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

[Ozreth]

In the spirit of other recent threads I've made concerning more surface level rules and play (some good discussions that I've gotten a lot from), I return to this age old debate. Now, I know that combining these has become the norm, and I have been doing so in my 3.5 games since PF came out, but returning to the game I was looking over skills and, call it nostalgia, but part of me wanted to have these skills separate again. I went online and could find a few key threads on various sites discussing this (here's one), and a few decent arguments in favor of separating them, but they are older discussions.

We could all list the benefits of combining them, but does anybody still keep them separate and what is your reasoning? Curious about both thematic and rule affecting reasons.

[RedMage125]

I'm one of those who combined them. The arguments in that link are compelling as far as the math, but ultimately, I combine them, because I favor game rules as abstractions to the narrative -or fiction- layer. For the same reason that I will narratively describe a hit that reduces HP as a blow to the shield that leaves the defender's arm a little sore, but not an actual wound.

To my way of thinking, the only benefit is for those who prefer better simulationism in their rules. It is more precise to have to track both one's ability to remain unseen and the ability to remain unheard as distinct and separate. And of course, there are players and DMs who value that. I do not. I can go on about what I perceive as the benefits of abandoning simulationism, and the drawbacks of adherence to it...but that's still just my opinion. No one preference, not even mine, is objectively better.

[Darg]

I still use the 3.5 structuring simply because that's what the game is based on. The 3.5 skill structure is based on the fact that you have x number of total skills to choose from, y class skills, and z skill points based on class selection. Compression of skill choices is about mechanical convenience which also has the side effect of increasing power. Spreading out the available skill choices increases the variability between characters while simultaneously decreasing character power.

I'm personally a fan of having mechanically diverse characters. For example, a ranger doesn't necessarily need or desire the function of the search skill as they are more thematically going to want the functions of spot and listen. At the same time, an archer ranger isn't going to need as much move silently as they are going to be attacking from larger distances. A longbow can reach ranges of up to 1000 feet. That's a +100 to the DC of any spot or listen check. Even at a range of 100 ft it's still +10 to the DC. If your plan is to create a character that takes pot shots to stay hidden, maybe you don't actually need to improve your move silently as much because it isn't taking a -20 penalty like the hide check is, nor is move silently actually necessary to be hidden from enemies in combat. For sneaking around, listen checks can alert to your presence but do not necessarily betray your actual location if you've successfully hidden and vice versa. For example, if you're invisible it's very unlikely anyone is going to see you but they can still detect your presence. Having spot and listen as separate checks means characters can fail to locate the invisible creature, but still be able to detect its presence and general direction. With them combined as perception, even your ability to notice their presence is diminished as stealth checks get a +20/40 and a successful perception check will always reveal the square of an invisible creature.

Then there is also the fact that some DMs are just really poor at skill challenges. Personally, skills aren't meant to be challenged in the first place, instead they should be used to open doors that would be closed otherwise. But because a lot of times set ups can involve impassable obstacles because the DM wants characters to have a chance of failure at everything they do, players tend to devote skill points into skills that will better protect them from the DM rather than promote what they want their character to do. Thus minimizing the number of skills can be a benefit in that regard as it gives them extra points to invest in what they actually want. Again, this is only because the DM is using a system meant to not be totally random as a source of making the players fail. It's ultimately a deceptively innocent way to be adversarial to the players. Most of the time, players with 0 ranks can make use of taking 10 or 20 on a lot of checks to succeed at a lot of things that don't involve combat or opposed checks.

[Morphic tide]

Hide/Move Silently and Spot/Listen being separate lets you work with the differences between visual and audio cues, allowing for quite a lot of design space that'd be very clunky to handle with in-line text.

The separation is only a problem because the system merged design space from Nonweapon Proficiencies and Thief Skills under a single bucket apportioned based mostly on the latter, instead of as separate buckets with plentiful fixed-cost boolean permissions.

Class skills make it worse by making you pay more for less, adding up to Fighters being laughably incompetent in most everything but Fighting because the skill list leaves far too little narrative-driven blank space and they get close to nothing to invest in it.

[RedMage125]

Class skills make it worse by making you pay more for less, adding up to Fighters being laughably incompetent in most everything but Fighting because the skill list leaves far too little narrative-driven blank space and they get close to nothing to invest in it.

Agree wholeheartedly. I really like how PF1e handled that. Once a Class Skill, always a class skill. And an extra (+3) one time miscellaneous bonus for having ranks is much easier, more elegant, and player-friendly than the "pay more for less" of the 3.5e default.

[Jay R]

Deaf people (including people just hit with a deafness spell) can spot and search.
Blind people (including people just hit with a blindness spell) can listen.
Blindfolded people can listen, but not spot.
kobolds and orcs hear just as well in the sunlight as in their caves, but cannot see as well.
Humans hear just as well at night as in the daytime, but cannot see as well.
Hearing affects all directions. Spotting is only where your eyes are pointing.
Searching is a very different skill set than just having good eyes.
Hiding requires skills that moving silently does not.
Moving silently requires skills that hiding does not.
Wearing armor or other noisemaking clothes does not affect hiding.
Wearing bright colors does not affect moving silently.
You don't need to move silently around deaf people.
You don't need to hide around blind people.
I can cover noise just by being noisy, but I can't keep you from being spotted just by being visible.

The clever, methodical, focused PC should be the best at searching.
The PC who is always looking around should be best at spotting
The quiet, reserved PC should be best at listening.
The deft, subtle PC should be best at moving silently.
The PC with the best body awareness should be best at hiding.

If the goal is to simulate actual behavior, then combining them makes no sense.
If the goal is to tell a story about different kinds of people, then combining them makes no sense.

[Ozreth]

I still use the 3.5 structuring simply because that's what the game is based on. The 3.5 skill structure is based on the fact that you have x number of total skills to choose from, y class skills, and z skill points based on class selection. Compression of skill choices is about mechanical convenience which also has the side effect of increasing power. Spreading out the available skill choices increases the variability between characters while simultaneously decreasing character power.

I'm personally a fan of having mechanically diverse characters. For example, a ranger doesn't necessarily need or desire the function of the search skill as they are more thematically going to want the functions of spot and listen. At the same time, an archer ranger isn't going to need as much move silently as they are going to be attacking from larger distances. A longbow can reach ranges of up to 1000 feet. That's a +100 to the DC of any spot or listen check. Even at a range of 100 ft it's still +10 to the DC. If your plan is to create a character that takes pot shots to stay hidden, maybe you don't actually need to improve your move silently as much because it isn't taking a -20 penalty like the hide check is, nor is move silently actually necessary to be hidden from enemies in combat. For sneaking around, listen checks can alert to your presence but do not necessarily betray your actual location if you've successfully hidden and vice versa. For example, if you're invisible it's very unlikely anyone is going to see you but they can still detect your presence. Having spot and listen as separate checks means characters can fail to locate the invisible creature, but still be able to detect its presence and general direction. With them combined as perception, even your ability to notice their presence is diminished as stealth checks get a +20/40 and a successful perception check will always reveal the square of an invisible creature.

Deaf people (including people just hit with a deafness spell) can spot and search.
Blind people (including people just hit with a blindness spell) can listen.
Blindfolded people can listen, but not spot.
kobolds and orcs hear just as well in the sunlight as in their caves, but cannot see as well.
Humans hear just as well at night as in the daytime, but cannot see as well.
Hearing affects all directions. Spotting is only where your eyes are pointing.
Searching is a very different skill set than just having good eyes.
Hiding requires skills that moving silently does not.
Moving silently requires skills that hiding does not.
Wearing armor or other noisemaking clothes does not affect hiding.
Wearing bright colors does not affect moving silently.
You don't need to move silently around deaf people.
You don't need to hide around blind people.
I can cover noise just by being noisy, but I can't keep you from being spotted just by being visible.

The clever, methodical, focused PC should be the best at searching.
The PC who is always looking around should be best at spotting
The quiet, reserved PC should be best at listening.
The deft, subtle PC should be best at moving silently.
The PC with the best body awareness should be best at hiding.

If the goal is to simulate actual behavior, then combining them makes no sense.
If the goal is to tell a story about different kinds of people, then combining them makes no sense.

Two of my favorite responses I've seen to this so far.

[pabelfly]

Occasionally I want to use enemies that might have an advantage in one of hiding or moving silently, but not both, as was previously pointed out.

I also like the amount of skill points each class gets per level. I've experimented with increasing the amount of skill points 2 + INT classes get (and this change would theoretically have a similar effect) and I don't like it. I prefer keeping skill point acquisition as the level it is in vanilla, and not to modify it.

[Vahnavoi]

Splitting search and spot was always iffy. But for spot versus listen and hide versus move silently, the argument is fairly clear: these skills govern two different senses that can, and in regular game scenarios do, work independently of one another. As the simplest possible example, consider any dark room. Indeed, an argument can be made for five distinct skills or abilities governing the senses (sight, hearing, scent, touch, taste) and the d20 system does appeal to every sense (see, for example, illusions), so there would be useful game design space in that direction.

The problem is that the skill system as a whole is bad about how many skills there are and how points can be distributed among them. In the core rules, virtually everyone get too few skill points to spend given the range of die rolls and the number of things an adventurer reasonably has to do during their career. Additionally, the partitioning of class and non-class skills is haphazard. The system would benefit from "everyman" skills that any class can spend points in at 1-to-1 rate and increased amount of skill points, possibly only usable in these skills.

[Troacctid]

I agree with this argument:

I think it changes it for the worse. The trouble is that skills need to be balanced against each other, at least to a certain degree. 3.5 isn't great for this, of course, but the consolidation doesn't help. Perception and Stealth are just too cheap for what they do.

What do I mean by this? Well, in Pathfinder everyone takes Perception. Furthermore, the Wis-based characters are a lot better at it than the Rogue is. Skill consolidation makes sense where there is a skill that is too weak, like merging Jump/Climb/Swim into Athletics or folding Use Rope's paltry uses into Climb and Escape Artist. Search, Spot, Listen, Hide, and Move Silently are fine as they are.

I think Spot and Listen are two of the strongest skills in the game when they're separate, and they get even stronger when you consolidate them. They just don't need the buff. Same with Hide and Move Silently, although to a lesser extent. The Athletics merge makes much more sense because Climb, Jump, and Swim are low-value skills that players don't normally take as-is.

[AvatarVecna]

I still use the 3.5 structuring simply because that's what the game is based on. The 3.5 skill structure is based on the fact that you have x number of total skills to choose from, y class skills, and z skill points based on class selection. Compression of skill choices is about mechanical convenience which also has the side effect of increasing power. Spreading out the available skill choices increases the variability between characters while simultaneously decreasing character power.

I will say, I kinda like the power increases that skill consolidation caused in the comparison between 3.5 and PF, particularly since a lot of the condensing tended to benefit martial classes more than casters. Mechanically, it's better for the game health if, say, the monk can actually function as a martial arts ninja if that's what they're building for.

But I also don't disagree with any of the points being raised in this thread. It mildly makes sense that Balance and Tumble got combined into Acrobatics, but then Jump got roped in too - making it unrelated to Strength score, which feels far more important than Dexterity, story-wise. It's weird that Invisibility gives a +40 to stealth without specifying it doesn't make you harder to hear. It's kinda dumb that being Deafened affects your ability to spot a hidden target.

I think a generally better solution would be to just offer more skill points, particularly to noncasters. A couple extra for fighter/ranger/rogue, a bunch extra for monk cuz it sucks...barbarian is probably fine?

I particularly like one of the ways PF handled this with Background Skills. There's a lot of skills that are really great to help flesh out a character, but every character I've ever made has been so starved for skill ranks cuz there's skills that are just really likely to help keep my character from getting killed. It's nice having an option on the table where "you can't spend these on adventuring skills, these have to be NPC things that fit the character". I don't have to worry about them getting overshadowed by a more important skill cuz I can't pick one of the big boy skills with them at all. I can just slap Appraise/Profession (Shopkeeper), or Craft (Cartography)/Knowledge (Geography), and it's a little bit more of a character and a little bit less of just a build.

EDIT: I guess if I'm wording this as an argument in favor of keeping skills separate, it would be that there's a better solution to the mechanical problem that skill consolidation is trying to solve. There is a power imbalance baked into the game, and some people being able to cover more skills helps mitigate that power imbalance. Skill consolidation affects everybody and is merely useful for those who happen to already have more skill points, but as mentioned it's easy for a Wis caster to have a higher bonus in the best skill in the game than the classes intended to specialize in such things. Leaving skills unconsolidated and just handing out extra skill points allows for finer control over who's getting buffed and who's not, and to what degree. All without causing the weird story issues that arise from skill consolidation.

[Darg]

I think a generally better solution would be to just offer more skill points, particularly to noncasters. A couple extra for fighter/ranger/rogue, a bunch extra for monk cuz it sucks...barbarian is probably fine?

I have to agree that the way 3e handles skill point distribution between classes is a little iffy. Classes are already limited by their class skills so it makes little sense to limit skill points as well. A homebrew I use is that noncasters get 8 skill points per level, partial casters get 6 skill points per level, skilled casters get 4 skill points per level (druid for example), and normal casters only get 2 per level. A fighter is never going to be great at nonclass skills, but they now have some points to be decent at the kinds of things they want to do. Want to be a smooth talker? You can, just not as good as the bard or rogue. Like to make use of ambushes? You now have enough skill points to grab move silently in addition to hide. I think it works well.

Though I have to disagree monk sucks, but that has more to do with party composition and how the DM runs the game. But that's a different discussion that is wholly subjective.

[Tzardok]

Skill consolidation affects everybody and is merely useful for those who happen to already have more skill points, but as mentioned it's easy for a Wis caster to have a higher bonus in the best skill in the game than the classes intended to specialize in such things. Leaving skills unconsolidated and just handing out extra skill points allows for finer control over who's getting buffed and who's not, and to what degree. All without causing the weird story issues that arise from skill consolidation.

I agree. I haven't played in some time, but I plan to, when I DM the next time, to simply double the base skill points of all classes and see how it goes.

[Ozreth]

Though I have to disagree monk sucks, but that has more to do with party composition and how the DM runs the game. But that's a different discussion that is wholly subjective.

This is a rare take! Would be happy to hear your thoughts on this via DM. I don't typically mind my threads going off the rails (any activity on forums these days is a positive in my opinion), but we are still early in this one

[Morphic tide]

Agree wholeheartedly. I really like how PF1e handled that. Once a Class Skill, always a class skill. And an extra (+3) one time miscellaneous bonus for having ranks is much easier, more elegant, and player-friendly than the "pay more for less" of the 3.5e default.

I'd just return the separation of resource and binary permissions. Everyone using the same formula for the baseline competency pool, separate pool for class fantasy stuff that may overlap, and some of this as flat X points for Y option without a d20+mod roll turning a DC 10 into a mandatory +9 to just work without needing the writers to double-check they pinned Take 10 and Take 20 openings appropriately to everything. Categoric skills like the old NWP groups instead of class-by-class highlights the party roles while making new skills easily assigned to old classes, as well, and the default "off-class" access being a hard "you can't take that skill" means niche-protection like Track and Trapfinding can be axed.

[Rynjin]

Deaf people (including people just hit with a deafness spell) can spot and search.
Blind people (including people just hit with a blindness spell) can listen.
Blindfolded people can listen, but not spot.
kobolds and orcs hear just as well in the sunlight as in their caves, but cannot see as well.
Humans hear just as well at night as in the daytime, but cannot see as well.
Hearing affects all directions. Spotting is only where your eyes are pointing.

This chunk doesn't make much sense. Whether you have Perception or 3 other skills, penalties to one sense only affect that sense for the most part. If you're blind, you auto-fail sight-based Perception checks for example. Kobolds and Orcs likewise take a penalty to...sight-based Perception checks from Light Sensitivity.

Being in the dark penalizes...sight-based Perception checks.

Even the "hearing is all-around, vision is pinpoint" one is not the case as neither 3.5 or Pathfinder have facing rules.

These are all things that are the same across both systems.

Searching is a very different skill set than just having good eyes.
Hiding requires skills that moving silently does not.
Moving silently requires skills that hiding does not.
Wearing armor or other noisemaking clothes does not affect hiding.
Wearing bright colors does not affect moving silently.
You don't need to move silently around deaf people.
You don't need to hide around blind people.
I can cover noise just by being noisy, but I can't keep you from being spotted just by being visible.

The clever, methodical, focused PC should be the best at searching.
The PC who is always looking around should be best at spotting
The quiet, reserved PC should be best at listening.
The deft, subtle PC should be best at moving silently.
The PC with the best body awareness should be best at hiding.

If the goal is to simulate actual behavior, then combining them makes no sense.
If the goal is to tell a story about different kinds of people, then combining them makes no sense.

These make sense for sure, and are pretty much the only valid arguments for keeping the skills separate. But the actual ability to tell extra stories with this system is so insignificant that it's not worth the hassle of dealing with the rest of 3.5's awful skill system.

[Ozreth]

These make sense for sure, and are pretty much the only valid arguments for keeping the skills separate. But the actual ability to tell extra stories with this system is so insignificant that it's not worth the hassle of dealing with the rest of 3.5's awful skill system.

For my group at least, the flavor of the rules, gamey aspects (dice rolling, sub-systems, resource management etc) are still our main attraction and we like varying degrees of simulations. We also don't think of the skill system as awful, it works for what we want to do around the table. None of us dove too deeply into the math, design and optimization of the system over all these years. And as our system of choice ages there is an increasing charm to it as a nostalgia piece, and we interact with it that way as well, which initially sparked my interest in leaving the skills as they are like we did for most of our time playing this edition.

But I get your point, and it is one of the reasons I combined them for some time there. A lot of this is definitely very subjective.

[Fizban]

Because hiding is not the same as moving silently, nor is spotting the same as listening.

It's really that simple. This is a simulationist game with tons of little rules which exist for greater levels of detail, mashing things that are not the same together for convenience goes against the point. Furthermore, this isn't something like the difference between blacksmithing, weaponsmithing, or armorsmithing, all of which are primarily shaping of metal. I can personally move pretty dang silently without even trying, all you have to do is not stomp and flail around- but I have zero experience hiding, which is a completely different skill of guaging cover and lines of sight of predicting enemy movement. And it should not require stating that identifying things at a distance with your eyes is completely and utterly different than picking up and identifying weaker sounds with your ears.

The only reason to do this is convenience. And it's not even convenience of mechanics, because these are incredibly simple numbers you just write on your sheet. Tracking "circumstance" modifiers that deal with the fact that the combined skills are actually multiple different things is far more complicated than just keeping them separate.

No. The reason people want them combined, the reason they'll fight so hard to defend it, is simply because they (consciously or instinctively) know this is, and want, power.*

The Rogue has a ton of skill points, so that they have the opportunity (despite lacking any requirement) to have a whole bunch of skills, including the full set of hide/move/spot/listen. But do the people who mash these skills together then reduce the skill points of those classes to compensate? No, they leave them the same. Condensing these skills is not a convenience, it's a blatant power increase. Even moreso when you get to magic items and oh hey look now it costs half as much to boost what used to be a pair than it used to.

Cramming twice or more use (as the skills synergize) into single skill points makes "necessary" skills even more necessary, as they're so cheap that anyone that doesn't have them becomes underpowered by comparison. But it's not supposed to be cheap and easy to become a master ninja or outstrip Legolas's so-called elf eyes, let alone both at the same time. Contrary to what many video games would have you believe, it is not in fact simple or easy to sneak around in broad daylight, or even "shadows". Normal people, or say previously scholarly folks (the 'ol ascended scientist trope), do not suddenly get the ability to waltz right through people's lines of sight and do insta-kill stealth takedowns on top of all of their other skills. By reducing the cost of the pairs to a single, you intentionally make it far easier for classes that are not supposed to have skill power, to just have the skills with the greatest direct mechanical power (of course this is mitigated by 3.x's half-ranks for cross class skills, but guess what else PF does and popularizes?). Stealth isn't a cool rogue thing when the game is designed so no skills are actually required and there's a minimum of 2+int skills on every class and usually one skill they "need" at best, and then you go and turn four skills into two, so everyone can be full stealth, or even both full stealth and full spot and whatever they're actually supposed to be.

Hide and Move Silently checks make it so that it takes two rolls every round (of movement) to avoid suspicion, which goes for both monsters and PCs. This pair of repeated opposed rolls means than only people with vastly greater skill can do so reliably, which is a good thing, because successful stealth operations should be rare on both sides. Reducing this to a single roll makes the endeavor more swingy instead of curving toward the average- and when combined with other "conveniences" like removing the opposed part of the roll by making one side use a flat DC, or only rolling once for who knows how complicated of an insertion maneuver scenario, makes sneaking far easier.

Skill points are supposed to be granular. Being able to have points in one but not in the other is an incredibly base level form of roleplaying via the mechanics (it's called a roleplaying game), which squishing things into uber "skills" completely removes. Sure it would be easier if we put combined str and con into "body", but would that actually make the game better when it was designed for them to be separate? What if I want tough guy who isn't hercules? Why not just give all the casters all the spells? This may be a smaller thing, but it's the same problem.

What about basic description and scenario design? With the skills as intended, you know whether someone saw something, or heard something, which immediately informs what sort of reaction they will have, the mechanics tell the story. You can have areas that are dark but noisy, or quiet and well lit, where people that have one skill are suddenly more valuable, or where different types of distraction action will matter. Smash them all together and you have, again, the very videogamey "this area allows stealth, which you succeed at because you're the protagonist", rather than a game that reacts with verisimilitude by default. Add this to how it makes things cheaper and easier, and the game can very quickly go from a team of specialists that have different roles where only one might have the ability to reliably sneak around, to everyone is a ninja that always has the surprise round.


You've asked specifically for reasons to not combine the skills, because you're working from the view that it's common and accepted. But I've yet to see anyone put forth a good reason to combine them. The reason not to combine them is because they and the game were designed for them being separate and nothing is gained by combining them except char-op power, while tons of things are lost. I don't need to justify my position, it's PF et-al that have failed to do so.



Now Search I'll give you is a bit weird, but it's very clear what it's actually supposed to be, which is searching for traps, and from there extends into searching for hidden spaces, which poor designers then blow up into a whole extra thing by hiding treasure behind extra search checks. And yes, Spellcraft is (and to a lesser extent Knowledge skills are) ridiculously multipurpose, standing as both the example people will use to justify skill squishing, and also an obviously broken mechanic that should be fixed rather than breaking everything else in order to match it.

*Yes I'm being aggressive here, but people who aren't actually fighting over it are pretty clearly not being bad actors. The choice of maintaining granular verisimilitude vs a more narrative approach is perfectly valid (though I would argue as un-narrative as DnD is it's rather counter productive, at least at anything like this strata of detail), but from an argumentative perspective I really don't see much else. It seems pretty obvious to me that just about every heels-dug-in argument about why X rule that increases power is totally fair and balanced is actually rooted in that person wanting that power. If they didn't want it, they wouldn't be fighting for it.

I will narratively describe a hit that reduces HP as a blow to the shield that leaves the defender's arm a little sore, but not an actual wound.

Which is both correct and incorrect with regards to the rules- a ton, probably even the vast majority of people, describe hits in combat as far more significant than they should be. But the injury poison rules require that every hit must do enough tissue damage that it could have delivered a poison. Still, it's very easy to figure out how to describe hits if you take a moment to do so: every hit draws blood, but no hit could ever be described as potentially lethal or even crippling until the target drops to -1 or below- at which point the hit must have caused continued internal or external bleeding or some sort of shock which results in death in under a minute.

I think a generally better solution would be to just offer more skill points, particularly to noncasters. A couple extra for fighter/ranger/rogue, a bunch extra for monk cuz it sucks...barbarian is probably fine?

Indeed. If the complaint is not enough skill points, then you can just change the skill points. On the individual classes that need them, rather than completely upending entire skills themselves. The only reason I can think of for this not being obvious, is that upending entire skills is somehow perceived as "fair" rather than a direct class buff (as long as you don't follow the ramifications).

Then there is also the fact that some DMs are just really poor at skill challenges.

1000% this as well. I wouldn't claim to be an expert in deploying them, and indeed I think it's quite clear the game was never actually designed to do so other than the occasional TPK room trap, but this is endlessly frustrating watching any sort of DnD content, even moreso with 5e where they don't even have skill DCs anymore, but many people run 3.x the same anyway.

There are standard DCs and ways to calculate DCs for things. Characters can be good enough to do X without reliably doing Y, and in specific fields. You can look at a problem and have a rough idea of whether or not you can do it. If you actually run the skill system as presented.

But most people seem to prefer focusing entirely on their one preferred thing and dismiss everything else as needing to be simplified- combat is the game's central focus, but if you're going to include non-combat things, they should be more interesting than proficient/pass-fail level checks, or even worse proficient/random chance anyway checks. And of course, some people focus so much on "magic" that they quickly decide the tactical intricacy of the combat system should also be simplified away (hello "pounce" on everything!).

[StreamOfTheSky]

Hide/Move Silently and Spot/Listen being separate lets you work with the differences between visual and audio cues, allowing for quite a lot of design space that'd be very clunky to handle with in-line text.

This. I like the distinction between visual/audio senses and detection. Also, Spot and Listen are two of the most useful skills in the game already and Search is very handy as well, so merging them together just means EVERYONE is maxing ranks in "Perception" and now actually using stealth becomes harder b/c you made the opposing skill the God Skill. And it's not just conjecture, I saw it firsthand in a dozen different PF groups. Everyone's maxing Perception.
And where did Search getting mixed in even come from? Doesn't even use the same ability score nor is it reactive/passive.

I do like the idea of combining Search w/ another weaker skill, though. Sleight of Hand always seemed the obvious one to me, and dex-based searching isn't far-fetched (tactile trapsmith feat, for example). Or combine it w/ Decipher Script (finally people will take ranks in it, lol) and combine Sleight of Hand, Open Locks, and Use Rope together (because why not throw that useless skill in?)

That's in general a huge problem I always had w/ PF. I'm not opposed to combining skills, but the ones they did combine were utterly horrible choices.

Class skills make it worse by making you pay more for less, adding up to Fighters being laughably incompetent in most everything but Fighting because the skill list leaves far too little narrative-driven blank space and they get close to nothing to invest in it.

The fix to that is giving Fighters more class skills and maybe skill points (I give them 4+Int). Not destroying the entire skill system like PF did.

[Ozreth]

The reason people want them combined, the reason they'll fight so hard to defend it, is simply because they (consciously or instinctively) know this is, and want, power.*

I can pretty much get behind your entire post. You make an especially good point about making out of combat systems more interesting. Something as simple as having to move silently successfully as well as hide and making the extra roll does help here. I don’t mind extra rolling or calculations etc.

But I wanted to point out the quoted part and say that I think another reason, and perhaps a more common reason is the last 10 years of very heavy focus on words like “simplification”, “streamline” and “rules light” that came out of the popularity of the OSR (with the irony being that AD&D, at least 1e, is none of those things, but that’s another convo). I liked the early days of the OSR and what they were doing, but it was let loose at some point (mostly by 5th edition being so influenced by it at the time) and a lot of newer people getting into the game are convinced that extra rules and crunch get in the way of a story and gameplay. So you look at PF and 5e and see that they condensed the skill lists and it makes you want to do the same. I know I got caught up in this as well.

[Quertus]

It's weird that Invisibility gives a +40 to stealth without specifying it doesn't make you harder to hear. It's kinda dumb that being Deafened affects your ability to spot a hidden target.

This is pretty much what I came to say (although I also really appreciate the lengthy list from Jay R). A huge stomping mech that turns invisible? If Perception and Stealth skills are separated, then people will be properly trained to understand what that means (and what it doesn't), and the system will likewise handle the scenario well enough. OTOH, if they're lumped into 1 skill, and Invisibility reads, "+40 to Stealth", then it's just dumb, and I'll prefer to use the system rulebooks to start fires than to play games.

Now, there's some in between, where games where the Stealth system acknowledges concepts like "awareness of existence", "aware of location", and "able to be targeted", and different abilities give different modifiers to different uses of Perception but, at that point, to do it right, you've got something more complex than just sticking with Spot and Listen (and scent and taste and touch and... and need I mention just how much a giant mech moving around would mess with air currents, or how they might leave footprints, or...?).

All in all, as I always say, People are Idiots. And they really don't need systems helping them to be even dumber. So, unless you want to build an even more complex system, which carefully analyzes all the ways a target can be perceived, and sets the Perception DCs for awareness / identification / location / targeting / etc accordingly, I encourage game designers to keep the skills separate.

[RedMage125]

Because hiding is not the same as moving silently, nor is spotting the same as listening.

It's really that simple. This is a simulationist game with tons of little rules which exist for greater levels of detail, mashing things that are not the same together for convenience goes against the point.

This is right in line with what I said.

I reject the idea that "more simulationist" equals "better". Especially when so many other rules (Armor Class, Hit Points, and so on) are abstractions.

Which is both correct and incorrect with regards to the rules- a ton, probably even the vast majority of people, describe hits in combat as far more significant than they should be. But the injury poison rules require that every hit must do enough tissue damage that it could have delivered a poison. Still, it's very easy to figure out how to describe hits if you take a moment to do so: every hit draws blood, but no hit could ever be described as potentially lethal or even crippling until the target drops to -1 or below- at which point the hit must have caused continued internal or external bleeding or some sort of shock which results in death in under a minute.

I actually agree that the narration of hits depends on a number of factors, and damage type is one of them, to include poison. Lycanthrope bites are another.

Sometimes the narrative DOES have to include some form of (probably minor) skin contact, in order for damage and/or a saving throw to make sense.

[Morphic tide]

The fix to that is giving Fighters more class skills and maybe skill points (I give them 4+Int). Not destroying the entire skill system like PF did.

"Has basic job skills to earn pocket-change in downtime" and "gets an extra one to two rounds of awareness on the rampaging troll" are far too different in value and context to be a sensible opportunity cost. And burning half the points you invest in a cross-class skill if you don't dedicate a level to it that cap at an ever-worsening half the ranks makes using them at all so utterly foolish in the face of the litany of DC 10-20 adventuring-important "trivial" checks you are at times outright risking your life not covering as soon as possible as to be embarrassing incompetence.

[Vahnavoi]

I reject the idea that "more simulationist" equals "better". Especially when so many other rules (Armor Class, Hit Points, and so on) are abstractions.

That's a bad play. To paraphrase something Gry Gygax said of 1st Edition AD&D: "Between reality simulation and a fun past time, [the game] is meant to be firmly in the latter camp. It cannot be said to properly simulate anything beyond itself. This doesn't mean realism isn't attempted where it would improve the game, however."

Sensory perception, protection from injury and physical injury are all separate topics. Hence, they can (and do) benefit from different level of detail. Trying to argue "but some mechanics are already abstract!" equivocates different mechanics and different levels of abstraction without examining why any of those mechanics exist at given level of abstraction.

Like, let's look at your comparison points. Hit points are abstract by necessity because accurately detailing effects of D&D's hundreds of attack modes on different targets would be impossible. Yet, when it comes to human opponents, the system acknowledges there is a difference between severe damage that takes a long time to recover from, and mere exhaustion and bruising that can be recovered quickly - hence split between lethal and non-lethal hitpoint damage. Additionally, the system acknowledges some long term injuries would directly impact a character's abilities, so in addition to hitpoint damage, there exists ability damage - and , as with lethal and non-lethal hitpoint damage, several flavors of ability damage based on the cause. All these damage tracks are abstract, but put together they create a much more complex system of injury, with more design space for various attack modes and their defenses, than is apparent on the surface.

Next, armor class. Yes, the system adds all kinds of factors to a single number to model a character's defensive ability. Yet, even then, it tracks these factors by source and acknowledges common sense reasons why some of them might not apply. Hence, constructions such as flat-footed AC and touch AC; the former eliminates some AC factors based on inability of the character to intelligently defend themselves, the latter eliminates some AC factors based on when merely a touch would be dangerous and armor offers no protection.

Now we get back to sensory perception. The common sense distinction between sight and hearing, is similar to common sense distinction between lethal and non-lethal damage, and common sense distinction between normal, flat-footed and touch AC. So even in a system where sensory perception is just a single skill or ability, it would still make sense to have different modifiers for situations using different senses, and the same goes for opposing stealth skills.

So, for example, following the same level of abstraction as hitpoints or armor class, even a game with a single perception skill would still reasonably have more than one value derived from it, such as Perception (Sight) and Perception (Hearing), with special character traits adding circumstantial bonuses and additional modes of detection. Failure to do this leads to losing detail in a way that's directly relevant in a common sense manner to everyday character activities.

Nevermind that hitpoints and armor class in D&D frequently face criticism for being too abstract, and this has been consistent for nearly 50 years by now. These constructs have two things going for them, simplicity and consequent ease of use, but there's a reason why alternate models, even variants of D&D itself (!) frequently expand these models. Splitting hitpoints into two different resources (see: wounds and vitality) and armor class into two or more (see: armor as damage reduction) are, arguably more common solutions in the wider field of gaming than D&D's classic model.

[RedMage125]

That's a bad play. To paraphrase something Gry Gygax said of 1st Edition AD&D: "Between reality simulation and a fun past time, [the game] is meant to be firmly in the latter camp. It cannot be said to properly simulate anything beyond itself. This doesn't mean realism isn't attempted where it would improve the game, however."

*a bunch of stuff defending simulationism*

I mentioned this in the current thread on House Rules, but I disagree that simulationism improves the game in this regard. And it stemmed from my original decision to merge Hide and Move Silently. I've seen way too many instances of a great Hide check followed by a middling Move Silently one.

Again, I absolutely agree that separate skills are more accurate simulationism. 100%. I disagree that it adds to the fun.

Once I merged the Stealth skills, I felt obliged to merge Spot and Listen, to not give defenders 2 chances to a sneaky character's 1. Unlike Pathfinder, however, my house rule kept Search as a distinct, INT-based skill (as it represents actively looking, vice noticing something).

This is absolutely a matter of opinion, and you're not going to change mine. I came here and gave my input, but I have been very clear that I am expressing my preferences. You have different ones, and that's fine. But before you spend any more time expounding on why separate skills are more accurate simulation, you should know that I agree. I just disagree on the value of that towards the game.

There's a lot of examples of this. But this is the one I chose to actually change when I run 3.5e (the rest I allow to run RAW, because I want my players to mostly be able to expect the game will work like the rules say they will). Namely because my experience showed me that this one actually had a negative impact on player fun.

[Darg]

"Has basic job skills to earn pocket-change in downtime" and "gets an extra one to two rounds of awareness on the rampaging troll" are far too different in value and context to be a sensible opportunity cost. And burning half the points you invest in a cross-class skill if you don't dedicate a level to it that cap at an ever-worsening half the ranks makes using them at all so utterly foolish in the face of the litany of DC 10-20 adventuring-important "trivial" checks you are at times outright risking your life not covering as soon as possible as to be embarrassing incompetence.

Oh? And what would those life risking checks be? Most of your basic checks are easily passed on a take 10 with a +0 modifier. And many others can be tried again with no consequence for taking 20 like open lock.

[Rynjin]

Now we get back to sensory perception. The common sense distinction between sight and hearing, is similar to common sense distinction between lethal and non-lethal damage, and common sense distinction between normal, flat-footed and touch AC. So even in a system where sensory perception is just a single skill or ability, it would still make sense to have different modifiers for situations using different senses, and the same goes for opposing stealth skills.

So, for example, following the same level of abstraction as hitpoints or armor class, even a game with a single perception skill would still reasonably have more than one value derived from it, such as Perception (Sight) and Perception (Hearing), with special character traits adding circumstantial bonuses and additional modes of detection. Failure to do this leads to losing detail in a way that's directly relevant in a common sense manner to everyday character activities.

Good thing Perception has always done this then.

It feels like a lot of people complaining about this don't actually know how the combined skill works.

[lesser_minion]

The game's maths is based on you needing to roll twice to avoid detection. If you're rolling both hide and move silently without any circumstance bonuses or penalties, that means you're active in a small, well-lit room with someone who's completely awake and alert. That's pretty clearly a terrible situation to put yourself in if you want to remain unnoticed.

[Vahnavoi]

Again, I absolutely agree that separate skills are more accurate simulationism. 100%. I disagree that it adds to the fun.

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.

---

Good thing Perception has always done this then.

It feels like a lot of people complaining about this don't actually know how the combined skill works.

Oh, I know games with single Perception skill (or ability) commonly do it. I just explained why they do it. It just so happens the same reasoning can be used for separate sense skills as well. The overarching point is about the level of abstraction, which is about the same for both solutions.

[Chronos]

As soon as you ever have any situation where vision and hearing are treated separately, the system breaks if it's not designed from the bottom up to have them separate. And in a game as open-ended as D&D, those situations will come up. I don't have any experience with Pathfinder, but 5th edition notoriously has some cases where, if the room suddenly goes dark, you can perceive enemies better, because you're now using perception checks based on hearing, instead of on sight. And even when simulationism isn't the primary point, a simulation break that extreme is jarring.