This is something that's been eating at me for awhile, especially since I'm gonna be running D&D soon and Iif i'm gonna houserule it, now's the time.

Why, oh why, oh why does D&D 3X split skills into Hide, Move Silently, Spot and Listen? Is a person skilled at being unseen going to for some reason make noise like a herd of elephants when creeping through the underbrush? Is the razor-eyed scout, first to see even the tiniest blur of movement from an ambush, going to be deaf as an old granny? I really hate having the skills splt, it's unnecessary detail, it's a point-waster when allocating skills, and it doesn't seem to me to have any return that justifies the trouble.

What I propose is to combine them--hide and move silently into Stealth, spot and listen into Notice. If a person has a circumstance penalty or bonus that would previously have affected only one or the other, then just limit the modifire to appropriate situations. But most of the time. I'll be willing to bet that the two factors will be pretty intertwined in common-sense terms. Like, if I'm trying to sneak up on yo, then seeing me or hearing me could give me away. So wearing clanky armor (for instance) would inhibit my sneaking under the new rule. If I'm completely still, it wouldn't, unless I try to move.

Does anyone know of any good reason for the skill division in the rules as written? And is there any factor that would make my tweak ill-advised? Let me tell you the factors I have considered:

Skill Point Balance. Now it's going to be half as expensive for those damn sneaky rogues to buy up their sneaking skill. But! It'll be cheaper for the guy trying to detect the thief, to buy uphis Notice skill, so it balances out. The only folks that are affected are people who aren't in the game at all, not spending skill points to hide OR to find. Those folks will now by slightly gypped as the hiders and finders now have more points to spread around and compete in other areas. However, it will make it easier for these third-party folks to dabble in the cat-and-mouse game themselves, since they now only need buy one rank to have a point in all-around detection skill.

Personally, I look at the reduced expense as a feature, not a bug. I tend toward pl;aying highly-skilled characters, and it's difficult even with the skilled classes to find enough points to be decently effective in a wide range of skills. This frees up a few points. Handy for the rogue or ranger, absolutely a lifesaver for the less-skilled class who just wants a few blessed (cross-class!) ranks in noticing.

Nuance/customizability That is, what if you want to have a guy who can be practically invisible when he wants to, but is crap for creeping upon folk? Or the ranger with ears to hear a pin drop, but his eyes ain't what the used to be? My answer is, well, so? D&D doesn't have a flaw/disad system, which is really what you want if you're looking for this kind of thing to be a factor. As is, we've got a lot of abstract and generalist character attributes, so why shouldn't hiding and finding be any different? There's no distinction made between evasive nimbleness and precision aim, for example. It's all just dex. If you want one to have primacy over the other, you'll probably take a feat. SO the same with the newly condensed skills. take or invent a feat that'll reflect your keen eyesight over your dull hearing or whatever. And meanwhile, everything else about these skills is much cleaner, simpler, and more fun.

So! Great idea? Terrible idea? Well-meaning but disastrous? Any crucial thing I've left out of my deliberations? I await your replies.

Peace,
-Joel

Great idea. I like that you thought out the reasons for the skill bloat, and decided to fix it.

EDIT I believe that Starwars d20 Saga Edition also proposes to simplify the d20 skill list.

WoWRPG did combine hide & MS into "stealth," but interestingly did not combine spot & listen.

I think what it boils down to is that D&D originally had separate rolls for "Move Silently", "Hide In Shadows", "Hear Noise", and different rules for sight.  It was a sacred cow.

Crush spot and listen together into "notice", hide and move silently into "sneak", get rid of appraise, use rope, sleight of hand and gather information. Those're my house rules for D&D skill lists.

A sacred cow who is well past the time to slit its throat and toss it on the BBQ. The mental backflips they do in the skill section basically boils down to what you are suggesting anyway Melinglor. The only catch is that you should have some modifiers for 'Notice', since it is an abstract of sight and hearing, in the case of Silence spells and Invisibility spells and the like.

Why are Spot-Listen and Move Silently-Hide treated as separate skills?  Because 3.5 is a steaming pile of dogshit?  

Actually, True20 has more generic "Stealth" and "Notice" skills if you are looking for something more compact, but still in the d20 family.

Well, there are good reasons for keeping it the way it is:

- Size modifiers for hide checks.
- double (!) armour penalty for move silently checks.
- no armour penalty for spot & listen

Those are big factors, if you handwave them, you can go right back to rolling 1D6. Which is okay too, but has niothign to do with playing 3.5.

Changing it is not worth the hassle.

Quote from: Tyberious FunkActually, True20 has more generic "Stealth" and "Notice" skills if you are looking for something more compact, but still in the d20 family.

Yeah, this is what I usually do.

If you strip the concepts down to the essentials, this is what's left.

Quote from: SettembriniWell, there are good reasons for keeping it the way it is:

- Size modifiers for hide checks.
- double (!) armour penalty for move silently checks.
- no armour penalty for spot & listen

Those are big factors, if you handwave them, you can go right back to rolling 1D6. Which is okay too, but has niothign to do with playing 3.5.

Changing it is not worth the hassle.

Or you could just throw penalties on depending on situation.  Staying perfectly still and lying in ambush?  No armour penalty.  Sneaking past the guards?  Armour penalty.

These factors do not seem as large as you make them out to be.

QuoteThese factors do not seem as large as you make them out to be.

As I said, if you drop that detail, you can drop skill levels altogether and go back to NWPs, or what Mike Mearls recently proposed in his blog.

Quote from: SettembriniAs I said, if you drop that detail, you can drop skill levels altogether and go back to NWPs, or what Mike Mearls recently proposed in his blog.

But you don't have to.  What's with the extreme polarization on roleplaying discussion boards?  It's really starting to freak me out.

Really, it´s along the same lines as using True20.
I´m not polarizing in this thread, just pointing out, that detail will be lost.

And in my case I don't need that level of detail in my present game so I simplify. It varies from group to group, game to game, and it's no sweat really.

It can be annoying to have so many skills and not enough skill points, but it's extremely easy to change this. True20 and Spellslinger did it, and I suspect a lot of other d20 games had their own mods. Nothing to be seriously pissed off, IMHO.

EDIT: There's also the issue that these skills particular skills are heavily used in D&D. Breaking them down in as many different skills as possible can be an attempt at game balance. On the other hand, there are several skills that don't see enough use, and it wouldn't hurt to turn them into a single skill.