Skill checks and Aid Another

[darthkilmor]

Or the example of Spell Craft. First off, there could be HUNDREDS of first level spells in a given campaign, some of them mysterious and unique. But nope. Joe Wizard knows them all, even ones he has never encountered before, just because the rules say so.

Probably because he has such a fundamental understanding of magic, that he can figure out the effect of the spell, he might not know its called "KarinsDads Flashing Pop-Crackle Summon-o-Matic!" but he knows whats going to happen. form the V/S components.

 

[Storm Raven]

Yes (and btw, to tumble through an opponent's square, you need +24, not +14).

There should be a failure chance for all activities, especially in the chaos of combat.

Let's take the example of Tumble Through.

It does not matter HOW skilled your opponent is in combat, your chances of Tumbling Through are exactly identical (and 100% at +24).

Your opponent could be a halfling commoner, or the King of the Dragons and it matters not.

Inadequate and poorly designed rules exist in the game.

I'm glad we got your prejudices and idiosyncratic ideas about the game into the open so that your inherent crankiness can place your criticisms in proper context. Basically, you don't want an answer. You want to whine and gripe. The answer is right there staring you in the face. Several reasonable interpretations have been given, by mutliple posters. But that's not enough.

Because you just want to whine and gripe. Because they didn't give the answer you wanted. Because it is now clear that you have no point, and that your arguments and criticisms of the options given have no substance, and are based purely on preconceptions that are rooted in neither reality, or the rules of the game.

 

[Storm Raven]

Or the example of Spell Craft. First off, there could be HUNDREDS of first level spells in a given campaign, some of them mysterious and unique. But nope. Joe Wizard knows them all, even ones he has never encountered before, just because the rules say so.

That would be what circumstance modifiers are for. Gosh, who would have thunk the rules had a mechanic for dealing with unusual circumstances, and called it a "circumstance modifier"?

 

[Li Shenron]

Assuming that any conditions are met (has ranks in trained only skills, etc) which skills do you NOT allow the aid another action.

Generally speaking, I do not allow Aid on skills which are reactions or a purely mental "action" at all, such as Listen/Spot, Sense Motive, Concentration, Knowledge.

I generally allow Aid with physical actions, as long as they are actions and not reactions (albeit some occasional exception is possible) and as long as the aid comes in the same form as the action to be aided.
For instance, I don't allow aiding to Jump with another jump check. In a particular case like someone attempting to jump over a ledge and a friend putting his hands together to "sling" him upwards, I would allow an Aid but it would not be a Jump check itself for example.

It definitely depends on the situation however. I allow Aid with interaction skills only when they cover an extended time: yes to a diplomacy check to represent an hour of discussion, no to a bluff check to tell a single lie.

As you see, there's no general rule in my games. That's purposeful, because if I had a general skill-by-skill rule, it would break down so easily every other situation.

 

[Storm Raven]

Generally speaking, I do not allow Aid on skills which are reactions or a purely mental "action" at all, such as Listen/Spot, Sense Motive, Concentration, Knowledge.

I wouldn't allow Aid Another on passive Listen or Spot checks, but might on active ones where the characters are working together to try to see or listen for a particular thing. I probably wouldn't on most Concentration checks, but might if they were engaged in some sort of meditation excercise as a group. I probably wouldn't on Sense Motive, unless the checks was drawn out over a period of time, or the characters had a good way of passing their suspicions to one another.

But Knowledge checks? Those are almost made for Aid Another. Working together to solve a problem, or jog one another's memory to recall a particular fact or detail seems to me to be an obvious application of the Aid Another action.

 

[Artoomis]

...There should be a failure chance for all activities, especially in the chaos of combat....

That, right there, is a fundamental misconception of the D&D game. Only attack rolls and saving throws ALWAYS have a chance of failure - or success, for that matter.

Skill checks can automatically fail (or succeed) if the PC's modifier too low (or high enough) for the skill activity being attempted.

That's a fundamental concept for 3.5 D&D.

If you don't like it, well, you don't have to play that way in your games, but that's how the rules are written.

On the other hand, there are indeed times when "aid another" will not work. The rules tell us when that is - primarily "you can’t aid another to grant a bonus to a task that your character couldn’t achieve alone." This certainly could be read to say that if the task requires a DC 35 and you can't possibly achieve that, then you also can't help to get someone else's score that high because there is no way you could do the task alone. This handles the situation that seems to concern you about how an expert won't be helped by a rank amateur.

There is also a judgment call on whether "a character’s help won’t be beneficial" or how many characters can actually help. For example, the solo singer who gets prompts from someone in the audience as discussed previously. That might work just fine on aid another, but probably only one character can help - multiple characters won't matter because you can only really get your cues from one at a time. That's a judgment call.

Mostly, though, at least one character should be able to try and help unless it really defies all reasonable suspension of belief that it might be possible (or, of course, they could not do the task alone - as described above).

 

[Artoomis]

I'm glad we got your...

Whoa, there, Storm. I don't think Eric's grandmother would approve of your tone. There are nicer ways to say the same thing and some otherwise worthy discussions have been shut down by moderators over harsh responses like that.

Just a kindly word, is all.

P.S. I intentionally did not quote much of you post so you could go back, maybe, and tone it down a bit, perhaps. Like I said, I'm not a moderator; consider this to be fellow "posters" watching out for each other and self-policing before the moderators step in and do it for us.

 

[Artoomis]

I wouldn't allow Aid Another on passive Listen or Spot checks, but might on active ones where the characters are working together to try to see or listen for a particular thing. I probably wouldn't on most Concentration checks, but might if they were engaged in some sort of meditation excercise as a group. I probably wouldn't on Sense Motive, unless the checks was drawn out over a period of time, or the characters had a good way of passing their suspicions to one another.

But Knowledge checks? Those are almost made for Aid Another. Working together to solve a problem, or jog one another's memory to recall a particular fact or detail seems to me to be an obvious application of the Aid Another action.

I agree. I think this pretty well describes what I call when aiding another "really defies all reasonable suspension of belief that it might be possible."

 

[Eridanis]

Let's keep the tone conversational, not confrontational. Thank you.

 

[Artoomis]

Let's keep the tone conversational, not confrontational. Thank you.

I hope my post (#37) was not taken as confontational. That's always a risk in making that sort of post.