Perception (reposted here on recommendation)

Matt, I strongly disagree about bears. They are ridiculously aware of their surroundings. Their eyesight is actually pretty poor, but they have better sense of smell than about any other animal in the woods and their hearing is fantastic. Besides people, a bear’s biggest threats is its own kind, mature males will attack/kill/eat females and especially cubs. Also coyotes and wolves will pester them in areas where other game is scarce.

I actually think most all creatures that live in ‘natural’ setting, or an environment where the threat of death is a pretty constant, need Perception.

I do not think that most animals are really that much more perceptive than people who are actually paying attention to their surroundings. Since people are animals and pretty much at the top of the food chain, even when just weilding sticks and rocks. So by the argument that all animals should have it, then all characters should have it as a skill as well. As shown by the archtypes, even are warriors don’t get perception as a skill, so being a fighting type should not be an argument for having it.

I think perception is better applied to those that should be known for being perceptive – hawks, but not just any bird. guard dogs and great cats – not just any animal. Yes, being perceptive is life and death in the wild – and speed, strength, stealth, territory selection, pack dynamics, and mating prowess can be as well; but not all animals get athletics, stealth, wilderness lore, empathy, and perform (mating display), etc. as well.

As for Ssnanu and them getting perception because they advance by backstabbing, does that mean that perception is a skill for all people from Canceri? I’m not sure they’re any less cut-throat a society.

You really can make an argument for anything needing perception as a skill and deserving it, because it is a basic life skill – even among humans. That’s why it seems like it should only be a skill for those things that are actually known for their perception.

I agree with Josh: I’m sure it was not your intention at all but it does sound noticeably like “The bad guys won’t allow me to do this cool thing I want to do, so THEY need to change.” I am personally of the mindset that the bad guys SHOULD have Perception unless it makes sense in character for them NOT to have it. For example, if you are fighting a random mob of minions in a bar, it makes sense for you not to have it. If you are fighting guards, soldiers, etc, then it makes ALL the sense for them to have it. I know it sucks for the stealthy characters, but I absolutely abhor character builds which go “I have a good stealth, I basically turn invisible and nobody can see me” because it makes no sense to me in character or out how that should work. I group it in the same folder as people in 3.5 who make characters with such a high diplomacy that (according to the rules) they can instantly sway enemies into stalwart allies and zealous supporters (it just don’t make sense to me).

so you are equating all badguys with the monsters that are printed in the bestiaries. that is a false assumption

I think it is a false assumption to say that ALL badguys and/or NPCs in the campaign’s adventures have majorly jacked up Perception ranks, to the point where trying to be sneaky is almost/actually impossible. I’ve not done an analysis but I recall some encounters where the NPCs had good Perception scores, others where they did not. In this system more than any other I’ve played, the die rolls -actually matter- when determining the results of an action.

My main character has a passive Perception of 20 and a couple of the people he travels with are sneaky types and they are very effective doing that sort of thing, but its not a foregone conclusion. My guy sometimes knows where they are when in stealth mode, but often he does not.

In another 3.X campaign I had a shadow dancer character who at 11th level had a Stealth check of about +40 something, +30 to hide in plain sight in bright light areas. If you did not have blind sense/sight you simply did not get to know where he was. That actually got boring real fast, for me and other players and the DM.

That extreme case of ‘sneaky’ should be avoided in any system.

Sneaking around should be a risk, and the fun of it is the uncertainty/anticipation of success or failure. Knowing that you have a 98% chance of success is just not interesting, to me. So I like the balance of the skill, and appreciate that most NPCs that are in survival/security/interaction roles have a good score for it. Not all beings, but a lot of them should, else they’d be pawns or worm food very quickly.

Rick….come on, man! We all know you don’t know jack-all about wildlife.
When I wrote that, I was just thinking of eyesight.

I agree. As long as there is nothing as stupid as a Shadow dancer’s ability to “hide in plain sight” (HIPS), while being observed, I don’t see how having someone be “broken” with stealth is even broken. There just usually isn’t that much you can do with it other than flee (yeah fleeing! Something thieves are good at!). Though as someone who has played a thief before, it can be critical for the trap detector who is 30 feet out front to be hidden as he does it so he doesn’t get eaten before the rest of the party arrives…

As long as you can’t HIPS any stealth ability is inherently limited. There is the ability to HIPS in Arcanis, with the “Chameleon” spell so you can sneak across an open courtyard (which is useful) but it limits your movement so dramatically that depending on how GMs rule it there could be so many perception checks you’re bound to fail anyways. But I think it’s a great spell, and a good compromise for not getting stupid powerful like HIPS. Plus, it’s entirely useless in combat, since you have to move so slowly and take 12 ticks to blend after breaking concealment.

But even that is getting side tracked, because to some degree whether stealth is too powerful is not the question; but rather whether perception should be a skill that everything but most player characters have. I can see the argument for most natural animals to have it. I disagree with it, but I can understand with where it is coming from. I think giving it to every animal/beast out there is a little overpowered, but even doing that would be reining in the current use of it with… everything.

Maybe I’m wrong. I haven’t been reading stat blocks. Hopefully the fact that many of the enemies in Arcanis are human, or human like, (which is one of the things I like) will mean that many of them suffer from the same limitations. I worry that that might not be the case, since so little consideration seems to have been done in the past with assigning the skill to threats. But applying the same logic, I wouldn’t have thought the Agamassi would have it since they are pretty much the equivalent of a martial type for the Ssressen (accept the elite with advancements that actually bodyguard the emperor of course).