Topic: Alertness vs Observation vs Sense Awareness

[rdanhenry]

Were I to cut the skills down to Alertness and Observation (I wouldn't), I'd then go ahead and go all the way and drop Alertness as well. Make free detection rolls called for by the GM with the Observation skill, but use the ranks in the skill as the bonus instead of the normal skill bonus. If you want to go with minimal skills, you only need one skill for noticing things, and that's a simple mechanic to reduce your chances when you aren't particularly trying to notice something.

[Arioch]

If you want to go with minimal skills, you only need one skill for noticing things, and that's a simple mechanic to reduce your chances when you aren't particularly trying to notice something.

It's not only a matter of reducing skills, is the fact that the way awareness skills are organized breaks the "logic" of the skill system:
- normally you have:
1) a Category, which covers general situations;
2) Skills within it, which cover specific situations.
- in Awareness you have:
1) a Category, which covers general situations;
2) Skills which still cover general situations (Observation and Alertness)
3) Other skills which cover specific situations.

So imho Awareness skills need a revision...

[rdanhenry]

IMO, it is Alertness and Observation that are your logic problem, not the specific skills. They are Category level abilities classed as skills, if you take them as general skills. I think Alertness does fit that description, but I actually see Observation as a miscellaneous Awareness, not a general one. It covers taking in all the details of a scene *not* covered by the other Awareness*Searching skills. It gives you the sort of information a Holmes-style detective needs for his deductions, but does not impart the special skills of a tracker or a thief or the body language reading required for Detect Lie.

Using Awareness*Senses rolls in place of Alertness will be a little more complex, but you can drop the Awareness*Perceptions category. Another effect is that it will generally replace Alertness skill with something with a higher bonus, but whether that is a pro or con is subjective and campaign dependent.

[craggles]

Thanks all for the feedback - I've decided to drop Alertness and Observation

I'm using the Sense Awareness skill in place of Observation (and roll on the relevant Sense for the situation which is generally going to be 'Sight' for Observation)
I'm dividing the bonuses for the Sense Awareness by 3 and use that figure instead of Alertness (and again use the relevant skill to roll on). This gives those Elves who are better at hearing the chance to hear things that the other characters wouldn't pick up on.

[ToM]

Would it hurt anything if I just use Observation (perhaps split into Spot and Listen as has been previously mentioned) and Alertness? And just Tracking instead of Tracking and Track Reading?

I mean DP or character wise?

Thanks for the help and ideas guys!

I have no problem with it and also it is cheaper for the characters to develop decent perceptions.
Sometimes I allow to develop very specific Sense Awareness skills also (for those characters that have special abilities like Acute Smell or Touch), generally as everyman skills given their application is less than common.

And, ah, I almost forgot: I also have another skills in the Awaresess Searching group which I call Combat Awareness. It is everyman for fighter types (essentially, it is the Situational Awareness: Combat skill reworked). I use it to roll against surprise, orientation during combat and the like. Sometimes with VERY high rolls I allow characters to foresee in some way their foe's next moves (especially when such foes are predictable fighters) and declare their actions AFTER have known how their foes are going to act.

PS: RWW, such a long time since our flame wars! Hope you're good and playing hard btw... 

[pastaav]

Just for the record I don't think there is any real problem in having skills like Observation and Locate Hidden at the same time.

The player investigate a room and roll dice...suppose he get's 50 in result. His Observation bonus is 80 and his Locate Hidden bonus is 55. The hidden door is a extremly hard maneuver to detect with Observation so he get's just a near success as result. Luckily the character is skilled in Locate Hidden and since this training is customized just to find hidden trapdoors it an easy maneuver in this case and he succeed.

With other word having both skills works if the GM make sure to make difficulty adjustments suiting to what degree the skill fits the task. Not very many games need all the awarness skills, but it is trivial to have the skills at the same time if your setting/adventure needs such detail.

[Arioch]

Just for the record I don't think there is any real problem in having skills like Observation and Locate Hidden at the same time.

Not, unless you also have a general Awareness-Searching category...

With other word having both skills works if the GM make sure to make difficulty adjustments suiting to what degree the skill fits the task.

Or, in other words, it doesn't work unless the GM bothers to add an additional (an unnecessary) level of complexity to the game to make sure that PCs who bought specialized awareness skills won't complain too much about having wasted their DPs...

[Der Graumantel]

Or, in other words, it doesn't work unless the GM bothers to add an additional (an unnecessary) level of complexity to the game to make sure that PCs who bought specialized awareness skills won't complain too much about having wasted their DPs...

I don't think its unnecessary and just to please the PC who was so stupid to buy the skill. If you take into account that Rolemaster is a simulating game type and you can imagine a Character, who is not good in general Observation, but has a thing for finding hidden passages (for example the clich? dwarf/Movie Gimli found in nearly all games).

But I agree that this skill is unnecessary for the most character concepts, so Rolemaster could drop it. On the other hand its there, none has to use it and it gives the opportunity to use it for the above mentioned concept. In the end Rolemaster is about costumizing the system to your need, since its to big for the most groups to use it as a whole (if not all, I mean who uses exaustion points and armor damage???).

But if you don't like Locate Hidden, one could give the dwarf a modification roll on stone mansonery and add it to his Observation.

[pastaav]

Just for the record I don't think there is any real problem in having skills like Observation and Locate Hidden at the same time.

Not, unless you also have a general Awareness-Searching category...

If you are meaning Awarness-senses I don't get your point. The solution to have different difficulties based on how fitting the skill is works no matter the number of skills involved provided the GM and the group want that level of detail.

If you really mean Awareness-Searching as a replacement of Observation I am at equal loss to understand your point. The category progression itself means that Awareness-Searching category will be close to useless in any skill check that matters since the bonus will be too small.

I could see an argument to get rid of Altertness in favor of Awareness-Searching since the limited progression and number of ranks is pretty close, but that is at the same a very good reason why Awareness-Searching can not replace Observation.

[Arioch]

If you take into account that Rolemaster is a simulating game type and you can imagine a Character, who is not good in general Observation, but has a thing for finding hidden passages (for example the clich? dwarf/Movie Gimli found in nearly all games).

Then he could have a lot of ranks in Locate Hidden and few in the Awareness catergory, without having to use Observation...

If you really mean Awareness-Searching as a replacement of Observation I am at equal loss to understand your point. The category progression itself means that Awareness-Searching category will be close to useless in any skill check that matters since the bonus will be too small.

Imho the fact that Awareness Searching will have a smaller bonus than skills in it only means that the GM will not have to adjust a maneuver difficulty depending on the skill used. A hidden door will be just "medium" to find, and finding it using the general category instead of the specific skill will be automatically harder, without having to put an extra difficulty just for that "catch-all" skill.

[mocking bird]

Out of curiosity - does anybody actually use sense ambush as written?  Most people seem to use it and awarenes interchangably.

[markc]

 I do not use Sense Ambush.
MDC

[Der Graumantel]

me neither

[ToM]

Me too.

[Dark Schneider]

Because sense ambush is much ambiguous, as alertness is used to sense everything not actively, which is the purpose of sense ambush?.

[mocking bird]

Sense ambush really isn't ambiguous as written but it's name is a bit confusing.  It is used as a penalty to ambush skill rolls - the ambush it refers to is the actual skill, not a generic ambuscade.

The only real time it has come into play as written is when somebody has the precision talent.

[craggles]

Hi Mocking Bird,
Sense Ambush - I wasn't loving this skill as a passive 'trap detection' but I as an offset to an opponent's Ambush skill, I'm adding it back to my skill lists!! Thanks.

Looking in the RMFRP and the SoHK books, the Ambush skill descriptions are different with the SoHK stating that it is the Sense Ambush skill (and not Alertness which the RMFRP says) that's deducted from the opponent's Ambush static maneauver - and as I have a few sneaky PCs with the Ambush skill, it's time to give the badguy's Sense Ambush (as well as an Ambush skill of their own). 

I'm glad this forum exists or I'd be wondering around with all these wrong interpretations of the rules in my head.

[rdanhenry]

As I already said, I would not allow Observation skill to be used to find hidden things or recognize traps that would not be obvious to someone who had not studied traps (i.e. only things like obvious wires, no pressure plates or well-disguised/hidden wires). General observation does not replace the special awareness skills, it fills the large area they do not cover.