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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bawylie" data-source="post: 7583211" data-attributes="member: 6776133">I hear you. Once I ask for a roll, I don’t count a result of 1 as an automatic fail. But there are things that cannot succeed on their own merit regardless of a result of the die roll. Just as there are no automatic failures, there are no automatic successes as a result of a check. But before we ask for a check, we determine whether or not a proposed action is possible, or if it can’t possibly fail. Let me give you an example - no matter how hard a character tries, they can’t seduce a stone. They may put on their finest clothes, deliver their very best pickup line, and put on enough charm to make Aphrodite blush, but the stone will never be into it. So we don’t need a check of any kind. Once we accept there are some actions that don’t need checks because they cannot possibly succeed, we acknowledge also that there are some that cannot possibly fail. Very little will prevent a character from opening an unlocked, unguarded, unwarded door. You can jump an inch without a roll. But you’ll never jump to the moon no matter what you roll. Naturally those are absurdities to illustrate the point. I think there’s no real debate at these extremes. “You can’t jump to the moon or seduce a stone” isn’t controversial. But there are likewise other things that are more reasonable but still can’t succeed. No matter how thoroughly you search my sofa, you won’t find any coins (I already got them). No matter how hard you look for a trap that isn’t there, you cannot find it. And nobody will ask for a dexterity check for tying your shoes. Nor would anyone reasonably ask for a strength check to climb a knotted rope down 10 feet. There’s no auto-fail for skill checks. But there’s no entitlement to one either. That’s a judgment call, and therefore belongs to the DM.</blockquote>

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