The Gaming Den

Is it my perceiver's bias, or is there an incredibly widespread resistance/dislike towards 3.X's rules for Take 10 and Take 20? I just got told that the 'threat' of failure by 5 or more from skills like Climb is sufficiently distracting to keep you from using Take 10 (not using this in combat), and I get dirty looks for using my 20 Int & Take 10 for untrained Craft checks to make bells and weapons.

Broadly, no, I've never seen any specific dislike of those rules.

Specifically, I think your gaming group needs a few dopeslaps.

Actually, no, that's really bad advice stemming from an urge to smack someone I know on the back of the head the next time his mouth bypasses his brain. Moving on.. Possibly ask them what the problem is. Your character can know it. 20 Int means he, in fact, processes information well. Can you ask them what the problem is? It isn't out-of-character for someone smarter than your average illithid to figure out ways of reliably doing things.

Or possibly, you need to find a new gaming group. Either/or.

Resistance to take 10 and take 20 is a minor variation of enthusiasm for critical hit/fumble tables.

A fair number of newer DMs (and a few older ones that never learn) dislike it when you take 20, most likely because they want you to have a chance of losing or failing. Typically the DMs that are like this are going to be inclined towards making any challenges of relevance to the quest unnecessarily difficult, whether through arbitrary increases to the DC and other such opposing numbers, or through demanding drawn out challenges every step of the way. It's annoying as hell and it's definitely not uncommon. I've often speculated that the DMs who are like this either dislike the idea of obstacles being too easy, or have a psychological need to either "win" or not lose while being the DM. Or perhaps it's because the newer DMs haven't learned which skills work that way and which do not, and get frightened.

The DMs who are going to resist/dislike taking 10 or 20 are going to be the same people who have a compulsion towards making very simple things difficult.

Take 20 has some issues, particularly with OCD players, but resistance to take 10 is just annoying.

I get the impression that resistance to this is reasonably common, yes.
therpgsite had a thread that touched on this called "About skills, their systems and how they're used" (started by Sigmund). I gather direct links to other sites are frowned upon, however.

While rolling checks for everything can certainly get annoying, I think take-10 goes too far since a character can gain a +1 bonus and suddenly drop from 55% chance of failure at required roll 11+, to 0% chance of failure (required roll 10+).

It makes more sense to give characters who aren't distracted on a task a significant bonus to their check (+4 or +5), and no roll is required once your calculated chance of failure drops to 0.

I don't have a problem with Taking 20, though. There's not much point just rolling dice until you succeed.

I think part of it is the DMs forget you can do that, and then they're upset when things become trivially easy simply by taking 20 times longer to do them.

Also, I think a lot of resistance is a throw-back to older editions of D&D, when you had to roll your percentage chance of Find/Remove Traps. I think those DMs don't like the fact that you can simply take 20 and find the trap; they like the idea that you might miss it and bumble through the door.

Of course, I think most of those DMs also miss that these types of mechanics don't make the game more interesting, and in fact, encourage some of the most boring behavior ever seen in a game:

There's no reason whatsoever not to have Take 20 in the game. Anything else is just time-wasting stupidity, because a player can just repeatedly roll the dice for the same result anyway. Unless you go Gygaxian and implement some stupid 'no, you can't attempt to open the lock for the tenth time in a row even though no one's around and you have all day' DM fiat.

I also don't get CCarter's complaint about Take 10 either. Unless you have some sort of special ability, you generally can't take 10 in situations where you would really care about the outcome anyway, such as in combat or in an avalanche or whatever. Take 10 is to avoid the above silliness too.

CCarter wrote:therpgsite had a thread that touched on this called "About skills, their systems and how they're used" (started by Sigmund). I gather direct links to other sites are frowned upon, however.

Nope, links are totally cool.

*

I've seen some resistance to both, take 20 more than take 10. Although I did once have a player who refused to ever use either one, because he felt the dice should determine every outcome.

AS DM, I also allow players to "take 1." For example, the party's rogue has sufficiently high Hide and Move Silently that even if she rolled a 1 and the target rolled a 20, they wouldn't see/hear her. In those situations I don't see any reason at all to waste time by having both of us roll a pair of d20s, find the modifiers, and do the quick math -- all to say, "you don't think it sees or hears you."

Well, I'll try and expand on this.
If a character can always take-10 on a check then its not possible to have a marginal risk of failure for a PC action. A task is either reliable, or will probably fail. That essentially removes any roll (tension) from situations like PCs trying to do things like:
-Balancing on awkward surfaces
-Jumping across pits.
-Climbing dangerous or slippery surfaces

Essentially you can't setup a situation thats "low chance of critical risk" - e.g. a very deep crevasse PCs can probably jump over - unless its organized so there happen to be some archers firing at the PCs simultaneously.

Edit: thanks Zherog. May as well post the link then.
http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=17527

Well, you could argue that the dangerous nature of those situations counts as "distracting", so then you can't take 10 (unless you have a class feature that says otherwise).

Really, taking 10 is used when you're not distracted, the task is relatively easy (for you), and you don't want to take 20 times as long. If it's difficult, you take 20 (and 20 times as long). This is for crap like crafting stuff, or searching a quiet room for treasure or traps. You don't get to take 20 if the room is on fire.

I have gotten plenty of resistance to take 20 from DMs and players. Rarely does take 10 get any animosity.

On adventures where there was no pressing time need, still I'd have DMs be "I'd rather waste time in RL rolling over and over as other people say what they do each turn than just go on ahead as assume you roll until getting 20". That wasn't quite what they said, but that is how it goes down all too often.

My friends and I when told that we cannot take 20 (for no good reason) tend to just spit in the face of that comment and say "okay, I'll take 20 the old fashioned way," and roll the die until we get a 20. Strangely that would always content DMs.

Of course, I have played with idiot PCs who sometimes interrupt the "old fashioned take 20" by trying to kick the door down after one search for traps attempt is done. That's always delightful. When in those situations my rogue would not bother checking for traps, I'll just stay back and let idiotard go check and waste our healing.

In Living Greyhawk (where I was exposed to many, many different DMs and players) it really was a rarity that an entire party would let a rogue take 20 when searching or opening or whatever. I sometimes would get a weak smile of relief from other rogue players when my character would back them up on their sensible attempts to take 20 and hold the idiotards at bay. I feel your pain brothers- I play a rogue sometimes too!

erik wrote:I have gotten plenty of resistance to take 20 from DMs and players. Rarely does take 10 get any animosity.

I find it the other way around.

"Take 20" is allowed because it doesn't work in situations where there's a penalty for failure anyways (e.g. you can't take 20 on Disable Device or Climb, for instance).

But lame people squawk about "take 10" all the time. "What? You shouldn't be able to automatically disarm that trap just because you're good at disarming traps and you have no distractions!"

Hell, instead of "take 10", sometimes I just say "take victory"...if they +10 to their open locks and the DC is 21 for some reason, I'm most likely to say "meh, you open it".

Rule of fun wins out.

(EDITED because I apparently can't add this morning. Yes, Sarandosil read between the lines correctly.)

1: People are retarded.

2: People like critical fumble rules (see previous rule).

For take 20 there is one additional reason.

3: It takes too much in game time.

Yes, taking 20 is faster than actually rolling until you get a 20 in real time. It still takes 2 minutes of game time per 5 foot square to search. Tick tock. Buff timers are running.

Besides, even if the Rogue finds the trap he'll probably set it off on himself. Just zerg that shit and use wands after.

PoliteNewb wrote:Hell, instead of "take 10", sometimes I just say "take victory"...if they +11 to their open locks and the DC is 21 for some reason, I'm most likely to say "meh, you open it".

How is that different from "take 10" (other than the jazzy new name)?

Universally so from what I've experienced, but it's not just you; look at the changes from 3e to 4e (you can only take 10 on "mundane tasks" in 4e, and there is no take 20).

I occasionally get some resistance from it on the GM side when I remind players they can take 10, but it's not terribly common.

hogarth wrote:

PoliteNewb wrote:Hell, instead of "take 10", sometimes I just say "take victory"...if they +11 to their open locks and the DC is 21 for some reason, I'm most likely to say "meh, you open it".

How is that different from "take 10" (other than the jazzy new name)?

Think he meant if they need a +11 he'll grant them the last point.

I think what he meant was he didn't bother rolling the dice because it was an auto-win. So, yes, it's basically a snazzy new name.

Lago PARANOIA wrote:There's no reason whatsoever not to have Take 20 in the game. Anything else is just time-wasting stupidity, because a player can just repeatedly roll the dice for the same result anyway. Unless you go Gygaxian and implement some stupid 'no, you can't attempt to open the lock for the tenth time in a row even though no one's around and you have all day' DM fiat.
.

That's not fiat, it's actually quite reasonable...for a great number of locks/puzzles, you either can solve it, or not, and that's usually resolved in a few minutes. The reason people think you might be able to 'take 20' on a lock is because they don't understand much about locks.

I don't expect you've much experience with locks either, but it's similar to a math problem. Maybe you have the skills to find the volume of a given function rotated around the x-axis, maybe you don't. Roll for your math skill; if you have the skill, it'll take 2 minutes or so. If you don't, giving you an extra few hours won't do any good.

So, no, take 20 often doesn't make alot of sense outside of very special situations (eg, you have access to a library of math books, the internet, and a team of professors to help in the case of advanced questions).

Take 10, on the other hand, makes alot of sense for mundane situations where it's not credible for a player with the skill to fail. For example, most folks 'take 10' on driving, which is why 1 in 20 drivers don't hit a tree backing out of their driveway every morning.

Actually Doom, I do have a lot of experience with locks, and taking two minutes does in fact allow me to open locks that I cannot open in 6 seconds.

So yes, taking 20 makes a great deal of sense.

Sometimes, I accidentally screw up a tumbler, and have to start over. It happens.

Doom, it sounds like you're arguing that Take 20 magically allows you to complete tasks regardless of whether or not 20 + your skill exceeds the task DC.

Of course, if the DC of the math problem is 25 and you only have a +3 Math skill, then no amount of extra time will get you to the answer. But if the DC is 25, you have a +7 Math skill, and you don't need the answer this instant--what's wrong with just assuming the player takes a few minutes and solves the problem long form?

I've seen fair amount of resistance throughout groups.

The problems stem from both legacy notions of RPGs - where die rolls always determine success or failure, so not rolling seemed unfamiliar to many.

Additional issues occur due to the fact that "taking 20" requires the MC to plan or improv an additional numeric parameter. Most gamers are cool with the abstract "roll Search DC XX to see what you find in the grand hall of the ruins" and then letting one die roll (or multiple die rolls determine who finds the secret door or hidden chest - because that only requires assigning a DC and figuring the reward for success. Having Take 20 have an additional time cost requires the MC to assign an initial time cost to the action. And while there are rules for how long it takes to search each 5x5 square, an MC improvising may not even have a map for the entrance area where there wasn't gonna be a fight - so in order for players to Take 20 by the rules he has to draw up a map, do some geometry or a bunch of counting to determine the number of squares involved and then multiply that number by the game's timescale to determine the base time - and then he has to multiply that again to determine the actual time cost. That's enough extra work that it's disruptive to have the MC do on the fly, so it's not a surprise that MCs don't want to do it.

Doom, this is covered in the game. Your Math skill would be a Knowledge(math) check. Knowledge checks can't be retried, so I would think you shouldn't be able to take 20.

Zherog wrote:AS DM, I also allow players to "take 1." For example, the party's rogue has sufficiently high Hide and Move Silently that even if she rolled a 1 and the target rolled a 20, they wouldn't see/hear her. In those situations I don't see any reason at all to waste time by having both of us roll a pair of d20s, find the modifiers, and do the quick math -- all to say, "you don't think it sees or hears you."

Yeah. We run with the Take 1 option, too. Our group is way down with the Take X options.