Post by: Telkar on March 25, 2020, 11:30:37 PM
The 3.5 PnP version is here for reference: https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Listen_Skill (https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Listen_Skill)
I'm not sure how best it would be to implement feasibly, but first thoughts are:
Given that someone your character is aware of whispers:
- The character rolls a listen check to know there was a whisper, seeing "[whisper]" from the whisperer or somesuch if it was passed.
- If the DC is passed by a lot (10 in PnP), you see what was whispered.
- The DC would be based on distance from the whisperer, weather/environment and whether the whisperer is in line of sight.
I'd make the DCs go all the way towards 80 and maybe more for the toughest ones. For someone far enough away to be close to not being able to listen to normal talk from the whisperer, the DC could be close to impossible. That way, people could still be reasonably certain that they won't be overheard if they're a certain distance away from other people.
Post by: Khornite on March 26, 2020, 12:53:54 AM
Post by: Telkar on March 26, 2020, 10:15:31 AM
Another is to go to more populous places to make new connections and meet people.
This implementation wouldn't kill the incentive to go to the public places. There's much to benefit from that still. But for serious secret sharing, people would be likely to go elsewhere yes, or exchange written information. Secluding yourself would take away the benefit of the public space, so there's that tradeoff to consider.
One effect of this might be that people in public places are going to be more likely to want to communicate with strangers as opposed to being mostly interested in communicating within their whisper group.
Post by: Iridni Ren on March 26, 2020, 11:02:03 AM
Quote
Given that someone your character is aware of whispers:
- The character rolls a listen check to know there was a whisper, seeing "[whisper]" from the whisperer or somesuch if it was passed.
- If the DC is passed by a lot (10 in PnP), you see what was whispered.
- The DC would be based on distance from the whisperer, weather/environment and whether the whisperer is in line of sight.
Also, only if the listening PC understands the language spoken, should the DC occur. Another factor in overhearing a whisper could be the number of audible conversations going on (which demonstrates how complex programming it could be).
When my PC whispers, I almost always assume people can tell she's whispering. Unless I forget or it's a situation in which I'm whispering only so as not to distract from the "main" RP occurring (such as being in an audience), I typically emote some indication.
It seems a bit cheesy to not do so if you are being observed while whispering.
Post by: SardineTheAncestor on March 26, 2020, 11:38:04 AM
Related to one of your points: I've seen servers (on other games) automate emotes like *mutters something* when people whisper. Wouldn't mind it here, but it really would spam the chat up. It worked well in an environment where there were some emotes which only appeared over the player's head, and not in the chat, so you had to be looking at someone to see it. I don't think that's possible here, but if it was, I would be ecstatic if we could get that added. It still offers the opportunity to type your own emotes about how/what you're whispering about, it doesn't spam the chat, but it means people don't need to emote it if they don't want to, meanwhile nobody is left guessing.
Post by: Kaninchen on March 26, 2020, 02:52:19 PM
I am also unsure on what the opposed DC would be for the people you are trying to overhear. Have any thoughts on that?
Post by: Day Old Bread on March 26, 2020, 03:21:10 PM
Post by: FinalHeaven on March 26, 2020, 03:30:00 PM
Seems to me that this would require a lot of work on the developer side for little in game benefit. Listen already has greater utility than spot because it allows you to detect invisible characters without the use of spells.
To be clear, it allows you as the player to visually see them. If your character did not actually succeed a Spot roll, and the person attacks you, you still suffer all the negative drawbacks of being attacked from Stealth/Invisibility.
Unless Beamdog changed this for EE, which I don't believe they did.
Post by: Marcus Weyland on March 26, 2020, 03:41:14 PM
Listen already has greater utility than spot because it allows you to detect invisible characters without the use of spells.
This is only partly true. Listen only reveals invisible characters that are within melee range. Anomalously, one still requires See Invisibility to hear invisible, stealthing targets at any greater range than arm's length. When they're within that short range, though, even a blind/deaf character can "hear" them, and one can in fact "hear" ethereal creatures who come too close, which is likely not supposed to be the case.
Post by: Telkar on March 26, 2020, 04:34:23 PM
I am also unsure on what the opposed DC would be for the people you are trying to overhear. Have any thoughts on that?
You mean like being good at whispering very discreetly? I don't. At most I think one would be able to modify the DC by distancing themselves or something else.
Also, only if the listening PC understands the language spoken, should the DC occur.
I think there should be a chance to hear what someone is saying even if the language is not understood, since that's how the language system is built. The same rules about that would apply as normal. For example, you should hear a name you recognize in the conversation.
It'd be nice if a dev weighed in on the technical feasibility of something like this, like if it's doable or absolutely not. Don't want to waste too much breath here if it's clear it's going nowhere.
Post by: Day Old Bread on March 26, 2020, 05:17:29 PM
Listen already has greater utility than spot because it allows you to detect invisible characters without the use of spells.
This is only partly true. Listen only reveals invisible characters that are within melee range. Anomalously, one still requires See Invisibility to hear invisible, stealthing targets at any greater range than arm's length. When they're within that short range, though, even a blind/deaf character can "hear" them, and one can in fact "hear" ethereal creatures who come too close, which is likely not supposed to be the case.
Interesting, I didn't know that.
Post by: Relapse on March 26, 2020, 06:00:37 PM
Call me a pessimist, but I think this suggestion will just result in more people seeking out secluded spaces and locking themselves in rooms, further spreading people apart and driving people away from meeting places.
I agree with this, PCs will always have a need to be secretive or have their private moments but i'm not, and this is very much my opinion, a fan of anything that encourages a pervasive day to day spy culture. It's as invasive IG as it would be in RL and the consequences for getting caught are practically non existent in 99% of the time.
Post by: MAB77 on March 26, 2020, 07:11:44 PM
Post by: Telkar on March 26, 2020, 07:49:32 PM
Post by: Revenant on March 27, 2020, 05:26:01 PM
Post by: Khornite on March 27, 2020, 05:46:40 PM
I am opposed to this for a number of reasons, but most strongly on the simple principle that whispers are the only thing that keep busy events, particularly those in the styles common to Port (performances, balls, lectures), even mildly coherent.
This as well. A lot of the times when I am using whispers, it's to use the changed text color to point out my conversation from the 12 other people around me.
Post by: BraveSirRobin on March 28, 2020, 02:55:38 AM
I am opposed to this for a number of reasons, but most strongly on the simple principle that whispers are the only thing that keep busy events, particularly those in the styles common to Port (performances, balls, lectures), even mildly coherent.
This as well. A lot of the times when I am using whispers, it's to use the changed text color to point out my conversation from the 12 other people around me.
I am opposed to this for a number of reasons, but most strongly on the simple principle that whispers are the only thing that keep busy events, particularly those in the styles common to Port (performances, balls, lectures), even mildly coherent.
If I'm understanding the suggestion, it is for characters with an exceptionally high Listen skill to be able to hear whispered conversations from ranges farther away than usual, extending the bubble. If you're at a giant public event and you don't want to hear what everyone's saying, then equip gear that dampens your listening abilities and/or don't wear a bunch of stacked listen gear to detect stealthers. One of the aspects people with high listen seem to never really roleplay is the fact said person's hearing will be very acute and sensitive, and someone whose listen skill is capable of radar-detecting a dedicated stealth build should also have frustration with overflow.
If you wanted to make it more interesting and add another layer of immersion on top of that, you could implement a toggle command (i.e., @toggle whisperrange) and then force you to roll Concentration checks to be able to block out all of the extra noise that you'd otherwise be hearing due your acute hearing. I'm not sure what the Concentration DC would be as opposed to what your Listen could pick up, but it's friendly solution to the problem that permits the potential to 'shut off' all of the noise you don't want to hear whilst still wearing your +55 Listen worth of gear to the masquerade ball, adding a negative to the positive. If you don't have a very good Concentration skill, you could just remove your rings/gear/etc, and equip yourself some Stealth gear, which most of it has a negative attribute to Listen to balance Stealth Detectors.
Personally, I've advocated for this in the past, myself, but I was told that the technology/scripting to make it work either didn't exist or was too cumbersome to implement at the time. I'm not going to go on a rant on Spot vs. Listen balancing; The server's gear pool makes Listen a more attractive choice in almost any situation because it's relatively easy to max out your Listen on a budget and with scrolls that push you to +20 Listen whenever you want vs. half-leveled True Seeing potions/scrolls that net you just under a +10 to your Spot, then added to the fact that most Spot equipment is so rare it's almost as expensive as the high-end stealth gear vs dirt cheap and common +5 Listen rings.
I think both of the detect skills should have some sort of quirky drawback, and while Spot might be an entirely different conversation all together in that regard, this thread is about Listen.
Post by: EO on March 29, 2020, 10:48:11 AM
Post by: Hypatia on March 29, 2020, 11:17:47 AM
Post by: PrimetheGrime on March 29, 2020, 11:29:25 AM
Great now I have to go to the moon to be sure I’m not being spied on. I don’t hate this idea, but given that listen and spot aren’t class skills for reasons I will never understand for most of us, I would really love to see absolutely massive spot bonuses to anyone within 5’; especially if it’s light in the room. Stealthers get bonuses for cloudy days, massive amounts of gear and their only existing foil is cross class for most everyone. I hate that stealthers can and do simply walk through any doorway or area with absolutely no place to hide WHILE I am actively watching it... even in a open area without a single object to hide behind and I will -never- under any circumstance hear or spot them. Even if my friend spots them; he can’t point them out to me. It’s bad enough never knuowing who is standing 1” from me, but now I can’t even run to a locked door without someone listening in from 20’ away? If there were other ways to drag people out of stealth such as a small AoE spell if you happen to guess where they are hiding; I’d feel a bit better about giving stealth even more advantages.
What are you on about? Detectors have all the advantages when it comes to stealth/detect. If you arent willing to put the points into detection then you can hardly get cranky over the stealthers that put everything into both hide and move silently. Whether it's feats&skills, gear or buffs, Detectors have the advantage. You cant expect ot be able to just avoid being spied on unless you prepare yourself with the necessary precautions.
Post by: Kinga on March 29, 2020, 11:29:50 AM
Great now I have to go to the moon to be sure I’m not being spied on. I don’t hate this idea, but given that listen and spot aren’t class skills for reasons I will never understand for most of us, I would really love to see absolutely massive spot bonuses to anyone within 5’; especially if it’s light in the room. Stealthers get bonuses for cloudy days, massive amounts of gear and their only existing foil is cross class for most everyone. I hate that stealthers can and do simply walk through any doorway or area with absolutely no place to hide WHILE I am actively watching it... even in a open area without a single object to hide behind and I will -never- under any circumstance hear or spot them. Even if my friend spots them; he can’t point them out to me. It’s bad enough never knuowing who is standing 1” from me, but now I can’t even run to a locked door without someone listening in from 20’ away? If there were other ways to drag people out of stealth such as a small AoE spell if you happen to guess where they are hiding; I’d feel a bit better about giving stealth even more advantages.
What are you on about? Detectors have all the advantages when it comes to stealth/detect. If you arent willing to put the points into detection then you can hardly get cranky over the stealthers that put everything into both hide and move silently. Whether it's feats&skills, gear or buffs, Detectors have the advantage. You cant expect ot be able to just avoid being spied on unless you prepare yourself with the necessary precautions.
Also this thread is about Listen, not Spot.
Post by: APorg on March 29, 2020, 11:32:25 AM
Whether it's feats&skills, gear or buffs, Detectors have the advantage.
Not gear.
Post by: APorg on March 29, 2020, 11:36:51 AM
Also this thread is about Listen, not Spot.
Fairly sure Hypatia was using the term "spot" colloquially rather than referring to the Spot skill.
Post by: Telkar on March 29, 2020, 07:29:19 PM
It's relatively easy to adjust the listening range for an individual character, the question is whether it should be done and if so, how best to implement it.
Thanks for the input.
As for the why it should be done. I tend to throw out ideas because I get this "Oh, that'd be cool" moment. Also, when choosing between Spot and Listen, I don't need to think twice before taking Spot because it's so much more useful, so I feel listen could be more useful, whether it's hearing whispers or something else. From reading about the 3.5 PnP description about listen, the whisper detection jumps right out as an interesting utility.
What is the whisper range now? 5 feet? Maybe instead of a listen DC, the listeners range to hear whispers could be increased in a fixed manner according to how much listen one has. Not sure how fine grained the range can be made, like how many decimal places etc. Like, would 6.59 feet be possible? There could be a 20 feet cap on it or something.
Post by: Revenant on March 29, 2020, 09:02:15 PM
That said, I did have a thought in regards to making something like this work - if it would be possible to extend the listen range only if you are actively in detect mode, that could be an excellent solution.
This even satisfies the preference for those with sensitive ears to have some sort of penalty, as elves are unable to disable detection mode. Although on that topic, my opinion is that skillpoints are indicative of a skill, not an attribute. Part of being a skilled detector is sorting the wheat from the chaff, and being able to employ those skills at their discretion.
Then again, skill values already result in weird abstractions of numbers like a bard feeling bad that they only rolled a 26 performance because the average higher level bard will routinely break higher than 60, performances worthy of higher powers - so maybe it's not such a bad thing if we get peculiar mundanity-shattering things like having your ears bleed from high listen.
Also, regarding detection being cross class for "most everyone" - eight classes are lacking detection as a class skill. Three of those classes are prestige classes, including the single least common class on the server. There are 28 classes in the game, 12 of them base. More than 50% of base classes have detection skills, and the rest aside from paladin are entirely free to multiclass and thereby unlock full detection. I do not think that qualifies as "most everyone" lacking detection.
Post by: Telkar on March 29, 2020, 10:03:44 PM
Post by: Relapse on March 29, 2020, 11:26:08 PM
Detectors have the advantage. You cant expect ot be able to just avoid being spied on unless you prepare yourself with the necessary precautions.
Hardly, there are several more slots of items that provide move silently than listen, and listen as a skill has significantly more situations where the DC is increased. Adding to the fact that it is a wisdom skill and no classes who actually preference wisdom have it as a class skill with the sole exception of monk.
To the topic on hand, i've thrown in my opinion on culture but mechanically listen, as a detection skill, is impeded by range. For the skill to be balanced if people want to eavesdrop and are hiding they should be forced into a closer proximity.
Post by: PrimetheGrime on March 30, 2020, 12:25:34 AM
Detectors have the advantage. You cant expect ot be able to just avoid being spied on unless you prepare yourself with the necessary precautions.
Hardly, there are several more slots of items that provide move silently than listen, and listen as a skill has significantly more situations where the DC is increased. Adding to the fact that it is a wisdom skill and no classes who actually preference wisdom have it as a class skill with the sole exception of monk.
To the topic on hand, i've thrown in my opinion on culture but mechanically listen, as a detection skill, is impeded by range. For the skill to be balanced if people want to eavesdrop and are hiding they should be forced into a closer proximity.
Not hardly at all. Until you've played a character utilising both stealth and detection you haven't seen the sheer wall that stealthers must overcome to be able to avoid being seen. Also? Druid uses wisdom. Druids are by far the most dangerous of detectors because they don't really need to invest many points in detection, as their abilities give them plenty. But if they do? They easily pass 70 spot. Need I remind you that unlike stealthing, Detection is granted +20 to their skill. Which means if the stealther has say, 40 stealth, you only need a 20 listen/spot to see or hear them. The reason detection gear is so rare is because of this. If detection gear was easily found and supplied, stealthers would be wiped out almost completely, ruining the dynamic of stealthing. Complete with the fact you don't need WIS to be a good detector so long as you have skills,gear and buffs. But past that, there are a multitude of ways to avoid stealthers all together. The easiest being to just.. run
Post by: SardineTheAncestor on March 30, 2020, 12:31:10 AM
I'm not sure if it's accurate to say detectors are "granted" +20. Even in Detect Mode, it's not a take 20; both stealthers and detectors are rolling 20, it's just that for a stealther, it is good practice to get 20 over (or more, due to environmental/positioning factors) if they want to remain undetected when that 20 vs. 1 roll comes through, which it will eventually.
Post by: foxtale on March 30, 2020, 12:40:47 AM
Then again, skill values already result in weird abstractions of numbers like a bard feeling bad that they only rolled a 26 performance because the average higher level bard will routinely break higher than 60, performances worthy of higher powers - so maybe it's not such a bad thing if we get peculiar mundanity-shattering things like having your ears bleed from high listen.
I think it is easier to just suspend our disbelief like we would in any other media, and treat the numbers as an abstraction to settle narrative conflicts between characters fairly, rather than an all accounting measurement. Realism writes satisfying stories at the efficiency of a random word generator placing terms together.
I actually enjoy roleplaying my high stealth characters as having banana feet because they have developed an unhealthy habit of rolling their edges, but that is a writing choice - I promise you if you enforce it, it will be less cool. It will be just another thing that is.
Quote
Hardly, there are several more slots of items that provide move silently than listen, and listen as a skill has significantly more situations where the DC is increased. Adding to the fact that it is a wisdom skill and no classes who actually preference wisdom have it as a class skill with the sole exception of monk.
As for this budding excursion, I think the numbers have been gone over a lot on these forums - the simple matter of fact is that my level 14 rogue type with 19 Dex and 8 Wis can readily detect herself if both her skills are full buffed - she has the best gear in listen and while she does not have Abber Moccasins, she does hit the +50 ability cap in both move silently and hide, so for all intents and purposes she has full stealth gear, too. She has all relevant feats in either skill, as well.
To clarify: She rolls with +45 from listen gear and spells against +50 cap from gear, character background choice and spells in MS. That means the difference in the gear slot disparity is only 5 points. Listen gets -1 from Wis, MS gets +4 from Dex. Cat's Grace and Owls Wisdom cancel each other out of the equation. +5 Listen from Feats. +5 MS from feats.
The totals are +49 vs. +59 (disregarding equal base ranks in either skill), Which means she would only need to roll 10 better in listen than in MS a single time to detect her own master sneaker butt. That's not valuble to spy on anything, it will have happened once three rounds have passed.
Also I know that boni from being a small character, special kind of gnome or ranger exist, but so do boni from ranger favoured enemy, being an elf or simply not dumping your wisdom like I did because you are more keen on optimising combat and your own stealth. Those are special cases.
Here is what I grant stealth: You can spy on people that are not careful about what they say when they are unbuffed. That is their own risk and RP, if you are paranoid, do play a paranoid person and you will be fine.
Also you can use those ~3 undetected rounds to stab someone in the back, but... the same thing can be done by a barbarian with haste, and invisibility. He will be voracious on your corpse before you even realized he faded onto your screen from outside of line of sight, if he's dedicated to it.
I hope those numbers help settle things for a while.
Post by: Relapse on March 30, 2020, 01:07:20 AM
The totals are +49 vs. +59 (disregarding equal base ranks in either skill), Which means she would only need to roll 10 better in listen than in MS a single time to detect her own master sneaker butt. That's not valuble to spy on anything, it will have happened once three rounds have passed.
And then there's these:
+1 DC for every 3 meters between listener and target.
Size modifiers (tiny: +8, small: +4, medium: 0, large: -4, huge: -8).
+5 DC for every 40cm of object (including creatures) between listener and target in outdoor areas.
+2 DC in indoor areas if the line of sight is blocked and the target is within 4 tiles.
Post by: foxtale on March 30, 2020, 01:18:27 AM
The other modifiers, I guess I think of them as something that both parties just need to get good at. A stealther needs to learn only to move when a listener does, a listener needs to move through a room a bit to search it efficiently, forcing any stealthers to be close to her for a while or to move at a loss of +5 MS for standing still. I think that's fair.
Post by: Relapse on March 30, 2020, 02:58:59 AM
The other modifiers, I guess I think of them as something that both parties just need to get good at. A stealther needs to learn only to move when a listener does, a listener needs to move through a room a bit to search it efficiently, forcing any stealthers to be close to her for a while or to move at a loss of +5 MS for standing still. I think that's fair.
Well a few things with this... all the modifiers are negatives for the listener not positives making the 10 DC gap an absolutely best case scenario. The stealther has complete control of the situation so they can easily move to an advantageous position. Unlike spot once a listener finds someone they can disappear on the next check as well. Then to top it all off my understanding is silence completely counters the listen skill which is kinda lopsided when all spells such as true seeing have been crippled in that respect. To that end.. and to the topic... the very least we can do to try and balance it out is the make people come close if they want to eavesdrop.
Post by: APorg on March 30, 2020, 03:43:42 AM
Post by: APorg on March 30, 2020, 04:41:15 AM
Not hardly at all. Until you've played a character utilising both stealth and detection you haven't seen the sheer wall that stealthers must overcome to be able to avoid being seen.
Hi, I've built stealthers and detectors, and I agree with Relapse. You are over-stating the disadvantages of stealthers.
A lot of people like to compare best case, optimal detectors against pretty run-of-the-mill stealth; conflate numbers by comparing short term detection buffs with longer lasting stealth buffs. But it's easy to misrepresent matters and come to some rather questionable conclusions. To continue from Foxtale's example: a rogue who's wearing a Helm of the Bat and burning an Amplitude scroll is telegraphing the fact that they are going active.
This gives a stealther a window to disengage. Increasing Listen range to overhear whispers would directly lead to that disengagement window increasing.
I don't think Listen detection is in such a great place that this would be that fair, no.
(Of course the implication remains that unless you're playing a detector in certain classes you're pretty SoL to actually compete with level 14 stealthers who are maxing out their MS/Hide bonus [which is actually feasible thanks to the superlative quantity and quality of stealth gear], but that's a topic for another thread.)
(And don't even get me started on Spot. Spot was in such a bad place for non-Druids that they're able to make it counter a whole new Skill and this is still fine in the meta....)
(OK, OK. Walking away from the keyboard now.)
Post by: Phantasia on March 30, 2020, 06:17:31 AM
Post by: SevenStormStyle on March 30, 2020, 11:53:28 AM
Post by: SardineTheAncestor on March 30, 2020, 12:52:07 PM
Post by: Philos on April 01, 2020, 08:47:30 AM
Spoiler: show
