When is the skill check made?

[clearstream]

You can't. If I choose "At the beginning," not only must you have cast guidance prior to the check, but later castings are useless. It doesn't matter how long the task takes, the check is over and can no longer be modified. You can only roll for guidance after the roll if the spell is already active.

Your argument allows you to get an infinitely high number as you can just keep casting it forever, even long after the check has been rolled, and long after the activity is over. This is clearly not the case. If the spell is active, you can trigger it as soon as the roll happens. If no spell is active, by the time the caster casts guidance, it's too late to affect the roll. The ability check has been decided.

What is being claimed is that yes, all the casts at the wrong moment will fail. The one cast at the right moment will succeed. No infinitely high number involved.

 

[clearstream]

Nope. As long as the spell is triggered, the next casting isn't during the duration, allowing you to spam it for centuries. In fact, your argument allows you to bring back the dead. A kid has died drowning? Just touch the body spamming the spell until the swim check retroactively succeeds. The spell just says after the roll, so it doesn't matter by RAW how long after, right?

That doesn't really follow, because necessary conditions are no longer satisfied (a dead kid can't attempt to swim). Rather spamming guidance is (probably) a rational response to a line of thought that the check occurs at some moment, but that moment isn't known. On reflection, I think the moment is known because RAW states that creatures are conscious of making checks.

However, if one supposes that the check itself has an extended duration, exactly matching the duration of the attempt, then... well it still isn't very clear because perhaps the first cast of guidance should help the check anyway, so long as it links to any part of it. Still, one can go on to say that to be guided one must have guidance running the whole time. That might not be a bad approach although not defined by RAW.

 

[clearstream]

A key concept in understanding my position (per a few posts upthread) is that a "skill check" isn't a task.

It occurs to me that I think of skill checks and guidance mechanics as both modelling something going on in the game world. Perforce we're operating at the modelling layer, not inside the world. So if I say that "checks occur inside the fiction" I mean that whatever it is that checks model, that is going on inside the fiction. And whatever it is that guidance models, likewise.

I then articulate and enact those events and functions at, and using the terms of, the modelling layer. It's possibly a bit obscure to understand, but the upshot is a refutation of a view that the two are disconnected.

 

[clearstream]

You kinda have to set yourself up for failure to see Guidance being spammed.

Guidance spamming is used in at least two ways in this thread. One is the hypothetical of casting and recasting in a chain to span the whole duration of the task, if a DM were to rule that way. The other is the actuality of players who are allowed to apply guidance to any check, always doing so because it is a nigh-free resource.

 

[Li Shenron]

That's exactly the source of the problem in my view. And a very common one that leads to these sorts of outcomes.

Yep... just check Guidance's text:

"You touch one willing creature. Once before the spell ends, the target can roll a d4 and add the number rolled to one ability check of its choice. It can roll the die before or after making the ability check. The spell then ends."

Who is the "target", the player or the character? Do you have to touch the player? Because the character certainly is not the one who rolls the dice. Or do you have to require the character to have a dice equipped and roll it on the ground before jumping over the chasm? But sure it can roll it also after jumping, and then it can retroactively teleport from the bottom of the chasm to the other side if the d4 is enough to turn failure into success.

I have always said it, RAW will tear you apart...

 

[Li Shenron]

What is being claimed is that yes, all the casts at the wrong moment will fail. The one cast at the right moment will succeed. No infinitely high number involved.

Interesting...

So the next question is, can the character know which is the right moment to cast Guidance?
Do they need to make an ability check to figure out which is the right moment to cast Guidance?
And most importantly, can Guidance provide a bonus on the check to figure out which is the right moment to cast Guidance?
Can the character know which is the right moment to cast Guidance to provide a bonus on the check to figure out which is the right moment to cast Guidance?

The mystery continues...

 

[clearstream]

Interesting...

So the next question is, can the character know which is the right moment to cast Guidance?
Do they need to make an ability check to figure out which is the right moment to cast Guidance?
And most importantly, can Guidance provide a bonus on the check to figure out which is the right moment to cast Guidance?
Can the character know which is the right moment to cast Guidance to provide a bonus on the check to figure out which is the right moment to cast Guidance?

The mystery continues...

RAW, such as that from Bardic Inspiration, states that a creature knows when it is about to make a check, and knows when it has done so -

"The creature can wait until after it rolls..." PHB53.

Guidance continues that -

"It can roll the die before or after making the ability check." PHB248.

Thus RAW tells us that creatures know when will be the right moment to cast.

 

[TheSword]

When the ranger is leading you through the jungle on an 8 hour journey and the cleric claims he can cast guidance 480 times to give said ranger +1d4 to his survival check to avoid getting lost, I would suggest doing one or more of the following things...

• Have the cleric make a DC 20 charisma check to avoid the psychological impact of what is essentially the magical equivalent of Chinese water torture.
• Have his god rebuke him for being flippant with divine miracles.
• Have his god withdraw magic because of the prayer equivalent of “are we there yet?”
• Apply disadvantage to the roll due to the distraction of the cleric mumbling in the ranger’s ear and flicking water at him continuously.
• Play out the entire journey and ask the player to say I cast guidance, then ask them to say it a further 479. Ask what the other players are doing to be fair.
• As DM decide the check be inconveniently required at the moment when the cleric is taking a dump and therefore is unable to cast guidance that minute. Unless the ranger stands next to him to have the spell cast (with concentration because of distracting circumstances, nobody likes to be watched)
• Make the cleric player accurately estimate how long one minute is 480 times (this will take about 8 hours). You might be generous and just make the player do this for one hour and use that as a sample set. Then roll a d480 (or 60 if generous) and if the number is higher than the guesses he got right then the spell doesn’t work.
• Set fire to your players handbook and go and play a simple, streamlined game like WFRP 4e or d&d 3.5e.
• Bump the player.

All these are acceptable responses to what Doctorbadwolf and Frog Reaver are suggesting is possible.

 

[Hriston]

I think you're on the right track here.

Okay, care to elucidate?

Even if there is a check, it's still neither Step 2 nor Step 3, technically.

I can see we’re not going to get anywhere on this. I get your point that rolling an ability check is not the player saying what s/he wants to do, but it seems to miss my point that neither is it the DM describing the result, and since that step hasn’t been arrived at, that it’s entirely appropriate for the player of the caster to say s/he wants to cast a spell.

If the task lasts less than a minute, then I'm with you. If it lasts more than a minute, guidance won't help. If it lasts more than 10 minutes, bardic inspiration won't help.

I’m not sure you’re fully understanding what I’m saying then, so I’ll ask you directly. Are you with me that a player can declare a one minute action that the DM deems worthy of a check, and that after the check is rolled, another player can cast guidance on the first player’s character, who can then use the extra die on the check that was just rolled?

 

[Maxperson]

I can't find a clear statement about the exact moment. There are clear statements that an acting creature is conscious of making a check (they know when they are about to make it, and when they have made it).

I don't agree with that. The powers, feats, etc. that deal with rolling an ability checks don't require that the PC know when the check happens. Let's take lucky. The following is what the PC knows.

"You have inexplicable luck that seems to kick in at just
the right moment."

The mechanics of it are player knowledge. The player is the one choosing when to use those luck points and the PC is seeing that inexplicable luck kicks in at the right moment. I mean, if the PC were the one doing the choosing, it would hardly be "inexplicable" would it?

This is pretty par for the course. If it's something like luck, the player is doing the choosing and the PC is just seeing the results. If it's something like guidance, the PC is just saying that he's using the spell or ability to help with the task, not the roll.