Observation
 

I've owned TW2K for a long time it never had chance to play, will finally be getting first game next month as a GM.

Looking at observation of encounters, can I ask how it's done?

Observation skill is a 1 - 10 number but NPC groups listed as around 70 -80,
also there's the -5 for each member in party.

Do I make the character skill into a % number for this roll?

Also why would more in party detract from score, is this due to distractions? I thought more eyes are better.

Thanks in advance
Andy

I had a number of issues with how Observation played out during the game. I posted my house rules in a Thread entitled Tactical Visibility & Detection using Observation. I modified that posting based on input from other forum users such as CDAT and Wallshadow who had some good ideas/questions regarding my posts. I don't know if anyone else has posted THEIR ideas there but that thread may hold some ideas to help you.

Please note, however, that I DO NOT use the RAW rules. My system choice is the V2.2 (using the 1D20 rules that match a Skill Level with a Characteristic Score for a base score/chance of success) using innumerable "house rules" and some rules from both V1 (the percentile system) and TW2K13 (the Reflex system). The primary difference here would be that my Difficulty Levels are DIFFERENT from RAW V2.2. They are:

An Easy Task is 2 X Base Skill (Characteristic + Skill Level).
A Routine Task is 1.5 X Base Skill (Characteristic + Skill Level).
An Average Task is Base Skill (Characteristic + Skill Level).
A Difficult Task is 1/2 X Base Skill (Characteristic + Skill Level).
A Formidable Task is 1/4 X Base Skill (Characteristic + Skill Level).
An Impossible Task is 1/10 X Base Skill (Characteristic + Skill Level).

I use "Difficulty Shifts" up or down to affect the chance of success during play. I also use "Penalties" and "Bonuses" as modifiers to the DICE ROLL in addition to the Difficulty Shifts. A penalty will ADD one (or more) to the die roll (ie a roll of 13 becomes a 14). A bonus will SUBTRACT one (or more) to the die roll for success (ie a roll of 13 becomes a 12). A bonus or penalty greater than 3 will generally be substituted for a DIFFICULTY SHIFT as larger modifiers to the Die Roll would be better suited to shifts.

In any case, use what you want and ignore the rest.

Swag

if you are using V2, Divide the final number by 10; if v2.2, divide by 5. It's a holdover from v1, where skills were percentile-based.

Uncle Ted

More eyes can be better, but unless everyone's specifically trained to do so, more often members of larger groups get lazy and rely on "somebody else" to do it.
Then, as mentioned, more people make more noise, might be more inclined to talk to each other, and so on. Of course the larger the group, the easier it is for somebody else to spot them, unless again they're specifically trained to keep proper spacing, only communicate with hand signals and so forth. Even then, it's hard to hide a large number of people compared to an individual.

Thanks for the replies.

It is version 2.0 I'm using, so divide by 10 would work nicely