Two Topics

[Solomoriah]

Well, as I say, I'd use the Wisdom bonus for places and things, and the Charisma bonus for characters. But that's just me.

[Dimirag]

If you go with the Perception Ability it won't change the mechanics as they already exist, you'll only add a different source for them if you don't rely on Ability Rolls and if you do don't make them have a heavy game-impact: Instead of rolling PER to see if they found something you can use the roll to determine if the character see extra or interesting details...

[jdn2006]

I was honestly just going to use perception as a bonus or penalty to searching for secret doors, IE the 1d6 chance, surprise checks, IE the 1d6 chance, and maybe listen checks for Thieves.

AD&D 1st edition included a idea about checking the first time a character made a "hear noise" roll to see if they were "keen eared" and hence got a bonus from then on (using the hear noise chance as the chance of being "keen-eared"). Could be done for searches in terms of being "keen eyed". I don't have the exact details, but it's the idea that is interesting.

[MedievalMan]

I am still interested in this idea, seeing as (haha) I always felt that Perception is as much an ability alongside Strength or Intelligence and yet it always seems left out or marginalized. I dunno, I don't have a lot of time to think about it much.

[Dimirag]

I say give it a try and test it, as Per would be determined by a 3d6 roll its easy to incorporate or remove from ongoing games.
BFRPG only uses "search rolls" for traps and secret doors, and it uses the same mechanic 1 + ability bonus chance on a d6 you can integrate both of them and even combine it with the "open door" roll so the roll can use a d6/d10/d20.

If you use dice rolling for search purposes then the mechanic fits quite nicely otherwise you'll need to work on how a roll helps a player searching for something.

BTW the open door system is great for an Ability resolution system instead of the optional one (that one can be changed to be a simple skill system), sadly the open door system doesn't use the ability penalties, only the bonus... but that's a thing for another post...

So back to Perception, if you use it just try to not fall on "one roll per search" situation (where players just say "we search the room" and the roll determines the outcome), if you allow this change the die depending on the players description of how/what/where they search, and if some player just say they search on the right spot then obviously no roll will be needed.

[MedievalMan]

I might test it. But I am just about to restart my game and I don't want to throw in any house rules at the last moment. Everything that I have house ruled in now has a lot of work and thought behind it (you know aside from the Bard, but I allowed it for play testing purposes. And not to say their isn't any thought behind the bard!) and I really don't want to try testing a bunch of stuff in this particular game.

[Dimirag]

You can always test it with you own character, I know its not the same and can be seen as silly, but it allows you the chance of testing it on an ongoing game as much as you want

Or better yet, first incorporate any search mechanic without any modifier except from race (like if everybody have 9-12 perception) if you don't already use such a mechanic, if it goes well then you can use the Per value.

You can test it on the game, and because its a PbP one you don't "brake" any game flow, just use the standard rule and then test the new one (you can give each character a secret per value just for testing purposes), make notes of how useful or different it is when used and on then decide if you want it for this or a following game.