Can you take 20 in 4th edition?

if you recall the old 'Take 20' rule meant that you can only use it where there is no downside to failure.
Failure including, but no limited to:
Failing to Disarm a trap
Failing to Pick a lock in time to escape from impending doom
Failing a Climb checking and falling
Failing a Diplomacy/Bluff check to haggle prices with a merchant
etc etc etc.

If there is a situation where there is no downside to failure then there is no reason why you can't simply retry.
Attempting to open a locked but untrapped chest/door after all hostiles are dead and there is no immediate danger.
Attempting to track a monster through a wilderness (though time may be a factor)
Attempting to identify a magic item
etc etc

There are numerous situations where if you fail that you can simply try again. How many times have you (you personally in Real life) tried to solve a puzzle and failed. Only to return to it a short time later and find the soloution?

All the Take-20 rule does is simplify this process. You could have the character simply keep rolling until they are succesful, or allow the skill to take 20 times longer and work as if they had rolled a 20 and hence speed up the flow of the game.

There is no major issue here (or at least there shouldnt be) as you cant take 20 in any dangerous or threating situation, nor can it be used if there is negative consequences to failure.

To be honest, I'm tempted to make it undoable for lockpicking as well. Since when do repeated attempts at picking a lock mean you can eventually open it?

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Just because you fail at a lock-picking attempt the first time round does not necessarily mean that subsequent attempts are doomed to failure either.

parra said:

There are numerous situations where if you fail that you can simply try again. How many times have you (you personally in Real life) tried to solve a puzzle and failed. Only to return to it a short time later and find the soloution?

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I think you missed what Cruel was saying.

You make one roll for this instead of dozens or using a rule that assumes dozens.

So if you succeed at the roll, well, that means you came back to it and solved the puzzle. But if you failed at it, it doesn't matter how many times you try again, you just won't get it.

Assuming that you're eventually going to succeed at just about everything kinda ruins the mystery and thrill of rolling at all.

Kzach said:

I think you missed what Cruel was saying.

You make one roll for this instead of dozens or using a rule that assumes dozens.

So if you succeed at the roll, well, that means you came back to it and solved the puzzle. But if you failed at it, it doesn't matter how many times you try again, you just won't get it.

Assuming that you're eventually going to succeed at just about everything kinda ruins the mystery and thrill of rolling at all.

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look at it the other way around:

take 20 is your standard result for tasks:
you really can´t perform better, when you are having a lot of time and no pressure...

when you are not under pressure, but you have no time, take 10 is your usual result...

when you have no time and desperately need a good result, you need to roll with a chance of failure...

picking a lock is a task a normal thief can easily do given time... experts can pick a lock with just one standard action...

what i could imagine to do in 4th edition could be allowing take 20 only with trained skills and skills on your class list ...

Kzach said:

Assuming that you're eventually going to succeed at just about everything kinda ruins the mystery and thrill of rolling at all.

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But Im not assuming that.
I am just assuming that with unlimited time, with no downside if you fail, that eventually you will be succesful.

Even then a 20 does not guarantee succes. Even a 20 + skill might result in a fail. All it means is you have done the best you possibly can.

Kzach said:

Assuming that you're eventually going to succeed at just about everything kinda ruins the mystery and thrill of rolling at all.

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parra said:

I am just assuming that with unlimited time, with no downside if you fail, that eventually you will be succesful.

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*scratches head*

Ho...

Wha...

Who...

Ah nevermind.

This is a house rule of course, but I go with the passive skill check approach and assume that you can always achieve a result equal to your passive check (basically rolling a 10). So I allow re-tries until you roll a result higher than 10, at that point, you have reached your best for that check and situation, and no re-rolls are allowed after that. If the situation changes significantly, which I define as you receive a new bonus to your check somehow (through role-play or aid other or some situational modifier you earned), then you can re-roll that previous result you got when you broke the "10" barrier. Again, you can then keep re-rolling with the new modifier until you roll higher than 10, and if you did not manage to top your previous result (for example you rolled a 15 before and now get a +2 bonus and roll only an 11, freezing the result at a value lower than your previous 15 without the +2 got you), you must keep this second try even if it is lower.

This way some thrill remains but the PCs know they are always going to at least get their passive result +1 if they work at it a little, assuming that failure does not prevent repeated attempts at the check.

This also makes aid other have a twist to it. I allow up to 4 aid other attempts per check (fewer if the check does not really make sense to allow that much assistance) so if they succeed, they can then choose to pile all of them into one re-check and hope for the best, or make each one separately, giving multiple re-checks but each only at a +2. So if they need to open a lock, and the best PC has a +15 check, and rolls a 12, he gets a 27. If that is not enough, then they other 4 PCs need to decide, do we all aid this next check, which will unfreeze it as we are granting a new bonus, by piling all (assume they all make the DC 10 to aid) our +8 bonus on, or do we give 4 separate checks each with a +2? If the first case, they could achieve a +15 + 8 = +23 check and so give a range of 34 (minimum as a roll of 11 freezes that check) to 43 (on a 20). If they go with 4 checks, they will each have a +15 + 2 = +17 and range from 28-37. So if they think the DC is 40, they need to pile all 4 onto one check, but if they think it is 35, then they need to think it over. They only fail 1 time in 20 if they pile them all up (if they roll a dreaded 11) but they fail on rolls of 11-17 if they go with the 4 check method, however they get 4 attempts at it. So this adds a new dynamic to checks in some way. In this case, I think odds are best with the 4 attempts and hope you get an 18-20 before you get an 11-17, since rolls of 1-10 can always be re-rolled.

Larry

I use take 20 for my monsters, when they hide, making an ambush. That's about it.

Well, there's only three possible situations.

Either the party has the time to 'take 20' or they do not, and either they will succeed, or they will not.

If they do not have the time, then there's no point doing so, and it's moot discussing.

If they have the time to do so, and they will succeed, in reality, they're not accomplishing a difficult task, but rather, it's a trivial task and should not require a roll in the first place. Don't bother assigning DCs, just hand wave it and move on.

If they won't succeed, then the DC was so high success was never an option, so there's again, no point assigning DCs, leave it as an open plot thread for later when they -can-.

Taking 20 was merely a way to handwave tasks that became trivial over time.

If a task is trivial, skill checks are innapropriate for it, and if a task is not trivial (re: Skill Challenge) taking 20 would have been an inappropriate way to handle it (failure of a skill challenge has a determined penalty for failure)

DracoSuave said:

Taking 20 was merely a way to handwave tasks that became trivial over time.

If a task is trivial, skill checks are innapropriate for it, and if a task is not trivial (re: Skill Challenge) taking 20 would have been an inappropriate way to handle it (failure of a skill challenge has a determined penalty for failure)

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I'm running a 4e conversion of Tallow's Deep, an old 1e or 2e adventure, and it's set in a goblin lair rife with concealed doors. I mean, LOTS of concealed doors. Limiting the players to a single make or break roll to find a door would leave them eventually trapped in the dungeon, unsure of where to go. Taking 20 enables them to take their time (a few minutes) poking and prodding suspect walls, doors and ceilings. If and when there is a concealed door i don't want them to find, the DC will be bumped behind the scenes to 30 or higher, well out of the thief's range.

I ran this same adventure many years ago and recall the player frustration of not being able to find the doors they needed to. I find that it is flowing much smoother now by knowing that they can find what they need so long as a troop of goblins aren't breathing down their necks.