Idea for the Listen Skill

[Draiden]

Okay, I've been playing for a very long time now, and still have never made a character with points spent in the Listen skill. The recent improvement to spotting hidden mobs is a help, but still not entirely worth the points. I mean, what's the difference between listen and spot then?

This idea is to use the listen skill in conjunction with your mini-map. While the mini-map currently has waypoints and party members shown, it could be used to show enemies for players with high listen skills. In sensical terms, a character could hear an enemy approaching from behind, coming around a corner in the environment's hallways, or even through doors (a highly skilled listener can put his/her ear to the door and decipher the number of mobs on the other side and their approximate locations- depending on how skilled the character is).

This could be a very simple development by using flashing, red icons on the mini-map which give the approximate locations of these mobs. It's already coded with party members- ergo it shouldn't require written code from scratch- and would give many players an extremely important reason (especially rogues) to invest in this skill. More importantly, it would most definitey give players a new tool to play with and add some new twists to gaming styles.

This would also open up some new clairvoyant arcane spell options.

That's the 2cp version.

[DKerrigan]

The way it works now, you get a DM text saying something to the effect of [Listen] You hear scary bad things behind the door.

I'd like to see them do something like an opposed hide/move silently check for sneaking/stealthed mobs and have their silloettes flash red or white depending on which check they fail. Using the mini-map as radar just doesn't seem D&D to me.

[Draiden]

Great. Does it feel like DDO to you? Cuz that's what it is.

Seriously, the min-map idea is an easy way to convert directional sound (for a skilled listener) into pinpointing the location of the sound for the GAMER. 3D sound isn't advanced enough for you to exact a location of sound yet, unfortunately. Your character isn't using radar... and, btw, the "radar" is already being used to locate your party members. Again, it's DDO, not DnD.

[Richtenfaust]

blah

[Klattuu]

The listen skill allows you to identify and focus on creatures you cannot see due to they being invisible, hidden, or out of line-of-sight. This is how you can still "see" a mob while blinded.

Also there is certain DM information that is picked up when the listen skill is high enough. This is obviously more important the first few times you run a quest and less important on the 20th time.