
Morag the Gatherer |

When I read this post I was very surprised to see the level of disagreement. It never occurred to me that one could take 10 when rolling to act in a surprise round. After reading the various arguments and the relevant rules I am still of the opinion that you cannot take 10 to see if you react in a surprise round.
Last night, at PFS game night, I posed the question to my fellow pathfinders. No-one thought that taking 10 would be appropriate in that situation. (although many of our most senior players are at Paizocon.)
My take on the subject is as follows:
Party is walking down a path and a player thinks there might be trouble ahead so he announces he is looking at something suspicions, a blind corner, clump of bushes, whatever. The GM says make a perception check. The player says he is taking 10. The GM says OK.
Same party is walking down the same path and no says anything and the GM says everyone make a roll for surprise. The player says he's taking 10. The GM says no, its too late.
The difference between the 2 situations is that in the 1st, no one has acted so no one is in immediate danger. In the 2nd, the goblins have acted so the danger is immediate and this is the beginning of combat.
Morag

thorin001 |

When I read this post I was very surprised to see the level of disagreement. It never occurred to me that one could take 10 when rolling to act in a surprise round. After reading the various arguments and the relevant rules I am still of the opinion that you cannot take 10 to see if you react in a surprise round.
Last night, at PFS game night, I posed the question to my fellow pathfinders. No-one thought that taking 10 would be appropriate in that situation. (although many of our most senior players are at Paizocon.)
My take on the subject is as follows:
Party is walking down a path and a player thinks there might be trouble ahead so he announces he is looking at something suspicions, a blind corner, clump of bushes, whatever. The GM says make a perception check. The player says he is taking 10. The GM says OK.
Same party is walking down the same path and no says anything and the GM says everyone make a roll for surprise. The player says he's taking 10. The GM says no, its too late.
The difference between the 2 situations is that in the 1st, no one has acted so no one is in immediate danger. In the 2nd, the goblins have acted so the danger is immediate and this is the beginning of combat.
Morag
The only difference is that the first party should get 2 checks to spot the goblins, 1 for actively looking ad one passive. The second party only gets the passive check. Neither has any bearing on whether or not they can take 10.

_Ozy_ |
Yeah, I would actually always run it with two checks. As the party approaches, they get their passive take 10 perception, modified by distance. Depending on the ambush stealth bonus, this sets the distance where the PC with the highest perception skill will notice the ambush.
If the ambush is sprung before the PCs enter the range of detection, they still get a d20 roll to see if anyone gets lucky.

Cap. Darling |

I havent read every thing closely so somebody may have said this. In my game PCs dont know when they Roll peception checks. Being about to be ambushed constitude being threathend. So i dont Think the rules allow taking 10 on the perception Roll to notice a ambush. But taking 10 is not somthing that happens inside a PC and that he Can feel it is a rule mechanic thing so the PC wont know any more than he Will know that a GM ask him"will you be taking 10 on the perception chek i am gonna make in secret for you now?"
I dont Think i would mind if some one asked me if they could take 10. But this is the rules forum and as i see it the immenent threat of the ambush would prevent it.

wraithstrike |

I havent read every thing closely so somebody may have said this. In my game PCs dont know when they Roll peception checks. Being about to be ambushed constitude being threathend. So i dont Think the rules allow taking 10 on the perception Roll to notice a ambush. But taking 10 is not somthing that happens inside a PC and that he Can feel it is a rule mechanic thing so the PC wont know any more than he Will know that a GM ask him"will you be taking 10 on the perception chek i am gonna make in secret for you now?"
I dont Think i would mind if some one asked me if they could take 10. But this is the rules forum and as i see it the immenent threat of the ambush would prevent it.
What do you count as imminent? What if I can see the ambush from 200 feet away by taking 10, but the potential ambusher have no way of seeing me?
If I say I am taking 10 do you not allow me to take 10, or just not tell me about the ambush even if I beat the DC to notice them hiding?

thejeff |
Cap. Darling wrote:I havent read every thing closely so somebody may have said this. In my game PCs dont know when they Roll peception checks. Being about to be ambushed constitude being threathend. So i dont Think the rules allow taking 10 on the perception Roll to notice a ambush. But taking 10 is not somthing that happens inside a PC and that he Can feel it is a rule mechanic thing so the PC wont know any more than he Will know that a GM ask him"will you be taking 10 on the perception chek i am gonna make in secret for you now?"
I dont Think i would mind if some one asked me if they could take 10. But this is the rules forum and as i see it the immenent threat of the ambush would prevent it.What do you count as imminent? What if I can see the ambush from 200 feet away by taking 10, but the potential ambusher have no way of seeing me?
If I say I am taking 10 do you not allow me to take 10, or just not tell me about the ambush even if I beat the DC to notice them hiding?
That's not a surprise round check. At least that's my take on it. The surprise round/ambush check is for close quarters encounters or otherwise combat is starting now checks. Most often when you enter a room in a dungeon or some such, where you couldn't have noticed it before.
If you spot the ambush as you're approaching, before it's ready to be sprung, or if you're just seeing if you perceive people ahead who may be hiding, but not necessarily in an ambush, then it's a different category.More of a "You think someone's hiding in the bushes up ahead. What do you do?" than a "Roll initiative. Make perception checks to see if you can act in the surprise round." situation.

wraithstrike |

wraithstrike wrote:Cap. Darling wrote:I havent read every thing closely so somebody may have said this. In my game PCs dont know when they Roll peception checks. Being about to be ambushed constitude being threathend. So i dont Think the rules allow taking 10 on the perception Roll to notice a ambush. But taking 10 is not somthing that happens inside a PC and that he Can feel it is a rule mechanic thing so the PC wont know any more than he Will know that a GM ask him"will you be taking 10 on the perception chek i am gonna make in secret for you now?"
I dont Think i would mind if some one asked me if they could take 10. But this is the rules forum and as i see it the immenent threat of the ambush would prevent it.What do you count as imminent? What if I can see the ambush from 200 feet away by taking 10, but the potential ambusher have no way of seeing me?
If I say I am taking 10 do you not allow me to take 10, or just not tell me about the ambush even if I beat the DC to notice them hiding?
That's not a surprise round check. At least that's my take on it. The surprise round/ambush check is for close quarters encounters or otherwise combat is starting now checks. Most often when you enter a room in a dungeon or some such, where you couldn't have noticed it before.
If you spot the ambush as you're approaching, before it's ready to be sprung, or if you're just seeing if you perceive people ahead who may be hiding, but not necessarily in an ambush, then it's a different category.
More of a "You think someone's hiding in the bushes up ahead. What do you do?" than a "Roll initiative. Make perception checks to see if you can act in the surprise round." situation.
This I understand, someone else however......

_Ozy_ |
Well, there is also the issue that someone with a high perception, as we've been discussing, actually has a pretty decent chance to hear activity through closed doors (+5 DC) and from some distance away (+1 DC/10') or even through stone walls. So, unless the monsters in the room are constantly silent/stealthed, their general activity can be picked up by a particularly perceptive character taking 10 from 10's to ~100 feet away.
I doubt many GMs actually run it this way, however.

kestral287 |
I think what this whole discussion really shows (again!) is that the rules for stealth and perception and surprise are really confused and inconsistent.
Amusingly, Stealth vs. Perception (really all of Perception) gets a whole lot easier to actually use as written when you use Take 10 rules.
Rolling perception every 10 feet, as you actually should do by the book, would bog down gameplay to the point of unplayability.
But if I know one character has a +10 Perception and it's the largest in the group, then as the GM I can just assume that she's constantly taking ten to know that the group's passive detection range is 200', modified downward for lighting conditions, walls, Stealth, or the like (or upward for Sounds of Battle and similar). That turns it into a pretty straightforward math problem, just knock off 10' for each +1 on the DC. Then I only need ask them to roll Perception when they would be distracted, or when I want to keep them on their toes.
All at the cost of believing that Take 10 is a character option rather than a meta-construct, so a character can't be distracted by a monster 5' away if he doesn't know it's there. I find that concept incredibly easy to buy into, personally.

wraithstrike |

thejeff wrote:I think what this whole discussion really shows (again!) is that the rules for stealth and perception and surprise are really confused and inconsistent.Amusingly, Stealth vs. Perception (really all of Perception) gets a whole lot easier to actually use as written when you use Take 10 rules.
Rolling perception every 10 feet, as you actually should do by the book, would bog down gameplay to the point of unplayability.
But if I know one character has a +10 Perception and it's the largest in the group, then as the GM I can just assume that she's constantly taking ten to know that the group's passive detection range is 200', modified downward for lighting conditions, walls, Stealth, or the like (or upward for Sounds of Battle and similar). That turns it into a pretty straightforward math problem, just knock off 10' for each +1 on the DC. Then I only need ask them to roll Perception when they would be distracted, or when I want to keep them on their toes.
All at the cost of believing that Take 10 is a character option rather than a meta-construct, so a character can't be distracted by a monster 5' away if he doesn't know it's there. I find that concept incredibly easy to buy into, personally.
You not really need to roll every 10 feet unless the player calls for it. You make the one roll, and then keep track of it, remembering the perception DC decreases as the character gets closer.

_Ozy_ |
If that's the way you run it, why wouldn't the player call for it? It dramatically increases his odds of noticing an ambush if he gets to roll every 10'. That's even more powerful than using a 'take 10' approach, it's effectively almost a 'take 20'.
How often do you have creatures/PCs make stealth rolls when they are moving?

wraithstrike |

If that's the way you run it, why wouldn't the player call for it? It dramatically increases his odds of noticing an ambush if he gets to roll every 10'. That's even more powerful than using a 'take 10' approach, it's effectively almost a 'take 20'.
How often do you have creatures/PCs make stealth rolls when they are moving?
My last quote was about the free check, which many GM's don't give anyway. Most games I have played in I have to call for every check, so I just say I am taking 10 the entire time. I doubt all of them are using distance modifiers, and allowing me to hear through walls unless I specifically call for it.
As a GM I don't bother asking them for a roll until they are close enough for it to matter, which varies by what is going on. If a player chooses to take 10 on their own every 10 feet then I assume it is the move action version since I do give them the free action version, unlike other GM's. I just roll it behind the screen at times to avoid metagaming.
PS: I did not know if that was for me or Kestral. I think it was Kestral since he was giving out a lot of free checks.

Cap. Darling |

Cap. Darling wrote:I havent read every thing closely so somebody may have said this. In my game PCs dont know when they Roll peception checks. Being about to be ambushed constitude being threathend. So i dont Think the rules allow taking 10 on the perception Roll to notice a ambush. But taking 10 is not somthing that happens inside a PC and that he Can feel it is a rule mechanic thing so the PC wont know any more than he Will know that a GM ask him"will you be taking 10 on the perception chek i am gonna make in secret for you now?"
I dont Think i would mind if some one asked me if they could take 10. But this is the rules forum and as i see it the immenent threat of the ambush would prevent it.What do you count as imminent? What if I can see the ambush from 200 feet away by taking 10, but the potential ambusher have no way of seeing me?
If I say I am taking 10 do you not allow me to take 10, or just not tell me about the ambush even if I beat the DC to notice them hiding?
I am talking about the perception check that decide if you get to act in the suprise round. Why would they get a suprise round if you see them and they dont see you?
If i dont allow a player to take 10 in any situation he Will ofcause be told. Why would you keep somthing like that from your players?
kestral287 |
kestral287 wrote:You not really need to roll every 10 feet unless the player calls for it. You make the one roll, and then keep track of it, remembering the perception DC decreases as the character gets closer.thejeff wrote:I think what this whole discussion really shows (again!) is that the rules for stealth and perception and surprise are really confused and inconsistent.Amusingly, Stealth vs. Perception (really all of Perception) gets a whole lot easier to actually use as written when you use Take 10 rules.
Rolling perception every 10 feet, as you actually should do by the book, would bog down gameplay to the point of unplayability.
But if I know one character has a +10 Perception and it's the largest in the group, then as the GM I can just assume that she's constantly taking ten to know that the group's passive detection range is 200', modified downward for lighting conditions, walls, Stealth, or the like (or upward for Sounds of Battle and similar). That turns it into a pretty straightforward math problem, just knock off 10' for each +1 on the DC. Then I only need ask them to roll Perception when they would be distracted, or when I want to keep them on their toes.
All at the cost of believing that Take 10 is a character option rather than a meta-construct, so a character can't be distracted by a monster 5' away if he doesn't know it's there. I find that concept incredibly easy to buy into, personally.
That also works, but it's more annoying to track-- it requires jotting down numbers that shift every time I have to ask for a new roll instead of just having as part of my notes the static number. It also runs up against the possibility of a player rolling low and then trying to make active checks frequently to make up for it, which just bogs the whole thing down.
Taking ten is just smoother and easier.

![]() |

Jiggy wrote:RedDogMT wrote:My gut tells me that Take 10 is not intended for Perception ChecksYour gut is uninformed, and is unskilled as an arbiter of rules. Better to ask your head. And your head, upon reading the rules, will discover that T10 is intended for EVERY skill unless a specific exception is given (such as UMD).Wow, Jiggy. So you intentionally misquote me and then belittle me. In fact, you were actually kind of an *** about it.
What I said was this...
RedDogMT wrote:Take 10 is generally used as a mechanic to simulate getting an average result for tasks in a non-oppressive environment (instead of rolling many rolls for every little detail of a task). Good examples where this works is crafting, searching a room, or climbing a wall.
The rules say that distractions or threats do not allow characters to Take 10. The reactionary nature of rolling a perception check to see if a character is surprises feels like it does not really fit into the Take 10 mechanic.
If this was my game, I would not allow Take 10. My gut tells me that Take 10 is not intended for Perception Checks for surprise rounds.
...and the bold part is what you quoted, without all the surrounding context. I actually thought better of you before this.
In any case, I stand by what I said before: the surprise round is the start of combat and it's reactionary nature does not fit the 'mold' of what Take 10 should be used for.
Just to clear something up here:
I misread one of your statements as saying you can't T10 on "Perception checks or surprise rounds" rather than "Perception checks for surprise rounds".So I thought you were listing two whole categories of things you can't T10 on: all Perception checks, and all situations in a surprise round.
The reason I truncated your post was because I only took issue with the Perception half of what I thought you had written; I was specifically NOT wanting to contradict your assertion about surprise rounds.
So although I am of the general belief that rules interpretation is better left to heads than guts, my response to you in particular was based on a misreading of your post where I thought you were against taking 10 on any Perception check ever.
My bad. :/