Skill merger - Search and Spot

[jacksonmalloy]

Has anyone ever thought about merging the Spot and Search checks in the fashion that we now have Taunt and Intimidate merged into Antagonizes. I always thought it was weird that two skills who both amount to "visual awareness of your surroundings" were totally incomparable skills. The two seem somewhat redundant. A Look check of something would cover both sections nicely.

[AnOldFriend]

Search does not necessarily have to be with your eyes however, usually it's finding trap doors and the like, if you have perfect vision you still may not have the knowledge that sliding you hand along the top of that painting will trip a pressure switch (bad example but you got my point)

[Troukk]

Search does not necessarily have to be with your eyes however, usually it's finding trap doors and the like, if you have perfect vision you still may not have the knowledge that sliding you hand along the top of that painting will trip a pressure switch (bad example but you got my point)

In fact, not even spot is 100% related to your eyes. It's a wisdom based skill and it's more related to a character's general awareness than to how biologically capable his eyes are.

[Kendaric]

Has anyone ever thought about merging the Spot and Search checks in the fashion that we now have Taunt and Intimidate merged into Antagonizes. I always thought it was weird that two skills who both amount to "visual awareness of your surroundings" were totally incomparable skills. The two seem somewhat redundant. A Look check of something would cover both sections nicely.

The skills are too different to warrant a merge. Search implies an active, methodically search for something out of place or a specific thing, which isn't the case with spot. This is also the reason why search uses INT whereas spot is WIS based (it's more intuitve than actively searching).

[MAB77]

Search does not necessarily have to be with your eyes however, usually it's finding trap doors and the like, if you have perfect vision you still may not have the knowledge that sliding you hand along the top of that painting will trip a pressure switch (bad example but you got my point)

In fact, not even spot is 100% related to your eyes. It's a wisdom based skill and it's more related to a character's general awareness than to how biologically capable his eyes are.

Indeed, it calls to all our senses. By touch you could locate openings in a wall when it's pitch black. By hearing those fools trying to sneak in plate mail, by taste the presence of toxins in food or drink & by smell, the presence of my friend Kendaric anywhere. :p

In Pathfinder ( aka D&D 3.75) they actually merged the skills into the Perception skill. It would be helpful to classes with fewer skill points to spend, without disadvantaging the others. More skills means more variety of choice of actions. That is always a win in RPGs.

[HellsPanda]

Merging them would create a too powerfull skill. Compared to say Hide/MS. And if we merge them... we might aswell keep merging skills until we have no skills. The more skills you have too choose from the better for RP and teaming in my book.

[APorg]

we might aswell keep merging skills until we have no skills. The more skills you have too choose from the better for RP and teaming in my book.

This is a non sequituur. As a matter of fact in Pathfinder they rolled Spot, Listen and Search into Perception; and Hide and Move Silently into Stealth. The game works perfectly fine and is generally agreed to be a superior ruleset to DnD 3.x.

However I don't think it'd be feasible to do it here because you're talking about some serious game-engine hacking that may have unforeseen effects.

[MAB77]

However I don't think it'd be feasible to do it here because you're talking about some serious game-engine hacking that may have unforeseen effects.

Indeed. Probably the best reason not to do it. The amont of request to rebuild chars it would cause, suddenly comes to mind.

[Ehver]

we might aswell keep merging skills until we have no skills. The more skills you have too choose from the better for RP and teaming in my book.

This is a non sequituur. As a matter of fact in Pathfinder they rolled Spot, Listen and Search into Perception; and Hide and Move Silently into Stealth. The game works perfectly fine and is generally agreed to be a superior ruleset to DnD 3.x

That sounds sounds sooooo much more manageable. : (

[APorg]

That sounds sounds sooooo much more manageable. : (

Yeah, it is! Pathfinder's Skill system is a huge improvement, especially because they do away with the whole baggage of the first level giving you x4 Skill points, and cross-class skills costing 2 skill points. In Pathfinder, level 1 gives you as many Skills as any other level, but a class Skill simply gets a +3 bonus. In other words, taking cross-class Skills isn't such a joke anymore, since the penalty is effectively a -3.

[HellsPanda]

Pen and Paper, which is where Pathfinder is the superior system is a very different animal than NWN.

For one your likely to have more people, and the way our spawn system is set up, it encourages teaming up. If one player can easily get all skills because they are more merged, then they are less likely to want to bring others, which has happened in the past. And I suspect it still happens.

[APorg]

That's a specious argument. Search and Spot are so far down the list of priorities for a PvE party in most cases that I don't think I've ever heard anyone set party criteria for these (except possibly Search for the Well dungeon in the VoB, but that dungeon sucks for other reasons). People stop looking for bigger parties when they have access to sufficient buffs -- and a party equipped with adequate buffs doesn't need to worry about Search and Spot, because there's buffs for that.