Equally you could say the anti-take 10 crowd beating their heads against the well. Which would be you, here.correct, but I don't see it used that often and the pro take 10's crowd rather frequent beating their heads against the wall (music to my ears, thump thump thump thump...:) ) makes me think this isn't just a local thing.You've outlined why you don't like it, but that doesn't make it a minority position.
It was done. People disagree on this. I think I've outlined why people don't like your interpretation, to the point of your position being the minority one.
Doesn't really matter to me. I don't like the rule, so if I'm playing I don't use it. If I"m dming I set when it applies according to what i think the rules are.
There is no bell curve on a single die. The distribution for a single die is flat. All number are equally likely.
As I've said, the bell curve is around the DC of the skill check. You should be running into mostly things you can get with a 10 or 15, with very few things where you need a 20 to succeed or can make on a 1.
The other factor that is seemingly overlooked with T10 is that it allows the game to carve out space for skills. Setting DC's so that a T10 is auto-success for people who have invested in the skill is a fundamental technique for making the skills valuable.
It also has the opposite effect at the higher end. If Roger the rogue with a +10 disable device and Trapspringer has a +15, Roger should not be 90% as effective as Trapspringer. This negates a lot of the need to put more than average effort into a skill.
That would be "i pull a twit move as a DM and negate his resource allocation by increasing the dcs" which explains both the mechanism you've outlined and my disdain for that option.Set a DC that is only very slightly higher and a Take 10 won't cut it.
THREE options. Count em. Give me another option if you think there is one.
The GM deciding that he has been incorrectly setting DCs to low and slightly tweaking them rather than raising them extremely high is not a "twit move" and regardless of your disdain for it that was a third option that was not included in your initial two which I argued was a fallacy. You are only now including it as a choice after the fact.
If you're going to accuse someone of a logical fallacy you need to do it off of what they said, not your feelings.
#1 I didn't accuse you of a logical fallacy based upon feelings. I accused you of a logical fallacy because regardless of the actual wording you used you were still claiming there were only two options when there were alternatives.
#2 I did not say I posted what I was "feeling" from your posts". I said I posted what I was "getting", i.e. understanding, from your posts. The fact that I misunderstood your intent has nothing to do with "feelings" so you are guilty of exactly what you accuse me of.
I apologize for misunderstanding the meaning of your comment about practically wasting skills. The meaning of that particular phrase, however, was not the cause of the fallacy you committed.
You couldn't recognize that there were three choices despite them clearly being separated by , s and your addition to the list to demonstrate the false dilemma is already the first item on it.
Your initial argument didn't have the third option. You didn't start throwing that in there until AFTER I pointed out the false dilemma. Only now are you throwing in there so you can try to say you didn't commit the fallacy in the first place.
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BigNorseWolf, you keep implying that the "intent" of Skill Focus is to add 15% to someone's chances of success. I'd say, since both the feat and take 10 have been around since d20's inception, that the intent is twofold:
-it expands the range at which take 10 is autosuccess - you can now take 10 where before you needed an 11, 12, or 13 and still pass the check.
-in cases where you roll, it adds effectively 15% to your roll.
I claim that both of these benefits are intended features of, let's face it, a feat that isn't taken very often except for very specific uses anyway.
Your point about Roger and Trapspringer is more a systemic symptom of how unopposed skills tend to work at high levels - if the highest DC for a skill is 30, there is little difference between someone with a +29 and someone with a +40. The sheer fact of the matter is that many skills just aren't worth keeping maxed out past a certain point. This fact actually helps those 2 sp/level classes.
Also, having run many high level(15+) adventures, I find many players take 10 less often once their skills get truly great - when you aren't as worried that rolling a 1 fails an easy task, why not roll? If I'm rocking a +42 Perception you better believe I'm rolling that fellow most of the time. Except when searching for traps, that's too much rolling.
Your initial argument didn't have the third option.
You didn't start throwing that in there until AFTER I pointed out the false dilemma. Only now are you throwing in there so you can...
I don't want a disable device check of 25 at first level because the rogue is probably not going to make it. Setting a failure rate of over 50% as a dm or adventure designer is kind of a twit move , so setting the dc lower to give the pcs a good chance at the roll is standard practice. No problem, the rogue succeeds 75%ish of the time.
But then you add in the idea that you can take 10 on anything. All of a sudden my choices are to either set the failure rate so high you've pretty much wasted your investment in the skills, or i make it a 100% success rate because you're taking 10.
Same ideas been here the whole time.
@BigNorseWolf, please don't private message me to accuse me of accusing you of lying because I lack reading comprehension skills.
Once again I will quote your original post from yesterday at 5:04pm
But then you add in the idea that you can take 10 on anything. All of a sudden my choices are to either set the failure rate so high you've pretty much wasted your investment in the skills, or i make it a 100% success rate because you're taking 10.
Choice #1: "set the failure rate so high you've pretty much wasted your investment in the skills"
Choice #2: "or i make it a 100% success rate because you're taking 10"
The third choice did not get mentioned until I pointed out the fallacy.
If you wish to respond please do so in in the forum and not in my Inbox. I have no desire to engage in a private discussion with you.
BigNorseWolf, you keep implying that the "intent" of Skill Focus is to add 15% to someone's chances of success. I'd say, since both the feat and take 10 have been around since d20's inception, that the intent is twofold:
-it expands the range at which take 10 is autosuccess - you can now take 10 where before you needed an 11, 12, or 13 and still pass the check.
-in cases where you roll, it adds effectively 15% to your roll.
I don't know if i trust designers with that kind of foresight... :)
Your point about Roger and Trapspringer is more a systemic symptom of how unopposed skills tend to work at high levels
1 rank +3 trained +4 dex +2 masterworks thieves tools=+10. It starts kind of early.
if the highest DC for a skill is 30, there is little difference between someone with a +29 and someone with a +40. The sheer fact of the matter is that many skills just aren't worth keeping maxed out past a certain point. This fact actually helps those 2 sp/level classes.
Are they really the classes we need to make the skills work better for though?
Also, having run many high level(15+) adventures, I find many
players take 10 less often once their skills get truly great - when you aren't as worried that rolling a 1 fails an easy task, why not roll? If I'm rocking a +42 Perception you better believe I'm rolling that fellow most of the time. Except when searching for traps, that's too much rolling.
I just don't see it that often. I mean a big part of the game is waiting to see how much the dice love/hate you tonight and the kind of whackiness that insues from that.
BigNorseWolf,
You keep talking about how you are setting the DCs to be at the peak of the bell curve. But, how are you dealing with Characters which have made a skill an autosuccess when he rolls a 1? Do you also raise the DC of the skill check?
The problem with raising the DCs of the skill check is that you are also raising the CRs when you do that.
Raising the DCs on a trap results in raising the CR.
Raising a creature's skills usually require giving it more hit dice and thus more skills. Feats and Magic items can also do this but only so much. Players can always outstrip creatures in this regard if you follow the rules on how many feats they have and how much treasure they should have. Even if you do give a creature everything possible to balance out the stealth skill of the party scout you have just diminished it's combat abilities in favor of 2 (or more) feats and at least 2,500gp worth of equipment.
So, your entire premise of "the DCs should be 50/50" is flawed because to do that you generally have to change the CRs or sacrifice other elements of the creature's build to match a player who has a lot more resources and is more specialized in that area.
Skills don't scale well. It is too easy for a Player to get a skill bonus so high that it is just unbeatable by almost anything that is CR appropriate.
Frankly, if the fighter can auto-hit on the first attack why shouldn't the skill monkey auto-succeed in his area of specialization?
BigNorseWolf,
You keep talking about how you are setting the DCs to be at the peak of the bell curve. But, how are you dealing with Characters which have made a skill an autosuccess when he rolls a 1? Do you also raise the DC of the skill check?
Absolutely not. If you've got THAT much invested in a skill it should work. People with a skill that high usually like rolling and getting their absurdly high number (just to see if they can Fonzie the lock) Succeeding on a 1 usually takes exponentially more resources than succeeding on a 10, which is a HUGE reason i don't like taking 10 becoming almost as good as an auto success on a 1.
I think I've said more than a few times now that cranking the DC because the player put more into the skill is a twit move.
The bell curve assumes average effort. Above or below average effort should yield above or below average results, I just don't like the huge jump taking 10 will get you when combined with a few +s.
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@BigNorseWolf, please don't private message me to accuse me of accusing you of lying because I lack reading comprehension skills.
Once again I will quote your original post from yesterday at 5:04pm
But then you add in the idea that you can take 10 on anything. All of a sudden my choices are to either set the failure rate so high you've pretty much wasted your investment in the skills, or i make it a 100% success rate because you're taking 10.Choice #1: "set the failure rate so high you've pretty much wasted your investment in the skills"
Choice #2: "or i make it a 100% success rate because you're taking 10"
The third choice did not get mentioned until I pointed out the fallacy.
If you wish to respond please do so in in the forum and not in my Inbox. I have no desire to engage in a private discussion with you.
Lol, did he threaten to put you on ignore? He really hates people who call him on his bull.
BigNorseWolf, exponentially more resources? How about 1 feat (skill focus) and one (cheap @2,500gp) magic item (+5 competence bonus).
As for raising the DC because players have invested more being a twit move...what is the difference between that and raising the DC because of take 10 (which you did state was one of your choices)? Both are "trit moves".
BigNorseWolf, exponentially more resources? How about 1 feat (skill focus) and one (cheap @2,500gp) magic item (+5 competence bonus).
I do in fact consider a feat and a rather expensive item to be exponentially more work for a low level character.
So that would be level 3?, 3 ranks +3 trained +4 dex + 5 trapspringers gloves +3 skill focus = 18. Not QUITE taking 1 on a level appropriate dc 20 check but close enough for state work.
As for raising the DC because players have invested more being a twit move...what is the difference between that and raising the DC because of take 10 (which you did state was one of your choices)? Both are "twit moves".
Nothing. I've called them both twit moves. I don't think i can, in all fairness, do either. If I want skills to have any relevance and any fairness I feel i have to have them come up in situations where take 10 won't work.
You seem to be prying after a particular point here, but i don't know what it is and I'm not sure if i even made it or not.
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Here's what you do:
Look at the party's level. Select a relative difficulty (normal, hard, epic), which adjusts the CR you're looking at. Use challenges that fall within that CR. See what happens.
If a character has invested enough into a skill to beat, say, a trap DC by taking 10, you can mix in a couple of more dangerous traps. That doesn't invalidate their investment, and doesn't conflict with the idea of taking 10. In fact, if you have some trap DCs that are player's skill -5, some that are player's skill, some that are player's skill +2, and some that are player's skill +5, you'll have a fair distribution of results. If they take 10, they'll disable the first two, fail to disable the third, but not set off the trap (and can then roll), and fail to disable the last and set off the trap. If they encounter any traps after that last one, the chance of their taking 10 goes down, because they're now concerned about blowing it on another trap. That then means that their chance of failing on the rest of the traps goes up, because now, rather than remaining coolheaded and relying on their experience, they're a little uncertain, and are rolling instead of taking 10.
BigNorseWolf, your concerns with taking 10 only apply if the players have out-of-character knowledge of the specific challenges, or always take 10 regardless of outside circumstances. The first is possible, but you, as GM, get to make behind the scenes alterations that can throw their assumptions out the window, and few players ever take 10 all the time, because they know that they will occasionally run into tasks for which a 10 will result in failure, and because most players enjoy rolling dice.
As an example from my own game, the party rogue had been forgetting to take 10 for several traps and failed a couple dramatically, so he started taking 10, and managed to succeed on some traps that I wasn't super concerned with, while for some others he failed to disable the trap, but since he didn't set it off had a fair idea of what the DC was, and on some he succeeded when he rolled, and on some others he rolled terribly and set the trap off. Then when he took 10 on a trap that I, as GM, really wanted to see get set off at least once, he failed, because I'd used a spell on that trap raising its DC by 5.
Onto other points:
Your dismissing the guard example as not being equivalent to the dragon doesn't make any sense. A dragon isn't necessarily any more or less dangerous than a guard--you don't know if the guard is a polymorphed dragon, or is 10 levels higher than you, or will signal to the dragon you didn't see, just as you don't know if the dragon you're sneaking past is a low enough CR to not be all that dangerous, or if it happens to be uncommonly friendly.
SKR's point about distractions besides the task you're performing indicates that something directly related to the skill you're using shouldn't prevent you from taking 10. Something you're sneaking past figures directly into your using stealth. Jumping over something, whether dangerous or not, figures directly into your using Acrobatics. There is no difference between leaping a chasm with spikes and lava at the bottom, and sneaking past a guard carrying a concealed bazooka, or sneaking past a sleeping dragon.
If you want examples of other things, besides combat, that could interfere with a check...
-a noticed trap
-a trap that has gone off and is continuous (maybe continuously firing darts through the area you need to sneak)
-having to also carry something important/fragile/dangerous while sneaking
-communicating telepathically with your team
-trying to appraise the loot the dragon is sleeping on while you're sneaking
-having to balance at the same time, because you're trying to move stealthy across a narrow ledge, or a slippery surface
-or climbing while sneaking
There are plenty of things that can prevent a character from taking 10 on a check, but they should be unrelated to that check, not the REASON you're rolling the skill in the first place.
Allowing and disallowing the usage of the take 10 action based on your (the GM's) perception of what is and isn't a distraction can be immersion breaking or confusing for players. YOU know that the thing they want to sneak past is exceptionally dangerous, but they don't, so can they take 10 or not?
Using the dragon example...can they take 10 if they don't know the dragon is there, but they know that there's a guard? What if they just know that there's SOMETHING nearby, but don't know what. If they just think they're sneaking past a guard, can they take 10 or not? Would you stop a player who wished to take 10 in that circumstance to tell them that there is more danger present than they know about?
Wouldn't it be better to allow them to take 10, and THEN have them discover there was something else to worry about there? They sneak by the guard, but wake the dragon overhead, or they sneak by the dragon, while blundering into the trap they didn't notice, or they take 10, because they are confident in their ability to stealth, but in this case they've underestimated their opposition and fail.
This is how take 10 is supposed to work--it's a decision on the player's part based on their confidence and the circumstances. That's why OTHER things can be distracting: you, as GM, can fairly disallow taking 10 by indicating the darts flying through the area you need to traverse, or the trap trigger they noticed when they approached, or the additional concentration required to also maintain their balance crossing that narrow, rain-slick walkway without giving away any unknown details about the task they're trying to accomplish.
In the case of making a jump, think of taking 10 as taking a moment to judge the distant, planting your feet properly, and leaping with the form you've practiced, while having to roll means you're making that leap without dropping into routine, you're just leaving the ground and relying on your experience to get you to the other side.
As another example, you could compare taking 10 to basketball, where taking 10 is liking making a free throw. Players have a set routine that they go through every time they take a shot, say, bringing both feet up to the free throw line so their toes touch it, dribble the ball once, then slide one foot back and to the side just so. And a player who is skilled enough, will make that shot nearly every time. "But wait!" you say, "even the best shooters miss on occasion." Well, sure...that's because they're fatigued (and dropping their Str/Dex has lowered their skill below auto-success when taking 10), or they're distracted by the crowd (maybe a -2 circumstance penalty), or are concerned with the standing of the score between the two teams, and their concentration falters, so maybe they have to roll, or take a circumstance penalty.
Now, look at a player during normal play, standing at the free throw line when they receive a pass, and then shoot. They're not taking those extra steps from before to line up the shot and fall into an established rhythm, so they can't take 10, despite the fact that they are essentially taking the same shot as before. You could say that this is due to the danger of "combat", but if there isn't a defender nearby, they may be unable to take 10 simply because they don't have the time to line up properly (remember, taking 10 also generally requires more time for the task).
Just for the record: Officially, Disable trap rolls are to be done secretly because the character doesn't know if he was successful or not. Unless he screws up so badly it goes off of course.
So you can't actually retry a failed disarm, because you think you succeeded.
Ah, true. I need to start doing that.
Think I spent too much time playing DDO...
Thanks for the reminder!
My points all still stand, however.
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Okay, so BWN doesn't like Take 10. Almost everyone else disagrees with him.
Aren't we all beating our heads against a wall at this point...?
Tpark:
1) that DC's for anything are set based on the level of the PC's rather than the difficulty of what they are trying to do.
What the PCs are trying to do can be and usually is related to their level. A first level rogue breaks open a rusty padlock, the 15th level rogue breaks into the vault of abadar. That sets the dc.
2) and that ALL of the DC's are the same for a given adventure OR that the PC's know what the DC's are.
I am not making that assumptions, at all. I have specifically and repeatedly abused the idea that I am making that assumption. A bell curve is not a single number. Over a course of a few dungeons, a 3rd level character with a +12 disable device might find
1 DC 5
5 DC 20s.
2 DC 25s
1 DC 30.
If you follow setting a DC to get you something worse than that, You've increased the failure rate for the roller to levels i find unacceptably high, at which point i kill the rogue make a barbarian and just walk into the traps.
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I have a question : why should you punish people for investing in their skills ?
You have a character who is way above our skill and comparing it to someone with our skill level.
The guy with +10 taking 10 should be able to do the DC 20 checks as if a routine. It just means he is so skilled in that field that even very hard tasks is just finger in the nose for him.
The same way someone with +0 taking 10 succeed at DC 10 checks.
Example :
Wizard with 10 STR, no skill ranks in swimming. If he wants to swim through calm water, he doesn't roll, he just take 10 and move on. Because swimming through calm water is "easy" enough for anyone to do. If an aquatic creature is attacking him at the same time, or if someone is pressuring him one way or another, then he can't take 10, and have to roll.
Fighter with 18 STR, 3 skill ranks in swimming will be able to swim in calm water without a roll whatever the situation (even while being attacked or pressured), because without rolling he already have +10. He is so skilled he can swim in rough water just as if it was calm water, and can even swim during hours without being fatigued (swim DC 20 each hour, auto success by taking 10), just as if swimming was as easy for him as walking.
I could make the same thing with every skill in the game.
As for perception VS stealth, there is still the solution of the aid another check (5 guards are looking, one is taking 10 and the others are helping him with its check granting him +8, just as if he had rolled a 18 in his roll). If the rogue feels skilled enough to be able to pass through 5 guards patrolling in a room as a routine task, why prevent him from doing so ? Rolling is not something interesting, nor make it fantastic. At the contrary, it makes the character that much more amazing.
Doing it while being under pressure (guards know someone is here, and they're patrolling in groups searching actively for you), then you wouldn't be able to take 10. They're not using their routine patrolling movements, or looking the same way anymore, it's not a routine job but a real skill against skill encounter.
The same difference between trying to infiltrate the dragon cave when the dragon is only living normally in it and doing it while an alarm rang and the dragon knows someone is here.
BigNorseWolf, your concerns with taking 10 only apply if the players have out-of-character knowledge of the specific challenges, or always take 10 regardless of outside circumstances.
If I assume a fair slew of challanges it defaults to the latter because its incredibly advantageous to do so. No out of character knowledge required.
The first is possible, but you, as GM, get to make behind the scenes alterations that can throw their assumptions out the window
I have VERY specifically and very repeatedly answered this already.
Your dismissing the guard example as not being equivalent to the dragon doesn't make any sense. A dragon isn't necessarily any more or less dangerous than a guard
It was stated that if awake the dragon would devour the rogue. I closed this loophole already.
you don't know if the guard is a polymorphed dragon, or is 10 levels higher than you, or will signal to the dragon you didn't see, just as you don't know if the dragon you're sneaking past is a low enough CR to not be all that dangerous, or if it happens to be uncommonly friendly.
If you need to get technical the rule is if you are in danger or not, not if you THINK you're in danger or not.
If you want to get thematic, you never have trouble starting a car until a serial killer is lurking underneath it.
SKR's point about distractions besides the task you're performing indicates that something directly related to the skill you're using shouldn't prevent you from taking 10. Something you're sneaking past figures directly into your using stealth. Jumping over something, whether dangerous or not, figures directly into your using Acrobatics. There is no difference between leaping a chasm with spikes and lava at the bottom, and sneaking past a guard carrying a concealed bazooka, or sneaking past a sleeping dragon.
The guard can only find you by succeeding at a spot check. The dragon can spot you (with blind sense) by waking up to go to the bathroom at any moment.
I find the idea that you are not in immediate danger while sneaking past a sleeping dragon to be sheer torture of the english language. IF that was the intent, it missed by a mile.
If you want examples of other things, besides combat, that could interfere with a check...
-a noticed trap
-a trap that has gone off and is continuous (maybe continuously firing darts through the area you need to sneak)
-having to also carry something important/fragile/dangerous while sneaking
-communicating telepathically with your team
-trying to appraise the loot the dragon is sleeping on while you're sneaking
-having to balance at the same time, because you're trying to move stealthy across a narrow ledge, or a slippery surface
-or climbing while sneaking
I'm pretty sure the pro take 10 crowd would have issues with a lot of those.
Allowing and disallowing the usage of the take 10 action based on your (the GM's) perception of what is and isn't a distraction can be immersion breaking or confusing for players. YOU know that the thing they want to sneak past is exceptionally dangerous, but they don't, so can they take 10 or not?
The only thing thats immersion breaking is the characters knowing the difference between the other worldly being that's controlling them is saying "10" or rolling a solid polyhedron to decide their fate. Otherwise its a case of "This only happens at the worst possible time"
the PLAYER would know something is up because they can't take 10, but the character wouldn't.As another example, you could compare taking 10 to basketball, where taking 10 is liking making a free throw.
By your reading, someone putting a gun to your head and shooting you if you miss the freethrow isn't a threat, because the freethrow is directly related to the consequences. As long as you make the freethrow you're fine, therefore you can take 10.
Which means the character using Take 10 is guaranteed to miss the last 3. Which are also probably the nastiest ones.
But they've missed only 1 of them by 5. They found out that the trap was there and are now rolling, BUT with the knowledge that its a pretty hard trap. The only cost was that they automatically set off the 30, which they had a good chance of doing anyway. They have better odds on the first 6, the same odds on 2 and only worse odds on 1.
Well, as long as BNW is not trying to argue RAW, then I feel he should feel free to run it as he wishes.
Just don't try it in PFS.
RAW is if you are in immediate danger.
Standing in front of a dragon is immediate danger.
You will probably find that line of logic just as common in PFS as anywhere else.
Standing in front of guards who are looking for trouble and will kill intruders is also immediate danger.Well, as long as BNW is not trying to argue RAW, then I feel he should feel free to run it as he wishes.
Just don't try it in PFS.
RAW is if you are in immediate danger.
Standing in front of a dragon is immediate danger.
You will probably find that line of logic just as common in PFS as anywhere else.
Well that's subjective. Standing in front of a trap is an immediate danger. The light rain is distracting so you can't focus. The sleeping guard will kill you if he wakes up! The lava in the pit is an immediate...
I usually don't say no to take 10 unless its combat rounds.
No. They set one of them off trying to disarm it. They think they've disarmed all the others. No retries unless they somehow know they haven't. That's how the skill is supposed to work.
ermmm.. no.
Try Again: Varies. You can retry checks made to disable traps if you miss the check by 4 or less. You can retry checks made to open locks.
Is the Barmaid, sleeping next to you, who is actually a Polymorphed Ancient Red Dragon, "immediate danger"?
Now THATS a trap.
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Is the Barmaid, sleeping next to you, who is actually a Polymorphed Ancient Red Dragon, "immediate danger"?Now THATS a trap.
You know what they say about ancient reds right?
Well, as long as BNW is not trying to argue RAW, then I feel he should feel free to run it as he wishes.
Just don't try it in PFS.
RAW is if you are in immediate danger.
Standing in front of a dragon is immediate danger.
You will probably find that line of logic just as common in PFS as anywhere else.
Are you automatically in immediate danger? What if your Diplomacy or Bluff skills are sufficiently high? What if you are able to talk your way out of just about any situation?
As I've said, the bell curve is around the DC of the skill check. You should be running into mostly things you can get with a 10 or 15, with very few things where you need a 20 to succeed or can make on a 1.Ah. So you're saying the distribution of DC's should peak at players needing to roll a 10=15?
Based on what rules? I'll repeat what Oldskool said again, the DCs should be independent of the characters. In other words, the DC's don't change. What changes is the task the adventurers will attempt. It was always a DC 25 to scale the castle walls. Only now, someone is high enough to attempt to it.
It seems what you're arguing is that the game isn't fun unless players are needing to roll between a 10-15 for as kill check. To the extent you believe this you're really missing the point of Take 10. I won't repeat what I've written in my previous post.
It also has the opposite effect at the higher end. If Roger the rogue with a +10 disable device and Trapspringer has a +15, Roger should not be 90% as effective as Trapspringer. This negates a lot of the need to put more than average effort into a skill.I don't understand what you're arguing. I'm not sure I understand the math you are using here.
Can't agree more with you, and the rules agree with you too.
The DC for disarming a trap is not 10+LVL, but 20.
Climbing a castle wall is not 10+LVL, but 25 (I didn't check, just taking your number).
That means that someone with +5 will have very hard time doing it, and a much more skilled character can do it routinely if he's not threatened outside of the task itself.
Can't agree more with you, and the rules agree with you too.
The DC for disarming a trap is not 10+LVL, but 20.
No, the dc for disarming a trap is not 20.
The DC for disarming a trap varies by the trap. You do not throw the gyroscopic vorpal decapitator 5000 into a first level dungeon and you do not put the bear trap in the lich's sanctum.
There is a certain pattern to the DC's of skill checks relative to the characters level. That pattern favors taking 10. If you combine it with a few bonuses, it GREATLY favors taking 10.
Climbing a castle wall is not 10+LVL, but 25 (I didn't check, just taking your number).
Low level pcs climb ruins. Mid level pcs climb castle walls. High level pcs climb smooth as glass walls of ice in a hurricane.
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I would be a bit upset, if I had a PC who attempted the exact same task, in the exact same conditions, but found it harder to do, simply because my PC had gained a level.
"This pothole next to my house, it used to be be so easy to jump over. Now, after years of adventuring, and honing my combat skills, this pothole is so much harder to jump over."
Varies. You can retry checks made to disable traps if you miss the check by 4 or less, though you must be aware that you fail in order to try again.
huh. Never noticed that. Learn something new every day...
Thinking that either doesn't affect the odds of taking 10 at all, or it helps them a bit more, because that way the fighter is taking the poison darts to the face instead of you.
I would be a bit upset, if I had a PC who attempted the exact same task, in the exact same conditions, but found it harder to do, simply because my PC had gained a level.
"This pothole next to my house, it used to be be so easy to jump over. Now, after years of adventuring, and honing my combat skills, this pothole is so much harder to jump over."
No one is saying this what happens. Complete, total, and very, very bad misunderstanding of whats been said.
At level 1 the adventure is you jump the pothole next to your house and fight the kobold on the other side.
At level 5 that's not an adventure anymore. You jump the chasm and fight the orc barbarians on the other side.
At level 10 you leap the canyon and fight the Trolls on the other side.
Why does it seem odd to you that the skill obstacle got bigger but its perfectly acceptable that the monsters got tougher?
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I would be a bit upset, if I had a PC who attempted the exact same task, in the exact same conditions, but found it harder to do, simply because my PC had gained a level.
"This pothole next to my house, it used to be be so easy to jump over. Now, after years of adventuring, and honing my combat skills, this pothole is so much harder to jump over."
No one is saying this what happens. Complete, total, and very, very bad misunderstanding of whats been said.
At level 1 the adventure is you jump the pothole next to your house and fight the kobold on the other side.
At level 5 that's not an adventure anymore. You jump the chasm and fight the orc barbarians on the other side.
At level 10 you leap the canyon and fight the Trolls on the other side.
Why does it seem odd to you that the skill obstacle got bigger but its perfectly acceptable that the monsters got tougher?
I misread something there.
I was under the impression that DCs were being raised for a task, depending on the level of who was attempting it.
Taking 10 to Stealth past the sleeping dragon. Party is all level 10 and consists of a Ranger (Pirate Queen), Sorcerer (Blackscale Sorcerer), Druid (Water Merchant), and a Rogue (Dancing Dervish). I used characters from the NPC guide for simplicity. The dragon is an adult green dragon (CR 12).
Stealth Checks (Sleeping Dragon adds +10 to their checks and they are 65 feet away):
Ranger: +38
Sorcerer: +18
Druid: +20
Rogue: +34
Perception for sleeping Dragon:
+25
I would not allow the dragon to Take 10 on perception because it's sleeping. I believe it's Blindsense of 60 feet means that it will auto succeed not matter what the PCs roll.
Taking 10 gives the Sorcerer, Druid, and Rogue gets 28, 30, and 44 respectively. The Ranger gets a 48 which will beat the dragon's perception check. The dragon gets anywhere between 26 and 45.
So they can Take 10 and two can hope for the best. They can also roll and hope to get up to 58, 38, 40, and 54. That would give them all a chance.
Stealthing past a sleeping dragon is still a challenge and may require some characters to roll while others who have specialized to skip rolling. The system rewards specialization.
N N :
The lower the distribution peaks the more it favors take 10.