Arguments IN FAVOR of keeping hide/move silently and spot/listen/search separate?

[Rynjin]

My bad then. That was just like the third time I'd seen something mentioned about Perception not modeling differences in "sense strength".

[RedMage125]

Great! That means you entirely missed the point. The point was that you cannot use abstraction levels of unrelated mechanics to argue whether more or less simulation is better, without analyzing why they are that way. Your actual argument for one perception skill has nothing at all to do with accuracy of simulation or abstraction levels, it's just that you want stealthy characters to have less chance of being found. Sure, you can call that fun. But so can I call the additional design space created by more granular skills, fun. Or, to make the trade-off even clearer, other characters having more chances to find stealthy ones is also fun. The trade-off is between different kinds of fun, where having slightly more detail is beneficial to one side and not the other.

It takes a great deal of unfettered arrogance and borderline narcissism to believe that one's opinion is so "universally true" that anyone who disagrees must simply "not understand what your point was".

I never "missed your point". I disagree with your conclusion. I made my decision based on my observations and my values for how I run a game. Which was primarily centered around Hide/Move Silently (Stealth); Spot/Listen (Perception) simply followed that. I made it very clear that I am expressing my opinion of why I feel this is better for me. I was also quite clear that you're not going to change my opinion, least of all by over-explanining your perceived benefits of increased verisimilitude. I reject the value of slavish adherence to simulationism towards playing the game. And I respect that others do value it.

For you to think that anyone having a different opinion than you "could only stem from failing to understand your point" is incredibly rude, and I suggest you reconsider how you come across.

Good day.

[Vahnavoi]

@Rynjin: the observation that games with a single perception skill or ability still regularly make a distinction between senses is still an important one: it shows designers of those games asked themselves "what do we miss for having just one skill/ability cover these many separate things?" and "how else can we add those things?"

From a mathematical perspective, it's possible to make a game with a single perception skill that is equivalent to a game with several - a character has the same odds for the same senses to spot the same objects. They may roll different dice against different target numbers picked from different tables, but the time for the process is also the same. If you can identify this to be the case, then the systems under comparison are just as good. Merits and demerits only exist in comparison to systems that do noticeably more or noticeably less.

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@Redmage125:

No, it doesn't require any kind of arrocance or narcissism or belief in being "universally true" to notice when another person's reply misses the core idea and goes off a tangent.

Again: the part of your argument that I picked apart is trying to use abstraction level of unrelated mechanics to justify your position. I'm arguing against using a specific rationalization, not for "slavish adherence to simulationism" or whatever hyperbole you imagine this to be about. If you think stealthy characters having better odds at success is more fun, just say that, and don't bring up other mechanics that aren't directly related.

[RedMage125]

@Redmage125:

No, it doesn't require any kind of arrocance or narcissism or belief in being "universally true" to notice when another person's reply misses the core idea and goes off a tangent.

Again: the part of your argument that I picked apart is trying to use abstraction level of unrelated mechanics to justify your position. I'm arguing against using a specific rationalization, not for "slavish adherence to simulationism" or whatever hyperbole you imagine this to be about. If you think stealthy characters having better odds at success is more fun, just say that, and don't bring up other mechanics that aren't directly related.

It was never a tangent, and is absolutely about you believing your view is some kind of "universal truth", because you accused me of "missing your point" AFTER I explicitly told you that you weren't going to change my opinion. So get your ego in check and apologize, don't try and backpedal or gaslight me. You are responsible for the perception you create, and you insisted on expounding on the "benefit" of more simulationist mechanics after I explicitly said my preference is that I don't value it. Which is rude.

I was quite clear from my first post in this thread that I feel like streamlined rules is more fun. I explained my reasoning by drawing a parallel to some of the other mechanics that we accept simplified abstractions for. It's still just how I feel about the issue. I get that other people prefer more simulation, and my first post in the thread is very clear about that. The difference between you and I is that I respect that other people valuing differ things than I do means they play a different way.

[Quertus]

@Rynjin: the observation that games with a single perception skill or ability still regularly make a distinction between senses is still an important one: it shows designers of those games asked themselves "what do we miss for having just one skill/ability cover these many separate things?" and "how else can we add those things?"

From a mathematical perspective, it's possible to make a game with a single perception skill that is equivalent to a game with several - a character has the same odds for the same senses to spot the same objects. They may roll different dice against different target numbers picked from different tables, but the time for the process is also the same. If you can identify this to be the case, then the systems under comparison are just as good. Merits and demerits only exist in comparison to systems that do noticeably more or noticeably less.

In my “invisible giant stompy robot” example, for a naive GM, 3e would encourage… Spot check to see it auto-fails (because Invisibility), but can still be made at a 20 point penalty to know it exists, and what “square (s)” it’s in… Listen to know it exists… and, I suppose, if you guess the right squares, you can spend 10 minutes searching to notice the giant footprints… or use Tracking to try to follow them… at DCs I’d think would be easy to estimate, but my experience with other GM’s says “no”, those DCs may well be nonsense.

IME, the same naïve GM will handle the giant invisible robot worse in a system with just a single Perception stat, especially (but not exclusively) if that system has rules like “Invisibility: +X bonus to Stealth rolls”.

Do you have one or more systems you feel give adequate guidance that even the naïve GM would successfully model an invisible stompy mech with reasonable fidelity, rather than that single binary yes/no Perception roll (with maybe an ad hoc and horrifically incomplete justification for the result) I’ve seen repeatedly from such systems?

[Darg]

In my “invisible giant stompy robot” example, for a naive GM, 3e would encourage… Spot check to see it auto-fails (because Invisibility), but can still be made at a 20 point penalty to know it exists, and what “square (s)” it’s in… Listen to know it exists… and, I suppose, if you guess the right squares, you can spend 10 minutes searching to notice the giant footprints… or use Tracking to try to follow them… at DCs I’d think would be easy to estimate, but my experience with other GM’s says “no”, those DCs may well be nonsense.

Knowing something is there is valuable because you can walk spaces to attempt to run into them and throw out dusts of appearance or alert the spellcaster to cast see invisibility. When they are combined, well, you either know their exact location anyways or you don't even know they are there. There really isn't an in between.

[Quertus]

Knowing something is there is valuable because you can walk spaces to attempt to run into them and throw out dusts of appearance or alert the spellcaster to cast see invisibility.

Fair enough, there is indeed more to the information minigame than I listed.

When they are combined, well, you either know their exact location anyways or you don't even know they are there. There really isn't an in between.

I mean, even combined, the GM could call for separate Perception (Visual) and Perception (Auditory) rolls, every single time, to simulate Listen and Spot, with the “combined” nature of the skill simply being a purchasing / character sheet bookkeeping convenience.

[Darg]

I mean, even combined, the GM could call for separate Perception (Visual) and Perception (Auditory) rolls, every single time, to simulate Listen and Spot, with the “combined” nature of the skill simply being a purchasing / character sheet bookkeeping convenience.

Why bother with separate rolls in that case? The roll is the same regardless of the DC of the check. PF Stealth includes sight, hearing, and scent as things it protects from perception. Likewise perception allows you to locate a creature with any of those senses. There are degrees of "convenience" combining skills together gives, but it always will come at the cost of character flavor and increased power.

[Gnaeus]

I think the RNG makes a strong simulationist argument in favor of combining the roles. Assume if you will a pair of pretty good thieves. 5 ranks in stealth or hide and ms. Skill focus for a +3. 14 dex for their elite array. They are trying to sneak past guy on the street. No perception related skills. No wis bonus. Taking 10. He only sees them if they roll a 1. They have about a 1-in-5 chance of fouling that up as badly as is possible, essentially fumbling one of their combined 4 rolls. That just seems unduely harsh to me.

I also think there is a similar gamist reason in favor of combining the rolls. In a party of 4 (8 rolls) there is a 1-in-3 chance of a 1 being rolled, and better than a 1-in-2 of a 1 or 2. Thats probably just going to tell a mechanically savvy party that sneaking pretty much just won't work unless you have an overwhelming advantage such that the rolls just don't matter. Or similarly, if DM is having enemies sneak up on party, they need an overwhelming advantage over the party's perception. Maybe if you were using 5e group skill checks, so that the only thing that matters is whether the majority of the party succeeds, that might make sense. But if even in a group which has all pretty good checks, you are still probably going to fail against a much less observant enemy, it just seems to be taking workable options away from PCs. ESPECIALLY, as mentioned upthread, from martial PCs, who actually need skills to be useful, because they can't DDoor around the issue or turn into a mouse or meld through the floor or some other superhuman trick.

[Quertus]

Why bother with separate rolls in that case? The roll is the same regardless of the DC of the check. PF Stealth includes sight, hearing, and scent as things it protects from perception. Likewise perception allows you to locate a creature with any of those senses. There are degrees of "convenience" combining skills together gives, but it always will come at the cost of character flavor and increased power.

The DC to perceive an Invisible Ghast sneaking up on you is about (internet numbers) impossible / DC 30 to Perception(Visual) it, DC 10 to Perception(Auditory) it, and DC -30 to Perception(Olfactory) it. And you could implement that with just a single Perception roll, with the result determining what information you get.

Now, if a character has such a bad cold that they're suffering a -40 penalty to Perception(Olfactory) checks, then their DC to Smell or Hear the Sneaky Ghast are effectively the same. Should they always smell it if they hear it, and always hear it if they smell it? Or should there be a chance of doing just one or the other? Could two identical twins, both with the same cold, have one of them hear it, and the other smell it?

One could combine the skills for several reasons (like space on character sheet or cost to purchase) other than a Gamist desire to condense things down to a single roll, and do so while still implementing individual Spot, Listen, and Sniff checks to determine what is perceived, especially if the people involved like such Information Warfare games where random partial information is entirely possible, and then other methods (like running around while waving polearms, dusting areas with flour, Invisibility Purge, Eyes of the One-Eyed King (or whatever spell grants bonuses to Perception checks), etc) can be used to collect more information (or they can just fire blind, that's an option, too).

Which circles back to the original question: one reason to keep them separate is to telegraph, "random partial information sensory information warfare games can definitely be a thing in this game".

EDIT: Sounds like Goblin Slayer must be a Pathfinder character schooling the D&D newbs and their lack of scent awareness.

[lesser_minion]

(snip)

This is a genuine problem with 3rd edition, but as soon as you get to three people trying to sneak around, the number of people trying to sneak starts contributing far more to the number of rolls needed than needing to test separately for hiding and moving silently.

This means that the fix for this problem is coming up with proper rules for group stealth (and other group activities).

[Darg]

I think the RNG makes a strong simulationist argument in favor of combining the roles. Assume if you will a pair of pretty good thieves. 5 ranks in stealth or hide and ms. Skill focus for a +3. 14 dex for their elite array. They are trying to sneak past guy on the street. No perception related skills. No wis bonus. Taking 10. He only sees them if they roll a 1. They have about a 1-in-5 chance of fouling that up as badly as is possible, essentially fumbling one of their combined 4 rolls. That just seems unduely harsh to me.

I also think there is a similar gamist reason in favor of combining the rolls. In a party of 4 (8 rolls) there is a 1-in-3 chance of a 1 being rolled, and better than a 1-in-2 of a 1 or 2. Thats probably just going to tell a mechanically savvy party that sneaking pretty much just won't work unless you have an overwhelming advantage such that the rolls just don't matter. Or similarly, if DM is having enemies sneak up on party, they need an overwhelming advantage over the party's perception. Maybe if you were using 5e group skill checks, so that the only thing that matters is whether the majority of the party succeeds, that might make sense. But if even in a group which has all pretty good checks, you are still probably going to fail against a much less observant enemy, it just seems to be taking workable options away from PCs. ESPECIALLY, as mentioned upthread, from martial PCs, who actually need skills to be useful, because they can't DDoor around the issue or turn into a mouse or meld through the floor or some other superhuman trick.

Doing 2 things at once is hard. You can hide without moving and you can move silently without needing to hide. Combining the rolls means when you do both it's just as easy as doing one or the other. When you hide in combat, you don't need to move silently to not be seen unless you don't want them searching your direction.

As for making the skill checks, could always distract the guy by throwing a stone in the opposite direction you want to go for a +5 and depending on distance you get a +1 per 10 feet of distance. Yes, it should be hard to sneak past someone right in front of their face.

[Vahnavoi]

@Quertus: It'd be easier to design you a sample system than go hunt through my books. The basics are simple enough to explain in a paragraph:

There may be just one Perception skills, but a character has multiple senses (sight, hearing, scent, taste, touch, etc.). A hiding creature can hence provide multiple sense objects for the skill to target, each with different target number. An unseen creature may be heard; an unheard creature may be smelled; an unsmelled creature may be bumped into. A failed Perception check can be retried at cost of time as long as valid sense objects remain. A succesful check only provides information relevant to the sense used. A player is allowed to deduce missing information from what they perceive.

Application for an invisible giant robot:

The robot being invisible means it is not a sense object for sight. No perception check can be made to see it.
The robot makes noise when it walks around. This noise is a sense object for hearing. A perception check can be made to hear it.
The robot is heavy and hence leaves footprints. These footprints are sense objects for sight. A perception check can be made to notice them.
The robot still occupies space. This makes it a sense object for touch. A perception check can be made to gauge the robot's direction and dimensions when the robot hits or is hit by someone.

---

Why bother with separate rolls in that case?

The rolls are for different sense objects and create a different result matrix than rolling once. Quertus demonstrates correct understanding of the logic I explained earlier, by showing that a single Perception skill isn't mutually exclusive with acknowledging a character has more than one sense.

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@Gnaeous: both those arguments are bad. They conflate "someone in a group fails in a particular way" with "everyone fails in every way". That is a poor interpretation of the actual result matrices.

Additionally, whoever came up with the first example needs to reread skill check rules. There are no fumbles or autofails on a 1 and no automatic success on a 20. In case of a tie in an opposed check whoever has higher modifier wins. A character with +9 to a check cannot fail, ever against someone with no modifiers taking 10. But let's, for a moment, entertain a scenario where the thieves only fail on a 1. The possibilities are:

Both are seen.
One is seen, another is heard but not seen.
One is seen, another remains entirely undetected.
Neither is seen, both are heard.
Neither is seen, one is heard.
Neither is seen nor heard.

Only the first one counts as fouling as badly as possible, and it has 1-in-400 chance of happening. That 1-in-400 chance remains the same even if you only roll for Hide or a single combined Stealth skill. Only in this 1-in-400 scenario the guard knows there were two sneaks and what they look like. Every other scenario leaves the guard at least unable to visually identify one of the crooks.

[Gnaeus]

Doing 2 things at once is hard. You can hide without moving and you can move silently without needing to hide. Combining the rolls means when you do both it's just as easy as doing one or the other. When you hide in combat, you don't need to move silently to not be seen unless you don't want them searching your direction.

As for making the skill checks, could always distract the guy by throwing a stone in the opposite direction you want to go for a +5 and depending on distance you get a +1 per 10 feet of distance. Yes, it should be hard to sneak past someone right in front of their face.

It should be easy for trained thieves with good stats to sneak past Bob the farmer. Especially, as I said, in fantasy land, where we are trying to pretend that a level of rogue=a level of wizard. When the rules say, as they do, that sneaking past an enemy is simply unlikely to work, the story suffers, party balance suffers, and the game suffers. If someone suggests a cunning plan to sneak around the enemy, and someone who knows the game says, look, we aren't going to be able to make 8 or 10 checks without someone stepping on a twig or stumbling out of cover, we may as well just use our element of surprise to murder them while we at least get a surprise round, the wizard should smugly reach over, take the skillmonkey's character sheet, and wipe his backside with it, before he hands it back for them to use for the rest of the campaign.

@Gnaeous: both those arguments are bad. They conflate "someone in a group fails in a particular way" with "everyone fails in every way". That is a poor interpretation of the actual result matrices.

Both are seen.
One is seen, another is heard but not seen.
One is seen, another remains entirely undetected.
Neither is seen, both are heard.
Neither is seen, one is heard.
Neither is seen nor heard.

Only the first one counts as fouling as badly as possible, and it has 1-in-400 chance of happening. That 1-in-400 chance remains the same even if you only roll for Hide or a single combined Stealth skill. Only in this 1-in-400 scenario the guard knows there were two sneaks and what they look like. Every other scenario leaves the guard at least unable to visually identify one of the crooks.

The first 5 are indistinguishable. The attempt to sneak past the guard fails and the alarm is sounded. Your stealth mission is a bust. Initiative is rolled, and whoever heard the guard is now on alert. The one bright spot for team rogue is that after a few rounds of combat they will get to make new characters who don't need unreasonable odds on an RNG to sneak past a bumpkin.

[NichG]

In D&D's stealth model, I would just combine them... Stealth jobs are already too much of an 'extended chain of rolls, one failure ruins the whole thing' to double up on the rolls.

But, I have a different stealth model I favor these days, and I wonder if actually within that stealth model maybe having them separate is pretty good. The stealth model I like is more of a hitpoint model, where characters have some number of 'stealth pips' or the place they're infiltrating has an 'alertness level' which would be like a group version of that, and various actions that risk being observed either deplete the individual character's stealth pips, or add to the alertness of the organization being infiltrated. So under that system, lets say you still rolled specific perception modalities against specific stealth methodologies - each pair is now an semi-independent risk of suffering 'damage', perhaps with a per-round, per-observer cap of how much different sources of awareness can stack on the damage. That also operates more gracefully with things like invisibility and silence - those basically prevent round-by-round stealth damage from operating within line of sight of a guard, but you would still suffer stealth damage for say opening a door or moving an object within their field of view.

It does also imply that extra modalities should have their own, equally independent ways of inflicting/avoiding stealth damage. Scent, magical auras, life sense, tremorsense, etc wouldn't just be hard 'you cannot stealth around this creature', they'd be something like 'within the sensory radius take significant stealth damage per round unless you have a specific counter or skill that can beat it'. UMD as the stealth skill vs detect magic and detect alignment? Concentration against telepathy? Survival against scent?

Could be interesting without being punitive if the per-round/per-observer caps were balanced right. Makes stealth more rock/paper/scissors, where it can make sense to send the druid to sneak into the kennels and the bard to sneak onto the dance floor and so on, with the rogue being able to generalize or specialize as they like among the options due to lots of skill points...

[Vahnavoi]

The first 5 are indistinguishable.

Bull crap. If you cannot distinquish them, that is the problem, not the actual odds.

The attempt to sneak past the guard fails and the alarm is sounded. Your stealth mission is a bust. Initiative is rolled, and whoever heard the guard is now on alert. The one bright spot for team rogue is that after a few rounds of combat they will get to make new characters who don't need unreasonable odds on an RNG to sneak past a bumpkin.

An alarm being sounded does not magically lead to the exact same conclusion every time. Let's recap:

Both thieves are seen. This is the only scenario where both thieves have a reason to fight or flee to protect themselves.

One thief is seen, another is heard but not seen. The guard who sounded the alarm only knows the second thief's approximate location, not how they look like. The first thief has option to distract the guard long enough that the second thief can get beyond hearing range. The guarded place is on alert, yes, but looking for someone who they do not know the appearance and exact location of.

One thief is seen, another is neither seen nor heard. Even after sounding an alarm, the guards only truly know to look for one individual. Compared to the previous version, the second thief has easier and longer time to infiltrate as the first one distracts the guards. They can also take surprise rounds against the guards, including against the first one to potentially stop the alarm.

Neither thief is seen, both are heard. The alerted guards only know number and approximate location of them.

Neither thief is seen, one is heard. The alerted guards only know approximate location of one person. The second is free to infiltrate or to take surprise rounds against the guards, including, again, to potentially stop the alarm from being sounded.

By lumping all these scenarios together, you are glossing over several rules AND demonstrating bogus understanding of stealth & team tactics.

[RedMage125]

In D&D's stealth model, I would just combine them... Stealth jobs are already too much of an 'extended chain of rolls, one failure ruins the whole thing' to double up on the rolls.

This is how I feel as well. Not everyone agrees.

Bull crap. If you cannot distinquish them, that is the problem, not the actual odds.

You're talking past him, being so focused on the minutiae of semantic differences of these checks that you have ignored what he said about the results. And once again, you're being condescending with regards to this difference in values and opinions, derisively regarding it as some kind of "failure to distinguish" those minutiae you prefer to focus on.

If the goal is simply to slip past the guards undetected, the various degrees of difference in HOW detection occurs is irrelevant to his point. It's a simple, binary yes/no. That's his point.

By lumping all these scenarios together, you are glossing over several rules AND demonstrating bogus understanding of stealth & team tactics.

Allow me to demonstrate how you've been talking to others by turning your own rhetoric back on you.

By lending increased significance to the distinction between visual and auditory detection, you are blithely ignoring what other posters are actually saying AND demonstrating a bogus understanding of cogent and honest discussion.

To wit: if someone took a test, and an 80% is required to pass, other posters are telling you that there is no difference in getting a 79%, a 50%, or a 15% grade. You, OTOH, are insisting that a 79% is vastly different than a 15%, and that everyone who doesn't agree with your points is deficient in their understanding.

[Rynjin]

Yep. Group checks are pass/fail. It doesn't matter whether you failed with a 70%, an 80%, or a 99%. If the test requires a 100% success rate to pass, you failed.

The ONLY time the exact rate of failure matters is in the rare scenarios you can add retroactive points to the roll. If you failed with an 80% but can retroactively add 20% to the roll, then sure it matters.

But chances are you can't.

[RedMage125]

Yep. Group checks are pass/fail. It doesn't matter whether you failed with a 70%, an 80%, or a 99%. If the test requires a 100% success rate to pass, you failed.

The ONLY time the exact rate of failure matters is in the rare scenarios you can add retroactive points to the roll. If you failed with an 80% but can retroactively add 20% to the roll, then sure it matters.

But chances are you can't.

More to the point....if the GOAL is "sneak past the guards undetected without the alarm being raised", then 5 of his 6 scenarios are just failures. Group check or not.

[Darg]

It should be easy for trained thieves with good stats to sneak past Bob the farmer. Especially, as I said, in fantasy land, where we are trying to pretend that a level of rogue=a level of wizard. When the rules say, as they do, that sneaking past an enemy is simply unlikely to work, the story suffers, party balance suffers, and the game suffers. If someone suggests a cunning plan to sneak around the enemy, and someone who knows the game says, look, we aren't going to be able to make 8 or 10 checks without someone stepping on a twig or stumbling out of cover, we may as well just use our element of surprise to murder them while we at least get a surprise round, the wizard should smugly reach over, take the skillmonkey's character sheet, and wipe his backside with it, before he hands it back for them to use for the rest of the campaign.

You make it seem like NPCs aren't taking 10. If they aren't making active spot/listen checks there's no point to actually role for them. I'd be making myself make hundreds of rolls in short spans of time if I didn't have them take 10. Farmer Joe or random guard number 3 isn't going to have a spot/listen modifier to detect the rogue. And obviously you aren't going to have the fighter without some investment be sneaking up close and personal, that's just stupid.

You also have to remember the modifiers. If you want to sneak past something do it at a distance and when the spotters are distracted. Easy ways to sneak past less dangerous creatures. The fighter can remove their armor to get rid of the ACP and then even if they have an 8 in dexterity they could have a +4 to their check against a distracted character even from 5 ft away which is plenty for level 1 goblin/orc warriors for example. Even if they weren't distracted, it would be enough to just be 30/20 ft away at all times. At higher levels, you can get magical items or special materials to aid your checks or remove them entirely. It's really not a lost cause to use sneaking tactics.

[Troacctid]

It should be easy for trained thieves with good stats to sneak past Bob the farmer. Especially, as I said, in fantasy land, where we are trying to pretend that a level of rogue=a level of wizard. When the rules say, as they do, that sneaking past an enemy is simply unlikely to work, the story suffers, party balance suffers, and the game suffers. If someone suggests a cunning plan to sneak around the enemy, and someone who knows the game says, look, we aren't going to be able to make 8 or 10 checks without someone stepping on a twig or stumbling out of cover, we may as well just use our element of surprise to murder them while we at least get a surprise round, the wizard should smugly reach over, take the skillmonkey's character sheet, and wipe his backside with it, before he hands it back for them to use for the rest of the campaign.

"Let's just all walk right past him, but on our tippy-toes" is not exactly a plan I would describe as especially cunning.

[lesser_minion]

It should be easy for trained thieves with good stats to sneak past Bob the farmer. Especially, as I said, in fantasy land, where we are trying to pretend that a level of rogue=a level of wizard. When the rules say, as they do, that sneaking past an enemy is simply unlikely to work, the story suffers, party balance suffers, and the game suffers. If someone suggests a cunning plan to sneak around the enemy, and someone who knows the game says, look, we aren't going to be able to make 8 or 10 checks without someone stepping on a twig or stumbling out of cover, we may as well just use our element of surprise to murder them while we at least get a surprise round, the wizard should smugly reach over, take the skillmonkey's character sheet, and wipe his backside with it, before he hands it back for them to use for the rest of the campaign.

The most significant contributor to this problem is the number of characters that are rolling. Fixing that alone resolves it.

In fact, because the maths is based on using two dice rolls, merging the skills properly means adding in circumstance penalties to checks where both would have been required. Which can actually leave group stealth even worse off.

The first 5 are indistinguishable. The attempt to sneak past the guard fails and the alarm is sounded. Your stealth mission is a bust. Initiative is rolled, and whoever heard the guard is now on alert. The one bright spot for team rogue is that after a few rounds of combat they will get to make new characters who don't need unreasonable odds on an RNG to sneak past a bumpkin.

Making a single failed check into an irretrievable mission failure is bad scenario design, no matter what skills you're rolling or how many checks are involved.

This goes double when you've repeatedly described the scenario in terms like "sneak past a bumpkin". If the guards are this effective, then they aren't "bumpkins", they're competent and trained professionals, in which case sneaking past them shouldn't be easy.

[Crake]

I think the RNG makes a strong simulationist argument in favor of combining the roles. Assume if you will a pair of pretty good thieves. 5 ranks in stealth or hide and ms. Skill focus for a +3. 14 dex for their elite array. They are trying to sneak past guy on the street. No perception related skills. No wis bonus. Taking 10. He only sees them if they roll a 1. They have about a 1-in-5 chance of fouling that up as badly as is possible, essentially fumbling one of their combined 4 rolls. That just seems unduely harsh to me.

Actually, he doesnt spot them on a 1 unless theyre sneaking within 10 feet of him.

I feel like, if you’re sneaking almost literally right past someone, failing on only a 1 is not actually that big a deal. If they have at least 10 feet between them though, the -1 penalty means they just auto succeed

Personally, I've found that sneaky characters tend to appreciate the increased simulationism, while non sneaky characters, who incidentally need to roll stealth for some reason, would rather just have it be simple and not have to worry about intricacies, which ironically means that sneaky characters need to invest in more skills, but conversely get the added benefit of being able to work to manipulate circumstances such that they can more regularly auto succeed and not even have to roll. Skill mastery comes in very handy in those circumstances.

As such, whether I go simple or complex tends to vary from game to game.

You make it seem like NPCs aren't taking 10. If they aren't making active spot/listen checks there's no point to actually role for them. I'd be making myself make hundreds of rolls in short spans of time if I didn't have them take 10. Farmer Joe or random guard number 3 isn't going to have a spot/listen modifier to detect the rogue. And obviously you aren't going to have the fighter without some investment be sneaking up close and personal, that's just stupid.

Taking 10 is an active choice, not the result of a “passive” check. Youre thinking of 5e passive perceptions, which are effectively the equivalent of taking 10, but passive checks in 3.5 are rolled, with the OPTION of taking 10, assuming the conditions for taking 10 are met (not stressed or threatened)

[Darg]

Taking 10 is an active choice, not the result of a “passive” check. Youre thinking of 5e passive perceptions, which are effectively the equivalent of taking 10, but passive checks in 3.5 are rolled, with the OPTION of taking 10, assuming the conditions for taking 10 are met (not stressed or threatened)

What? Anyone can take 10 when the situation allows it. It's as much an active choice as choosing to forgo taking 10 is. I'm not understanding what you are trying to say here. Are you saying that a guard isn't allowed to take 10 because they aren't actively taking actions to use a skill? What about skills that are part of other actions? Are they disqualified too? Nothing in the rules says anything about passive skill use being unable to take 10.

[Crake]

Nothing in the rules says anything about passive skill use being unable to take 10.

I never said it did, I was merely clarifying the assumption that passive skills would be assumed by default to be taking 10. When I said an active decision, i meant on behalf of the player (or dm), not the character. The default is, however, rolling, and so, you may beat a character's spot bonus by more than 10, and be able to auto win IF THEY CHOOSE to take 10, but if they do NOT choose to take 10, and simply roll, as is the default, and they roll GREATER than 10, you may lose. And in fact, most untrained characters would benefit more from choosing NOT to take 10, for the very fact that 10 will fail against most important DCs.

So yes, farmer joe with his +0 spot check can still beat Cecil the rogue if she has +17, rolls a 1, is within 20ft of farmer joe, and farmer joe rolls a 20. Is that highly unlikely? Yes, but the fault was on her for getting so close to farmer joe, if she'd just stayed out at 30ft, she would have been fine.

[Vahnavoi]

You're talking past him, being so focused on the minutiae of semantic differences of these checks that you have ignored what he said about the results. And once again, you're being condescending with regards to this difference in values and opinions, derisively regarding it as some kind of "failure to distinguish" those minutiae you prefer to focus on.

My counter-argument isn't minutiae. It is a direct derivation of the game's basic rules which, if taken to account, means there are five distinct playable scenarios that can be created. The number of distinct scenarios increases the more of the game's rules are taken to account, since the two thieves don't need to be identical. Calling all the possible scenarios "indistinguishable" is false on the face of it. If you cannot distinguish logical fallacies from "difference in values and opinions", you have nothing useful to say on the topic.

If the goal is simply to slip past the guards undetected, the various degrees of difference in HOW detection occurs is irrelevant to his point. It's a simple, binary yes/no. That's his point.

And it is a BAD point, because it glosses over actual mechanical differences between scenarios. Treating the scenario where one thief remains undetected as identical to the one where both are detected is fallacious, since an undetected thief can take actions to prevent total failure in common real game scenarios.

The pay-off matrix for the situation isn't binary. Acting as if it is binary is bad team tactics.

To wit: if someone took a test, and an 80% is required to pass, other posters are telling you that there is no difference in getting a 79%, a 50%, or a 15% grade. You, OTOH, are insisting that a 79% is vastly different than a 15%, and that everyone who doesn't agree with your points is deficient in their understanding.

You cannot flip my own argument on me via analogy without making the situation actually analogous. An actually analogous situation has two people taking the test, and if one fails but the other passes, the one passing can help the person who failed, or move on without the person who failed.

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Yep. Group checks are pass/fail. It doesn't matter whether you failed with a 70%, an 80%, or a 99%. If the test requires a 100% success rate to pass, you failed.

The ONLY time the exact rate of failure matters is in the rare scenarios you can add retroactive points to the roll. If you failed with an 80% but can retroactively add 20% to the roll, then sure it matters.

But chances are you can't.

The test analogy is wrong because the pay-off matrix for two people trying to sneak past a guard is not binary pass/fail. It has at least five different possible pay-offs, which in a real game, all lead to different follow-up situations. Furthermore, the number of distinct pay-offs doesn't decrease with more people added, it increases - that holds regardless of how favorable the overall odds end up.

Furthermore "group check" isn't an actual rule in 3.x D&D. Hide and Move Silently versus Spot and Listen are a typical example of individual checks. The closest you get is Aid Another. If you let the rules for Aid Another under combining skill attempts to apply, everyone in a team is piggybacking on, and possibly contributing to, the effort of the most skilled person in the group. This can reduce the pay-off matrix to a binary, but it typically also massively increases overall chances of complete success. It can also, however, increase the chance of total failure. For example, when you turn this:

Both are seen.
One is seen, another is heard but not seen.
One is seen, another remains entirely undetected.
Neither is seen, both are heard.
Neither is seen, one is heard.
Neither is seen nor heard.

Into this:

Both are seen.
Neither is seen nor heard.

If there's any chance of failure at all on a d20 check, the chance for "both are seen" jumps from 1-in-400 to 1-in-20 at minimum. This effect is often less favorable for larger groups, where bulk of of the pay-off matrix and hence the likeliest odds are for some of the intermediate results.

This relates to your argument about the "ONLY time" exact rate of failure matters. Every time when someone in larger group remains wholly or partially undetected, basic game rules of 3.x D&D allow them a number of tactics to improve the situation for their group. By assuming "chances are you can't", you presume the characters who passed their checks are more helpless than they actually are.

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Making a single failed check into an irretrievable mission failure is bad scenario design, no matter what skills you're rolling or how many checks are involved.

That's a scenario designer's viewpoint. However, there is also a viewpoint of player strategy here. The idea that it's THE GOAL for both thieves to pass is dubious from that viewpoint also. Typically, stealth is an instrumental goal, you are using it to get at something else, it's not the terminal goal, the entirety of the thing you're going to accomplish. For a very simple example, if the goal is to shank the guard, and ONE thief is enough to accomplish this goal, then every result where EVEN ONE thief remains undetected long enough to get in the position to do this counts as a success. By choosing the right strategy, having more people now turns from a disadvantage into an advantage.

[RedMage125]

My counter-argument isn't minutiae. It is a direct derivation of the game's basic rules which, if taken to account, means there are five distinct playable scenarios that can be created. The number of distinct scenarios increases the more of the game's rules are taken to account, since the two thieves don't need to be identical. Calling all the possible scenarios "indistinguishable" is false on the face of it. If you cannot distinguish logical fallacies from "difference in values and opinions", you have nothing useful to say on the topic.

No...you're just talking past me and other posters. The point was that if the goal is "sneak past the guards undetected, without the alarm being raised" then all of the minutiae of HOW the Rogues were detected, to include whether it was one or both of them, are IRRELEVANT. The mission has failed. The alarm has been raised. All of the "mechanical differences" in those varying degrees of failure are not nearly as significant as the failure itself with regard to the point he was making which was vis a vis combining the skills or not, and the odds of success vis failure. Even though doing do is absolutely "gamist" by his own admission.

If you want to talk about logical fallacies, then how about yours? Moving the Goalposts, False Equivalency, and Ad Hominem.

The test analogy is absolutely accurate. You're insisting that other posters have deficient comprehension for not recognizing the "vast degree of separation" between a 79% and 15%. Meanwhile, they're pointing out that the cutoff for success was 80%, and a failure is STILL a failure. Everything you continue to proselytize on about "result matrices" is, by that analogy, pointing how how large the gulf between 15% and 79% is, and how many numbers are in that gulf.

And again...I don't have a dog in the fight of whether or not anyone sees the value that I do in combining them (and will absolutely cop to my own reasoning being in favor of gamist reasoning over simulationist). I can absolutely respect that others prefer more simulationist mechanics. At this point, I'm addressing YOU and your methods of discussion. You're rude, insulting, and you keep talking past them. It's not exactly apples and oranges, more like they're having a discussion about whether something is a citrus fruit or not, and you want to talk about how distinct tangerines and clementines are from white grapefruit, and act as if lumping them together is an intellectual failing. But their whole point was "it's a citrus fruit, period". Not only are you talking past them, you keep dropping in personal insults in your language, because you assume that anyone who doesn't care about the distinction just "fails to understand" your point. And whether or not you're conscious of that, such a thing stems from the internal belief that your own point comes from some kind of "universal and objective fact", rather than a preference (in that others don't care about the distinctions of degrees of results of the failures). And so you're rude to them, behaving as if they just "don't/can't understand" these things you think are so important.

[Darg]

I never said it did, I was merely clarifying the assumption that passive skills would be assumed by default to be taking 10. When I said an active decision, i meant on behalf of the player (or dm), not the character. The default is, however, rolling, and so, you may beat a character's spot bonus by more than 10, and be able to auto win IF THEY CHOOSE to take 10, but if they do NOT choose to take 10, and simply roll, as is the default, and they roll GREATER than 10, you may lose. And in fact, most untrained characters would benefit more from choosing NOT to take 10, for the very fact that 10 will fail against most important DCs.

So yes, farmer joe with his +0 spot check can still beat Cecil the rogue if she has +17, rolls a 1, is within 20ft of farmer joe, and farmer joe rolls a 20. Is that highly unlikely? Yes, but the fault was on her for getting so close to farmer joe, if she'd just stayed out at 30ft, she would have been fine.

Your numbers aren't wrong, but why would you want to roll so many times? Every action is another 2 rolls. For just one creature to move 60 ft that's 8 rolls. For the whole party that turns into 32-48 rolls. Honestly, not a very tenable situation when even failures only on a 20:1 have a high chance of failing when you're rolling so many times per attempt. The spotter only needs to succeed once after all while the sneaker(s) needs to succeed every last one.

[Vahnavoi]

No...you're just talking past me and other posters. The point was that if the goal is "sneak past the guards undetected, without the alarm being raised" then all of the minutiae of HOW the Rogues were detected, to include whether it was one or both of them, are IRRELEVANT.

I've pointed out, repeatedly, that when one of the thieves goes undetected, they can take action to prevent the alarm from being raised. That is obviously relevant. By dismissing that, you double down on a basic error in the example.

The test-taking analogy continues to be false and pointless; it does not even include correct odds for passing. The chance for total failure is not 1-in-5. If you want to talk about game rules, talk about game rules. All of the relevant parts are available, for free, on the internet for quick checking. If you want to argue the thieves have poor odds, calculate the odds properly.

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EDIT:

The spotter only needs to succeed once after all while the sneaker(s) needs to succeed every last one.

This is not true for the given example and is even less true about common game situations. See my point about player strategy to lesser_minion.

In many actual game scenarios, players have options for strategies where only some or only one person remaining undetected is sufficient to achieve a victory condition. Leaving these outside discussion is a fallacy of omission and gives an imperfect idea of how good stealth tactics actually are. It also commits fallacy of equivocation, since being seen and being heard have different ramifications under 3.x rules.

[GloatingSwine]

I think the RNG makes a strong simulationist argument in favor of combining the roles. Assume if you will a pair of pretty good thieves. 5 ranks in stealth or hide and ms. Skill focus for a +3. 14 dex for their elite array. They are trying to sneak past guy on the street. No perception related skills. No wis bonus. Taking 10. He only sees them if they roll a 1. They have about a 1-in-5 chance of fouling that up as badly as is possible, essentially fumbling one of their combined 4 rolls. That just seems unduely harsh to me.

I also think there is a similar gamist reason in favor of combining the rolls. In a party of 4 (8 rolls) there is a 1-in-3 chance of a 1 being rolled, and better than a 1-in-2 of a 1 or 2. Thats probably just going to tell a mechanically savvy party that sneaking pretty much just won't work unless you have an overwhelming advantage such that the rolls just don't matter. Or similarly, if DM is having enemies sneak up on party, they need an overwhelming advantage over the party's perception.

Another thing is that splitting the rolls only produces a uniquely interesting outcome vs. combining them if the nature of failure meaningfully changes what the players can do as a response. If your options after a failure on Hide are different to your options on a failure on Move Silently then maybe some interesting gameplay comes out of it.

But I that would have limited milage because there won't be infinitely many non-overlapping outcomes between "is seen" and "is heard".

(And any outcomes that would attend either can still be freely chosen by the DM on a fail on a combined roll anyway.)