Assessing Risk/DC Skill check

[taliesin15]

I'm wondering if I'm missing something in the rules--it seems to me that PCs (or many NPCs for that matter) if they have Ranks in a Skill, might be able to intelligently assess the risks involved in carrying out a Skill. Is there a mechanism already in play for this? I know there's that chart of typical DCs in the PHB--what I'm wondering is there some kind of d20 roll or something that can help the character know how risky something is?
I think there's not, but am thinking of creating a kind of house rule for it. Any ideas on that or the former question is welcomed.

 

[blargney the second]

I usually just tell them if it looks like it's easy, hard, very hard, or damn near impossible. Those correspond roughly to DC 15, 20, 25, or 30, give or take a couple points.
-blarg

 

[irdeggman]

It also depends on the skill in question.

For instance climb could probably be a good example of something that someone trained in could make an estimate of how difficult the task is.

Diplomacy on the other hand is totally out of the question as well as UMD and Disable Device.

Any skill that is rolled by the DM (like Disable Device) should never have any clues given to the character on how difficult the tasking is as well as any opposed check skill checks.

If looking for guidelines as to when to give the PC an estimate of difficulty I don't think there are any guidelines. As a default I would then go with 5 ranks since that is the number that gives bonuses due to synergy to other skill checks and reflects the level at when a character gains some "other" benefits to that skill (like the sysnergy thing).

 

[taliesin15]

I was definitely thinking in terms of Skills like Climb, Jump, maybe even Open Lock, though the latter might be more appropriate to assess after they've given it a try.

Here's a real game example--the party (ca. 4th level) heading on a road looking down into a plains valley during the day sees an old lady with a cane walking towards them, about half a mile a way, and she gets ambushed by Ogres. The party starts running to help the old lady. She polymorphs into a Silver Dragon and lays the Ogres to waste. The party arrives, out of breath, she thanks the party for attempting to come to her rescue.

Now, here's the relevant part. One character, a CG Rogue/Ftr, actually says he wants his character to sneakily start searching the Ogre bodies for choice drops. AS IF the Silver Dragon's not going to notice?! Anyhow, I think the PC was trying to role play this, but it seemed like he wasn't going to be able to use Pick Pocket or Hide very well under the direct gaze of the Silver Dragon (who I think was Old).

An example that could happen in a future game is there are several high level NPCs who pose as jewel merchants (varying alignments/classes/monster types)--it seems to me that anyone trying to Pick the Pocket of such a person would be foolhardy in the extreme. But then again, these folks are often Disguised or Polymorphed (if really a monster)--but I'm thinking that someone with Pick Pocket skills might think the risk very high of using it vs. say a Beholder. Then again, a very bold hobbit tried something like that with a very old Red Dragon named Smaug...

 

[Jhaelen]

I think the situation you're describing isn't really about assessing the difficulty of a skill check.

It's more about warning the PLAYER that an intended action might be more risky for his character than he thinks. In similar situations I often tell the player something like "Your character has a feeling this might not be a good idea. Do you still want to try it?"

It's often a case of a player forgetting about a certain rule or overlooking something about a situation which his character wouldn't have been able to miss.

 

[javcs]

I think the situation you're describing isn't really about assessing the difficulty of a skill check.

It's more about warning the PLAYER that an intended action might be more risky for his character than he thinks. In similar situations I often tell the player something like "Your character has a feeling this might not be a good idea. Do you still want to try it?"

It's often a case of a player forgetting about a certain rule or overlooking something about a situation which his character wouldn't have been able to miss.

I think there are rules for utilizing Sense Motive to judge the power level of another entity relative to yourself in one of the skill-heavy splatbooks. Of course, you can only judge them by what you can detect, so, barring magic items or active spells to learn more about an entity, you're limited to what you can see and/or hear.
Offhand, I don't remember which book, but the most likely contenders are probably Complete Adventurer, Complete Scoundrel, Song and Silence, or the Epic Level Handbook (why they kept the non-epic usages they added there out of the skill section of the SRD is beyond me).
From what I remember there were something like 5 possible accurate judgements: Similar(within 1 or 2 levels/CR/EL), Stronger(2-5? levels/CR/ELhigher), Weaker (2-5 levels/CR/EL lower), Near Impossible(5+ levels/CR/EL higher), Pathetically Easy(5+ levels/CR/EL lower); failing the check gave an incorrect result; you could apply a similar scale to other related judgements.

If you can't find it, one method I've seen used before is the GM rolls a d100, and asks the player High or Low, if it matches, they get an accurate statement from the GM, if it doesn't .. they usually get nothing (but if it's different and the roll was 1-5% or 96-00%, they misjudge the situation). Sometimes, Wisdom is applied to the roll most beneficially to the player.