Take ten...

[Tatsukun]

Well, alright

So consider this: a second level party facing a 5 foot chasm 40 feet deep. DC to jump it (in 3.5) is 5. Big deal, right? However, as another player pointed out, every member in the party still had at least a 5% chance of rolling a 1 and falling to their deaths. We d each have to cross it at least twice.

Well, I admit that upon further reflection part of the reason I was grumpy about taking ten was that my players zipped past my really cool trap. I went and designed a neat-o extending bridge (complete with password) and these guys just jumped over it. DOH! OK, I will get over it, <begins mantra "I don't have to kill all the PC's every game, I don't have to kill all the PC's every game...>

Similarly, not allowing Take 10 makes spells overly powerful. A mid level rogue risks death (5% chance) every time he Climbs a rope down from a high building, but a stupid second level Spider climb, and the mage can do it 100% safely and twice as fast. Doesn t that take away from the fun of playing a Rogue?

Well, a skill should almost never be as good as a spell. That's why spells are limited to a number of times per day. But I see what you are saying. Maybe in my heart of hearts I am just a lazy *#$&@*% and don't want to have to think of ALL the circumstance modifiers, it's easier to roll !

For contested skills like Hide, most Rogues can Take 10 and consistently slip past mook sentries Taking 10. Big deal. Can the Fighter in full plate? The cleric? So the Rogue will be ALL ALONE. In any case, he wont be able to Take 10 and sneak past an elven Ranger Taking 10.

That's why I'm leery though. The Rogue's job is to sneak around and see stuff. The fighters job is to swing a sword at stuff. The fighter faces a random risk about a thousand times a day (attacking, being attacked, saves, etc.) while with taking ten the rogue faces almost no risk. The only risk he faces is getting himself in over his head (because he doesn't know the DC).

As Ottergame pointed out to me, THIS is what makes a Rogue sneaking around exciting / tense. He does indeed have a random chance involved because he has to guess/judge just how hard something is to do.

All and all, now that I have heard everyone, and remembered about the DC's being unknown, and thought about WHY I didn’t like taking 10, I think I am over it.

Thank you to everyone who helped my get my head around this.

-Tatsu

 

[Sir Whiskers]

Generally I encourage players to Take 10 - it dramatically speeds up the game and avoids those absurd situations where a character fails a simple check - like the ranger who can't tie a simple knot in a rope. That begins to look more like Keystone Kops than heroes. I've adopted the house rule that unless the players say otherwise, I assume they (and NPC's) are Taking 10 when doing mundane tasks.

This raises the important consideration of when to give the PC's the option to roll checks and when do NPC's roll (vs. Take 10). If everyone always Takes 10, the system becomes static, so sometimes I'll have the NPC roll - the NPC may not win most of the time, but he will enough to add some suspense. If it's just haggling, I won't bother. If the character is trying to steal the merchant's purse, time to roll dice! The character can still Take 10 - and hope the NPC doesn't roll well. Or he can roll, and hope he doesn't roll badly.

BTW, the choice of Taking 10 or rolling doesn't actually change the odds significantly: the average roll is 10.5, just 2.5% better than Take 10. Having the character roll just gives the player a sense of greater control. Of course, if Take 10 won't succeed (for instance when trying to pick a lock), then the character has no choice if he wants to succeed.

 

[rhammer2]

For the record, the variant of 1=-10 and 20=30 is to replace the 1=failure and 20=success. You should only be doing this on attack rolls and saves, skill rolls should always use 1=1 and 20=20.

...
For the record, we play with a Natural 20 equal to a role of 30, and a Natural 1 equal to –10. So consider this: a second level party facing a 5 foot chasm 40 feet deep. DC to jump it (in 3.5) is 5. Big deal, right? However, as another player pointed out, every member in the party still had at least a 5% chance of rolling a 1 and falling to their deaths. We d each have to cross it at least twice.
...

 

[Quasqueton]

I've been rather surprised that my Players *don't* take 10 more often. I use take 10 for my NPCs quite often, even on many opposed rolls.

In a campaign I played in a while back, I used to want to take 10 with my monk's skills all the time. But the DM seemed annoyed by that, and disallowed take 10 for opposed rolls. I figured it would have been much easier for him when I tried to stealth my way past the bad guys -- "I take 10 on hide and move silently, so that makes them both 18." But no, he wanted me to roll every time. So when my monk and the party rogue did our stealth thing, we'd have my monk's hide at 14 and move at 21, and the rogue's hide at 17 and move at 20.

And with spot and listen checks for the whole group -- oh my god. 5 PCs with two rolls each compared to the multiple rolls of the bad guys. It would have been much simpler to just let us take 10 on those and roll only the bad guys' stealth attempts.

Quasqueton

 

[Sir Whiskers]

I've been rather surprised that my Players *don't* take 10 more often. I use take 10 for my NPCs quite often, even on many opposed rolls.

In a campaign I played in a while back, I used to want to take 10 with my monk's skills all the time. But the DM seemed annoyed by that, and disallowed take 10 for opposed rolls. I figured it would have been much easier for him when I tried to stealth my way past the bad guys -- "I take 10 on hide and move silently, so that makes them both 18." But no, he wanted me to roll every time. So when my monk and the party rogue did our stealth thing, we'd have my monk's hide at 14 and move at 21, and the rogue's hide at 17 and move at 20.

And with spot and listen checks for the whole group -- oh my god. 5 PCs with two rolls each compared to the multiple rolls of the bad guys. It would have been much simpler to just let us take 10 on those and roll only the bad guys' stealth attempts.

Quasqueton

Agree 100%.

 

[Stalker0]

Take 10 is great for two reasons:

1) Speed up gameplay. You go from:

You go near the bridge "spot checks" alright you see... you cross the bridge "spot checks" you see

to

You go near the bridge and see so and so after crossing you notice blah blah.

2) Consistency.

Once the players get a few levels, I don't have to worry about them missing something obvious (and important to my plot). Good ninjas back in the imperial days didn't get past the shmo guards 9 out of 10, they did it 10 out of 10 or they died... so should a somewhat leveled pc. It also allows the keen eyes of the ranger to always get the obvious stuff when the low wis fighter doesn't... because he should its what he does.

If you feel taking 10 takes away some of the excitement from the game, use it until it matters. For instance, Bonnie can get by the common smo no problem, don't even roll. But once she sees the imperial guards, she tenses up (count it as a distraction). Make her roll to get by.

Finally, I think I wrapped up the distraction debate with that last paragraph, distractions are in the eye of the beholder. A person who can long jump in their sleep is not going to feel distracted by a 5 foot pit. A person who has slinked by well trained soldiers isn't going to feel distracted moving past a commoner.

 

[Vaxalon]

Stealth is an excellent situation for using take ten.

I usually roll for the sentries, and have the infiltrators take ten, but if the PC's are the infiltrators, I'll tell them the DC based on the sentry's bonuses and have them roll.

Secret #43 of the Iron DM: Let the players roll the dice as much as they can. They are fascinated by shiny moving objects.

 

[Warhoon]

Doesn't taking 10 (or 20, for that matter) increase the time it takes to actually do the job?

I always thought this was one of the ways the rules balanced this action -- the rogue takes 10 on his Search, but it takes him 10 times as long to cover the room.

 

[AuraSeer]

Doesn't taking 10 (or 20, for that matter) increase the time it takes to actually do the job?

That's a common misconception. Only taking 20 increases the time.

Taking 10 is one normal check, taking normal time. You're just not exerting yourself.

Taking 20 represents multiple checks, trying over and over again until you get it right. This takes 20 times as long as a regular check. (On a skill use that normally requires one round, you need two full minutes to take 20.)

 

[Lamoni]

Doesn't taking 10 (or 20, for that matter) increase the time it takes to actually do the job?

I always thought this was one of the ways the rules balanced this action -- the rogue takes 10 on his Search, but it takes him 10 times as long to cover the room.

Taking 20 takes 20 times as long. Taking 10 doesn't take any longer. Taking 20 assumes that you get a 1, 2, 3, etc. all the way up to 20. Taking a 10 just means you want to use your default or average roll. Actually it is slightly below average.

So, taking a 10 takes 6 seconds (for most tasks). And taking a 20 takes 2 minutes (again, for most tasks)

I really like the take 10 rule. It doesn't take any more time to do an average job at something. Taking a 10 only rules out the possibility of doing an exceptionally great job or an exceptionally poor job.

It is true that mistakes do happen, but they usually happen when you are trying extra hard to do something. If you are worried about making an iron pot for your mother and want to make it better than anything you have made before, you may be more apt to mess the whole thing up. If you want to try to jump further than you have ever jumped before, you may try so hard that you trip over your own feet. When you only try to do an average job, you will end up with an average job 99.5% of the time.