About skills, their systems and how they're used.... (digression from another thread)

[Sigmund]

Was reading Werekoala's shorthanded 4e thread and have become fairly interested in the digression on skills and their use in 4e and other games. Rather than continue to add to the digression there I figured I'd make my own thread about it

Seems to me that in dealing with skills, starting in 3.0 and continuing until now in 4e, the whole rule section of skills relating to taking 10 and taking 20 get's either forgotten or ignored by many players and GMs, much like the old weapon speeds and weapons vs. armor types in days of old. I would often bring up taking 10 and 20 for skills for the very reason Benoist describes, I hate having to roll for every little thing. IMO, the modern versions of DnD were actually designed to have skill rolls only be attempted if the character is under stress, or failure would have serious consequences, or the action could only be attempted once and then the whateveritwas would be gone/lost/destroyed/over. IME this approach was very often ignored or forgotten and we would end up rolling for pretty much every use of the skills. Makes me miss the old way of doing things Benoist has talked about, hence my gravitation towards retros or "old school feel" games. How 'bout ya'all?

[flyingmice]

Makes me miss the old way of doing things Benoist has talked about, hence my gravitation towards retros or "old school feel" games. How 'bout ya'all?

I make this explicit in my rulesets - if an ordinarily competent person would have little to no trouble, there should be no dice rolled.

-clash

[Bedrockbrendan]

I make this explicit in my rulesets - if an ordinarily competent person would have little to no trouble, there should be no dice rolled.

-clash

I would add for routine things that you don't always have to make a roll in the first place. It really boils down to "When do you actually roll?" Usually for routine things that aren't terribly consequential, I ignore the roll. In a modern game, making players roll their Drive skill every time they leave the house would probably result in an unrealistic number of accidents.

[Soylent Green]

I think comes down to GM style. Most games rules advise you only roll for things when it matters but a quite a few GMs seem to disregard this advice. I suspect some GM think that making the player roll often makes the game more interactive, even when the dice roll are kind of meaningless.

And don't get me started on the "frequent perception checks" GMs.

[flyingmice]

I would add for routine things that you don't always have to make a roll in the first place. It really boils down to "When do you actually roll?" Usually for routine things that aren't terribly consequential, I ignore the roll. In a modern game, making players roll their Drive skill every time they leave the house would probably result in an unrealistic number of accidents.

Hi Brendan!

That's exactly what I meant. Routine actions are never rolled for because a normally competent person would not have trouble doing them. Violating this leads to people rolling to walk across the street.

-clash

[LordVreeg]

I make this explicit in my rulesets - if an ordinarily competent person would have little to no trouble, there should be no dice rolled.

-clash

We call this the AA rule, short for 'Any Asshole'...as in, "Any Asshole should be able to do that'.

[Benoist]

And don't get me started on the "frequent perception checks" GMs.

God, that's fucking annoying. I know those too.

[Benoist]

We call this the AA rule, short for 'Any Asshole'...as in, "Any Asshole should be able to do that'.

For a moment I thought that meant "any Anonymous Alcoholic should be able to do that".

[Cranewings]

The thing that kills me about the frequent perception check is when everyone get to roll it. If you let 4-8 people roll for whatever, you are going to get a natural 20 from someone close to a third of the time.

[Bedrockbrendan]

The thing that kills me about the frequent perception check is when everyone get to roll it. If you let 4-8 people roll for whatever, you are going to get a natural 20 from someone close to a third of the time.

This can be tricky sometimes. The thing about a group though is the more people you have on something, the more likely they will see or hear something. I think the important thing to keep in mind is that the people failed, still failed. It all depends on how the situation is being played out, but often times, there won't be enough time for those who succeeded to inform the rest of the party about what they've seen. In some circumstances you could argue that some people don't get a roll (if they just aren't in a position to detect anything) or that some people receive penalties (again if they are in a bad position).

[Narf the Mouse]

Or the GM that made everyone roll 200-400 Swim rolls when the boat sank (3e)...Fortunately, I wasn't in that game long.

Back to 4e, they solve the "Roll Perception every 10 feet" problem by having Passive Perception/Awareness. You don't roll to see if you see the Orcs-In-Hiding; the Orcs-In-Hiding roll to see if they stay hidden. Expanding the template to other skills wouldn't be hard; just subtract the 1d20 roll and add 10.

The thing about "Take 10" or "Take 20" is, it tends to be boring, for the simple lack of risk. I'd rather just be told what happens, if there's no risk.

[Bloody Stupid Johnson]

Or the GM that made everyone roll 200-400 Swim rolls when the boat sank (3e)...Fortunately, I wasn't in that game long.

Back to 4e, they solve the "Roll Perception every 10 feet" problem by having Passive Perception/Awareness. You don't roll to see if you see the Orcs-In-Hiding; the Orcs-In-Hiding roll to see if they stay hidden. Expanding the template to other skills wouldn't be hard; just subtract the 1d20 roll and add 10.

The thing about "Take 10" or "Take 20" is, it tends to be boring, for the simple lack of risk. I'd rather just be told what happens, if there's no risk.

Well 'passive perception' is hardly an innovation; its the same as an opposed roll where the PCs are assumed to take-10.
I do think taking-10 is something of a 'lost' rule, and I have no idea why. If the DC is likely to be less than [10+your modifier] a character should take-10 or they're deliberately risking shooting themselves in the foot. The funniest thing we ever had was the GM who declared taking-10 took 10 times as long...

From memory (someone correct me if I'm wrong) 4e does seem to discourage taking 10, though: I believe a skill challenge always counts as an 'encounter' so that you can't take 10, even if the challenge is something that doesn't involve combat/stress/risk.

[Narf the Mouse]

"Take 10" in 3e took 5x longer. So yes, for D&D, it's new.

My memory coincides with Abyssal Maw in that, in a Skill Challenge, it is possible to avoid rolling through role-playing. Hopefully, he'll have further details later. If not, I can always look.

[Thanlis]

Off the top of my head, I know the DMG 2 talks about allowing options other than skills. Bribery, smart use of powers, etc.

The PHB chapter on skills includes rules for taking 10, under Checks without Rolls. I'm not sure if this is intended to extend to skill challenges, but personally, if I'm looking at a PC who has Arcana at +14, I'm gonna tell him that he knows what's going on even in the middle of a skill challenge. Or I'll tell him to make an Arcana check, don't roll a 1.

Why roll? Because random chance is a key element in the style of roleplaying I enjoy. It's too easy for the DM to decide what's going to happen in advance if you don't pay attention to the dice. They are our oracles.

[Bloody Stupid Johnson]

"Take 10" in 3e took 5x longer. So yes, for D&D, it's new.

My memory coincides with Abyssal Maw in that, in a Skill Challenge, it is possible to avoid rolling through role-playing. Hopefully, he'll have further details later. If not, I can always look.

!
No, taking 10 takes the same time as making a check normally.
taking 20 takes 20 times as long, since its shorthand for saying 'you can roll as long as you like until you get a good result, and we're not going to bother counting how many rolls that is.'.