Why can't 3.x skill monkeys have nice skills?

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TarkisFlux
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Post by TarkisFlux »

I could point you at the above comments between me and Crissa on this page, but past that I'd have to do some searching and I don't recall the threads currently. The general conversation revolved around not allowing people to spend the same points they would spend on UMD on knowledge(history) or profession, things that were interesting anc character building but were basically non-level dependent background stuff that shouldn't be purchased with the same resources as active abilities. I'll look around and post some links later if I can find them. As for the derail worry, it's cool. I appreciate the thoughts, and if this is the wrong conclussion or there's a better way to do it, I'd like to know.

Anyway, the knowledge issue is actually fairly split from the social skill discussion. About the only thing you could use knowledge(nobility) for in that context is boot-licking or blackmailing. While that might provide a specific bonus to your convincing a duke to give you what you want, it's just influencing what you would do with your social skills, if you had them, or what you say in your MTP. There's just no reason that a level 20 guy should have a better chance of knowing these things than a level 1 guy with connections. Which is pretty much unworkable, because that's the whole damn point of skill points and ranks.

In a survival horror game, it might actually be important to know how to disarm a nuclear device or how to make penicillin or whatever. And if you wanted to separate that knowledge out from the skill of actually doing it (disable or heal or whatever), then you would need some system for learning these things independent of being able to do them with other skills. You can do that with a knowledge skill, or you can just not care that they know how to do stuff if they can't actually do it with their skills, and let people learn whatever as long as they put in the time. Which is what I'm doing here, though it may not be as clear as I thought. So, just to be clear, I really don't care if the entire party knows how to make an antitoxin or that the king has an embarrassing bastard son, only the person investing in the heal skill or diplomancy can actually do something useful or interesting with that knowledge.

And after stripping that out, knowing what it is that's about to swallow you and how to kill it is about the only level appropriate thing you can do with knowledges. So while I can see a level 20 guy knowing more about the demon princes than a level 1 guy (if only because the level 1 guy doesn't have any use for those details as they don't affect his minuscule chances of survival or running across him in a combat scenario), I can't see a level 20 guy knowing more about court intrigue than a level 1 guy.
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Post by Anguirus »

I didn't mean that it was related to the social skill discussion in that knowledge skills are applicable in social interactions. I meant that the discussion was essentially "Should 'x' be handled with special rules and systems or should we just magic tea party it?" You're system privileges combat (or at least marks it as importantly different) because there is a disunity of ability and knowledge there. Knowing how to make an antibiotic and being able to make an antibiotic are one skill in your system, which is fair. (Although I would like to point out that this discourages team work outside of combat in that you don't have a the scholarly wizard knowing what herbs to use to fix a wound, the ranger knowing where to find them and he cleric knowing how to use them appropriately but there are certainly reasons for wanting to unify and simplify the system.) But knowing that trolls are weak vs fire and actually being able to hit a troll with fire are two separate abilities. This, also, isn't inherently bad. I would just like to see your justification for treating these things differently. If that justification is "This is D&D. Hitting stuff is way more important than astronomy in this setting." then that works and you won't get any argument from me. There are arguments for either side of the discussion (simplifying and unifying knowledge skills with active skills or keeping them separate and complicated, that is) and it seemed to me from your earlier post that you didn't see any value in keeping them separate.

As an aside, what would you think about unifying combat knowledge and combat ability like you are doing with other abilities? This would call for a total overhaul of the combat system and I don't think you want that, but just hypothetically, why not have your combat skill (BAB and what have you) represent your knowledge of monster's vulnerabilities as well as your ability to use that knowledge? Then monsters would have specific vulnerabilities but you wouldn't need to go out of your way to act on them, that is what your attack and damage rolls, in part, would represent.

--edit--
Also, I don't know if your system weakens or strengthens Intelligence and Wisdom based characters but there is defiantly going to be an effect. I would like to see how you justify this effect.
Last edited by Anguirus on Mon Apr 27, 2009 8:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by TarkisFlux »

Gotcha. Yeah, in that sense what you 'know' may as well be MTPed in DnD. I'm sure you could do a rules system for it, but since I don't think you can balance its costs against the costs of active skills it'd be best served by a separate sub-system, which doesn't seem worth the effort.

I think I was unclear about how this works with other skills. In my stuff with Crissa, I said that I don't care if a wizard knows, in general, how to disarm traps. Or the stances of a martial arts style. I'm pretty happy divorcing bits of knowledge from all of the skills, not just BAB. I only really care about what a character can do with their skills, if they know a lot about things that they can't effectively do that's fine with me. Having a skill gives you access to all it's knowledge, but you can learn specific pieces of it by cracking a book or asking someone who knows.

So I don't think I'm privileging combat over the rest, it's just the most glaring example. But you could use the same example with traps or spell choice. Those are actual abilities, and knowing that trolls are weak against fire will probably determine which specific ability you use against one.
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Post by TarkisFlux »

Int based characters make out like bandits if you give them bonus skill points still because of the other skill adjustments. I plan on dropping that bonus, and just boosting the skill points of all classes by 2.

I'm not seeing the wisdom issue though. Mind spelling it out for me?
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Post by Anguirus »

Simply that knowledge type skills, which sometimes are based on wisdom instead of intelligence, are now either active skills (in which case the guy that knows stuff -be it from intelligence or wisdom- just got more effective -not that this is a bad thing-) or don't exist (in which case these same characters just got nerfed). I think you could do something to make active and inactive skills equally valid uses of character resources but, in the case of knowledge skills, it would require revamping the setting. Making it such that knowing what the cultural traditions of some region are is as useful as knowing to kill trolls with fire or being able to cast a spell or what have you. This isn't appropriate for most D&D settings so I agree that it makes sense to just drop the system, but then you have devalued that archetype and you need a system in place that prevents you from wanting to be the guy that knows stuff.

Also, if knowledge is magic tea party what do you do about divinations, bardic knowledge and other knowledge based class abilities? Could you just make knowledge skills level into contextual divination effects and be done with it? You could simplify it tremendously by making knowledge one skill with sub specialties like language. Just my two cents.
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Post by TarkisFlux »

I actually don't know of any knowledge skill that is based on Wis except through variant rules. Actually moving the relevant caster knowledge skills to their relevant stat doesn't seem like a problem for me at all, and is something I'd be pretty happy with. If the skills are more about being good at something than knowing about it, then the cleric should be better than the wizard at religion, assuming equal ranks and non-retarded stat placement.

The knowledge sub-groups that I would suggest dropping would be architecture, geography, history, and nobility... and you could probably roll most of those into local if it was important. You're right though, in that it leaves a couple of holes. The big one seems to be exploration or travel as major themes; you might want a character who knows the traditions of any place you could conceivably wind up. There aren't challenges built along those lines yet, but I could see a social encounter that you had to get through by knowing about their culture so you knew you had to dancing or something, in the same way that you would use another knowledge to know how to deal with a particular combat challenge. It would be nice to keep a skill open to cover that aspect. It's probably easy to expand humanoid identification to include cultural identification, and it has a good feel to it I think...

Losing engineering means you can just decide that your an engineer and spend some MTP background on it and be good to go. It would be an issue if you could use it to make level appropriate effects, but as written it just doesn't do enough for me to miss it as a knowledge and it can just be covered by a relevant craft skill (which is it's own problem, one thing at a time).

The remaining groups you could roll against to see if you know stuff that they deal with, like you could roll against heal to know if you could fix a broken leg. I guess I don't want to scrap that aspect of it, I just want it more as an assumption that you know these things and because of that you can do things with your ranks in the skill. But if you ever needed to know something really obscure, you could roll against the skill you would use to make it happen and I'd be fine with that. I think that works better as a general skill rule though, and I think I'll add it as such.

Apart from that, and the local stuff was a good call, I don't see the nerfing:
[*]The bardic knowledge ability where you randomly recall bits about people or stories or stuff you've over heard in conversation was never based on knowledge (though I think there was a synergy bonus there, and I won't miss those), and it's still in the game and works as presented.
[*]Divinations don't lose anything, since they weren't based on the skills that are being removed anyway. You could certainly turn them into contextual knowledge checks, but if you do it like they did 3.0 scry you have a very limited skill that doesn't compete with other available skills. And I don't know how many skills you'd have to add to make it work, and then you have points issues. Plus, an ability that you have to use another ability to activate seems redundant. Making them dependant on a caster level check is potentially interesting, but I'm not sure that's what you had in mind.
[*]I can't think of any other class features that referenced knowledge skills except to give them as bonus class skills (easily adjusted) or gave bonuses to them (just port to remaining, fewer options maybe). There may be splat classes I'm not familiar with though...
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Post by Anguirus »

The nerfing is just that some one's shtick just went from being a whole bunch of skills making it prohibitive for others to be the information guy to just one or a few skills that everyone might be tempted into taking. It isn't really nerfing. Nerfing was a bad word to choose, it is role violation. Anyway it is just as valid to say that 'the guy that knows stuff' isn't a role that we care to protect.

When I said knowledge based I didn't mean based on knowledge skills I meant based on the assumption that knowledge is valuable. If you can just magic tea party knowledge into your character's head what does bardic knowledge do? What do divinations do? (Granted, claiming that your character knows the sorts of things that you can know through divinations without having any basis to make that claim isn't likely to happen but the system doesn't have anything preventing such flagrant douchbaggary)

Why not follow the model of allowing skills to do stuff that spells do but a few levels later and make a few contextual knowledge skills that give you access to divination like effects related to whatever context you are talking about? I guess I'm just opposed to making knowledge into 'I would totally know that' without backing from the rule system because it devalues abilities that grant you knowledge and it also devalues intelligence as a stat. If you're a fighter under your system there is absolutely no incentive to care about your Int. Not every stat should be key for every class but every stat should add something, don't you think?

--edit--
If you wrote it right you could just have one skill called knowledge to which you added a tag to that determined the context for which it was applicable and then you could take it multiple times. There would be a list of suggested knowledges like "humanoids, the planes etc" and they would allow you divination like effects when trying to recall information about that context.
Last edited by Anguirus on Tue Apr 28, 2009 4:57 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by TarkisFlux »

Yeah, I don't think I'm interested in protecting the role of 'guy who knows stuff'. He's a sage, not an adventurer, and he can be a level 1 commoner with a nice library or a level 20 wizard with one and he has access to the same piles of knowledge. Knowing things is certainly helpful, but it doesn't seem on the same level as actually doing things.

But I'm willing to be convinced. I can see that "I would totally know that!" is pretty much ass, and I'm pretty happy to write rules in that limit that. It does sorta tread on the abilities that grant knowledge, and that should be addressed.

My concern is that making a knowledge skill significantly useful requires actually protecting it. It's useful to know what the winds of pandemonium do, and if you just randomly show up there* then a knowledge skill might give you a bit of warning. In that situation it's probably useful even, and maybe even appropriate. If you're planning a trip there, a knowledge skill would help you prepare better for it. Why should it help you prepare any better than asking someone who's been there though? Should it be more useful than reading it out of a book in the royal library? Or asking the denizens of the gate town who go there daily (assuming you can trust one of them)? If a fricken book can invalidate the placement of levels worth of resrouces, that's a problem. That's a slightly poor compasrison, since the skill would allow more uses and more opportunities, but it'll do.

So if we keep them, we've got to add stuff to make them more worthwhile. The divination thing is interesting, but I don't really know what I'd add for it. Scrying or other location stuff? Contact other plane for answers stuff? See the furture stuff? I don't know.

[Edit] As to devaluing intellingence, well, that really depends on how you define it. If you treat that stat as the 'how much do you know' stat, then yeah, I'm totally devaluing it. If you treat it as a 'how much can you do with what you know' or a 'how quickly can you think on your feet' stat, then I'm not changing anything. Since I prefer the latter interpretations and think that better models what we want (allowing for geniuses who don't know calculus or speak 5 languages), I don't think I'm devaluing it at all.

* - This is actually a really bad and slightly misleading example, because I've got 'dealing with random planes' in the survival skill in my notes right now, but it should serve to illustrate my point.
Last edited by TarkisFlux on Tue Apr 28, 2009 5:48 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Anguirus »

TarkisFlux wrote:Yeah, I don't think I'm interested in protecting the role of 'guy who knows stuff'. He's a sage, not an adventurer, and he can be a level 1 commoner with a nice library or a level 20 wizard with one and he has access to the same piles of knowledge. Knowing things is certainly helpful, but it doesn't seem on the same level as actually doing things.

But I'm willing to be convinced. I can see that "I would totally know that!" is pretty much ass, and I'm pretty happy to write rules in that limit that. It does sorta tread on the abilities that grant knowledge, and that should be addressed.

My concern is that making a knowledge skill significantly useful requires actually protecting it. It's useful to know what the winds of pandemonium do, and if you just randomly show up there* then a knowledge skill might give you a bit of warning. In that situation it's probably useful even, and maybe even appropriate. If you're planning a trip there, a knowledge skill would help you prepare better for it. Why should it help you prepare any better than asking someone who's been there though? Should it be more useful than reading it out of a book in the royal library? Or asking the denizens of the gate town who go there daily (assuming you can trust one of them)? If a fricken book can invalidate the placement of levels worth of resrouces, that's a problem. That's a slightly poor compasrison, since the skill would allow more uses and more opportunities, but it'll do.
Well the value of your knowledge is in proportion to the scarcity of your knowledge. If your knowledge skill information can be found easily then, of course, it isn't anything worth investing resources into. You could address this by saying that either, the skill represents obscure knowledge not easily found as well as common information or that common information is very difficult to come by (i.e. books are stupid expensive and people don't travel). Or you could do some combination of both.
So if we keep them, we've got to add stuff to make them more worthwhile. The divination thing is interesting, but I don't really know what I'd add for it. Scrying or other location stuff? Contact other plane for answers stuff? See the furture stuff? I don't know.
I don't have a copy of the Player's handbook at present so I can't look at what divination effects generally look like right now, however, I don't think that it would be inappropriate to give super knowledgeable characters the ability to make 'educated guesses' that worked like scrying and or looking into the future. If we're saying that jump lets you essentially break physical laws I don't see why knowledge [humanoids] wouldn't let you know what is essentially unknowable. I'm thinking Sherlock Holmes style deductions but put on the D&D power schedule. (For example: Knowledge [humanoids] DC 20 -probably not an appropriate DC- to see if you can deduce where the orcs are hiding the hostages based on your knowledge of orc culture, this warband's reputation etc.) It would level in that the obscurity of the knowledge available to you would increase as well as, perhaps, insight bonuses into other actions that are strictly numeric (i.e. not "You know that trolls are weak vs fire" but rather "You know that this troll has a bad knee. You get +2 to attack this troll")

I'm curious as to what other people think knowledge skills should do though.
[Edit] As to devaluing intellingence, well, that really depends on how you define it. If you treat that stat as the 'how much do you know' stat, then yeah, I'm totally devaluing it. If you treat it as a 'how much can you do with what you know' or a 'how quickly can you think on your feet' stat, then I'm not changing anything. Since I prefer the latter interpretations and think that better models what we want (allowing for geniuses who don't know calculus or speak 5 languages), I don't think I'm devaluing it at all.
If intelligence skills don't do anything then there really isn't a reason to invest in it except for more skill points (which you said might be out) or for arcane casting. That means there is no reason for about 2/3 of characters out there to value that stat. (Not that there was a compelling reason for fighters to take int as things stood)

--edit--
Sorry about the open tag
Last edited by Anguirus on Wed Apr 29, 2009 5:28 am, edited 2 times in total.
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TarkisFlux
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Post by TarkisFlux »

Anguirus wrote:If intelligence skills don't do anything then there really isn't a reason to invest in it except for more skill points (which you said might be out) or for arcane casting. That means there is no reason for about 2/3 of characters out there to value that stat. (Not that there was a compelling reason for fighters to take int as things stood)
I'm going to kick aound the other stuf for a while, but this bit is easier. Let's not conflate knowledge skills with intelligence skills. Appraise, craft (it's problematic, but it's here), decipher script, disable device, forgery, search, and spellcraft are all Int skills aside from the knowledges in 3.x. These are pretty much still there and still provide as much justification for investing in Int as they ever did. Rogues who want to be good at figuring things out still need Int. But you're right, about 2/3s of the the classes just won't care as much about it. It'll be like how 2/3s of classes (different sets of course) feel about Wis (excluding save considerations) and Chr: it's useful if it does something for the class or if they really want a particular set of skills. I think it's more a result of stripping out the bonus skill points than the knowledge skills, but I don't see that as an issue at all.

Also, you've got an extra close quote tag at the end that's confusing the page. Can you delete that?
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Post by TarkisFlux »

I think I need to restate what I want and where I'm at, because I'm getting dragged off course by some misunderstandings. So a lot of this isn't going to be new, but I hope to answer your concerns by better spelling it all out if I don't answer them directly.

I didn't explicitly state that the knowing stuff portions of knowledge skills should be removed, but I did down play them quite a lot. I did suggest that skills that provide only knowledge, like architecture and nobility, should be removed from the game, with any gaps filled in by other skills, roleplaying, missions, or even background bonuses. I should have explicitly left the balance of the knowledge providing skills intact, but I didn't. I want to take it one step farther actually, giving common and even specialized knowledge to every skill in the game. It's sort of assumed that you know things related to your skills, but not explicitly stated anywhere and nothing builds on it. Ranks in devices really means you know about traps on doors (so you can disable them), and ranks in search means you know about the traps on doors (so you can find them), and ranks in dungeoneering means you know about traps on doors (because they're a standard part of dungeons). There's overlap on that specific topic, and there will be overlap on lots of specifc topics, but I don't see it as a problem. The skills actually do different things in practice, and the overlap is generally common or specialized knowledge where restricting would only hurt the ability of characters to use the skills.

Skills that provide only knowledge are useful for common knowledge or specialized knowledge, but those knowledge types are generally level independent things. Being able to identify your foe, or to guess at the weakness of a newly created monster that no one besides you and the creator has ever seen is an ability that is level appropriate, and if the skill also gives you insight into their habitat that's fine. Being able to identify the weak point in a structure might be level appropriate in some campaigns, but doing anything with it would fall under the sabotage clause of Devices. Knowing who is the kings bastard son might be level appropriate in some sessions, but doing anything with it would be a function of Bluff, Intimidate, Diplomacy, or even MTP (depending on goals and GM). You can't use the knowledge that the straight knowledge skills give you without using another skill, which makes them an invalid use of skill points IF skill points are suppsed to be tied to you level and thus your ability to DO something.

Rare knowledge is a special case. There's a big gray area as to what qualifies as rare knowledge though. What's rare or valuable in a game of intrigue is probably just a trinket in a game of stab the monster; the only use in the latter might be to get more money out of the king. In the first case the whole plot could revolve around it, and while that is level appropriate it's also anti-climactic and game killing. I don't want it in those games. In the second case it's not an issue at all if they know it or don't, and while an ability to get bigger rewards might be nice, there are other abilities that already do it. This is a specific example, but I think it generalizes without issue, and in general I don't see a case for rare knowledge being instantly available with a die roll (with the exception of creature knowledge, and that could be characterized as just being a good guesser based on characteristics). I value rare knowledge quite highly, and I'd honestly prefer it if people had to earn it.

Which pretty much explains a goal that I didn't recognize before, but should explicitly state now: specific knowledge should be as dissociated from level as possible, while ability should be as connected to level as possible. The only way to do that in DnD is to decouple knowing things from skill ranks. I would not be making that claim in a level-less game like SR4, Warp Cult, or even 2ed Star Wars from WEG. Those systems are set up so you can advance your general level of toughness and ability entirely separately from your level of knowledge, which is functionally the same thing as dissociating knowledge from level. This also allows me to use knowledge as a quest reward or goal and further allows me to reward characters who write backgrounds with common knowledge appropriate to them, without stepping on the toes of the people who took specialized knowledge skills because they don't exist anymore for them to take.

What this does with respect to the skills in general is remove the rare knowledge from them, put some common knowledge in backgrounds, and put more common and specialized knowledge in the hands of every skill. There is a bit of MTP as a result, and something may need to be done to provide guidelines for that. I think it's worth it to break knowledge from level though, so level provides an explicit measure of what you can do and people can't spend their points in areas that don't explicitly increase their ability to do things. There is room for a ressurected Scrying skill in this setup that allows non-casters to use locate object and clairvoyance and whatnot (dousing rods FTW), but it has to be broad in its applications to be worth skill points. The line between a "you can find things" skill and a "you know things" skill is also worth noting. While it may generate the same results eventually, the application would be quite different. Instead of knowing off hand who the baroness is having an affair with, you could use the skill to follow her (instead of following her physically). That distinction opens new stories and protects against rolling to win, so the value of the knowledge you gain better corresponds to what you have to do to get it.

While such a skill would compete directly with divinations, the general plan doesn't make them less important or functional. It just explicitly says that they are not the only way you can go about learning something. They may well be the fastest, most expedient, or least expensive way of doing it but they are not the only way.

The bardic knowledge skill is probably the only holdout, but it's in an interesting position. On the one hand, it does stuff that I don't particularly like by tying knowledge to level. On the other, it doesn't do that with resources that you can spend on other things, it's a bonus class ability that grows without any further attention. Further, the removal of history and nobility knowledge skills actually makes it a more valuable ability. It's limited to gossip or stories about people, items, and history, and it's one of the few abilities in the game that can give you hints about those things. So while I don't like it's implimentation, it's not a big deal and isn't diminished by my changes.

Wrapup: Architecture and Engineering, History, and Nobility and Royalty subsets of Knowledge should be removed from the game. Arcana, Dungeoneering, Geography/Local (should be combined), Nature, Religion, and Planar can be kept. The primary use of these skills is to ID or make an informed guess about creatures you run across, but they also bring knowledge of the topic with them. They do not provide rare knowledge, but do provide common knowledge and specialized knowledge; you should probably never roll for common knowledge and only rarely for specialized (if it's unlikely that the character actually would know it for whatever reason). As the definitions of rare, specialized, and common knowledge will vary from campaign to campaign, you should probably speak to your GM before expecting to use those skills as much more than monster IDing abilities.
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Post by Anguirus »

This all sounds good except that your wrap up doesn't mention the scrying skill or the like (which your post did allude to). How would you make Sherlock Holmes with the new knowledge system? Also, I'm a little bothered by Bardic Knowledge being the only remaining hold out. Surely there must be some way to fit Bardic Knowledge into your conception of knowledge skills. Neither of these are criticisms as much as stuff that we should revisit once the rest of the skills have been dealt with (as they are much more pressing concerns).
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Post by TarkisFlux »

Crap. Always forget something... yeah, the finding stuff skill will get tossed in. I don't see it as a knowledge skill replacement personally (since it probably won't let you roll to know the secret entrance of snake mountain), just something that allows you to learn the things that are being removed and would fit nicely in a lot of circumstances and settings.

Sherlock Holmes on the other hand isn't a character that's modeled well by a game with levels. At all. He knows tons of shit and he's fantastic at gathering information and putting it together, but he's not any tougher than other characters in the setting (at least not as I recall, I could be wrong). So in the old system he's got lots of ranks in gather info and various knowledges but low level saves and hp, and in this he knows lots of stuff and has ranks in social skills but low level saves and hp. That disparity doesn't really work. I actually think that any game more recent than the medieval ages is better represented as a dice pool game, and this would just be another example of a modern idea fitting poorly into the system.
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Post by Avoraciopoctules »

TarkisFlux wrote:Sherlock Holmes on the other hand isn't a character that's modeled well by a game with levels. At all. He knows tons of shit and he's fantastic at gathering information and putting it together, but he's not any tougher than other characters in the setting (at least not as I recall, I could be wrong).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlock_H ... rtial_arts

"Holmes engages in hand to hand combat with his adversaries on several occasions throughout the stories, inevitably emerging as the victor."

"Holmes recounts to Watson how he used martial arts to overcome Professor Moriarty and fling his adversary to his death at the Reichenbach Falls. He states that "I have some knowledge, however, of baritsu, or the Japanese system of wrestling, which has more than once been very useful to me.""

I also recall something about him bending steel bars, displaying surprising strength.
EDIT: in The Speckled Band, a thug bends his fireplace poker in a display of strength. He straightens it with his bare hands after the man leaves.
Last edited by Avoraciopoctules on Sat May 02, 2009 1:35 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Anguirus »

TarkisFlux wrote: Sherlock Holmes on the other hand isn't a character that's modeled well by a game with levels. At all. He knows tons of shit and he's fantastic at gathering information and putting it together, but he's not any tougher than other characters in the setting (at least not as I recall, I could be wrong). So in the old system he's got lots of ranks in gather info and various knowledges but low level saves and hp, and in this he knows lots of stuff and has ranks in social skills but low level saves and hp. That disparity doesn't really work. I actually think that any game more recent than the medieval ages is better represented as a dice pool game, and this would just be another example of a modern idea fitting poorly into the system.
Fair enough. I would argue that most characters that aren't straight up beat sticks aren't represented well with the leveling system as it stands but that isn't really an appropriate discussion for this thread. I think you've addressed most of my concerns pretty effectively. It still feels weird to divorce knowledge from intelligence but if the end result is functional then my only issue is a semantic one. We could just call intelligence something else or make a note that the stat represents a sort of functional mental attribute as opposed to just 'stuff that you know'.
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Post by TarkisFlux »

Wrong on Holmes then. You could probably bend a level system to accommodate him, but it would be a custom class setup or really unpretty. I agree that levels only really do beatsticks well, but that's probably because it's what "a level" is supposed to measure in the systems where it appears. It also happens that the majority of effective historical or mythological medieval guys were beatsticks as well as talkers and you didn't really get one without the other. It just breaks down as time passes and power shifts from fists to something else.

I share your semantics issue and am more than happy to rename the stat cunning, it's just beyond the scope for now. I happen to like it for other reasons as well, in that it would bring the mental stats to: strength of personality (chr), perception and resistance to insidious ideas (wis), and mental flexibility in applying things you know (cunning); roughly mental analogs of the 3 physical stats in the system.
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Post by Crissa »

I'd suggest, Tarkis, at the point that you have a set of skills that are level independent, have a rank maximum, and also make sure that the ranks come from a pool of non-level skills. So a high level may have more or them or be able to use a high-level skill without blowing the little guy out of the water.

We discussed this on pickpockets somewhere, too...

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Post by CatharzGodfoot »

Avoraciopoctules wrote: EDIT: in The Speckled Band, a thug bends his fireplace poker in a display of strength. He straightens it with his bare hands after the man leaves.
This is because Holmes did PCP.
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Post by TarkisFlux »

Crissa wrote:I'd suggest, Tarkis, at the point that you have a set of skills that are level independent, have a rank maximum, and also make sure that the ranks come from a pool of non-level skills. So a high level may have more or them or be able to use a high-level skill without blowing the little guy out of the water.
If you were concerned about high level characters having a larger potential range of non-level-tied abilities than lower level people, you could certainly do mechanics that supported that broad range without also generating the broad array of modifiers that the current skill system does. Keeping low level and high level in the same range of ability as it were, akin to proficiencies almost. It might be worth it if it's tied in with crafting and professioning as well as knowledge. Something to kick around for a while though, I'm not sure it has a positive impact on the breadth of stories you can tell in the system (or that I care about, but that's a lesser consideration presently) and I think I'd rather finish rewriting one subsystem before I think too much on adding a new one...

[Edit] If someone else wants to start that up, I'm happy to provide input, just not to pilot that ship presently.
CatharzGodfoot wrote:This is because Holmes did PCP.
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: Good ol' Holmes. Always knew the right drug for the situation.
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Post by TarkisFlux »

Disguise time. I'm not sure if I went overboard with alter / poly effects or not... the hourly checks and the obnoxious DCs for running multi-effect disguises should keep them in check though. If you're using item slots instead of a more flexible item limit, that's even more of a check on them since you have to actually wear all of these things.

Unfortunately, there's some crafting rules in here (I didn't see a way to avoid them :-/). I have purposely left cost suggestions out, since the time investment and failure potential already vastly exceeds the spells it's competing with. If that's not enough for you, you shouldn't charge xp for these at all, but I could see 500gp per day going into it if you really wanted to associate some sort of gp cost with them.

Disguise
The disguise skill has been progressed along its “become other” lines, and is more like a costuming skill than an acting skill at this point. In my games, the ability to play a part will be moved into bluff, separating failing at playing a role from failing to just look like something else. You’re welcome to do what makes sense in your games of course.

Special - The spells that provide a bonus on disguise checks do not provide a bonus to operating a technical disguise, nor do they provide a bonus on staying in character.

Rank 1 uses:
Craft Disguise – With a bit of putty and some makeup, you can hide or alter physical features. You may disguise yourself or another person with this ability. It takes at least 1d6 minutes to craft a full disguise; particularly complicated disguises may take up to 30 minutes. Thankfully, you can prepare disguises ahead of time; applying a prepared disguise only takes 1d3 minutes. Your disguise check is made when you put the disguise on. The result, subject to modifiers in the table below, determines how good your disguise is and thus how difficult it is for others to see through it. Most people won’t look closely, but anyone who becomes suspicious of you makes a spot check. If their check exceeds your disguise check by more than 5, they realize you are disguised and will act appropriately. You can not disguise yourself as a specific person without additional training.

Assume Identity – Once you look like someone else, it’s important to remain in character. You can assume a false and made-up identity, and for the most part no one knows any better. You can not imitate a specific, real person. If you disguise yourself as a serf or farmer, no one is going to care you and you will never need to make a check unless you arouse suspicion; you may have difficulties getting into sensitive places though. If you are masquerading as a noble, military officer, cleric, or any other person whose status could be checked you need only make a check when someone demands proof of your status or seems confused by your presence. After the initial check, most challengers will be satisfied and you will likely go for days before having to make another bluff check to avoid discovery. The DC for any of these checks is the highest of your challengers’ sense motive bonuses +10, though any individual with evidence suggesting your fraud will have an increased DC to convince.

Rank 4 uses:
Cunning Disguise – Putty and makeup are quite familiar to you, and you can work them into many forms. You can even use them to imitate the appearance of a specific person. The same rules for preparing, applying, and piercing a disguise apply as above.

Mimic Person – You have enough skill to mimic real people. To maintain the act, make checks as indicated in the Assume Identity ability above, unless you are spending time with someone who knows the actual person. In that case, you make opposed checks against their sense motive checks. They receive a bonus based on how well they know the person you are imitating.

Rank 8 uses:
Technical Disguise – The best sahuagin disguise in the world won’t fool anyone if you can’t also breathe the water. Similarly, some disguises may require that you brave temperatures or climates you couldn’t normally survive in, be taller or smaller than normal members of your species, or even fly. As part of a disguise, you may incorporate technical elements that allow you to overcome these obstacles. Some elements, like increasing or decreasing your height by up to 50%, you can simply do as part of a regular disguise, you simply take a -1 penalty to your disguise check for each 10% beyond the first 10% you adjust your height.

Creating a more complicated technical disguise is a time consuming affair however. Colored ointments that provide acid, cold, electricity, or fire resistance of 5 are the least time intensive and may be made in batches of 5 uses with only a days worth of work. These ointments require 5 minutes to apply, in addition to the regular disguise application period, but last for 24 hours once put on. Aside from this bonus resistance, you use the regular rules to disguise yourself as another creature.

Even more complicated effects require more of a structure and must be added to a disguise. These include acid, cold, electricity, fire, and sonic resistance of 10, water breathing, movement forms (incl. burrowing, climbing, and swimming up to your base move and flight up to twice your base move), physical natural weapons (hands or feet only, 1 day per pair), and partially functional additional appendages (these can be directed to grasp things, but can not make attacks). Adding most of these to a disguise requires 1 day per effect, adding flight requires 1 day per maneuverability category, up to 4 days for good (perfect is not attainable). The time required to create a disguise is simply the time it would take to add the required bits. As with other disguises, another may create it for you if you wish to simply wear it later.

Whether you create the disguise or another creates it for you, some measure of skill is required to operate it; yet more skill is required to operate it without arousing suspicion. It takes 5 minutes to put on your disguise per day it took to create. When you finish putting it on, you make a disguise check to determine how difficult it will be for others to spot the disguise as per standard. You must also make a disguise check when you activate any effect of the disguise. The DC for this check is 20, plus 2 for each day that went into its construction. If you exceed the DC you don’t need to make any additional checks for that effect for an hour, though if you exceed the DC by 5 or more, you don’t need to make any additional checks for 4 hours. If you fail the check by 5 or less, the effect will operate for the next hour, after which the disguise will fail entirely and you will need to spend 1 hour repairing it. If you fail by more than 5 the disguise will fail in an hour but be unusable until that portion of the disguise is rebuilt from scratch. Technical disguises don’t hold up as well as regular disguises do to abuse. If you suffer damage equal to half your hit points while wearing a technical disguise, over the course of a week or all at once, you suffer a -5 penalty to your disguise checks to use or maintain effects. A day of repair will restore the suit to full working order, at least until it gets beaten up again.

Characters with 4 or more ranks in the devices or dungeoneering skill recognize these disguises and may operate them for up to one hour, after which they become non-functional until repaired, as if a character with the disguise skill had failed his disguise operation check upon activation by 5 or less.

Rank 12 uses:
Exquisite Disguise – You could probably imitate a Cornugon if you felt like it. You add the following effects to your list of technical disguises, each of which take a day to add unless noted otherwise: acid, cold, electricity, fire, and sonic resistance up to 30 (1 day per resistance per 10 points), triple your size (1 day per 50% beyond your first 50% increase in size), 5’ extra reach, darkvision, functional extra appendages with natural weapons (2 days each), double your base movement speed, and additional movement forms (burrowing, climbing, and swimming up to twice your base move and flight up to four times your base move, at 2 days each per maneuverability category). Size increases, reach, and double base movement are checked once per day, all other effects are checked per standard technical disguise rules.
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Post by TarkisFlux »

Just finished reworking the Athletics skill so that the various movement forms are actually compatible with each other and the fatigue from each will stack in a non-retarded way. It required a bit of a rewrite of the overland movement stuff, and I can post that if anyone's interested, but I'm gonna skip it for now.

I'm a bit hung up on healing presently. The healing spells don't aren't particularly effective at negating enemy damage mid combat, and I'm not sure if the healing skill works better as a combat hp heal shtick or an out of combat healing accelerator. Any thoughts out there?

Also, should the stealth skills be able to foil blindsense or tremorsense? Should they be able to actually foil them if the roll is good enough, and provide concealment if it's just decent?
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Post by Avoraciopoctules »

I just read through the new Disguise skill. It looks very nice, and has given me a number of ideas for refining a character concept I started working on a few hours ago. Essentially, it's an adventuring Artificer / Samurai who maintains and customizes a personal suit of clockwork armor (loosely based on this: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/cw/20070212a ). I'll post the crafting / customization rules I come up with if they seem relevant.
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Post by TarkisFlux »

I'd actually be interested in whatever you figure out Avoraciopoctules. It'd be nice to see how much they cover on their own and how extensible they are. If you don't think it's especially relevant and don't want to derail, can you PM me instead?
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Post by Avoraciopoctules »

Sure. I should have something in no more than a week or so.
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Post by TarkisFlux »

Perception... I went ahead and combined spot and listen. They basically do the same thing in different ways so you could keep them separate if you wanted, I just don't see the utility of doing it. If you decide to split them for your games, you'll need to remove the final ability. You'll also need to be comfortable with characters who take both having access to a poorly working True Seeing all the time. From level 5 on.

On a more substantial note, all characters should be considered to be taking 0 on their perception checks, all of the time. Seriously. They may not be actively paying attention, but they don’t ignore everything either and letting them take 10 all the time for every reactive check is silly. It’s the only way to write a perception skill so that actually keeping a wary eye means anything, and so that keeping watch has a non-retarded cost associated with it. The inclusion of a "miss by 5 or less means you still got something, just not a good look/hear/whatever" helps mitigate anything lost by not giving players a check unless they're actively focusing.

This means it's possible for a high level character to automatically see a low level sneak without even rolling or announcing that they are keeping a wary eye, and that’s fine. This also means that we don’t have to call for listen checks or spot checks for every little thing. We don’t have to use tension breaking group checks and can just give away information to the people who would get it. We can just say that people see things, or think they see things, and then let them decide how to pursue that lead, whether it’s by listening or looking for more information, charging ahead, or whatever. It’s how I’ve been playing anyway, it’s just codified now.

Anyway, the skill. Perception
Untrained uses:
Listen – You have ears, or some other auditory sense organs, and they let you hear stuff. The DC to hear something is dependant on the sound itself and local conditions. Sample DCs are listed below, as are the conditions that provide a penalty to your check. You are assumed to be always at least passively listening with them, and as such you are always taking 0 on your checks, at no action cost, forever. You can listen actively as a move action, and you can add a check with another sense to this action at no additional cost, but both senses use the same check result. This portion of the skill often opposes the stealth skill, and is also used to oppose audio disguises if you suspect an individual isn’t who they sound like.

If you succeed on the check, you hear the sound clearly. If you fail a listen check by 5 or less you still heard something, you just don’t know what it is and may need to try again the following round. If you fail by more than 5 you don’t notice the sound at all.

Spot You have eyes, or some other visual sense organ, and they let you see stuff. The DC to see something is dependant on the object itself and local conditions. Sample DCs are listed below, as are the conditions that provide a penalty to your check. You are assumed to be always at least passively looking with them, and as such you are always taking 0 on your checks, at no action cost, forever. You can look actively as a move action, and you can add a check with another sense to this action at no additional cost, but both senses use the same check result. This portion of the skill often opposes the stealth skill, and is also used to oppose visual disguises if you suspect an individual isn’t who they appear to be.

If you succeed on the check, you see the object or commotion clearly. If you fail a spot check by 5 or less you still saw something, you just don’t know what it is and may need to try again the following round. If you fail by more than 5 you don’t notice it at all.

Taste, Touch, & Smell – The other senses are included in this skill as well, and function as the above skills. It’s unlikely that you’d ever need to roll against them, but if you do here they are. Possible uses could be tasting food borne poison, feeling a small drop of blood land on your arm, or smelling the faint odor of a gas before its effects take hold. [Add sample DCs and modifiers to table].

Rank 8 uses:
See the Invisible, Hear the Silenced – By focusing on one of your senses, you can pierce some portions of illusions. You can pierce illusions one sense at a time: sight, smell, taste, touch, or audio. As a move action, you can focus on one sense and pierce an illusion affecting that sense. The DC for this check is 15 + caster level; if successful you pierce all applications of the illusion arising from the same casting. Since you can only pierce illusions for a particular sense at a time, it can take a long time to break down multi sense illusions and this is mostly useful for piercing single sense illusions, like invisibility or silence. Against anything affecting more senses, a save is a better option. Unlike other perception abilities, you are not considered to be taking 0 on this ability all the time.

Rank 14 uses:
Sight Beyond Sight – Perception is strong with you, so strong that you can pierce illusions affecting all of your senses at once. You can make a perception check, at any time, in place of a save to pierce an illusion, even an illusion that wouldn’t normally allow a save. The DC for this check is 15 + caster level. As you are assumed to be always taking 0 with this ability, as with all perception abilities, it is likely that you will just see right though the illusions of less trained casters.
Sense Motive was pretty easy to migrate, I'm just not sure it's good enough yet. It's pretty contingent on the strength of the detect thoughts ability, which is unfinished and rather stumping me. If it gets dropped or isn't especially useful, I'll probably roll the whole skill into perception.

Oh, I put the detect lie ability as a trained ability. People who don't take ranks in sense motive can still detect lies with it, just at a -5 penalty for not being short 1 rank of the ability. If that's an issue for you, just move it down to an untrained ability.

Sense Motive
Rank 1 uses:
Assess Statement – You have a brain, or some other data processing organ, and you can use it to evaluate the things people tell you. When you believe someone is lying to you, you can make a sense motive check as a move action. If they are lying and you exceed their Bluff check, you recognize that they are lying. You must decide to make the check yourself, and do not automatically get a check against every lie that is told to you. Note that you are always assumed to be taking 0 on this skill and you may just notice a particularly poorly told lie without any effort.

Rank 4 uses:
Assess Situation – You sometimes know something is wrong before things fall apart. You can use your data processing organ to analyze people and situations you find yourself in. With a sense motive check, DC 20 + CR or EL depending on circumstances, you can determine if a person or situation generally ‘feels wrong’. You don’t gain any other information aside from this sense of foreboding; you simply believe that something is out of place or not what it seems. This could mean that the person acting like your friend really isn’t, that your escort is unknowingly taking you into a trap, or that continuing on your course of action will not work out as you intend. It is a full round action to gain a hunch in this fashion.

Detect Influence – You can tell when people are acting under another’s influence. You can detect most active charm or compulsion effects with a DC 20 + caster level sense motive check. The DC is only 15 + caster level for domination effects. You gain a bonus to this check based on how well you know the person you are interacting with (as disguise penetration bonuses). You must spend one full minute interacting with the person before you can make this check.

Rank 6 uses:
What’s Your Motivation – People are pretty poor at disguising their motivations if you know what you’re looking for. If you interact with someone for at least one minute, you can make a perception check to determine their alignment. The DC for this check is 25, 20 for a creature with a strong aura, or 15 for a creature with an overwhelming aura. A successful check provides you both alignment descriptors and knowledge of its strength.

Rank 10 uses:
Almost See the Wheels Turning – Detect thoughts in some fashion…
And lastly, Stealth. Again, I merged Hide and Move Silently because they're functionally just different sides of the same thing. If you're going to separate listen and spot back out, you should do the same with these, I just don't see the point of rolling 2 dice to not get noticed and 2 more to notice someone. Anyway, this is largely inspired by Frank and Ks work on it, but hopefully expanded on in interesting ways. I'm also not certain if I want to move the Hide in Plain Sight ability into the skill itself or not, but it's written up here anyway.

Stealth
Special: Absolute size bonuses need to die in a fire. Giants are not at a hiding disadvantage against other giants and in giant sized surroundings. Gnomes are not at a hiding advantage in their own communities. These two things only happen because we have absolute stealth penalties for size and no cancelling adjustments for spotters of varying size. Since absolute spot bonuses are retarded, absolute stealth bonuses are as well. Relative bonuses and penalties for being bigger or smaller than your surroundings are fine however, and size bonuses need to be converted to these contextual things.

Untrained uses:
Clandestine Surveillance – You can hide behind a curtain, a well, or a hill and people on the other side of it can’t see you; they may not be able to hear or smell or otherwise sense you either. This isn’t a skill or ability; it’s just what happens when something sits between people. While that’s useful, sometimes you need to expose yourself and break cover to check out the people on the other side, that’s where a stealth check would be useful. Remaining hidden while observing is a free action, made in conjunction with any perception check that requires you to expose yourself. For purposes of this check, you are treated as being only as big as your exposed parts, and gain a substantial bonus on this check as indicated on the table below. Watchers must exceed your stealth check with their own perception check to notice you and locate your hiding place.

Avoid Notice – Anyone can keep their head down and their hood up when they have to. If someone is searching a crowd for you, or you are being generally observed but haven’t been specifically picked out, you may make a stealth check to continue to avoid notice. You may also use this ability to sneak up behind someone; if you reach them before they notice you they are flatfooted against your attack. This check is made as part of a move action and only one check is made per round, even if you hustle or run. Your check result may not exceed 20 with this level of skill. Your check result sets the base DC for a searcher’s perception check to notice you, and you must make a new check each round that you attempt to avoid notice. Because of that, it is advised that you limit yourself to short bursts of stealth (to sneak up behind or past someone), or to situations where you could take 10 and reasonably succeed; the more you roll the more likely you are to roll badly. As long as anyone searching the area does not meet or exceed the total DC to notice you, largely influenced by your stealth check, they do not notice you.

If you are noticed, it is much easier for the spotter to find you in the future; spotters gain a bonus if they know what they’re looking for. They can also tell their friends or point, granting them similar bonuses to noticing you. Worse, you can’t avoid their notice with a check anymore. You must escape or confuse their ability to detect you before you can make any additional stealth checks to avoid notice from any person who has noticed you. Some ways to accomplish this are running around a corner and hiding in a box while they don’t see you, disappearing into a crowd, gaining full concealment or full cover, or using the Combat Distraction ability of bluff to make them look away just long enough for a quick getaway. This doesn’t mean they don’t know where you’ve gone, just that you get to start making checks again for them to miss you when they come looking. If they see you disappear around a corner and then can’t find you, it would be perfectly legitimate for them to fireball the alley to try and bring you out of hiding.

You take a penalty to this check if you draw attention to yourself. The most common ways to draw attention to yourself are moving quickly or becoming involved in a fight or commotion; these modifiers are included in the table below. Note that you suffer no penalty if you are travelling with a group of fast moving people, as not moving as quickly would stand out more in those cases. Other ways of drawing attention to yourself may include being painted the wrong color during a festival or being three feet taller than the rest of the people in the area. These less common ways of drawing attention to yourself may carry a penalty of up to -10 on your roll, and you don’t have the skill to determine the penalty before you have taken the action.

Rank 4 uses:
Avoid Detection – As avoid notice above, except that there is no limit to your check result. You are also trained enough to know how large a penalty to your stealth check you would take from uncommon attention drawing conditions, like those described above, and can plan your route and actions better as a result. Mechanically, this mean that you can ask the DM ahead of time what the numeric result of doing something would be if it isn’t listed in the book, and they have to tell you.

Rank 6 uses:
Team Player – Sometimes you have to bring the team with you into the shadows, and they may not have any idea what they’re doing. If you accept a -6 penalty to your stealth check, you may apply the result of your check to every member of your group within 30’ for the purposes of avoiding detection.
Alternately, your group can each make individual checks to avoid notice or detection, as appropriate for each character, and you may then reduce the result of your check to boost the checks of others. For every 1 point that you reduce your check by, you may increase the check of an ally by 2. You may not increase an ally’s check above your own reduced check with this ability, though you may increase their results above 20 if they would be limited from lack of training.

Rank 10 uses:
Foil Senses – When you hide, you can even mask your echo and vibrations. You can mask yourself from the blindsight, blindsense, and tremorsense special abilities. As part of your move action for the round, make a stealth check with standard movement penalties. The DC for this check is 15 + CR of the creature or 15 + the creature’s ranks in perception, whichever is higher. The effects of your success depend on what type of special location senses the creature has.

If you succeed on the check against a creature with blindsight, they are unable to locate you clearly. You are treated as if you had full concealment against it and the creature is flatfooted against your attacks. If you succeed on the check by more than 5, they are unable to locate the specific square you are in though they know your location to within 5 ft. and they are treated as blind against you. If you succeed on the check by more than 10 the creature is unaware of your presence entirely.

If you succeed on the check against a creature with blindsense, they are unable to locate the specific square you are in though they know your location to within 5 ft. and they are treated as blind against you. If you succeed on the check by more than 10 the creature is unaware of your presence entirely.

If you succeed on the check against a creature with tremorsense, they are unable to sense you with this ability as long as you move one half of your base speed or less in the round and take no other actions. If you succeed on the check by more than 5 you can move up to your full base speed or take any other single standard action without the creature noticing your presence or location. If you exceed the check by 10 or more you can take a standard and a move action without the creature becoming aware of you.

Rank 12 uses:
Hide In Plain Sight – People have a really hard time keeping an eye on you, even when they know you’re there. You can attempt a stealth check after someone has spotted you without first breaking line of sight or otherwise losing your pursuer, or while you are under any other sort of direct observation. You gain no special benefit to your roll, and may have a hard time pulling it off as your pursuer still gains a benefit from knowing what to look for.
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Fectin: "Ant, what is best in life?"
Ant: "Ethically, a task well-completed for the good of the colony. Experientially, endorphins."
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