The Wisdom behind Spot and Listen

[Jack Zander]

As most play-grounders know, there are some quirks to using Wisdom as the stat modifier to Spot and Listen. Wisdom should represent willpower, intuition, and common sense. None of these have anything to do with how perceptive a character may be. If any stat should be applied to spot and listen, shouldn't it be one that represents a character's health?

Constitution represents a character's health and stamina, and it would make sense for healthy guards to have better eyes and ears than the clerics who spend their days reading prayer books. Also, if having a higher Constitution helps your concentration, wouldn't you think that having a high concentration helps you focus more on the important sights and sounds?

It's also rather silly balance-wise that Constitution only gets one skill that it is attributed to. While Constitution is a useful skill for all classes, we are giving wisdom-based spellcasters the advantage with two of the most useful skills in the game.

[Duke of URL]

Wisdom is dual-purpose. It represents both willpower (strength of will, turned inward, as opposed to Charisma, which is strength of will turned outward) and perception or intuition.

Spot, Listen, insight-type bonuses (Monk/Swordsage AC, Zen Archery, etc.) are based off of the perception/intuition usage of Wisdom.

[Altair_the_Vexed]

...
It's also rather silly balance-wise that Constitution only gets one skill that it is attributed to. While Constitution is a useful skill for all classes, we are giving wisdom-based spellcasters the advantage with two of the most useful skills in the game.
Ah - CON loses out in the skill bonuses because you don't need any more excuses for having a high CON: it drives your HP.

If we make CON especially useful for other things (aside from Fort saves), then CON becomes too much of a must have. It already decides if you live or die - why make it more important?

WIS, on the other hand, needs more love from the non-casters. If it didn't drive the perception skills, it'd be almost as much of a dump stat as CHA for anyone not using it to make their magic go.

[Jack Zander]

Wisdom is dual-purpose. It represents both willpower (strength of will, turned inward, as opposed to Charisma, which is strength of will turned outward) and perception or intuition.

Spot, Listen, insight-type bonuses (Monk/Swordsage AC, Zen Archery, etc.) are based off of the perception/intuition usage of Wisdom.

Sure, by RaW that's what Wisdom represents, but haven't you ever stopped to think about that and realized, "Wait, perception doesn't have anything to do with the actual definition of Wisdom. Where did Wizard's come up with that?"


WIS, on the other hand, needs more love from the non-casters. If it didn't drive the perception skills, it'd be almost as much of a dump stat as CHA for anyone not using it to make their magic go.

Not so fast there melee types! If you dump your wisdom, your already poor will saves will suffer, and you'll be even more of a slave to those magic types. Also, I don't think I've ever taken Wisdom into consideration with my melee types for the sole purpose of spot and listen. I've always kept Wisdom high for my Will save (but maybe that's just me).

[Serpentine]

Put it this way: Wisdom, as well as being common sense and the like, is also the awareness of one's surroundings, instinct, things like that.

[Snake-Aes]

The actual definition of wisdom matches nothing in the wisdom stat. Accumulation of knowledge, insights and connecting different things into a single larger image is an attribute of intelligence.

[Subotei]

Its all about interpreting what you've seen or heard and putting it into context - is that shadow a troll etc. Wisdom represents that the best in DnD. In other systems CON does play a role - CoC and older RQ D100 etc.

[Kylarra]

Since wisdom is also commonly considered the application of knowledge, you could read that it's the act of interpreting the miscellaneous inputs to your visual and auditory senses in such a way that is conducive to picking out specific details, so it's not just being able to see 20/20, but also being able to interpret what you see.

edit:Bah swordsaged.

[Abies]

I think the rationale behind Wisdom being stat associated with the passive perception skills is that it is meant primarily to indicate how "in-tune" a character is with things other than himself. It is through a character's ability to be aware and accurately knowlegable about his environment that allows them to have common sense, willpower and intuition.

In this way Wisdom is like the counterpoint to Charisma. Whereas Charisma is a measureof a character's force of person and his ability to project that upon his environment. Wisdom is a character's ability to perceive and influence his environment through knowlege of his surroundings.

An example: Jedi. I have no knowlege of the d20 Star Wars RPGs, so I'm not sure if anything I say here corresponds to anythign published there. However I have always been of the opinion the Force powers could be either Charisma or Wisdom-based. In Phantom Menace Qui-Gon admonished Obi-Wan to be more mindful of the Force around him, the "Living Force". Obi-Wan had been a very hotheaded and Charisma-based Jedi, Qui-Gon was trying to teach him to use not only his own force of will, but the information and power the world around him was offering.

[Thinker]

As most play-grounders know, there are some quirks to using Wisdom as the stat modifier to Spot and Listen. Wisdom should represent willpower, intuition, and common sense. None of these have anything to do with how perceptive a character may be. If any stat should be applied to spot and listen, shouldn't it be one that represents a character's health?
Like Duke of Url said, Wisdom applies to perception and intuition in addition to what you listed.



Constitution represents a character's health and stamina, and it would make sense for healthy guards to have better eyes and ears than the clerics who spend their days reading prayer books. Also, if having a higher Constitution helps your concentration, wouldn't you think that having a high concentration helps you focus more on the important sights and sounds?
If your argument for a healthy character being better at this skill, you could apply that to practically every skill. A healthier character would be able to move silently better, to swim better, etc. As for guards being better at noticing things, I disagree. Most guards would not have specialized training for spotting or listening, likewise neither would most warriors. Guards are good at guarding against obvious threats, things being out of order, and the like not, at realizing an infiltrator is in his midst.


It's also rather silly balance-wise that Constitution only gets one skill that it is attributed to. While Constitution is a useful skill for all classes, we are giving wisdom-based spellcasters the advantage with two of the most useful skills in the game.
Most skills aren't a matter of balance. Constitution is already one of the most useful ability scores, regardless of class.

[Duke of URL]

Sure, by RaW that's what Wisdom represents, but haven't you ever stopped to think about that and realized, "Wait, perception doesn't have anything to do with the actual definition of Wisdom. Where did Wizard's come up with that?"

Intuition and instinct are a large part of perception. Wisdom can be described as knowing something is truly "simply because" -- it comes via faith, instinct, observation, or other belief, but not by logic and deduction, which is the province of Intelligence.

A below average Int and above average Wis character can have a good deal of common sense, but wouldn't be able to explain how the common sense "rules" came into being, (s)he would simply say that they way things are.

Now, I can make an argument that the "6 attributes" model of D&D isn't particularly a great system for "realistic" modeling, but I wouldn't be just singling out Wisdom in that regard. Dexterity, for example, covers manual finesse as well as reflexes and reaction time -- they aren't very similar at all, but they're lumped together. Strength covers both instantaneous (burst) strength and strength over time, again, not really the same thing. And so on.

[hamishspence]

In Phantom Menace Qui-Gon admonished Obi-Wan to be more mindful of the Force around him, the "Living Force". Obi-Wan had been a very hotheaded and Charisma-based Jedi, Qui-Gon was trying to teach him to use not only his own force of will, but the information and power the world around him was offering.

In this case, it wasn't so much about hotheadedness- but about Obi-Wan thinking too much about the future- (covered by the Unifying Force) at the expense of taking his attention off the present.

[ericgrau]

Wisdom at its core is awareness of thing around you, and the rest of its attributes stem from that. See RAW description. Cha is understanding of people around you. Int is reasoning / learning. You may notice how all 3 work in different ways with what's around you, as this is how the mind works.

[2xMachina]

Hmm, for me, the spot/listen skills are the ability to differentiate something useful from random background/noise.

A higher wisdom lets you differentiate it better.
And as you get older, you get better at recognizing the sight/sounds.

[Eldariel]

Wisdom means two things:
- Common sense, understanding and so on
- Perception

Perception didn't have its own stat so it was tied to an existent stat; they decided on Wis which sorta makes sense (Int would too; after all, it's about deciphering what's important and what is not in your environment). So...that's about it.

[Duke of URL]

Perception didn't have its own stat so it was tied to an existent stat; they decided on Wis which sorta makes sense (Int would too; after all, it's about deciphering what's important and what is not in your environment). So...that's about it.

Actually, they kind of split it. Spot and Listen use Wisdom, but Search uses Intelligence -- I see that as saying that Search is a more analytical examination (looking for patterns, clues, and things that are out of place) while the others are more keyed off of observation, instinct, and intuition.

[Ravens_cry]

I wouldn't say so much perception as awareness, how much you perceive about what you perceive. A wiser person could intuitively know that the flash at the corner of their eye was the rogue trying to stealth away with a drawn knife, or that sound was their footpads, or if they were trained in seeking out and recognizing of such details for what they are, as represented by ranks.

[mucat]

Constitution represents a character's health and stamina, and it would make sense for healthy guards to have better eyes and ears than the clerics who spend their days reading prayer books. Also, if having a higher Constitution helps your concentration, wouldn't you think that having a high concentration helps you focus more on the important sights and sounds?
I think part of the difference in views comes from the fact that you're assuming (and sensibly so) that perception rolls depend in large part on how good your eyes and ears are. WotC assumed, while writing the rules, that everyone's eyes and ears work equally well, so the thing that separates a perceptive character from an unperceptive one is how their brain filters and interprets the information.

Perception depends on both these things. I can tell you for a fact that I am incredibly unperceptive, even with 20/20 vision, normal hearing, and an above-average Constitution; I simply don't pay attention to my surroundings. That's an aspect of Wisdom.

I would suggest leaving Spot and Listen tied to Wisdom -- as others have said, they're a big part of the reason Wisdom isn't a total dump stat for noncasters -- but also give specific modifiers for good or bad senses. If a character is half-deaf (either as a Flaw, or just because they are) they get a penalty on Listen. If they have incredibly sharp eyes, they get a bonus to Spot. But Wisdom still plays a role, because it determines what their brain does with this sensory information.

You could also use this, if you want, to counteract the famously silly "People hear better as they get older" conseqence of the existing rules. Simply take the penalties to physical ability scores, and also apply them to Spot and Listen to represent the senses growing less sharp. This will more than offset the gains in these skills for increasing wisdom as you age. This would be too fiddly and specific to include in RAW, but a perfectly logical house rule.

[Abies]

You could also use this, if you want, to counteract the famously silly "People hear better as they get older" conseqence of the existing rules. Simply take the penalties to physical ability scores, and also apply them to Spot and Listen to represent the senses growing less sharp. This will more than offset the gains in these skills for increasing wisdom as you age. This would be too fiddly and specific to include in RAW, but a perfectly logical house rule.

I don't know... My Grandmother can hear things I'd never notice, like cars pulling into the driveway while in the basement. Perhaps she just started with a really high Wis and I'm low, but not everyone experiences hearing loss or loss of eyesight as they age. In order to keep verisimilitude I'd say a random table with potential sensory losses be used for elderly characters. Of course, the potential for loss would be favored on such a table, but one can not discount the not insubstantial potential for an old person to be just as perceptive as ever.

[Tyndmyr]

Mostly because they had six stats, and none of them fit great. So, they squashed them in where they were somewhat justifiable, and would be more or less balanced.

[Wardog]

This bugged me for a while, as - as Snake-Aes put it "The actual definition of wisdom matches nothing in the wisdom stat".


An eventual justification I came up with is that "wisdom" represents something like "force sensitivity" in Star Wars.

That way it suddenly makes sense that it:
* Represents your ability to use "spiritual" magic
* Helps you sense whats going on around you
* Boosts your resistence to mind control and similar magic

[Jack Zander]

I think part of the difference in views comes from the fact that you're assuming (and sensibly so) that perception rolls depend in large part on how good your eyes and ears are. WotC assumed, while writing the rules, that everyone's eyes and ears work equally well, so the thing that separates a perceptive character from an unperceptive one is how their brain filters and interprets the information.

Perception depends on both these things. I can tell you for a fact that I am incredibly unperceptive, even with 20/20 vision, normal hearing, and an above-average Constitution; I simply don't pay attention to my surroundings. That's an aspect of Wisdom.

I would suggest leaving Spot and Listen tied to Wisdom -- as others have said, they're a big part of the reason Wisdom isn't a total dump stat for noncasters -- but also give specific modifiers for good or bad senses. If a character is half-deaf (either as a Flaw, or just because they are) they get a penalty on Listen. If they have incredibly sharp eyes, they get a bonus to Spot. But Wisdom still plays a role, because it determines what their brain does with this sensory information.

You could also use this, if you want, to counteract the famously silly "People hear better as they get older" conseqence of the existing rules. Simply take the penalties to physical ability scores, and also apply them to Spot and Listen to represent the senses growing less sharp. This will more than offset the gains in these skills for increasing wisdom as you age. This would be too fiddly and specific to include in RAW, but a perfectly logical house rule.

This was the only reasoning that made any sense to me, and that also didn't say, "But Wizard's says Wisdom affects spot and listen so that's what it should do"

I'm also surprised at how many people will fight to keep good things away from melee.

[Kylarra]

I'm also surprised at how many people will fight to keep good things away from melee.As much as this defense is thrown around, I don't think this is really one of those situations. A bigger problem than melee "having" to put points into wisdom for spot/listen, is the fact that they don't get enough skill points and generally don't even have it on their lists of class skills. :smalltongue:

Note that making it con based hardly detracts from Wis based casters at all since Con is a secondary stat for all of them anyway!

[Reluctance]

Giving nice things to melee would involve giving them perception skills as class skills. Basing them off Con is just giving everybody a boost. If anything, the casters who need the Concentration and HP to pad their smaller hit dice have more incentive than the melee types.

The skills are ultimately based on Wisdom for the same reason that we have Listen/Spot as opposed to Perception and Hide/Move Silently as opposed to Stealth; Gygax&co had what ultimately amounted to a huge unwieldy collection of houserules, and WotC erred on the side of literally translating most of D&D canon.

[Kylarra]

Actually if anything, making it con based helps the int-based casters who ignore wisdom and pump con since it helps their perceptions based skills that they actually have points for.

[Saph]

Actually if anything, making it con based helps the int-based casters who ignore wisdom and pump con since it helps their perceptions based skills that they actually have points for.

Yeah, wisdom is one of the most popular dump stats for arcane-based casters, while Constitution is the universal secondary stat. Hence switching perception to Constitution would make little difference balance-wise. I really think people should stop throwing around the "melee shouldn't get nice things" strawman.

[Jack Zander]

Well maybe my play experience is different than the rest of yours but generally this is how priorities go in my group:

Melee: Str > Con > Wis > Dex = Int > Cha

Ranged: Dex > Con > Str = Wis > Int > Cha

Divine: Wis > Str > Con = Cha > Dex = Int

Arcane: Int (or Cha) > Dex > Con = Wis > Str = Cha (or Int)

Rogues especially in my group would benefit from Con to awareness as they never seem to have enough attributes to throw around and as a result often end up dumping wisdom. Casters are typically not concerned with their Constitution as much as their wisdom as they expect the meat shield and their spells to protect them, and they enjoy being able to resist charms and whatnot with relative ease.

[Yuki Akuma]

...Why would a melee character prioritise Wisdom over Dexterity? Does he not like AC?

And it's not as if your ability score modifiers matter for skill checks past around level three or so. Skill ranks scale faster than ability score modifiers.

And if you don't even have ranks in Listen or Spot you shouldn't expect to ever make the DCs anyway, high ability modifier or no. The DCs are horrendously high.

[Saph]

I usually find that pretty much every class picks Con as the secondary stat. The lower your Hit Dice, the more important Con becomes, because it has a higher relative benefit: an extra 2 HP per level is a bigger deal for a class with a d4 HD than for a class with d10.

[Acero]

You hear a rustle in the forrest.

Intellignece says 'there's a noise'. You keep walking

Wisdom realizes that the noise was leaves on the ground being crushed. A lot of leaves. You ready your bow and prepare for the bear about to emerge from the bushes

[Kylarra]

...Why would a melee character prioritise Wisdom over Dexterity? Does he not like AC?Well he does only need 12 if he's going for non-mithril full plate.

Like Saph, my experience is that Con is generally prioritized as the secondary stat for pretty much everyone.

[Snake-Aes]

Well he does only need 12 if he's going for non-mithril full plate.

Like Saph, my experience is that Con is generally prioritized as the secondary stat for pretty much everyone.
Third at the latest with classes that require more stats, especially if they can emulate more hit points like psychic warriors.

[Kylarra]

Third at the latest with classes that require more stats, especially if they can emulate more hit points like psychic warriors.Fair enough, some builds can make it tertiary, but it's still high up there.

[Snake-Aes]

Yeah, no creature with a con score dumps con. Finding it not within the top 3 is generally "HERESY!"

[Saph]

I don't think I've ever voluntarily played a character with less than a 14 con. The lowest was 12, and that was because I was playing an elf.

Last week our DM ran an old-style one-shot dungeoncrawl where we rolled 3d6 for our stats, in order. I ended up with a Con score of 4. I was also the only party member with healing magic. It worked out about as well as you'd expect. :smalltongue:

[Jack Zander]

I don't think I've ever voluntarily played a character with less than a 14 con. The lowest was 12, and that was because I was playing an elf.

Last week our DM ran an old-style one-shot dungeoncrawl where we rolled 3d6 for our stats, in order. I ended up with a Con score of 4. I was also the only party member with healing magic. It worked out about as well as you'd expect. :smalltongue:

Really? I love playing low-con characters. I'm currently playing a necromancer and I dumped Con just for the flavor of working with death so often that I'm close to death myself.

[Thinker]

Really? I love playing low-con characters. I'm currently playing a necromancer and I dumped Con just for the flavor of working with death so often that I'm close to death myself.

I don't see how having a lower con makes your character any closer to death in any way, except being easier to kill. To be honest, it just seems stupid.

[Jack Zander]

I don't see how having a lower con makes your character any closer to death in any way, except being easier to kill. To be honest, it just seems stupid.

Well thank you for the high praise.

[ericgrau]

It means you're in poor health all the time, easily winded, etc., which is semi-related. Whether or not that means you're closer to death, life sure sucks.

I would love to play a low con character some time... when it actually makes sense. Adventurers are constantly beating into things, taking hits, and withstanding all kinds of adventuring hazards. It actually makes sense for every single one to have a high con (and poor charisma / social skills for that matter). You do not slay dragons with asthma and a winning personality. No, I mean some kind of campaign full of intrigue, espionage, politics and double crossing where dumping con makes sense would be a hoot.

I also agree pumping wisdom for another +1 to will saves makes little sense. I'd put it at maybe 4th priority. In a high stats campaign where I can easily get what I need even from 5th stat it might get 3rd priority. Maybe.

[Orzel]

I played a CON 6 wizard before. Good times. Good "short" times. Always paranoid. Scared to get hit EVER. Fogs and protections and teleports. Was the only time I played a non-rolled character with less than 12 CON in 3.X. So fun.

Back on wisdom. I always thought of wisdom as a information input. Wisdom determine how many items of incoming information you pay attention to at once. A person with low wisdom would just see the man talking to him. A high WIS person would see all the microexpressions and body language. He'll still need Intelligence to use all the information he obtains but unlike the low wisdom person, he'll actually recognize details.

Wisdom boost Spot and Listen by increasing the number of sound the person will pay attention to and not tune out. Wisdom aid divine characters and boosts will waves by allowing the subject to listen to their inner self (and their diety)

[ffone]

Why does Wisdom modify Spot and Listen?

Because apparently the part of mental ability that reflects awareness/perception is grouped into "Ability Score 5", commonly called Wisdom.

That's my answer for many DnD interpretation/fluff questions. Webster's definition of 'wisdom' isn't that important. The six ability scores are projections/groupings of people's abilities into 6 categories. Those categories have to be named something for convenience (and flavor). As long as the abilities within a group tend to be more correlated than across groups (visually aware people tend to be aurally aware, good swimmers tend to be good climbers, etc.) it's okay.

[Shalist]

...I simply don't pay attention to my surroundings. That's an aspect of Wisdom.

+1...I've always seen wisdom as mental fortitude or stamina--someone with low wisdom is "intellectually lazy," and thus paying less attention to their surroundings (like zoning out or going on autopilot while doing something boring or routine/familiar, ie standing that 6-hour midnight watch where nothing ever happens). They might hear the same things, but the low wisdom person simply won't notice, or bother giving it a second thought if he does.

And regarding search more than spot...think of the game where you look at a picture for 30 seconds, then look at a very similar picture, and have to list all the differences--a little visual acuity won't help your 'search' check too much there.

[Tyndmyr]

I played a CON 6 wizard before. Good times. Good "short" times. Always paranoid. Scared to get hit EVER. Fogs and protections and teleports. Was the only time I played a non-rolled character with less than 12 CON in 3.X. So fun.

*sigh* I have a con 14 wizard atm. You'd think this would be good, but I always, ALWAYS roll 1s on the hp. It sucks turning level 6 and being stoked about breaking 20 hp.

Even Imp. Toughness isn't enough to fix that. Yeah, high con is definitely your friend.

[Jack Zander]

*sigh* I have a con 14 wizard atm. You'd think this would be good, but I always, ALWAYS roll 1s on the hp. It sucks turning level 6 and being stoked about breaking 20 hp.

Even Imp. Toughness isn't enough to fix that. Yeah, high con is definitely your friend.

Oh, you roll for HP, that's what the problem is I guess. Our group hates all those 1's especially when it turns into the wizards and rogues getting more hp than the barbarian who always rolls a 1. Instead we take the average HP for a character (low average on even levels and high average on odd levels). I guess that would make Con less important to us with the randomness taken away.

[2xMachina]

It's still big.

Wizards have 2.5 average HP? 14 con is +2 HP. Nearly doubles your HP.

[Eldariel]

*sigh* I have a con 14 wizard atm. You'd think this would be good, but I always, ALWAYS roll 1s on the hp. It sucks turning level 6 and being stoked about breaking 20 hp.

Even Imp. Toughness isn't enough to fix that. Yeah, high con is definitely your friend.

Well, think of the good news: As your levels grow, the percentile relevance of the rolled portion of your HP decreases steadily as you gain higher and higher magic-boosts to Con so you won't be all that much behind in the end. And statistics suggest you should have better luck next roll.