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View Full Version : Pathfinder Perception & Senses Redfined



Jane_Smith
2015-04-10, 08:22 AM
One problem I always had with all the D&D rule sets and pathfinder is how ambiguous perception and the special sensory abilities like low light vision actually work. Don't even get me started on why 'dark vision' has a hard set limit when people can easily see over 100 feet just by taking 10 on perception with no bonuses. In a previous game, we literally had to make handouts for -exactly- how the perception skill works to some of our new players and the dm who all had differing opinions somehow on how each ability worked, and at the end of the day, we all thought it was ultimately poorly done.

I am not saying this attempt will be any better, but I believe in sculpting and changing what I don't like, so here is my 2 cents attempt at making it easier to understand and more streamlined.


Perception (Wis)

This skill IS NOT ONLY SIGHT AND HEARING, and it also isn't your natural senses either. Taking ranks in perception represents training to simply be aware of your surroundings using what sensory organs you got and actually factoring what you see, hear, feel, smell or taste as quickly as possible into a coherent response. Its not so much as saying "This guy with 10 ranks in perception can see further then the guy with none" from genetics or birth, its just that one guy is using experience and training to know that the way that undergrowth that is shuffling 60-100 feet away have something in them, and it is not the 'wind'.

The rules for the perception are unchanged, but this needs to be clarified properly to newer players.


New Base Racial Trait: "Senses"

Just like there is a base attack progression, base movement speeds, base save progressions, base skill points per level, not all races have the SAME RANGE OF SENSES. And simply saying "They get +2 to +10" to perception really is not that accurate of a representation of a unique or alien races abilities. Some may have a 6th or 7th sense that other races simply do not have - while races and animals such as hawks and elves may see significantly further then other races visually, and I remember gnomes were suppose to have great noses yet never got the scent ability for some reason. As such, abilities such as Scent, Low Light Vision, Tremorsense, Blindsense, Darkvision, the old-school Infrared Vision drow use to have, and similar abilities are now simply augments to your base sense stat.

The base "Sensory" range for most races is 10. Which means they have 10 foot increments of perception, and the DC to spot, hear, smell, feel, taste objects, creatures or things of interest is increased by 1 per 10 feet. They can, of course, see/hear/etc beyond this range, but they can only spot details within this range. You can see a huge mountain miles away after all, it doesn't mean you can spot a traveler climbing to its peak. However, as written, the core rules make it sound like spotting a mountain has like a DC of 11991939581181851 a few miles away, which makes it quite odd when you factor in the moons distance to the planet. This was another issue we had to clarify in our game. x.x

An elf however, has a range of 15, but only for vision and hearing, and have the low-light vision augment for vision, as seen here;

Standard Racial Traits

Size: Elves are Medium creatures and thus receive no bonuses or penalties due to their size.

Type: Elves are Humanoids with the elf subtype.

Base Speed: Elves have a base speed of 30 feet.

Base Senses: Elves have a base sensory range of 10 Feel, 10 Scent, 10 Taste, 15 Sight (Low Light Vision), 15 Hearing.


Lastly, the sensory abilities themselves need to be clarified and remade to make more sense and to actually work more realistically in my opinion, some ideal changes are listed below;

Darkvision: Range max is removed. Darkvision just means you can, as a free action to turn on/off, treat darkness and dim light as bright light and normal light while active. However, normal light is treated as dim light, and bright light is treated as darkness to you while this ability is active. All darkvision races with light sensitivity lose this drawback due to this change. Some races may be forced to use darkvision passively, such as drow as their "Drawback".

Low Light Vision: The radius of all bright, normal and dim light sources for you is doubled. A torch being held by you, or someone 100 feet away, shines brighter to your eyes, moonlight illuminates a room more fully to you then a normal person, etc. Unlike darkvision, this ability is passive at all times.

Special: When using darkvision + low light vision, the radius of darkness and dim light is doubled instead of bright and normal light sources, allowing you to see with darkvision easier.

Scent: No longer has a range limit. Instead, having the scent ability just augments your scent-based perception checks and range. Possessing the Scent ability doubles your races base scent (so a werewolf human has a scent perception range of 20 feet increments, whereas a gnome would have 30 if he gained scent in some manner). It also gives you the ability to take 10 on scent based checks, even when distracted and threatened, and a +8 bonus on all scent related checks.

Tremorsense: Renamed as Sensitive Touch, this ability is a Touch-based perception augment. Like Scent, it doubles your feeling sense range and ability to pick up vibrations, pressure, depth, or even 'feel' sounds and movements around you as the air stirs. This ability is no longer limited to just being in contact with the ground, though the DM may rule it only works in certain environments such as underwater for aquatic species. You can now take 10 on touch-based perception checks even when distracted or threatened, and gain a +8 bonus on all touch related checks.

Blindsense: Like scent and tremorsense, blindsense is your ability to hear with pinpoint accuracy like a bat or sonar, picking up the heartbeats of your enemies, the sound of bones moving under skin, lungs filling with air, or even the sound of feet touching the ground. Your base hearing sense range is doubled, you get +8 to such perception checks, and can take 10 on them. So an elf with blindsense has a hearing increment of 30 feet to overhear someone talking. Taking 10 + 10 (8 from blindsense, 2 from race), that means a elf with blindsense can hear anything that isn't trying to muffle its noise and has nothing blocking the sound in the way out to a range of 600 feet. And battle, screaming, horns or loud objects out to 900 feet, whereas a human with this ability would only be able to hear out to 400 feet, and battle and loud noises out to 600 feet.

This is just some examples - also remember that many spells such as Invisibility ONLY PROTECTS AGAINST SIGHT BASED PERCEPTION CHECKS. Silence against hearing. The alchemy item scent blocker against scent, so on. To many dm's and players think that just because they got a ring of chameleon or invisibility, that the stealth bonus applies to all stealth rolls, this is WRONG, and needs to be clarified clearly that it only works against sight. An elf should be able to hear you quite clearly and know your exact location within 15-30 feet with ease, and a gnome should be able to smell your sweat at that range as well, and a race with sensitive skin should pick up the vibrations of your movement to pinpoint your location with ease, and their perception checks should bypass the +stealth bonus you get from such an item/effect.

Examples of Race-Specific "Base Senses" above or below 10;

Dwarves: 5 Touch. Dwarves not only don't feel pain as badly as other races due to their toughness, and can sleep on stone without issues, but this also means that their sense of touch has been dulled and the finer things of life such as soft silks and soft pillows or feeling a missing toe is quite dulled to these tough, gruff, mole people.

Elves: 15 Sight and 15 Hearing.

Halflings: 15 Hearing.

Gnomes: 15 Scent, 15 Taste.

Humans: 5 Scent. Lets face it, we just suck at smelling things beyond 5-10 feet unless its a giant trash heep, a cat litter box, or a burning pile of corpses. Humans can't always be "The Mario". We can blame this one on urban life/smells of the city. Or farms.... we really just dont -want- to smell that well. > _ >

Falmer (From Skyrim): 15 Scent, 15 Touch, 15 Hearing, 0 Sight, 10 Taste, due to being blind. Likely has Blindsense and Senistive Skin traits, and maybe even Scent.

Hawks: 40 Sight.

Owls: 20 Sight, low Light Vision.

Dragons: 40 Sight, 40 Hearing, 40 Scent, 10 Touch, 15 Taste, with blindsense, scent, darkvision, low light vision.

Titan: 20 Sight, 10 Hearing, 10 Scent, 10 Touch, 10 Taste.

Merfolk: 10 Sight, 10 Hearing, 10 Scent, 15 Touch, 10 Taste, with Senistive Skin while underwater or submerged in liquid. Only works to detect things within the same body of liquid.

Drow: 15 Sight, 15 Hearing, 10 Scent, 10 Touch, 10 Taste, with Darkvision and Infrared Vision (the ability to 'see' heat, negating abilities such as invisibility and follow recent tracks by a glance). However, drow are unable to spot colors, even black and white, while using Infrared/Darkvision, and can only determine the basic shape and layout of the world around them when using it to move around. The only colors they see when using these abilities is the heat spectrum of objects around them. Something with absolutely no heat would be nearly invisible to them.

Well, thats my 2 cents. What do yall think?

MojoBojangles
2015-04-16, 01:52 PM
Interesting concept, really. I do agree that Perception has always been something I've had to explain at least once to new players. Hold over from previous editions where you got to split your senses into different skills (always thought that was stupid), I suppose. But what you've proposed is definitely a nice take. I just would be curious to see how much work would have to be done to implement it all. But seems to work better at least. Wouldn't mind trying it out.

Also, in relation to Racial Traits and Pathfinder: What impact would these changes make on the Racial Point Values assigned to each race? And for that matter, have you thought about what it would change for the actual Racial Trait point costs themselves?