Seriously botched rolls can jam/break a lock. Otherwise, a PC can take 10 on Disable Device as long as they aren't threatened, which should be plenty for most rogues of the right level.
Don't reward them with anything other than an unlocked door, to discourage picking every lock they come across. Deadfall traps/nasty things on the other side of a locked door every once in a while might make them more cautious.
Yeah, I was really bothered by this when I first discovered this in the Pathfinder rules. At this point, I don't know if I'm remembering AD&D, 3rd, 4e, or even the new playtest rules for 5th, but I recall subsequent attempts on the same lock generating the same result as the first until you somehow increased your bonus.
I know it leads to odd situations where you level up and can suddenly try the lock again, but it feels a lot better than just checking to see how many 6 second turns it takes to pop the lock.
It bothers me that you can retry disabling traps, too, but less so, since at least it becomes more and more likely that you'll trip it as you keep trying.
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You probably shouldn't jam the door just because they failed to pick a lock in 6 seconds. Some locks are tricky, sometimes it takes a little while, several rounds, maybe even a minute, to get through.
If you want to jam the locks, then make them jam on a natural 1 (fumble, sort of, even though skills don't have fumble rules). That way, they might take several rounds with bad rolls but not natural ones, then finally get it open. Or they could take-10 on easier locks and never jam them. But force them to roll by making SOME locks high enough that a take-10 won't work, so they must roll, and occasionally they will get natural ones and jam the lock.
From the pathfinder Reference Document :
Check: When disarming a trap or other device, the Disable Device check is made secretly, so that you don't necessarily know whether you've succeeded.
The DC depends on how tricky the device is. If the check succeeds, you disable the device. If it fails by 4 or less, you have failed but can try again. If you fail by 5 or more, something goes wrong. If the device is a trap, you trigger it. If you're attempting some sort of sabotage, you think the device is disabled, but it still works normally.
Next trick is the fake lock. When the PC's check the door it's locked, the con is that it is not. When they disable device to open it they are in fact locking it.
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My groups never has anyone with disable device so we just end up busting open a lot of doors when we fail it...
I don't like take-10 or take-20 rules either. Unless there is some kind of risk I don't see why PCs should have an easy ride with anything. Part of the fun is rolling the dice and seeing what comes up.
Take 10 and Take 20 are great. They speed up gameplay for trivial things. Failing to open up a door or climb a rope when there isn't a danger is more boring than anything imo.
You could always place traps on tricky locks. I mean, with all the miracles and arcane wonders going about, no one can install a basic security system? Just play it like one of those ads for security systems, where a loud alarm goes off warning everything in the dungeon that someone is messing with the doors.
Or make it a silent alarm. And let them take 10 with all its failed attempts. See what that brings them.
You could always place traps on tricky locks. I mean, with all the miracles and arcane wonders going about, no one can install a basic security system? Just play it like one of those ads for security systems, where a loud alarm goes off warning everything in the dungeon that someone is messing with the doors.
Or make it a silent alarm. And let them take 10 with all its failed attempts. See what that brings them.
Taking 10 doesn't have failing attempts. Taking 20 does. That's why you can't take 20 on disabling a lock, because it'll jam it on the first go.
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Not picking a lock the first time is akin to not being the Fonz and getting the juke box to play your song by hitting it. Average people picking locks (not specialists, but, people moderately skilled) take half a minute or more to pick average locks.
That being said locks *start* at 20, and go to 40, so odds are good most people will not be getting that lock on the first try (or even taking 20) at low level if the lock is good enough. And every round you're busy on a lock is another round all those buffs the party has up are wasting, and for the enemy to be preparing for said party.
BTW having one chance to pick a lock was stupid and arbitrary.
Taking 10 doesn't have failing attempts. Taking 20 does. That's why you can't take 20 on disabling a lock, because it'll jam it on the first go.
Ah, I see. forgot that detail. Still, my general point stands: I am sure there are magical ways of alerting guards that someone has entered the room. Heck, even a simple alarm spell set routinely by part of a security team with one level in an arcane class and set every few hours could make the party kind of wary.
Placing the radius just outside of the door so that it activates when someone...for instance stands there for several minutes trying to pick the lock, can be rather effective.
That's why you can't take 20 on disabling a lock, because it'll jam it on the first go.
Taking 20 means you are trying until you get it right, and it assumes that you fail many times before succeeding. Taking 20 takes 20 times as long as making a single check would take (usually 2 minutes for a skill that takes 1 round or less to perform).
Since taking 20 assumes that your character will fail many times before succeeding, your character would automatically incur any penalties for failure before he or she could complete the task (hence why it is generally not allowed with skills that carry such penalties). Common “take 20” skills include Disable Device (when used to open locks), Escape Artist, and Perception (when attempting to find traps).
(emphasis mine)
Locks don't jam if you roll a 1 (unless the GM has a house rule). A PC that has spent the skill points in Disable Device should be rewarded for that effort and be able to bypass locked doors and chests and traps—that's what skill-monkey characters are designed to do.
If you want to make it difficult for them, you can always use Good or Superior quality locks (DC 30 and 40) or use spells like arcane lock. Or make it a hidden, secret door. Or don't use a door at all.
From when I was playing with lockpicks. Opening a lock you know how to open is a simple matter of time. With the right tools, a 5-pin tumbler with no special tricks will open for me in between 5-seconds (my old front door had a really bad key design) and 15 min.
If you want to make the lock picker's life harder for fun, you can require them to update their kit in every city to deal with the local locksmiths quirks. You can also make them take apart a new kind of lock before they are allowed to open it with the skill if it is strange enough.
On the other hand you can make a whole thing about locks if your players are into it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chubb_detector_lock
A locked door isn't there to keep you out. It's there to slow you down and make sure that the people who get hit with the deadly trap behind the locked door deserve it.
I'm really starting to like the idea of using the alarm spell in important doors. If this was a castle, the lord could just offer recommendations to freshmen at the wizard academy to come take care of his book keeping and stand and tell the guards if someone is at one of the alarmed doors. With two hours per level, it would not be too hard really.
Is this, over time, more costly? Yes, but hey, not everyone has access to wizards with the permanency spell for every door. Done well, these rookie wizards could be given intern level wages.
So the point of the lock? yeah waste time until the next patrol gets there. More complicated locks could be used simply to get the players to get frustrated and break the thing down (and thus alert a somewhat close patrol that might have never turned down that hallway otherwise).
The point of a lock is unless you know how to pick it, you can't open the door without violence. It's not magic (unless it is) and won't always work, and someone may even forget to lock it. But the point is to keep a door locked against most people.
Why does there need to be a risk for a locked door? They are basically just theme, not an actual obstacle. They dont give you xp, they arent real story elements, the whole world could have unlocked doors and it wouldnt change the game much, you could just break them all down if you had to. Its just a little element of the game that adds to the world. The rogue can get through the locked door quickly and quietly, the barbarian would have to break it down. Where is the problem?
Barabrian: What am door? Me see splinters but no door.
The lock on the door poses no inherent risk. If the PCs have enough time they're getting through that door. Consider any locked door in the modern world - against someone with skills and tools, they are nothing more than a DETERRENT. If someone wanted to break into your car w/a slim-jim and w/out breaking a window, they will.
But let's examine something here. If your car is parked in a lot and someone's breaking in, what else is going on while the thief is plying their trade? Is there a camera on that spot? Is someone walking by; a security guard perhaps? Does your car have an alarm or some other anti-theft device? Now lets apply all of this to a DYNAMIC dungeon environment:
4 PCs (let's call them the Hobos of Murderton) have just cleared out a room in a dungeon and exited into the hall when they find their progress stymied by a locked door ahead. "Not to worry," Hobo Rogue gleams, "I have my trusty Masterwork Tools. I'll have us through in no time!"
Hobo Rogue goes to work. The hallway is a 10' wide corridor with 10' ceilings supported by a number of crumbling archways. Behind them the hall extends some 100' and had a number of twists, turns and chambers the party had not yet explored. A sudden noise attracts the party's attention: not to worry Hobos, it's only a couple generic, mundane rats!
Hobo Wizard and Hobo Fighter grin and in unison declare: "Target Practice!" At once thrown daggers and rays of frost cut the air of the hallway. "Will you guys keep it down!" Hobo Rogue hisses. Hobo Cleric mutters something: "Gross you guys; a couple more rats just started cannibalizing their friends."
That's when the tables turn. The rats, having tasted blood and sensing more food before them, begin to gather for a swarm. Hobo Fighter looks at the Hit Points staining his armor from the last fight and glances to the priest. "I'm tapped out buddy!" Meanwhile a living wall of chittering fur and ravenous fangs begins washing down the hallway. "Wizard?" The fighter demands. In response the arcanist links his thumbs and utters a macabre formula born of elemental fury. A sheet of flame lances out burning a hole through the middle of the swarm and disperses the remainder of the things back through the cracked masonry.
"Up high!" the brawny warrior smiles slapping hands with his compatriots. With their hands up they all notice an errant breeze; nothing threatening, just the dungeon around them venting air down the hall through cracks and holes. But the zephyr also wafts the smell of the charred rat-flesh down the hall. Hobo Fighter's other hand tightens on the hilt of his signature greatsword, remembering that they chose not to fight the 3 hungry ogres a few rooms back since they looked pretty tough. As if in response, somewhere in the darkness a dinner bell rings and a door smashes open.
"How we lookin' back there Rogue?" the battle-hardened Hobo calls, keeping his eyes fixed ahead and his ears trained on the heavy stomps fast-approaching. "Almost...got it..." the thief strains. "Well snap to will ya? We're about to have 3 for dinner and we're the main course!" Chancing a glance at the spell-slinger to his left, Hobo Fighter notes a dismayed look. "I'm down to my last first level spell, a Sleep spell, and then I've just got scrolls" Hobo Wizard shrugs. Hobo Cleric valiantly shoulders past, just to the edge of the roasted rats and clutches his warhammer in both hands. "We'll have to hold them here then..."
Now, the above is a nice story, but it's not going to happen every time. It does however give you an idea of why some folks in a dungeon lock their doors. There might've also been a peephole in the door or an Arcane Eye (security camera) to monitor the thing and make sure there's no trespassing. The door might have a trap on the other side, impossible to find with even the greatest Perception check, which alerts the folks over there that something wicked this way comes.
The point is you're right; the locked door is just to slow them down. Now you have to ask yourself - why would a dungeon designer want their foes slowed?
checking to see how many 6 second turns it takes to pop the lock.
This exact thing happens all the time in movies and on tv shows. And when it happens in that media, the audience knows that the answer is always "one less than it takes for them to get caught". How is the same thing in a game where they might pick the lock in time if they roll well or might get caught if they roll poorly less exciting?
There's no penalty for failing when using Disable Device to open locks.
checking to see how many 6 second turns it takes to pop the lock.This exact thing happens all the time in movies and on tv shows. And when it happens in that media, the audience knows that the answer is always "one less than it takes for them to get caught". How is the same thing in a game where they might pick the lock in time if they roll well or might get caught if they roll poorly less exciting?
Because there is absolutely zero player buy in for that. No rogue in the history of D&D ever wasted a combat turn picking a lock.
When an enemy is barreling down on the party, they're not going to fret at the lock hoping the rogue doesn't blow it, they're going to get into ambush positions.
Locks are not an in-combat obstacle. If they were, they actually would be interesting. People pick locks when they're safe, when the rules for picking locks are most boring.
But honestly, even if you could get players to buy in to that trope and actually try to get away through locked doors, it would still lack excitement for two reasons:
1) In a TV show or movie or whatever, you can see the person desperately trying, tension causing music is playing, and we get cool shots at perfectly chosen angles anticipating the event. Around the table, you get a group of people watching someone roll a d20 over and over until its high enough.
2) The nature of the game would make it such that the threat baring down is either too powerful for the PCs to handle (so failing to pick the lock in time, a serious possibility) will lead to a TPK, or the threat isn't really worth running from in the first place, meaning everyone is "faking it" for the sake of the buy in.
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checking to see how many 6 second turns it takes to pop the lock.This exact thing happens all the time in movies and on tv shows. And when it happens in that media, the audience knows that the answer is always "one less than it takes for them to get caught". How is the same thing in a game where they might pick the lock in time if they roll well or might get caught if they roll poorly less exciting?Because there is absolutely zero player buy in for that. No rogue in the history of D&D ever wasted a combat turn picking a lock.
When an enemy is barreling down on the party, they're not going to fret at the lock hoping the rogue doesn't blow it, they're going to get into ambush positions.
Locks are not an in-combat obstacle. If they were, they actually would be interesting. People pick locks when they're safe, when the rules for picking locks are most boring.
But honestly, even if you could get players to buy in to that trope and actually try to get away through locked doors, it would still lack excitement for two reasons:
1) In a TV show or movie or whatever, you can see the person desperately trying, tension causing music is playing, and we get cool shots at perfectly chosen angles anticipating the event. Around the table, you get a group of people watching someone roll a d20 over and over until its high enough.
2) The nature of the game would make it such that the threat baring down is either too powerful for the PCs to handle (so failing to pick the lock in time, a serious possibility) will lead to a TPK, or the threat isn't really worth running from in the first place, meaning everyone is "faking it" for the sake of the buy in.
Not Necessarily:
1) You are in a room filling with water, raising at a rate of one foot per round. There is a locked door between freedom and your rapidly impending watery doom. Unless you can get that lock picked NOW you drown if you don't have a way to breath water.
2) You are fighting a clearly superior force of giants and you have managed to find an small alcove where you can face them only one at a time. The fighters are managing to drop them slowly but are taking heavy damage. Attrition means there is no way you can win over time unless you can unlock the grate at the back of the alcove and escape.
3) The BBEG is behind a locked adamantine door using a macguffin to remote control elementals/dragons/golems that are ripping you a new one. To take the least damage before facing the big bad, you have to unlock the door to get to the control room.
Barabrian: What am door? Me see splinters but no door.
Barabrian? What an unfortunate name.
Hang on, you can take 20 to open a lock with Disable Device, and there's a penalty (break lock) for failing by 5 or more?
How does that work?
You roll a 1 and break it, should that be the penalty. Take 20 infers you fail a lot before you succeed. That is the risk of taking 20. You use it when you can afford to do something 20 times. Its best used in those moments your not in combat, but you want to look around or scale a wall or lift a rock or whatever and you have the time to do it. Its not useful for say, jumping across a pit of hot coals or acrobatics on a tight rope over a spikey pit.(However, take 10 might be useful there! Hope 10 doesn't fail it though, then you just hurt yourself!)
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. In other words, if you a d20 roll enough times, eventually you will get a 20. Instead of rolling 1d20 for the skill check, just calculate your result as if you had rolled a 20.
Taking 20 means you are trying until you get it right, and it assumes that you fail many times before succeeding. Taking 20 takes 20 times as long as making a single check would take (usually 2 minutes for a skill that takes 1 round or less to perform).
Since taking 20 assumes that your character will fail many times before succeeding, your character would automatically incur any penalties for failure before he or she could complete the task (hence why it is generally not allowed with skills that carry such penalties). Common “take 20” skills include Disable Device (when used to open locks), Escape Artist, and Perception (when attempting to find traps).
Not Necessarily:
1) You are in a room filling with water, raising at a rate of one foot per round. There is a locked door between freedom and your rapidly impending watery doom. Unless you can get that lock picked NOW you drown if you don't have a way to breath water.
This falls into two of the problems I described.
First, the people are sitting there watching someone roll over and over until they get a high enough number (yawn). Second, it's one of the times the threat is a TPK if the lock doesn't get picked.
It's the worst of both worlds. Everyone sits around watching someone roll a die over and over and if he rolls too many times, everyone dies. Hooray?
2) You are fighting a clearly superior force of giants and you have managed to find an small alcove where you can face them only one at a time. The fighters are managing to drop them slowly but are taking heavy damage. Attrition means there is no way you can win over time unless you can unlock the grate at the back of the alcove and escape.
By the time you're fighting giants, your party's spellcasters should have a million ways to make that scenario safe. Just a simple wall of stone would do it, as would stone shape. It's also a hell of a lot faster to smash through that door than to keep trying to pick it.
And you know what else ruins those plans? Giants that aren't stupid--ranged weapons, area effects...how deep is this alcove? Giants can probably reach past the fighters and maul the rogue picking the lock. Or they could squeeze and overpower.
This scenario does not exist except in a perfect, scripted world.
3) The BBEG is behind a locked adamantine door using a macguffin to remote control elementals/dragons/golems that are ripping you a new one. To take the least damage before facing the big bad, you have to unlock the door to get to the control room.
You'd still have to fight the elementals/dragons/golems regardless. Plus, you're playing the BBEG stupid. If he knew the locked door was all that separated them, the creatures would dogpile on whoever was trying to pick the lock. Or otherwise just stand in the door way and block the way.
These things only work through the power of player buy-in. They need to respond to the genre conventions correctly, or the scenarios fall apart.
This is why I think locks you can retry over and over again are stupid. If it doesn't serve as a barrier (only a delayer), it either serves no purpose or you're a douche who just caused a TPK.
For all the people suggesting that picking a lock takes time, then roll once and have that attempt take more time. Perhaps it could take progressively less time based on how well you succeeded. But having it be a task you can just attempt over and over with no negative consequences doesn't work without a script.
That's why you can't take 20 on disabling a lock, because it'll jam it on the first go.Taking 20 means you are trying until you get it right, and it assumes that you fail many times before succeeding. Taking 20 takes 20 times as long as making a single check would take (usually 2 minutes for a skill that takes 1 round or less to perform).
Since taking 20 assumes that your character will fail many times before succeeding, your character would automatically incur any penalties for failure before he or she could complete the task (hence why it is generally not allowed with skills that carry such penalties). Common “take 20” skills include Disable Device (when used to open locks), Escape Artist, and Perception (when attempting to find traps).
(emphasis mine)
Locks don't jam if you roll a 1 (unless the GM has a house rule). A PC that has spent the skill points in Disable Device should be rewarded for that effort and be able to bypass locked doors and chests and traps—that's what skill-monkey characters are designed to do.
If you want to make it difficult for them, you can always use Good or Superior quality locks (DC 30 and 40) or use spells like arcane lock. Or make it a hidden, secret door. Or don't use a door at all.
Hmm good point. The failure part only mentions sabotage and disabling a trap. Don't know why I assumed it worked for picking locks.
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lots of cool stuff dismissing the other guy's stuff as not fun for mplindustries
OOHH...MINE NEXT! Tell me what's not fun or otherwise improbable about my example now!
Bottom line - locked doors in PF, like in real life, is nothing more than a deterrent. If used in a complete void of ANY other potential threat or conflict then the OP is right: it is nothing more than a speedbump. However when coupled intelligently with any other hazard it can be frighteningly fun.
@ladyspaceman: one way I've houseruled (and you don't have to if it's not your thing - I totally understand) to make lock picking more fun for the rest of the group is to make Aid Another possible if skills are used creatively. For example: the party got over a pit onto a narrow ledge in front of a locked door. Behind them a trio of goblins with slings were trying their best to harry the party but the fighter was shielding them with his body and actual shield.
The monk pulled her lockpicks and started working and my players knew about aiding another, so the wizard asked me "wait a minute: what kind of tomb are we in? Does the door look new or old?"
A couple knowledge checks by him and the cleric later they knew that the door and lock were original to the locale which was an Abadaran knight's tomb. The cleric was able to lend a +2 with the knowledge that these older tombs often had dummy tumblers in the locks for Abadarans are good at building vaults and such. The wizard on the other cast a miniscule Light spell into the lock (like shining a pen light) and put his ear to the door over the monk's for a second opinion.
These 2 bonuses plus her masterwork tools got the monk to open the door. I've since used this houserule mechanic for a lot of different "boring" skill challenges like crossing wilderness areas, scary climbs or breaking through an iron grate w/no lock or hinges in it.
I love flavorful Aid Another checks and I'll have to remember a few of those, Mark.
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I prefer locked doors to be speedbumps, not roadblocks.
It's a DOOR. Door are made to be opened.
Trapped doors don't count. A trapped door is a trap, not just a door.
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I should say that in my original post I was imagining a group on a dungeon crawl who needed to get through the next door to get to the next chamber. No time pressure on them. And thought locked doors are pointless time-wasters in such situations.
Correct-a-mundo Qbert! At least, IMO anyway.
Four guys, one with advanced lockpick training and the proper tools, with virtually NO threat to their continued survival? This should be either handwaved or you ask for the take 10 result of lockpicking and simply announce (as you said moments earlier) either it's a simple enough lock that it opens or now it's irrevocably jammed and the door needs a good kicking in.
Take that EXACT same situation though, and add either the element of cooperative Aid Another checks using different skills or some hazard such as a monster, a re-activating trap, etc...and NOW its a party!
I had a GM years ago, before these games HAD take 10's (2e) that had us stuck in a hallway. The thing was lined with small clear crystals high above; these were joined by a copper conduit along ceiling level the length of the hallway. We'd killed a couple monsters nearby and used one as a monster mop; we were sure there were no traps. Just a darkened side passage leading to a closed portcullis and this locked door.
My character, a thief/mage gets to work on the door. No threat right? it'd take a few rounds to jimmy the lock. At first the crystals began to hum, then the light in the hall got brighter and a couple rats scurried away; our hair was standing on end. Suddenly WHAM! We're all electrocuted!
My character has been flung away from the door and needs to get back to work. However a few rounds in, the cycle started again. I got the door open just as lighting hammered the hallway again! But as we flew through the open portal we had to make saves to avoid tumbling down some stairs into a vast lower hall...filled with necrophidii!
My go to is an adamantine heavy pick. Pokes right through those pesky locks so you can get in.
... what do you mean that's not what this thread is about?
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mplindustries wrote:
Because there is absolutely zero player buy in for that. No rogue in the history of D&D ever wasted a combat turn picking a lock.
When an enemy is barreling down on the party, they're not going to fret at the lock hoping the rogue doesn't blow it, they're going to get into ambush positions.
Locks are not an in-combat obstacle. If they were, they actually would be interesting. People pick locks when they're safe, when the rules for picking locks are most boring.
But honestly, even if you could get players to buy in to that trope and actually try to get away through locked doors, it would still lack excitement for two reasons:
1) In a TV show or movie or whatever, you can see the person desperately trying, tension causing music is playing, and we get cool shots at perfectly chosen angles anticipating the event. Around the table, you get a group of people watching someone roll a d20 over and over until its high enough.
2) The nature of the game would make it such that the threat baring down is either too powerful for the PCs to handle (so failing to pick the lock in time, a serious possibility) will lead to a TPK, or the threat isn't really worth running from in the first place, meaning everyone is "faking it" for the sake of the buy in.
& then wrote:
For all the people suggesting that picking a lock takes time, then roll once and have that attempt take more time. Perhaps it could take progressively less time based on how well you succeeded. But having it be a task you can just attempt over and over with no negative consequences doesn't work without a script.
So..... The GM could use this last suggestion & let the lockpicker know how far along they are in getting the lock unlocked, so if a dangerous situation comes up, depending on the level of the threat & the lockpicker's progress they could potentially have an incentive to continue picking the lock.
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mplindustries wrote:
Because there is absolutely zero player buy in for that. No rogue in the history of D&D ever wasted a combat turn picking a lock.
When an enemy is barreling down on the party, they're not going to fret at the lock hoping the rogue doesn't blow it, they're going to get into ambush positions.
Locks are not an in-combat obstacle. If they were, they actually would be interesting. People pick locks when they're safe, when the rules for picking locks are most boring.
Actually, you're wrong I've built a skill rogue who has had an encounter where we engaged a large room with multiple doors and we had one person inside cut off from retreating and a bottle neck at the one door that we had opened. My unchained rogue was able to move up to another door, and pick the lock in one standard action. (with a significant penalty to the check and a good roll!) Allowing the rest of the group to move in through the door and support the trapped player who would have definitely died had the second door not been opened immediately.
The main point about locked doors is out of combat it just takes time, maybe during that time nothing happens, maybe during that time a group of guards walks around a corner and sees you trying to pick the lock... In combat you have the obvious, it takes time to perform, and failures mean it takes even longer.
I like a rule from another game that you can't retry a lock unless you can get another bonus from something. This might be from a spell, a bardic performance, Aid Another, a Knowledge check by the rogue -- anything the GM credits as making it easier.
But I'll admit, I also thought that picking a lock took a minute. Is that from some edition of D&D, or am I confusing it with Search?
It is an interesting discussion, and it took me a while before I noticed the dates. Oh well, what's necro'd is necro'd, so may as well join in. I'd have to say that I don't particularly have much issue with the Pathfinder lockpicking rules. If you can succeed on a natural 20, it means that the lock is within your skill and it's just a matter of when. The lock DC's themselves seem balanced around the presumption, with the simplest of locks starting at DC 20 and non-magical locks going up to DC 40. That seems roughly balanced around what a character could expect to roll on a take 20 result depending on how invested they are in the skill and what level they are.
An obstacle not covered by fire is not an obstacle.
In other words, if there is nothing actively guarding your obstacle it will be bypassed in short order with little effort by the PCs.