|
1 person marked this as FAQ candidate.
|
I need some rules for spotting a ship/villages/islands on the horizon.
With flying available to the party the horizon can be quite a ways off. At a 1000 feet they can see for almost 25 miles.
Fire as she bears recommends a DC of 10+1/500 feet. At that rate spotting things more then a few miles away is not reasonable.
I can accept that a normal lookout can take 20 on his perception check.
Lets say you typical lookout is a 3rd level human with perception as a class skill and +1 wisdom mod. That gets us a +8, lets round to a +10 for feats/traits/whatever. What should a 30 on perception check get you.
An expert lookout is a 6th level human with skill focus, alertness, uncanny alertness and the eyes of the wild trait. Lets say I missed 3 along the way and give him +20. This would represent the best person can do before we go superpowers. What should a 40 on perception give us.
Average joe is on lookout duty and he simply gets a 20. What should he see.
I think the DC should scale at Z+1/x and weather should effect x as well as adding to Z.
None of this assumes that anything is trying to hide and hopefully we come up with decent set rules to cover this. Maybe they already exist.
Well, the DC to notice a visible creature is 0 so, for an average joe getting a 20 for his perception check, the creature would need to be 200 feet away to be unnoticeable. For an expert lookout with 40 perception, that goes to 400 feet away. But this is a person, presuming a medium creature, we're talking about as opposed to a ship. Perception is used for noticing fine details, not coarse details. You aren't going to fail your perception check and fail to notice a mountain a few miles off in clear weather. There's no hard and fast rule that I'm aware of, so I'd say do this, for spotting otherwise easy-to-spot targets like a ship at sea, islands, villages, mountains, etc, make it automatic success in normal or favorable conditions and change the distance modifier to +1 DC/half-mile for unfavorable or terrible. So, say an island 7 miles off. That's a 16 DC check with unfavorable conditions or a 19 in terrible meaning an average joe will spot an island 7 miles off on a moonless night with thorough searching, but an expert can do it even with casual searching and, if searching thoroughly, can spot an island 17 miles off or so on a moonless night. That sounds close enough for government work.
I am going to need to do a bit better then this because my PCs have ship and they will want to know how far off they can spot other ships. I also need to know how far off other ships can spot them.
Horizon Info
Here is info on the horizon. That would be the ultimate limiting factor. So figure how high the ship decks are on average and compare it with the chart. For things in view, you would just calculate the relative size and assign a DC
That is the ultimate limit on how far you spot things.
Now what should the DC be for objects of different sizes. Can you spot a person a mile away in a giant open field?
Need to come up with a set of rules for those DCs.
I would say ships (which generally can't hide, disregarding weather) are seen at the maximum distance that sight allows. I would allow a hand held telescope to double the distance.
Claxon wrote: I would say ships (which generally can't hide, disregarding weather) are seen at the maximum distance that sight allows. I would allow a hand held telescope to double the distance. I think there is a logical fallacy here. How can you double the maximum distance you can see an object at when that is defined as at the horizon, literally the distance past which you cannot see? A hand held telescope would only increase the size of the object viewed on the horizon, it could not see "past" it to any length as the curve of the earth would block further viewing.
Claxon wrote: I would say ships (which generally can't hide, disregarding weather) are seen at the maximum distance that sight allows. I would allow a hand held telescope to double the distance. The maximum distance that sight allows? I don't know about that, considering that the stars in the night sky are millions of light-years away. Probably better to use the maximum distance the horizon allows. The DC to spot a person is 0 already so the DC to spot something bigger than a person is going into negatives. Perception, as a skill, wasn't really made to handle this kind of situation; it is for "fine" details and otherwise "miss-able" stuff, not spotting large, obvious things like ships and islands. Also, a telescope doesn't let you see past the horizon; unless we're using a high-tech orbital satellite telescope with radio transmission capability.
So, for an average person standing on solid ground, they can see out roughly 2.5-3 miles. From the deck of a ship about 10 feet up, that extends to about 4 miles. From up in the masts about 100 feet up, that goes out to about 12 miles. So, for practical purposes, 12 miles is a good benchmark for how far one can see from up in the crow's nest. Now, if it's rainy and visibility is unfavorable, I can still see a good couple of miles up the road. I may not be able to spot details, but I could spot a lone semi-truck on an otherwise deserted road even in the rain. So we want an average joe to be able to see about 2 miles out with a DC that is satisfied with a take-10. Unfavorable conditions are +2 so we want distance to equate to 8. That means +1 DC per quarter-mile for spotting large, obvious objects in less than clear conditions. So, going out to 3 miles, you'd need to roll 14 to see a ship a ship at the horizon for a layman with 10 Wis and no investment in perception skill. The expert with +20 could do it regardless of his roll. At 4 miles, it's 18 DC and our expert could still do it regardless of roll. Out to 12 miles, that's a DC 50 check meaning even an expert spotter up in the masts wouldn't be able to spot a ship or island all the way out at the horizon; he could do 8.5 miles tops and that's with a thorough search (take 20). So, the use of a telescope, in this case, would ideally make it so it's only +1 DC per half mile which makes this a 18 DC check and our expert can make it. That sounds reasonable.
Based on the chart provided by Shar Tal (thanks by the way), a lookout stationed in a crow's nest 30' off the water would be able to see another identical ship (on a clear day) about 7 miles away. I would say that the DC to see that ship is 0. It is gargantuan and incapable of hiding.
That same ship farther than 7 miles away would start to go 'hull down' behind the horizon. That ship is now gaining concealment and could conceivably hide from the observer. I would say that penalties start to occur at that point.
Two identical lookouts standing in the crow's nest of identical ships could conecivably spot each other (but not the ships) at about 14 miles. They would each see a bit of mast, a humanoid silhouette, and maybe a flag just at the horizon. It would be difficult but not impossible.
It is VERY easy to see something silhouetted against the sky since the sky is light (even in darkness the silhouette is black and the sky is NOT black.)
In clear weather I would say that the DC to spot a ship is 0 if it is in plain sight (out to the horizon), 10 if it is hull down but its rigging and sails is visible, 20 if half the rigging is also below the horizon, and 30 if only small bits are visible. Obviously, spotting anything is impossible if it is completely hidden.
Fog and weather change this a lot. Ships can pass within a few yards of each other in dense fog and never see each other. They may know each other is there but sight is absolutely impossible and light doesn't help. Light at night or in fog allows them to spot you easily but only hinders your ability to spot them.
marcryser wrote:
In clear weather I would say that the DC to spot a ship is 0 if it is in plain sight (out to the horizon), 10 if it is hull down but its rigging and sails is visible, 20 if half the rigging is also below the horizon, and 30 if only small bits are visible. Obviously, spotting anything is impossible if it is completely hidden.
Fog and weather change this a lot. Ships can pass within a few yards of each other in dense fog and never see each other. They may know each other is there but sight is absolutely impossible and light doesn't help. Light at night or in fog allows them to spot you easily but only hinders your ability to spot them.
+1
Simple, elegant, no math, and realistic. Can't get better than that!
I realize that a ship is easy to see but at 12 to 14 miles it is really really small so also easy to overlook.
I think I like 15 +1/quarter mile to spot thing that are not a hiding at distance. Lets apply the stealth size stealth's size penalties.
I am going to use the weather modifiers from fire as she bears instead of the generic ones in perception. -10 for light rain and -20 for heavy.
Average joe spots a ship on a clear day at 5.25 miles and 10.5 miles with a telescope.
weather subtracts 2.5 and 5 miles respectively. That means that and average joe misses a ship in a until it is on top of them but a trained look out can still spot ship at the horizon (10.5 m) with a telescope in light rain. A world class lookout can see to the horizon even in a storm.
On clear day a world class lookout (or PC with magic) can spot a 20.5 miles on a clear day with a telescope.
Every +4 adds miles witch doubles with a scope. I know that many a party has perception guru that will go will be able to see even farther given a distant horizon (flight). I think this will work.
Just need to come up with a an extra bonus for villages and an even bigger one for islands.
Look I wasn't trying to supply a physic accurate answer, I was trying to supply an easy answer.
And obviously the statement of "maximum distance sight allows" was in regard to things on the earth surface, i.e. the horizon. But again, I was going for simple. Not accurate. Accuracy is not needed in Pathfinder as long as the rule is playable.
You can see 10 miles. With a hand telescope 20. Done. Why? Because that's the new rule, if you want it to be.
It is not a bad rule for many groups. If I was player I would appreciate such a rule. It is also good fall back for when I do not have everything figured out. It works perfectly for a average ship with an average look out.
The reason I want a more complicated rule is twofold. My PCs will want to combine flight (far horizon) with superhero levels of perception to be forewarned. They will also want to know under what circumstances they can sneak up on another ship with a ship.
I know they will want to fly up a few miles and from there they will have horizon of 150 miles. They will want to know how many ships they can spot with in a 300 miles radius. With my rules I know they will need a perception of 280 to spot ships that far away.
I would not be at all surprised if they find a way to get their skill into the 80s witch would allow them to see a ship 50 miles away. At least now I can prepare for the implications of that.
Also thank you for the easy rule that will be used my most every NPC. An average look out with decent magical support can make +20. With this rule I need not worry about how.
Necroing because I'm curious if there's an answer - I'm running Skulls and Shackles and I know that my players will ask how far away they can see ships. In the middle of the first book the flavour text says something along the lines of the Wormwood chasing down a ship, "until by dawn less than half a mile separate the two" - should I be using common sense here or are there rules governing this situation already?
|
