I wish I did. That's got to be really annoying! Guess I would just argue in favor of evolving with the times and moving away from dangerous gygaxian randomness. Houseruling is often not the answer.
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You could just be passive-aggressive about it, and declare that you'll jump up to the top of the 3-story building by rolling until you get a 20 on Acrobatics. Or make Diplomacy checks with merchants until you get a natural 20 to convince them to hand over their entire merchandise. And so on.
You could just be passive-aggressive about it, and declare that you'll jump up to the top of the 3-story building by rolling until you get a 20 on Acrobatics. Or make Diplomacy checks with merchants until you get a natural 20 to convince them to hand over their entire merchandise. And so on.
THIS.
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Also even By rules of taking 10 and 20... They are considering you had failures before you finally Succeed... So anything that has a consequence for failure would not be allowed to take 10 or 20...
Incorrect. Taking 10 does not assume you fail many times before you succeed. Only Taking 20 does that. Furthermore, a consequence for failure only prevents Take 20 - Take 10 has no such limitation.
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Every morning, spend 10 minutes trying to jump to the moon as part of your "limbering up routine".
Every time you meet a new NPC, introduce yourself as "God" using Bluff.
Every evening, spend 10 minutes peering at your arm to find the "tiny living things crawling all over me" with Perception.
Every new town you enter, use Knowledge (Local) to find the location of the local thieves guild house.
Honestly, if the bare probabilities don't convince him otherwise, then I don't know what else to tell you. By the "auto fail\succeed on 1 and 20" rules, the most skilled individual is going to fail 5%, while the most uncoordinated and mentally inept one is going to succeed at a nigh-impossible task 5% of the time.
Pointing out the auto-succeed might be the best bet, actually. Point out to him that a character with Linguistics 1 and a decent Wisdom will, without further enhancement and no other resources, always be able to decipher a language completely foreign to him and in fact unknown to all currently-living or undead being.
Why?
Linguistics allows you to try multiple times. You only need make a DC 5 Wisdom save to avoid drawing false conclusions from the document. So that Linguistics 1 character will eventually roll a 20 and decipher the document.
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Frequently a skill is not a binary fail/make.
Using Acrobatics to make a long jump means that with a run-up the distance you jump is equal to your acrobatics check result. How would 'auto make' work with this? 'Okay DM, I'm attempting to jump from here to the moon. 20! Made it!'
What about opposed skill checks? The 'Stealther' and the 'Perceptor' both roll a nat 20 and auto succeed. So, is the stealther seen or not?
When using the Intimidate skill to demoralise an opponent, if you succeed then he is shaken for 1 round, and for 1 extra round for every 5 by which you beat the DC. What would 'auto make' do? Just 'succeed' is less good than the possible result, but it can't last forever!
The truth is that the whole skill system was designed to work without an auto make/fail mechanic. Adding one causes headaches and adds nothing to the game beyond giving your DM an excuse to shaft you when you roll a 1.
There is an alternative. I don't like it myself, but the alternative (which would work just fine with the rules as-is) is that a nat 20 is treated as if you had rolled 30 on the die, while a nat 1 is treated as if you had rolled minus 10; not an auto fail, but near enough.
Well, if you're not in a stressed environment, you can take 20s for auto-success.
So when you're searching for secret doors, traps, treasure or what have you, you will always find them, regardless of the DC.
Take 20 on Escape Artist. Who cares that you were tied up by a master knotsmith. Or if you're trying to fit through a tight space (DC 30) and don't actually have any skill in EA or any DEX?
Put a point in linguistics and find out what that ancient Thassilonian tablet says by taking 20 on it.
Or, yeah, put on your Ring of Sustenance, and start trying to jump to the moon from a standing start. So a few rolls you'll fall prone. Who cares, you're at ground level. Eventually you'll hit that 20 and bam! pow! to the moon!
Make several performances. Sure you'll have some bombs, but eventually you'll get one that will go down as one for the history books. You don't even need ranks in Perform or have any CHA.
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One question: What happens when two 20s conflict? So a Perception vs. Stealth/Disguise/Sleight of Hand, or Bluff vs. Sense Motive?
Heck, that means you're guy with -1 Perception can see that Invisible guy 3 miles away on a 20.
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Another question: How come the tumlbler with 20 ranks in Acrobatics, has the same chance to fall on his butt as a level 1 commoner when trying to perform the same trick? Even if it's to hop 5'?
Or the unskilled buffoon have the same chance to make a masterpiece as a master artisan?
So you're the one who despises the house rule, why can't you simply give your own reasons for despising it? Surely you don't despise it for spite's sake without having at least one reason for such a strong emotional reaction?
That said, some of the posts clearly demonstrate that Auto-success on a system that uses scaling difficulties is highly impractical. You could perceive invisible fleas on a werewolf's back at night when he's running on a mountain top 20 miles away - as long as you have two minutes to take-20 or less, if you get lucky rolls.
I would suggest talking to your GM. That's not passive-aggressive. Explain to him the flaws of absolute success on a scaling difficulty system. Explain the uselessness of having auto-results at the two ends of a system when most people can usually ignore this house-rule by using Take-10.
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I think I thought of one.
Anyone, can use Escape Artist, to slip out of any manacles, even masterwork or magical ones.
They sit, and take 20.
That won't work to convince him.
He will say that 'taking 20' is not 'rolling a nat 20' and therefore is not an auto make.
You could keep actually rolling until you rolled a 20 though. The overwhelming likelihood is that any prisoner, no matter how useless, will escape from any bonds, no matter how powerful.
Yar!
Some good examples have been posted. I will post a counter-argument to the "jump to the moon by taking 20" example.
... No jump can allow you to exceed your maximum movement for the round.
So there is a built in RAW limitation to super-jumps like this. Many of the other examples, however, are pretty good.
~P
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My character with 20 ranks in acrobatics , 40 feet movement, fails to jump 5-foot pits 5% of the time?
My 7 CHA Illiterate Barbarian uses Diplomacy on the foreign diplomat (that doesn't speak the same language) using grunts and hand gestures to unilaterally disarm his entire country 5% of the time.
Some tasks should be impossible to fail or succeed given your character. Think of several DC 0 checks.
Hell.. with no auto-success, you should mis-hear (perception) 5% of everything spoken directly to you. Or fall off your horse under no stress at the start of 5% of your turns, etc.
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I suppose at one time I had a number of logical reasons why I hated this houserule in my head.
I figure it was just rage that made me forget.
This rage is likely from the fact that I suspect it was one of our infamous players just kept saying "We houseruled that, right? Right? That the way were playing?", and the DM accepted this.
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Yar!
Some good examples have been posted. I will post a counter-argument to the "jump to the moon by taking 20" example.
... No jump can allow you to exceed your maximum movement for the round.So there is a built in RAW limitation to super-jumps like this. Many of the other examples, however, are pretty good.
~P
All that that Acrobatics quote means is that if the distance of your jump exceeds your movement then you end your turn in mid-air and must carry on the jumping movement on your next turn(s) until the jump is complete.
The 250 000 mile jump to the moon will take longer than six seconds... : )
I'm aware that my post was presented in a passive-aggressive way. As others have said (and you seemed to spot, BBT), the idea isn't to snark him into it, but to present examples whereby an automatic success breaks verisimilitude.
So I'm not saying "do these things", but instead "these are things that can be done with this rule, are you sure you want these obviously unintended consequences to be a viable aspect of the game?" The best examples to use are the skills whereby there are degrees of success (preferably infinitely scaling ones, like Acrobatics to Jump, or Perception).
A possibly viable compromise would be to ask him to use the "20 = 30" rule, and perhaps the "1 = -10" rule, both of which make it "less" automatic, but still a significant result.
My character with 20 ranks in acrobatics , 40 feet movement, fails to jump 5-foot pits 5% of the time?
My 7 CHA Illiterate Barbarian uses Diplomacy on the foreign diplomat (that doesn't speak the same language) using grunts and hand gestures to unilaterally disarm his entire country 5% of the time.
Some tasks should be impossible to fail or succeed given your character. Think of several DC 0 checks.
Hell.. with no auto-success, you should mis-hear (perception) 5% of everything spoken directly to you. Or fall off your horse under no stress at the start of 5% of your turns, etc.
Well, he did say take 10s were still in, so I'd assume most times you use perception to hear things spoken directly to you, or remain on your horse, or in the case of the 20-rank acrobatics character, jumping over a 5-foot pit, would all be take 10s. I don't really see much of a problem with the auto-failure side, since if you can naturally succeed a task on a roll of 1, then you'll just take 10 anyway, unless you're under significant pressure, where I see it reasonable that a character might fail 5% of the time.
The auto success thing is more problematic, since it can be used for stupid purposes, as others have mentioned, but generally auto-failure matters much less than auto-success, since there are plenty of tasks that you couldn't naturally succeed on a roll of 20 (which is why it's take 20, not take automatic success), but most things that actually require you to roll for them can be failed on a roll of 1 anyway.
Ah right. No jumping to the moon since the check result dictates the distance travelled, and there is the limit by speed. We just often use the distance required as a DC. So that's out.
But there's still the problem that the world is overrun by criminals who eventually rolled a 20 to escape from the prison. And there is no way to hide your treasure from them, cause, given a little time, they'll find it, no matter where you hid it. The real reason for executions.
And that there are no such thing as cryptic or mysterious texts. Eventually every rube who happened to learn a second language will be able to understand hieroglyphs, just by looking at them
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Also, as mentioned previously, the DM will need to have a way of determining what happens when opposed rolls are both 20s. Does the higher bonus win out?
An excellent example: This rule makes non-magical traps, non-magical hidden doors and hidden treasure pointless. Why? You stand in a room and roll Perception repeatedly until you roll a 20.
At that point you might as well just tell the party when they walk into the room, "Okay, the trap is there, and there's a chest over there."
A 20th level Wizard, Intelligence in the stratosphere, Spellcraft to the max... Fails to correctly identify the sorcerer casting Detect Magic, even though he's seen him do it a thousand times.
Genghis Can't, ace horseman, fails to convince his horse to jump over a fallen tree.
Well..
1/20 times the master craftsman tries to make a simple chair, he'll mess it up.
1/20 times the most naturally gifted bird in the world tries to remain flying without moving its full speed (as in, 1/20 times it performs a full attack), it will fail.
1/20 times, the experienced mountain climber will fail to climb a knotted rope despite having a wall to brace against.
1/20 times, the highly-acclaimed doctor will be unable to perform ordinary first aid.
I think showing the silly results of automatically failing on a 1 will be more effective than showing the results of automatically succeeding on a 20.
I like what Chemlak offers,
A possibly viable compromise would be to ask him to use the "20 = 30" rule, and perhaps the "1 = -10" rule, both of which make it "less" automatic, but still a significant result.
What i do (as another possible option) is that a 1 is never a fail on skill checks but if you roll a 1 something may happen. like on crafting. Unless you fail by five or more materials aren't destroyed in the process if you fail. say you have booku amounts of ranks in craft, and even if you roll a 1 you still make the DC. Well in my world if you roll a 1 but have the ranks to still complete the item, you complete the item but it has attained the broken condition. nothing a mending spell cant fix or another days work.
For natural 20s on skill checks (assuming you make the DC) you get something a little extra. Say you need to make some daggers for your dagger throwing rogue companion. If you roll a nat 20 it becomes a masterwork dagger. (assuming it wasn't going to be masterwork in the first place)
So little things like that. Maybe find a small pile of coins as you search for traps, things like that.
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Despite the game mechanics for skill checks and ability checks being extremely similar to the game mechanics for attack rolls and saving throws (this is the 'd20 system', after all!), they have important differences.
If your misguided DM doesn't think so, just start 'taking 10' on attack rolls and saving throws.
Good example. Show him how badly the game can be broken with a Critical Success Diplomacy.
You just got the King/Emperor/Demigod to do your bidding just because your smile happened to dazzle him.
Well..
1/20 times the master craftsman tries to make a simple chair, he'll mess it up.
1/20 times the most naturally gifted bird in the world tries to remain flying without moving its full speed (as in, 1/20 times it performs a full attack), it will fail.
1/20 times, the experienced mountain climber will fail to climb a knotted rope despite having a wall to brace against.
1/20 times, the highly-acclaimed doctor will be unable to perform ordinary first aid.
I think showing the silly results of automatically failing on a 1 will be more effective than showing the results of automatically succeeding on a 20.
These work quite well.
1/20 times when a rock superstar sings at his/her concert (s)he fails miserably and everyone hates it.
I so want to be a kid in that world.
- Jump 20 times.
- Reach moon!
RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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I don't really see much of a problem with the auto-failure side, since if you can naturally succeed a task on a roll of 1, then you'll just take 10 anyway, unless you're under significant pressure, where I see it reasonable that a character might fail 5% of the time.
I must have missed the part in the Olympics where the swimmers failed to stay afloat 5% of the time. Unless you wnat to argue that they weren't under pressure competing at the world level. Ambulance drivers don't get into a crash 1/20 times they rush to a hospital. There are plenty of stressful, dangerous jobs where people perform very consistently, with a much lower fialure rate than 5%. Heck, to speed up play, my group uses "take 1" for those situations where the bonus is so great you can't fail - saves a die roll.
Another fun auto-success "feature": Perception never becomes impossible, it just keeps stacking on modifiers for distance and walls. Roll a 20 = eavesdrop on anyone, anywhere in the world. 1/20 chance to hear the BBEG explain his plan to his minions.
Any GM who claims that taking 20 should be different than rolling a 20 has missed the entire purpose of the take 20 rule.
Okay.
Quite out of the blue, the DM in one of my games has decided to use the auto success/failure on skills houserule.I despise this houserule.
I need help with reasonable arguments as to why.
I need good examples to make my case as well.
Any advice on doing this?
"I'm going to jump across the Pacific Ocean." *roll a d20 until you get a 20* "Automatic success!"
"I rolled a 20 on my Perception check ... I heard a flea fart 20 miles from here."
"I'm going to tie my shoes ... I rolled a one. I can't figure it out."
Well, if take 10 and 20 ares still in, then i see no problem. Keep in mind, you can take 10 unless you are in danger. And its plausible to say that in a dangerous situation you will screw up something easy 5 percent of the time.
Only if by "plausible" you mean "completely unrealistic."
How many ambulance drivers get into accidents each day? (Thank you, ryric.) How many police officers are injured every day?
If people screwed up five percent of the time in a dangerous situation, firemen would expect to be seriously injured at least once a month. And boxers (who typically throw 40 punches per round or more) would be injuring themselves every round of every fight.
Well, if take 10 and 20 ares still in, then i see no problem. Keep in mind, you can take 10 unless you are in danger. And its plausible to say that in a dangerous situation you will screw up something easy 5 percent of the time.Only if by "plausible" you mean "completely unrealistic."
How many ambulance drivers get into accidents each day? (Thank you, ryric.) How many police officers are injured every day?
If a 5% failure rate under stress were 'normal', then each of the 20 air traffic controllers at the world's busiest airport, Hartsfield Jackson in Atlanta, GA, would be responsible for roughly 12 aircraft accidents per day. :P
There are ~2500 arrivals and ~2500 departures at the airport each day. Dividing up responsibility evenly gives us 5000 / 20, or 250 flights per day. A 5% failure rate is 12.5, so roughly 12.5 flights per day that would have some sort of accident, or at least some sort of mishap in landing\departure, each day. That doesn't happen. :P
I believe the "jumping to the moon" is a good example.
Please note: I am not looking for a passive-aggressive approach. Last resort only.
Basically the sum of the argument is.
Anything you attempt to do no matter how stupid or unrealistic has a 5% chance to succeed. Nothing is impossible or even all that improbable.
Everything you attempt to do no matter how simple(like listening to a party member talking to you 2 feet away DC -5 perception check) has a 5% chance to fail.
I use the compromise where a 20 gives you an additional +10 to the check, and rolling a 1 gives you a -10 to the check.
If a 5% failure rate under stress were 'normal', then each of the 20 air traffic controllers at the world's busiest airport, Hartsfield Jackson in Atlanta, GA, would be responsible for roughly 12 aircraft accidents per day.
Or to put it another way, there would be an accident at Hartsfield Jackson every six minutes. Do they have that kind of failure rate in NASCAR racing?
I should point out that this is for errors caused by the control towers only. Given that there's a pilot making a Pilot (aircraft) check at the controls of each of those planes, there would also be an accident due to pilot error every six minutes as well. And another one due to failure of the ground crew.
Remind me never to fly through Atlanta again.
Just because it's Friday afternoon,.... I decided to do some more math.
There are about 17,000 automobile accidents per day across the entire United States, about six million per year. (NHTSA stats)
So let's look at the LA traffic scene. According to the census, there are about 2.7 million commuters in Los Angeles who drive alone each day in order to commute to work; 40% of them are on the road between 7 am and 8:30 am, at the height of rush hour. That's basically a million people.
Few things are as stressful as trying to negotiate rush-hour traffic, ask any mental health specialist. So the auto-fail on a 1 rule would mean 50,000 accidents per day in Los Angeles alone, three times the total across the entire United States.
Actually, I tell a lie. The math above just covers the morning commute. We'd expect another 50,000 on the way home.
Heck, we'd expect nearly nine thousand car accidents in the parking lot every time the the Dallas Cowboys played a home game.
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I might watch Nascar if there were such a cartoonish level of failure. I love clowns! And clowns on fire are, what, 25 or 30 percent funnier than regular clowns!
31.8%. You can bump that up to 33.4% if the clown also happens to be on roller skates.
The best example we came up with was mounted cavalry: Every round, 5% of your cavalry falls off their horses. With an army in the hundreds, or even thousands, this becomes ludicrous so fast that most GMs accept a 1 cannot be an auto-fail.
If you don't mind a slight compromise, my house rule that a 1 gives you -5 to the roll (so you actually rolled a -4. Congratulations!), while a 20 gives you +5. It makes 1's and 20's dramatic without making them over-the-top stupid. (Most PCs have +10 or more in their chosen skills by level 5 or so, so even on a 1 they're still getting a DC 5 roll.)
Good luck!
Mind you, most of the skill checks with potentially fatal consequences for failure only impose the really bad stuff if you fail by 5 or more, and a 'nat 1 autofail' wouldn't necessarily extend to that level of bumbling buffoonery.
True, but most of the GMs who use autofail rules tend to also use some sort of critical failure rule, making a natural 1 worse than a normal failure.
Let's take one of the lightest possible "critical failure" rules -- when you fail on a natural 1, you have to roll a confirmation roll and if you get another 1, it's a "critical failure" with dire consequences. From one million morning commuters in LA, 1/400 (2500) will roll a pair of ones. That's 2500 fatal accidents.
The numbers I cited above were for accidents, not for "serious" accidents, or "fatal" accidents. Across the (real) US, there are fewer than 100 fatal accidents per day. In our house-ruled LA, we get twenty-five times that number each morning, and another twenty-five times that number each evening. And 450 people dying in the Cowboys' parking lot after every game.
I should add that those calculations assume that "commute to work" is a single task requiring a single roll. If you assume that you have to make your Pilot (SUV) roll on a round-by-round basis when in heavy traffic, then forget it. You yourself will hit something every two minutes, on average, and be hit by one of the cars around you approximately that often.
No wonder auto insurance is so expensive in southern California.