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Why should they have a chance of getting caught/failing? Maybe if they don't have a high enough skill they might not notice some of the detail, but what is wrong with this skill?

About the idea of getting caught. How come a thief, stealthy and all, with the snoop skill has a chance of getting caught snooping north when the rugged, loud, decked out in platemail warrior can just type "look north" risk-free?

Also...
Mele

My thief spies -all the time- with sneak and hide.

Those skills are not solely intended for stealing.

Believe me, I've a thief character that does a whole butt-load of spying/scouting (thats how he gets around now). I have been in many situations in which I'd definately use this skill. You can't just sneak and hide all the time, the chances of you getting caught raise. I'd rather be around the corner snooping in that direction while hiding then sneaking up and risking being caught. Same with being in a group and scouting. I am leading my group through Undermoutain (just an example). We are looking for an item, and the warrior sees a group of skeleton warriors to the north. The warrior asks you, "Shall we head north, or is that a dead-end?". You can do one of 2 things.

A) Hide and Sneak north. Pros: You were successful, you discovered that yes, that room was a dead-end and there was a place to hide in the room so that the creatures didn't catch you. Cons: You failed, the skeletons charge and attack you, hopefully your group hears the sounds of battle before you get slaughtered and you discover it was a dead-end the hard way. Or, you successfully hid and snuck north, even though there was no place for you to hide and you just wound up RPing that you hid in the middle of a room with no cover surrounded by a group of skeletons and somehow didn't get caught.

B) Snoop. You looked north and saw that it was a dead-end. If it wasn't a dead-end, you can look at the room-description (the higher your skill the better the description) and note whether or not there are any places to hide so you can let off those nice backstabs to weaken your opponents before your group comes in. (If there were no places to hide you'd just stick with your group, happy knowing that you led them in the right direction.)

Selveem, I'm saying it shouldn't replicate clairvoyance (in being able to "look" at people in the other room) without there being a risk of being seen somehow. If you're looking at something hard enough to see its desc/details of everything it's wearing, you would either have to be invisible or using an invis sensor (magic spell) or really good at not being seen staring (high level in "snoop"). Also, the wizard does have a risk - if you're in a hostile area and cast the spell to see something in the next room, something else can wander in while you're looking. Snoop wouldn't "focus" you on this - it would be an instantaneous "look" and you could react to anything that came wandering in.

Harroghty, I'd agree with the use of snoop in that scenario:
a) gives you the room description and the moblies there if there's enough light
b) does not give mobile descriptions (unless there's a good chance that the mobile sees you scrutinizing them)
c) should have some chance of the moblies to see you and (possibly, not always) react - if you can see them, they may be able to see you

Velius wrote:Why should they have a chance of getting caught/failing? Maybe if they don't have a high enough skill they might not notice some of the detail, but what is wrong with this skill?

About the idea of getting caught. How come a thief, stealthy and all, with the snoop skill has a chance of getting caught snooping north when the rugged, loud, decked out in platemail warrior can just type "look north" risk-free?

Because snoop would presumably give more info than look; if something gives more than look, but doesn't have, say, the component costs or complete-focus-w/o-knowing-what's-happening-in-your-room of a clairvoyance spell, then I don't see why it can't have a failure chance of some sort. Otherwise it seems like a risk-free semi-clairvoyance. Even look isn't risk free if you're in a hostile area; mobs can wander in.

Yes, I do not think this skill should confer the ability to examine mobiles in the room. The advantage that I see over just typing "look n" would be that you would receive what you'd have seen if you were IN that room and typed "look".

You would see the room description, the exits and who was in the room (their poses if applicable).

Also, yes, if you can see them they could possibly (not always likely) see you and they might be upset and come after you.

Basically, all we'd essentially be doing is restoring a default Smaug behaviour for thieves when they type "look". In base Smaug, typing look <dir> as a thief, gives you the room desc and objects and mobiles, as if you were standing in the room and typed "look". Considering other limitations of code that work to limit the actual performance of stealth abilities, I see this treatment for thieves only as simply a way to make them more useful in a party in a dungeon, and another bonus to having them in a party. it doesn't take the place of clairvoyance, you can't hear, you can't look at the things in the room, you just see the static image of the room. That's for all reasonable intents, harmless.

We don't have to struggle for people to see the practicality of taking a spellcaster on a crawl. We do have to struggle to get people to see practical reasons to drag along the thief. Little bonuses like the ability to see the room desc of the room beside you don't give nearly as much "individual" benefit as they do the group benefit.

Any skill that helps the thief class find some sensible purpose in a party is welcome, in my book. This skill isn't even suggested to be clairvoyance; the closest parallel I can find is an adjacent-roomed magic mirror; you get a glimpse of the room description, the occupants/objects, and that's about it. Basically if you were in the room and typed glance. I don't see how that at all cheapens clairvoyance, clairaudience, or arcane eye - or magic mirror, for that matter. These spells are rarely used in adventures, either way - to be blunt, most players use them to spy on others; I highly doubt that a thief will use this skill for that matter, when, like others have said, sneak/hide is a more reasonable tactic because you can both see and hear. I don't see what the fuss over this is, at all.

Edited to add: I didn't realize that Kregor beat me to the punch on this. He keeps saying these things that I want to say, over and over again. ;D