Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
ShortQuests -- Pocket Sized Adventures! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed for 1-2 game sessions.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="eryndel" data-source="post: 1412292" data-attributes="member: 13120"><threadjack>I think this says it most succinctly.  The criteria implied in the rules as to whether a roll has a negative consequence is if a failure of one roll would cause that negative consequence to occur before you have a chance to reroll.  Strictly speaking, taking 20 is just spending enough time to get an actual die roll of 20 (which, on average, should take 20 times as long.)  If a character so chose to instead of taking 20, just sit there and roll until he got a 20 and have no negative ramification until he got that 20, he should be allowed to just take 20.  You can't take 20 while jumping over a chasm because if you fail the roll, down you go and you have to deal with the ramifications therein.  You can't take 20 if you try to disable a trap because the trap goes off if you fail.  You can't take 20 on diplomacy check because rerolls don't improve your results.  You can take 20 to jump up to a high branch of a tree assuming that there is no body present who wants to attack you.   You can take 20 on a seach roll as long as there is nothing hostile nearby because, if your give enough time, you can look as long as you want in a place.Real world example.  I've gone and lost my keys.  I take a round to take a quick look over my desk, table, what have you.  Don't spot them.  Well, I didn't really go through all the folders on my desk so I spend another round going through there.  No luck.  Hmmm, maybe they slipped behind the desk, I make another search roll but still don't find it.  Well, I'm running late already, so I decide to do a thorough search of my office (10x10 room). Taking 20 on this should take 12 minutes.  15 minutes and a thorough search later I give up, and go elsewhere.  Sure enough, their sitting in the key box.Now, if there was an orc looking to kill me, all bets are off.</threadjack>Werner</blockquote>

Verification