Thursday, August 16, 2012

A Problem of Perception

One of the most problematic skills in D&D is perception. The problem is that perception isn't entirely a skill. A lot of it is innate, which implies that perhaps it should be an ability score. Yes, it can be improved with training, but so can strength, dexterity, intelligence, etc. We all know people who are just more observant than others, without the benefit of any special training. It's hard to miss the advantage in games that treat perception as its own ability, whether as a skill or an attribute.

(This begs the question of why skills and abilities need to be separate at all, but that's a bigger question for another time.)

D&D really suffers in this regard. Perception can't have a stand-alone score because there's no spot for it on the character sheet. So what do you tie it to? Wisdom is the traditional choice, but only because it's the least bad option. Wisdom has the unfortunate consequence of making clerics the best scouts. I don't know about you, but that really breaks the archetype for me. I have nothing against clerics; they're some of my favorite characters. But the cleric shouldn't be your go-to guy when someone needs to peek through a keyhole or find a gem stashed in a merchant's mattress. It doesn't make sense from a story angle or a game angle to let the cleric poach in the rogue's forest that way. It was bad enough when the cleric had the find traps spell.

There are four solutions that I can see.

Option 1 is to add Perception as the seventh ability score. I doubt that anyone sees this happening. The six ability scores are enshrined in marble, whether or not they make sense or serve the game. I appreciate as much as anyone why it can't happen.

Option 2 is step backward to earlier editions that didn't rely on skill rolls. It's true; characters used to perceive things without rolling dice. Finding things like secret doors was more a matter of time than observational skill. If you spent the necessary 10 minutes peering at, poking, tapping, and twisting every inch of a 10-foot wall section, you'd find the secret door. If the DM described a few features and you hit on the idea of pressing the gargoyle's left eye, you might find the door right away and save yourself considerable time and risk from wandering monster rolls. This removes a bit of p'zazz from certain character archetypes; playing the eagle-eyed detective who spots things everyone else misses is fun.

Option 3 is to decouple perception from Wisdom and let it float among the ability scores. There are plenty of occasions where perception depends more on Dexterity than on Wisdom, such as when you're groping along the top shelf of a bookcase in search of the hidden door latch. If the feature that needs noticing is the sort of thing that a sly person would be tuned into, then the roll can be based on Dexterity. If it's the sort of thing that a warrior would be tuned into, then it can be based on Strength. If it's the sort of thing that a wizard would be tuned into, then it can be based on Intelligence. No, this doesn't make a heap of sense, but it would work better 'round the table than always tying Perception to Wisdom.

Option 4 is to eliminate Perception as a skill. Drive an ice pick into it. When some sort of perception is called for, use the skill that most closely relates to the situation. Here are some examples, in 4th Edition wrapping.

  • Finding a secret door? Thievery or Dungeoneering.
  • Tracking a monster to its lair? Nature.
  • Spotting the lich's phylactery? Arcana.
  • Picking out your contact among all the bar's patrons? Streetwise.
  • Noticing the fang marks on the corpse's wrist? Heal.
  • Hearing someone sneaking up on you? Stealth.
  • Spotting the demonic cult tattoo on an assailant's arm? Religion.
This is my top contender. Not only does it a) work and b) make sense, it also c) steers some attention back onto skills that are all too often overlooked. When was the last time your DM called for a Streetwise check? How do you suppose that makes the bard feel? This approach works so well with the skills in 4th Edition D&D that I wish it had been the official choice.

I'd love to see D&D Next take this direction. It's not headed that way right now, but we can lobby.

26 comments:

  1. I like this. I like this a lot.

    As a Pathfinder player, Perception is the most used skill in the game and it's good for everyone. It really sucks if it's not a class skill or you aren't based around Wisdom, because you are never aware of anything remotely hard to perceive.

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  2. What would you do if a PC looks for a secret door and they dont have Thievery or Dungeoneering? I think Wizards has it right by stressing that it always falls back to an Ability Score.

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    1. The same as you do with any skill: treat it as untrained.

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  3. "The six ability scores are enshrined in marble, whether or not they make sense or serve the game"

    Always bugs me. AD&D added a 7th in Comeliness in Unearthed Arcana, and 2nd edition had sub-abilities in Skills & Powers, so it's not out of the question to have more than the core six

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    1. Perhaps the failure of Comeliness is what set them in stone.

      Was there ever a Social Class stat in D&D or am I imagining that?

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    2. Comeliness was an inexplicable choice for a seventh stat. Even us in R&D didn't get it, and you'll note that it almost never appeared in any product aside from UA. I'm not the least surprised that Gary never introduced a Perception stat because that wasn't his style of play. Comeliness just left us scratching our heads.

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    3. There was never an official social class stat, but it did appear as an option in the historical supplement "A Mighty Fortress." Undoubtedly there were Dragon articles on the subject, though none come to mind specifically.

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    4. If I remember correctly, the 1e Oriental Adventures had some sort of Caste system built into it.

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    5. A ha! I think that's what I'm thinking of.

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  4. Back in early 2nd Ed days, we adopted perception as a 7th ability score from a Dragon Mag article. Can't recall which issue right now. But it made a lot more sense to us that adopting Comeliness from UA.

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  5. Oh my goodness, I wish option 4 would happen. The beauty of Next as written currently will allow this as an easy house rule -- it'll just be a matter of replacing Perception as a skill in some backgrounds.

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  6. Option number 2 or something close to it, please. If the dice are really needed, assign something a probability of being noticed based on what it is, give thieves an improved chance of noticing, modify for the situation and call it a day.

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    1. Yes. The thief's "hear noise" is really a perception skill, anyways (it starts at 2 in 6 and increases with level). Everyone else has listen as 1 in 6, and it takes a turn to do unless you figure out something clever. This works really well.

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  7. Option 5: Perception is class-based. Just as thieves are good at finding traps, so clerics have an uncanny sense that foul magic is about, warriors can spot an ambush and so on.

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    1. PS And/or race-based, of course.

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    2. I think there's something to be said for this, but it raises the question of how broad or narrow your definitions are. If warriors can spot ambushers lurking in the rocks, can they spot a manticore lurking in the rocks?

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    3. Perhaps that depends on whether you have rangers.

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    4. PS Don't 1E rangers and barbarians have less chance of being surprised?

      Arguably that's a form of class-based perception.

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  8. Keep it in the roleplay. Skill and ability checks are a cop-out. I prefer to treat my players as players, not modrons that roll and read dice results all day.

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  9. Very thought provoking! You've also illustrated one of the reasons why I hate class-based systems, the class and cross-class skill lists. I don't think perception should be a skill, it should be an ability or at least tied an ability score depending on how it is used. I've never understood why it was based on Wisdom either because it seems more like a Dexterity or Intelligence ability to me.

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  10. I really like your option #4 there, spreading out the perception across the various reasons to be perceptive. 'Tactics' or 'Survival' would be a great one for Fighters spotting ambushes.

    A similar option would be for social skills. Let your wizard use Arcana to influence the Wizards at the Transmutation School while the cleric uses Religion to influence the local priests to give the party some cheaper holy water.

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  11. We did the same thing, although can't remember if I used the Dragon article or just made up a house rule. Dragon was expensive in the UK in the early days.

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  12. Oops, above comment is in response to the poster who talked about having a 7th ability score ;)

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  13. You just wrote my newest houserule for my 4E campaign I run.

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  14. If the main problem with it is that it breaks the cleric archetype, then it's dealt with easily enough. There's no need to think of the Cleric as particularly eagle-eyed, just thoughtful, and insightful. He doesn't hunt around, he ponders for a few moments, playing out scenarios in his head, and then points right at it. Of course, anyone can play it that way, but for rogues and rangers it's usually more the eagle-eye thing.

    I'm not worried about clerics being the best scouts. There's still more to scouting than being able to see well.

    I don't mind the floating ability score approach. I like it in Traveller, and it's one of the few things I like so far about the D&D playtest.

    I do like getting rid of it entirely. It tends to be though of as a characters basic visual capability and as such it is over-rolled and over-inflated.

    Simply roleplaying perception is a fine approach at times, but I prefer to treat my players as players and not as their characters, who may be far more perceptive than they are, and have the benefit of actually seeing the scene, rather than just having it described to them.

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