Can I retry Open Lock? (Also Take 10/20?)

[dead]

Apologies. Haven't played in a while and I'm a bit rusty on the rules\;

A rogue in the game last night asked if they could retry Open Locks after their first attempt failed.

I said yes. They failed again.

Rather than have them keep rolling dice, I then said they could Take 10. This still wasn't high enough.

I then said they could Take 20 and they passed the check.

A very good lock is DC25. Does this mean a rogue with an Open Lock modifer of +5 will open any Very Good lock after enough time (ie. by taking 20)?

Thank you!

 

[maestro78]

Yes they can retry Open Lock indefinitely and it's quite common to use the take 10/20 option to do so. All it costs the PC is time.

As a DM, to overcome this, you can always just make the lock too difficult, but then the PC can never get past it. I've found it's better to make the PCs time too valuable for them to want to take 20, or to put them in a situation where they are rushed/threatened and they can't, by RAW, use the take 10/20 option.

 

[Nebten]

Yes it does.

As long as there is no recourse for failure, rogues most likely will take 20 to open locks. This of course can be an issue if the characters are under a time restraint or in combat. Also remember that it takes a full-round action to perform Open Lock.

The same thing can be said for Search action but its for every 5x5' area.

 

[Herzog]

to avoid rogues always taking 20 on locks (and thereby making every lock either pickable or un-pickable), you could introduce failure consequences.

For instance, traps that go off when an open lock fails by more than 5.

Or, as a houserule, you could introduce things like broken lockpicks or ruined locks on a roll of 1. (and if you take 20, all rolls between 1 and 20 are considered to have been rolled as well....)

 

[pawsplay]

It's also important to remember that if the locks are too difficult, players will resort to breaking doors or magic in order to proceed. It's usually best either to let the rogue take 20 and move forward, trap the lock, or create time pressures.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

(and if you take 20, all rolls between 1 and 20 are considered to have been rolled as well....)

Is this an actual rule, or just a suggestion in the FAQ? (Not that it matters, in the context of creating a house rule.)

 

[RithTheAwakener]

We, using house rules apparently, play that one lock only has 3 attempts per person, if they fail 3 in a row, they jam the lock. Also we don't use any take 10 or take 20 rules. It makes the game more entertaining in my opinion.

 

[dead]

Thanks for all the feedback everyone.

So I guess you can take 10 and 20 in breaking down a door as well. It just means you've been bashing against it for a while.

And let me get this right:

- Take 10 is one attempt and takes the same amount of time as the normal skill check it's just that it has to be done while you are not under stress/time constraint.

- Take 20 takes 2 minutes and assumes you are retrying many times. It also must be done while not under stress/time constraint.

 

[pawsplay]

Is this an actual rule, or just a suggestion in the FAQ? (Not that it matters, in the context of creating a house rule.)

It's in the rulebook, but not per se in the SRD.

When you have plenty of time (generally 2 minutes for a skill that can normally be checked in 1 round, one full-round action, or one standard action), you are faced with no threats or distractions, and the skill being attempted carries no penalties for failure, you can take 20. In other words, eventually you will get a 20 on 1d20 if you roll enough times. Instead of rolling 1d20 for the skill check, just calculate your result as if you had rolled a 20.

Taking 20 means you are trying until you get it right, and it assumes that you fail many times before succeeding. Taking 20 takes twenty times as long as making a single check would take.

Since taking 20 assumes that the character will fail many times before succeeding, if you did attempt to take 20 on a skill that carries penalties for failure, your character would automatically incur those penalties before he or she could complete the task. Common “take 20” skills include Escape Artist, Open Lock, and Search.

 

[dead]

If taking 20 means both failure and success over the course of 2 mins, and if you had the house rule that a roll of '1' meant breaking your lock picks, it would mean the PC would have to keep several backup sets of lockpicks if they intended to take 20 often