Take 10/20 hate

[Kaelik]

FYI, check Tome Errata, I actually added a reactive saving throw against trap search check (and reactive door searches) into the errata before this thread even got anywhere.

The difference is I still let them take 20 anytime they want, they just won't want to on every 5ft square they've already taken ten on as a non action. (Taking 20 is still 20 rounds.)

Basically it's a shitty spot fix to a bigger problem that leads to a lot more work. But there it is.

[Archmage]

The only way a player can be absolutely sure there isn't a trap is if they take 20 to search, and then only if they assume I'm not a fucker who put the search DC higher than they can achieve

Okay, THAT honestly hadn't occurred to me--that you might have players who are convinced that even after taking 20 that there might still be a trap there that they just can't find because the DC is too high. That and your various other clarifications make sense at this point.

And I agree wholeheartedly with your final point--D&D speedbump traps are dumb and slow down play without accomplishing anything other than being a hit point/wand charge tax that you pay and move on.

[Princess]

By the way, speaking of Indiana Jones, he always triggers the trap. But in movies this traps are not "50 ton ceiling fall, you die" or "magic lightning struck you for 35 electricity damage". They are something like walls slowly moving to each other so party will be squished, or locked room filling by water, so there is actually some minigame to solve this riddle, I suppose.

Btw, I never used traps, but still retrying search judging on ability to see a dice roll, or mass aidanother are retarded options.

[Murtak]

There are basically three types of traps:
1) Traps the searcher can find and disable if they take 10. Worth mentioning only in passing if the party can take 10 ("in this room there are some skeletal remains and a tripwire that triggers a hail of arrows"), and possibly an interesting challenge during a tense situation where you can't or as foreshadowing for a more deadly version of the same trap later.
2) Traps that cannot be found by taking 10, not even with an assist.
3) Fuck You traps that are either GM-enforced plot devices ("The door slams shut behind you"), or stupid and adversarial psychological nightmares designed to fuck you over ("You try to jump over the pit and are stopped by an invisible wall, you fall into the pit and die.").

Technically correct, but type 2 has two meaningful subtypes.
2A) The trap is in a random location.
2B) The trap is in a location where one would reasonably expect a trap.

A random DC-too-high trap in a random location is bullshit. The same trap built into the door to the High Assassin's personal treasury is fine. Of course way too many pre-made adventures just sprinkle traps randomly all over the dungeon, but logically speaking traps should be placed for a logical reason. And there is rarely a reason to put a pressure plate into every tunnel. Whatever is living in the dungeon has to move around too, after all.

[Princess]

Murtak, official pre-made dungeons are total bullshit, where traps placed at random and all monsters are very tolerant so they agree to live near zombies, oozes and other stuff from MM placed just to make encounters different from one another.

Generally speaking, DnD game designers think "they are evil, so they get along and suit each other". As for me dungeon with goblins, undeads and demons is in general themed fail.

[TavishArtair]

Murtak, official pre-made dungeons are total bullshit, where traps placed at random and all monsters are very tolerant so they agree to live near zombies, oozes and other stuff from MM placed just to make encounters different from one another.

Generally speaking, DnD game designers think "they are evil, so they get along and suit each other". As for me dungeon with goblins, undeads and demons is in general themed fail.

An orcish lord had been ruling over a goblin tribe, with his warriors pressing them into chattel slavery. Despairing of their current life, they turned to Orcus, who promises life after death. Their demon worship, involving golden idols and offerings covertly stolen from the orcs, culminated in a successful demon summoning, which promptly slew all the orcs, and, per the domain of Orcus, animated them as undead servitors of the goblins. It now has summoned other demons in to the material world, its position letting it more or less do what it wants, kept in only the most nominal "service" to the goblins, though there is a potent shaman it has to negotiate around, the one that originally managed to call it forth. Possibly using a magic item, but even so.

And there's an ooze in their rubbish heap after a few magical reagents were thrown out.

There, demons, undead, goblins, and an ooze. I even explained why the undead are random generic Medium humanoids and not goblin-sized.

[Princess]

Yeah-yeah, surely anyone can justify anything via "set of circumstances". But you know, I still prefer more themed world building, rather than "The house that jack built".

Also. Goblins are neutral evil, so if they ever want to worship someone who promises life after death Nerull is better choice. Aggressive ooze will be killed by goblins themselves, I doubt they like being eaten. You know, Goblins have no penalty to Int (and two elves from MM have), so going worship bastard orcus instead of worshipping their own goblin god or Nerull, who is much more powerful than orcus and also he do not want to fuck you up just because he is chaotic stupid demon, well, is highly improbable.

So this dungeon story is attempt to use "one of a kind" method to describe highly unprobable monster disco.

[Murtak]

This is missing my point. Let me rephrase it.

Traps are fine if:
- They are trapping something that needs to be handled very rarely (if at all). In this case they can be hard to find and extremely deadly.
- They are trapping something that is in use, but needs to be secured from others taking over. In this case they need to either be easy to circumvent for the regular owners/inhabitants or only get armed in emergencies.

That something can be a door or gate, tunnel, treasure chest, artifact or whatever else, but the pattern holds true. Firstly whatever you want to trap needs to be something you do not want someone else to make use of it. And secondly, if you want to use it yourself you need to make sure the trap is obvious to you, does not affect you or only gets set when the alarm is sounded.

In any case the adventurers can determine where to just check the ground, where to take 10 and where to take 20 with reasonable accuracy, provided they have the needed background knowledge. Of course there are still odd cases like the Labyrinth Of A Thousand Monsters And Traps where insane wizards get their jollies from watching noncasters stumble through bullshit dungeons, but in 99% of the cases traps should defend something valuable and not be dangerous to their owners.

And thus DC 40 traps are totally fine for the guy with a search bonus of +22, provided those traps are on the chest containing the ten secret names of the Demon Lord. They are bullshit on the secret gate the goblin marauders use every other week to mount their raids. A DC 25 or 30 trap though, would be reasonable, as would a DC 40 trap in the access tunnel that only gets triggered if the dwarf alliance breaches the gate.

[Starmaker]

Reasons people object to taking 20

1. Granularity and cooperation.
Skills are by necessity discrete, with similar tasks covered by one skill. Occasionally, people (like me and probably Doom) want to have more granularity within a particular skill.

E.g. a party of brave students is trying to complete an epic quest entitled "submitting physics course work" which is a group activity for all honorable students according to sacred U traditions. And it is a fact of life that given all the time in the world I can never solve any of this EHD bullshit, while Stan over there can't wrap his head around a certain quantum model. In a game my physics skill would be +7 and Stan's would be +10 and it would make sense for Stan to take 20 and do the course work and everyone else bringing him snacks and booze. Randomness favors the underdog and thus encourages cooperation.

Note that I'm not talking about taking 20 vs rolling forever for a 20, I'm talking about no retries. I tried forever to remove the printing head of an Epson printer and failed. That means my "Remove the printing head of an R295" is too low. In a game, I'd have "Disable Device +7" which would in turn imply that assembling and installing a control system for the water supply (DC 17-) is somehow less complex than removing a fucking printing head (DC 28+).

Of course, there are things that are hard to granularize further. Bashing doors open is a simple application of force governed by Newtonian physics and you can wrap up "knowing how to apply force, i.e. leverage and stuff" under STR to avoid things like "Lift with the legs, not the back."

2. Determinism is unfun.
Generally, we don't replay tabletop adventures with the same party, so if there's a locked door in the Temple of Quasielemental Neutrality, we bash it, or hack it to pieces, or pick the lock, or have one char gaseous-form under it depending on party composition. But the MC actually knows what will happen... unless the party stocks up on +STR booze, or the barb runs out of rage for the day, or the rogue takes some -DEX poison in the face. So in an adventure where stuff happens, determinism doesn't exist; to unimaginative MCs it presents a real problem.

3. PCs don't pay the price of taking 20.
Also a problem for unimaginative MCs that arises when the PCs have no other things they'd rather be doing. There's always time pressure, both in racing-the-clock or "win this adventure, go back to town and court the hobgoblin princess or else she finds someone with a bigger sword" varieties.

4. Run-of-the-mill stupidity.
This covers (4.1) no-reroll grognards and (4.2) realistards who aim to make unfun parts of character experience unfun for the player (sending a player of an imprisoned PC out of the room for several hours, forcing STR check rerolls etc). I told one such MC our party would travel to a town 100 miles away while we the players end the session here and she would have to make clip-clop noises for the whole following week to "roleplay out" the journey. She saw the light of reason.

[Kaelik]

1) So the problem with take 20 is that it is literally perfect and there is nor problem?

Seriously, stop being fucking retards. "Take 20 doesn't apply to things that it shouldn't apply to." Is not a fucking reason to dislike take 20.

2) Determinism has nothing to do with it. I already showed how there are four options with take 20, and only 3 with no take 20. What about any of those things has shit to do with not allowing PCs to take 20? No seriously, which of those random circumstances you listed have any effect at all on take 20 rules?

3 & 4) I agree, Doom is retarded, and so is anyone else who doesn't like the take 20 rules. Apparently. I'm open to a reason, but so far, no good ones have been presented.

[Koumei]

I almost never use traps. They're just not interesting. Seriously, the main "trap" I remember using was a Wizard NPC that had a bunch of scrolls in his backpack. The PCs happen to him, and then the Barbarian searches his backpack.

"You can't even read."
"Yeah, but I still look at the scrolls."
"Fine, one of them you can actually make out to say 'I prepared explosive runes this morning'. Take damage."

[Falgund]

E.g. a party of brave students is trying to complete an epic quest entitled "submitting physics course work" which is a group activity for all honorable students according to sacred U traditions. And it is a fact of life that given all the time in the world I can never solve any of this EHD bullshit, while Stan over there can't wrap his head around a certain quantum model. In a game my physics skill would be +7 and Stan's would be +10 and it would make sense for Stan to take 20 and do the course work and everyone else bringing him snacks and booze. Randomness favors the underdog and thus encourages cooperation.

Remember that Taking 20 takes 20 times as long. Stan will not be able to take the required 40 hours * 20 before the deadline of "next week", while each person can take 40 hours to produce one random roll each.

Note that I'm not talking about taking 20 vs rolling forever for a 20, I'm talking about no retries. I tried forever to remove the printing head of an Epson printer and failed. That means my "Remove the printing head of an R295" is too low. In a game, I'd have "Disable Device +7" which would in turn imply that assembling and installing a control system for the water supply (DC 17-) is somehow less complex than removing a fucking printing head (DC 28+).

In this case it means you failed the Knowledge roll (No retries) to know how to remove the printing head, while you succeeded the one for assembling and installing a control system. If you know how to do it, you just do it (Profession roll, DC may vary but in this case sufficiently low for you skill to succeed). If you don't know how to do it, you have to bypass the standard way, which is a Disable Device roll (with high DC). This also means that maybe you don't have Disable Device +7, because this is not the skill you used for the water supply.

[name_here]

Because I'm not actually talking about a chess simulator? You seriously think this thread is about chess simulators? Allow me to give a hint: it's not about chess simulation, even though that's the entirety of your response.

Taking 20 on an actual game of chess is completely impossible. You can only make 1 move before the board changes, so it's inherently no retries. Chess drills are perfectly valid targets for taking 20, and my uncle does it all the time. However, they constrain the testable space enough to make auto-success via brute force possible. When you've got a real early or mid game, it's just opposed rolls even before you stick in a timer. Late game would become a possible target for take 20.

There're obviously a number of trolls here; if anyone really thinks any of this is worth further discussion, we can take it private, to avoid the continued deliberate misinterpretations.

You've been repeatedly using an example that people have pointed out is not actually a valid subject for take 20.

[Doom]

My apologies, I thought I'd mentioned it wasn't a chess simulator, and wasn't even a chess game. My bad for leaving that out.

[name_here]

It's essentially a chess game, if your statements earlier in the thread are accurate. Being desynchonized doesn't make finding the perfect move take less than 100 years (It's been a while, but IIRC that's the actual number) for a given position.

[Doom]

Eh, that misunderstanding aside, the fact that you've acknowledged that it's valid for a chess drill, or late game, still proves the point. Everything would still come out identical every time, and that doesn't jive with how skills really work.

Look, "take 20" is a good rule for DMs, for when they've screwed up and not given players actual options, or created a choke point that they hadn't intended...a clean cop-out that works nicely, not denying that I've used it myself for such situations.

But the fact that "take 20" only barely works in a few instances (picking locks, searches, handful of other skills, and then only in special circumstances), that those instances are highly problematic, and become mostly irrelevant after a few levels due to spells or other abilities making "take 20" skills irrelevant, is quite noticeable.

When you throw in that the only way to keep "take 20" from looking stupid in any other situation is that you house rule/rationalize that it's fundamentally not going to be allowed in any situation where it looks stupid, you're coming awfully close to Oberoni territory as far as how good this rule is.

[Kaelik]

Eh, that misunderstanding aside, the fact that you've acknowledged that it's valid for a chess drill, or late game, still proves the point. Everything would still come out identical every time, and that doesn't jive with how skills really work.

Additional things Doom knows nothing about: Chess.

Late game, not only does it always end exactly the same, it ends exactly the same regardless of skill unless materials are equal.

Given two reasonably competent players, even if the second one is Bobby Fischer (Deep Blue, whatever) in the late game, material advantage equates directly to victory.

And yes, if I give two players each two rooks, one knight, one pawn, and a King, the one who is better at chess will win 100% of the time without fail.

[virgil]

Eh, that misunderstanding aside, the fact that you've acknowledged that it's valid for a chess drill, or late game, still proves the point. Everything would still come out identical every time, and that doesn't jive with how skills really work.

You've repeatedly countered that it's not a chess simulator when people tried to point out that the chess example is stupid, yet here you are, back to trying to defend an eminently stupid example.

All of your damn examples are either not problems with Take 20 or not even subject to the Take 20 rules, so your complaint is stupid. It's not Take 20 that's problematic with finding traps, it's traps that are problematic with finding traps (specifically speedbump traps); and if you read the arguments over the last page, you'd have realized this.

Take 20 is not stupid because skills are made irrelevant by spells or special abilities.

Take 20 is usable for the following skills: Search, Gather Information, Open Lock, Escape Artist, Handle Animal, Survival (tracking), Spot, & Listen. In all of these cases, they are used to save RL time at the cost of in-game time. You keep trying to conjure up an example where Take 20 throws a pie in our face, and all you get is a banana peel beneath your feet.

[name_here]

When you throw in that the only way to keep "take 20" from looking stupid in any other situation is that you house rule/rationalize that it's fundamentally not going to be allowed in any situation where it looks stupid, you're coming awfully close to Oberoni territory as far as how good this rule is.

Taking 20

When you have plenty of time (generally 2 minutes for a skill that can normally be checked in 1 round, one full-round action, or one standard action), you are faced with no threats or distractions, and the skill being attempted carries no penalties for failure, you can take 20. In other words, eventually you will get a 20 on 1d20 if you roll enough times. Instead of rolling 1d20 for the skill check, just calculate your result as if you had rolled a 20.

Taking 20 means you are trying until you get it right, and it assumes that you fail many times before succeeding. Taking 20 takes twenty times as long as making a single check would take.

Since taking 20 assumes that the character will fail many times before succeeding, if you did attempt to take 20 on a skill that carries penalties for failure, your character would automatically incur those penalties before he or she could complete the task. Common “take 20” skills include Escape Artist, Open Lock, and Search.

I see no house rules being invoked in this thread by users of take 20.

[RobbyPants]

Eh, that misunderstanding aside, the fact that you've acknowledged that it's valid for a chess drill, or late game, still proves the point. Everything would still come out identical every time, and that doesn't jive with how skills really work.

If you'd stop calling your bad examples misunderstandings, we might all be able to move past them.

I see no house rules being invoked in this thread by users of take 20.

Agreed. We keep pointing out why the rules as written work for Open Lock and Search, and why you shouldn't apply them to Chess, Math, and Submit Physics Coursework as a Team.

[Doom]

If any understanding was shown, at all, I wouldn't call it a misunderstanding. I woefully underestimated comprehension here, I freely admit.

But, it doesn't matter, as soon as one guy gave an inch regarding 'chess drills', it's all over. Again. Go and attack him for saying such a thing, if it pleases you.

Now, go look up a few posts, where the guy's skill at removing a part needs to be houseruled into knowledge, since otherwise it makes take 20 look bad. The physics homework problem needs to be rationalized into 'taking too long'.

This is the key: take 20 only works, by definition, where it doesn't look stupid. If it looks stupid, you must go back and change things so it doesn't work.

I found an 8 year old thread on "take 20", basically the same conversation we're having here, about how take 20 warps the game in ways that some find unpleasant.

Consider other rules of 3e...hit points being an abtraction? Sure, some complaints, but generally accepted by all who play the game, all the time. Spells being cast 1/day...sure, some issues, but accepted by all who play the game, all the time, along with other rules quibbles examples.

On the other hand, "take 20" is still a problem, still not used (or, more accurately, "common infinite retries" still not used...how many here even understand that the two are nearly the same?) all the time, despite the words in the book.

Maybe take 20 is TEH BETS RUUL EVAR, as you say, but the simple fact the same issues keep cropping up for nearly a decade indicates that it might not be so.

Take 20 is usable for the following skills: Search, Gather Information, Open Lock, Escape Artist, Handle Animal, Survival (tracking), Spot, & Listen.

Rofl...you seriously can't think of *any* spells that make any of those skills obsolete?

The only one that isn't trivial is "Escape Artist". In this case, 'take 20' means the player is irrelevant, since the DM either makes it 100% possible or 0% possible for the player to escape, by picking the DC based on the player ability. Complete DM power tripping here. As this is what applies to all the other cases as well, it again highlights the problems with take 20.

In all of these cases, they are used to save RL time at the cost of in-game time.

Yes, via a wonderfully circular argument of "if rerolls until a 20 are always allowed, then take 20 makes sense, since it accounts for rolling until a 20 comes up"...but this begs the question: why must these skills always allow for such retries?

Why go nuts at the thought that, sometimes, retries shouldn't be possible?

You keep trying to conjure up an example where Take 20 throws a pie in our face

A pie in your face? You're seriously saying that....this, ultimately, is why discussion of take 20 here is pointless. Too many here are too personally involved with defending the rule, taking any criticism as a personal attack, and responding in kind with heavy emotion, rather than thinking things through. I'll try harder to stay out of it past this point.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Doom, if I as a thief was trying to open a lock or look up the history of a statue in town square, would you let me use a d20 roll to resolve whether I succeeded or not?

If you did let me do a d20 roll, would you let me try again? If so, how many tries would I get before something happened to not let me try anymore?

If that number is very large, then what's the difference between just me saying that I roll a 20 and making me roll until I get the result that I want?

[Kaelik]

But, it doesn't matter, as soon as one guy gave an inch regarding 'chess drills', it's all over. Again. Go and attack him for saying such a thing, if it pleases you.

Once again, your stupidity doesn't count as an argument. You don't know what a chess drill is, fine, that's okay. But don't try to turn your lack of knowledge into an argument.

A Chess Drill is where there are a finite number of moves that is sufficiently lower than a real game, and you can brute force your way through by trying every single possible move. (Because there is no consequence for failure, because if you make the wrong move, you know you did, and you take it back.)

Some examples:

Given situation X, White has Mate in 2 moves. What is the Mate. Finite set of moves that is possible to try all of.

Black needs a Rook on the 7th. How can he do that in 3 moves without sacrificing? Finite set of moves, especially because you know at least one of them is the Rook.

ect.

Chess Drills do not involve an opposing player, and they have a hard cap on number of turns. Taking 20 to find the solution is therefore possible, and makes fucking sense.

Consider other rules of 3e...hit points being an abtraction? Sure, some complaints, but generally accepted by all who play the game, all the time. Spells being cast 1/day...sure, some issues, but accepted by all who play the game, all the time, along with other rules quibbles examples.

You are a fucking idiot. People complain about all those things as much or more than they do about take 20 rules. You are just being a dumbass on purpose.

On the other hand, "take 20" is still a problem, still not used (or, more accurately, "common infinite retries" still not used...how many here even understand that the two are nearly the same?) all the time, despite the words in the book.

Everyone but you realizes that common infinite retries is the same thing, except more annoying.

That's why you being so stupid on purpose is so annoying.

We've told you twenty times that any situation where retries would be allowed, take 20 should be allowed.

You've bitched about how take 20 should not be allowed because of some situation where retries aren't allowed.

That's you being dumb over and over. If you find a skill that should not be retried, you did not find a problem with Take 20 rules. You found a skill that should not be retried. If the skill already says "Retry: No" then you didn't find anything at all, and if it says "Retry: Yes" then you found a problem with that skill being labeled incorrectly.

So once again:

Which of these skills: "Search, Gather Information, Open Lock, Escape Artist, Handle Animal, Survival (tracking), Spot, & Listen."

Would you not allow a retry on?

Keep in mind, you have to tell me one of those explicit skills, since no other skill can be retried, so knowing that X can't be retried doesn't have anything to do with anything.

Which of these skills would you not allow retries on?

[RobbyPants]

This is the key: take 20 only works, by definition, where it doesn't look stupid. If it looks stupid, you must go back and change things so it doesn't work.

You're about half way there. You're right that it doesn't work if it looks stupid. Why does it look stupid? Because it likely fails one of the two criteria:

1) You get a penalty for failing.

2) It doesn't make sense that you can take 20 times as long due to external time constraints.

There are good reasons why we're saying what we say.

[Parthenon]

Personally I wouldn't allow take 20 on Gather Information: 60 hours average of questioning people is 5 days at 12 hours a day, more feasibly over a week. During that time leads will be lost, people will get bored of talking to you and alibis will have been perfected. So I'd allow a number of retries but not take 20.

I also don't like taking 20 on training animals with Handle Animal because it could take between 10 months and over two years, which is a bullshit length of time: it basically ends the campaign. As well as the fact that trying to teach an animal in many different ways will just confuse it and make any tricks unreliable. (Admittedly, I think that any PC trying to use Handle Animal to train an animal in-game is stupid and not worth doing)