D&D 3.x [3.5] No Take 10/20 specifics?

[Urbannen]

Here's another one: Can you take 10 on a Wilderness Lore check made to find food and water when moving at no greater than half overland speed?

I guess most animals couldn't because they are always potentially threatened by predators.

But if you are not threatened by predators, why should it be a certainty that you will always find food and water in an uncertain wilderness as long as you have at least a Wisdom of 10?


About taking 10 on Knowledge checks: I guess it makes sense, even though I don't like it, either. Okay, a Knowledge check DC 10 represents something that everyone with both training and better than very low intelligence would know. Higher level checks represent the hard stuff that you might or might not remember based on your training and Intelligence, i.e. you actually have to roll.

However, there are instances in which you can't take 10 on your Knowledge checks. For instance: Your party comes upon a cleric and his minions and are summarily attacked. You want to use your Knowledge (religion) skill to identify the cleric's god by looking at his holy symbol. By the rules, you cannot take 10 on your Knowledge (religion) check to figure out the cleric's holy symbol because you are threatened. Nonetheless, you get to make the check at that time because Knowledge skills checks no longer take an action. Say the DC is 15 and your Knowledge (religion) check is +7. You roll a 4. Thus you have failed and cannot retry. You just don't know it. However if you had encountered the symbol in a non-combat situation, it would have been part of your knowledge.

??? (If any part of that scenario is incorrect, please let me know.)

And there is still the question: How would a character know when he should take 10 or not?: "That is the symbol of which god? Well, since we are in a strange land in a hidden dungeon, I probably shouldn't take 10 on my Knowledge check because it's probably pretty rare knowledge. Ooo, I rolled a 17! Zuggtmoy, Lady of Fungi you say? I'm sure glad I didn't take 10, because then I probably wouldn't have known anything at all about the Demoness Queen of Slime."

 

[Pielorinho]

No reason why you couldn't take 10 on a Survival check. Although wilderness experts might have to go hungry in the wintertime, in the summertime, it's not like they don't eat one day out of three.

I do acknowledge that knowledge rules are a little wonky -- but I don't think that's a factor of the take-10 rules.

Here's an example: Can you name the largest city in North Carolina? A basic knowledge: geography question.

If you have one rank in geography and live in NC, it's a super-simple question.

If you have one rank and live in Maryland, it's significantly more difficult.

If you have one rank and live in Oregon, it's more difficult still.

If you have one rank and live in London, it's pretty dang hard.

And if you have one rank in Knowledge: Geography and live in Nairobi, Kenya, it's a fiendishly difficult question.

But the way the knowledge skill is written, everyone has the same DC for the question.

The rules are a huge oversimplification of a very complex phenomenon. However, for game purposes, they work fine.

It disrupts a game far less for everyone to be able to take 10 on a knowledge check than for folks with the equivalent of PhDs. in a field to forget important facts a third of the time.

I have a house-rule to overcome the difficulty, however: I allow the best of both worlds. A character may make two knowledge checks for a given fact: first, they take 10 to see if it's part of their normal body of knowledge; and second, if it's not something that comes easily to them, they can roll to see if it's something they've picked up along the way. This is a rules-variant, and complicates the game slightly; however, I think the slight complication is worth it for the slight plausibility enhancement it provides.

Daniel

 

[Urbannen]

With the current rules, anyone untrained in Survival with a Wisdom of 10 or more that is not avoiding predators or other dangers can feed himself 100% of time in the wild by taking 10 on his Survival check.


The more I think about it, the more I wonder why Taking 10 is even needed in the game. If you think about it, everyone can already take "1" automatically. If you just moved the DCs appropriately, the system could be free of the confusing Taking 10 mechanic. For instance, if DC 5 were an easy Knowledge question, then anyone with a +4 in the skill would automatically know it, as would almost anyone with any ranks at all. If DC 10 were a difficult question, anyone with +9 in the skill would automatically know it. That makes sense. +9 shows great skill, so that person automatically knows all hard questions. Doesn't mean that others can't also get hard questions - just not automatically. Knowledge is trained only, after all.

 

[Pielorinho]

With the current rules, anyone untrained in Survival with a Wisdom of 10 or more that is not avoiding predators or other dangers can feed himself 100% of time in the wild by taking 10 on his Survival check.


The more I think about it, the more I wonder why Taking 10 is even needed in the game. If you think about it, everyone can already take "1" automatically. If you just moved the DCs appropriately, the system could be free of the confusing Taking 10 mechanic.

I didn't realize that about Survival checks. Yeah, if that's accurate, that's goofy -- but that's a problem with the DC of the survival check, not with the taking 10 mechanic. Put it at DC 15, and the problem vanishes -- only the extremely wise or the trained can reliably feed themselves.

Again, how is the mechanic confusing? If you read the one-paragraph description of it, it's perfectly clear and unambiguous. The only way it's confusing is when people disagree with taking 10 under specific circumstances. And even then it's not confusing -- it's just controversial.

Daniel

 

[Waldo]

When Columbus arrived in the United States?

I just thought I'd be difficult and useless and point out that Columbus never arrived in the United States.

Of course, maybe that was the answer someone with a rank in knowledge would give.

 

[Urbannen]

Again, how is the mechanic confusing?
Daniel

The mechanic is confusing because Take 10 and Take 20 are both call "Take a number", yet they are completely different.

But you're right, technically it's not particularly confusing. If a character is not in physical peril, he can get an automatic roll of 10 if he wants to.

Taking 10 is strange for some skills. In fact, there are some skill uses for which a character essentially need never make a roll. Some Craft, Profession, Forgery, Diplomacy, Survival, and Use Rope checks essentially cannot be failed, unless the character is in an unusual situation. It's weird. There is still randomness in the world, after all, and a character who is only 1st level can easily have a +5 to a check, thus always succeeding at hard (DC 15) tasks that don't involve physical peril.

I've just decided that I don't like it. Taking 1 makes a lot more sense to me, and it makes higher level characters more special. I'm going to have to think about this more.

 

[bret]

Taking 10 is strange for some skills. In fact, there are some skill uses for which a character essentially need never make a roll. Some Craft, Profession, Forgery, Diplomacy, Survival, and Use Rope checks essentially cannot be failed, unless the character is in an unusual situation. It's weird. There is still randomness in the world, after all, and a character who is only 1st level can easily have a +5 to a check, thus always succeeding at hard (DC 15) tasks that don't involve physical peril.

If the character is rushed, they can't take 10 on the craft check. They have to complete it in less time than normal and time to completion is based on the margin of success.

If a character is trying to tie off a rope before throwing the other end to a drowning friend, they can't take 10. They better get that knot right the first time.

Anytime someone is trying to 'push' their skill, doing something that is a little harder than they can normally accomplish, they will need to roll instead of taking 10. That is what I believe the mechanic really does, shows what a character can regularly accomplish.

 

[Pielorinho]

Taking 10 is strange for some skills. In fact, there are some skill uses for which a character essentially need never make a roll. Some Craft, Profession, Forgery, Diplomacy, Survival, and Use Rope checks essentially cannot be failed, unless the character is in an unusual situation. It's weird. There is still randomness in the world, after all, and a character who is only 1st level can easily have a +5 to a check, thus always succeeding at hard (DC 15) tasks that don't involve physical peril.

Why is that weird? That is, I think, precisely the POINT of the mechanic.

Give me a DC 15 database design issue, and I'm gonna succeed at it on my first try. I *know* how to solve DC 15 database design problems; if I'm not distracted or threatened, I'm going to use the solutions that I know, and every single time I'll get it right (provided, of course, that I proofread -- but that's part of database design, so I'm gonna proofread).

People with expertise in other fields are going to be the same way. If you bake croissants every day, it's not like you have to throw out 1/3 of your batches of croissants: no, you get it right every day, with an insignificant number of failures. If you walk a tightrope in the circus every day, you get to the point where, weird conditions aside, you succeed every single time you do it. If you make horseshoes every day, you get into a rhythm which is very rarely broken by failure.

That's what taking 10 represents: it represents doing an everyday job of a task at which you're competent.

(And yes, Columbus didn't land in the United States -- obviously, I shoulda taken 10 at coming up with my examples )

Daniel

 

[Urbannen]

From SRD:

Very easy (0) Notice something large in plain sight (Spot)
Easy (5) Climb a knotted rope (Climb)
Average (10) Hear an approaching guard (Listen)
Tough (15) Rig a wagon wheel to fall off (Disable Device)
Challenging (20) Swim in stormy water (Swim)
Formidable (25) Open an average lock (Open Lock)

It sounds like your Database Design skill is trained only (in fact, I know it is because I know that I couldn't do it). What is your Database Design skill bonus? All you need is a +5 to your bonus to always perform tough tasks with the Take 10 rule. Could any 1st level techie with slightly above average intelligence do every tough database design problem right the first time given a reasonable time frame for only one try? By taking 10 a 3rd level techie with Skill Focus (Database Design) can always solve Challenging database design problems the first time, given time for only one try.

Is that the way things really work?

As for croissants, I would classify baking them as an easy task (I know it's just a random example) - certainly not a Tough task. It only takes a +4 bonus to Profession (baker) to never make a mistake. Even if the DC were 8, the chances of failure for a 2nd level baker would be zero by taking 1: 5 ranks + 0 Int mod + 3 Skill Focus (Profession (baker)) = +8. Can't fail.

I don't think it makes sense for a baker with a skill check of +8 to have a zero percent chance of messing up a Tough order the first time. Tough means not easy. Skill comes from levels, talent, and feats. I think it makes more sense for a person with a +14 to his skill to always succeed at a Tough task, rather than someone with a +5.

 

[Olive]

The more I think about it, the more I wonder why Taking 10 is even needed in the game.

The idea is to speed up the game believe it or not. If you can the average roll, you don't have to roll.

knowledge skills aren't supposed to be essentially random, you know things or you don't. With enough training, you'll always know things. With your +10 to knowlegde (arcana) you'll never not no lots of things. It makes sense to me...

I agree with Pielorinho as well, this is precisely the point of the mechanic, that not everything IS random.