Despite my lack of interest in actual changing over to 4th ed. when it drops this summer, I have been following all of the previews closely to see what ideas I want to cherry-pick for house rules. Since the system is still d20 at its core, its much easier to do this than in previous edition changes (in fact, I’ll probably end up buying a 4th ed. PHB just for this purpose).
There have been some decent ideas, there are a lot of things I strongly dislike (the utter elimination of penalties for arcane spellcasters in armor, the attempt to incorporate some sort of aggro system for monsters, and the terrible new critical hit system), but until this week I had yet to come across an idea that really jumped out as a clear, serious improvement.
Perception, in my opinion, is that “out of the park” rules improvement, although it stewed around in my mind for a day or two before I felt that way. Suffice to say, we will be using Perception when we start playing again.
So what is Perception? Basically, it is the official name for the combination of Spot and Listen that I had introduced as “Notice” last time we played. But it does not just incorporate Spot and Listen, it incorporated Search as well. So far nothing too special. Where the real improvement comes in is that the PC does not roll Perception like a normal skill. Instead, it works like AC for a character’s senses. A PC’s Perception is equal to 10+skill ranks+WIS bonus+other modifiers (feats, racial abilities, etc.). So when gobber tries to sneak up on a fighter, the gobber rolls his Stealth check, and if it beats the fighter’s Perception the gobber isn’t noticed.
Where I think this change becomes truly great is in the case of hidden treasures, secret doors, and traps. Under the old system, a rogue could be built to be the master of traps, with maxed-out skills and every possible feat to improve his trap-related abilities, but if the player didn’t tell the DM he was searching the proper part of the map, it was all for naught. Under the Perception system, the trap has its own Stealth bonus, and the DM rolls the trap’s Stealth check versus that rogue’s Perception to see if he notices it before walking into it. Same thing with secret doors, treasures, or what have you.
Essentially, this rule shift reflects a logical role-play assumption: adventurers are on guard and paying attention pretty much all the time. It’s what they do. Of course, rogues would receive a bonus to their Perception versus traps, dwarves would get +2 to their Perception versus stonework traps, elves a +2 to their Perception versus secret doors, etc.
