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magic9mushroom
2010-04-18, 06:38 AM
I just looked at the Player's Handbook 3.5, and it says that the DC of Listen checks is decreased by 1 for every 10 feet of distance.

Please tell me this got errataed?

lesser_minion
2010-04-18, 06:45 AM
Where is this?

Page 78 has the correct definition of the rule - Listen Check DC +1 per 10 feet of distance (or, in the very least, my copy does, although it does look like someone's pencilled it in).

olentu
2010-04-18, 06:47 AM
Well since no one else seems to be doing so here is the text from the online errata document.

"Listen
Player's Handbook, page 78
Under the “Listen DC Modifier” header, the last two
numbers are wrong.
Change –1 to +1; change –5 to +5."


Edit: I believe in later printings wizards included some of the changes.

Emmerask
2010-04-18, 06:48 AM
lol
well there is a good new way to destroy your enemies then, let a feather fall 100 miles away and your enemies shall parish in the sound waves :biggrin:

Anyway no one really plays strictly raw and that is an obvious typo ^^

magic9mushroom
2010-04-18, 06:48 AM
Where is this?

Page 78 has the correct definition of the rule - Listen Check DC +1 per 10 feet of distance.

It says -1.

@olentu: As I thought.

Amiel
2010-04-18, 06:53 AM
Spot has something similar; although I can't recall exactly where this was written.

lesser_minion
2010-04-18, 07:05 AM
Spot has something similar; although I can't recall exactly where this was written.

That's the rule that everything is shrouded in mists (or, more accurately, that you suffer spot penalties as if everything was).

Emmerask
2010-04-18, 07:17 AM
By raw only the chuck norris can look farther then one kilometer ^^

2xMachina
2010-04-18, 07:35 AM
Fog of War!

Shhalahr Windrider
2010-04-18, 09:06 AM
Spot has something similar; although I can't recall exactly where this was written.
Eh, the funny thing is that distance is recorded as increasing the DC for Listen, but subtracting from the check for Spot. It amounts to the same thing, really. But it is sort of a funny distinction.

QuantumSteve
2010-04-18, 09:12 AM
Why is this stupid? Surely it's harder to hear, say, a cat stalking from across the room or down the street than right next to your head?

Edit: Nevermind, I'm failing Read/Speak English checks all over the place today.:smalltongue:

Jack_Simth
2010-04-18, 09:24 AM
But yes - you can't see the moon on a clear night, by RAW. It works in a noisy, distracting environment (like a dungeon) ok, but not so much elsewhere.

Starbuck_II
2010-04-18, 09:48 AM
But yes - you can't see the moon on a clear night, by RAW. It works in a noisy, distracting environment (like a dungeon) ok, but not so much elsewhere.

I think the Moon has a penalty to its hiding checks except during the day.

Enguhl
2010-04-18, 09:52 AM
No, it has to be actively hiding, which the moon can't do. Unless we're talking about the moon from Majora's Mask :smalleek:

Starbuck_II
2010-04-18, 09:55 AM
Wait, does that mean the moon actively hides during the day. I mean, we can't see it.

QuantumSteve
2010-04-18, 11:05 AM
What size catagory is the moon? Although, it may not matter. At 250,000 miles away you get approximately minus 1.3 billion to your spot check, and I don't see the moon getting penalties more than on the order on millions to hide.

Perhaps it can't hide because it doesn't have cover?

Last Laugh
2010-04-18, 11:11 AM
What creature size is the moon?
Surely it's hide penalty is no where near the spot penalty...(don't size categories work on doubling, meaning that the spot check has no hope of even seeing the moon?)
edit: Psychic ninja steve.

Flickerdart
2010-04-18, 11:20 AM
Why is this stupid? Surely it's harder to hear, say, a cat stalking from across the room or down the street than right next to your head?

Edit: Nevermind, I'm failing Read/Speak English checks all over the place today.:smalltongue:
Try moving farther away from the monitor. :smallbiggrin:

pffh
2010-04-18, 11:38 AM
What size catagory is the moon? Although, it may not matter. At 250,000 miles away you get approximately minus 1.3 billion to your spot check, and I don't see the moon getting penalties more than on the order on millions to hide.

Perhaps it can't hide because it doesn't have cover?

It's even worse for the sun. Also if you need cover to hide then you can't see the sun at sunset and at dawn when it has partial cover.

Rappy
2010-04-18, 11:43 AM
The Spot skill is used to notice items that aren't immediately obvious and people who are attempting to hide.
It seems to me that the Sun and Moon would count as things that are usually rather obvious. :smallamused:

Starbuck_II
2010-04-18, 11:44 AM
It seems to me that the Sun and Moon would count as things that are usually rather obvious. :smallamused:

What about the sun at night and the moon at day?

Eloel
2010-04-18, 11:48 AM
What about the sun at night and the moon at day?

Sun at night has total cover. Moon at day is a fishy topic - sometimes you CAN see it.

pffh
2010-04-18, 11:48 AM
What about the sun at night and the moon at day?

During the summer I can see the moon at day.

IonDragon
2010-04-18, 12:32 PM
Friends of mine and I were playing a d20 modern style game (not d20 modern, but most of the base rules came from the d20SRD). One of them was on top of a car with a rifle, range increment 250 ft. He could accurately hit something a quarter mile away due to far shot, however because of the spot penalty the DC to see something like a zombie with half cover was somewhere in the neighborhood of 50+.

Even with binoculars, (Which apparently have no game numbers benefit) I ruled halved the range penalty, the DC was still 30+.

Also, not being able to hear what someone 10' away is saying more than half the time if your wisdom <= 10

Zeful
2010-04-18, 12:45 PM
Friends of mine and I were playing a d20 modern style game (not d20 modern, but most of the base rules came from the d20SRD). One of them was on top of a car with a rifle, range increment 250 ft. He could accurately hit something a quarter mile away due to far shot, however because of the spot penalty the DC to see something like a zombie with half cover was somewhere in the neighborhood of 50+.

Even with binoculars, (Which apparently have no game numbers benefit) I ruled halved the range penalty, the DC was still 30+.

I thought a Scope negated the range penalties for the first 50 ft or something?

IonDragon
2010-04-18, 01:00 PM
I thought a Scope negated the range penalties for the first 50 ft or something?

It was a homebrew system which came more from the d20srd than the d20modenrsrd. And if all it did was negate the first 50', that's a -5 to the spot DC. Decidedly lower.

lesser_minion
2010-04-18, 01:06 PM
I agree with the comment that 'spot' checks generally refer to seeing something that could conceivably be missed, and I'm not sure how else you could handle it without corner cases like the sun. Even then, however a -2 per 100ft. would probably be more reasonable.

It's more like the Tippyverse or the Common Commoner Transmission Protocol - nobody uses it, you just laugh at it for a while and then go back to your fun. Citizen.

Then there's the rules for hiding, which assume that all enemies have all-round vision, all the time. Unless you're tailing them or you make a bluff check.

Divide by Zero
2010-04-18, 01:25 PM
What about the sun at night and the moon at day?

They're hiding. Duh.

lesser_minion
2010-04-18, 01:27 PM
They're hiding. Duh.

They have total cover for a fair bit of the time, in fact. Giant balls of rock have a tendency to obscure one's vision.

Shhalahr Windrider
2010-04-18, 02:44 PM
Also, not being able to hear what someone 10' away is saying more than half the time if your wisdom <= 10
More than half the time, someone with Wisdom 10 is taking 10. That beats the DC 0 for people talking (http://www.systemreferencedocuments.org/resources/systems/pennpaper/dnd35/soveliorsage/skillsAll.html#listen) by 10. No problem.

When they can’t take 10, such people are distracted. Distracted listeners are known for missing things. Furthermore, folks with low Wisdom are known for being easily distracted. So they’re missing out on what’s being said anyway.

Jack_Simth
2010-04-18, 02:54 PM
More than half the time, someone with Wisdom 10 is taking 10. That beats the DC 0 for people talking (http://www.systemreferencedocuments.org/resources/systems/pennpaper/dnd35/soveliorsage/skillsAll.html#listen) by 10. No problem.

When they can’t take 10, such people are distracted. Distracted listeners are known for missing things. Furthermore, folks with low Wisdom are known for being easily distracted. So they’re missing out on what’s being said anyway.
Ah, but you see if they're ten feet away, taking ten only beats the DC 0 by 9 - which, while enough to tell you that someone is talking, doesn't let you understand what they're saying.

Let's see... if we wanted to make it a little more reasonable....
+1 DC at ten feet, and another +1 DC every time the distance doubles (so +2 DC at 20, +3 DC at 40, +4 DC at 80, and so on). You can still see the sun and moon - mostly because they're just that big (size penalties to hide are also based on doublings, for the most part), but despite the little issue that there's no cover for the space station, you normally can't see it at all (too far away), but can occasionally when the light glints off it just right (you roll a 20) or you know where to look and are using a telescope (circumstance bonus)

lesser_minion
2010-04-18, 05:51 PM
A very hackish equation:

Minimum Dimension = Distance/5000


That might be of use to you (note that luminosity is ignored).

It should be pretty hard to notice something that's only of the minimum size required, however.

This assumes that the sine of the angle subtended at the eye must be not less than 0.0002

Then it's off to the sine rule.

Shalist
2010-04-18, 05:59 PM
You need 1/3 of an object's price in 'raw materials' in order to craft it. Even a casual glance at the conservation of mass here results in a hefty catgirl genocide.

say you're making a suit of full plate armor (1500g). You'd need 500g worth of raw materials, presumably iron, which cost 1s per pound. That works out to about 5000 pounds of iron just to make a 50 pound suit of armor. Even a 1 pound dagger or gauntlet require nearly 7 pounds of iron to create.

Either all those buckles, straps, hilts, and so on, are just that expensive, or someone's pet rust monster is a growing boy.

---

Or going the other way...50 coins weigh 1 pound, and 1 pound of material is worth 50 of that type of coin (5s copper 500g plat, etc)--fairly straight forward. Of course, this does mean that the raw materials needed to craft 150, say, platinum is...that's right, 50 platinum. This is probably what dragons spend all day doing when they're not sleeping for years at a time.

And of course, no mention of crafting is complete without everyone's favorite economy smasher:


Material Component

The original material, which costs the same amount as the raw materials required to craft the item to be created.

Forget 'wall of iron' or 'genesis,' with this, a level 10 wizard could be churning out turning a millions of gold or platinum with every casting, and all he'd need is a single coin to get the ball rolling.

Gold is ~1200 pounds / cubic foot, platinum is ~1340...10 cubic feet / CL, so 600,000 gold / CL for gold, or ~670,000 platinum / CL for platinum, minus the 1/3 you started with as raw materials.

Also, you could probably use a variation of this to utterly devalue various precious stones (ie diamonds, rubies), so that someone would need several portable holes just to carry the "50 gold worth of diamond dust" needed for a simple spell :P

lesser_minion
2010-04-18, 06:09 PM
Also, you could probably use a variation of this to utterly devalue various precious stones (ie diamonds, rubies), so that someone would need several portable holes just to carry the "50 gold worth of diamond dust" needed for a simple spell :P

You could have left it at the whole components thing.

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0677.html

Paulus
2010-04-18, 06:14 PM
I want to know what the Sun and Moon's move Silently Check is...


or barring that, the Earth's because DANG, it must be high or we'd be deafened.

lesser_minion
2010-04-18, 06:23 PM
I want to know what the Sun and Moon's move Silently Check is...


or barring that, the Earth's because DANG, it must be high or we'd be deafened.

You don't have to make a move silently check not to make noise, you have to make a move silently check not to be heard. Then only when moving.

For reference, it's -5.

Starbuck_II
2010-04-18, 06:25 PM
I want to know what the Sun and Moon's move Silently Check is...


or barring that, the Earth's because DANG, it must be high or we'd be deafened.

The plane we call Space makes all sound fail outside of Earth.
So we can hear inside the Earth, but not anyway else.

Paulus
2010-04-18, 06:27 PM
In all three cases, -5. However, none of them are ever required to make Move Silently checks.

The Hide and Move Silently skills only ever come into play when something wants to perform one of those actions.

Eclipses?



The plane we call Space makes all sound fail outside of Earth.
So we can hear inside the Earth, but not anyway else.

What about in a space craft? Can you hear me major tom?

lesser_minion
2010-04-18, 06:35 PM
Eclipses?

No. The eclipsed body merely gains cover.


What about in a space craft?

No. There is an intervening vacuum.