Quote from: flyingmice;388062Apologies. I didn't realize this was a D&D 3.X only thread when I posted.

I was re-reading InSpectres yesterday - it has a Take 4 rule. So it's not just 3e.

Seanchai

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;387989The rules themselves call for rolls under specific circumstances. Take-10 tells you, fairly, which rolls are unimportant - a character with a +2 modifier can balance on the 7-12 inch across sloped surface (a tree branch say) which is DC 12, and anyone else has to roll. Its fairer than saying "OK Jim, your character has Dex so you don't need to roll here: Greg and Matt, roll Balance because you ate the last slice of pizza".

This is kind of the sticking point for me. The rules are potentially calling for rolls when there are no meaningful consequences. If the consequence of the failed roll is, "Well, you stumble a little, but you manage to get across," or even, "you stumble a little, and your friends have to help you, but you get across," then why bother rolling at all--except that the rules say you must. On the other hand, if the consequences of failure are significant, then shouldn't everyone roll? After all, anyone can roll a 1.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;387898Rather than use take 10 or take 20, I use this method:

I use my standard benchmarking: a "moderate" task is DC 11+(PC level/2). (hard tasks you bump up by 5, and 'extremely' tasks, bump by another +5).

I don't get this.

Shouldn't difficulties be "objective" - difficult terrain is difficult terrain is difficult terrain?

What good is it for a character to master a skill (rank/bonus), only to find that his own experience level counters* what he has learned?
2 levels later, and the castle wall I already climbed before is actually more difficult to climb?

* ... or most probably only lessens his learning, as I guess that the increase in skill rank would be more than +1/2 per level. But still, in order to just stay the same I'd need to raise each skill +1 every other level.

Quote from: two_fishes;388073This is kind of the sticking point for me. The rules are potentially calling for rolls when there are no meaningful consequences. If the consequence of the failed roll is, "Well, you stumble a little, but you manage to get across," or even, "you stumble a little, and your friends have to help you, but you get across," then why bother rolling at all--except that the rules say you must. On the other hand, if the consequences of failure are significant, then shouldn't everyone roll? After all, anyone can roll a 1.

They actually don't. If the consequences of failure are slight or irrelevent, and there's no time issue involved, then the "Take 20" rule would apply. So, if the character can't quite waltz across the branch with their skill, but it's not real high, and they're not being pursued, and there's others there to help, Take 20 kicks in and the character can be roleplayed to be crossing slower and more carefully than the others, with a helping hand from the last one to cross. Plus, as you say, if the consequences are significant (the branch is really high up), then neither Take 10 or Take 20 would apply and everyone would have to roll, because falling would cause injury or worse. I really think it's one of the better rules in modern DnD, and I have often wondered why it gets forgotten and/or pushed aside when it's so simple and IME can actually save time.

Quote from: flyingmiceApologies. I didn't realize this was a D&D 3.X only thread when I posted. My utter and complete lack of knowledge of that system would prevent my taking part in any discussion concerning it. Please ignore my post! If I can, I will go back and remove it.

-clash

I didn't intend it to be DnD only. I'm referring to DnD 3.x+ simply because I like the Take 10/20 rule and it was brought up before. I think, no matter our favorite systems, we can all benefit from exposure to how different folks and different games handle skills. Some like older DnD best because it has no formal skill system, while other folks hate that, and prefer comprehensive skill systems, and then there's the whole spectrum in between. Bring 'em all on I say. I think there's advantages to all the approaches, and reading about how everyone uses skills and which games/skill systems we each like best and why can be very educational.

Quote from: Sigmund;388097They actually don't. If the consequences of failure are slight or irrelevent, and there's no time issue involved, then the "Take 20" rule would apply. So, if the character can't quite waltz across the branch with their skill, but it's not real high, and they're not being pursued, and there's others there to help, Take 20 kicks in and the character can be roleplayed to be crossing slower and more carefully than the others, with a helping hand from the last one to cross. Plus, as you say, if the consequences are significant (the branch is really high up), then neither Take 10 or Take 20 would apply and everyone would have to roll, because falling would cause injury or worse. I really think it's one of the better rules in modern DnD, and I have often wondered why it gets forgotten and/or pushed aside when it's so simple and IME can actually save time.

So again, why not ditch take-20 and take-10 and replace them with "say yes"? What gets lost by doing that? Perhaps this is the reason the rule gets forgotten or pushed aside.

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;388088Shouldn't difficulties be "objective" - difficult terrain is difficult terrain is difficult terrain?

That's certainly the way I run D&D games. I the character's want to climb Mount Toughasnails, the difficulty is what it is based on the mountain. If it lives up to its "Toughasnails" name, it might be DC 20 in WOTC D&D terms. If so, it'd be DC 20 if the characters are first level or 20th level. The mountain is what it is.

Quote from: two_fishes;388098So again, why not ditch take-20 and take-10 and replace them with "say yes"? What gets lost by doing that? Perhaps this is the reason the rule gets forgotten or pushed aside.

This is the usual question over substituting GM judgment for rules.  

Take-10 and Take-20 mean that there are concrete parameters for when the GM should "say yes" that the players can predict - as opposed to it being purely up to GM judgment.  There is still GM judgment in setting difficulties, of course, but there is at least some basis for the players to predict it.  

Putting it purely as "say yes or roll the dice" means that the GM is given no clear guidelines for when to say yes, and the players thus have no basis for predicting when this will be.  

Of course, a GM can be consistent about when to say yes, and communicate this basis to the players - but that's the usual question of free-form play versus having rules.

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;388088I don't get this.

Shouldn't difficulties be "objective" - difficult terrain is difficult terrain is difficult terrain?

What good is it for a character to master a skill (rank/bonus), only to find that his own experience level counters* what he has learned?
2 levels later, and the castle wall I already climbed before is actually more difficult to climb?

* ... or most probably only lessens his learning, as I guess that the increase in skill rank would be more than +1/2 per level. But still, in order to just stay the same I'd need to raise each skill +1 every other level.

So it depends. If a character can climb a wall, and you've established a DC for that specific wall, the answer as far as I'm concerned is that DC should be set in stone for all eternity. It's DC 12 at 1st level, it's still DC 12 at 20th level.  So if you go up to the point where you don't have to roll, thats fine.

ok, so that's the theoretical universe. But in reality, when you play, you don't always remember what DCs have been set for which tasks, in whatever places. So that's how you establish a standard baseline DC to stuff that you would normally assign DCs for.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;388126ok, so that's the theoretical universe. But in reality, when you play, you don't always remember what DCs have been set for which tasks, in whatever places. So that's how you establish a standard baseline DC to stuff that you would normally assign DCs for.

Maybe you, but that's not the case of every DM, is it? Some other DM might just write down DCs in a note book, or directly on the map of a dungeon. I don't see how that possibility is more theoretical than yours? So the scenario under which you just assigned fixed DCs for stuff that don't change over the course of a campaign isn't more theoretical than you assigning a DC according to the PCs levels on the fly. I just don't see it.

The difference to me is philosophical: in one case (fixed DCs) the universe is what it is and the PCs deal with it in different ways at different levels, whereas in the other case (DCs determined according to the PCs level) the world revolves around the PCs, and somehow matches their capabilities all the time, even retroactively (the wall I climbed two levels ago is suddenly harder for me to climb).

For the record, nowhere in the 4e rules corpus does it say that the difficulty for climbing a given wall should change over time. It does encourage DMs to provide more difficult walls, however.

Quote from: Thanlis;388134For the record, nowhere in the 4e rules corpus does it say that the difficulty for climbing a given wall should change over time. It does encourage DMs to provide more difficult walls, however.

*This*

At first level, you're climbing a rocky cavern wall.
At tenth level, you're climbing a sheer castle wall patrolled by Evil King's Sentries.
At twentieth level, you're climbing the Tower of Doom, in the Land of Doom, owned by Lord Doom.
At thirtieth level, you're climbing the outside of Orcus' fortress.


The rule simply gives suggested DCs for those *Level-relevant* actions.

Quote from: Seanchai;388065I was re-reading InSpectres yesterday - it has a Take 4 rule. So it's not just 3e.

Seanchai

I believe the older version of Vampire let characters automatically succeed if the character had a dice pool > than target difficulty. (Somewhere a maths teacher died when this was written). You could opt to roll if you wanted a ton of successes, however.

Marvel Super Heroes (FASERIP version, not SAGA) let characters automatically pass a FEAT roll if the Intensity of the task was 3 ranks below their ability rank.

Probably other systems have other weird equivalents. There's also a reverse version - a couple of other systems (DC Heroes, HERO System) have rolls where automatic success is assumed for some checks, but you can opt to roll to increase how well you do ("Pushing"). This tends to be for superpowers or Strength checks rather than skill rolls, however.

Quote from: Narf the Mouse;388149*This*

At first level, you're climbing a rocky cavern wall.
At tenth level, you're climbing a sheer castle wall patrolled by Evil King's Sentries.
At twentieth level, you're climbing the Tower of Doom, in the Land of Doom, owned by Lord Doom.
At thirtieth level, you're climbing the outside of Orcus' fortress.


The rule simply gives suggested DCs for those *Level-relevant* actions.

I don't see any of those climbs difficulties as relevant to the level of the characters attempting the climb. They might be relevant to the level (and/or wealth) of the being that owns the wall, but I don't see why the level of those attempting to climb it has any bearing on the difficulty of climbing it.

If first level characters stumble upon Orcus' Fortress, it's simply going to be too hard for them to climb. They'll either have to think of some other way to get in, come back when they are better at climbing, or the like.  Being "too hard" top climb would even be a big hint that what's inside might be way too powerful for them and they really need to find something more suited to their current abilities to raid.

Quote from: RandallS;388250I don't see any of those climbs difficulties as relevant to the level of the characters attempting the climb. They might be relevant to the level (and/or wealth) of the being that owns the wall, but I don't see why the level of those attempting to climb it has any bearing on the difficulty of climbing it.

If first level characters stumble upon Orcus' Fortress, it's simply going to be too hard for them to climb. They'll either have to think of some other way to get in, come back when they are better at climbing, or the like.  Being "too hard" top climb would even be a big hint that what's inside might be way too powerful for them and they really need to find something more suited to their current abilities to raid.

I guess they figured their players had access to common sense. Horrible of them, wot?

Quote from: Soylent Green;388053No, it really is the "Okay, let's refocus" or the GM buys some thinking time sort of Perception roll. When I figure the GM is doing that I rarely bother rolling ( I just declare I failed, as long as its not too obvious and confrontational). The way I see it, if the GM isn't interested in the actual outcome of my roll why should I be?

I'm not clear on how you would go about doing that in D&D.

But whatever. If your character is willfully not paying attention in such a way that they will always be surprised in every single encounter and you're perfectly content with that, more power to you.

Quote from: flyingmice;388062

QuoteOne of the great things about the Take 10 mechanics is that they explicitly tell you what's easy enough for this character to do without rolling the dice. Which can also be highly informative when it comes to roleplaying.

Apologies. I didn't realize this was a D&D 3.X only thread when I posted. My utter and complete lack of knowledge of that system would prevent my taking part in any discussion concerning it. Please ignore my post! If I can, I will go back and remove it.

Apologies. I didn't realize you were functionally illiterate and would therefore baselessly assume that anyone talking about D&D 3.x must automatically be attempting to exclude all other discussion in the thread.

Sheesh!

Quote from: two_fishes;388098So again, why not ditch take-20 and take-10 and replace them with "say yes"? What gets lost by doing that? Perhaps this is the reason the rule gets forgotten or pushed aside.

(1) Take 20 implies a slow, methodical approach (and thus chews up time). In situations where time isn't a factor this may be irrelevant, of course.

(2) Differentiation between characters. (Just because Character A can do this, it doesn't follow that Character B can.)

(3) Similarly, Take 20 defines a minimum competency level.

It's pretty much the exact opposite of "say yes or roll the dice". It's a mechanic which specifically operates well in an environment where the game world has a tangible reality which is independent of the PCs. And it becomes meaningless if the DM is (for example) setting the DCs based on the skill bonuses the PCs have.