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Message: <blockquote data-quote="airwalkrr" data-source="post: 3328496" data-attributes="member: 12460">Ok, you caught me in semantics. But it proves nothing more than that I misquoted the rules. Taking 20 means rolling until you get a 20 on the d20, not rolling until you succeed. You can still fail while taking 20. My mistake. I hope you feel like a big man for pointing it out. I think it was clear what I meant.This is a very good example that actually helps me illustrate my point. When you make a Use Rope check, you do not know how good the check is until someone tries to escape. I can try to tie a rope 20 times, but if the guy is unconscious, how do I know which attempt was the best? To imply that you can take 20 on Use Rope in this situation implies that your character knows what he rolled on the d20, which is meta-thinking and therefore not within the spirit of the game.In order to effectively take 20 on an opposed check, it would actually take 400 times as long. A character would need to make a Use Rope check, then let the other character take 20 trying to escape until he could be sure his Use Rope check was good enough. But even then, there is no feedback that guarantees the tying character received a 20. In the case of opening a lock, the take 20 rules assume that I roll a 20 if I try a task 20 times. Essentially, if you fail at a skill check against a fixed DC 20 times in a row, then odds are very good that at least one of those rolls was a 20 and therefore the task is impossible for your character under the present conditions. Take 20 rules simply ASSUME that one of those 20 rolls is a 20 for simplicity. But under the conditions of an opposed check, that assumption is not likely possible because taking 20 simulates trying until you do your best. In order to do that with an opposed check, you cannot verify that you did your best unless the person you are making the opposed check against is able to do his best against each of your checks, hence my position that you cannot take 20 on an opposed check unless you take 400 times as long (20 times 20). And even then, you may not have to do your best to do well enough so that the other person's check cannot possibly succeed. If you have to roll a 17 or higher on your Use Rope check to make it impossible for the bad guy to escape, how do you know the difference between a 17 and a 20? You do not. The only way to guarantee that you have done your best is if your Use Rope modifier is no more than 9 points worse than the captive's Escape Artist modifier (bearing in mind the +10 the tying character gets) because only one check in 20 will you be able to make it possible for him to escape. If your Use Rope modifier is 10 points worse or lower than the captive's Use Rope modifer, then you will never be able to guarantee he cannot escape without somehow adjusting the conditions of the check. But if your Use Rope modifier is 8 points worse or higher than his Escape Artist modifier, then there will be ambiguity in how well you actually tied the rope because once you tie it well enough at a certain point, escape is impossible regardless of whether you roll higher or not.In fact, in the specific case of Use Rope, you do not even make your Use Rope check until someone tries to escape. If that does not mean that you cannot take 20 on Use Rope, I do not know what does. It implies that you do not know how well your Use Rope check actually was until someone tries to escape, which is exactly what I was trying to demonstrate above. I do not think you should be allowed to know how well you are hiding either.Now conceivably, I believe the rules do allow you to make a Hide check, then let an ally take 20 trying to Spot you, then keep trying until your ally finds it impossible to Spot you, but this would only work if your Hide modifier is better than your ally's Spot modifier. (If you could get a bad guy to cooperate, you could do the same with Use Rope.) But as I said above, the only way you could guarantee your d20 roll was a 20 is if your ally's Spot modifier is 1 point lower than your Hide modifier. Now I would not tell you that you are wrong if you allow this process, although I would find it impractical. It can be very time-consuming (i.e. a waste of time) so I simply do not allow it.</blockquote>

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