Some background, I've been GMing without a GM screen and rolling everything in full sight. Not having a screen was inconvenient when I need to make a legitimate hidden roll. So I starting taking having the NPCs taking a ten on those rolls.
I was ok with this because I felt like it took some randomness out of the game (I personally have a pet peeve against opposed d20 rolls, they feel too swingy, devalue character skill investments. Is my stats intuition off? Nevermind, this is off topic). And the players had no idea what the NPC skills were, so it wasn't being gamed. Well actually, I never told the players the NPCs were taking ten.
So, have you tried taking ten on hidden rolls? Would you feel cheated as a player if you found out that the GM has been taking ten on hidden rolls? Are there rolls this is appropriate for and rolls it is not (I've only done this with NPC rolls, never hidden player rolls)?
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most interaction checks are opposed check with one party taking 10.
AC is "10" + stuff
Intimidate is "10" +wis+hd
diplomacy is "10" +cha for friendly, with "attitude penalty" being added from there.
Saving throws are against DC "10" + stat +spell level
It's even been advertised that you can put the player's more in control by having your enemies take 10 on their attacks and have the players roll a defense check subbing that in for their 10 base AC.
so having the NPCs take 10, especially out of initiative, it totally fine.
But I am pro take 10. So annoyed by GMs that wont let you take 10 for swimming in DC 10 water when you have a swim skill of +0, "Because you could drown". Hate that non-FAQ. When there's no danger from anything, and the only danger that may happen in the future is you failing a skill check, you should be able to take 10. Potential danger for a failed check should not be a reason to stop a take 10 approach to the skill. Had to spend minutes rolling swim checks to finally get enough successes in a row, when it shouldn't have even been in the story.
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Taking ten saves time and actually advantages the player because it is mathematically worse.
I do it but I follow the rules as best I can. ie not in combat. I also decide all my take 10 rolls before I get to the table so I can't ever do them after a roll has been made at the table. That feels unfair to me.
@Chess if swim is coming up direct them to this
* You can’t take 10 on a Swim check in stormy water, even if you aren’t otherwise being threatened or distracted.
Only stormy weather counts as threatened or distracted.
That seems like a fine idea to me.
Off topic, have you considered replacing d20 rolls with 3d6 rolls?
I tell my GM what my 'Take 10' numbers are for my 'high' skills when I sit at the table, and I would definitely NOT feel cheated by the GM employing the device to speed play.
When I'm GMing to streamline some scenarios, I have a list of d20 rolls handy and I'll ask my players first if they mind my using said list rather than rolling the die to speed things up, and I'll let the players take a cursory look at the list to verify that it's not 'all 1's' or 'all 20's'.
I've had pretty good success with that, imo.
Take 10 works both ways. Players should know that their rules are simply the rules of the game. If I can take 10 to search a room or make an item or climb a wall (if unhurried, etc.), it stands to reason my enemies can do the same regardless of the visibility of the die.
Take 10 works both ways. Players should know that their rules are simply the rules of the game. If I can take 10 to search a room or make an item or climb a wall (if unhurried, etc.), it stands to reason my enemies can do the same regardless of the visibility of the die.
The 'You know you can just take ten to climb that wall' conversation happens a lot when I'm GMing.
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I don't like take 10s on hidden rolls, particularly perception. It becomes an auto-succeed or auto-fail that the GM knows ahead of time. It is very difficult as a GM not to metagame when you already know the result of an action.
My solution was a little Excel script that rolls at the click of a mouse. As I use the laptop for other things I can basically make the roll in secret.
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I don't think both sides of opposed checks should be taking ten, because then you take out the element of chance entirely. If one side is better than the other they always win, and that wasn't the intent.
But having NPCs take 10? I do that all the time if I don't want to advertise a roll is being made.
The intent of the take 10 rules is that routine challenges don't require repeated dice rolls or significant chances of experts failing at things that should be easy for them.
They're also good for scenes where the PC is trying to sneak past fifty unaware guards. If the PC is sneaking well enough, why should there be fifty chances of them spotting him?
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I use the PC's Perception and Sense Motive checks as passive "take 10" effects that are always up; the PCs are welcome to actively use those skills, but for Spot, Listen, and detecting lies, they get the benefit of their skill points without me breaking the pace of the game by saying, "Make a Perception check," and waiting for results.
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Some background, I've been GMing without a GM screen and rolling everything in full sight. Not having a screen was inconvenient when I need to make a legitimate hidden roll. So I starting taking having the NPCs taking a ten on those rolls.
I was ok with this because I felt like it took some randomness out of the game (I personally have a pet peeve against opposed d20 rolls, they feel too swingy, devalue character skill investments. Is my stats intuition off? Nevermind, this is off topic). And the players had no idea what the NPC skills were, so it wasn't being gamed. Well actually, I never told the players the NPCs were taking ten.
So, have you tried taking ten on hidden rolls? Would you feel cheated as a player if you found out that the GM has been taking ten on hidden rolls? Are there rolls this is appropriate for and rolls it is not (I've only done this with NPC rolls, never hidden player rolls)?
Some of my GM's will take a character's Trap-spotter (perception check) and roll 5-10 times before the session starts this lets the GM know what the perception roll is without having to roll because they are at the trap. Thus this method doesn't tip off the players causing a whole bunch of people to start trying to look around for traps, even on a failed trap spotter. Roll.
This method should be very easy to morph into your needs. You could set up 20 d20 rolls. On a notepad/initiative tracker number the rolls 1 to 20 (see below for example if you're not following). Then any time you need a secret roll you can roll your d20 openly but use the value for that position in your prepared rolls. So using the values below if you were to roll a 5, you would check and find that is going to be a 15.
1: 13
2: 2
3: 8
4: 2
5: 13
6: 17
7: 19
8: 5
9: 15
10: 9
11: 14
12: 18
13: 1
14: 19
15: 6
16: 4
17: 3
18: 20
19: 12
20: 18
Alternately, you could use other methods to modify a roll more simply/quickly.
For instance you could have your rolls be d20+5. Totals over 20 would have -20 to fill in the low value gap, so.. 1=6, 2=7, 3=8...16=1, 17=2, 18=3... You could have this modifier change each session so by the time players figure out what your modifier is you're nearing the end of the session (hopefully) or you could change the modifier regularly by doing periodic rolls in secret, pick a die, d6, d8, d10, d12... doesn't really matter which one. Roll that die in secret, and use it for your next 5-10 rolls, then roll it again. The bigger the die the bigger your modifier range and the less your players know what's coming when you roll that almighty d20.
if the enemy takes 10 and you take 10 then the results are just who's better. Which makes sense, both parties think that taking 10 is good enough, and one of them was wrong.
Having all NPC take 10 as often as possible makes sense since they really should be expecting to just need a decent result.
If your player's take 10 then sure one can know the results before it happens, but nothing is for sure that players choose to take 10
I use the PC's Perception and Sense Motive checks as passive "take 10" effects that are always up; the PCs are welcome to actively use those skills, but for Spot, Listen, and detecting lies, they get the benefit of their skill points without me breaking the pace of the game by saying, "Make a Perception check," and waiting for results.
Those are precisely the skills with which I have an issue with passive take 10s.
With the perception skill lets take an ambush example. The GM or the published adventure has determined that there is about to be an ambush. With a passive take 10 the GM already knows whether the ambush will be successful or not and will find it very difficult indeed not to do at least one of the following metagaming actions:
- Modify the encounter setup (e.g. moving the ambushers further back to avoid detection or triggering the ambush early)
- Plan the ambushers tactics based on the assumption of failure
- Overplay the ambush's initial attack, knowing that it will be successful
I actually have more of an issue with the passive sense motive check. The is the only way the players interact with the game world, all information flows from the GM. If the GM lies to the players, the players have no frame of reference, other than their own real-life instincts to determine whether the information they are being fed is false. With the passive take 10, the GM already knows whether the character will detect the lie or not and will invariably effect what information is passed to the players. The GM may decide to not mention the big lie at all because they know the character will pick up on it, but will quite happily tell a small lie. The players, who are not skilled interrogators able to pick up on psychological and environmental cues, accept the lie because they trust the GM.
There isn't an easy answer and whatever solution each group finds it will be a compromise. As I've said previously, I have a little Excel script that rolls the checks for me on a mouse click. I find I can be subtle as I'm using the laptop for many different things and it keeps me honest. I've tried pre-rolling and keeping a sheet of numbers and these don't help as I can still foretell what is going to happen. With the sheet of numbers I found myself deciding whether a roll was required or not and realised I was subconsciously making sure that a particularly good/bad roll was going to be used at an important point or be used up on something minor.
10s are nice for a few different reasons
1. Keeps things secret
2. Helps you manage how difficult you want the encounter to be by turning it into a static DC
3. Slight statistical advantage to players
4. Saves significant amounts of time. Note you probably roll about the same as all your players combined during a session
All of that said I do not use 10s on significant NPCs. Anyone I have taken the time to flesh out more than a few sentences is important enough to be able to fail or succeed dramatically akin to the PCs.
Ex:
King Mcguffin- rolls everything. Hes an important person with background, motivations, and things hes trying to do
Guard- static dcs for interaction. He's practically a wall but your using bluff instead of climb
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The intent of the take 10 rules is that routine challenges don't require repeated dice rolls or significant chances of experts failing at things that should be easy for them.
They're also good for scenes where the PC is trying to sneak past fifty unaware guards. If the PC is sneaking well enough, why should there be fifty chances of them spotting him?
If both sides take 10 and he's better, then there's no risk left at all - that's too much of a good thing for my taste.
And it's not weird that sneaking past 50 guards is harder than sneaking past 10 guards (all the guards being identical).
Assuming the guards are bunched together in smaller teams, a less-random-but-not-too-certain method would be to have the player roll stealth once for each patrol he's trying to pass, and having all the guards in a patrol take 10.
The intent of the take 10 rules is that routine challenges don't require repeated dice rolls or significant chances of experts failing at things that should be easy for them.
They're also good for scenes where the PC is trying to sneak past fifty unaware guards. If the PC is sneaking well enough, why should there be fifty chances of them spotting him?
If both sides take 10 and he's better, then there's no risk left at all - that's too much of a good thing for my taste.
And it's not weird that sneaking past 50 guards is harder than sneaking past 10 guards (all the guards being identical).
Assuming the guards are bunched together in smaller teams, a less-random-but-not-too-certain method would be to have the player roll stealth once for each patrol he's trying to pass, and having all the guards in a patrol take 10.
And If I'm the rogue and think I'm good at stealth I'll take 10 for all the checks since I'm afraid of failing on a poor roll, and a really high roll doesn't do anything. I just need to succeed.
I've actually enjoyed the take 10 on perception and take 10 on stealth for home games for the same reasons that are used to argue against it: removing randomness has opened up a few narrative options that were never an option when rolling opposed rolls. Normally my players would never attempt to sneak past 50 guards because eventually one of the guards will roll high the same time a party member rolls low. But with everyone taking a ten, sneaking becomes something that the player will consider as a legitimate option (even saw a fighter change out of full plate into a chain shirt for a stealth job). Of course, now your job as a GM becomes harder: you have to calculate the perception vs stealth difference, keep track of all the relevant situational modifiers, and remain unbias in your running as you will be able to know when or if the party will be spotted.
Im not a fan of GMIng and taking 10 too often.... it spoils the fun!!
Now GM hidden vs open rolling... thats an interesting debate!!