Hi,

I was wondering how people handle Surveillance checks.

I use perception for most surverillance checks but there are some grey areas. for example - Which skill do you use when a character uses a ships sensors?

Recently we actually had the same discussion and decided to use Computers skill, but not with Intelligence but with Cunning (since Perception is based on cunning). So, summing up - we use Computers/Cunning for operating sensors.

Do you mean when the book calls for a surveillance check? That is an artifact from when the system was in beta. Surveillance was thrown out of the window.

To answer your question, it depends on what the PCs are wanting to do. For sensors, it would be computers. If the PCs are planting bugs, sounds like skulduggery. Are the PCs stalking around doing recon? Sounds like stealth, perception, or both.

It could also be Vigilance.

There is no right answer for what skill should be used for any action. Its whatever makes sense at the time for the situation.

I like to use a rule from Burning Wheel called "That Was Fun, Let's Not Do It Again". The rule basically encourages GM's not to repeat skill use too frequently--find a different skill that's applicable and use that.

In this case, Perception would probably be your go-to. If someone's trying to spy on somebody or case a joint, make a Perception check. If they're doing something similar later in the session, see if you can justify a different skill instead. The above posters had some good ideas--Computers for something sensor-related, Vigilance if you're keeping watch (it's a matter of staying alert), etc. Drawing on the above posts again, you can hand-wave the actual surveillance and test some other part of the action instead--Skulduggery if you're planting bugs, Stealth for getting in place, etc. Choose a skill and find some reason to justify it.

What you don't want to do is have them spy on one group by testing Perception, then move to spy on another group with yet another Perception test. Most of all this keeps the game from getting stale and boring, but it also encourages players to pick up a breadth of skills and provides a variety of challenges (they may be rolling six golds on a Perception check, but on the next one you decide to use Stealth and decide it's because there are lots of dead branches around and one of them has poor Agility and no ranks in Stealth, it's a whole different situation).