Where is the natural 1?

Recently I steped into a problem including "take 20". The problem wasn't very hard but having read the rule of reapeting skill tests I started to wonder if having big amaunt of time, quiet , good source of light and tools could you do anything. For example if a good of thieves would make the most advance type of trap with DC 100+ and would present it with a speech: "Anyone who disarms it will be granted a wish" would every person with minimal knowledge abut disarming could have succed with take 20 like it was a natural 20??? For me its little absurd and I didnt find any rules for critical failure or that take 20 is not a natural 20. So is it broken or just people with little knowledge can do a natural 20 with only more time and effort?

Natural 20's are not automatic successes with two exception: attack rolls and saving throws. For skill checks or anything else, rolling a 20 on a d20 (or taking 20) just means you add 20 to whatever other bonuses you have.

There is no critical success or failure with skill checks. A 20 on a skill check adds +20 to the result.

There are some instances of rolling a 1 causing special behaviors (UMD), but that depends on the skill.

And remember you can only take 20 if nothing bad would happen on a failure. Its like trying it 20 times (which is why it takes 20 times the normal amount of time).

So it's not the same like for ex. in dnd 3.0 where there were auto-succes/failures in skills tests? Oops...

There is no critical success or failure with skill checks. A 20 on a skill check adds +20 to the result.

There are some instances of rolling a 1 causing special behaviors

Best House Rule i've every used was to eliminate all Auto-Success/Auto-Failure and play a nat-20 as if it were a "30" and nat-1 as if it were a "-10". Generally this replicates guaranteed success or failure and can give extreme (and exciting) results from time to time.

+1 to the other comments above about limitations on take-20. Can't do it on a trap because there are consequences to failure.

FWIW,

Rez

Above pretty much covers it. Though we generally use natural 20 is auto-success on skills. Even with our house rule on that "Take 20" does not equate to a natural 20. We figure natural 20 is auto-success because sometimes through random chance people can exceed their capacity. Using "take 20" there is no chance involved so != nat 20.

Again, all the above is our house rules.

There is no critical success or failure with skill checks. A 20 on a skill check adds +20 to the result.

There are some instances of rolling a 1 causing special behaviors (UMD), but that depends on the skill.

Just to clarify on the UMD thing: Just rolling a natural 1 has no affect... you must roll a natural 1 and still fail the check in order for that extra behavior to go off. IF you can roll a natural 1 and succeed on the check still then you have nothing to worry about.

Just rolling a natural 1 has no affect... you must roll a natural 1 and still fail the check in order for that extra behavior to go off

This is one of the things I like about the 30/-10 Rule. You can roll a 1 (aka -10) and still succeed, or at least not tragically fail, if your bonus is high enough or the difficulty low enough.

Conversely, you can roll a 20 (aka 30) and still fail if your bonus is too low or the difficulty high enough.

Two sessions ago I rolled 6 natural-20s in a row. In that same stretch Players were rolling 2s, 3s and a single 4. That kind of dumb luck allows orcs to kill higher-level PCs. But if their AC is high enough, even a 20=30 doesn't do it. Same with skill checks and DCs, etc.

FWIW,

R.

Rezdave I am not sure I completely understand. As stands now you can stil succeed on a natural 1 or fail on a natural 20 on anything but a save throw or attack roll. Since the rules already support this I don't see why another rule which actually comes closer to making it an auto fail or success needs to be added.

Rezdave I am not sure I completely understand.

YMMV. I'll admit I've avoided auto-save/fail rules throughout 3.x because I've been using 30/-10 since 2nd Ed.

For our purposes, it's pretty cool sometimes for mid-level PCs to hit a DC 43 on a Gather Info check and gain a particularly rare piece of information. According to what you're saying, a nat-20 still hits any AC, but last fight the PCs were up against an AC 32 wizard, so a mook archer would fail that even with a 20 on my rules that otherwise would have ended up with a string of crits and, given my six 20s rolling, said mook could have killed a BBEG developed to challenge six 8th level PCs.

Whatever. Again, YMMV. I've liked it for a long time and the potential for outlier values adds some fun to the game for us. I don't what to get hung up on this tangential discussion, however, as this is not the HR forum.

R.

Abraham spalding wrote:

Rezdave I am not sure I completely understand.

YMMV. I'll admit I've avoided auto-save/fail rules throughout 3.x because I've been using 30/-10 since 2nd Ed.

For our purposes, it's pretty cool sometimes for mid-level PCs to hit a DC 43 on a Gather Info check and gain a particularly rare piece of information. According to what you're saying, a nat-20 still hits any AC, but last fight the PCs were up against an AC 32 wizard, so a mook archer would fail that even with a 20 on my rules that otherwise would have ended up with a string of crits and, given my six 20s rolling, said mook could have killed a BBEG developed to challenge six 8th level PCs.

Whatever. Again, YMMV. I've liked it for a long time and the potential for outlier values adds some fun to the game for us. I don't what to get hung up on this tangential discussion, however, as this is not the HR forum.

R.

A Nat 20 attack roll doesn't confirm the critical, it only makes it potentially critical but a definite hit. The confirmation roll still has to beat the AC, so even if they rolled another 20, if they didn't have +12 to attack, it wouldn't be critical. So instead of a string of crits, they'd be regular (perhaps even minor) wounds. Besides, aren't there spells to defend against arrows, like Shield, Wall of Force, etc...?

Protection from Arrows...

Protection from Arrows...

That'll end an archer's usefulness right quick, at least directly.

Threadjack:

Protection From Arrows bugs me. Protection from non magical projectiles is more like it. Honestly if Resist Energy can scale I don't understand why Protection From Arrows doesn't. Simply adding that the DR scales to +1 at 5th level, +2 at 10th level, +3 at 15th level and +4 at 20th level would do lots to improve the spell. It's still low enough that like caliber foes will peg you through it, but low enough that the minions/mooks/etc won't get throw it with a simple first level spell (magic weapon)!

Threadjack:Protection From Arrows bugs me.

Be kind and don't Threadjack ...

... Discuss HERE, instead :-)

R.

meabolex wrote:

There is no critical success or failure with skill checks. A 20 on a skill check adds +20 to the result.

There are some instances of rolling a 1 causing special behaviors

Best House Rule i've every used was to eliminate all Auto-Success/Auto-Failure and play a nat-20 as if it were a "30" and nat-1 as if it were a "-10". Generally this replicates guaranteed success or failure and can give extreme (and exciting) results from time to time.

+1 to the other comments above about limitations on take-20. Can't do it on a trap because there are consequences to failure.

FWIW,

Rez

I used that rule too.

It worked out very well. For example, strap on some magical full plate and a magical shield, maybe a ring of protection and an amulet of natural armor, and suddenly your AC gets so high that no orc in the world can hit you, even with a natural 20.

Likewise, you will never find a high level fighter who is capable of missing an orc in combat, assuming his attack roll can get into the mid-20s. When you're that good, you just simply never miss a plain old orc in his plain old armor.

I really liked that rule.

I don't think I thought of it myself, but I cannot for the life of me remember where I found it.

So it's not the same like for ex. in dnd 3.0 where there were auto-succes/failures in skills tests? Oops...

3.0 skills didn't have auto-success on a 20 or auto-fail on a 1 because, as Skip put it, "you don't fail to tie your shoes 1 in 20 tries, and you don't jump over the moon 1 in 20 tries."

Ranven wrote:

So it's not the same like for ex. in dnd 3.0 where there were auto-succes/failures in skills tests? Oops...

3.0 skills didn't have auto-success on a 20 or auto-fail on a 1 because, as Skip put it, "you don't fail to tie your shoes 1 in 20 tries, and you don't jump over the moon 1 in 20 tries."

You haven't seen me attempt to tie my shoes.

IMarv

Rezdave wrote:

play a nat-20 as if it were a "30" and nat-1 as if it were a "-10"

I used that rule too ... but I cannot for the life of me remember where I found it.

I vaguely remember it being printed in a DMG as a "rule option" or "variant" but don't recall if that was 2nd Edition or 2.5 (aka "Black Book").

R.

Ranven wrote:

So it's not the same like for ex. in dnd 3.0 where there were auto-succes/failures in skills tests? Oops...

3.0 skills didn't have auto-success on a 20 or auto-fail on a 1 because, as Skip put it, "you don't fail to tie your shoes 1 in 20 tries, and you don't jump over the moon 1 in 20 tries."

Huh. This "Skip" person sounds like a veritable font of wisdom. If only I could place that name...

;)

Sean K Reynolds wrote:

Ranven wrote:

So it's not the same like for ex. in dnd 3.0 where there were auto-succes/failures in skills tests? Oops...

3.0 skills didn't have auto-success on a 20 or auto-fail on a 1 because, as Skip put it, "you don't fail to tie your shoes 1 in 20 tries, and you don't jump over the moon 1 in 20 tries."

You haven't seen me attempt to tie my shoes.

IMarv

I also haven't seen you jump over the moon.

I used that rule too ... but I cannot for the life of me remember where I found it.

I vaguely remember it being printed in a DMG as a "rule option" or "variant" but don't recall if that was 2nd Edition or 2.5 (aka "Black Book").

R.

It is in the 3.5 DMG (probably even the 3.0) bottom of page 25.

Rezdave I am not sure I completely understand. As stands now you can stil succeed on a natural 1 or fail on a natural 20 on anything but a save throw or attack roll. Since the rules already support this I don't see why another rule which actually comes closer to making it an auto fail or success needs to be added.

This is also explained in the same place and why I use it as well. :)

Cheers

Sean K Reynolds wrote:

Ranven wrote:

So it's not the same like for ex. in dnd 3.0 where there were auto-succes/failures in skills tests? Oops...

3.0 skills didn't have auto-success on a 20 or auto-fail on a 1 because, as Skip put it, "you don't fail to tie your shoes 1 in 20 tries, and you don't jump over the moon 1 in 20 tries."

You haven't seen me attempt to tie my shoes.

IMarv

Velcro ftw!

It is in the 3.5 DMG (probably even the 3.0) bottom of page 25.

Thanks ... but we used it looooooooong before 3.x was ever conceived :-)

R.

Lord oKOyA wrote:

It is in the 3.5 DMG (probably even the 3.0) bottom of page 25.

Thanks ... but we used it looooooooong before 3.x was ever conceived :-)

R.

And that may be so.... I was just pointing out one such place it was referenced. :)

I flipped through both my 1st and 2nd Ed. Player's and DMG but can find no mention of this variant (so far).

I would be curious to find out the earliest reference as well....

Cheers

I flipped through both my 1st and 2nd Ed. Player's and DMG but can find no mention of this variant (so far).

Yea ... I have done the same several times and can't ever seem to find it again. I vaguely recall it being in blue-shaded text from a 2nd Ed. DMG (I know it wasn't 1st) and not a "Black Book" version. Oh well.

R.

And remember you can only take 20 if nothing bad would happen on a failure. Its like trying it 20 times (which is why it takes 20 times the normal amount of time).

Correction you can only take 20 if you are willing to accept the consequences of rolling a 1, 2, 3 .. 17, 18,19, 20

So in your ultimate trap one assumes there is a few giant flaming poisonous crushing undead walls that will burn, poison, crush and eat you.

Long before you get to that success.

That and the uber-ultimate trap might take more then one success to disarm

Correction you can only take 20 if you are willing to accept the consequences of rolling a 1, 2, 3 .. 17, 18,19, 20

Incorrect. PFRPG, page 86:

Taking 20: When you have plenty of time, you are faced with no threats or distractions, and the skill being attempted carries no penalties for failure, you can take 20.

You cannot take 20 if there are penalties for failure, whether you're willing to accept them or not.