Take 20 on Open Lock?

[hoyerhan]

double post...

 

[Hypersmurf]

I believe this is where the disagreements lies. A Search check for 2 minutes would correspond to 20 checks. However, 20 checks doesn't automatically mean that you have trown a 20 on your dice.

No, it doesn't. But it's the game mechanic that represents taking the time to do something thoroughly and with care, to the very best of your ability.

A 6-second search does not. A 6-second search might be good enough as a first pass when you have a whole building to check for a bomb. After all, it's easier to spot a bomb than a pinhole, most likely.

But when you're trying to figure out if that bomb is booby-trapped? You're not going to rush it. You're going to take your time examining everything carefully, following the by-the-book procedure.

That's Taking 20.

-Hyp.

 

[LokiDR]

Take 20 has nothing to do with whether you know there is something there or not. It simply represents doing the action so many times that you elimate the luck portions of action.

If you search something well, you are choosing not to take any penalties on your roll. You are using your full skill. Take 20 is like searching over and over untill you are absolutely sure. You take the guesswork out of it. You can think of it as trying over and over or as being incredably anal and meticulus. Either way, the result is that you are elimating the chances you missed something. The only way to do better is to learn a new way to search or have better tools.

 

[Metalsmith]

I rule that you can take a 20, but you must still roll on any open lock check.

Natural 1, lock is jammed and must be broken off with a 50% chance you broke your lock pick, unless it's masterwork.

Sillyness. I just wouldn't use Lockpicks in your Campaign and suck up the -2 penalty for not using tools.
But anyway, The House Rule Forum is over there <Points>

Metalsmith

 

[Trainz]

I understand Hyp's POV, and I agree with it from a rules POV.

However...

By making Search a take 20 skill, you actually encourage you players to do it all the time. Meaning, when you design the dungeon, you will put secret doors that fall within the max skill roll of the player with the best search skill. They will always find the secret door.

But you want to put some challenge right ? So you put a secret door that is outside the search skill range. Thus making it impossible to find. Thus preventing the players from accessing a certain section of the dungeon.

Of course, you will not do that, so all secret doors will fall within a search skill. Why, then, max search, since the DM has to make sure that at least one of the players falls within the secret door DC.

This is over-rationalizing, of course, but you can understand the meta-mechanic that allowing take 20 on search can create...

 

[Hypersmurf]

By making Search a take 20 skill, you actually encourage you players to do it all the time. Meaning, when you design the dungeon, you will put secret doors that fall within the max skill roll of the player with the best search skill. They will always find the secret door.

Only if the characters have the time to devote to spending two minutes on every single 5 foot square.

Maybe there's slow flooding going on. Maybe they have to save the princess before the sacrifice at midnight. Maybe the trolls are coming.

Maybe they have to get to the next encounter before the 1 min/level 3.5 Bull's Strength wears off

If you're chasing the evil necromancer, and you hear the grating of stone-on-stone in the room he just ran into, and when you follow him into the room, he's gone... you know that somewhere, there's a secret door.

In a 30'x30' room with a 10 foot ceiling, there are 48 5' squares in the walls alone, and 36 5' squares on the floor, and 36 5' squares on the ceiling.

It takes an elf about three rounds - 18 seconds - to do a circuit of the room, 'elfing' for secret doors.

It takes a rogue 18 rounds - not quite 2 minutes - to do a quick once-over on the three walls that don't adjoin the corridor he just came from, at ground level.

It takes a rogue 120 rounds - 12 minutes - to do a quick check of every single one of those 5' squares, lower wall, upper wall, ceiling, and floor.

To Take 20 would take four hours.

In four hours, the necromancer can raise a new undead army...

You don't always have the luxury of time to Take 20 on every search.

-Hyp.

 

[Trainz]

You make quite a valid point, and I did think about those things before clicking send...

But you have to admit, the situations you describe are the exception, not the norm. You cannot make your PC's go beat-the-clock all the time. Sometimes you do it for a moment of suspense, and it works just fine, but most of the time, the PC's delve at a leasurely pace.

Now, with that in mind, how do you analyze the points that I brought up, mainly:

Trainz: By making Search a take 20 skill, you actually encourage you players to do it all the time. Meaning, when you design the dungeon, you will put secret doors that fall within the max skill roll of the player with the best search skill. They will always find the secret door.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Sometimes you do it for a moment of suspense, and it works just fine, but most of the time, the PC's delve at a leasurely pace.

Perhaps, but remember, to Take 20 on Searching every 5' square requires 4 hours for one 30x30x10 room.

So either they aren't going to search every single square that way... or you have a more extreme definition of "leisurely" than I'm used to

Now think like a crazed and cunning architect of a secret-passage-ridden dungeon. Figure out where the most obvious, sensible, and traditional places to put secret doors are.

Behind the altar/throne/statue. In the closet of the high priest's bedchamber. In the floor beneath the carpet in the great hall.

Don't put any secret doors there.

Figure out where the very, very least obvious places are.

Don't put any secret doors there either.

Now find somewhere between the two.

That's where your secret doors go.

Since there's nothing unusual about the location of the door - the people who use it just know it's there - the characters will only be Taking 20 to Search there in one of three situations:

1. They have reason to believe it's there - the evil necromancer disappeared somewhere in this unexceptional hallway.
2. They're Searching everything. Which can easily take days.
3. They have a hunch. Not much you can do about that

And in any of those three situations, I don't mind at all that a person with a good Search score is guaranteed to find it by Taking 20.

But if they want to take things at a reasonable pace - one or two rounds per square, tops - they need to max out that Search skill, and hope for decent rolls.

-Hyp.

 

[Trainz]

In light of what you just said (and your brilliant eloquence), I must agree. You can bet your tuchis those random encounter checks will be going like crazy when they spend hours taking 20 in those rooms.

Thanks for the enlightened perspective.

Now lets go sleep, shall we ? It's almost midnight here...

 

[Celtavian]

Perhaps, but remember, to Take 20 on Searching every 5' square requires 4 hours for one 30x30x10 room.

So either they aren't going to search every single square that way... or you have a more extreme definition of "leisurely" than I'm used to

Now think like a crazed and cunning architect of a secret-passage-ridden dungeon. Figure out where the most obvious, sensible, and traditional places to put secret doors are.

Behind the altar/throne/statue. In the closet of the high priest's bedchamber. In the floor beneath the carpet in the great hall.

Don't put any secret doors there.

Figure out where the very, very least obvious places are.

Don't put any secret doors there either.

Now find somewhere between the two.

That's where your secret doors go.

Since there's nothing unusual about the location of the door - the people who use it just know it's there - the characters will only be Taking 20 to Search there in one of three situations:

1. They have reason to believe it's there - the evil necromancer disappeared somewhere in this unexceptional hallway.
2. They're Searching everything. Which can easily take days.
3. They have a hunch. Not much you can do about that

And in any of those three situations, I don't mind at all that a person with a good Search score is guaranteed to find it by Taking 20.

But if they want to take things at a reasonable pace - one or two rounds per square, tops - they need to max out that Search skill, and hope for decent rolls.

-Hyp.

Do you DM that often Hypersmurf? The way you view the rules it makes me wonder. Your rules interpretations make make you appear as though you are a player who knows the rules really well with little to no experience running players in any kind of long-term substantial campaign. I could be wrong, but that is how it seems to me.

As a longtime DM, I know with absolute certainty that players would take 20 every single time on a Search check for traps if I let them. The only time they wouldn't do this if I put them in a pressing situation where it was not possible to take 20. A situation that would limit the time to make a Search check for traps is rare. I don't want the Search skill to be useless or minor. It would be a marginalized skill if I follwed the exact interpretation of the Take 20 rule.