It's all fun and games until someone butters their bread with the assassin's knife. Then it's a fort save. :P
Its your game and your call on how you want to run skill checks EldonG, but I think you are confusing Take 10 and Take 20. We should be able to take 10 but not take 20 on climb.
Taking 10
When your character is not in immediate danger or distracted, you may choose to take 10. Instead of rolling 1d20 for the skill check, calculate your result as if you had rolled a 10. For many routine tasks, taking 10 makes them automatically successful. Distractions or threats (such as combat) make it impossible for a character to take 10. In most cases, taking 10 is purely a safety measure—you know (or expect) that an average roll will succeed but fear that a poor roll might fail, so you elect to settle for the average roll (a 10). Taking 10 is especially useful in situations where a particularly high roll wouldn't help.
Taking 20
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).
I find it's -definitely- GM fiat most of the time, here.
When your character is not in immediate danger Emphasis on that.
While I would argue that immediate danger is things like 'climbing the wall while attack dogs are jumping at you, meaning you can't be careful while paying attention to them..' another GM might rule that a 1d6 fall is adequate enough to represent danger that prevents you from taking the safe road.
Likewise, I'd say that a fall that only happens if your character really screws up isn't a danger at all. :)
Like I said your call. I don't think that is the intent, but I also have no problem with that ruling.
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Not the intent?
Can you explain? Its immediate - of the moment, not a skill that has results later...and a failure can mean a broken neck. I literally can't understand how it couldn't be what's meant.
Not in any sort of argumentative sense, but I would love an explanation.
I just want to understand the other viewpoint.
I actually helped write that part of the book, in a sense, because I was in the playtest. I actually communicated with paizo on this particular type of scenario.
The intent of "immediate threat" was meant to be something along the lines of "you're trying to disable a trap but a Minotaur is currently trying to lop off your head". Something that is tangible, there constantly trying to kill you.
A fall is a passive type of threat. Sure, it'll kill you, but it's also not going to pull you down. (although, that would be a pretty sweet scenario... A climb over a chasm that is constantly pulling you in...). A passive threat doesn't usually keep someone from taking 10.
Of course, it's your game Eldon, and you'll find no arguments from me on how you choose to run it. This is just how it was explained to me when I asked about it years ago. Lol.
Also, I cringe to think of what awful things you have in store for Reiko.
OK, I hope I didn't stir something up here as that was not my intent, but here we go on what I think: (I think Reiko summed it up well.)
Take 10 is just being careful or taking your time where take 20 is doing something over and over again until you succeed eventually. You can't take 20 on something where failure incurs a penalty, like climbing and falling, unless of course a 1 succeeds.
So climbing a rope with a take 10 while not in combat or being rushed I think is acceptable. Its just being very careful to climb, making sure you don't fall. (And with a -2 to climb Jun couldn't make a DC 10 doing that). However with a secured knotted rope a DC 5 taking his time should be easy enough to do.
However again, I think if you want to do it that way it is fine, but when you explained it earlier in the game play thread it appeared you were mixing up Take 10 and Take 20 and when you could do one or the other. We have that confusion at our home table all the time even after a dozen years of playing.
And as an aside there is a great Take 20 essay that Sean Reynolds did for early d20. I keep it bookmarked to keep it all straight.
Again I hope no hard feelings as I wasn't trying to challenge you on this.
I do have a torch in my other hand. Just so you know GM.
'Has anyone tried hitting the book -with- the axe? No..? Just a thought...'
XD
Amazing. I think we are waiting to see what's down the tunnel
i think some people have kind of been waiting for a GM post... there have been several people asking questions about whether there's anything else farther back on the ledge or any paths out of this cave that we didn't notice right away...
Did everyone enjoy their ritual sacrifice yesterday? :)
Edible ritual sacrifices are by far the best kind of ritual sacrifices :)
With pie.
On the other hand... If they happen to wind up with a place of their own, at some point... having a pack of dire wolves loyally defending your home is a major deterrent for the common thief. :p
As Nia said. She will heal them and let them go. Yes she would love one but there isn't a way for them to do it. And the mother being full grown wont be so happy coming with us.
Auric, you do realize the only one that was Hurt in the big combat was her right? And Alyra had her auto healing on. Secondly she did offer her healing up. Just no one has actually been hurt yet.
Oh... I couldn't remember if you had or not so I checked your character sheet and saw that CLW wasn't listed in your spells known at all so I assumed...
Did you get a 5th spell known from a favored class bonus or something?
Odd it should be there. I'll fix that. I must not have saved it because I am not supposed to have Hideous laughter.
Fixed and GM I apologize for that.
It helps if we get feedback on our actions too. Like me healing the wolf or any of us searching. Or guiding our healer around. Because we wait to see if it does something.
Otherwise it becomes more focused on combat or other things and our actions mean close to nothing. Not getting anything for our actions makes them seem empty.
As for taking the lead. I keep getting yelled at by a certain Angelkin saying I'm being condescending. And no one ever responds to me really so she is kinda the outsider right now. It's the whole feedback among players also. In addition she doesn't have all the info yet.
I definitely understand where Nia is coming from... I think there have been a number of times where the story probably would have moved along a bit faster/smoother with a little more feedback. For example, when we were exploring the cave people were repeating each other's search actions and staying in chambers far longer than we wanted to because nobody was entirely sure what our options were or what the outcomes of previous searches were. And with the wolf- after all the build up of debating what to do, and the sense of there being some potential danger in healing an injured hostile wild animal, it was confusing and anticlimactic to just move along without any explanation whatsoever of what the result was...
A quick post saying something like 'further searches don't turn up anything, your options are to move forward through the tunnel ahead or backtrack to the fork and head right' would have been super helpful. Or, a simple description like 'the wolf's eyes slowly open... It begins to growl at Nia but seems to be in too much pain to attack. It slowly limps backwards away from the party, carefully keeping herself positioned between the party and her pups.' Would (IMO) have provided some satisfying closure.
I know GMing is a lot of work, and i definitely don't want to seem critical or ungrateful, but you seem like you might (hopefully) be open to some feedback, so that's my 2cp (for whatever it's worth).
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I do appreciate constructive criticism.
I'll try and remember to give a bit more feedback on things like searches - but expect me to bypass a lot of details that don't have much bearing on the story arch when it's already taken a week to work out a basic decision I had to prod the group into making. I'm fully dedicated to running this game for 5-6 years, but I really don't want to stretch it out to 10 years.
My father - Aya's player - is 75. With luck, he'll live to be 100...but I want him to actually be able to look back on this campaign fondly. ;)
The debate about the wolves was, I think, somewhat unavoidable because it was rooted in characters' differing worldviews (Auric sees humanoids as different from and more valuable than animals, while Nia seems to think of them more as equals, or of equal value), but I think exploring the cave probably would have gone way faster if there had been a GM post once every day or two with short/simple resolutions to declared actions and a little clarification of the party's options.
I don't want you to feel like you're getting bogged down in meaningless details but it's been my experience when I'm GMing that regular feedback/clarification is often the best way to keep PCs on the right track and moving at a good pace. (I think in a lot of ways the GM usually sets the pace of games by how quickly/often they resolve actions- people often wait to post again until either the see a response or give up on an action because so many other people have posted their way rounds or even minutes past it.)
I think it's a lot less that Nia sees them as equals, and more that she sees it as 'the ogres made a choice to hurt people, and they will keep making that choice. The worst thing the wolf did was defend its pups, it doesn't deserve to die for that. The ogres, on the other hand, very probably do.'
I might be misreading the character, though. Then again, there is a benefit to reading something from a position of zero investment: I can see things in this game that I'd be blind to in my other games due to my own prejudices (taking my character's side, or what have you.)
That being said: Yes, that is my experience as a player here as well, that I just kind of stop when I'm waiting for a response from someone, and everything winds up sitting on one person not interacting until they post, then everything moves again. Or, I try to interact with someone, and while I'm trying to talk to another PC, the party does the dungeon, and I can either just drop the conversation, or do the entirety of the dungeon :P
I think it's a lot less that Nia sees them as equals, and more that she sees it as 'the ogres made a choice to hurt people, and they will keep making that choice. The worst thing the wolf did was defend its pups, it doesn't deserve to die for that. The ogres, on the other hand, very probably do.'
I could see that... and I didn't in any way mean to imply that one of those views was better than the other...
For Auric, all humanoids (including ogres) are judged on their deeds- if the the worst thing they've actually done is be born an ogre he can't condemn them to death... a dangerous animal dying was fairly common in both places he's grown up (and doesn't have much emotional impact as he doesn't ascribe them humanoid thoughts/feelings/souls)... he never suggested murdering the mother, he just didn't see the merit of healing her (though he did see some potential benefits to bringing the pups to the townsfolk). But, again, I'm not trying to convince anyone- I just thought it might be helpful in understanding Auric's character more if I explained.
:)
Yeah, Antonio regards the wolves as a normal threat; the villagers/farmers can take 'em if it comes to a fight.
WE are more interested in the ABnormal threats.
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I really feel that your actions are in your court, and I shouldn't have to constantly prod. Once the discussion was over, it would have been a simple matter of moving on. I sincerely hope that the party can do that without prodding.
I was waiting for someone to take that initiative.
After 35 years of running games, people taking no initiative has been the downfall of more games than anything else I can think of.
Its not about prodding its about acknowledging them. If we do stuff and it isn't acknowledged then there is a feeling of what is the point of doing things. Especially if its something like character development and interaction.
This meant something for the characters and for it to be brushed under the rug because it isn't important to the story is disheartening in some respects. Even if we know it wasn't part of the "story".
As for taking action, if action isn't acknowledge its hard to move on. Even a simple she healed the wolf would have been nice. Or as they said, your searches end up finding nothing more. Acknowledgement allows us as players to move on to the next thing. Its not prodding its just closing the chapter to set our minds to go forward. We know the things to do we just wanted to have the communication loop closed. Communication is not just one way. It goes both. Players can be extremely motivated but without feedback also they don't know if what they are doing has any effect even if none.
I am sorry if this seems critical it just helps the enjoyment of a good story and to know exactly what is going on and when to move to the next thing. It may seem silly but its how I feel. I will also endeavor to do the same with my character and move things along.
Nala, you hit the nail on the head.
My stance is to lay problems on the table. Getting PO'd and not telling them there's a problem is a perfect way for you to stay upset and have no one to blame but yourself. :)
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Keep this in mind, too - my time is extremely limited when it comes to posting. I don't have access to the internet unless I head to Starbucks in the mornings - I have access on the weekends, too, but tend to be extremely busy then, of late.
This is something I'm working toward changing, but don't expect it soon. I may end up with Google gigabit fiber, come early February, with luck, and then I'll have more time.
In the meantime, I'm working with an old smart phone, and keeping up with several games and a political bbs best as I can.
The one clw barely brought the wolf positive. I assumed there was no attempt made to wake her, so she didn't respond.
I really didn't see such a non-issue as being a big thing, but moving the campaign along is.
@ everyone- RPGSS voting begins tonight, so the site may crash periodically... make extra sure to copy and paste (or otherwise backup) your posts so you don't lose anything!