Disguise and taking 20

[DreamChaser]

Not being arguementative, but...

Why not? That's the whole point of stage art and special effects make up (they continue the process until they get the look they want). Stage artists can do this while still taking into account the stage lighting. If you've ever seen that type of make-up in normal lighting and on stage, the difference is uncanny. The only reason that I think this would be possible is because the applier knows what they want (ie: knows what a 20 looks like).

but this isn't what the Disguise skill is. What you are describing is Profession (actor or stagehand). A person with such a skill could make a person look like what they want, but the person would still need to pull off the disguise, which is why Disguise is a Charisma based skill.

It is like the difference between Profession (hunter) and using the Survial skill to hunt. A person with Survival can keep themselves alive but a Professional knows what they need to do to make a living at it, think of a big game hunter.

Of course, when the chips are down, in either situation, having both will serve you best.

DC

 

[Lord Pendragon]

Not being arguementative, but...

Why not? That's the whole point of stage art and special effects make up (they continue the process until they get the look they want). Stage artists can do this while still taking into account the stage lighting. If you've ever seen that type of make-up in normal lighting and on stage, the difference is uncanny. The only reason that I think this would be possible is because the applier knows what they want (ie: knows what a 20 looks like).

I think I've explained my reasoning here fairly well in previous posts. In essence, Disguise is more than physical makeup. So you can't base a perfect roll on physical makeup alone.

Note that this reasoning also led me to agree with Merak's expanded ruling, that I'd allow the 20 under a circumstance in which it was purely the makeup.

 

[ken-ichi]

You also have the situation, albeit cliched, where the fake nose or mustache starts coming off right before you try slipping out the gate.
In this case the disguise check could be the last time you touched up the disguise on how well you did it.
As pretty much any woman can tell you you don't just put makeup on once a day, you have to touch it up and maintain it, especially if you are using old style makeups.
A disguise would work the same way, you have to touch up a disguise if you are wearing it for any length of time.
So unless the PCs are stopping to double check all thier disguises at every gate for example, there is a chance that something in the disguise slipped or that they fell back to acting how they normally do.
I would allow the PCs to take 10 on the Disguise checks if they are actively making sure that the disguises are properly maintained, but the problem with taking 20 is that a disguise would wear out especially given the amount of time a take 20 would take. (3-10 hours at the longest? About the amount of time some actors go through for movies, so not unreasonable.)
And if one character is doing all the disguise checks for the whole group takeing 20 would take 12-40 hours for a 4 character party. Kinda seems foolish to take 20 on huh?