D&D 3E/3.5 [3.5] - Can you Take 10 or Take 20 on a Hide check?

[jgsugden]

People are a bit confused on a few things. Let me use my incredible brain to clear them up ...

1.) That try again language does not appear in the 3.5 SRD, AFAICT. The language I see is:

Trying Again
In general, you can try a skill check again if you fail, and you can keep trying indefinitely. Some skills, however, have consequences of failure that must be taken into account. A few skills are virtually useless once a check has failed on an attempt to accomplish a particular task. For most skills, when a character has succeeded once at a given task, additional successes are meaningless.

The omission of the 'trying again' section in the skill description is meaningless in 3.5. You need to look at things on a case by case situation. A failure in any hide check results in a bad thing ... being found ... so, it can not be used.

2.) Hiding is not just about location. A perfect hiding spot does little to help you if you can't stand still or blend into the shadows well. Extra time may help you find a great location, but that is only a small portion of hiding.

3.) Circumstance bonuses reflect favorable circumstances, not repeated efforts. If a PC has a lot of time to look for a hiding place in a large area, the DM might say he found a really nice place to hide and might give him a +4 circumstance bonus to his hide check. He still needs to make a hide check.

 

[VictorSim]

Heh.

Good try. But I'm afraid you'll need to take 20 on that Knowledge (3.5e rules) check. Oh wait! You can't take 20 on a knowledge check!

The "try again" comes about after you've failed. The only way you can fail is if someone spots you. Once spotted, you can't hide, as you are observed.

Ergo, you can't "try again".

....Kinda like that missed Knowledge check of yours.

Nice Try with the semantics. But the Take 20 rule is specifically designed to simulate rolling a D20 20 times instead of manually rolling the dice.

A PC can try to hide in round 1 and if he doesn't like the roll and no one is watching him he can then try to roll again in round 2. He can continue retrying this roll every round until either he rolls a 20 or someone moves into the area to spot him. Therefore he can Take 20 under these circumstances.

Victor Sim

 

[Krinkle]

It doesn't so much represent a human rolling a die 20 times (though, to be fair, the SRD does say "eventually you will get a 20 on 1d20 if you roll enough times"). It represents a character trying an action twenty times until they get it right. I fully concede that one can hide twenty times in row if they were, say, drunk. I'm just not conviced that a hiding spot gets better the more times you get into it. It seems a lot of people want to use the "Take 20" rule to reflect the fact the the character has spent time improving his hiding spot and such. It clearly isn't that. Take 20 means "doing it over and over" not "do it once really slow so you get right". That's a circumstance bonus.

Its certainly unclear whether or not you can Take 20 when you Hide. The trump card, in my opinion, is that it just doesn't make sense. Not considering the spirit of the rule, the purpose of the rule, or the examples given. Taking your time to scout out a good hiding place is clearly a Circumstance Bonus. Hiding 20 times in row until you like how you did it may or may not be legal (I'm not convinced) but is silly.

I forgot about taking 10. I don't see any reason you couldn't take 10 on a Hide check provided it wasn't in combat. Ambush=Yes. After a Bluff=No.

 

[FireLance]

OK, this is how I would rule this. Use or ignore as you will.

1. Finding an "ideal" place to hide. The description of the Hide skill in PH p76 states that "Total cover or total concealment usually... obviates the need for a Hide check, since nothing can see you anyway." This would cover all cases where the character looks around to find something big to hide behind, and is a DM call. There is either a great big bed which you can scrunch up under or there isn't.

2. Hiding from someone. If a character is just trying to hide from someone, i.e. trying to avoid all interaction with him, and he has 2 minutes to spare, I'd allow him to take 20 on his Hide check. However, I'd also allow the searcher to take 20 on his Spot or Search check to find him.

3. Ambush, etc. If a character is hidden from someone, and he has anything less than total cover or total concealment, and he does anything other than stay hidden, e.g. attack, cast a spell, move, etc., I would call for another Hide check opposed by the other person's Spot to see if he notices.

The net result of these rules is, there is a slight advantage to ambushers, because they can take time to set up a good place to hide, and they would not be surprised unless they fail to notice opponents who have a high enough Spot check to notice them. However, when they attack, their opponents would not have to succeed at an insanely high Spot check to avoid being surprised.

 

[Hypersmurf]

I forgot about taking 10. I don't see any reason you couldn't take 10 on a Hide check provided it wasn't in combat. Ambush=Yes. After a Bluff=No.

With the exception of Skill Mastery, of course

-Hyp.

 

[am181d]

The hide skill is the ability to avoid being spotted. It is NOT the ability to find the right barrel to hide in. As indicated in the skill's description, you don't need a skill for that. If you are in the barrel, you will not be spotted. (As long as it has a lid, and your enemy doesn't have x-ray specs.)

You can't make a hide check, unless someone is trying to spot you. You can't take 20, because if you fail, you've been spotted. I see no evidence that you can "bank" your hide roll for future spot attempts. The same goes for all opposed checks.

Think about it. Would you let a bard keep practicing a lie until he could take 20 on the hapless merchant?

 

[Krinkle]

With the exception of Skill Mastery, of course

Yes.

And let me take this opportunity to apologize to Victorsim. I can be more direct than some find palatable , though only out of brevity, not out of impoliteness or disrespect. I am new to Enworld so please have pity. My spelling is awful (I would have said "atrocious" if I new how to spell it). I still call Wizards "Magic-Users," I still wonder why people who play bards complain since at least they don't have to first achieve 5 levels of fighter, then become thieves, then begun clerical studies as Druids except that they "are actually bards under druidical tutelage." In short, I am a barbarian, but without Cleave. In my defense, it was not a Straw Man example. My point was that taking 20 represents trying an action 20 twenty times until it succeded. The example was appropriate and relevant.


Anyway...This ain't Magic (or maybe it is, and I'm wrong, and sad.)The rules only have value when parsed by a DM within an actual game. I can see some reasons, based on semantics only, why one can argue that a character can take 20 on a Hide check. There are also some good reason why they can't,. All of these reasons have been explained by me, and smarter people than me, throughout this thread. I will only try to reiterate my original point.

The rules regarding "Taking 20" are clear in their intent, though not clear in their precise application. Taking 20 is to be used in a situation when trying over and over will eventually lead to success. This would apply to threading a needle, escaping from some bonds, or searching for some loot in a chest. In short, a single discrete act results in a single discrete result. Every example in this thread of using Hide to take 20 somehow relates to carefully finding a good hiding place. This is absolutely not taking 20, and there is nothing within the rulebooks to make it so (i.e., this is not twenty separate acts but one careful act). One could argue that the rules don't expressly forbid a charater from hiding 20 times is a row in order to find a good spot. Fair enough, the DM caved to the arguments of a rules lawyer. This is wrong howver. If you are the type of DM to cave to rules lawer you best make sure he is trying 20 times to find a good hiding place (See my example "He goes behnd the bush. He comes out from the bush. He goes behind the bush. etc.") If the character is taking time, energy, and some careful study to find a single hiding place, the best hiding place, then give him a circumstance bonus based on taking 10. This way you are not arbitrarily giving him a +20 whatever the situation. You are giving a bonus a bonus based on, well, the circumstances.

 

[Norfleet]

Think about it. Would you let a bard keep practicing a lie until he could take 20 on the hapless merchant? [/B]

Yes! How do you think one learns how to be a convincing liar? By rehearsing your lies over and over until you, yourself, have come to actually believe them yourself. Thus, the liar practices his lies in private until he convinces himself of its veracity: If the liar has come to believe his own lies, he can now tell the lie as if it were truth.

Let me guess, you're not a very good liar?

 

[Urbannen]

The hide skill is the ability to avoid being spotted. It is NOT the ability to find the right barrel to hide in. As indicated in the skill's description, you don't need a skill for that. If you are in the barrel, you will not be spotted. (As long as it has a lid, and your enemy doesn't have x-ray specs.)

You can't make a hide check, unless someone is trying to spot you. You can't take 20, because if you fail, you've been spotted. I see no evidence that you can "bank" your hide roll for future spot attempts. The same goes for all opposed checks.

Think about it. Would you let a bard keep practicing a lie until he could take 20 on the hapless merchant?

Yay Am181d! This is how I interpret the rules as well. Taking 20 means you do the task 20 times. For the simplicity of play, it is assumed that in one of those tries you roll a 20. Taking 20 on a Search check requires two minutes, which is twenty tries. 20 6 second rounds = 2 minutes. You can't take 20 on a Hide check because there's a chance each of those 20 tries that the opponent will see you. You can't take 10 because you are under a threat of being seen, which would have to count as a distraction.

From SRD:

Normally, you make a Hide check as part of movement,

The Hide skill is used to avoid being seen while you are moving. The only exception given in the skill description is sniping, in which you do move but don't actually take a move action. If you hide yourself in order to ambush or spy, you are essentially hiding an unmoving object, namely yourself. There's no move action associated with sitting in the bushes or lying underneath a pile of leaves. You would use the rules for hidden objects at this point, which I believe means the DM would assign a Search DC for someone to find you in your hiding place.

 

[Number47]

Where is everyone getting the language that taking twenty is doing it twenty times? That is wrong, incorrect and wrong! If it were doing it over and over twenty times, then not all take twenties would be exactly twenty times the amount of time needed. If you only needed a twelve, does that mean taking twenty only costs you, personally, twelve rounds?

Which makes more sense, really, that you search the same area really quickly twenty times, or you search it once very slowly and carefully?

Taking twenty is what you do instead of rolling twenty times. There are certain things you cannot do slowly and carefully, or if you try you could hurt yourself. Hiding is not one of these things.

Taking twenty on a hide:
Player: Okay, we know which way the goblins are coming. They have to come up the road that way. We all take twenty on a hide so we can ambush them.
DM: Okay, you look around and find the best 4 spots. You rub a little dirt on your face to blend in and cover your drawn swords with some leaves so they don't stand out. Because only the worst check matter, we'll use Bob's hide check to determine if the goblins see you. Bob's Hide check in full plate with a take twenty is 13.

That is an example of taking twenty. Something that someone just might have been able to do in 6 seconds, if they were very lucky but you took care to ensure it.