Dark Communion and Take 10

[pad300]

Ok, so you're playing a fiend keeper medium, and you have the ability Dark Communion. Can you take 10 on the ability check for the Dark Communion Ability? That would make the ability automatic in a lot of cases

[Pizza Lord]

TL;DR
No. You cannot Take 10 on that check.

Source: "Trust me, bro."

Longer answer
You can Take 10 on ability checks.

Skills> Taking 10 and Taking 20> Ability Checks wrote:

The normal take 10 and take 20 rules apply for ability checks. Neither rule applies to concentration checks or caster level checks.

Contact Other Plane specifically mentions that you cannot, however.

Contact Other Plane wrote:

Avoid Int/Cha Decrease: You must succeed on an Intelligence check against this DC to avoid a decrease in Intelligence and Charisma. If the check fails, your Intelligence and Charisma scores each fall to 8 for the stated duration, and you become unable to cast arcane spells. You cannot take 10 on this check. If you lose Intelligence and Charisma, the effect strikes as soon as the first question is asked, and no answer is received. If a successful contact is made, roll d% to determine the type of answer you gain.

Dark Communion mimics Contact Other Planes, so it would follow that rule. Otherwise, as you pointed out, it would be basically worthless and practically impossible to fail in almost any real situation.

Note, that Dark Communion says when they use it for knowledge it behaves as contact other planes so a GM could rule that requesting power might not prevent Taking 10 (I would rule that you cannot, since my reading and experience tells me that's what they intended, but I am also stating that it is my call here). Otherwise, a GM could also state that dealing with that evil spirit in that manner is suitably antagonistic and hostile or distracting enough to prevent Taking 10, even if they interpreted asking for power as a different process than asking for knowledge.

[Mysterious Stranger]

Taking 10 can only be done when you are not in immediate danger or distracted. Since failure to make the roll has a negative side effect that probably counts as being in danger or distracted.

[bbangerter]

Mysterious Stranger wrote:

Taking 10 can only be done when you are not in immediate danger or distracted. Since failure to make the roll has a negative side effect that probably counts as being in danger or distracted.

Taking 10 is not disallowed because the task itself could have negative consquences. That is a rule for take 20.

Quote:

Taking 10

When your character is not in immediate danger or distracted, you may choose to take 10. Instead of rolling 1d20 for the skill check, calculate your result as if you had rolled a 10. For many routine tasks, taking 10 makes them automatically successful. Distractions or threats (such as combat) make it impossible for a character to take 10. In most cases, taking 10 is purely a safety measure—you know (or expect) that an average roll will succeed but fear that a poor roll might fail, so you elect to settle for the average roll (a 10). Taking 10 is especially useful in situations where a particularly high roll wouldn’t help.

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 a d20 roll 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).

Ability Checks and Caster Level ChecksThe normal take 10 and take 20 rules apply for ability checks. Neither rule applies to concentration checks or caster level checks.

Failing a task you are trying to accomplish does not present danger in performing that task itself such that you cannot take 10.

The take 10 rule is there to eliminate any risk of something you'd normally be able to succeed at but have a low chance of having a failure at. Take 10 is prevented by risk/danger from something external to the task itself.

Example, the DC to jump over a 2' wide pit is 2. A character untrained in acrobatics could fail that DC by rolling a 1. Take 10 is there to allow a character with a low chance of failure to eliminate that low chance by being more cautious in their approach. But they are not allowed to take 10 if someone is swinging a sword at them, or other things are preventing them from focusing on the task (say a large boulder trap Indiana Jones style is threatening to crush them from behind).

Jumping over the pit itself is not a danger or threat to them if they are allowed sufficient time to mentally prepare, back up 10', and take a good running start at it.

As to the OP, I agree with Pizza Lords analysis. Given it is based on contact other plane, which calls out an exception to what would normally allow a take 10.

[Pizza Lord]

Mysterious Stranger wrote:

Taking 10 can only be done when you are not in immediate danger or distracted. Since failure to make the roll has a negative side effect that probably counts as being in danger or distracted.

You are correct about the immediate danger part and the distraction part. I am only commenting to address the last part, about failure having a negative consequence.

bbangarter is correct here. It isn't the chance of failure or a bad thing occuring on a failure that prevents Taking 10, it's distractions or other things that would divert your attention. Combat is the one most people think, but you don't even have to be in the combat. Like if you're sitting at a bar and there's a brawl going on behind you.

Space saver:

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If there's a brawl, with fists, bottles and chairs being thrown, even if you aren't involved or even being aimed at, it's a distraction and you can't just Take 10 on your Perform check to impress the barmaid. You can still make the check, but you can't Take 10 (and you might have a –2 distraction penalty, either because of the distraction to you or because the barmaid is distracted and that makes it harder to influence her).

There's a similar ruling on disarming traps. Just because it's (theoretically) a dangerous trap and failing could spring it, a character can still Take 10. However, that was a basic answer (not sure if it was FAQ or just an inquiry) to a question that was pretty much "Can I Take 10 to disarm a trap," and such answers tend to be narrowly defined as specific to the question.

So if you see a trap that would set off a bomb or cause the ceiling to crash down, you could Take 10 to disable it, if possible. But if that trap activated a bomb (say with a 1 minute timer or just a ticking timer of a clock) or caused the wall or ceiling to start descending, then at that point I would disallow Taking 10 to try and Disable Device on the bomb or trap or the locked door leaving the room. Based on the presence of a distraction or threat.
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What you said is correct, but the last part (the consequence of failure) wasn't the reason a Take 10 couldn't be done in most situations.

[Mysterious Stranger]

Evil Spirit (Su): A fiend keeper serves as the vessel for a powerful evil spirit that fights and bargains for dominance. The legends a fiend keeper channels are all aspects of this evil presence. Willingly performing an evil act automatically grants the evil spirit 1 point of influence over him. Protection from evil temporarily suppresses all the spirit’s benefits while the fiend keeper is under the spell’s effects. When the spirit gains at least 3 points of influence over the fiend keeper, in addition to the penalties associated with each legend, he gains an evil aura as per a cleric of his level and treats his alignment as evil for the purposes of resisting or being vulnerable to spells and abilities (such as unholy blight or a paladin’s smite evil class ability).

I would say that fighting and bargaining with an evil spirit would qualify as dangerous and distracting. Keep in mind that one of the prerequisites for the archetype is a non-evil alignment. The whole purpose of the archetype is to eliminate evil from the world. The characters relationship with the spirit is one of peaceful cooperation. The Intelligence or Charisma roll is the game mechanic to determine who won that particular battle. In reality this is a form of combat even if it takes place in the characters head.

[bbangerter]

Mysterious Stranger wrote:

I would say that fighting and bargaining with an evil spirit would qualify as dangerous and distracting.

Dangerous, yes, but as noted, something being dangerous in and of itself is not a reason take 10 cannot be done. The 2' wide pit example above is dangerous if the pit is deep enough, or filled with acid/lava.

Distracting, IMO, no. If you are trying to focus on something (because it is dangerous), it cannot also be distracting you from focusing on it. ie, a thing cannot distract from itself. Because of its nature, anything it does is going to result in you being even more focused on it, not less.

[Diego Rossi]

To pile up with the others, taking a dangerous action alone doesn't prevent you from taking 10. While taking a dangerous action, you aren't in immediate danger or distracted, you are under potential danger.
To give an example, riding is a dangerous action (plenty of people have died in riding accidents) but you can take 10 as long as you aren't distracted or menaced by something/someone.

When speaking instead of the specific use of Dark Communion (Su) I think there is a distracting factor: you are using a supernatural ability with an activation time of a full-round action. The check is made while activating the ability, so you are doing a distracting activity.
Mine is a debatable interpretation, the ability description should have said something about the ability to take 10 when using it.