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<blockquote data-quote="iserith" data-source="post: 8283335" data-attributes="member: 97077">It's not &quot;edition-agnostic.&quot; And it's not &quot;advice.&quot; This is how D&amp;D 5e works. You don't call for a roll unless there's an uncertain outcome and a meaningful consequence for failure. If one or both of those conditions are not present, the PC just succeeds or fails, no roll. The DM narrates the outcome accordingly.It's not Charlaquin's rule. It's the rule in D&amp;D 5e. If the only cost to retrying is time, then multiple attempts can be made. To speed things along, the DM can just say that the PC is successful if the time spent on the task is 10 times longer than normal. This, however, cannot turn an impossible task into a successful one nor will it allow for an approach that cannot succeed once failed to succeed by trying it again (e.g. using the same lie on the guard twice).If the DM isn't interested in speeding things along, perhaps because it's important to work things out on certain time intervals, these attempts can be handled individually. Let's say the DM establishes it takes 10 minutes to pick a lock. The DM also makes wandering monster checks every 10 minutes. The DC to pick a lock with thieves' tools in the current conditions is 20, which is within this PC's ability to achieve given a good enough roll. The player needs to decide if it's worth trying multiple times to unlock this door given the looming threat of wandering monsters. That is a meaningful decision in context.Either of these situations is rooted in the fiction which is the important part to understanding why there can be or can't be retries. It's not just the DM saying &quot;you can't try again because that was your best attempt and you can't get any better.&quot;</blockquote>

[QUOTE="iserith, post: 8283335, member: 97077"] It's not "edition-agnostic." And it's not "advice." This is how D&D 5e works. You don't call for a roll unless there's an uncertain outcome [I]and [/I]a meaningful consequence for failure. If one or both of those conditions are not present, the PC just succeeds or fails, no roll. The DM narrates the outcome accordingly. It's not Charlaquin's rule. It's the rule in D&D 5e. If the only cost to retrying is time, then multiple attempts can be made. To speed things along, the DM can just say that the PC is successful if the time spent on the task is 10 times longer than normal. This, however, cannot turn an impossible task into a successful one nor will it allow for an approach that cannot succeed once failed to succeed by trying it again (e.g. using the same lie on the guard twice). If the DM isn't interested in speeding things along, perhaps because it's important to work things out on certain time intervals, these attempts can be handled individually. Let's say the DM establishes it takes 10 minutes to pick a lock. The DM also makes wandering monster checks every 10 minutes. The DC to pick a lock with thieves' tools in the current conditions is 20, which is within this PC's ability to achieve given a good enough roll. The player needs to decide if it's worth trying multiple times to unlock this door given the looming threat of wandering monsters. That is a meaningful decision in context. Either of these situations is rooted in the fiction which is the important part to understanding why there can be or can't be retries. It's not just the DM saying "you can't try again because that was your best attempt and you can't get any better." [/QUOTE]

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