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Message: <blockquote data-quote="irdeggman" data-source="post: 3567368" data-attributes="member: 16285">SRD:Originally I felt, like Hyp, that you should be able to take 20 on a hide check but after looking over the PHB rules and the FAQ I now understand why WotC says you can't.Here is the crux.When taking 20 you are not (per the rules) attempting to do it the "best you can". You are instead "retrying until you get it right". There is a difference between the two.On opposed checks you don't know if you've succeeded or not until after the opposed check has been made, at that time for taking 20 you would normally just try again.  In the case of ide, since the character has "spotted you" you can not attempt to hide again unless you can regain concealment or some other condition that allows you to retry to hide once spotted.In the case of hide it is not that there is a "penalty for failure" it is that due to the fact that once you fail (against the opposed spot check) you are "spotted" and can no longer attempt to hide under the same conditions.Now can you take 20 on a spot check?The example in the FAQ is pretty good at explaining what is going on with that skill. Pretty much as long as you are looking at the same location you can retry - but it takes twenty times as long as the normal check does. So roughly 2 minutes of looking at the same location (5 ft square) continuously. During that 2 minutes the entire combat is likely to be resolved.</blockquote>