Help me nail down this 'take 10, take 20' nonsense

[Darren]

A balance check for standing on a stair 7-12 inches wide? I assume therefore when you guys are being attacked on a stair you roll too, as you are under pressure?

Come on, you are being utterly ridiculous. I don't need to convince you of anything, nor you me - I agree to disagree with the mechanic of take 20. I can accept you don't agree with me

Well, as a matter of fact, yes, I would require balance checks for fighting on stairs, because stairs are essentially an uneven surface, and that's what the rule for the balance skill covers. The reason you have generated so many posts is, I think, because you have posted several things like this that indicate you simply do no understand the rules, and don't care to understand them, almost trollishly so, and are trying to promote a questionable house rule as the way things should work based on a narrow misreading of the wording of the rules, here in the rules forum. I'm not sure if I should congratulate you or what.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Just a general reminder about civility, folks...

-Hyp.
(Moderator)

 

[FireLance]

Another thought about taking 20, from the perspective of certainty and uncertainty in a game. Uncertainty usually adds to the tension and enjoyment about a game. Sometimes, however, it drags the game and makes the players bored and irritable.

The examples I can think of are parts of dungeons sealed off behind secret or locked doors. Once the players have explored everywhere else, are you going to make them roll until they can get past the lock or find the secret door? To my mind, I'd rather skip multiple iterations of:

"I rolled [number from 1 to 19], do I find anything/pick the lock?"
"No, do you want to try again?"

and get right to the action. I don't see that it accomplishes anything but wasting time.

This is especially bad if the player doesn't know whether he's failed because the DC is too high for him to ever accomplish, and he should try something else, or if he's just suffering from a run of terrible luck. Before 3e introduced the take 20 mechanic, I had far too many games descend into a spiral of boredom because the players just weren't sure.

Finally, from a game design perspective (as a DM) I put things in an adventure for the PCs to find and interact with. If the PCs miss out on something because it's behind a secret door that they flubbed a Search check for, the time I spent designing it was wasted, in my view. I recognize that not everyone would share my philosophy, though.

 

[knifespeaks]

Well, because I enjoy debate and I also enjoy trying new things I am going to start using the take 10 and 20 rules.

If it's easy and (imo) it works, then I can admit I was wrong!

I think many of you take opposing points of view way to seriously But I still have 0 level sailors with +10 climb

Oh, and Hyp? Wallabies > AB's

 

[Coredump]

The point which I am making, and which seems you don't like is simply that nothing should ever be certain.

And I agree. The players *should* have uncertainty, it is more realistic. So lets try a scenario...searching a room.

Player searches, and the DM rolls behind a screen
Find nothing
try again...roll...find nothing
try again...nothing
again...nothing
again...nothing
etc
etc
etc

Now, the player hasn't found anything, but doesn't know if that is because there is nothing there, or just because he couldn't find it there. Uncertainty exists.


A new room
player searches again, DM rolls behind a screen
Player finds nothing.
PLayer says "I take 20"
DM says 'you find nothing'
Again the player *doesn't know* if nothing is there, or if he just didn't find anything.
Lets assume a search skill of +8. It could be that there is nothing there, or it could be that an item was there with a DC of 30. The player wouldn't know what the DC was, so the player doesn't know if anything is still hidden or not. Uncertainty exists.



Now, there *is* one problem with the take 20 IMO. The players do know that they have done the best they could. The do know that there is nothing there that they can find.
Picture playing a video game, and it is a tough level. You may try it over and over and over. But what if someone told you that it was unwinnable with the powers you had. You would stop trying.... because you would *know* it was beyond you.
Which is why I kinda like the method put forth earlier, by making a percentile roll based on the time spent. Unfortunately, that would entail a *lot* more math, or a lot more rolling. Take 20 may be a decent trade off.

.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Oh, and Hyp? Wallabies > AB's

You would be stunned at how little I care

-Hyp.

 

[Li Shenron]

But just for the record, I must state that in my own campaigns, I wouldn't allow players to solve a riddle just because their *characters* make an intelligence check.

I don't over-criticise your way because I know of many gamers which don't like having to roll things that they believe should still depend on the player more than the PC.

I prefer to keep rolls, otherwise those players which are NOT very good at solving riddle - or roleplaying a diplomacy/bluff/intimidate attempt - and spent points to increase their PC's abilities in these, are going to be sad that they wasted those resources.

At the same time I ALWAYS leave players the chane to get circumstance bonuses when they have a good idea - and actually that happen all the time.

In the specific case of riddles (although it's quite a long time since the last one...) I always FIRST let the player have fun with the riddle and try to solve it - and if the riddle's very hard, I think it's best to tell the riddle at the end of a session, so that they have days to think about it. Obviously it's much more fun to solve the riddle this way.
But if the DON'T manage to solve it, I definitely grant their PC an Int check. If this doesn't succeed as well, they can choose to either find another way to continue the adventure, or even to spend more time thinking about the riddle, and maybe they'll get another roll next day (or I could even allow to Take20 in 20 days in this case). You may think this is unfair, because succees is almost guaranteed, but depending on the circumstances it may ot be unfair at all, especially if the only way to go on in the story is to solve the riddle.

 

[Ranes]

Interesting post, Li. Possibly the wrong thread? Maybe I missed something. Ah, who cares, it was a good read.

Well, because I enjoy debate and I also enjoy trying new things I am going to start using the take 10 and 20 rules.

If it's easy and (imo) it works, then I can admit I was wrong!

No! Please, keep arguing instead. It's much more fun.

 

[irdeggman]

PHB pg 62 Using Skills.

“Circumstances can affect your check. A character who is free to work without distraction can make a careful attempt and avoid simple mistakes. A character who has lots of time can try over and over again, thereby assuring the best outcome.”


The thing to remember is that it is only an auto success if a success was possible in the first place. The PHB also has discussion on impossible and practically impossible situations. These are the ones that matter.

If as knifespeaks wishes he wants to roll for his players then he must first determine if it is even possible to determine what they want to with a skill check. If it isn't then just randomly roll some dice (if you don't want to let the player's know they can't find anything the way they are going about it) and say they can't find anything.

IMO I agree with the statement (a long long time ago) that a failure is the same as not being able to make a success and the result the tell the player's is "You didn't find anything". If they took 20 then they might get the hint that either there is nothing to be found or they are going about it wrong. This is an important thing to accomplish. If you make them constantly roll they (the players) will never have a clue that there is something else they should be doing and will just get frustrated and give up - thus ruining the story.

No taking 20 (and 10) have an important part in advancing a game and reducing the amount of time required to supply players with hints to continue on.

 

[dcollins]

Waaa-ait, wait. So you're telling me that even though a natural 20 is an automatic success for attack rolls and saves, that if I'm trying to Search for a trap, say, then even if I roll a natural 20, I might not find it?

Assuming the DC is high enough?

Man. They should have put that in the rules.

-Hyp.

LOL,