Sorry if this had already been brought up, though I did search the forums and found nothing on the subject so I decided to start a new thread.
My question is: when you roll a natural 20 on a caster level check (such as when you cast a Dispel Magic) do you automaticaly succeed, regardless of the target DC? Or to put in another way, in the case of a Detect Scrying spell, when you have an opposed caster level check, if someone rolls a 20 is it an automatic success? Or you still have to see if your result (roll+caster level) beats the opponent's result?
Thanks in advance!
Sorry if this had already been brought up, though I did search the forums and found nothing on the subject so I decided to start a new thread.
My question is: when you roll a natural 20 on a caster level check (such as when you cast a Dispel Magic) do you automaticaly succeed, regardless of the target DC? Or to put in another way, in the case of a Detect Scrying spell, when you have an opposed caster level check, if someone rolls a 20 is it an automatic success? Or you still have to see if your result (roll+caster level) beats the opponent's result?
Thanks in advance!
I believe the only rolls that auto succeed are attack and saving throws at point. Caster checks and skill rolls can be "unbeatable" given enough bonuses and/or large level gap.
There is no such thing as a "default" rule that natual 1 always fails or natural 20 always succeeds. For all rolls, therefore, the "default" rule is that a natural 1 or 20 works like all other results: add the modifiers and figure out if you rolled high enough for success.
Now, some types of rolls have explicit specific rules that give automatic success/failure to natural 20s/1s. When this is the case, the rule is very clearly described in the text explaining how to resolve the roll you're making. Cases in point are Attack rolls and Saving Throw rolls.
Since there is no explicit rule regarding automatic success/failure for caster level checks, then we must use the default rule: no automatic results apply to this roll.