Taking 20 Podcast - Ep 37 - Adjudicating Skill and Ability Checks

Episode Date: September 6, 2020

In RPGs, skill checks are different from attack rolls, saving throws, and other d20 rolls.  Jeremy discusses some ways that skill checks can be used in your game and how they can be adjucated in multiple ways.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for tuning in to episode 37 of the Taking 20 podcast, adjudicating skill and ability checks. This week's sponsor, by the way, is the Levin and Earth Bakery. They promise they have the best buns on earth or above it. If you have any feedback for us, if you have any show ideas, please email them to feedback at taking20podcast.com. I'd love to hear your ideas. It's been a hot minute since we got a show idea, so I'd love to hear from you. So skill checks and ability checks are points of contention in a lot of systems. So let's just start with the basics. Let's go all the way down

to ground zero. In D20 systems, which I tend to focus on in this show, characters have a score that represents a character's ability in a certain skill. Lockpicking, cyberdecking, finding water in the desert, not getting lost at sea, walking across a swinging rope bridge. There'll be skills for all of these things. Players will roll a 20 sided die. They'll add the score to it, and that's how successful they were at a particular task. Skill checks are vastly different from saving throws and attack rolls in one very key thing. A natural 20 on a skill check does not guarantee automatic success rules as written. A natural 20 on acrobatics doesn't let you matrix your way

through a hail of bullets. A natural 20 on diplomacy does not mean you get to sleep with the king. It wouldn't let you sneak a battleaxe into an aristocratic party where weapons are forbidden. Natural 20 represents the best you can possibly do on a check. You remember this lesson in school, or a chapter in a book that you read, a tale someone told you about it, or you learned it from your master. Similarly, a natural 1 on a skill check is not an automatic failure. Your character's having a bad moment. You're all thumbs right now. You can't for the life of you remember the name of that song. You walk into a room and can't think of why you came in here. Now that being said, DMs out there, if you want to rule that natural 20s are automatic successes

and natural 1s are automatic failures on skill checks, make sure your players are on board and then go hog, have fun. It is important that the players are on board, though, because that means that theoretically someone who is blind, deaf, quadriplegic, with no sense of smell and no sense of taste, could track your party wading through ankle-deep water in a blizzard while the party's flying if that tracker rolled a natural 20. It also means that that goblin could jump across a thousand-foot crevasse if they rolled a 20. I mean, I'm being facetious, but the point stands.

Things that seem at least improbable, if not impossible, can happen 5% of the time. Also, when it comes to skill checks, not everything a character does requires a skill check. Why would you make them make an acrobatics check to put on armor, or a knowledge check to remember their friends' names? DMs in general, and if you're taking nothing else from this episode, please remember this. DMs should only ask for checks when the action's outcome is important, the outcome is in doubt, and failure has a cost. In other words, if the activity being undertaken is trivial with negligible effects, why worry about a skill roll? There's no point. Oh, make an acrobatics check to put on your socks.

No, all that's going to do is slow down the game. If the outcome isn't in doubt and the activity is a guaranteed success for the players, why even make a roll? doubt and the activity is a guaranteed success for the players, why even make a roll? Oh, I need you to make a perception check to spot the lion that's three feet in front of you. Broad daylight in an empty plane. Outcomes not in doubt. No point in making a roll there. Or if failure by the players would mean absolutely nothing, why roll at all? Just give it to the players and let them move on. absolutely nothing, why roll at all? Just give it to the players and let them move on. DMs, it's your decision whether or not the character can even attempt a roll. I've never heard of the Plane of Infinite Shadow, but I want to roll to see if I know that ghost's true name so that would give me power over it. The DM is well within his or her rights to say

no. There is zero chance your character could possibly know that, so you're not going to make a skill check for it. While we're at it, if you fail your check, it's the DM's decision whether or not a character can even attempt the check again. If you fail a knowledge check about local nobility, chances are your DM's not going to let you sit there and roll and roll and roll and roll and try and try and try and try until you eventually get a high enough number to remember what the name of the duke is. It's the DM's decision if another character can try after a failure. And DMs, my advice to you is to be as permissive with this as you can be. How many times have you ever seen a variation of this scenario? A bunch of friends get together and someone brings a jar to open. First person tries and it won't budge. Second person, give me that and they can't budge it either. Third person says, stop before you shit yourself. Give me that and it pops right open. Second person says, well, I loosened it up for you. There are a lot of scenarios where retry

should absolutely be allowed. If one person tries to bash open the door and it doesn't work, chances are the second person could give that same bash a try. Another tip. It's the DM's decision whether or not you're allowed to take 10 or take 20 if your system allows it. In certain game systems, players are allowed to take 10 on a check if they're under no pressure, not being threatened or distracted, and there's few negative consequences in case of failure. Effectively, what you're doing is taking the quote-unquote average result on a d20 roll. Examples from some game systems that I've played include swimming in calm water, so a swim check in a pool, for example. Walking at half speed on a frozen pond covered with thick ice that won't break. DMs sometimes allow it also when a really high roll wouldn't help,

so allowing you to take 10 in those regards. Long-term care heel checks are the prime example here. Climbing a knotted rope, etc. In most game systems, rolling a 38 on your climb check to climb a knotted rope isn't any better than rolling a 10, so allow the players to take 10 and just keep the game moving. Taking 20 is allowed when there are no time constraints and failure has no negative consequences. So a player wants to thoroughly search a chest or an area of a room.

But remember, it's the DM's decision and players should abide by it even if they disagree. And DMs, you should be fairly free with the ability to take 10 or 20. DMs, make sure the players know the relative difficulty of the check. And I'm not saying you have to tell players exact numbers. This is a DC 25, DC meaning difficulty class, 25 check. No, that's not it. But be descriptive. The guard doesn't really look like you could bribe him, but you're more than welcome to take a shot at it. Searching for the room may be difficult because there's a lot of nooks and crannies where things could be hidden. Or you're foraging for food and there appear to be berry bushes readily available to pick from. By your description, you let the player know

about how difficult it is, even if you don't give them a number. When it comes to rolling for skill checks, there are two primary methods that are used. Secret checks rolled by the DM behind the screen and open checks rolled by the DM behind the screen and open checks rolled by the player. So which one should you use? My advice? Find the right balance. Secret checks should be used when the player should not know whether she did the best she could or if she completely botched it. Suppose the player is trying to find an invisible troglodyte sorcerer in a room. The DM asks for the player's perception modifier and rolls behind the screen. Based on the roll plus the modifier, the DM gives the player the result of the search. The logic behind this is that if the player doesn't find the sorcerer, he shouldn't

know if it's because the sorcerer isn't there, or it's because the sorcerer's there and he can't find her. If the player rolled the die and a 19 came up, but the DM said the player still didn't find the sorcerer, the player could infer, right or wrong, that the sorcerer isn't in the room, and the player probably wouldn't know that. Or at a minimum, the player would figure out it would be nearly impossible for him to find the sorcerer. If the DM rolls, the player, much like when we're searching for our keys, doesn't know whether or not the thing they're searching for is in the room. Is it there and they can't find it, or is it not even there? The player just doesn't know. Open checks can be used if it doesn't matter if the player knows how well he or she did on the skill. Climbing a rope, walking a balance beam, searching for edible berries, some

of the examples I used previously. It doesn't matter that the player knows that they rolled an 18 out of 20. As a GM, you need to find the balance between these two types of checks. Nearly every group I've ever DMed for, and honestly even played in, has minimized the number of secret checks. When I DM, I tend to use more open checks, and I allow players to know how well they did. The exceptions are very specific. When I'm trying to ramp up the tension, Allow players to know how well they did. The exceptions are very specific.

When I'm trying to ramp up the tension, make players nervous, like on a chase or investigation, looking for clues, finding the hidden thing that might kill them, horror adventures or terror adventures, and the like. If you're not sure where your group would feel comfortable with open checks versus secret checks, ask them. If they're not sure, go with your game system's recommendations. For example, if you're playing Pathfinder 2nd Edition, there are a lot more secret checks than there were in Pathfinder 1st Edition. Some skill checks allow helpers and assistants people to assist with a skill check.

Players can help the person making the skill roll, providing assistance and likely a bonus to the roll. GMs, be reasonable about this. Just give it a brief moment of thought. You should probably limit the number of people who can help various types of checks. Are you forging a sword and people want to help? I'm sure two to three, maybe even more people can help fetch coal, stoke fire, prepare dousing buckets, etc. So that makes sense. But picking a lock? There's only room for one person using the tool and maybe one person providing a good flashlight. Also players, please declare whether you're helping the primary person or trying the skill check in parallel. I can't tell you how many times that I've had groups say, oh we're all searching the room and

everybody rolls and suddenly one of the players or more of the players, their eyes will get real big and they'll say, uh, no, I was helping. Do your DM a favor and clearly declare what you're doing before you roll. Some activities may simply require a certain amount of training in order to be successful. There may be some check where you need a certain amount of education or training or skill level to have a chance of succeeding. I can write calligraphy. Not well, but I can write calligraphy. I wouldn't be able to forge the Declaration of Independence. Some game systems have training levels built in, Pathfinder 2e being the most recent example. Skills and attacks can be untrained, trained, expert, master, and legendary levels. For difficult checks, consider, no matter what your game system is,

requiring a certain number of ranks or a certain training level in order to succeed. Skill results and rules as written are a toggle, by the way. Pass or fail, good or bad, you get information or you get nothing at all. One of the things I would ask DMs is consider implementing degrees of success. I keep harping on Pathfinder 2E, and I apologize for that. I'm actually playing in a new Pathfinder 2E campaign, so that's probably why I'm focused on it. But that was the first system I ever read that implemented degrees of success into the core rules. Instead of an all or nothing, they use a striated list of possible results that include critical success, success, failure, and critical failure. When you critically succeed or have a critical success, that means you do it faster, better, or get better results. And at the opposite end,

when you critically fail, it means the outcome was disastrous. The trap goes off in the rogue's face. it means the outcome was disastrous. The trap goes off in the rogue's face. You anger the queen instead of making her more favorable towards you. You find berries to eat, but you're not sure what they are, and they give you a poison condition. The most important advice I can give to DMs, by the way, is that adjudicating skill checks should never prevent the adventure from moving forward. There should always be a path forward, even if your players critically fail every single skill check they try. If the scout breaks the lock, meaning the door can't be opened that way, the players will need to find another way. Give the party the opportunity to brainstorm if it makes sense in the moment. If they come up with a remotely feasible way to

bypass the door, give it a chance to succeed. Even if it sounds stupid, it's implausible, it strains the very fabric of credulity. Reward their ingenuity. At minimum, give them a role for their plan to succeed. Oh, I want to try to shimmy through the air ducts. It's a pretty small air duct, but all right, we'll give you a shot. But don't let the adventure die just because the dice are being unfriendly. One of the more common things I see is great role-playing with bad dice rolls. In a recent game I was DMing, a barbarian said, oh, I'd like to intimidate. Oh, I want to threaten the lone city watchman in a back alley. There was this vicious series of threats that she said that ended with something along the lines of, you're going to forget what you saw, or you're going to

find out what your spleen tastes like before you die. I said, that's fantastic. Give me a roll. Natural two. Total of 11. Not a great result. It was a little bit of a role play heavy session, so I allowed it to partially succeed. The guard was intimidated enough not to report it for a few hours, so the players had time to get away before the rest of the city guards showed up. Right or wrong, I always adjust the DCs when the roleplaying is good. I want to reward good roleplaying every single time at my table. Let's boil this down since we're running to the end of the episode. What are the most important tips for the DMs? 1. Good stories are more important than good luck. The party stealthed their way into the lair of the bandit king

and only a locked door separates them from their sleeping quarry. Natural 1 on the open lock check and the pick breaks off in the door. Are you going to let the adventure end there? Absolutely not. Which is why 2. plan for skill check failures. Always have alternative methods to solve a problem. In the example above, make the door bashable. Have an air vent they can crawl through.

Have a side entrance or secret entrance into that bedroom. Put hinges on the outside of the door. Something. But let the party use their ingenuity to find a potential solution. Give them a path forward when they experience unexpected critical failures. Three, let good role play shine through. Maybe not even make the player roll the dice if the role play is good enough, or give a secret bonus to the role. If you're playing 5e, consider giving the player advantage on the roll.

4. If at all in doubt, let multiple players retry a failed skill check. If two people are on watch and the first player rolls too low to hear the tiger creeping in, give the second player an attempt. There are times when it doesn't make sense. Two people can't try to carve the same rune in one stone. That's a one and done. But make sure the players know that before the roll happens. Hey guys, you're only going to get one shot at this. Five, be reasonable in the number of people you allow to assist on a skill check like we talked about previous. Six, clearly communicate to the players the relative difficulty of the check like we talked about previously. Not necessarily

the number, but at least a rough estimate. Skill checks in our gaming systems are meant to test the party and give them the opportunity to overcome adversity. They're not meant to take away player agency. They're obstacles to be overcome and use them as such. They're not dead ends to an adventure. Plan for the characters to fail, have multiple paths forward, and allow the skill monkeys in the party the opportunity to show off the skills that they have. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. Once again, I want to thank our sponsor, The Leaven and Earth Bakery. Look for their new food truck in town. They're

moving leaven and earth just for you. Head over to www.taking20podcast.com. That's 20 spelled with two zero. I'd love to see you there. Thank you again for listening to episode 37, Adjudicating Skill and Ability Checks. My name is Jeremy Shelley, and I hope that your next game is your best game.