Ability Score Checks: Strengh


Rules Questions

Grand Lodge

If there is an object in a (Paizo published adventure) room that requires a Strength Check, can PCs INSTEAD combine their maximum drag/pull loads to move the object, if there's no threat of monster or something?

Let me explain from where I'm coming....

1) I'm one of those who hates the "RAW" lawyers in their straightjackets.

2) According to RAW, PCs cannot assist on Ability Score checks.

Thus, 3) I use this blunder in RAW to attack the RAW devotees -- and maybe I'm wrong so I come here for clarification:

My example:

Spoiler:
The 6 PCs are in a school cafeteria with a stage at one end. The stage is 5 feet off the cafeteria floor. In the middle of the room is a table, 10 feet by 5 feet. The table weighs 801 pounds.

The PCs must get the 801lb table from the cafeteria floor, across the room and up on to the stage.

The strongest PC has a Strength of 20, meaning while he can drag the table, he cannot pick up the table over his head to lift it on the stage.

According to RAW the other 5 PCs CAN NOT aid him in his Strength check. So,... you can't put the 6 PCs around the 5x10 table and have them lift the table together with Strength Checks -- even though every person in the history of the universe has had to do just that in their school cafeteria at one point.

BUT, -- Am I wrong?
Is my example to attack RAW flawed because the 6 PCs would not be assisting on Strength checks but rather assisting on dragging/carrying heavy loads?

Here's what happened in our campaign:

Emerald Spire Level 2, *Minor* spoiler:
A cage falls from the ceiling in Ed Greenwood's lame-level, trapping a PC. The PC (singular, not plural) can lift the cage with a DC 20 Strength check to escape. (p35, B8).

According to RAW and implied in the text, only one PC can move the object, not too unlike my cafeteria table example above.

BUT, could one argue that instead of an Ability Score check, PCs can assist on carrying/dragging heavy loads?

Thanks for the help!


First off, ability checks are not well represted within the rules. I compiled a list some time ago of the appearance of every ability check I could find in the SRD, and it is surprisingy small.. Because of this, I believe, the rules just don't spend a lot of time on them. Ability checks, I also believe, are more in the realm of GM fiat than skills.

The rules for Strength checks, and those for lifting, dragging, etc. appear similar but actually function differently. I believe that a Strength check is intended for use in combat, while the lifting rules are better used out of combat.

Grand Lodge

Yes, I can't believe for one instant that any DM, regardless of how straightjacketed to the RAW he or she may be, would not allow multiple PCs to work together to pick something up.

But our session the other night was interesting because, while the DM of course let us combine our strengths to move the object, I once again brought up my attack on being straightjacketed to RAW as if it were sacrosanct and all powerful -- and was pleasantly surprised to hear a very strong-sounding argument against my cafeteria table argument.

Real food for thought.


Where do you see that Aid Another cannot be used for ability checks?


I use Strength checks in my games and in an update I did for the Tomb of Horrors.

I basically just figure out what the weight is of the object that I need/want to be moved, whether it's lifted, pulled, etc., and compare it to an appropriate score on the Strength table.

Take the Modifier of that score and add 20 to it, and there you have the Strength Check.

I add 20 to the check because out of combat you're presupposing that you're taking 20 to Lift, Push/Drag, etc.

---

So for something that weighs, say, 3400 pounds, that's a DC28 Strength Check.

The reasoning is this:

Looking at the Strength table, you see that a Strength score of 26 is the lowest score possible for a Character to push/drag 3400 Pounds.

Str 26 has a Modifier of +8

Out of Combat, a Character that has no time constraints can take 20 on a check.

Therefore, a Character with a Strength Score of 26 can take 20 and push said object weighing 3400lbs. without fail.

A Character with a Strength of 24, however, cannot, even when taking 20 - not without the help of another character using the Aid Another check, or some other ability.

Meanwhile, a character with a Strength of 46, thus a +18 modifier, doesn't even need to take the full time of Taking 20 - instead, he can just Take 10 and push that one-and-a-half ton object as a Full Round Action.

On the other side of things, a Character with Str20 who's playing with Mythic rules could use something like Demonstration of Strength to add a +20 to that check, thus gaining a +25 to make a DC28 Strength check, meaning only a roll of 1 or 2 will fail for them pushing/dragging 3400lbs. mid-combat.


Gauss wrote:
Where do you see that Aid Another cannot be used for ability checks?

Nowhere, but I can't see anywhere that says they can be.

"Aid Another
You can help someone achieve success on a skill check by making the same kind of skill check in a cooperative effort..."


Matthew Downie wrote:
Gauss wrote:
Where do you see that Aid Another cannot be used for ability checks?

Nowhere, but I can't see anywhere that says they can be.

"Aid Another
You can help someone achieve success on a skill check by making the same kind of skill check in a cooperative effort..."

You're missing a major area of Aid Another, though:

Aid Another wrote:

In melee combat, you can help a friend attack or defend by distracting or interfering with an opponent. If you're in position to make a melee attack on an opponent that is engaging a friend in melee combat, you can attempt to aid your friend as a standard action. You make an attack roll against AC 10. If you succeed, your friend gains either a +2 bonus on his next attack roll against that opponent or a +2 bonus to AC against that opponent's next attack (your choice), as long as that attack comes before the beginning of your next turn. Multiple characters can aid the same friend, and similar bonuses stack.

You can also use this standard action to help a friend in other ways, such as when he is affected by a spell, or to assist another character's skill check.

It seems quite open-ended enough for DMs to allow assistance on Ability Checks, especially something like Strength Checks which we KNOW in real life is a very-common occurrence.

Grand Lodge

@ Gauss,
You can only aid another on most skill checks, DM's discretion depending on the situation, and in combat -- not Ability Score checks -- because there IS published material on how "aiding another" works, in fact, two different mechanics for two different kinds, and NO published material on aiding another for Ability Score checks.

At least, as far as the RAW folks tell me.
What do I know?

@ CBH Graphic Arts,
Great mechanic -- what's the RAW, though?


W E Ray wrote:

@ CBH Graphic Arts,
Great mechanic -- what's the RAW, though?

The RAW was provided to you.

Quote:


You can also use this standard action to help a friend in other ways

No limitation is listed on how the use of a standard action to "help a friend" is listed. Therefore, RAW do not include limitations on the use of Aid Another in this way.


W E Ray wrote:

@ CBH Graphic Arts,

Great mechanic -- what's the RAW, though?

The RAW is that there is no RAW.

There is no set shtick for them, because the designers don't use them, and where they do it's generally an ad-hoc use that just "feels" right rather than be meticulously crafted.

The designers largely avoid Ability Checks like the plague, instead favoring things like Skills, Saves, etc., because those are things that players have a great deal of control over.

If you need to Disable a DC30 Trap at an appropriate CR for your level, and you don't have enough skills in Disable Device for that level, then you're going to - and deserve to, to a degree - fail at Disabling it.

Skill Checks, etc. are much more easily-designed, because they can presuppose that an appropriate class with enough skills, gear, and a good-enough Ability Modifier will likely have a Score of +X; the designers then decide what the % chance of success they'd like such a character to have is (which means what the minimum value on a d20 should be - 11 is 50%, 16 is 25%, etc.). Add the two together, and the end result is a DC that reflects that value.

Non-appropriate classes will have a significantly lower chance of success at those skills, because they're not usually MEANT to make those sorts of checks, but they still can if players build the characters in appropriate ways.

On the other hand, Ability Checks are wildcards.

Nothing says that a Fighter MUST have an 18 Con, while a Wizard MUST have a 10; you could have a Fighter with 10 Con and a Wizard with 18.

Whereas a Trap or something else with a Fort Save presupposes that a Martial will probably succeed and a Caster will fail because that's how the classes are designed, a Trap requiring a Con check is shooting a shotgun blind.

With an Ability Check, for all you know, the Trap that you want to be hard for Casters and easy for Martials may end up killing unequal amounts of the one and not the other.

---

Part of the point of Pathfinder, and by extension the Skills system, is that you should be as awesome as your Training and Option choices, not as awesome as your Ability Scores.

Scores play into all this, of course, but they're not supposed to be the end-all-be-all.

As a result, Ability Checks are extraordinarily rare in the game.


Yeah..the RAW is "DM discretion".

Also note that you can Take 10 and Take 20 on Ability Checks as well.


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Matthew Downie wrote:
Gauss wrote:
Where do you see that Aid Another cannot be used for ability checks?

Nowhere, but I can't see anywhere that says they can be.

"Aid Another
You can help someone achieve success on a skill check by making the same kind of skill check in a cooperative effort..."

There are rules for dying of starvation. Yet there are no rules for eating. A lack of rules doesn't mean you can't. That's why there is a GM, to figure out what kind of check - if any - needs to happen where rules do not exist.


W E Ray, looks like everyone already answered it. :)

You can absolutely use aid another checks on ability checks. It is up to the GM to determine if it is appropriate to the situation.
Example: A pair of players using strength to force a large door open.

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