Re Rolling Skill Checks

[Warloga]

A situation came up the other day in my game, were the question of whether or not a skill check could be re rolled. The specifics are that the group's rogue was picking a lock and failed (but not critically failed) the roll. The wanted to continue trying picking the lock, but the GM stated it was a once and done thing. So who is correct? Can you keep trying something like lock picking over and over again or is it a one try and you succeed or fail by that roll?

Any help would be appreciated.

[Aratorin]

You can keep trying to pick a lock as long as you have picks and time. Given that it only takes 4 seconds (2 Actions) per attempt, time is rarely an issue.

[thenobledrake]

The "one try and done" thing is an artifact of a time when the rules didn't present any other outcome for continued attempts other than eventual success.

In the PF2 design paradigm there are other outcomes because you aren't just rolling however many times it takes to get a success - if you get a critical failure something else happens.

As a result of that design paradigm, there are very few checks which can't simply be repeated taking up additional time and actions and risking negative consequences. And each of those are explicit that they can't be immediately retried (see Identify Magic for an example).

[The Gleeful Grognard]

The lock picking rules seem at odds with each other a bit, but no there is no rule that suggests you can only pick once. In fact the opposite is true :)

[NielsenE]

Its possible a particular lock would have a failure effect or a critical failure effect that stops further attempts, but that would be an exception to the norm.

[HumbleGamer]

If it's a homebrew adventure it could be fine.

Remember that the dm has the last word on anything, even if his intent is to go through a scripted campaign.

He could have simply said that you got a critical failure, but then you would have broken your tools.

By saying it was a simply failure, with no further attempts, you managed to save your tools.

Eventually, since locks rules are for standarized stuff, it could also be possible that he simply created a different lock, with different rules.

Finally, the "real" rules have been explained ( if you want to point those out to your dm ).

[jdripley]

I'm borrowing from a completely different set of rules for this catchphrase, but the idea works great in PF2 as well:

"Say yes or roll the dice." (this is a key principle in the Burning Wheel game)

In other words, the character wants to pick the lock. If there are no interesting consequences to failure, just move on. If there ARE interesting consequences to failure, then roll the dice and find out which way the story moves forward.

In PF2 the "succeed before you critically fail" principle covers "say yes or roll the dice."

Are you scaling a castle wall? The GM can set the DC and provide the following results:
Success: You get up the wall in whatever amount of time makes sense.
Failure: You fail to make it up the wall - maybe you're part way up and stuck on how to get farther or something like that.
Critical Failure: You get part way up and fall, taking damage and perhaps making a bit of noise that draws guards.

Having different degrees of success and failure elevates the whole thing above a binary success/fail situation. If it's binary, re-rolling is super annoying as eventually you'll succeed, so why even bother rolling in the first place?

The one situation that I'm super strict about "only roll once" in PF2 is searching a room. If you know you rolled a 2 and probably missed something, there's no going back over it again fishing for a higher number. It's another reason that I call for *what* everybody is doing during exploration and then have them all roll - if they're going down the line declaring and rolling, and somebody rolls low to search, then another player down the line is likely to say "I'll search too!" to make up for the poor roll when they may otherwise have let their buddy continue searching and instead refocused or something.

[Aratorin]

jdripley wrote:

The one situation that I'm super strict about "only roll once" in PF2 is searching a room. If you know you rolled a 2 and probably missed something, there's no going back over it again fishing for a higher number. It's another reason that I call for *what* everybody is doing during exploration and then have them all roll - if they're going down the line declaring and rolling, and somebody rolls low to search, then another player down the line is likely to say "I'll search too!" to make up for the poor roll when they may otherwise have let their buddy continue searching and instead refocused or something.

Seek Checks are Secret. The players shouldn't know what they rolled.