(Spot vs Listen) vs Hide and Move

[JeminiZero]

(Note: I am aware that Pathfinder as well as some houserules merge Spot+Listen into Perception/ Awareness/Notice, and Hide+Move into Stealth. Assume you can still only pick one set in each scenario below.) So here is a question I was mulling over. Lets say you are making a skill monkey (e.g. Rogue or Beguiler). And you are deciding how to allocate your skills. We have 2 different scenarios as follows:

Scenario 1: You decide that you want to invest in a sensory skill. You have enough skill points to max out spot or listen, but not both. Which of the 2 sensory skills would be a better choice?

Granted each has its own niche (e.g. Spot lets you spot the fleeing villain in the middle of a crowd. Listen lets you eavesdrop on the plotting villain from the next room. ) And here are some other things to consider:

Spot Pros

Can be used to counter Sleight of Hand. We all know angry PCs get when somebody swipes their stuff.
Can also be used to counter Disguise (provided you know the original person the disguiser is trying to emulate).


Listen Pros

If you get access to Listening Lorecall (e.g. eternal wand for 4420 gp), 12 ranks in Listen becomes Blindsight. which is one of the cheapest ways to get this valuable ability.


So if you could only pick one, which skill would you pick and why?

Scenario 2: Lets say you now have enough ranks to max out 2 skills. You can pick Spot+Listen or Hide+Move.

Again, each skillset has a specific niche. (E.g. Spot+Listen is almost always useful in noticing stuff, but doesn't necesarily give a huge advantage. Hide+Move lets you sneak into Mordor and drop the ring into Mount Doom.)

So if you could only pick one set, which would it be and why?

[andromax]

I think that DMs generally ask for spot checks more frequently, in terms of ambushes, loot, and hidden things such as levers, books, items etc that you may need. This is where very high spot checks may come in handy.

Listen checks are certainly important and can be boosted to respectable levels (+10-15 mod) without too many ranks (1 or 2 ranks) with a few items and a decent WIS score, and will get you by alot of the time, because you're generally only rolling higher Listen DCs vs move silently, which is much less often than a high spot check, generally..


10 ranks in Listen becomes Blindsight.

Also fixed the ranks requirement.

[Hand_of_Vecna]

I personally prefer the Perception/Stealth System, because the 3.5 skill system is just too demanding. The cliche rogue is expected to have like 10-12 skills at respectable levels and that's without also having social skills and before taking anything for flavor.

For my Money though it's:

Spot- Both skills can generally sniff out an ambush with equal investment since enemies will more often than not have near equal Hide/MS. I find DMs tend to call for Spot more often for miscellaneous notice stuff in the dungeon situations and for things like identifying things at a distance.

Move Silently- In a lot of situations you only need move silently to be stealthy like if your moving through a dungeon, you can use move silently to get the party up to a door undetected then get a surprise round when you open the door. Sneaking into a building can work similarly, walk around nonchalantly (maybe requiring bluff), make a spot check to make sure you aren't being observed, then do the break in quietly.

Obviously magic can be used to substitute for skill at being stealthy and the best option is to stack magical and mundane stealth, but I prefer Invisibility and Move Silently to Hide and Silence.

[rockdeworld]

Spot, because being able to hear an invisible person is worthless if you can't see them for purposes of attack rolls. Also, you don't get a listen check after someone uses Sniping.

And along those same lines, incorporeal creatures have what amounts to an unbeatable move silently check, but only +20 to hide.

Hence why I use pathfinder skills instead of 3.5 when I DM (i.e. listening shouldn't be a separate skill).

[Lorsa]

I have recently started thinking about the implications of Hide / Move Silently as two separate skills, something I hadn't before. In the beginning, when someone wanted to sneak up on someone I often had them roll both hide AND move silently. This implies though that there are two skills the NPC can use to detect the sneaker, spot to counter the hide and listen to counter the move silently. This seems a bit weird as it just makes it more likely you will fail either of the two rolls. After reading through the skills a bit more carefully recently however I don't think that's what was intended. My guess is that it is supposed to be situational. When people can't see you but everything is quiet and you are trying to move past, you use move silently. When there's enough noice around (which is quite common I believe) for people not to hear you it's the hide that matters. And most of the time it will be Hide / Spot that comes in effect, especially as hide seem to have a broader scope.

But yes, thinking about it, it seems quite weird to have two skills that are always used for just about the same thing, I just never questioned it before. Were I to choose though, I think Spot and Hide are the two main skills so choose those first.

In general I think D&D gives too few skillpoints considering the large amount of skills availible.

[Slipperychicken]

Spot. It's rolled much more often than Listen.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I have recently started thinking about the implications of Hide / Move Silently as two separate skills, something I hadn't before. In the beginning, when someone wanted to sneak up on someone I often had them roll both hide AND move silently. This implies though that there are two skills the NPC can use to detect the sneaker, spot to counter the hide and listen to counter the move silently. This seems a bit weird as it just makes it more likely you will fail either of the two rolls. After reading through the skills a bit more carefully recently however I don't think that's what was intended. My guess is that it is supposed to be situational. When people can't see you but everything is quiet and you are trying to move past, you use move silently. When there's enough noice around (which is quite common I believe) for people not to hear you it's the hide that matters. And most of the time it will be Hide / Spot that comes in effect, especially as hide seem to have a broader scope.

But yes, thinking about it, it seems quite weird to have two skills that are always used for just about the same thing, I just never questioned it before. Were I to choose though, I think Spot and Hide are the two main skills so choose those first.

In general I think D&D gives too few skillpoints considering the large amount of skills availible.

It's not so strange if you really look into how stealth - counter-stealth works IRL.

For my money, if I absolutely can only pick 2 of the 4, I'll go with listen and spot. The tactical disadvantage of being caught by suprise weighs far more heavily on a character than the tactical advantage of suprising the enemy. If you try to sneak up on someone and botch it you're left fighting on equal terms. If someone successfully sneaks up on you, you're at a disadvantage.

If I have to pick one perception and one stealth, listen and hide.

Listen because, yeah, incorporeal creatures can't be heard unless they want to. They can also move through the ground, meaning that they can't be seen if they don't want to either. Corporeal creatures, on the other hand, can't move toward you without provoking a listen check, but if they're invisible they enjoy a +20 to hide at all times and can freeze for a +30 that makes pin-pointing even an untrained hider extremely difficult with spot. The listen check dc modifier to pin-point an enemy remains the same, regardless of why you can't see him.

Hide because it's much easier to lie in wait to ambush an enemy on the move than to try and sneak up on a stationary one and once battle begins moving quietly doesn't mean much.

[Spuddles]

Mechanically- listen, for the reasons already listed. Basically, it's way easier to hear a sneak thief than spot one.

Metagame- usually spot, because you roll it much more frequently.


I too prefer PF's perception/stealth mechanic. There's no compelling reason to have all 4 skills, especially with stuff like smell or other methods of detection.

[RagnaroksChosen]

I hate how pathfinder mushed them together.
I personally am A bigger fan of the 3.5 skill selection. There are a few I wish could be merged together or ripped apart. (for example open lock and disable device we house rule that open lock is part of disable device). But the sense skills I like where they are.. There is a huge difference between being able to spot something at a distance and searching through stuff, yes they are both visual but the process and what not is very different.

So to answer your questions.

Scenario 1:
Spot hands down. Both for meta-game reasons and because I generally like it over Listen. Though generally more of my PC's have Listen as it makes more sense for them.

Scenario 2:
Depends on what Race I am playing.
Naturally stealthy/Small, I'm gonna pick the Listen and Spot,
Other races Hide and move silently.

[JeminiZero]

[ quote=jeminizero]10 ranks in Listen becomes Blindsight.

Also fixed the ranks requirement.[/QUOTE]

The version in SpC says 12 ranks. Is there another later version?

[ericgrau]

Granted each has its own niche (e.g. Spot lets you spot the fleeing villain in the middle of a crowd. Listen lets you eavesdrop on the plotting villain from the next room. ) And here are some other things to consider:
This is the problem right here. Spot says it's usually for hiding, or sometimes for things that are particularly difficult to see. If he's fleeing he's not hiding, not without a big penalty anyway. If he slows down to blend into the crowd then he might hide. But then "sometimes" gets changed into "almost always" and you pretty much need spot to see anything or you're nearly blind for all plot purposes. In that case spot is king of all.

But let's assume for a moment that spot is mainly for countering hide like the RAW, and the other uses are so infrequent that we don't really worry about them when deciding. Well most things don't hide so it doesn't get used very often. Listen OTOH not only counters move silently, it's also the main way to deal with invisibility. Invisibility is common later on, as are fog, darkness, blindness and other miscellaneous concealment. So listen wins hands down.

On the flipside even if a foe can hear you but not see you, at best he can find your square and then only with an exceptional check. And you still have a 50% miss chance even with the exceptional check. So between hide and move silently I'd prefer hide on a rogue. Doubly so in a party, where some loud person is going to blow your position anyway. On a non-rogue or with a good party caster, I'd pick move silently but only in expectation of frequent invisibility spells.

Hide and move silently combine well if you don't have invisibility. Then you can keep taking 10s, anyone who isn't expecting you is on watch so he is also taking 10s, and you can usually glide through the entire area undetected. With invisibility I'd pick skills based on the above reasons, unrelated to any combo trick.

But leaving my fantasy for a minute and going back to no spot = blind, such DMs usually screw with hide and move silently too and they'll never let you scout risk free. How dare you accomplish something of minor use without rolling vs. being alone, surrounded and dying! In that case I pick up spot and listen and focus on open combat instead of skills.

[Duke of Urrel]

After reading through the skills a bit more carefully recently however I don't think that's what was intended. My guess is that it is supposed to be situational. When people can't see you but everything is quiet and you are trying to move past, you use move silently. When there's enough noice around (which is quite common I believe) for people not to hear you it's the hide that matters. And most of the time it will be Hide / Spot that comes in effect, especially as hide seem to have a broader scope.

It is true that it's seldom necessary to make both a Spot check and a Listen check. One successful check is usually enough. However, if you are trying to avoid being noticed, it is a good idea to use both Hide and Move Silently skill preventively, because you don't know whether your enemies are more likely to see you or to hear you.

It's also true that Spot skill seems to be decisive more often than Listen skill, unless your sense of sight is negated by blindness, invisible creatures, or impenetrable darkness or fog.

I think the more careful the dungeon master is about granting Spot and Listen checks, the more equal these two skills become. Spot checks are a little overused, I think. On the one hand, if you have line of sight to a creature, you should generally see it without having to make a Spot check, unless it is a long distance away. On the other hand, if you are surrounded by vegetation, there should be a middle distance in which you must make a Spot check to see a creature, and a greater distance in which there are so many obstructions that a creature has total concealment from you. The thicker the vegetation, the shorter these distances become, and in a very dense forest, you should find that Listen skill is more important than Spot skill, because you are likely to hear the forest-dwelling creatures before they come close enough for you to see them.

There are rules (or were rules, in the 3.0 Dungeon Master's Guide, which I still consult often) that help to determine when DMs should grant Spot checks (depending on the surrounding vegetation), but to my knowledge, there are none that help to determine when DMs should grant Listen checks. I think similar rules should apply, so that Listen skill becomes as important as I believe it is in the real world. Louder noises made by nearby creatures should automatically be heard without Listen skill, but softer ones from farther away should require Listen checks. I add a range penalty of +1 for every 10 feet of distance to Move Silently checks as well as to Listen DCs, to reflect the fact that soft sounds very far away should be nearly impossible to hear.

Above all, it is important to remember that Hide skill does not "provoke" Spot checks, and that Move Silently skill does not "provoke" Listen checks. The dungeon master should grant Spot and Listen checks in a consistent way, taking care not to grant more Spot checks simply because somebody nearby is using Hide skill, and not to grant more Listen checks simply because somebody nearby is using Move Silently skill.

[Kelb_Panthera]

It is true that it's seldom necessary to make both a Spot check and a Listen check. One successful check is usually enough. However, if you are trying to avoid being noticed, it is a good idea to use both Hide and Move Silently skill preventively, because you don't know whether your enemies are more likely to see you or to hear you.

It's also true that Spot skill seems to be decisive more often than Listen skill, unless your sense of sight is negated by blindness, invisible creatures, or impenetrable darkness or fog.

I think the more careful the dungeon master is about granting Spot and Listen checks, the more equal these two skills become. Spot checks are a little overused, I think. On the one hand, if you have line of sight to a creature, you should generally see it without having to make a Spot check, unless it is a long distance away. On the other hand, if you are surrounded by vegetation, there should be a middle distance in which you must make a Spot check to see a creature, and a greater distance in which there are so many obstructions that a creature has total concealment from you. The thicker the vegetation, the shorter these distances become, and in a very dense forest, you should find that Listen skill is more important than Spot skill, because you are likely to hear the forest-dwelling creatures before they come close enough for you to see them.

There are rules (or were rules, in the 3.0 Dungeon Master's Guide, which I still consult often) that help to determine when DMs should grant Spot checks (depending on the surrounding vegetation), but to my knowledge, there are none that help to determine when DMs should grant Listen checks. I think similar rules should apply, so that Listen skill becomes as important as I believe it is in the real world. Louder noises made by nearby creatures should automatically be heard without Listen skill, but softer ones from farther away should require Listen checks. I add a range penalty of +1 for every 10 feet of distance to Move Silently checks as well as to Listen DCs, to reflect the fact that soft sounds very far away should be nearly impossible to hear.

Above all, it is important to remember that Hide skill does not "provoke" Spot checks, and that Move Silently skill does not "provoke" Listen checks. The dungeon master should grant Spot and Listen checks in a consistent way, taking care not to grant more Spot checks simply because somebody nearby is using Hide skill, and not to grant more Listen checks simply because somebody nearby is using Move Silently skill.

The environment sections in the DMG give encounter starting distances for various types of terrain. These distances are likely intended to represent just how far line of sight extends before local obstructions block it. Several of the types of specific terrain listed also impose penalties on move-silently. Combined with the circumstantial modifiers in the skill's description, it shouldn't be terribly difficult to determine how far away a character can hear under the current conditions.

[andromax]

The version in SpC says 12 ranks. Is there another later version?

Whoops, I guess Spell compendium came out about 11 months after the Complete Adventurer version I was thinking off.