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<blockquote data-quote="Charlaquin" data-source="post: 8277190" data-attributes="member: 6779196">The thing is, I wouldn’t assign a difficulty to a task that I would narrate as successful without calling for a roll. There just isn’t a hypothetical DC to compare to.I understand the objection. Like, what if there’s a lock that’s really really hard to pick or something and a player with a really low bonus to their Dex + Thieves’ Tools proficiency tries to pick it? Could they just succeed without a roll? Probably not. Keep in mind the criteria for success without a roll. The approach either needs to not have a chance of failure (which in my assessment is basically never the case when it comes to trying to pick a lock), or have no meaningful cost for the attempt or consequence for failure.So, yes, if the amateur locksmith has a master level lock in a safe location, with literally no time constraints, I would allow them to succeed without a roll, even though if they tried to pick that lock in a situation where taking too long might mean a wandering monster comes by, or a dark ritual is completed, or the client runs out of patience, or whatever, the DC for that task might be higher than they could achieve with a natural 20. But this is an extremely hypothetical scenario that would be vanishingly unlikely to ever happen in my game. Perfectly safe environments with literally no pressure just isn’t a luxury that the sort of people D&amp;D games are centered around usually have.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Charlaquin, post: 8277190, member: 6779196"] The thing is, I [I]wouldn’t[/I] assign a difficulty to a task that I would narrate as successful without calling for a roll. There just isn’t a hypothetical DC to compare to. I understand the objection. Like, what if there’s a lock that’s really really hard to pick or something and a player with a really low bonus to their Dex + Thieves’ Tools proficiency tries to pick it? Could they just succeed without a roll? Probably not. Keep in mind the criteria for success without a roll. The approach either needs to not have a chance of failure (which in my assessment is basically never the case when it comes to trying to pick a lock), or have no meaningful cost for the attempt or consequence for failure. So, yes, if the amateur locksmith has a master level lock in a safe location, with literally no time constraints, I would allow them to succeed without a roll, even though if they tried to pick that lock in a situation where taking too long might mean a wandering monster comes by, or a dark ritual is completed, or the client runs out of patience, or whatever, the DC for [I]that task[/I] might be higher than they could achieve with a natural 20. But this is an extremely hypothetical scenario that would be vanishingly unlikely to ever happen in my game. Perfectly safe environments with literally no pressure just isn’t a luxury that the sort of people D&D games are centered around usually have. [/QUOTE]

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