Does taking 10 in stressful situations ever unbalance the game?

[Mok]

I was just going over skills in detail and was wondering if there is ever a point at which taking 10 when "distracted or threatened" actually breaks the game?

The only skill that disallows this is UMD, and the only exception to this exception is with the Bard's level 19 effect of his Jack of all Trades class feature, which evidently allows taking 10 on any skill, including UMD.

This is in contrast to the Rogue's ability to take 10's even when stressed with his Skill Mastery talent at level 10.

I can see where taking 10 with UMD is bad, because it would allow spamming of UMD with abandon. It's not even an issue with stress, it hsa more to do with running amok with crafting and emulating, opening a wide hole in the normally categories for magic items. This is the biggest complaint made against the Warlock in 3.5. I'm guessing that they let the Bard do it at level 19 because there are only two levels left, the bard has been left behind by other full casters as is, and the power and effects at such high levels would easily drown out endless uses of UMD emulations.

But a lot of weight is being put into taking 10 when stressed, only being allowed with special exceptions at higher levels.

The thing is that I'm trying to figure out is how it would screw things up in the first 10 levels of the game? If someone is granted this ability earlier in their career for a specific skill, it seems as if all it does is make certain low hanging DCs auto successes, which in the grand sweep of things, isn't that big of a deal. The major benefit is that it gets rid of a lot of die rolling and help speed up play.

Am I missing anything? Putting aside UMD, does anything get mucked up with broken spamming by taking 10 even when stressed at lower levels?

[therealthom]

Doesn't unbalance the game, but may take out some tension. Say you've got a battle area divided by a 10' wide ditch. There may be a tactical advantage to being one side or other of the ditch which the players would have to balance against the risk of jumping if they had to roll. With take 10 the player knows "I can jump (10+my acrobatics modifier) wide ditches."

[Tem]

Off the top of my head, I would say:

Acrobatics to avoid AoO. Most people with a decent Dex with this as a class skill will auto-pass this check where really they should fail maybe 20% of the time.

Bluff to feint in combat. Doesn't come up as much, but same as above.

Climb/Acrobatics/Swim while fighting in an awkward position. Fighting while climbing up a rope is only DC 5 perhaps, but taking 10 means those small chances to fall just disappear and make it less exciting (scary) for the PCs.

[CourtFool]

True20 and M&M have a Feat called Skill Mastery that allows you to take 10 with four different Skills. Would it be worth a Feat in Pathfinder?

[Min2007]

Yeah... there really isn't much unbalancing. It was intended to make you worry during tense moments if you were going to fail that roll. Even if the DC is low you might fail if you have to roll. So it makes it more exciting when you succeed.

[snobi]

You can take Skill Mastery (same as the thief's ability) as a feat (Ultimate Feats) as early as level 2. You can also take Focused Mind (RoTW) as early as first level to get a +2 bonus when Taking 10 on INT-based skills. Finally, you can take Noble Scion (PF SRD) at first level to get a +3 bonus when Taking 10 on WIS-based skills. So early on, you can be Taking 12 or 13 on a bunch of skills. Later on, you can take Savvy Rogue (Complete Scoundrel) to increase those bonuses by +2, so that you're Taking 14 and 15 respectively.