Taking 20 Too Often

[phindar]

Better yet, put in a big, obvious trap that isn't a trap, that doesn't do anything. "Search check 33? Well, you see no way for it to activate." That's a good way for the npcs to delay the party, or to get them to stop so they can ambush them.

 

[The Lost Muse]

Also, if they are taking 20 on Listen checks, a concentration check would be a good idea (as pointed out above), but also a Move Silently check - so that whomever they are eavesdropping on also has an opportunity to hear them

 

[Umbran]

My players take 20 on checks all the time, especially on Search and Listen checks.

Taking 20 on Listen checks usually wouldn't work. Taking 20 is taking extra time, and frequently failing before you actually succeed. If you aren't listening, and don't hear the noise at the time it is made, taking extra time to hear it isn't going to help. The opportunity has already passed. Only when there's a repeated or constant sound will Taking 20 work. Similarly for Spot checks.

Should I simply make it much more dangerous to take the time necessary for a "take 20"?

It should be just as dangerous as sitting down and playing a game of cards, or reading a book, and not paying attention to the hazardous area around you for the same time should be. If there's critters wandering around, they'll tend to surprise the characters.

 

[tzor]

I personally find taking 20 on search and listen checks exceptionally annoying because I believe that there is a flaw in the logic of when taking 20 should be allowed. Simply put, taking 20 is attempting to try and try again until you either succeed or realize that you can't ever possibly succeed. According to the SRD you can take 20 when, "the skill being attempted carries no penalties for failure." Personally I would like to add the following, "and you have a way to determine if you are successful."

Consider the following: You search the chest for traps. You do not find traps. Were you successful? Well, it was just as possible that you did indeed roll a 20 and there simply were no traps that you could detect at that level, or it could be possible that you just rolled another 1.

There is another problem with the taking 20 philosophy. It assumes that previous failures will have no impact on future attempts. Generally speaking that is false, although most of the times it is false in good way as in "well that didn't work so I'll do it differently this time." Searching, on the other hand, especially searching something you just searched is clearly not something where the fact that previously searching can be ignored or used to an avantage. If you missed something in the first search you will probably miss it again in a second search.

On the other hand, so what? Traps should be either the you can find them or you can't, and the later is probably too nasty for general play. It's not in the finding but in the disabling that the key to adventure lies. And since there is a penalty for failure you can't take 20 on disabling the trap. If you are setting up traps that need a roll of 18 to be found then the best way to keep them from being found is to prevent the take 20 the old fashioned way ... "you are faced with no threats or distractions" ...

"It appears that the dungeon has been infected with an odd magical virus."
"So that explains why we keep getting 'pop up' porn every minute."

 

[Thad Enouf]

I also have problems with the take 20 concept. I believe it crosses the line into metagaming, especially if the players are rolling in plain sight. "Oh, I rolled a 5 so I'll take 20 so I know I'll find something if it's there." You should either find/hear/spot something or you shouldn't. They should have just called it a mulligan or a "gimmie" because that's what I feel it is.

If the players are taking too long, however, I just bust out the random encounters table. "Sure, take as long as you want. I'll see if you are able to..." heh heh

 

[RFisher]

This becomes especially annoying when it comes to placing traps

I agree. I understand (& can even agree) with the arguments to the contrary, but it still annoyed me. So, the last time I ran 3e I eliminated take 20 & instituted the rule that retries imposed a cumulative -1 penalty. The DM could, of course, waive this penalty when he felt appropriate. It had the effect I wanted.

(The other thing I intended to try was replacing the d20 with a bell-curve roll for skill checks, which would have meant either eliminating or modifying the take 20 rule.)

Although, I think I may agree more with the "easy to find, hard to disarm" school of thought these days.

 

[Storm Raven]

I also have problems with the take 20 concept. I believe it crosses the line into metagaming, especially if the players are rolling in plain sight. "Oh, I rolled a 5 so I'll take 20 so I know I'll find something if it's there." You should either find/hear/spot something or you shouldn't. They should have just called it a mulligan or a "gimmie" because that's what I feel it is.

Why are the players rolling spot, listen, and search checks? My position when DMing is that any check for which failure is non-obvious to the character should be handled by me, in secret. The characters only know they spotted something when they spotted it, if they don't roll well enough, then they don't get any information. I also keep records of their bonuses to those kinds of skills on hand, so I don't have to tip my hand during a session by asking "what is your Spot bonus". Rolling a d20 a couple of times every now and then at random points during the session (for no reason at all) also helps keep the players off-balance.

 

[Pbartender]

Consider the following: You search the chest for traps. You do not find traps. Were you successful? Well, it was just as possible that you did indeed roll a 20 and there simply were no traps that you could detect at that level, or it could be possible that you just rolled another 1.

There is another problem with the taking 20 philosophy. It assumes that previous failures will have no impact on future attempts. Generally speaking that is false, although most of the times it is false in good way as in "well that didn't work so I'll do it differently this time." Searching, on the other hand, especially searching something you just searched is clearly not something where the fact that previously searching can be ignored or used to an avantage. If you missed something in the first search you will probably miss it again in a second search.

While I agree with this sentiment conerning Listen, I think Search is perfectly fine for Taking 20... Consider what a typical person does when they are almost late for work and have lost their car keys:

First, you go through the house, looking all the usual places... On the night stand, on the kitchen counters, on the dinner table, yesterday's pants pockets, and so forth. In other words, you Take 10.

You don't find the keys.

Next, you start taking a quick peek in the odd places... under the bed, in the sock drawer, behind the fridge, under the couch cushions. You now know that the DC to find your keys is higher than 10 + your Search bonus, so you roll the dice once or twice, hoping to succeed quickly with a natural dice roll that's higher than 10.

You still don't find the keys.

With no other option to ensure success, you systematically pull the house apart... You empty your dresser, drawer by drawer. You move all the furniture aside and sift through the dust bunnies. You hunt through the pockets of the dirty laundry one piece of clothing at a time. You even poke around in the U-bend of the toilet bowl. Just as you're about to give up and go out to the garage and start searching through your car, you find them hanging in the lock outside your front door. It took you almost all morning long and you're very late for work, but you finally found those keys. That's the sort of thing that Taking 20 on a Search check represents.

 

[Shadowslayer]

snip
You don't find the keys.
snip
You still don't find the keys.
snip
It took you almost all morning long and you're very late for work, but you finally found those keys. That's the sort of thing that Taking 20 on a Search check represents.

This example assumes you already know those keys are there somewhere. In that case I'd allow a take 20...maybe even a circumstance bonus. (with a wandering monster roll done by me of course.)

Personally, if the take 20 thing (and a lot of times it IS juat a free bypass) gets out of hand, thats when I tell em we'll start tracking stuff like in-dungeon time, light source durations, buffs etc. If they don't abuse Take 20, then we let a lot of that stuff slide in the name of keeping the game smooth.

Its sort of like an unspoken contract with the players for me. If you can do it, I can do it. That's fair.

 

[Schmoe]

One of my pet peeves is DMs who aren't comfortable with "taking 10" and "taking 20". A Search check takes 6 seconds. That's a quick search. If someone wants to take the time to do a more thorough job, why disallow that? How do you model taking more time? The rules already provide a mechanic, alternately re-rolling 20 times or "taking 20", so why re-invent the mechanic?

Taking 20 does not take away the risk of failure and doesn't give away "meta-game" information. Even if you take 20 on a Search check and don't find anything, that doesn't mean there's nothing to find. However, there's no penalty for not finding something, other than not finding it, so the situation is much different than, say, disarming a trap, where you may kill yourself before you successfully disarm it.

Same thing for other skills, such as Use Rope. I can quickly tie someone up in 6 seconds and hope that I do a good job. Alternately, I can decide to take 2 full minutes to check the ties, tighten the knot, and verify that I've done the best that I can. Certainly, if I want to spend more time verifying the quality of my work, the quality of my work should be better. The tradeoff is time.

I think that taking 20 is a brilliant mechanic that helps to speed along gameplay. Maybe it would help to think of it, instead of "taking 20", as "taking as much time as I need to so that I'm confident I couldn't have done a better job."

Sorry for the rant. It's just that I came to this perspective as a DM and found that it freed the players to focus on more interesting parts of the game, and I wish more of the DMs I met felt the same way.