Perception Skill
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Perception represents the ability to detect changes in the environment. Examples include observing something moving, smelling a new smell, overhearing a sound, etc...
The number of successes needed is almost always up to the Storyteller's discretion. General guidelines to use:
| Successes | Observation Types |
|---|---|
| Critical Failure | You are absorbed in your actions, your thoughts, or in something else, the change rolled for will probably surprise you without trying. |
| Failure | You don't notice the change. |
| 1 | You notice basic changes, like normal talking, people moving around within the local area, strong smells in the air. |
| 3 | You notice more specific changes, changes that most others don't tend to notice. A whiff of cooking from a few streets over, quiet talking in the next room, the scurry of a mouse in a dark room. |
| 5+ | Quick to catch even the smallest details, you can spot proportionally appropriate movement at the maximum limit of your vision., detect the faintest smells, overhear whispers from the other side of a room. |
The exception to this is that Perception is used to oppose all Stealth rolls.
Notes to clear up common confusion:
- A failure on a Perception roll doesn't mean that the perciever is blind, deaf, or dumb. Overt and blatant actions may not require any successes to achieve. A good rule of thumb is that roll with successes should be used if there is a reasonable chance that the action might not be percieved.
- Perception is distinctly different from Search. Search is used to spot existing things or details in a close inspection, Perception is for detecting changes. For example if you are in a crypt with a highly concealed lever, Search is appropriate to find it, not Perception. Perception would be used to detect that moving the lever shifted a stone tile on the floor. If the movement of the stone tile wasn't percieved, it returns to a Search to find the displaced tile.
- If an assassin is attempting to sneak up on a target, the target has to roll a Perception greater than the assassin's Stealth roll. Despite the target's nature of being the defender in the case of an attack, for the Perception vs Stealth roll, Stealth is the defending roll, and ties go to the defender.