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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Arrowhawk" data-source="post: 5705427" data-attributes="member: 6679551">I'll give it one more go with you, then I give up.The first and most obvious problem here is you don't understand the underlying principle behind the T20 rule.  Because of that, every subsequent interpretation is wrong.The T20 rule is an exchange/contract/back alley agreement provided by the game between the Player and the DM for the sake of speeding up game play.  If there were no T 20 rule ...it might take you 100 rolls to get on 20.  It could theoretically take you a 1000 rolls to get one 20.  It would thus be retarded for the game not to provide some workaround.   So the game says, let's just assume you make 20 attempts because you have a 1/20 chance of getting a 20.  If it were a 1/15 chance, it would be a Take 15.  Do you comprehend this?Because this a probabilistic shortcut, or simulation, you don't know precisely when you got the 20.  All we care about is that at some point, we will concede that you rolled a 20.  And technically, it doesn't even have to be a 20...it can be any number on the die.  So the agreement is that regardless of whether you would have gotten it on the 1st roll or the 1000th roll, we'll just say that on average (thought it's higher than that), you would have rolled your target number after 20 rolls....why? Because you have a 1/20 chance of rolling an specific number.If you don't understand this...then I can see how you think there has to be 19 failures in a row.  But that has no basis in probability or reality.  Why would  you create a rule that specifically calls for 19 failures in a row and then lets the player always succeed on the very last roll?  That is irrational.  What is rational and very good game design is to provide the players a mechanic to forgoe the uncertainty of physically rolling in exchange for a guaranteed result...but at a logical cost.  That cost is having to try it 20 times and ignore the fact that you might have technically succeeded on the very first attempt.Your example below underscores the fact that you aren't grasping the math.  If a character needed a 15-20 to succeed, that would be a 1/4 chance of succeeding, then having him Take 4 to simulate what happens if he had rolled would be consistent with the rule.  Is this the most believe or objectively fair way to handle the situation...who cares.  The point is that it saves the human players a lot of time to avoid the situations where it takes them way more than 20 attempts to get a 20.  Hell, in real time, it's faster than if the player had to roll twice to get a 20.The more you keep insisting that the 20 is deemed to be rolled on the very last attempt, the more you're demonstrating a failure to grasp the mechanic at work at its most basic level.I'm almost positive this won't click for you...so I won't continue to try and convince you other wise.</blockquote>

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