Can you "Take 20" to Hide?

[0-hr]

Seems like it would be in the rules, or the FAQ, but I spent a fair amount of time reading through both and could not find a clear answer.

I think that if you make Hide checks before the fact, then you could take 20, but if you only make the check when someone tries a Spot, then 20 tries isn't really going to work.

What I could really use would be a reference that clears up the issue for all opposed skill checks. I'm not even sure if you roll one Hide that everyone Spots against, or if you roll a Hide for each person trying to Spot you

 

[shilsen]

I'd say "No." A good rule of thumb, IMO, is that you can't take 20 on opposed skill checks.

 

[RigaMortus2]

And the opposite view of that would be, if you have the time to spend looking for the most opportune place to Hide, then why not? If you can spend 20 rounds looking for the best hiding place, then wouldn't that constitute a Take 20?

And the counter to that view point is, that instead it would be a circumstance bonus to your Hide check.

I could go either way really. I like the "house rule" about no Taking 20 on opposed skill checks.

 

[tylermalan]

I would agree with Shilsen on his "rule of thumb", but in this case, I would say yes, under certain circumstances.

Taking 20 has two main "requirements" - enough time and consequences for failure. While there are consequences for failure in almost every opposed skill check, I would say that if a character had enough time, he could take 20 on a hide check regardless. To me, it would represent the character spending time to find things that better screen him, finding the best position to be in to make maximum use of light sources, and blending into his environment as best he can.

I say this because if someone is trying to hide from me but is in a hurry because I'm about to walk around the corner, their chances aren't nearly as good as if they have an hour to stack foliage all over themselves (like a modern sniper or something).

 

[0-hr]

My main problem with the "pre-Hide" is that I think hiding is very dependent upon who is viewing you. If you take 20 minutes to hide perfectly behind a bush, but then someone walks up from BEHIND you, it's not that great of a job. To find a place that hides you from every possible direction and vantage point is going to be way more difficult than hiding from a given direction.

In fact, so long as he is not under stress, I'd let a player Take 20 to hide, but then impose a -10 circumstance penalty if he is trying to cover multiple approaches.

I'm surprised this hasn't been addressed officially though.

 

[Korak]

If there really is this much time to prepare... have a character with a good spot mod taking 10 trying to spot the hiding character after each attempt at hiding. As soon as the good spotter can't see him, you know you've done a decent job.

 

[Vegepygmy]

RigaMortus2 summed it up well. I say no, you generally can't take 20 on an opposed check.

 

[phindar]

I agree, more-or-less, that its cheesy to take 20 on a Hide check, but I'll play devil's advocate for a moment.

As noted, taking 20 involves time, and no consequences for failure. If you have an unlimited amount of time (in D&D terms, two minutes), and if nothing bad happens when you screw up, you can take a 20. In a Hide check, if no one is currently viewing you, you can take as many checks as you want and the individual results don't matter. So a player could in effect make as many Hide checks as he wanted until he was happy with what he rolled. And that's pretty much the definition of "Taking 20".

By that same logic (or whatever), a character could take 2 minutes looking around until he was satisfied he was seeing all he could see. That seems to violate the intent of the rules (and leads to the problem of people taking 20 all the time), so you're better off limiting it to the one check for the opposed test.

My problem with Spot/Hides is that one guy hides, and then a group wanders up and gets 5 Spot checks. It would probably be more balanced if the group got 1 d20 roll that either applied to everyone equally, or based on the highest Spot +1 per helper. (Having one roll for a group hiding and one roll for a group spotting is a little problematic, if only because the lowest Hide score will be pitted against the highest Spot score.)

 

[DreamChaser]

I agree; when a character spends 2 minutes looking for the best place to hide, he is not actually making 20 skill checks because ultimately the skill check is irrelevant (and he has no way of knowing how successful he is) until he is viewed. What he is doing (as was pointed out above) is granting himself a circumstance bonus for finding an excellent spot to hide in.

DC

 

[Beckett]

If there really is this much time to prepare... have a character with a good spot mod taking 10 trying to spot the hiding character after each attempt at hiding. As soon as the good spotter can't see him, you know you've done a decent job.

"Can you see me now? Ok, how about now?"

I can see this too easily abused by the DM. Practically every monster in the dungeon has the time to take 20 on hide. I'm having visions of surprise rounds starting off each encounter.

I'd give a +2 circumstance bonus if you have plenty of time to hide ahead of time, but leave the actual roll until someone tries to spot you.