Losing Spot and Listen and Replacing with Perception

[lylsyly]

I am looking at dropping Listen and Spot as skills and replacing them with Perception ala PF. This will help characters with few skill points and will help me when I need to roll separate checks (by allowing me to roll once, not twice).

The thing is, I don't think you should have to spend any skill points on Perception. I feel that I can allow all players to have a perception score.

What I have conceived of is this: Your Perception Score is your WIS Modifier + your Character Level (ECL)

What do you think?

[Zombimode]

I am looking at dropping Listen and Spot as skills and replacing them with Perception ala PF. This will help characters with few skill points and will help me when I need to roll separate checks (by allowing me to roll once, not twice).

The thing is, I don't think you should have to spend any skill points on Perception. I feel that I can allow all players to have a perception score.

What I have conceived of is this: Your Perception Score is your WIS Modifier + your Character Level (ECL)

What do you think?

You are massively devalueing hide and move silently. In order to be good a stealth you would absolutely HAVE to optimize like crazy, Truespeak-like. There would be nothing in between.

[lylsyly]

that's why I ask, I hadn't considered that ;(

So maybe just combine both into perception but you still have to spend points like any other skill?

[Ursus Spelaeus]

Are you going to consolidate Sneak and Move Silently into a Stealth skill?

[lylsyly]

Do you mean Hide and Move Silently?

Both are DEX based (just as Listen and Spot are both WIS based) so I could live with that, of course I could also find some other things to combine as well.

I get the impression that this is not a good idea.

I have also considered just granting ALL class skills at your character level. Need a skill? Take a dip (but figured this was bad too).

Then there is the concept of ALL skills cost 1 point but the max ranks stay the same for both class and cross class skills.

Or, you can take a number of WIS based skill levels equal to your WIS score (ditto for other ability scores) at character generation, then figure points normally (still adhering to the max ranks bit).

[Zombimode]

Are you going to consolidate Sneak and Move Silently into a Stealth skill?

While that would help a bit, it doesn't really adress the problem. The problem of the proposed changes are that suddenly and enormous amount of creatures that previously had no ranks in Listen or Spot (or only in one of them) now have good to stellar Perceptions scores thanks to their number of HD. While it wont be noticable at the very early levels, it wont take long when it matters.
Remember, monster HD does not scale lineary to CR, while player characters hide and move silently ranks do.

[Ursus Spelaeus]

Do you mean Hide and Move Silently?
I did, thanks.


While that would help a bit, it doesn't really adress the problem. The problem of the proposed changes are that suddenly and enormous amount of creatures that previously had no ranks in Listen or Spot (or only in one of them) now have good to stellar Perceptions scores thanks to their number of HD. While it wont be noticable at the very early levels, it wont take long when it matters.
Remember, monster HD does not scale lineary to CR, while player characters hide and move silently ranks do.

What if we give different progressions to perception according to type?

Maybe humanoids get +HD to Perception, but other types get half HD or 1/4 HD to Perception?

[Durzan]

I basically did something like this with my WoT and 3.5 Hybrid games... only it involved more skills:

Hide and Move Silently merged into Stealth
Spot & Listen merged into Perception.
Climb, Swim, & Jump merged into Athletics
Balance & Tumble merged into Acrobatics
Use Rope becomes Craft (Wis, Hitching)
Merged a few knowledge skills together, as having WoT knowledge skills would double the number of knowledge skills.
Open Lock was folded into Disable Device.
etc.


On top of that, all skills only require 1 SP to go up 1 rank, but the limits on ranks still stay the same. Also, if you have multiple classes, then all skills listed as class skills for any classes are considered class skills whenever you level up.

And Skill points increase retroactively. All of these changes makes book keeping a whole lot easier for players.

[lylsyly]

@Durzan: This is kinda what I am looking at (or just giving the PCs more skill points to spend). I have started to DM part time and I like to run Skill oriented games with puzzles, mysteries, ect (toning down the combat aspects somewhat).

I also would like to reduce the book-keeping somewhat.

I've got 9 weeks to figure it out and add it to the mini campaign I will be running.

I do appreciate everyone's responses and am always open to suggestions/criticisms.