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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Morgan_Scott82" data-source="post: 4620565" data-attributes="member: 79594">The people who've stated that taking 20 wasn't an automatic success are correct, taking 20 is never explicitly said to be an automatic success. However, I believe it creates an artificial and significant effect on skill checks. If a check required a roll of 18-20 to succeed take 20 increases the chance of success from 15% to 100%, however if the check required a roll of 21 well then take 20 increased the chance of success from 0% to, well 0%, not much of an improvement on that count. If PC can take 20, they will. This puts DMs in a difficult design position where they're forced to make predetermined binary judgements about the success or failure of the PCs during the adventure design process. As a DM I know what my party rogues open locks skill is, I know that he'll take 20 on open locks, so when it comes time to set the DC of the lock what I'm really doing is deciding ahead of time if the rogue succeeds or fails, with zero variability. As a DM who wants to craft a particular story I'm going to predetermine the outcome that better suits my story. Ah but there's the rub. If I'm already predetermining the outcome when I set the DC for "take 20 situations" then why bother with the setting a DC at all? Why not just narrate it away. In what way is it significant how impossible the impossible to pick lock was? In what way does it improve the story to know how easy the easily picked lock was? I firmly believe that the role of mechanics is to arbitrate situations with variable outcomes. Whether an attack hits or misses has a variable outcome, how much damage you take when you fall into a pit has a variable outcome, if you're setting a DC for a skill check (thereby involving mechanics) that should mean the skill check has a variable outcome. That just isn't the case when taking 20, since as we've already seen taking 20 implies a predetermined outcome with zero variability. This means that taking 20 has no significant impact on the rules or the story, the result is predetermined, not at all variable, and therefore requires no mechanics.</blockquote>

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