Anyone else hope the rules for taking 10 & 20 see some revision?

[wgreen]

The main problems I have with Take 10:

Spot/Listen: Can you take 10 on a reflexive check? I like Hong's rule, but I also think players like rolling dice to see if they've spotted something. Especially if it's got a good Hide check. Should I just call for "Spot checks," and let players decide whether or not they want to roll?

Knowledge: Taking 10 with Knowledge checks just seems screwy to me, particularly with the even screwier "Try Again" rules the skill has.

As for Take 20:

Hide: Can I take 20 with this skill? I've searched around and found pretty compelling arguments for and against it.

-Will

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

The main problems I have with Take 10:

Spot/Listen: Can you take 10 on a reflexive check? I like Hong's rule, but I also think players like rolling dice to see if they've spotted something. Especially if it's got a good Hide check. Should I just call for "Spot checks," and let players decide whether or not they want to roll?

Knowledge: Taking 10 with Knowledge checks just seems screwy to me, particularly with the even screwier "Try Again" rules the skill has.

As for Take 20:

Hide: Can I take 20 with this skill? I've searched around and found pretty compelling arguments for and against it.

-Will

What I like about taking 10 with Hide, Move Silently, Listen, Spot: It totally eliminates players metagaming about the dice rolls the DM makes without announcing anything. You simply don't roll, so no player can say: "I think I just failed a Spot check!"

Though it naturally leads to the DM wondering: "Hmm, I would love to set the NPCs an ambush here. Let's see, the PCs Spot and Listen Modifiers are X; let's put the NPCs Hide and Move Silently Modifiers at X+1 then). If a DM actually designs his encounters this way, this means that he has made the skills meaningless for most cases.

But this als a side effect of the degree-less success of D20 skill checks.
In this case, it also could work differently. The Hide and Move Silently modifiers combined determine _when_ the players will detect the ambush. Maybe they hear the bandings laughing about their evil plans from 100 ft, maybe they hear them only from 20 ft...

 

[Felon]

In my games, Thief (Rogue) is already the least-played class. If you take away traps (thus don't need find-remove traps) and secret or concealed doors/items (thus no need for good search ability), you almost might as well sink the class completely because what reason is there to play one? Sure they can still open locks (but "Knock" takes care of that) and backstrike/sneak attack, and pick pockets (does anyone ever use that anymore in this era of goodly PCs and co-operative parties), but what else can they do that another class cannot?

I think you're looking at it the wrong way. If folks are playing the rogue out of the necessity to have someone to deal with traps, then the rogue is alredy sunk: the rogue is de facto lame at that point, because playing classes out of necessity rather than desire is lame.

In 3e, traps are generally boring. In 3e, picking pockets is generally unnecessary (because there's an inherent assumption that characters will gain significant wealth as they level). Opening locks is generally boring regardless of edition. Honestly, once you take Tumble, Spot, and UMD out of the equation, your ratio of bankable skills drops sharply.

If you don't have somebody longing to play a smart, skill-oriented character, then the other major attraction is sneak attack. If sneak attack isn't appealing, then you might want to evaluate the amount of undead, constructs, and other annoying uncritables that the players have to fight.

Then again, what's wrong with nobody wanting to play a class? I used to have a DM who tried everything he could think of to make bards an appealing class. I alsways used to ask him that very question. If you own a restaurant, and people seem to enjoy your cooking, why would you care if nobody ordered the poached salmon? Forget the salmon. Strike it from the menu.

 

[Felon]

The main problems I have with Take 10:

Spot/Listen: Can you take 10 on a reflexive check?

Well, the Disguise skill has the following line: "If you come to the attention of people who are suspicious (such as a guard who is watching commoners walking through a city gate), it can be assumed that such observers are taking 10 on their Spot checks."

So, it seems there is at least one official instance of taking 10 passively.

Hide: Can I take 20 with this skill? I've searched around and found pretty compelling arguments for and against it.

Well, I think the rule description for take 20 is pretty clear:

"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."

A skill that's based on an opposed skill check usually carries a penalty for failure. In the case of Hide, the jig is up once you're spotted--you ain't hiding no more!

This is another one of those misconceptions about the take 10/20 skills. Sometimes folks think of spending extra time in preparation for an opposed skill check as taking 20, so they try to take 20 on checks for stuff like Hide or Disguise. But you're not making a Hide check until there's somebody looking for you, nor are you making Disguise checks while sitting in front of your makeup mirror. In truth, you don't start taking 20 until you had to make the actual opposed skill check--essentially, the first of your twenty checks.

 

[wgreen]

Well, the Disguise skill has the following line: "If you come to the attention of people who are suspicious (such as a guard who is watching commoners walking through a city gate), it can be assumed that such observers are taking 10 on their Spot checks."

So, it seems there is at least one official instance of taking 10 passively.

Cool. Thanks.

Well, I think the rule description for take 20 is pretty clear:

[snip]

A skill that's based on an opposed skill check usually carries a penalty for failure. In the case of Hide, the jig is up once you're spotted--you ain't hiding no more!

This is another one of those misconceptions about the take 10/20 skills. Sometimes folks think of spending extra time in preparation for an opposed skill check as taking 20, so they try to take 20 on checks for stuff like Hide or Disguise. But you're not making a Hide check until there's somebody looking for you, nor are you making Disguise checks while sitting in front of your makeup mirror. In truth, you don't start taking 20 until you had to make the actual opposed skill check--essentially, the first of your twenty checks.

That is a fine argument, and I rather agree with the sentiment. But riddle me this, Batman: is there any rules support for it? The rules seem silent on when you make your Hide check. The way I've always seen it played, the hider makes his check when he declares that he's hiding. Then any spotters will make their own Spot checks against that one Hide check. It feels natural to me to do this, nothing in the rules says we shouldn't, and Sean Reynolds thinks that's how it should be.

Hmm.

-Will

 

[KarinsDad]

Nothing wrong with that.

On the average, the guy with +10 _should_ do better than the guy with +8. Take 10 just makes that consistent. If you're not letting random factors affect your performance, it stands to reason that your performance should not be subject to random variation.

Boiled down, this translates to "the rules works the way it works, hence, it is ok". Not very convincing.

The better guy can never have a bad day. The slightly worse guy can never have a great day. hmmmm

 

[KarinsDad]

Another though on how to change the math mechanics of this is to make it:

Take 10 = 2 D20 rolls, take best

The chances of rolling 10 or better are nearly 80%.

Take 20 = 4 D20 rolls, take best

The chances of rolling 15 or better are about 76%.

 

[Gentlegamer]

"I check for traps."
[roll] "You don't find any."
"I check again."

"Come back when your Search skill has improved, then you may check again."

 

[hong]

Boiled down, this translates to "the rules works the way it works, hence, it is ok". Not very convincing.

To be precise, "the rules are doing their job".

The better guy can never have a bad day. The slightly worse guy can never have a great day. hmmmm

Of course the better guy can have a bad day, and the worse guy can have a good day. Those are the occasions when you're not taking 10.

 

[hong]

Then again, what's wrong with nobody wanting to play a class? I used to have a DM who tried everything he could think of to make bards an appealing class. I alsways used to ask him that very question. If you own a restaurant, and people seem to enjoy your cooking, why would you care if nobody ordered the poached salmon? Forget the salmon. Strike it from the menu.

Are you suggesting that they... ban bards?