Perception v. Spot

[psionotic]

So I know this is old news, but the preview 4e spined devil card has a number for Perception (+5, iirc) and Spot (+10, iirc).

Has anyone discovered what the difference is between these? I'm glad that the designers have decided to collapse a lot of skills, but in that light this dichotomy seems very... odd.

And even if one of these two abilities is not a skill, but some kind of power or ability, it seems like it would be very easy for players & DMs to mistake one for the other, especially when we're all just starting up.

I would love it if someone could clarify this...!

 

[drothgery]

If I were to guess, extrapolating from how certain things are handled in SWSE, spot is likely a specific use of the perception skill (and equivalent to spot and/or listen in 3.x).

 

[DreamChaser]

Which desperately begs the question why they bothered combining them in the first place.

DC

 

[TwinBahamut]

Which desperately begs the question why they bothered combining them in the first place.

DC

For a few reasons, I think.

1) Anyone who needs to be a good scout needs to take both anyways in order to be effective, so for 70% or more of the time, Spot and Listen modifiers are the same. Keeping them as the same skill just makes things simpler. This is a trend for all skills in 4E, really (compare to the new Athletics skill).

2) Having a perception skill, rather than the more specific Spot and Listen skills, leaves more room for unusual senses like Scent, Blindsense, Tremorsense, etc to be covered by a unified skill, rather than exist as exceptions to the rule which use different mechanics or provide automatic success.

 

[Pale Jackal]

It just depends how common it is.

Maybe, according to flavor, Spined Devils have really keen eye sight.

If every other monster has a higher spot than perception, then you may [legitimately] complain.

And yes, "scouts" having to spend 2 skill points to be perceptive was somewhat lame... of course, given how good spot/listen are compared to some other skills (which still cost 1 skill point despite being worthless)... hard to complain.

 

[Betote]

The problem when you combine skills in a 1-per-1 skill point system is that, if you create a broad skill, all the skills have to be of the same 'broadness'. So, if you go as far as to have a plain "Perception" skill, you limit yourself to "Perception", "Stealth", "Social" and "Lore", with maybe space for 1 or 2 more setting-based skills, like "Nature", "Craft", "Occult" or "Technology".

It's neither a good or a bad decision, but it's a decision you have to be consequent to. If you mix "Perception" and "Knowledge: Heraldry" in the same list, you've created a greatly unbalanced skill system.

 

[FadedC]

Well I think we do know that there is only a single stealth skill, rather then having both hide and move silently. But yeah I have no clue about the spot skill, that is wierd....somehow I missed that my first time looking at it. All of the other creatures we have seen simply had perception.

 

[drothgery]

Which desperately begs the question why they bothered combining them in the first place.

To expand on what I said earlier, Star Wars Saga perception isn't just Spot + Listen, it's Spot + Listen + Search + Sense Motive; it's quite possible the 'notice something with a quick look/listen' use is just called 'Spot' in 4e. As to why combine them, well, it's to keep all the skills on about the same level of usefulness and to cut down on the number of rolls (four rolls to be sneaky is annoying).

 

[FireLance]

I wonder if it could be an active/passive split. If someone is trying to sneak past you, he rolls his Stealth against your Perception, but if you spend an (standard? move? minor?) action to actively look for someone, your Spot opposes his Stealth.

Of course, there would be more evidence for this theory if Perception already had a base 10 added to it (Perception 15, for example), like the various defences.

 

[Merlin the Tuna]

The Serenity RPG (and I imagine others) uses a semi-consolidated skill set like this. One can upgrade a general skill -- say, Perception -- up to a certain competence, but to improve beyond that, skills need to be more specialized. So using their dice pool system, a character might have d6 Perception, d8 Listen, and d12 Spot, specifically. The difference is that, in D&D 3.5, those would be separate purchases. You upgrade from d2 --> d6 Perception, from d2 --> d8 Listen, and from d2 --> d12 Spot. In Serenity, you upgrade from d2 --> d6 Perception, d6 --> d8 Listen, and d6 --> d12 Spot.

Hopefully that makes sense. At any rate, the point I'm probably failing to make is that there's a middle ground between totally separate and completely consolidated, and it wouldn't be a new trail that needed blazing.