Does taking 10 in stressful situations ever unbalance the game?

[harpy]

I was just going over skills in detail and was wondering if there is ever a point at which taking 10 when "distracted or threatened" actually breaks the game?

The only skill that disallows this is UMD, and the only exception to this exception is with the Bard's level 19 effect of his Jack of all Trades class feature, which evidently allows taking 10 on any skill, including UMD.

This is in contrast to the Rogue's ability to take 10's even when stressed with his Skill Mastery talent at level 10.

I can see where taking 10 with UMD is bad, because it would allow spamming of UMD with abandon. It's not even an issue with stress, it hsa more to do with running amok with crafting and emulating, opening a wide hole in the normally categories for magic items. This is the biggest complaint made against the Warlock in 3.5. I'm guessing that they let the Bard do it at level 19 because there are only two levels left, the bard has been left behind by other full casters as is, and the power and effects at such high levels would easily drown out endless uses of UMD emulations.

But a lot of weight is being put into taking 10 when stressed, only being allowed with special exceptions at higher levels.

The thing is that I'm trying to figure out is how it would screw things up in the first 10 levels of the game? If someone is granted this ability earlier in their career for a specific skill, it seems as if all it does is make certain low hanging DCs auto successes, which in the grand sweep of things, isn't that big of a deal. The major benefit is that it gets rid of a lot of die rolling and help speed up play.

Am I missing anything? Putting aside UMD, does anything get mucked up with broken spamming by taking 10 even when stressed at lower levels?

 

[BryonD]

I don't think it would remotely break the system.

I prefer the rule as is because I like the feel it creates. Taking 10 is largely supposed to be the exception, a perk you get during those, atypical in the genre, times when you can just do something with no pressure.

You will wipe out the benefit of some class features here and there, since it is a perk to be able to "take 10" and you are giving it to everyone.

But it won't mechanically break the system.

A lot of overtly high action games presume this type of mechanic.

For example:
DC Adventures Design Journal #6 - DC ADVENTURES

 

[Maidhc O Casain]

Just a couple of ideas off the top of my head:

Take 10 on climb, when doing so to escape a stressful situation? Same for picking a lock on a door that can't be smashed down in a short time? Or on an Acrobatics check to walk a ledge while being fired at by the guards?

Being able to Take 10 on these wouldn't break the game but could take a lot of the drama out of what should be tense situations.

 

[grufflehead]

Given how useless and quickly superseded by items and/or spells most skills are in 3.5/PF, I can't see it being an issue. I think being able to choose to take 10 in situations where you were normally forbidden from doing so was a fairly decent level ability for some PrCs I've seen, but by the time you've got access to it, there are very few skills which are going to disrupt the game.

I was looking over the skills list in PF the other day and thinking of a similar question. As written, which skills retain their mileage through the game assuming a fairly 'standard' game set-up eg one of the typical Paizo adventure paths where magic in the form of spells and items is freely available? For the sake of discussion, here's how the skills have fared in my experience - feel free to chip in with creative ideas for some of them or point out how they might be used.

Acrobatics - now it encompasses Tumble it scales in a combat application as it is opposed by a scaling stat (CMD). Jumping can be topped by a 1st level spell, while taking a D6 off a fall makes no difference after low levels: you'll die from falling off a flying mount at a 1000 feet, or bounce, pick yourself up and go right back at it. Balance is so situational, the main use I used to see for it was countering Grease!

Appraise - is there a spell that duplicates it? If not, hardly an issue unless the GM is running a low cash game and likes to screw the PCs for every copper they have.

Bluff - has a combat application via Feint. Considering low level spells like Zone of Truth or eventually Discern Lies, or a decent Sense Motive, trump it, then its long term use is questionable.

Climb - Spider Climb? Alter Self?

Craft - I saw someone on the Paizo boards ask why this and Profession were even still skills. I like it, but from a pure crunch perspective, other than nice flavour, at low levels in very low cash games it has a use, but otherwise...

Diplomacy - one of the skills which does retain its utility, but given the poor way social resolution works in D20 type games, having seen PCs with +30 skills by about 5th level who walk into a room and pretty much get anything they want, most GMs I know are very wary around Diplomonsters. Plus, does it beat Charm Person?

Disable Device - a true anomaly in as much as if you *don't* have a maxed skill all the way you are asking for trouble unless you have a generous GM who lets traps be circumvented by other means

Disguise - 1st level spell or item easily beats it

Escape Artist - potential combat use for escaping grapples but somewhat situational. I have honestly *never* been in or seen a game where, if the PCs are captured and tied up, it's not been for plot purposes, and if they are supposed to escape they will duly do so.

Fly - not familiar enough with it as I've never had a PC who has had it

Handle Animal - was there not a 3.5 bit of cheese weaselling revolving around maxed Handle Animal and a pack of trained war elephants? Otherwise, possibly useful for a low level PC to have a trained war dog or similar, but unless your Druid or Ranger is regularly sending his/her pet into situations not covered by tricks, then struggling to see the use.

Heal - will never top Cure spells for HP, nice for investigative 'how did he die?' type games (until you cast Speak with Dead and ask the body), and the Treat Disease and Poison abilities are not all they are cracked up to be. How many games is the GM routinely trying to poison or inflict something on the characters? 3rd level spells or potions solve the issue permanantly

Knowledges - other than using them to excuse/avoid metagaming ('wow, who knew that monster I've never seen before would react so badly to Holy Water?') they are almost a barrier to games. See the 3 clue rule for how not to have the entire adventure go pear-shaped because Marvo the Wizard rolls a 1 on his Knowledge check at the wrong time. Mid level spells begin to duplicate these eventually

Linguistics - the old Decipher Script DCs were ludicrous, but Read Magic, Comprehend Languages and Tongues do everything this does

Perception - continues to be worthwhile until monsters with special abilities mean you need magic to detect them

Perform - see Craft and Profession

Ride - unless being on the horse gives you a benefit, why be on one at all? Eventually most useful for Paladins, and for people who want to be able to leap off their dying mount when the monster decides the more sensible tactic is to kill it underneath you

Sense Motive - counters Bluff, but as with some other skills, if the plot demands the bad guy lies his ass off and gets away with it, he's probably got a hipflask of Philter of Glibness (see numerous Arcanis modules...)

Sleight of Hand - pass. Picking people's pockets will only get you so far, and if you have a habit of hiding sharp things to stab folk with inside your underwear, you'd be better off taking Quick Draw anyway

Spellcraft - I've never seen anyone play a dedicated counterspelling wizard but it seems to be pretty important if you want to do that. Was a replacement for Concentration in the beta, but now casting in combat is a whole heap more difficult so not so much reason for MUs to take it other than to make learning found spells easier (assuming you don't just go and buy what you want)

Stealth - I won't rehash the arguments about not being able to sneak around if people are watching you - short of Hide in Plain Sight, get Invisibility

Survival - required for Tracking so as long as that plays a part in the game it has a use

Swim - or sink.

UMD - as Harpy says, abusable like no other skill.


That makes it look like I'm having a rant, whereas in fact I love skills - every PF character I have takes the skill point for favoured class. However, they really are a pretty weak part of a game unless it is set up for them, low magic etc At this rate I might start feeling sorry for Rogues and stop bitching about Sneak Attack...

 

[IronWolf]

I was looking over the skills list in PF the other day and thinking of a similar question. As written, which skills retain their mileage through the game assuming a fairly 'standard' game set-up eg one of the typical Paizo adventure paths where magic in the form of spells and items is freely available? For the sake of discussion, here's how the skills have fared in my experience - feel free to chip in with creative ideas for some of them or point out how they might be used.

Items and spells can certainly make significant boosts to skills or obviate the need for a skill check there are several situations I think the skill ranks are till beneficial - even in some cases where there may be a spell to cover it.

Acrobatics - now it encompasses Tumble it scales in a combat application as it is opposed by a scaling stat (CMD). Jumping can be topped by a 1st level spell, while taking a D6 off a fall makes no difference after low levels: you'll die from falling off a flying mount at a 1000 feet, or bounce, pick yourself up and go right back at it. Balance is so situational, the main use I used to see for it was countering Grease!

Jumping can be topped by the spell, but sometimes you need to jump before the spell can be cast if you are chasing someone. Cases where a character has had to jump across roofs and waiting for a spell would have been that much longer the person being chased would have had to get away. Several situations I can think of where I need to jump *now* not next round. Possibly an item could circumvent this, but then I'd need to give up a slot for it.

Similar for balance. Several cases of balance being used on a ship deck in a storm or a row boat that just got hit by something big, swinging rope bridges, etc. All cases where balance has been useful.

Appraise - is there a spell that duplicates it? If not, hardly an issue unless the GM is running a low cash game and likes to screw the PCs for every copper they have.

Highly GM dependent as you said. Maybe cases where you have to choose what to take with you now because of limitations to what you can carry?

Bluff - has a combat application via Feint. Considering low level spells like Zone of Truth or eventually Discern Lies, or a decent Sense Motive, trump it, then its long term use is questionable.

Still useful even at higher levels when needing things or access to places that aren't necessary protected by high level beings. Certainly situational though.

Climb - Spider Climb? Alter Self?

Still finding climb somewhat useful. Again, sometimes not enough spell slots to accomplish everything so you might not have the slots to burn. Certainly as you reach higher levels the magic items tend to minimize the climb skill - unless of course you've been caught unprepared somewhere you you've been taken prisoner and stripped of your items, separated from your party magic user and need to climb *out* of that slave pit! But yeah, more valuable at lower levels.

Craft - I saw someone on the Paizo boards ask why this and Profession were even still skills. I like it, but from a pure crunch perspective, other than nice flavour, at low levels in very low cash games it has a use, but otherwise...

Yeah - flavor.

Diplomacy - one of the skills which does retain its utility, but given the poor way social resolution works in D20 type games, having seen PCs with +30 skills by about 5th level who walk into a room and pretty much get anything they want, most GMs I know are very wary around Diplomonsters. Plus, does it beat Charm Person?

I think my group tends to bluff and not do as much with diplomacy!

Disguise - 1st level spell or item easily beats it

Possibly useful when you suspect whomever you might be trying to fool is going to be using magic to detect magic or other arcane means.

Escape Artist - potential combat use for escaping grapples but somewhat situational. I have honestly *never* been in or seen a game where, if the PCs are captured and tied up, it's not been for plot purposes, and if they are supposed to escape they will duly do so.

Yeah, most often used for escaping grapples in our campaigns. Well, more accurately the DM telling us that it could be used and us all groaning for our lack of ranks in it.

Handle Animal - was there not a 3.5 bit of cheese weaselling revolving around maxed Handle Animal and a pack of trained war elephants? Otherwise, possibly useful for a low level PC to have a trained war dog or similar, but unless your Druid or Ranger is regularly sending his/her pet into situations not covered by tricks, then struggling to see the use.

Flavor? Agreed - I don't see this used much.

Heal - will never top Cure spells for HP, nice for investigative 'how did he die?' type games (until you cast Speak with Dead and ask the body), and the Treat Disease and Poison abilities are not all they are cracked up to be. How many games is the GM routinely trying to poison or inflict something on the characters? 3rd level spells or potions solve the issue permanantly

Some improved uses in Pathfinder. This is usually house ruled in our games to actually allow dice to be rolled to heal folks so we tend to put points in it, but mainly due to the house rule.

Knowledges - other than using them to excuse/avoid metagaming ('wow, who knew that monster I've never seen before would react so badly to Holy Water?') they are almost a barrier to games. See the 3 clue rule for how not to have the entire adventure go pear-shaped because Marvo the Wizard rolls a 1 on his Knowledge check at the wrong time. Mid level spells begin to duplicate these eventually

We tend to use knowledge checks for those times our character could quite likely know something the player doesn't simply because the character is more familiar with the game world theoretically. Sometimes spells just aren't worth burning if a good knowledge check can do.

Linguistics - the old Decipher Script DCs were ludicrous, but Read Magic, Comprehend Languages and Tongues do everything this does

Flavor for if you want your character to know several languages or some sort. Certainly by higher levels though if you simply must know what the script says on the wall that is not in a language you know then the spells can easily allow your party to work around the issue.

Perform - see Craft and Profession

We've seen some use of this occasionally. Probably more unique situations. Perhaps buttering up a crowd before we start rolling on bluff or diplomacy checks. Our DM is cool like that though!

Ride - unless being on the horse gives you a benefit, why be on one at all? Eventually most useful for Paladins, and for people who want to be able to leap off their dying mount when the monster decides the more sensible tactic is to kill it underneath you

Yeah - we are at the point now where we windwalk near everywhere! So not much use for horses for travel. For a mounted type warrior, I can see more use.

Sense Motive - counters Bluff, but as with some other skills, if the plot demands the bad guy lies his ass off and gets away with it, he's probably got a hipflask of Philter of Glibness (see numerous Arcanis modules...)

We do a fair amount of sense motive in our games. Obviously depending on rolls it sometimes helps us get a feel for mannerisms that might betray a person or not. Now if the person in question is a huge plot point, then yes, likely they have some items of their own to help circumvent our Sense Motives. They work often enough in our games to still be worth something.

]
Sleight of Hand - pass. Picking people's pockets will only get you so far, and if you have a habit of hiding sharp things to stab folk with inside your underwear, you'd be better off taking Quick Draw anyway

I don't see this used much in our campaigns.

Spellcraft - I've never seen anyone play a dedicated counterspelling wizard but it seems to be pretty important if you want to do that. Was a replacement for Concentration in the beta, but now casting in combat is a whole heap more difficult so not so much reason for MUs to take it other than to make learning found spells easier (assuming you don't just go and buy what you want)

I think the learning found spells is significant - depending on how much the DM sprinkles that type of item in the game though.

Also can be used with detect magic to identify properties of the item as a potential usefulness.

We also sometimes like to know what did that guy just buff up with, even if the party mage isn't counterspelling.

Stealth - I won't rehash the arguments about not being able to sneak around if people are watching you - short of Hide in Plain Sight, get Invisibility

Still like stealth for times when the area is or might be protected by magic wards that might negate Invisibility.

Survival - required for Tracking so as long as that plays a part in the game it has a use

Agreed.

Swim - or sink.

Heh!

 

[TheClone]

Allowing to take 10 more often might not ruin the game mechanically, but it will increase boredom. It is a fact that you don't need to roll in non-combat situations often and if you are trained well in the skill you can be pretty sure to beat the DC. As said before that'll decrease drama. Even with the current rule. But taking 10 is also a good safety measure for any player and thus being allowed to take 10 in stressful situations always was a cool feature. Gaining that was worth some effort. I wouldn't want to let that go.

 

[smug]

Spellcraft - I've never seen anyone play a dedicated counterspelling wizard but it seems to be pretty important if you want to do that. Was a replacement for Concentration in the beta, but now casting in combat is a whole heap more difficult so not so much reason for MUs to take it other than to make learning found spells easier (assuming you don't just go and buy what you want)

As mentioned above, also used for identifying magic items. And for making magic weapons, but assuming you meet the pre-requisites, the DC is only 5+CL, so you wouldn't need more than a point (although if you're missing pre-requisites, it'd be handy to have more in it; you still need the item creation feat, though).