"Aid another" on a skill roll...

[nosig]

is there a list anywhere of what skills a PC can Aid another with? I don't know of one.

I realize that sometimes it would depend on circumstances... for example, a PC might be able to aid on a climb check to get up a wall, but maybe not on a climb check taken half way up a 50' cliff.

But generally, can a PC aid on a UMD roll? or on a Knowledge roll? or on a swim roll? How about Gather Information?

This is likely to fall back to YMMV, which is something we are trying to reduce in PFSOP (IMHO).

So, just wanting to start the discussion, and I'll sit back for a day or so and see what responses I get.

[Jiggy]

Well, the rules say that "In many cases, a character's help won't be beneficial, or only a limited number of characters can help at once" and "The GM might impose further restrictions to aiding another on a case-by-case basis as well", so I'd just approach each situation with "Can I aid?" and go with whatever the GM says.

[Alexander_Damocles]

Jiggy wrote:

Well, the rules say that "In many cases, a character's help won't be beneficial, or only a limited number of characters can help at once" and "The GM might impose further restrictions to aiding another on a case-by-case basis as well", so I'd just approach each situation with "Can I aid?" and go with whatever the GM says.

Table variation? HERESY! ;)

[Jiggy]

Alexander_Damocles wrote:

Table variation? HERESY! ;)

Hey, when table variation is in Da Rulez, I'm all for it. :D

[Grick]

Not directly relevant, but here is a thread on Aid Another relating to being affected by spells. No consensus, but lots of great discussion.

[meatrace]

Here is an example of Jay aiding in a diplomacy check.

[nosig]

well... I had hoped to get some idea of what skills different judges would and would not allow a PC to be "aided".
Some examples -
1) I've had a judge say "you can't aid someone on a Diplomacy roll to Gather Information" and yet allow my PC to provide aid in an interaction with an NPC by "standing behind the Face PC and acting like a body-guard/servant to give him additional status" = a +2 on the Diplomacy roll...
2) "There is no way a character can provide aid on a Knowledge Check - right?" ... and then turn around and get assistance from a player on a rule that he almost remembers...
3) "Only two PCs can aid on a Disable Device roll..."

each judge (even me) seems to have different houses rule on "aid another" - and often the rulings seem to be random... is there any way to reduce the random feel? Discussion should be able to get us to "agree" with each other more - and smooth the play experience.

This game is all about being a team of adventurers. Yeah, we have Sir Huneytounge and he is great at diplomacy - but when he takes 10 and gets a 28, and Max Damage the fighter gives an aid (roll 12 - 2 = 10 aid! score!) to boost it to 30 - and the DC is 30, who gets the pat on the back? the guy rolling the dice. And he feels kind of cool. part of the team. This seems to me that we want to let the players aid each other as much as possible - get them to doing the adventure as a group - together.

Or am I just missing something here?

[Mergy]

I don't think there's anything wrong with allowing for aid another, as long as the player can say what his character is doing to help. I am fine with the entire party pulling off a difficult skill check if everybody actually got involved in doing so; to get every player involved in what's going on is pretty much what I strive for.

[nosig]

I'm not even sure I would require someone to tell me HOW they are helping... After all, I (the judge) don't always know how something is done. I mean, if you are aiding with a a Heal check, it could be as simple as "put your hand here so he will quite bleeding out", or for a Use Magic Device "Pretend really hard that I know what I'm doing". But How do you aid another on a Linguistics roll? (from the Mummy - "it's that one that looks like a stork... you know...").

("Donkey - go in the forrest and get me a red flower with blue thorns!")

[Jiggy]

GMing "The Pallid Plague" will get you thinking about ways to use Aid Another. :)

[Stikye]

speaking of aid another, Can you take 10 on that and just automatically help out?

[Jiggy]

Stikye wrote:

speaking of aid another, Can you take 10 on that and just automatically help out?

Aid Another (in Skills) wrote:

You can't take 10 on a skill check to aid another.

Funnily enough, I answered that same question in another thread just today. It's like questions come in waves or seasons or something. :)

[Grick]

Stikye wrote:

speaking of aid another, Can you take 10 on that and just automatically help out?

Nope.

Citation in this thread on this exact question two hours ago.

-edit- That's twice, Jiggy! *waggles tentacles menacingly*

[Stikye]

Thought so, that will teach me to post random thoughts that pop into my head.

[Jiggy]

Grick wrote:

That's twice, Jiggy!

That's what she said.

Quote:

*waggles tentacles menacingly*

That's what... uh... actually, I'll just leave that one alone. :/

[Glendwyr]

As far as the UMD roll, also there's this:

prd wrote:

In cases where the skill restricts who can achieve certain results, such as trying to open a lock using Disable Device, you can't aid another to grant a bonus to a task that your character couldn't achieve alone. The GM might impose further restrictions to aiding another on a case-by-case basis as wel

which I interpret to mean that since I can't make a UMD check untrained, I can't aid another on UMD unless I have ranks in it. Similarly with Disable Device, Knowledge skills where the DC is greater than 10, and so on.

[Mudfoot]

PRD for UMD:
You cannot take 10 with this skill.
You can't aid another on Use Magic Device checks. Only the user of the item may attempt such a check.

So look at each skill to see if someone can Aid Another; if it says nothing, you can. Otherwise, broadly speaking, it comes down to GM interpretation depending on what's going on. Foe example, Acrobatics will usually be a no, but someone might help you cross threatened space by obstructing the threat.

[Set]

Grick wrote:

Not directly relevant, but here is a thread on Aid Another relating to being affected by spells. No consensus, but lots of great discussion.

That's intriguing, a character using the Aid Other action to try and 'talk an ally down' when he's making a Will save, or using the Aid Other action to try to push someone out of the way of a fireball to give them a +2 to their Reflex save.

Fort saves aren't quite as intuitive, although I could see someone using a Heal check to try and give someone a +2 to a Fort save to resist something...

Expending your own action for a chance to give an ally a +2 to a save doesn't seem terribly efficient, action-economy-wise, but it's a neat option to consider.