D&D 3.5 Perception, Skills - New
Players Handbook
Shadow d20 Notes: After many years of DMing I have found that very few times does the Listen skill come into play. It is just too easy to call for a Spot check and forget all about a Listen check except for those rare times when there is no chance to see around a corner or something. Plus 95% of the time a PC or creature will have the exact same bonus in spot as they do listen. With the merging of Hide and Move Silently it is an easy step to merge Spot and Listen into one skill called Perception. This should also help out newer DM's that DM for our group as they don't have to worry about which skill is the proper skill to be used in different situations. I am also thinking with this skill being a little more useful/powerful that some players may even take it as a cross-class skill now where taking a cross class in both spot or listen would have been really hard. |
Perception(Wis)
The Perception skill is used primarily to detect characters or creatures who are hiding or moving silently. Typically, your Perception check is opposed by the Stealth check of the creature trying not to be seen. Sometimes a creature isn’t intentionally hiding but is still difficult to see, so a successful Perception check is necessary to notice it or hear it.
A creature can use Perception to find an invisible creature. A character can make a Perception check for this purpose as a free action each round. It’s practically impossible to pinpoint the location of an invisible creature. A Perception check that beats the creature's Stealth check by 20 pinpoints the invisible creature’s location, and even if a character succeeds on such a check, the invisible creature still benefits from total concealment (50% miss chance).
Perception is also used to detect someone in disguise, and to read lips when you can’t hear or understand what someone is saying.
Condition |
Penalty |
Per 10 feet of distance |
-1 |
Spotter distracted |
-5 |
Through a door |
-5 |
Through a stone wall |
-15 |
Perception checks may be called for to determine the distance at which an encounter begins. A penalty applies on such checks, depending on the distance between the two individuals or groups. In many cases a Perception check will be opposed by Stealth under the Take 10 rules. So one group will have their lowest take 10 Stealth roll opposed by the other groups highest take 10 Perception check.
Read Lips
To understand what someone is saying by reading lips, you must be within 30 feet of the speaker, be able to see him or her speak, and understand the speaker’s language. (This use of the skill is language-dependent.) The base DC is 15, but it increases for complex speech or an inarticulate speaker. You must maintain a line of sight to the lips being read.
If your Perception check succeeds, you can understand the general content of a minute’s worth of speaking, but you usually still miss certain details. If the check fails by 4 or less, you can’t read the speaker’s lips. If the check fails by 5 or more, you draw some incorrect conclusion about the speech. The check is rolled secretly in this case, so that you don’t know whether you succeeded or missed by 5.
Notes:
- Alertness Feat is changed due to the above enhancement.
- Equipment that give a bonus to spot or listen checks will affect all Perception checks. This is different than how Stealth works.
- If your Class has either Listen or Spot as a class skill then Perception is considered a class skill also.
- If you can't change your character sheet then simply use Spot skill as your Perception skill.
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