Observation is no longer open-ended

[Thor Olavsrud]

Other stuff:
Observation
Observation is NO LONGER a training. It is a standard skill now. Converted characters get a one time only gift: The Observation skill for converted characters starts at their Perception exponent and shade.


And just because players will conveniently "miss" this part, the Observation skill is NOT open-ended.

[rafial]

And just because players will conveniently "miss" this part, the Observation skill is NOT open-ended.

And presumably, neither is an "unskilled" observation attempt, which winds up working like an old skool "untrained" Perception role?

I'm curious as to why this change was made?

-wilhelm

[luke]

it was changed because there was no reason for Perception to do double duty as Observation.
Observation was too cheap at only 2 pts.
Obeservation wasn't learnable by characters who didn't start with it.
and Observation netted an unfair/unneeded advantage over Stealthy/Incon with its open-ended successes.

We slightly refined Observation's role -- ONLY for detecting Incon, Stealthy, Sleight of Hand or Traps -- and suddenly everything fell into place.

-L

[eruditus]

I, for one, am glad to see this. Observation training was always a must have for nearly any character in my game. Especially with the "keep your roll" sorta of metality, characters who wanted any info about the sneakier elements about them would generate these massive Stealthy/Incon obs.

[Paka]

Wait.

So a normal Perception roll is open ended but an Observation roll isn't?

Allow me to reason this out for myself.

But if you don't have Observation you don't even get a roll to see the fella sneaking up on you. Right?

[Angaros]

My guess is that tests that go directly for Per are OE, but tests that fall back on Per (due to Per being the root stat for that particular skill) aren't. So, if a character doesn't have Observation, he can still try the test at double obstacle penalty using Perception. The test would not be OE since the primary ability being tested is Observation, not Perception. As to why some tests are open-ended, I don't know. Perhaps Luke could share with us the reason for this? I've been wondering about it for a while.

[Paka]

My thought on why Per tests are open-ended is because in our heart of hearts we WANT the PC's to succeed. I want them to notice the dingus of blah and I want them to see the creatures slithering toward their camp-fire in the dead of night.

In magic, we want them to succeed and when they fail, I'd like to them to fail BIG.

Does that make sense?

[Angaros]

To me that doesn't make much sense. I can see Faith and perhaps also Steel tests to be instances where miracles can happen. People sometimes find strength to endure even the most horrific pain and Faith and miracles sort of go hand in hand, right? I mean, one can always claim that the gods work in mysterious ways when they act on behalf of the lowly beggar with B3 Faith but fail to assist the pure saint with B6. But why Sorcery and Perception are OE I don't know. Sorcery could be said to be a realm where even the most skilled cannot fully predict the outcome of a test. Sometimes luck works in the favor of the apprentice even allowing him to channel large amounts of power. I don't know. So, why Faith and Steel are OE I think I can see, but the others -- dunno. Are armor rolls OE btw?

[Paka]

No, I don't believe Armor rolls are.

Think of it this way, stepping WIDEly around the realism issue:

What would have happened in the last game you ran if every single Perception roll was failure?