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And during Night time... is there a modifier ? :-))(Well, that and there's the small matter of it being night because there's a planet in between you and the sun. )
Total cover = can't see it = night time
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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.
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Alternatively!
You can't see the sun. The tremendous penalty is due to the time taken for light to travel between the sun and the planet. If you attempt to target the sun with an ability (assuming unlimited range and no attack roll required), it would automatically fail due to the distance the sun has moved.
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It also means you spent 8000 gold and used an interstellar telescope to pass a perception check.I've never bought one. Never even seen one before it was linked in this thread. I don't really see it being useful in PFS, but I could see it useful in a home game depending on the campaign.
Or there is the case of the catapult argument above. At 2k ft, the perception DC is DC 200. The argument though is that it is being flung at a castle or something rather. If I was playing in a home game and I owned my own castle I'd definitely invest in several telescopes in key places (maybe not the 8k gold one) - such as 4 of the 2k gold ones (one in each of the 4 corners of the castle wall - manned of course by sentries on watch) and maybe the 4k gold one in the tallest tower with a way to make it a 360 degree view.
Even with the cheapest one (that is 2k gold), it turns it into a DC 18 (DC 200 / 10x - (+2 mod) = DC 18) - or the 4k gold one turns it into a DC 0 (DC 200 / 50x - (+4) = DC 0). That 4k gold telescope could be far cheaper than what ever damage & repairs I would need to make to my castle from letting a catapult continually beat down on me. Even the 8k gold telescope could potentially be cheaper than a destroyed castle.
Well this actually might give me an adevnture idea that could be fun for actual play from this thread. Use the telescope as a macguffin for the pcs to deliver. Also might be useful in seeing ships trying to besige an important port like absalom.
Actually if you want an optimized npc for this I would make a half elf urban ranger and use the half elf skill focus for perception for +3 and +2 from keen senses. How? does a half elf hireling cost each year? Or any half elf like this really or someone with keen senses and skill focus perception. If I had a castle I would put the people with best vision behind the telescope.
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Fine, let me put it in a more polite way...
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.
"Perception is also used to notice fine details in the environment."
Also. ALSO.
That doesn't mean we only use Perception to see fine detail.
Additionally, anything that is distant enough looks small enough to be classified as "fine detail", which's exactly why there's a penalty to Perception based on distance between the observer and the object being observed. I can cover the moon with my thumb, how exactly is it not a "fine detail" from my PoV? If only the actual size of the object matters, then characters should be able to see every moon in the universe, no matter how distant.
There's an obvious flaw with the DC progression, and the intentionally hyperbolic example is meant to point that out! It has a very valid point.
This is why I drop the penalties to -1/80 feet instead. Sure, maybe it turns some people into Eagle Eyes, but it also prevents a significant number of these shenanigans. Helps more than it hurts, IMO.
Some things aren't worth looking up.
One of the many examples of why some rules aren't necessary, or, a possible experiment of how some people need absolute closure in a game of the imagination...
It's also a good piece of evidence of why natural successes and failures are silly. To tie a failure to a flat 5%, oh, the humanity!
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).
But that implies (by default) that you can see the dragons (or whatever) no matter how far away they are, but without the ability to notice details (such as color).
Again, there are issues no matter which way it's parsed.
The thing is, the examples given of "details" (which are explicitly noted as examples of what can be noticed with perception) do not fit many folks' notions of "(fine) detail" or such.
I love the rules... but it is problematic to push the rules to their limit or apply them strictly within the parameters as-given.
I love the rules... but it is problematic to push the rules to their limit or apply them strictly within the parameters as-given.
I want to explain this a bit. The reason that I feel this is worth noting is so that we, as players (and that includes GMs) can know when, where, and how internally coherent and functional the rules are at modelling a world in and of itself.
What's more... we need to know where and how those rules model a world different from our own, so we know when our own instincts don't reflect the game-rules.
Over-all, the rules model things well. The world is functional and internally coherent; you can have a functioning economy working off of low-level rubes (as proven on these forums), and explain many, if not most, things in the world via the rules with little difficulty.
There are certain points within the rules, however, where internal consistency starts bumping up against coherent and reasonable presumptions based upon our own experiences.
"What does Perception allow you to see?" is a valid question - and a great example of equally valid questions - for GMs and players to help create a powerful living, breathing story-world; and it's important for them to know it's abilities and limitations as-printed in presenting a world that makes sense within itself.
To that end, such conversations are useful for helping accomplish exactly that, as are various personal suggestions for how to handle it (so long as those suggestions are clarified as not being part of the Core RAW, when they are not; and explained as nuanced understanding when they are).
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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).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. :)
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...
Not to quibble with (alright, fine, you caught me, this entire thread is nothing but quibbling over rules minutiae) but not at any distance. The wilderness exploration rules list a maximum distance of stealth and detection for each terrain. I'm not saying they're anymore realistic than the perception modifiers, but they do give you an upper limit.
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Long baseball analogyEven if someone wanted to argue that all the players were still close enough to be "obvious," what about the ball?
In the Pathfinderverse, nobody has any idea where the ball is, including most of the players.
hell most of the time i can't even tell where the ball is watching it on tv
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Over-all, the rules model things well. The world is functional and internally coherent; you can have a functioning economy working off of low-level rubes (as proven on these forums), and explain many, if not most, things in the world via the rules with little difficulty.
I probably shouldn't go here because it's off the topic, but I disagree that this is anything like proven. Or true.
You can hack together something that looks like a vaguely reasonable economy if you try, but that's got little to do with the actual rules model. A rules model with fixed prices for all items - fixed at 3 times the raw material cost at that, and income based strictly on skill regardless of the profession or craft does not in any sense produce a functioning economy. It lacks for example any consideration of supply & demand.
You can make it resemble what a functioning economy might look like by assigning high skills to those in jobs we expect to pay well and low ones to those we'd expect to be poor. But that's all on you.
Fair enough - but I've actually seen a local economy modeled well. I'm not talking about all aspects - again that feeds back into what I was trying to say earlier: not every piece of minutia is covered in the rules. Rather, it functions within itself to function as you'd want for the game-world to be interacted with.
At least, this has been shown readily enough to my own satisfaction within these forums by a thread or two with examples and descriptions of how those things can run without taking liberties... which is the actual point.
Technically, as well, you can run things with the perception rules. But that doesn't really square with our own experiences... which is again, part of what I'm getting at. Things can work and function in an internally-consistent and comprehensible manner, but not reflect our expectations or real-world functionality.
Being aware of that - whether with economics or with Perception - is important only because it allows you to use and build off of that.
But if that doesn't work for you - okay. No hard feelings. :)
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Of course no one can see the Sun. It was destroyed by Santa Claus.
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Eh, you're missing the real answer. The sun was described in box text. No one can miss what is detailed in box text! That's how Golarion works.
Although this is a bit tongue-in-cheek, this is actually how I feel it's best to approach the problem of how/should the rules be applied to these things.
As Tacticslion says: ""What does Perception allow you to see?" is a valid question." However, I want to go deeper, or perhaps just sideways: What are the interesting times in the story for the PC's to need a Perception check instead of just seeing or noticing something?
This has been a hard thread to keep on topic, understandably. It's all well and good to ask "What is the best way to model Perception within a game rules set?" Buuuuut, what I've been asking from the beginning (albeit poorly) is: why do people apply these things to the game world as if it were a world model instead of a narrative construction? And I suppose the answer is that the rules are fairly simulationist. But I'm curious how much the CRB contains advice on adjudicating things narratively and how much it leaves these things for the GM to decide and assumes that they'll work it out on their own. Perhaps Pathfinder could use more rules, or at least guidelines, on the proper way to address the fiction of the game with its rules. Or perhaps those rules are embedded or implied in published fictional products, such as Adventure Paths, modules, and PFS scenarious.
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How far away can you see a dragon? Very important knowledge when you're hunting a dragon or preparing for a dragon attack. And someone with better perception would see it further away then someone with no perception right?
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But that implies (by default) that you can see the dragons (or whatever) no matter how far away they are, but without the ability to notice details (such as color).
Again, there are issues no matter which way it's parsed.
The thing is, the examples given of "details" (which are explicitly noted as examples of what can be noticed with perception) do not fit many folks' notions of "(fine) detail" or such.
I love the rules... but it is problematic to push the rules to their limit or apply them strictly within the parameters as-given.
This is all true.
Something to consider is that this thread isn't in the Rules Questions section, therefore we aren't really limited to just a plain text reading when talking about this. I mean, we could continue to go on and on forever retreading the exact same points, which are pretty thoroughly covered over the past few pages, or we could move on and talk about how to actually rum the game as a GM and how to utilize the rules in a useful way.
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When I want to rum the game as a GM, I bring Bacardi; one time I brought Cuervo instead, and everyone was all, "That's not rum, that's tequila." I felt SOOO embarrassed!
(Sorry, couldn't help myself.)
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.
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.
As interesting as this all is, can anyone explain why I can't find my shoes even when I take 20 whereas my family members can find them without even rolling the dice?
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Then use the rules as a guideline and add some common sense to your decision making.
Well, that's great. Why have rules, then?
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.
I don't know. How far away is "sort of near NASA"? Are we talking about Cocoa Beach, or are we talking about Orlando? And does it matter that the character we're talking about is a 20th level druid with literally superhuman levels of Perception? "Common sense" doesn't help much when we're dealing with characters, objects, and events that go not only beyond what is "common," but even beyond what is "possible" in the world we actually experience.
The rules are supposed to provide a fair and transparent way to determine objectively whether or not the characters can succeed on a task without relying the the GM's opinion of "realism."
As a simple example of that,... the world record in the long jump is just under 9 meters (30 feet). If there's a thirty foot chasm, can my mork jump it? Common sense says "no," because no human has ever jumped that far, let alone while carrying even a "light" load. The rules, though, say that I can do so by making a DC thirty jump check, which isn't actually that difficult for a high-level character, especially with magical aid. The rules also say that my monk gets a +4 bonus for every ten feet of additional movement speed she has, so at 8th level, with +20 feet bonus, I have a +8 bonus in addition to my +8 from eight ranks of acrobatics, +3 from a class skill, and at least +1 from my Dexterity, so I can take 10 on the jump and make it. Or my 5th level wizard buddy can cast jump on a first level commoner and he can clear it.
Or, more simply, common sense be d--ned, I'm a high level adventurer, and/or I have magic.
As interesting as this all is, can anyone explain why I can't find my shoes even when I take 20 whereas my family members can find them without even rolling the dice?
Did you dump Wisdom?
The rules are supposed to provide a fair and transparent way to determine objectively whether or not the characters can succeed on a task without relying the the GM's opinion of "realism."
Yeah, I know, following up to my own post, bad form, yadda yadda,... whatever.
But I just wanted to expand on this to make it clear why this is important.
Pathfinder is a game, and specifically a game about overcoming challenges. It's also, by design, a fairly simulationist game that relies heavily on random chance to determine (fairly) the course that events take. So a lot of the game is specifically about methods to determine the party's success or failure, which in turn models the challenges that the party faces and provides a method of resolving them.
The Perception rules fail miserably at those tasks. They fail to successfully (or usefully) model anything [as the various analogies on this thread demonstrate -- you can hit a target with an arrow, but you can't actually see the target you want to hit] and therefore don't provide any sort of a useful resolution mechanism.
How do I sneak up to the main gate of the castle when there are men on lookout standing on the battlements? How risky is that plan? What can I do to make this more likely? I don't know, because the rules covering this particular tactic are so appallingly broken. I know, roughly, how likely I am to be able to kill the lookouts, because combat is well-modeled, but I have no idea how likely I am to sneak past them without bloodshed. And that makes it very hard to compare plans and to make useful decisions that will support the narrative.
As interesting as this all is, can anyone explain why I can't find my shoes even when I take 20 whereas my family members can find them without even rolling the dice?Did you dump Wisdom?
I'm not sure. This is a living world campaign with, like, some billions of players, but the GMs make your character sheet for you. Something about it being more fun to keep things secret and preferring stat rolling over point buy?
A more realistic example would be a lighthouse. Lighthouses are supposed to be visible for miles away -- in fact, a typical (30-45m) lighthouse is designed to be visible at a distance of roughly 13 miles (20 km).
To be accurate it's the light from the lighthouse that's supposed to be visible at that distance, not the lighthouse itself, and that's only at night.
And again for the most part the rules are only meant to be applied for tactical distances, and at 93 million miles away, it's a fair bet to say that the Sun won't be involved in most combats.
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.
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. Just saying so doesn't an argument, make. The modifiers for Perception DC's seem very straight-forward to me. That doesn't excuse the DM for not taking all of the environmental factors of an encounter into account.
If you're going to make a blanket statement like that, back it up.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.
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.
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.
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.Let's give an in-combat example.
A composite longbow's maximum range is 1,100 feet. This distance gives a +110 modifier to the DC of seeing your target (or at least identifying anything about that target...like, is it actually your target or a tree?). Sure, distances like this don't happen during indoors settings, but it isn't really that far in an outdoor setting, especially if you're talking about flying creatures.
Go to a real forest sometime... not one of these urban parks where the trees were long ago chopped down and then replaced with an artificial garden, a real old growth forest. Tell me again, how far you can see.
And yes a +110 modifier to notice someone's button on a shirt is a bit off at that distance is entirely logical.
Ditto on most ordinary noises.
A GM however who makes you roll a Perception check to see if Genghis Khan's horde is on the march at that distance, is simply being nasty.
If you're going to make a blanket statement like that, back it up. Just saying so doesn't an argument, make. The modifiers for Perception DC's seem very straight-forward to me. That doesn't excuse the DM for not taking all of the environmental factors of an encounter into account.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.They work reasonably well up to a couple hundred feet, maybe. After that, you're simply handwaving your ability to notice things.
Everything is simply obvious or not visible past a certain, generally pretty short distance. Either you always see the flying dragon miles away or you can't see it at all. There's no mechanical way to give a chance of noticing it or of missing it.
The modifiers are very straightforward, but they're linear with distance, which isn't how our vision works.
But it works for a game, which and foremost is what we are playing here. Like you said before, they work up to a couple of hundred feet, and that generally covers the bulk of tatical distances for an encounter. Which again, is what the rules were designed to cover... not whether or not you could see the Sun from the ground.
Go to a real forest sometime... not one of these urban parks where the trees were long ago chopped down and then replaced with an artificial garden, a real old growth forest. Tell me again, how far you can see.
Cover and concealment have nothing to do with the distance modifiers to perception rules.
And yes a +110 modifier to notice someone's button on a shirt is a bit off at that distance is entirely logical.
But we're not talking about noticing someone's button -- that would actually be a different modifier (since a button is a Fine object).
A GM however who makes you roll a Perception check to see if Genghis Khan's horde is on the march at that distance, is simply being nasty.
... but acting according to the rules. And, in fact, that's something that was very important historically for armies -- being able to put scouts in locations where they could see what was happening and react appropriately in time to give you a tactical advantage. As is, you literally can't see an enemy soldier 300 feet away.
That's also how whaling worked as well -- the whole operation hinged on the ability of the lookout to be able to spot a whale on the surface of the ocean up to 8 miles away. Let's stat that out in Pathfinder Moby Dick.
Seeing a normal human (who is not using stealth) is a DC 0 check, =1 per 10' distance. A whale is a Colossal creature, so (without making allowance for concealment due to the ocean), Ishmael, an average commoner, would get a +12 bonus to see it. This means he can automatically see it (effective DC 0) at 120 feet, has a 50/50 chance of spotting it (DC 10) at 220 feet, and can see it only rolling a 20 at 320 feet. At 330 feet and beyond (less than a tenth of a mile), Moby Dick is entirely invisible.
[N.b. if you assume that Moby Dick has some sort of concealment from the water, those numbers only get worse.]
Yes, but what about an experienced whaleman like Starbuck? Let's say that he's got a superhuman 22 Wisdom (+6), ten ranks in Perception (+10), and another +14 bonus from various other sources. This gives him a +40 modifier, meaning he can automatically see Moby Dick.... out to 520 feet. He has a 50/50 chance of seeing the whale at 620 feet, and can just make it out by rolling a 20 at 720 feet. Which is still less than a quarter of a mile.
How good would Starbuck need to be to see the whale at one measly mile (which, remember, is only about 1/8 of the actual real-world expectation). Well, at 5280 feet to the mile (actually, the nautical mile is even longer, but what the hell), that's a -528 penalty. So let's stat Starbuck up as a pit fiend (a CR 20 creature with Perception of +33). Wait a minute, that's not even as good as Starbuck was in the previous paragraph....
In fact, Starbuck could be a 100th level ranger, with a Wisdom of 210, and he'd still fall be unable to see a whale a mile away. (100 ranks, +150 misc. bonuses, and +100 stat bonus, and he still needs to roll a 78 to see the whale.)
So Whalefinder just doesn't work. Because the Perception rules are broken.
BARBARIAN CORDIALLY POINT OUT THAT SUN NOT CONCEALING SELF, AM LACKING CONCEALMENT. THIS AM EXPLAINING WHY SUN AM UNPOSSIBLE TO SEE DURING HEAVY CLOUD COVER. AT NIGHT SUN AM HAVING COVER, THUS AM UNSEEABLE UNLESS CLASS AM BARBARIAN AND AM ABLE SUNDER TUNNEL THROUGH ENTIRE PLANET IN LIKE TWO ROUNDS TO GET PAST COVER.
SAME AM TRUE OF WHALES, EXCEPT FOR PART ABOUT SUNDERING. WATER AM WAY EASIER TO SUNDER SO MOST CLASSES AM ABLE TO DO THIS.
Since we are talking about bad rules , I'm gonna mention greatswords. Want free money? Air greatswords. Game doesn't say they're made of metal.
Since there is no good definition of what a success is you get threads like this.
The whole mechanic fails to adaquately differentiate between levels of difficulty.
At 1000 feet with no blocking terrain or attempt to obscure, how would the following be different:
Notice the presence of a medium sized humanoid
Recognize the uniform of that humanoid
Recognize the actual species of that humanoid
Recognize the rank that uniform designates
Recognize the actual individual