Can you "Take 20" to Hide?

[Kae'Yoss]

Er, what? If he cannot Spot you even when you roll a 1, then don't you succeed every time that you Take 20?

Or are you treating the "you fail repeatedly" part of Take 20 as literally true? I always interpreted it to mean, "First you roll a 1. Then you roll a 2... likely you are failing your checks here, but eventually you roll a 20 which presumably (although not necessarily) makes you succeed."

Don't forget that you can't hide while you're observed (unless, of course, you can. But then, you have a special license for that ). That's the problem. As soon as the first roll fails, you won't get extra ones. Just remember that Scary Movie Scene (I paraphrased earlier). Unless you can convince that guard to turn around and count to 20, take 20 will be a problem.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Or are you treating the "you fail repeatedly" part of Take 20 as literally true? I always interpreted it to mean, "First you roll a 1. Then you roll a 2... likely you are failing your checks here, but eventually you roll a 20 which presumably (although not necessarily) makes you succeed."

If you need to roll an 11 to pick the lock, Take 20 doesn't take 11 times as long as normal; it takes 20 times as long as normal.

If you need to roll a 3 to pick the lock, Take 20 doesn't take 3 times as long as normal; it takes 20 times as long as normal.

If you need to roll a 1 to pick the lock, Take 20 doesn't take just as long as normal; it takes 20 times as long as normal.

If you didn't Take 20, and just tried to pick the lock normally, you'd be guaranteed to get it first try, since even on a 1 you succeed. But if you choose for some reason to Take 20, you fail repeatedly, and at the end of 20-times-as-long-as-normal, you get the result as if you'd rolled a 20 - success, in this case.

-Hyp.

 

[tomBitonti]

Unopposed hide roll?

If you need to roll an 11 to pick the lock, Take 20 doesn't take 11 times as long as normal; it takes 20 times as long as normal.

If you need to roll a 3 to pick the lock, Take 20 doesn't take 3 times as long as normal; it takes 20 times as long as normal.

If you need to roll a 1 to pick the lock, Take 20 doesn't take just as long as normal; it takes 20 times as long as normal.

If you didn't Take 20, and just tried to pick the lock normally, you'd be guaranteed to get it first try, since even on a 1 you succeed. But if you choose for some reason to Take 20, you fail repeatedly, and at the end of 20-times-as-long-as-normal, you get the result as if you'd rolled a 20 - success, in this case.

-Hyp.

Hey, is an unopposed hide roll allowed in the first place?

The pick-the-lock scenario has an immediate, persistent, effect on success. The assumption in the notes has been that one can hide and carry the result forward in time to a point when an opposed spot check is made, but, I'm having doubts that this is allowed. Doing so *seems* alright, but what rule actually justifies it? One reading of the hide skill is that one hides while unobserved, but make no rolls in doing so. Then, later, when a spot check is made against the hiding character, *then* the hide roll is made.

(As if "hidden" were a continuing condition, such as having a magical effect going, and "spot" checks were analogous to "dispel" checks against that condition, for the character making the spot check. Then "hiding" is enabling the condition, and can only be done when unobserved, of if "hide in place sight" was allowed by a special ability, or, subject to additional "dispel" checks if the character attempted certain actions.)

 

[RigaMortus2]

Other than having to run for your life?

Well a penalty would be something that is worse than had you not tried at all. So had you not tried to Hide at all and a baddy spots you, you would still have to run for your life. Failing to Hide is no worse than not attempting to Hide at all, so it's not really a penalty.

 

[pawsplay]

No, because the premise of taking 20 is that you stop once you finally succeed, and someone hiding has no way of knowing if they have hidden themselves from a theoretical searcher. Taking lots of time just allows you to find some kind of total cover or concealment.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Hey, is an unopposed hide roll allowed in the first place?

In the proposed scenario, there is no unopposed Hide roll; all Hide rolls are made initially opposed by the Spot check of an ally.

That was the point of "before the enemy comes close, you have your buddy try to spot you".

It was based on two assumptions airwalkrr had already allowed: firstly, a Hide check opposed by character A now is the same number used to oppose character B later; secondly, it's permissible to Take 20 on a Hide check as long as the opposer is content to allow you to retry.

The combination means that you can have someone who allows you to retry letting you generate a check result that is later applied to a hostile opponent.

-Hyp.

 

[Hypersmurf]

No, because the premise of taking 20 is that you stop once you finally succeed...

No, the premise of taking 20 is that you stop once you've taken twenty times as long, with a result calculated as though you had rolled a 20.

Let's use Open Lock again as an example - normally a full round action.

If there is a lock with a DC of 30, and your Open Lock modifier is +5, then "you stop once you finally succeed" would mean you would keep attempting to open the lock forever, because you will never succeed.

Rather, you stop after 20 rounds have passed (having failed repeatedly along the way), and compare your result (20 + 5 = 25) with the DC.

It's possible to Take 20 and fail; but you know that the failure was with your maximum result. It's also possible to Take 20 and succeed; and again, you know that the success was with your maximum result.

If I have an unknown lock, I don't know whether Take 20 will result in success or failure, but I know that either way, it will result in a 25.

-Hyp.

 

[tomBitonti]

In the proposed scenario, there is no unopposed Hide roll; all Hide rolls are made initially opposed by the Spot check of an ally.

That was the point of "before the enemy comes close, you have your buddy try to spot you".

It was based on two assumptions airwalkrr had already allowed: firstly, a Hide check opposed by character A now is the same number used to oppose character B later; secondly, it's permissible to Take 20 on a Hide check as long as the opposer is content to allow you to retry.

The combination means that you can have someone who allows you to retry letting you generate a check result that is later applied to a hostile opponent.

-Hyp.

So ... what allows the result of the first opposed check to be used for the second check?

Although the analogy doesn't make sense for this check, if the check were for arm wrestling,
you would not conceive that the roll for an initial round would apply to a subsequent round.
However unreasonable it seems, that is how the general opposed roll mechanic seems to
work out for hide.

The whole idea that there is a state associated with hide which remembers the first hide roll
*seems* reasonable, but that's what I'm looking for justification for.

 

[pawsplay]

No, the premise of taking 20 is that you stop once you've taken twenty times as long, with a result calculated as though you had rolled a 20.-Hyp.

The premise is that you take a 1, 2... 20 on your checks. In the case of the Hide skill, that's not a possibility. You can't successively Hide more and more until you are a certain amount of hidden. As a comparison, you can't take 20 on a Tumble check to reduce fall damage by taking a really long time to plan your jump.

 

[KarinsDad]

There are a few things to keep in mind here. The DC of a Hide check is basically the Spot check of the character trying to see you.

This is not quite accurate.

Opposed checks do not really set a DC.

In an opposed check, the higher result succeeds, while the lower result fails. In case of a tie, the higher skill modifier wins. If these scores are the same, roll again to break the tie.