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The skill feat "assurance" is needed to approximate taking 10. There isn't any take 20 analogue.
I can't find any rule equivalent to the old 'you can Take Ten' (i.e. assume the PC rolls a 10 on the D20) or 'you can take Twenty' (i.e. assume the PC rolls a 20 on the D20) on certain things, like gathering information of diplomacy etc. Is this still allowed at all under the new rule set? If so, in what circumstances?
Their dead jim (uhh shade) but you can take assurance.
Assurance is "your result is 10" not "add your modifiers as if you had rolled a 10"
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Assurance is really terrible and we need take 10 (or take 20) back!
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Take 10 and 20 are great ways to keep a game moving, and not be paralyzed over trivial tasks. I have not had a chance to see Assurance in action in a alive game, but my initial reaction is that it is too costly to require a feat to do something that was openly available and to do it worse and for only one skill.
I'd strongly recommend bringing back take 10 and take 20 in some form.
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Taking 20 should work if added to the existing rules -- as long as the effects of a critical failure are tolerable, everything would fall into place.
Taking 10 would require modifying a bunch of the skill rules in the playtest, but I think this one should be done because the playtest rules contain far too many cases where a 5% chance of disaster is unrealistically high.
If I was the GM and you asked me if you could take 10, my response would be, 'if there is no way for you to crit fail*, and you are willing to forego the possibility of crit success, then sure. Go ahead and take 10.'
I think this is where the 'automatic successes' section of the check rolls comes in to play. If the DC is low enough that it can be reasonably assumed that the characters are certain to succeed, then just let them succeed without rolling.
* a natural 1 would only be a regular fail if the calculated result of 1 + modifiers beats the DC
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I miss Take 10 and will house rule it back.
Taking 10 would require modifying a bunch of the skill rules in the playtest, but I think this one should be done because the playtest rules contain far too many cases where a 5% chance of disaster is unrealistically high.
Yep or there is no crit failure for that skill. One of the two.
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Removing take 10 might make a lot of sense, personally, I think Assurance is a nice approach but might need to be slightly better.
A lot better*
Assurance can't even keep up with the rising DCs by level for "trivial challenges."
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Taking 10 would require modifying a bunch of the skill rules in the playtest, but I think this one should be done because the playtest rules contain far too many cases where a 5% chance of disaster is unrealistically high.Yep or there is no crit failure for that skill. One of the two.
Why would there being a crit fail effect matter for whether or not Take 10 is viable? In PF1, Take 10 wasn't "you roll a 1, then a 2, then a 3... then a 10". It was "You take the average result."
So you would never hit that crit fail regardless.
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I strongly think that these should be put back in the game. They save a TON of time at the table and also neatly sidestep the "why doesn't everyone get fired from their day job inside a month when they roll a natural 1?" question.
It seems to me that a take 10 rule would be very easy to introduce to PF2. It would need to state that it's only usable in Exploration or Downtime mode and that you ignore critical failure as well as critical success.
I also think that the Assurance feats are way underpowered. If you got to add your modifiers and it was more like the Rogue talents in PF1 that let you take 10 in combat, that would be attractive. But as it is, I don't see myself ever taking them. Consider:
At level 2 (when you get your first skill feat), you take Assurance. This gives you a result of 10... you don't get to add any bonuses or modifiers.
Looking at the Skill DC chart on page 337, a Trivial skill check DC for a level 2 character is 11. That means a character with Assurance can't use it to succeed on a level appropriate trivial skill check!
Why would there being a crit fail effect matter for whether or not Take 10 is viable? In PF1, Take 10 wasn't "you roll a 1, then a 2, then a 3... then a 10". It was "You take the average result."
So you would never hit that crit fail regardless.
Problem: 5% of the time we fail disastrously.
To avoid that problem, I was suggested that they either need to give us back Take 10 or they need to remove the crit fail outcomes on a number of skills.
Talking about crit fails, we get a lot of them in my playtests so far. At level 1 it's a bit like the Three Stooges.
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It's odd and bizarre that an expert (or better) character can't take 10 to climb a wall or something like that...
You SHOULD bring back take 10 and take 20 as standard rules. It's entirely necessary to keep the pace of the game.
And I doubt that someone will choose those Assurance feats forfeiting the other cool skill feats available.
At minimum, all characters should gain assurance for free at ALL skills in which they're expert or better.
An expert character having to buy a FEAT to receive something like a medium 5 on the D20? Didn't convince me...
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Talking about crit fails, we get a lot of them in my playtests so far. At level 1 it's a bit like the Three Stooges.
Notice this! This is a serious problem with a universal 5% chance of critical fails. This is not the sort of game Pathfinder is supposed to be, a heroic fantasy games where characters get very high powered and do legendary and impressive things. That's just not consistent with multiple critical fails every game, which is going to happen if you have a 5% chance every time you make a skill check, as each player is likely to make at least several skill checks each game.
(If you have six characters who each make ten skill checks during the game, you've got a 63% chance of seeing 3 or more critical fails on skill checks as a result of nat 1s. (More if you include DC-10.). It'll be much higher if there are combat rolls in there as well.)
Notice this! This is a serious problem with a universal 5% chance of critical fails. This is not the sort of game Pathfinder is supposed to be, a heroic fantasy games where characters get very high powered and do legendary and impressive things. That's just not consistent with multiple critical fails every game, which is going to happen if you have a 5% chance every time you make a skill check, as each player is likely to make at least several skill checks each game.
Yes, it doesn't feel heroic at times. Some fumbles are OK but there are a lot.
I'll give you some examples from last session.
- Fumbus trying to help someone who is hanging on the edge of a cliff, fumbles, and knocks them off the cliff.
- Fumbus trying to first aid someone and killing 2 guys while doing it.
- Fumbus throwing his alchemist fire into the party on a miss. (this is OK but still... it was getting frustrating for the player).
- Merisiel failing a climb check and fell prone TWICE while trying to climb a 15' ladder. (Bad luck with two "1"s, but still, the DC was only 5)
- Merisiel breaking her lock picks all-the-time, which is ridiculous.
- Valeros trying to push an opponent off a slopped ledge and instead falls, fails his grab edge, and falls himself...
If you try level appropriate skill checks enough times you'll get plenty of failures. I think crit failures are a big part of the problem. I'm not sure I like crit fails on a "1", but they might be OK on "10 or less".
Taking 10 would require modifying a bunch of the skill rules in the playtest, but I think this one should be done because the playtest rules contain far too many cases where a 5% chance of disaster is unrealistically high.Yep or there is no crit failure for that skill. One of the two.
Why would there being a crit fail effect matter for whether or not Take 10 is viable? In PF1, Take 10 wasn't "you roll a 1, then a 2, then a 3... then a 10". It was "You take the average result."
So you would never hit that crit fail regardless.
This is probably why take 10 was removed from the rules. In PF1, you couldn't take 10 if there was a consequence to failing the roll. If you were crossing a river by balancing across a rotting log, you couldn't take 10 on the balance check. Failure would mean falling into the river.
In PF2 there is quite regularly a consequence to failing the roll if you fail it badly enough. So the opportunity to take 10 wouldn't see much use. So now when crossing that river on a rotting log, a crit fail would mean falling into the river and a regular fail would mean making no progress. But you still can't take 10 because of that risk of falling if you fail badly enough.
Also, why are people complaining about the chance of crit fails at level 1? This is actually an improvement. Previously there was nothing equivalent to the regular fails. Failing a check had the consequences equivalent to a crit fail now.
So if a character in PF1 had an 80% chance of success, then they also had a 20% chance to crit fail.
So why is it so much worse now that it is only a 5% chance of crit fail?
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This is probably why take 10 was removed from the rules. In PF1, you couldn't take 10 if there was a consequence to failing the roll. If you were crossing a river by balancing across a rotting log, you couldn't take 10 on the balance check. Failure would mean falling into the river.
This is wrong, and a very common misconception about Take 10.
If there's no consequence to failing the roll, then there's often no point in having a check in the first place.
Take 10 is not for rolls without failure consequences. That's Take 20! An entirely different thing.
Take 10 is when you are not distracted. This is why you can (without a special ability) never take 10 in combat. But in the example you give, you can take 10, unless there is something making it impossible to focus (like being under attack, very high winds, or something like that.
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- Merisiel breaking her lock picks all-the-time, which is ridiculous.
I will be very disappointed if they do not fix lockpicking before the game comes out. Indeed, if they keep crit fails on a natural 1 at all, I will be disappointed; I'm OK with "failing by more than 10". But the lockpicking is a particularly egregious example of why the critical failure rules are not good.
I saw immediately that lockpicking was going to be a gigantic problem with the new crit fail system; I posted a thread about it here.