Stopping take 20 Searching.

[Kast]

If the problem is the time it takes to "take 20", that can't really be solved with a rule. The effect of time passing IG is completely dependent on each situation.

My problem with taking 20 is not the time, it's that it has removed all random chance from the outcome. They either always find the item/trap/door, or they never find it. To add this random element back in, whenever the PC can "take 20", the player instead makes a normal skill check and then adds 10 to the result. That on average equates to about the same as "taking 20" but it allows for a more random distribution of the outcome.

 

[ElvishBard]

Well, the solution I have is to simply use more wilderness adventures. Unless they decide that the trees and leaves look a little too green and start searching them it should totally remove your problem. Then when the session or adventure or whatever you make it is over you can remind them that the wilderness adventure went so much faster and was a better experience because they didn't have to waste their time searching every last thing they found.

 

[Trickstergod]

The impossible DC is your friend (though slightly railroadish).

Precisely my point.

It railroads.

I like randomness. It is my friend. I don't like things going according to plan. I like reacting to the PC's, not having them react to me. I enjoy having almost as much uncertainty as what's going to happen next as the PC's.

I like for a really lucky roll to "screw" things up. One of the most exciting things that can happen during a game, in my opinion, is when things are so very much against the PC's succeeding, yet then they roll a natural 20 and, pow! They beat the odds.

A lot of the joy in D&D is the uncertainty. Entire plots can be sprung from a natural 1 at just the wrong moment.

Thus why I'm not keen on taking 20; very little is entirely guaranteed.

While I'm at it, on top of the natural 1 reducing taking 20 to taking 15 (or less), natural 20's add +5 to the total roll for my games.

The circumstances where I might want this to occur don't necessarily happen regularly, but when they do crop up, I don't want to suddenly need to change things.

The impossible DC doesn't exist in my game, more or less, just as taking 20 is also diminished.

 

[Len]

Ways to limit or discourage Taking 20 for Search Checks:

6. After the rogue takes 20 on a few rooms, ask the players how much food their characters are carrying.

I play a rogue, I like the take-20 rule, and I don't abuse it because I know that my DM keeps track (at least roughly) of how much time is passing. If we take too long he'll remind us to rest, or ask how much food we have, or conjure up some wandering monsters.

We nearly starved in "Ex Libris".

 

[Abraxas]

Just a couple comments.

1) In my experience to date, the "take 20 everywhere" mentality comes up because players get screwed once to often by not taking 20. (play any of the Goodman games modules, there is stuff hidden every-freakin-where, some good, some bad, and some needed to not get killed by the bugaboo in the next room)

2) For those who dislike the binary found/didn't find element, I have seen the following system used. The hidden thing has a static DC and a random modifier die set by the DM. For example: This particular hidden door may have a static DC of 30 and a modfier die of 1d6. The searching character has 13 ranks in search and takes 20. When the player takes 20 the DM rolls the modifier die and adds it to the static DC and compares that adjusted DC to the searchers mod+20. In this example the PC finds it on a roll of 1-3 and doesn't on a roll of 4-6. By modifying the Static DC and Modifier die you can have just about any chance of success you desire.

 

[Psychic Warrior]

Originally Posted by Zappo
it means that if you take 20 when searching you will spring any and all traps

There's a solution for you!!

And a damned fine one it is. You'd only have to use that one once and you'd never have anyone 'taking 20' again. Save it for the Tomb of Horrors though.

 

[painandgreed]

I'd let them take 20 but there's no way I'd let them get away with some of the time scales that have been mentioned here. 2 minutes per square? Whatever. Maybe for a featureless stone corridor that has no seams, blocks or morter. Taking 20 to me means doing everything you can think of to search in that room. That means picking every single item up, looking it over, and putting it off to once side that has already been seaarched and continuing on. If there is many things to look at in the room it's going to take a long time. All furniture will have to be moved. All cabinets and bookcases emptied, inspected, and moved if possible. Floorboards pulled up. Stones pried out. Etc. that's going to take time. In a storeroom or library, hours or days will have to be spent to inspect everything. So, my solution for this is to say that each successive search would take more time as in each search, they're going to have to get more and more detailed which is going to take more and more time. The first search roll might only take a round ( and I doubt I'd ever give them that time scale for anything larger or more complex than an unclutered tabletop). The second would probably take a minute in just stopping and looking around for places they might have missed and thinking about the problem. To take 20 would take longer than 20 times their initial attempt in something like that.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

PCs not taking 20 on Search when they aren't pressured is just flatly stupid, as far as I can see.

Someone brought up airport security. PCs aren't the airport security of their age; they're the crack special forces! And for what it's worth, airport security must have a pretty high average Search check if it doesn't Take 20 99% of the time.

If they walk out of a cleared complex without searching every inch of the thing, and they have either an Int or Wis over 14 among them - that's metagamey and unrealistic. They don't fight their way through a series of deadly encounters to walk away without getting what they came for.

Randomness should only come into play when the PCs are in a pressure situation, especially after they have a few levels under their belts. A task like searching should be automatic nine times out of ten. The PCs should only have a chance to fail at something so mundane and boring if there's something going on that makes it intense and interesting. That something isn't "the goblin hid his gems reeeeealy good," it's "the goblin raiding party is coming back in less than an hour and we have to kill the shaman before they get back!"

 

[Mark]

And a damned fine one it is. You'd only have to use that one once and you'd never have anyone 'taking 20' again. Save it for the Tomb of Horrors though.

Wicked.

 

[Mark]

PCs not taking 20 on Search when they aren't pressured is just flatly stupid, as far as I can see.

Maybe. The point is definitely to keep the pressure up, IMO.