[Basic] Advantage of the Week: Acute Senses

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Acute Vision is a good deal. There's a PC in my campaign with several levels, and it's good. He's not trying to munchkinise it, though. I'm betting that a fully visually-oriented character can get an even better deal out of it. Of note, the following skills take vision modifiers: Body Language, Lip Reading, Search (when visually searching for something), Tracking, probably others whenever visually trying to find something important.

For comparison, the estimated best human visual acuity is a bit better than 20/10 (or 6/3 in metric scales). A 20/10 level lets you ignore a -2 range modifier, which I'd call Acute Vision +2; so I might go for Acute Vision +3 tops. Eagles apparently run around 20/4, which is five times range, which I'd call Acute Vision +4—not as a rare exception but as the species norm.

On the other hand, a cat's visual resolution is around a tenth as good as human, or 20/200—worse than my uncorrected right eye but better than my uncorrected left. That's probably a -6 modifier to vision. The best compound eyes around, those of dragonflies, are down around 1/40 of human acuity, which would be -9 or -10; probably the simplest way to describe that would be to say that insects don't get the +10 "plain sight" modifier for the Mark I Eyeball.

Bill Stoddard

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by whswhs

For comparison, the estimated best human visual acuity is a bit better than 20/10 (or 6/3 in metric scales). A 20/10 level lets you ignore a -2 range modifier, which I'd call Acute Vision +2; so I might go for Acute Vision +3 tops. Eagles apparently run around 20/4, which is five times range, which I'd call Acute Vision +4—not as a rare exception but as the species norm.

On the other hand, a cat's visual resolution is around a tenth as good as human, or 20/200—worse than my uncorrected right eye but better than my uncorrected left. That's probably a -6 modifier to vision. The best compound eyes around, those of dragonflies, are down around 1/40 of human acuity, which would be -9 or -10; probably the simplest way to describe that would be to say that insects don't get the +10 "plain sight" modifier for the Mark I Eyeball.

Bill Stoddard

That all makes sense.
There should be a limitation for spotting movement only, especially for Compound Eyes.

[Mailanka]

I like acute senses, but I often find myself picking and choosing which are available. Like, I don't much like acute smell/taste, as I'd rather have discriminatory smell/taste (unless we're all playing critters with that as a racial trait). Similarly, more than one and I think it's easier to simply raise perception.

So, my experience: EITHER Acute Sight OR Acute Hearing OR Perception, and never Acute Taste/Smell, only Discriminatory Smell. I also rarely bother with things like Telescopic vision or Parabolic hearing unless I'm doing something really specific.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

I like acute senses, but I often find myself picking and choosing which are available. Like, I don't much like acute smell/taste, as I'd rather have discriminatory smell/taste (unless we're all playing critters with that as a racial trait). Similarly, more than one and I think it's easier to simply raise perception.

So, my experience: EITHER Acute Sight OR Acute Hearing OR Perception, and never Acute Taste/Smell, only Discriminatory Smell. I also rarely bother with things like Telescopic vision or Parabolic hearing unless I'm doing something really specific.

I have used Acute Smell for tracker types but yeah, most of the time I will go for Alertness/Perception unless its just bumping up 1 sense for concept.
Racial templates are where I see these used the most.
I disagree with you on Telescopic though, its great for snipers, spies, etc. Especially in a low tech game where you may not have gear to do it.

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by Refplace

I have used Acute Smell for tracker types but yeah, most of the time I will go for Alertness/Perception unless its just bumping up 1 sense for concept.
Racial templates are where I see these used the most.
I disagree with you on Telescopic though, its great for snipers, spies, etc. Especially in a low tech game where you may not have gear to do it.

I'm not saying that they're not great. They all have their uses. But I don't want to juggle Acute Vision +2, Telescopic Vision 1, Parabolic hearing 2, Acute Hearing +3, and so on. So I tend to pick and choose and stick with them. Except on racial templates, where I agree with you (there it's okay to start to introduce weird concepts, because a racial template is the perfect place for something like that).

Part of the problem is that there really aren't many counter-parts to these. Things like Bad Sight are really big and chunky, as opposed to Acute Vision's fine gradations. The result isn't you can't really fine tune a specific set of senses. Thus, I see people muck about with Perception more than anything else.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Refplace

That all makes sense.
There should be a limitation for spotting movement only, especially for Compound Eyes.

You could call it Targeting Vision Only, maybe.

Expanded Arc, 360°, is +125%, and 240° is +75%; the comparable visual advantages are 25 points and 15 points. Targeting Only is -40%, which suggests that Targeting Vision Only might be -8 points.

Bill Stoddard

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by whswhs

You could call it Targeting Vision Only, maybe.

Expanded Arc, 360°, is +125%, and 240° is +75%; the comparable visual advantages are 25 points and 15 points. Targeting Only is -40%, which suggests that Targeting Vision Only might be -8 points.

Bill Stoddard

Thank you.

[corwyn]

Limiting realistic levels to a specific value of Acute Sense as opposed to a specific value of sense roll always bothered me. Why is IQ 12, Acute Vision +2 realistic, where IQ 10, Acute Vision +4 not?

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by corwyn

Limiting realistic levels to a specific value of Acute Sense as opposed to a specific value of sense roll always bothered me. Why is IQ 12, Acute Vision +2 realistic, where IQ 10, Acute Vision +4 not?

Sensing vs. Perceiving. Different processes.

[ErhnamDJ]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Sensing vs. Perceiving. Different processes.

Could you explain the difference? It seems to me that the human eye can either see something or it can't.