The Gaming Den

under hiding/spotting modifiers in the DMG, to notice an upcoming encounter, you make a spot check dc 20 +size modifiers. am i to not use the spot distance penalty for this (see spot skill PHB)?
a human at 200 feet walking in a grassy field with little to no cover would mean a character needs to spot at a DC20 with a -20 to their spot check! to add to the problem, if that person is attempting to 'hide' in the feild with little cover, the 'hider' would have a dc 25 + his/her size modifier + their hide skill check vs the spotters spot check at a -1/10ft range.
if im seeing this right, thats a little extreme, no one would ever see the man moving across a field at a distance of 200 feet until they were high level. the DC base 20 is a little hard to overcome for anyone, much less the 25 for hiding.

am i reading that right or am i missing something there?

please advise,
raydamasta

RDM wrote:
under hiding/spotting modifiers in the DMG, to notice an upcoming encounter, you make a spot check dc 20 +size modifiers. am i to not use the spot distance penalty for this (see spot skill PHB)?

You do, but the base point is now the encounter distance, not zero.

RDM wrote:
a human at 200 feet walking in a grassy field with little to no cover would mean a character needs to spot at a DC20 with a -20 to their spot check! to add to the problem, if that person is attempting to 'hide' in the feild with little cover, the 'hider' would have a dc 25 + his/her size modifier + their hide skill check vs the spotters spot check at a -1/10ft range.

The baseline in this case is the base encounter distance - 420 feet. At only 200 feet, the spot check DC would be negative two. If they were attempting to sneak, the DC would be 3 plus their hide mod.

Still RDM wrote:
if im seeing this right, thats a little extreme, no one would ever see the man moving across a field at a distance of 200 feet until they were high level. the DC base 20 is a little hard to overcome for anyone, much less the 25 for hiding.

am i reading that right or am i missing something there?

The Base Encounter Distance by Terrain chart immediately above it.

Note that your chances of actually seeing anyone in a Jungle are as close to zero as makes no odds. The base distance is about 50 feet, and the base DC for someone attempting to not be found is 25 + Hide Modifiers. Even if they are right next to you, you are still looking at a DC of 20 + Modifiers, which generally means that even a natural 20 is never going to find an enemy.

Game On,
fbmf

whatever happened to you can't see him cuz I am the dm and i said so?a certain unnamed person's house rules
has certainly messed up the game

Am I the only one who thought those rules were dumb anyway?

Seems like too much work to me.

CA28 wrote:
Am I the only one who thought those rules were dumb anyway?

I have never personally used them. Had to look them up when RdM asked the question, in fact. fbmf beat me to the response.

-Jack