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During the Doomsday Dawn: Lost Star playtest my players got bogged down trying to unlock the door in room A6. The purification fountain.
DC 20 is an understandably difficult check for 1st level characters, three such checks are even harder, but then critical failures set you back two successes and break your lockpicks. My party had three sets of lockpicks between them, but the challenge basically took 10 actual minutes of tabletime.
In the meantime the players who *weren’t* trying to pick the lock were mostly growing bored after the initial couple of attempts and real life impatience caused them to bust through the other door.
In Pathfinder 1, my players could just take 10, fail then take 20, roll to see if a random encounter arrived in the time spent and if all was clear, moved into the next room and if the take 20 wasn’t enough they’d know the DC was too high for their skill and they’d go around the other way.
As it is the players are rolling dice when there’s no real stakes involved. It’s clunky. Three checks to unlock a door might work and add interesting tension in encounter mode, but exploration mode shouldn’t get bogged down.
Agreed. I miss Take 10 & Take 20 a lot. Since 2000, they've been hardwired into my brain.
I agree that Take 10 and 20 would help a lot and speed up the game.
However, in this particular circumstance with the locked door, neither would have helped. Take 10 was too low and Take 20 only works with skills that don't have a fail condition.
Take 20 wouldn't have worked with picking the lock in PF1 either. In PF1, searching with perception was one of the only things it worked with.
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I agree that Take 10 and 20 would help a lot and speed up the game.
However, in this particular circumstance with the locked door, neither would have helped. Take 10 was too low and Take 20 only works with skills that don't have a fail condition.
Take 20 wouldn't have worked with picking the lock in PF1 either. In PF1, searching with perception was one of the only things it worked with.
Not to correct you but:
Taking 20: When you have plenty of time, you are faced with no threats or distractions, and the skill being attempted carries no penalties for failure, you can take 20. In other words, if you roll a d20 enough times, eventually you will get a 20. Instead of rolling 1d20 for the skill check, just calculate your result as if you had rolled a 20.
Taking 20 means you are trying until you get it right, and it assumes that you fail many times before succeeding. Taking 20 takes 20 times as long as making a single check would take (usually 2 minutes for a skill that takes 1 round or less to perform).
Since taking 20 assumes that your character will fail many times before succeeding, your character would automatically incur any penalties for failure before he or she could complete the task (hence why it is generally not allowed with skills that carry such penalties). Common "take 20" skills include Disable Device (when used to open locks), Escape Artist, and Perception (when attempting to find traps).
Bolding is mine for emphasis.
Now the "broken picks" clause of the Open Lock activity under the Thievery skill could reasonably be considered a penalty for failure (and thus not allowing it, or costing 10 sets of lockpicks in order to allow it).
But I think at the very least a distinction needs to be made between opening a lock while in Encounter Mode and opening a lock in Exploration mode. Essentially a character shouldn't be able to critically fail checks in Exploration mode if there are no stakes, pressure or constraints on them.
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Yeah. There needs to be a reliable way to just hunker down and *do* things: climb a rope, toss a grappling hook, cross a pit trap you know about, pick a lock, knock down a stubborn door, searching for secret passages.
I can understand how as an adventure designer the idea that sometimes being unable to bypass an obstacle and having to go around feels like it adds something to the game, but I haven't found that. I've found that players just hunker down and try to do it and when their characters constantly fail and look like buffoons it makes the game less fun for everyone.
There is an argument that the GM should not call for rolls in circumstances where the party would have successfully taken ten in PF1 (climbing that knotted rope secured with a grappling hook).
...you can usually skip rolling and assume the characters succeed against trivial DCs.
The trivial DC at level 1 is 10. With some exceptions skipping rolling is the same as taking 10.
Why is this a bad idea:
It removes predictability; in one case the GM hand waves the climb up that rope because if the fighter took of their shield and everyone aided each other the group would make the climb with only a critical fail on a one. But in the next encounter where the GM has a reason to add narrative tension the party finds themselves rolling and failing. This can be mitigated with better narrative descriptions for skipped rolling, describing the mechanical actions the group could have taken if they had to roll it out.
It is inconsistent with natural ones; skills crit fail on a 1 if you also fail on a 1. Characters will still fail trivial challenged on a natural 1, this means that a 100' climb of a DC 5 ladder has a significant chance of death for a level 1 character if rolled out. The only thing protecting the character is the GM deciding to skip the trivial check.
Why this is a good idea:
It makes the game experience more narrative and less simulationist... If that is something you want...
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Critical failure breaks your lockpicks? Wow, another dude on this forum was right, this edition really does hate fun. Who thought that was a good idea? o_O
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I didn't need take 10 or take 20 mechanics when playing 5E at all. I just knew not to have players roll for everything.
I looked at their sheet and looked at the task, then I made a call. Its not hard.
Yes, you can absolutely ignore the rules of any game you play at any time. That’s not very valuable playtest feedback.
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Yes, you can absolutely ignore the rules of any game you play at any time. That’s not very valuable playtest feedback.I didn't need take 10 or take 20 mechanics when playing 5E at all. I just knew not to have players roll for everything.
I looked at their sheet and looked at the task, then I made a call. Its not hard.
But reporting that using a rule was much more cumbersome than not using it is valuable playtest feedback.
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There is an argument that the GM should not call for rolls in circumstances where the party would have successfully taken ten in PF1 (climbing that knotted rope secured with a grappling hook).
...you can usually skip rolling and assume the characters succeed against trivial DCs.
Then...what's Assurance for?
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But reporting that using a rule was much more cumbersome than not using it is valuable playtest feedback.Yes, you can absolutely ignore the rules of any game you play at any time. That’s not very valuable playtest feedback.I didn't need take 10 or take 20 mechanics when playing 5E at all. I just knew not to have players roll for everything.
I looked at their sheet and looked at the task, then I made a call. Its not hard.
Yes, that's true. However, take 10 and Take 20 don't exist in D&D 5e though, you're expected to roll for everything, even when there's no danger or stakes.
Pathfinder 2e is the same. You need to roll for everything, Assurance just means that your minimum roll is assured. But you can't take extra time and effort to take 20 and ensure success. You can only hedge against critical failure with a very limited number of skills.
Pathfinder 2e is the same. You need to roll for everything, Assurance just means that your minimum roll is assured.
1) Assurance can't even met the threshold for Trivial DCs.
...you're expected to roll for everything, even when there's no danger or stakes.
2) *Cough* According to the "Adjusting the Chance of Success" section of Chapter 10: Game Mastering:
you can usually skip rolling and
assume the characters succeed against trivial DCs.
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Pathfinder 2e is the same. You need to roll for everything, Assurance just means that your minimum roll is assured.1) Assurance can't even met the threshold for Trivial DCs.
It's to hedge against critical failure, not to pass trivial DCs (which the game gives to you automatically, as you go on to say:
...you're expected to roll for everything, even when there's no danger or stakes.2) *Cough* According to the "Adjusting the Chance of Success" section of Chapter 10: Game Mastering:
you can usually skip rolling and
assume the characters succeed against trivial DCs.
I'm talking about the other end of the DC number line.
You can't hunker down and get a job done using time and patience.
I don't care that you don't need to roll for stuff that you'll automatically pass. I want to have a way for the party, when they are in no immediate danger or time pressure can spend time to solve difficult tasks via mundane means.
Such as opening a tricky lock (with a DC even higher than Severe), repairing a broken shield (always a hard DC based on the item level).
Even if the game had a mechanic that said:
"This is too hard to do, you need to move on."
In the same way it has thresholds for: "This is so easy you needn't roll."
For all the game's talk about different "modes", it still only uses one method of adjudicating play when it comes to encounter and exploration mode, and that's a problem.
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It's to hedge against critical failure, not to pass trivial DCs (which the game gives to you automatically, as you go on to say:
If Assurance can't let you pass non-trivial DCs, then it doesn't matter if it keeps you from critical failure, you still fail and have no chance of succeeding and moving forward unless you actually roll and take the risk. So it's useless.
Also, even with Assurance you'll still critically fail if it was DC 20, because Assurance just gives you a 10. Picking Locks starts at DC 20, and so does using Battle Medic, so if you have Assurance in those skills you will break your lockpicks and kill your patient.
Assurance is a useless feat that serves no purpose.
There was a reason that skills didn't auto-fail on a natural 1 before and Take 10 and Take 20 existed. It was to prevent exactly these sorts of slapstick fumbles.
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It's to hedge against critical failure, not to pass trivial DCs (which the game gives to you automatically, as you go on to say:
If Assurance can't let you pass non-trivial DCs, then it doesn't matter if it keeps you from critical failure, you still fail and have no chance of succeeding and moving forward unless you actually roll and take the risk. So it's useless.
Also, even with Assurance you'll still critically fail if it was DC 20, because Assurance just gives you a 10. Picking Locks starts at DC 20, and so does using Battle Medic, so if you have Assurance in those skills you will break your lockpicks and kill your patient.
Assurance is a useless feat that serves no purpose.
There was a reason that skills didn't auto-fail on a natural 1 before and Take 10 and Take 20 existed. It was to prevent exactly these sorts of slapstick fumbles.
There is a DC 15 lock in the first adventure, but there are also two locks above DC 20. Assurance would prevent critical failure in the first instance, but not the second or third. Assurance also increases the minimum as your proficiency increases.
I just don’t see it’s value as a feat when taking 10/taking 20 was a reasonable method of adjudicating exploration previously.
I just don’t see it’s value as a feat when taking 10/taking 20 was a reasonable method of adjudicating exploration previously.
We're agreed there, then.
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There is a DC 15 lock in the first adventure, but there are also two locks above DC 20. Assurance would prevent critical failure in the first instance...
AND still not succeed!
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However it does nothing to help speed up adjudication of actions in Exploration mode when there is no time pressure or stakes for failure (other than perhaps a few silver pieces for equipment breakage).Then why is there even a skill check happening if there is no pressure or stakes?
Take 10 and Take 20 turn skill checks from random actions into "Do you have a skill check bonus of X or higher? If so you pass the obstacle in [time period]."
An Exploration mode check should be doing the following:
- Critical Success - Action takes a shorter than normal amount of time to complete, achieve greater than normal results or .
- Success - Action takes a normal amount of time to complete with standard results and costs.
- Failure - Action takes longer to complete, ends with inferior results or increased costs.
- Critical Failure - Action takes much longer to complete, ends with barely usable results or at much higher than normal cost.
This is exactly what I want to see more of in exploration mode: Guaranteed successes with time and cost being the factors determined by the roll.
Also I read assurance wrong, I thought that it was meant to be the minimum roll you could make but it’s actually a number given instead of the roll. Which is very bad at low levels where dice swinginess is the biggest obstacle between adventurers and hilarious slapstick deaths.
There is an argument that the GM should not call for rolls in circumstances where the party would have successfully taken ten in PF1 (climbing that knotted rope secured with a grappling hook).
...you can usually skip rolling and assume the characters succeed against trivial DCs.The trivial DC at level 1 is 10. With some exceptions skipping rolling is the same as taking 10.
Why is this a bad idea:
It removes predictability; in one case the GM hand waves the climb up that rope because if the fighter took of their shield and everyone aided each other the group would make the climb with only a critical fail on a one. But in the next encounter where the GM has a reason to add narrative tension the party finds themselves rolling and failing. This can be mitigated with better narrative descriptions for skipped rolling, describing the mechanical actions the group could have taken if they had to roll it out.
It is inconsistent with natural ones; skills crit fail on a 1 if you also fail on a 1. Characters will still fail trivial challenged on a natural 1, this means that a 100' climb of a DC 5 ladder has a significant chance of death for a level 1 character if rolled out. The only thing protecting the character is the GM deciding to skip the trivial check.
Why this is a good idea:
It makes the game experience more narrative and less simulationist... If that is something you want...
Natural 1 on a ladder shenanigans aside, doesn't take 10 have similar problems? You can't take it in an encounter, which means that when there are big stakes. Unless when you said "encounter" you didn't mean something that requires rolling initiative and contains active threats.
Reading this feels less like an argument for take 10 and more of an argument that "failing on a nat 1 automatically" should be gone, or at least "crit failing on a nat 1 automatically" should be gone.
Also, I'm not sure if I should get hung up on this specific example, but I don't think an actual ladder in normal circumstances is DC 5. That's actually the example they give of something which should never be rolled. Climbing a tree is DC 9 and an unbraced rope is 10 if I am reading the table right. and they don't even bother listing a DC for a ladder, but it is significantly easier than climbing the above. More than 25% easier, I'd say. If you had to assign it a DC it would probably be DC 0 or something that can only be failed on a 1 with very harsh penalties, even for a first level character with 8 strength.
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Critical failure breaks your lockpicks? Wow, another dude on this forum was right, this edition really does hate fun. Who thought that was a good idea? o_O
Bethesda.
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There is an argument that the GM should not call for rolls in circumstances where the party would have successfully taken ten in PF1 (climbing that knotted rope secured with a grappling hook).
...you can usually skip rolling and assume the characters succeed against trivial DCs.The trivial DC at level 1 is 10. With some exceptions skipping rolling is the same as taking 10.
Why is this a bad idea:
It removes predictability; in one case the GM hand waves the climb up that rope because if the fighter took of their shield and everyone aided each other the group would make the climb with only a critical fail on a one. But in the next encounter where the GM has a reason to add narrative tension the party finds themselves rolling and failing. This can be mitigated with better narrative descriptions for skipped rolling, describing the mechanical actions the group could have taken if they had to roll it out.
It is inconsistent with natural ones; skills crit fail on a 1 if you also fail on a 1. Characters will still fail trivial challenged on a natural 1, this means that a 100' climb of a DC 5 ladder has a significant chance of death for a level 1 character if rolled out. The only thing protecting the character is the GM deciding to skip the trivial check.
Why this is a good idea:
It makes the game experience more narrative and less simulationist... If that is something you want...
Natural 1 on a ladder shenanigans aside, doesn't take 10 have similar problems? You can't take it in an encounter, which means that when there are big stakes. Unless when you said "encounter" you didn't mean something that requires rolling initiative and contains active threats.
Reading this feels less like an argument for take 10 and more of an argument that "failing on a nat 1 automatically" should be gone, or at least "crit failing on a nat 1 automatically" should be gone.
Also, I'm not sure if I...
When I said encounter I meant what ever the next 'scene' is, which may or may not have active threats but does include the GM requiring rolls. At least with take ten it is well defined why the character could do it safely before but may critically fail now (an active threat).
Yes my argument is unfocused. I haven't decided how I feel about most of the playtest yet. I really liked that skills didn't auto fail/succeed in PF1, but reintroducing that mechanic is consistent with the way skill DCs have tightened up and that success is no longer guaranteed for an invested character; just more likely.
If the ladder encounter doesn't work let's modify the situation until we hit DC. A rope ladder? A rope ladder up the side of ship rocking with the waves. Climbing up a rope ladder on to a ship from a row boat is something that can happen a hundred times without a character critically failing, but something that a character could critically fail in the heat of combat.
I like how they recommend not rolling trivial DCs, but it seems like the reason they recommend skipping those checks is because a character would pass it by taking ten. It strikes me as an unnecessary removal of a rule.
Some GMs did not like take ten because it felt like the characters got to auto-succeed. There were situations in PF1 where an invested character attempting a very hard skill challenge would only fail on a 5. I saw many character get clever to this and take ten everywhere they could. It removed a lot of dice rolling. This leave it to the GM could be read as the best of both. If the GM likes take ten they can use that as a guideline in deciding what is trivial enough to skip, if they don't they can ask for rolls without players feeling cheated out an ability.
You don't need to roll for everything. Look at the situation (combat/noncombat), the stakes of the outcome and the character then make a call. You dont need complicated rules filled with exceptions/special cases and other fiddly nonsense.
This won't work for PFS play, which seems to be one of the driving forces behind the design of the game.