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General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Does (or should) the halfling “lucky” ability apply when the DM is making the roll?
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<blockquote data-quote="MarkB" data-source="post: 7498341" data-attributes="member: 40176"><p>It's impossible for Lucky to apply to a passive check, because a passive check doesn't involve a roll on the part of the character. They are treated as having rolled a 10.</p><p></p><p>It's also worth noting that Survival checks for navigation are generally taken against a set DC - the DM decides how difficult the task of navigating the current set of terrain is, and the character rolls to beat that DC. Using characters' passive skills <em>does not change that</em>. If you're using characters' passive skills for navigation, then if their passive Survival score is equal or higher than your set DC they'll succeed every time, and if it's lower they'll fail every time.</p><p></p><p>If you change things up by using the characters' passive checks and making an opposed check against them, you're effectively treating the terrain as though it were a living opponent trying to outmatch them - much as would be the case with a creature using Stealth to hide from them.</p><p></p><p>The downside of this is, as you've correctly surmised, that you've given them the disadvantages of making random opposed rolls with none of the abilities they might have to mitigate those disadvantages. Under the circumstances, it would not be unreasonable to make some allowances - i.e. allowing a player who's earned a point of Inspiration to spend it to add +5 to their passive score for the check. Equally, you could apply the halfling's Lucky ability by choosing to re-roll your opposed terrain check if you roll a natural 20.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="MarkB, post: 7498341, member: 40176"] It's impossible for Lucky to apply to a passive check, because a passive check doesn't involve a roll on the part of the character. They are treated as having rolled a 10. It's also worth noting that Survival checks for navigation are generally taken against a set DC - the DM decides how difficult the task of navigating the current set of terrain is, and the character rolls to beat that DC. Using characters' passive skills [i]does not change that[/i]. If you're using characters' passive skills for navigation, then if their passive Survival score is equal or higher than your set DC they'll succeed every time, and if it's lower they'll fail every time. If you change things up by using the characters' passive checks and making an opposed check against them, you're effectively treating the terrain as though it were a living opponent trying to outmatch them - much as would be the case with a creature using Stealth to hide from them. The downside of this is, as you've correctly surmised, that you've given them the disadvantages of making random opposed rolls with none of the abilities they might have to mitigate those disadvantages. Under the circumstances, it would not be unreasonable to make some allowances - i.e. allowing a player who's earned a point of Inspiration to spend it to add +5 to their passive score for the check. Equally, you could apply the halfling's Lucky ability by choosing to re-roll your opposed terrain check if you roll a natural 20. [/QUOTE]
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Community
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Does (or should) the halfling “lucky” ability apply when the DM is making the roll?
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