump/tumble/balance within acrobatics) and just have a perception roll be a perception roll. Whether one sees or hears or tastes something, the end result is that they're aware of it, and which sense it was that tipped them off is primarily flavor in my mind.
My thoughts exactly. In real life we don't notice something with just one sense, all of our operative senses fire to notice a situation. I like that perception has made this simpler.
A frustration was that, in 3.5, a smell was often an important clue in an adventure but the only mechanic for smelling things was through a Wisdom Check of the Scent ability. It's nice not to have to worry about this, or any other specific sense.
As much as I like emphasing an Elf's eyes or a Gnome's nose, I'd rather just use that as flavor and state that "it all evens out in the end" as a generic bonus to perception across the board. Because even though you can argue "your eyes aren't good enough to see the orc," the counter-argument (time and time again) is that "but orcs smell, and I've got a great sense of smell" or "why couldn't I hear him breathing?"
Simpler, at least in this case, is better.
I don't really think Perception skill itself is all that complicated, but its usage can be complicated by lack of clarity in some circumstances.
Perception might, however, be too powerful/useful - Listen and Spot were already among the more powerful/useful skills in 3.5E, but now they are combined (along with Search) into one uber-skill. Conceptually this works, but power-wise it might be a bit over the top.
The use of Perception is also somewhat unclear in some cases and this can indeed lead to complications. For example, suppose that there is a rogue approaching a lone fighter in a stealthy manner. Does the fighter roll to see the rogue (that depends on distance, lighting conditions, cover and his skill check) or does the fighter roll to hear the rogue (that can depend on other things) or does he roll both separately, or does he roll once, but apply the different modifiers twice to get the result? Maybe you can say that it is the fighter rolls only one: either sight or hearing part of perception - depending on which one is the most likely to detect the rogue. This could work, but it would become a mess when the whole party is rolling, because different characters might have to roll for sight, or sound based detection... In many ways, it would actually be simpler in practice to have two skills - Sight and Hearing versus Hide and Sneak - that way it would be much clearer what happens and what needs to be rolled.
If you do want to keep Perception as one skill (and conceptually it does make sense and enables you to include all those other senses, which is neat), there may be a way to simplify this:
Introduce a concept called Observability or Detectability. In situations, when it it clear which sense applies, Detectability would not be an issue, but the concept would be useful for unclear situations. Detectability of a character or an object would be based on the sense with the lowest DC for detection at that particular time. The detecting characters would then roll only against this particular DC.
Possible slight complication: The observability DC in question could be further decreased by the lack of stealth affecting other senses. We could say that if the secondary sense DCs could also theoretically be used to detect the subject/object and are less than 5 points higher than the primary sense DC (the lowest DC), than they subtract -1 from the DC.
Example:
The DC to visually detect the Rogue approaching our above-mentioned Fighter is 15. The DC to detect him acoustically is 18.
The Fighter will therefore roll Perception against DC 15 to visually detect the Rogue and ignore acoustics altogether.
Example using the slightly more complicated system:
The situation is the same as in the example described above, but we modify the Detectability DC by 1 from 15 to 14, because the Rogue can also be heard with not much greater difficulty than he can be seen. If he also reeks of sweat and blood after having fought a battle against the guards before his sneaking attempt and we decide that his DC to be detected by smell would be 19, the Detectability DC decreases by a further point to 13. Senses like taste are simply not applicable here, because the Rogue cannot reasonably be detected by being tasted, so they cannot modify the DC.
Of course, when the DM decides that only one sense can reasonably detect the sneaking Rogue, the Detectability DC is based on that sense alone and not modified by others.
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Director of Brand Strategy
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I don't think that adding more mechanics is the way to simplify anything. I understand what your suggesting, and it has some merit, but given Jason's general aversion to adding new systems or significantly altering the ones that exist at this point in the development process, I'm not sure if it's necessarily a helpful or productive train of discussion.
I don't think that adding more mechanics is the way to simplify anything. I understand what your suggesting, and it has some merit, but given Jason's general aversion to adding new systems or significantly altering the ones that exist at this point in the development process, I'm not sure if it's necessarily a helpful or productive train of discussion.
It is just a concept of usage. Maybe my mistake was making up and using new terms that lead to perceptions of fundamentally new mechanics. Let me try to rephrase it for greater simplicity and avoiding any new terms:
Method 1:
Perception is rolled using a sense that has the lowest DC to detect the creature or object in question.
Method 2:
Same as method 1, but other senses can decrease the DC by 1 point each, if they could also be reasonably used to detect the creature/object and if they are within 5 points of the original DC as used in method 1.