Help me nail down this 'take 10, take 20' nonsense

[DarkMaster]

Right, taking 20 is doing the thing 20 times and assuming you will roll a 20 on one of them. But, keep in mind that what you get is 19 failures and one success.

False you should consider that you rolled 1,2,3,4,5,6....,19,20. An extremely high skilled but cautious rogue with Open lock 24 would succeed at all attempt when he tries to unlock a DC25 lock. But since he decided to take 20 I would still say that it took him 2 minutes to open it, instead of 6 seconds.

 

[Darren]

I don't quite see how you could take 10 (or 20) on a Knowledge check...
Either you know something or you don't; it doesn't matter if you are threatened or have all the time in the world. Also, in 3.5, it is stated that under most circumstances making a knowledge check does not take an action. It's unlike most other skills as most other skills involve some action or time to accomplish something. It's very similar to Bardic Knowledge, which you definitely cannot take 10 or 20 on.

The problem with Knowledge checks is that the mechanic doesn't really quite model the capacity for people to remember and forget: If you can Take 10, then you will never forget the basics. A highly trained person shouldn't forget the basics, as they have enough ranks to always get at least 10 on their checks, unlike someone with only one or two ranks.

If someone has a quiet place away from distractions and time for deep contemplation, a retry with a circumstance bonus may be in order, and being able to consult a reference book may also provide a bonus too. But these things take up some game time that is not specified in the rules.

However, if anyone can explain how an on-the-spot take 10 knowledge check is supposed to work, I'd be happy and will start using it in my game.

 

[AuraSeer]

False you should consider that you rolled 1,2,3,4,5,6....,19,20.

No. That is very much wrong.
Taking 20 means you make 20 attempts and get exactly one success. You take 20 times as long as one attempt, you pay 20 times the cost, but it's still one "check" and you only succeed once. Even if you have a +30 Open Lock and the door has a DC of 5, you still have one successful check after a number of failures.

Your interpretation would really screw up things like Craft checks, where a single roll of 20 is very different from a string of rolls given all different numbers.

 

[Spatula]

One thing I really admired about D20 Modern, and was disappointed to see left out of D&D 3.5, was that for each skill we are *explicitly* told if we can take 10 or take 20 or not. Now *that* was refreshing. "You can take 10 on a *** check, but you can't take 20." And so on.

I agree. I couldn't believe that the WOTC designers ignored that little advancement from Modern when they made 3.5. It may not be necessary for the rule lawyers, but for most folks it's better to be able to look up the answer the question "Can I take 20 on this?" rather than having to construct a proof.

 

[Hypersmurf]

If you don't allow taking 20 on Search at all, what mechanic do you use when a PC decides to search a particular place as well as possible?

"I won't let you take 20 on Search checks."
"But retries are allowed?"
"Yup."
"Okay, I search."
"You don't find anything."
"I search again."
"You don't find anything."
"I search again."
"You don't find anything."
"I search again."
"You don't find anything."
"I search again."
"You don't find anything."
"I search again."
"You don't find anything."
"I search again."
"You don't find anything."
"I search again."
"You don't find anything."
"I search again."
"You don't find anything."
"I search again."
"You don't find anything."
"... I'm gonna keep doing this until the probability I have not rolled a 20 in there somewhere drops below some arbitrary threshhold, okay?"

-Hyp.

 

[Kyrail]

No. That is very much wrong.
Taking 20 means you make 20 attempts and get exactly one success. You take 20 times as long as one attempt, you pay 20 times the cost, but it's still one "check" and you only succeed once. Even if you have a +30 Open Lock and the door has a DC of 5, you still have one successful check after a number of failures.

Your interpretation would really screw up things like Craft checks, where a single roll of 20 is very different from a string of rolls given all different numbers.

Can't take 20 on a craft check though. Technically the description states "it's assumed that the charecter fails many times" but I refuse to believe that someone who could breeze through something in 6 seconds with no possibility of failture (Having a higher rank in the skill than the DC) would fail when he decides to take his time. The taking 20 description assumes that you would only take 20 after attempting it at least once and failing.

 

[Mr. Kaze]

Taking 20 on a Search

I made the "Can I take 10? 20?" pretty easy for my PCs to determine whether they could or not by asking "What, exactly, are you trying to do?"

Take 10 is okay, but doesn't necessarily find or do everything you really want. But if you know what you really want, you can probably find it -- to the exclusion of other things.

Take 20 on a search? No.
Take 20 on a search for secret doors on this section of wall? Sure. (Too bad you triggered the crushing ceiling that a more basic take 10 of the area would've caught.)
Take 20 to search this desk for an infernal contract? Sure. (But the crystal ball doesn't strike you as interesting as it would if you took a step back to take 10 and review the entire scene.)

It works out pretty well -- PCs aren't frustrated when they've figured out what they want to find, but I'm not handing them things that they didn't know they were looking for.

HiH,
::Kaze()

 

[Sebastian Francis]

Take 20 on a search? No.
Take 20 on a search for secret doors on this section of wall? Sure. (Too bad you triggered the crushing ceiling that a more basic take 10 of the area would've caught.)

This seems wrong to me somehow...it seems like you're suggesting that a *less thorough* search (take 10) would find something that a *more thorough* search (take 20) would fail to detect.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Agreed with Sebastian.

 

[Tatsukun]

Right, I know that. The question is, why didn't I remember that when I wrote that ??? DOH!

Anyway, the point still stands, you are assumed to have rolled every number between 1 and 20. Long story short, nobody does it unless they are willing to take a lot of failures.
In my example I said it's always 19, but it's not (my bad). It's never come up, because none of my players have been dumb enough to take 20 on a disable device check so far.

Also everyone, remember that search checks to find traps don't set them off. You are checking for a trap in such a way as you don't run the risk of setting it off (that's why you can make a search check from 10' away IIRC).

You know those pictures with all the squiggly lines, and if you cross your eyes just right a picture jumps out in 3D for you? Taking 20 is like that, you just stare at the wall until you notice the faint little crack that runs around the secret door (or you notice the little discoloration from the fire mechanism in the wall, Etc.)

With disable device checks, on the other hand, failure means you set it off. Take 20 and it's Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom … … Got it !

-Tatsu