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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ceswiedler" data-source="post: 4613981" data-attributes="member: 80214">Am I missing something here?Taking 20 never guaranteed success. It had nothing to do with whether or not you could fail. It simply meant that in cases where you could retry as many times as you wanted, you would eventually roll a 20, so it just short-circuited the process and gave you the 20, at the expense of some time used. Frequently, rolling a 20 doesn't mean you'll succeed, and so taking 20 won't help anyway.The rules were pretty clear that you could only take 20 in a situation where trying 20-30 times was okay. That meant you couldn't do it in any combat situation, or in any situation where you couldn't retry without consequences (e.g. if failing to pick the lock carries the chance that the chest will explode).A lock which requires a 19-20 to pick by the party rogue is not a trivial challenge. It's a lock which he/she finds difficult to pick but which can eventually be picked with enough time. A lock which requires a 21+ to pick is one which they just can't pick even with enough time on their hands.So why does taking 20 not apply to 4e?</blockquote>