Class and Level Geekery XVI - These Characters May Now Drive the Plot

[Jasdoif]

It's so bizarre. It seems like they could've just made "utterances" work sort of like spells or something and called it a day but they went out of their way to make it bad.

Tome of Magic's motif is "magic that isn't like Vancian D&D". Though maybe summon splatbook editor is one of those Vancian spells....

[Doug Lampert]

Tome of Magic's motif is "magic that isn't like Vancian D&D". Though maybe summon splatbook editor is one of those Vancian spells....

They wanted skill based magic, it's a pretty common thing to want, magic FEELS like it ought to be a skill or an inherent thing, and for D&D characters who progress and learn, learned makes a lot more sense.

But +10 to a skill costs 10,000 GP, that's about what a +2 weapon costs. You simply can't give +10 caster level equivalent for that little, not if the powers are worthwhile in any meaningful way.

You can either rewrite the entire skills section of the rules and everything that interacts with the skill's section so that you don't go handing out +2's and +5's like candy, or you can make sure that your skill based magic is actually based on class level, with the skills as nearly pure fluff or a trivial tax, or you can make sure that your skill based magic can't do anything much.

Those are really the only choices. Tome of Magic went with "we'll make it useless", and it looks like they then also went with "and we won't edit it, because it's useless".

I get the feeling that someone involved wanted to just make the skill checks a tax, but whoever they were, they lost the argument.

[Jasdoif]

They wanted skill based magic, it's a pretty common thing to want, magic FEELS like it ought to be a skill or an inherent thing, and for D&D characters who progress and learn, learned makes a lot more sense.

But +10 to a skill costs 10,000 GP, that's about what a +2 weapon costs. You simply can't give +10 caster level equivalent for that little, not if the powers are worthwhile in any meaningful way.

You can either rewrite the entire skills section of the rules and everything that interacts with the skill's section so that you don't go handing out +2's and +5's like candy, or you can make sure that your skill based magic is actually based on class level, with the skills as nearly pure fluff or a trivial tax, or you can make sure that your skill based magic can't do anything much.

Those are really the only choices. Tome of Magic went with "we'll make it useless", and it looks like they then also went with "and we won't edit it, because it's useless".

Maybe they used up all the editing slots/time on the Binder and Shadowcaster sections? (It certainly doesn't help that the skill system is the clunkiest part of general 3.5 ....)

[Doug Lampert]

Maybe they used up all the editing slots/time on the Binder and Shadowcaster sections? (It certainly doesn't help that the skill system is the clunkiest part of general 3.5 ....)

Yeah, when I first typed my reply, I mentioned that the skill system is, less than good. With 3 examples of sections where it was obvious in 3.0 that no one had ever read the skill section, and it stayed the same or actively got worse in 3.5.

Then I decided "what's the point" and just went with the obvious global bad scaling. It would be workable if skills scaled smoothly with level in a vaguely predictable way, but they really don't, so it doesn't work.

[Emanick]

Yeah, when I first typed my reply, I mentioned that the skill system is, less than good. With 3 examples of sections where it was obvious in 3.0 that no one had ever read the skill section, and it stayed the same or actively got worse in 3.5.

Then I decided "what's the point" and just went with the obvious global bad scaling. It would be workable if skills scaled smoothly with level in a vaguely predictable way, but they really don't, so it doesn't work.

Out of curiosity, what are your criticisms of the 3.x skill system? I find myself missing it most of the time I play 5e, and while it seems easy to “break” if you’re trying to powergame, with the exception of Diplomacy it always seemed both natural and practical in my own games.

[Squire Doodad]

Tome of Magic's motif is "magic that isn't like Vancian D&D". Though maybe summon splatbook editor is one of those Vancian spells....

Summon Editor VI is the first level you can get a splatbook editor. Before that, you can get a monster manual writer for Summon Editor III-V while Summon Editor I-II only offers people who write Dragonlance fanfic.

[Doug Lampert]

Out of curiosity, what are your criticisms of the 3.x skill system? I find myself missing it most of the time I play 5e, and while it seems easy to “break” if you’re trying to powergame, with the exception of Diplomacy it always seemed both natural and practical in my own games.

Good thing you have that except, because RAW Diplomacy is blatantly horrible, and at quite low level without cheese, just used as obviously intended by a character built to be a party face it breaks the game. That alone demonstrates that they weren't paying any attention to skills, because that got WORSE between 3.0 and 3.5 (more synergy bonuses, all available for a bard, and I think half-elf got a +2 to diplomacy in the change over too).

Spot penalties for distance are linear, but the bonuses for target size are logarithmic. You can't see a mountain at half a mile, you can't hope to see the sun. A dragon flying overhead WILL see you while you can't see it if you use the rules. Your party rogue can hear one kobold whispering to another at 100' through two locked doors more easily than the kobold he's whispering to can hear him. So much for Tucker's kobolds if they are required to communicate to set their ambushes. The range penalties for spot and listen are just broken, and those are two of the most used and most important adventuring skills.

Craft is usable untrained, 3 Int, 0 ranks, take 10, 3 GP per week. The EXACT SAME section of the rules tells you that it's 1 SP per day for unskilled labor, so unskilled labor gets less than 1/4th of the pay of the LEAST SKILLED character it is possible to build in core. You're seriously going to claim that's well thought out?

I once had a prolonged discussion of what you could do with 3.x craft where I was the one claiming it's useless and that 4th did well to eliminate the skill and everyone else thought it was useful in an adventure with a bit of creativity. But their potential uses were 100% not legal and made it obvious they'd never used the rules. They didn't know you needed components to craft anything by RAW, they didn't know there were rules on how long it takes to use craft to repair things and again it needs components (which means their "you have to use craft to fix the wagon" would take longer than going to town to buy a new wagon and coming back), ext... You can make that adventure work, but to do so you have to house-rule away the actual craft rules and apply something usable. Similarly for their "if the PCs retreat then the kobolds can craft traps", "over how long and with how many GP in components?"

[Jasdoif]

Good thing you have that except, because RAW Diplomacy is blatantly horrible, and at quite low level without cheese, just used as obviously intended by a character built to be a party face it breaks the game. That alone demonstrates that they weren't paying any attention to skills, because that got WORSE between 3.0 and 3.5 (more synergy bonuses, all available for a bard, and I think half-elf got a +2 to diplomacy in the change over too).

Somewhat related.


Anyway, the implementation itself is where most of my criticisms lie....Every other class-based statistic you can doubled-check pretty easily: Saves, you sum the saves of each class and add the ability score at the end. Attack bonus, the same. Hit points, you generally have to live with separating summing 1s and die sizes, and then adding the Constitution modifier times the number of dice, and see if you're in the range. Skill points...you'd have to track level by level, because the first level is quadrupled, the actual number of skill points is based on the class and the Intelligence modifier (but only for the base score and inherent bonus) at the time the level was gained, and the actual number of total skill ranks can be half that because of different costs for cross-class skills, and the cap is dependent on whether a skill has ever been a class skill even if it didn't have any ranks....Oh, and then there were skill tricks that cost skill points, so it could actually still be less than half as many total ranks as skill points. It's very easy to mess up and not realize you did it...and conversely, to try to build an unconventional character (or an INT-dependent conventional character, or anyone who'd ever want a tome of clear thought during their lifetime) above 1st level and have to grasp at straws to figure out how to get the skill points into skill ranks to best fit the concept.

Past the build complexity, the steadily increasing skill rank caps as you level also lead to sharp divergences by mid-level....Either DCs are fixed like Diplomacy (or just an opposed check against a skill your target doesn't have ranks in) and they're overwhelmed, they're indirectly scaled by your own level (humanoid-ish NPCs with the same HD as thus a matching skill cap) and you shouldn't bother trying if you don't have the skill maxed, or they're horrifically outpacing your own level (monstrous NPCs with many more HD and thus a much higher skill cap) and you're wondering what the heck you're supposed to do now.

[Doug Lampert]

...and conversely, to try to build an unconventional character (or an INT-dependent conventional character, or anyone who'd ever want a tome of clear thought during their lifetime) above 1st level and have to grasp at straws to figure out how to get the skill points into skill ranks to best fit the concept.

Note that WotC blatantly punted on that one, the rules for assigning skill points to a dragon ignored the fact that it's intelligence scales with increasing age category. If you follow the MM procedure for given a dragon skill points, they get to have full skill points retroactively, so they don't even follow their own rule.

And mentioning the MM, monster's have as "class skills" only the skills the monster has ranks in, but if you customize a monster that means it is very common to be forced to take cross-class skills.

[Jasdoif]

And mentioning the MM, monster's have as "class skills" only the skills the monster has ranks in, but if you customize a monster that means it is very common to be forced to take cross-class skills.

Oh, no, even that was punted:

Monster characters treat skills mentioned in their monster entry as class skills.

Admittedly, I can appreciate not wanting to bother with reverse engineering the skill modifiers in the block to find out where the ranks are....But this does mean that, for example, a nightcrawler has Diplomacy and Survival as class skills without ranks (they're listed to show they receive synergy bonuses, I assume; but since they're mentioned, they're class skills). And since we're already here....why is the modifier for Sense Motive only +23? Was that a typo for +33, or did the average nightcrawler really increase its Intelligence to 20 with its 8th hit die and that's when it started getting ranks in Sense Motive?


But my most recent skill-related question: How exactly do Petals use their four ranks in Craft (flower arranging)? o_O

[CriticalFailure]

Truenamer sounds like a good class if you want to have a cohort that is more useful than the pc or something.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Sounds like, yes. As implemented you're better off with an adept or expert.

[D.One]

I was thinking "The power of ninth-level spells? That's too obvious, what's the opposite of that? Oh, right, truenaming; do they get something at 17th? Oh yes, Speak Unto the Masses....Which means one person speaking to a heck of a lot of people, like on a forum."

While I certainly can relate and agree with the sentiment, I still don't want to let the oportunity to reference 9th level spells slip (the same way I think iteration XXI should have an Epic Level reference)

Besides, if we had to reference a feature other than spells/powers, we could say something about Monk's Timeless Body or Tongue of the Sun and Moon, both which come at 17th level.

Another way of referencing 9th level spells without spelling "9th level spells" might be pay homage to the most famous of them: Wish.

Something like

Class and Level Geekery XVII - We Wish To Know Their Stats

[Jasdoif]

While I certainly can relate and agree with the sentiment, I still don't want to let the oportunity to reference 9th level spells slip (the same way I think iteration XXI should have an Epic Level reference)

That's what sorcerers are for

[CriticalFailure]

Or go the divine route with something like “The Miracle of [Character Creation, or something].”

[Schroeswald]

Hey do we have anything about

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Right-Eye? Because I feel he falls under a named member of Team Evil, family of a main character (ish, Redcloak’s pretty main), and frequently appearing, he has 68 pages in SoD to his names, so he’d probably qualify for being in the thread, albeit under a spoiler tag, right?

Similar thing for Jirix, he’s a named member of Team Evil and probably has more information than at least the first two kobolds right?

So did some research for

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Right-Eye (including buying SoD, which I’d already done when I wrote this but it hadn’t arrived)
Right-Eye (deceased)
True Neutral, Goblin Male, Rogue 2+
Str ~2 (no evidence; racial and age)
Dex ~6 (no evidence; racial and age)
Con ~ 4(no evidence; age)
Int 15+ (can speak common before advancing to Middle Age and eventually venerable)
Wis ~ 13 (no evidence; age)
Cha ~11 (no evidence; racial and age)
Age: 40+ (venerable, clearly moved up age categories from child to adult to middle age to old age to venerable)
Feats: Martial Weapon Proficiency: Greataxe (favors use of it)
Skills: Listen high, Diplomacy: 0 (per Redcloak pg 31)
Abilities: Rogue class abilities

I have him at rogue 2+ based on disintegrate not dissolving him, to get his saving throw he’d have to succeed in at least a 23, and the only way to get that would put his constitution at 16-17 at venerable, making his original one at 23, which I don’t think we can say he had without putting his level higher than 2, putting the damage at 14d6, so he has at least 15 health, which can only be gotten with two levels and a con of 14+ when he rolled the hit die (which I don’t think requires me to mess with the Con score since it’s not an upper limit and level 3 would mean 10 when rolled works), and the fall damage seems reasonable (if lowballing) at 20 feet or 2d6, rolling maximum with hit die would get 20, 14 for disintigrate at 6, the max fall damage for -6, getting him time to live a little bit before dying.

I’m uncertain if anything can be said for the killing of the treant however, the min health is 42, since he used his axe two-handed I think it’s a greataxe (what he gets if it’s a battle axe hitting using two hands for the bonus is below), with d12 damage, at critical hits that is 36 damage, level 2 adds another BAB so 39, another level or two more strength gets him to 42

But if it’s a battle axe the first thing changing is the weapon focus. As for the treant killing the base hit damage is a d8 and getting a crit makes the total 24, with eighteen points left, then 3 off from BAB so 15, either making him level 8 or one more level with max strength for it kills, meaning if it’s a battle axe he’s level 3+.

It’s not much and knowing me half of it is probably wrong, but it’s something and since I asked for it, I might as well try to find it.
EDIT: Before you think I know anything, when I posted this I had the srd open as like 10 tabs, and it took me a day to figure out all this.

[danielxcutter]

They wanted skill based magic, it's a pretty common thing to want, magic FEELS like it ought to be a skill or an inherent thing, and for D&D characters who progress and learn, learned makes a lot more sense.

But +10 to a skill costs 10,000 GP, that's about what a +2 weapon costs. You simply can't give +10 caster level equivalent for that little, not if the powers are worthwhile in any meaningful way.

That assumes +10 to a skill gives as much power as +10 to caster level. Does +10 to Spellcraft or Concentration equal +10 to caster level for wizards?

You can either rewrite the entire skills section of the rules and everything that interacts with the skill's section so that you don't go handing out +2's and +5's like candy, or you can make sure that your skill based magic is actually based on class level, with the skills as nearly pure fluff or a trivial tax, or you can make sure that your skill based magic can't do anything much.

Those are really the only choices. Tome of Magic went with "we'll make it useless", and it looks like they then also went with "and we won't edit it, because it's useless".

I get the feeling that someone involved wanted to just make the skill checks a tax, but whoever they were, they lost the argument.

Don't Bards need minimum ranks in Perform to use certain bardic musics? Could have made it work like that...

[tyckspoon]

Don't Bards need minimum ranks in Perform to use certain bardic musics? Could have made it work like that...

Sure, but this is basically just another way of level-gating something with the way skill ranks work; may as well simply 'you need to be a Level 10 Bard to use this performance' or 'This Utterance is only selectable by Level 6 Truenamers' .. which is what they did

[Jasdoif]

Sure, but this is basically just another way of level-gating something with the way skill ranks work; may as well simply 'you need to be a Level 10 Bard to use this performance' or 'This Utterance is only selectable by Level 6 Truenamers' .. which is what they did

Perform-gating, at least, could have been used to enhance/enforce specialization between the different Perform skills. (I suddenly have a mental image of a city-state that's outlawed jokes because it's been threatened by bards specializing in Perform (comedy)....)

[Schroeswald]

So did some research for

Spoiler

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Right-Eye (including buying SoD, which I’d already done when I wrote this but it hadn’t arrived)
Right-Eye (deceased)
True Neutral, Goblin Male, Rogue 2+
Str ~2 (no evidence; racial and age)
Dex ~6 (no evidence; racial and age)
Con ~ 4(no evidence; age)
Int 15+ (can speak common before advancing to Middle Age and eventually venerable)
Wis ~ 13 (no evidence; age)
Cha ~11 (no evidence; racial and age)
Age: 40+ (venerable, clearly moved up age categories from child to adult to middle age to old age to venerable)
Feats: Martial Weapon Proficiency: Greataxe (favors use of it)
Skills: Listen high, Diplomacy: 0 (per Redcloak pg 31)
Abilities: Rogue class abilities

I have him at rogue 2+ based on disintegrate not dissolving him, to get his saving throw he’d have to succeed in at least a 23, and the only way to get that would put his constitution at 16-17 at venerable, making his original one at 23, which I don’t think we can say he had without putting his level higher than 2, putting the damage at 14d6, so he has at least 15 health, which can only be gotten with two levels and a con of 14+ when he rolled the hit die (which I don’t think requires me to mess with the Con score since it’s not an upper limit and level 3 would mean 10 when rolled works), and the fall damage seems reasonable (if lowballing) at 20 feet or 2d6, rolling maximum with hit die would get 20, 14 for disintigrate at 6, the max fall damage for -6, getting him time to live a little bit before dying.

I’m uncertain if anything can be said for the killing of the treant however, the min health is 42, since he used his axe two-handed I think it’s a greataxe (what he gets if it’s a battle axe hitting using two hands for the bonus is below), with d12 damage, at critical hits that is 36 damage, level 2 adds another BAB so 39, another level or two more strength gets him to 42

But if it’s a battle axe the first thing changing is the weapon focus. As for the treant killing the base hit damage is a d8 and getting a crit makes the total 24, with eighteen points left, then 3 off from BAB so 15, either making him level 8 or one more level with max strength for it kills, meaning if it’s a battle axe he’s level 3+.

It’s not much and knowing me half of it is probably wrong, but it’s something and since I asked for it, I might as well try to find it.
EDIT: Before you think I know anything, when I posted this I had the srd open as like 10 tabs, and it took me a day to figure out all this.

Oh and for the items he'd have:
Items: Eyepatch, Greataxe (or Battleaxe), Deck of cards, Hooded cloak, 3 credit cards, Scroll of Regeneration

And some sort of skill or profession related to carpentry (I think Craft but I'm not sure).

[CriticalFailure]

Oh and for the items he'd have:
Items: Eyepatch, Greataxe (or Battleaxe), Deck of cards, Hooded cloak, 3 credit cards, Scroll of Regeneration

And some sort of skill or profession related to carpentry (I think Craft but I'm not sure).

Isn't that generally Craft (Carpentry) rather than a profession skill?

Also a positive energy dagger.

[Schroeswald]

Isn't that generally Craft (Carpentry) rather than a profession skill?

Also a positive energy dagger.

1. IDK, I did a buttload of research for the stats but I never found out what skill he'd get for that, but I trust you on it.

2. He dropped it

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when Redcloak disintegrated him, as he falls its not in his hand and when he's on the ground you can't see it.

[CriticalFailure]

1. IDK, I did a buttload of research for the stats but I never found out what skill he'd get for that, but I trust you on it.

2. He dropped it

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when Redcloak disintegrated him, as he falls its not in his hand and when he's on the ground you can't see it.

Carpentry is mentioned as a craft skill in PF but idk maybe d&d has done obscure rule dictating that it is only ever a profession or a performance or something. Though I think that it could be passed off as either a craft or profession probably (I doubt you could get it classed as a performance).

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I guess it’s not 100% straight forward which gear in sod qualifies given he’s dead and zombiified.

[Squire Doodad]

By the way, do you guys think that the...particular cut off point of the next to last panel was poking fun at this thread? As in, the fact that Sabine specifically was cut off before she could give a reasonable estimate and/or explanation for Laurin's level.

[RatElemental]

Perform-gating, at least, could have been used to enhance/enforce specialization between the different Perform skills. (I suddenly have a mental image of a city-state that's outlawed jokes because it's been threatened by bards specializing in Perform (comedy)....)

Funnily enough, pathfinder actually did that with masterpieces. They each require a certain number of ranks in a specific (or choice of a few specific) perform skills to perform and have unique effects.

[Schroeswald]

Carpentry is mentioned as a craft skill in PF but idk maybe d&d has done obscure rule dictating that it is only ever a profession or a performance or something. Though I think that it could be passed off as either a craft or profession probably (I doubt you could get it classed as a performance).

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I guess it’s not 100% straight forward which gear in sod qualifies given he’s dead and zombiified.

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That's why I didn't include gear the first time around, but Tsukiko still has her stuff so I figured all the stuff he would have at time of death works.

[Riftwolf]

By the way, do you guys think that the...particular cut off point of the next to last panel was poking fun at this thread? As in, the fact that Sabine specifically was cut off before she could give a reasonable estimate and/or explanation for Laurin's level.

Probably not a direct jab; cutting off Sabine before she says a level, however, stops overinterpretation of her specific power points (and thus stops people complaining she had too few/too many PP and was therefore useless/OP)

[Schroeswald]

So did some research for

Spoiler

Show

Right-Eye (including buying SoD, which I’d already done when I wrote this but it hadn’t arrived)
Right-Eye (deceased)
True Neutral, Goblin Male, Rogue 2+
Str ~2 (no evidence; racial and age)
Dex ~6 (no evidence; racial and age)
Con ~ 4(no evidence; age)
Int 15+ (can speak common before advancing to Middle Age and eventually venerable)
Wis ~ 13 (no evidence; age)
Cha ~11 (no evidence; racial and age)
Age: 40+ (venerable, clearly moved up age categories from child to adult to middle age to old age to venerable)
Feats: Martial Weapon Proficiency: Greataxe (favors use of it)
Skills: Listen high, Diplomacy: 0 (per Redcloak pg 31), Craft: Woodworking (employed as a carpenter)
Abilities: Rogue class abilities, Goblin Racial abilities
Items: Eyepatch, Greataxe (or Battleaxe), Deck of cards, Hooded cloak, 3 credit cards, Scroll of Regeneration

I have him at rogue 2+ based on disintegrate not dissolving him, to get his saving throw he’d have to succeed in at least a 23, and the only way to get that would put his constitution at 16-17 at venerable, making his original one at 23, which I don’t think we can say he had without putting his level higher than 2, putting the damage at 14d6, so he has at least 15 health, which can only be gotten with two levels and a con of 14+ when he rolled the hit die (which I don’t think requires me to mess with the Con score since it’s not an upper limit and level 3 would mean 10 when rolled works), and the fall damage seems reasonable (if lowballing) at 20 feet or 2d6, rolling maximum with hit die would get 20, 14 for disintigrate at 6, the max fall damage for -6, getting him time to live a little bit before dying.

I’m uncertain if anything can be said for the killing of the treant however, the min health is 42, since he used his axe two-handed I think it’s a greataxe (what he gets if it’s a battle axe hitting using two hands for the bonus is below), with d12 damage, at critical hits that is 36 damage, level 2 adds another BAB so 39, another level or two more strength gets him to 42

But if it’s a battle axe the first thing changing is the weapon focus. As for the treant killing the base hit damage is a d8 and getting a crit makes the total 24, with eighteen points left, then 3 off from BAB so 15, either making him level 8 or one more level with max strength for it kills, meaning if it’s a battle axe he’s level 3+.

It’s not much and knowing me half of it is probably wrong, but it’s something and since I asked for it, I might as well try to find it.
EDIT: Before you think I know anything, when I posted this I had the srd open as like 10 tabs, and it took me a day to figure out all this.

And just for fun I’ll do the second person I asked for:
Jirix
Lawful Evil (racial) Hobgoblin Male, Cleric
Con ~ 12 (no evidence, racial)
Dex ~ 12 (no evidence racial)
Abilities: Hobgoblin racial abilities, Rebuke Undead,
Items: Unholy Symbol, Dark Blue cape, Clipboard, Headband
Spells: Cleric spell list

I thought I’d be able to level him a little bit by his survival of chain lightning, however as he was a secondary target that’s 10d6, and he can get 11 health with one levels and a bit higher con, but then O-Chul kills him, meaning he had 2+ levels but is still at 1+, so a bit less than Right-Eye here (but it’s about as much as Yikyik so I still support inclusion as named member of team Evil, Right-Eye also is a named member of Team Evil and I was able to get a bit for him so I still support him).
EDIT: And I messed around with Right-Eye’s stats a bit in this too.

[Riftwolf]

Spot penalties for distance are linear, but the bonuses for target size are logarithmic. You can't see a mountain at half a mile, you can't hope to see the sun.

I actually ran the math on this year's ago when someone claimed by RAW you couldn't see the moon. While the distance penalty to Spot/Perception is linear, and so you get a massive penalty to spot something so far away, the opposed check (The moons hide/stealth) doubles per size category (I also ruled that the moon had dex 0 and couldn't take 10 on its check, being mindless). Seeing as the moon is several thousand times bigger than Colossal, its multiplicative penalty to its Hide far exceeds the additive penalty to our Spot. In short, we can see big things far away because their bigness overrides the farness, similar to how perception works in reality.

The far better assertion to make about Spot not making sense is that we'd be able to see new moons as well as full. In Pathfinder, you can see it through the walls of your bedroom.

[Doug Lampert]

I actually ran the math on this year's ago when someone claimed by RAW you couldn't see the moon. While the distance penalty to Spot/Perception is linear, and so you get a massive penalty to spot something so far away, the opposed check (The moons hide/stealth) doubles per size category (I also ruled that the moon had dex 0 and couldn't take 10 on its check, being mindless). Seeing as the moon is several thousand times bigger than Colossal, its multiplicative penalty to its Hide far exceeds the additive penalty to our Spot. In short, we can see big things far away because their bigness overrides the farness, similar to how perception works in reality.

The far better assertion to make about Spot not making sense is that we'd be able to see new moons as well as full. In Pathfinder, you can see it through the walls of your bedroom.

You did the math wrong. Thousands of times colossal is not thousands of times the bonus. IF you allow larger than colossal (not in core but allowed in splat), then double size is +4 to spot, but you need to double the new and larger size for the next +4.

The moon is 11,398,464' in diameter. That would be 17 categories above colossal, for a whopping +84 to spot.

The distance penalty is minus over 250 million. You can not see the moon.