Post/Author/DateTime	Post
ksbsnowowl 06-20-07, 11:21 PM	One of my players was forging some documents, and wanted to Take 20. The skill says the check in made in secret by the DM, as the player is not supposed to know how well they did. However, nothing that I saw said you could not Take 20 with the skill. Am I missing a vital piece of info?
Zaver 06-20-07, 11:38 PM	One of my players was forging some documents, and wanted to Take 20. The skill says the check in made in secret by the DM, as the player is not supposed to know how well they did. However, nothing that I saw said you could not Take 20 with the skill. Am I missing a vital piece of info? You can take 20 on any check that has no penalty for failure. Taking 20 assumes that you roll 20 checks getting all numbers on the die so you'd get a 1 then 2 and so on until you got a 20. I would at least make him have the material to make 20 fake documents, but he can do it from what I understand.
bobothechimp 06-20-07, 11:38 PM	I would say that he can't, because he can't try again. DnD lacks pencils, so he must write in ink, which cannot normally be erased. Perhaps with 20 or so Erase spells available, he can.
Nat_20 06-20-07, 11:50 PM	From my knowledge, take Twenty means, take enough time so that the result is like rolling a twenty, like spending a whole bunch of time searching a room for items, taking twenty would be like scouring the room for like an hour or more If given enough time and resources, I'd allow one to take twenty... like spending a week one a document would have a good quality roll.... I say yes...
Fmu78 06-20-07, 11:54 PM	Here are a few quotes from the PHB. Taking 20 assumes that the character fails many times before succeeding, and thus can’t be used if failure carries negative consequences. Your DM makes your Forgery check secretly, so that you’re not sure how good your forgery is. I would guess, based on the quotes, that you cannot take 20. Because your forgery can fail, and since you have no idea which one of the fakes is the "20 roll" you cannot assume you have given your best effort.
ravenshrike 06-21-07, 12:01 AM	Yes, but it would take the maximum amount of time times 20. So 80 minutes. It makes sense, as the idea is that you're taking your time and making sure everything's perfect. It's like writing in calligraphy. You're much more likely to do so well if you take your time and concentrate fully on what you're doing.
bobothechimp 06-21-07, 12:03 AM	Well, technically, you could take 20 on your forgery check to determine if your own forgery is authentic. Keep making forgeries until one only shows up as fake on a 20.
Fmu78 06-21-07, 12:06 AM	I would not allow it as you cannot take 20 on a skill check that has a negative consequence, and certainly having a forged document could lead to serious negative consequences.
solandras 06-21-07, 12:07 AM	Actually no you cannot take 20. The reasoning is because you do not actually make the roll until the person reads it. Thus if you made 20 documents, gave them 1 to read, you would then make you roll. However, I do think that rule is bad, especially if you have someone help you ("hey dude, check this out to see if it's better"). But yeah RAW says you can't
Kouk 06-21-07, 12:49 AM	You can't take 20 because it is an opposed check. Your Forgery result is opposed by the reader's Forgery check when he reads it, and after that (for some reason) you have to keep using the initial result. I would say you could draft a few, and run them by your friends, though they likely have no training if you are the one doing it. Maybe you could run them by an NPC thieves guild member or something though. Doing it in secret can be useful, for story reasons as well. "He looked at me weird. Does he know it's fake?"
risner 06-21-07, 01:00 AM	Am I missing a vital piece of info? Can you fail a forgery check? If so, then you can't take a 20.
Keladelros 06-21-07, 01:19 AM	Theres a penalty... you cant take 20... thanks for the reminder too i forgot this rule...
Valesin 06-21-07, 01:25 AM	You can't take 20 because it is an opposed check. Bingo.
The_Unseen_Illusion 06-21-07, 04:11 AM	Yeah, it'll be too cheesy, as you could have a typical DC 23-25 document every time without swending skill points in it. But oh well....
ksbsnowowl 06-21-07, 06:26 AM	Ok, that was my inclination. So then, Take 10 is out of the question as well?
The_Unseen_Illusion 06-21-07, 06:34 AM	Ok, that was my inclination. So then, Take 10 is out of the question as well? lol
runestar 06-21-07, 06:37 AM	I would say no as well. The check is made secretly by your dm, so even if you made 20 copies, there is no way of telling which forgery is any better than the rest (since you have no idea what your check for each one is, so you cannot just claim that you choose the one which you rolled the highest for). You obviously can't present 20 copies of the same document to the npc scrutinizing them, so you will have to randomly choose 1. Which essentially is the same thing as just rolling randomly.
tui 06-21-07, 07:27 AM	I say no to taking 20 as well. As others have pointed out, it is an opposed roll and "As with Disguise, you don’t even need to make a check until someone examines the work." So it has a Try Again entry of (effectively) No; It does, however, allow you to use the same forgery to "try again" on a different person. As for taking 10, there's nothing that explicitly forbids it, but I think the intent is that you can't due to the "The Forgery check is made secretly, so that you’re not sure how good your forgery is." If you took 10, you would know how good your forgery was, and it wouldn't be a secret. As for getting your friends to help, that's called Aid Another, and I don't see any reason that wouldn't be applicable to Forgery.
ServanWolf 06-21-07, 10:40 AM	im oke for not taking 20 on such a check, cause you can't always be sure (even if you takes lots of time) that it will be perfect. Nevertheless the arguments against taking ten are a bit bad i think... its not because you can't take 20 that you cant take much time to do your forgery better. Like saying a guy who used ten minutes on a forgery will have a paper that not as good as if you take a whole week on it. I think that you should have the possibility to take 10 on it (as minimum) take this rule maybe....depending on dificulty class you must spend a certain time if taking 10 (DM choice how much time per DC) and you add to this a check od d20 divided by two (and rounded up down). The ten that you take will ten mean the time you took on it and you check will give how good you are on it. On the other hand, if you take 20 different document (rolled secret by the DM) will not mean you are not able to see which document is better then the other. You could use a appraise or even forgery check to see which seems better (and you could for example see that a document with a check result 5 higher then an other is better). You cannot use neverthelesss aid another for this check cause i dont think that you are able to write with 2 persons at the same time on the same paper :p.
zelf_gale 06-21-07, 11:33 AM	While I agree with the posters above that you cannot take twenty or ten on a forgery skill check, I think that characters should be rewarded if they spend twenty times the required time to create the document. I'd house rule in this case that they get a +2 circumstance bonus. I'd also house rule that Skill Mastery would allow you to take 10 on a Forgery skill check, even though I'd expect most people would not. I'd apply this rule to Use Rope skill checks as well.
Vegepygmy 06-21-07, 12:04 PM	So then, Take 10 is out of the question as well?No, taking 10 is perfectly fine. You cannot take 20 on a Forgery check because it's an opposed check, the outcome of which is not determined until the opponent examines your forged work. In other words, you have to ask yourself, "If I tried this 20 times, how would it go?" And the answer is, you'd present your forged work to the opponent, the opponent would examine it, you'd roll your Forgery check (presumably a "1"), your opponent would roll his Forgery check, and then you'd do all of those things, in that order, 19 more times. So yes, if you're planning to submit 20 copies of a forged work to an opponent for him to examine, you can take 20 on your Forgery check. It probably won't do you any good, since the first 19 will clue him in to your scam, but go right ahead. Now, you can take 10 on any skill that doesn't explicitly prohibit it any time you aren't threatened or distracted. The Forgery skill description doesn't explicitly prohibit taking 10 (see Use Magic Device for one that does); therefore, taking 10 is not prohibited.
ravenshrike 06-21-07, 12:41 PM	Can you fail a forgery check? If so, then you can't take a 20. Can you fail a search check? Well then you can't take a 20. Same logic. There is no immediate danger in failing a forgery check. Unlike sayyy, a balance, jump, tumble, UMD, or Disable Device check. Ergo, you can take 20. But, as I noted, it would take the maximum amount of time. Just like taking 20 on a diguise check. Yes you can do it, but it takes 10 hours to do so. If you've got 10 hours to prepare, there's no reason you can't "take 20". This includes time to practice as the person, make sure you're costume is as perfect as you can make it, etc... etc...
Banatine 06-21-07, 12:51 PM	Can you fail a search check? Well then you can't take a 20. Same logic. There is no immediate danger in failing a forgery check. Unlike sayyy, a balance, jump, tumble, UMD, or Disable Device check. Ergo, you can take 20. But, as I noted, it would take the maximum amount of time. Just like taking 20 on a diguise check. Yes you can do it, but it takes 10 hours to do so. If you've got 10 hours to prepare, there's no reason you can't "take 20". This includes time to practice as the person, make sure you're costume is as perfect as you can make it, etc... etc... Darn, you beat me to it.
runestar 06-21-07, 01:08 PM	There is no immediate danger in failing a forgery check. Unlike sayyy, a balance, jump, tumble, UMD, or Disable Device check. Ergo, you can take 20. But, as I noted, it would take the maximum amount of time. Just like taking 20 on a disguise check. Yes you can do it, but it takes 10 hours to do so. If you've got 10 hours to prepare, there's no reason you can't "take 20". This includes time to practice as the person, make sure you're costume is as perfect as you can make it, etc... etc... I would argue that the half hour needed for the disguise check effectively assumes that you are already devoting all the time, patience, detail and care that you could possibly muster towards this endeavor. As such, it is effectively a form of "taking 20" in itself, and thus, it would not be possible to take another 20 on something which you are already taking 20 on in the first place. I don't quite buy into this "no immediate danger" stuff. The whole purpose of making an opposed forgery check is exactly that someone will be perusing your work at the end of the day. The check begins when you start writing the letter, but it does not end when you finish writing the letter. Rather, it would end when the letter is being perused by the relevant party. It is really no different from a jump or UMD check, just that the time duration involved is longer, that is all.:) Can you fail a search check? Well then you can't take a 20. Yes, you can fail a search check (you simply do not find what you set out searching for), but since there is no penalty for failing it, you are allowed to take 20. You can argue that not finding what you are looking for is some sort of "penalty", but I can just as easily argue that it is technically not a penalty, since you did not have it in the first place, so you would be no better off even if you did not locate what you were looking for. Thus, if you succeed at your search check, it is a bonus. But if you fail, there is no penalty. Or at least not one in the sense of the word.:)
fatal error 06-21-07, 01:15 PM	You can't take 20 on Forgery because you can't tell how well you've done. Obviously, you're doing your best each time. And because you can't immediately see if anyone else thinks it is a fake, you can't try again. Now, if you have another party member with Forgery they could roll/take 10 to check your documents, but it still won't be a guaranteed 20. You can take 10 on Forgery because that simply represents doing an average job. You're not trying too hard, you're not making stupid mistakes, and you're not rushed or distracted. [quote=Runestar] I would argue that the half hour needed for the disguise check effectively assumes that you are already devoting all the time, patience, detail and care that you could possibly muster towards this endeavor.[quote] Tell that to Mystique and Nightcrawler. ;)
risner 06-21-07, 01:16 PM	Can you fail a search check? Well then you can't take a 20. Same logic. No, not the same logic and you know it. You can take a 20 on search because you can't "fail" a search check, you can always retry a search check. There is no event where you can no longer retry the check. As long as you have the time, you can keep searching.
Kouk 06-21-07, 02:39 PM	Taking 10 When your character is not being threatened 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 (generally 2 minutes for a skill that can normally be checked in 1 round, one full-round action, or one standard action), 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, eventually you will get a 20 on 1d20 if you roll enough times. 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 twenty times as long as making a single check would take. Since taking 20 assumes that the character will fail many times before succeeding, if you did attempt to take 20 on a skill that carries penalties for failure, your character would automatically incur those penalties before he or she could complete the task. Common “take 20” skills include Escape Artist, Open Lock, and Search. We have to realize, you are not making a skill check to "prepare" the document. You only make the skill check when someone else looks at your document. Taking 20 is not an option, because you only create the false papers once, and then someone looks at it, and then you roll opposed Forgery checks. It would be feasible to have your teammates examine your work and see if they could tell it was fake. They would have to apply the same modifiers as indicated for familiarity, knowledge of the writing etc. The DM makes the Forgery check, and then the other players would roll their own Forgery checks and see if they can tell it's a fake. If they all succeed in recognizing that it is fake (most likely they have no training), you are safe to assume you did poorly on your Forgery check, and can try to make another copy, which goes through the whole thing again. As to taking 10, I suppose that would be alright, unless the person you are giving it to says "If this is not perfect, I'll kill you." :P (immediate danger).
Vegepygmy 06-21-07, 02:46 PM	If you've got 10 hours to prepare, there's no reason you can't "take 20". This includes time to practice as the person, make sure you're costume is as perfect as you can make it, etc... etc...That's not what "taking 20" represents, though. "Taking 20" represents trying and failing over and over again until you finally do the best you can ever do. It's a rule intended to speed up play, so that the game doesn't get bogged down with people rolling over and over again when everyone knows they're eventually going to roll well enough to succeed. Imagining "taking 20" as taking extra time to practice, making sure your costume is perfect, etc. is a conceptual error that will ultimately lead you to incorrect conclusions about when it is appropriate to use the mechanic. Such circumstantial modifiers are better represented by a simple +2 (or greater, if the DM thinks its appropriate) bonus on your skill check.
Vegepygmy 06-21-07, 02:49 PM	It would be feasible to have your teammates examine your work and see if they could tell it was fake. They would have to apply the same modifiers as indicated for familiarity, knowledge of the writing etc. The DM makes the Forgery check, and then the other players would roll their own Forgery checks and see if they can tell it's a fake.IMO, it would be a mistake to treat this as anything other than "aiding another" on the Forgery check (i.e., a +2 bonus on the original forger's Forgery check).
Llathos 06-21-07, 03:05 PM	So along those lines, can you take 20 on a tracking check? Some thoughts: Pro: -you could check 20 times to see if you notice a footprint scuff on the rock -you are likely not under duress -there is no opposed check, it's a flat DC Con: -anyone with track feat and 1 rank in survival can track one or more medium targets up to a mile over bare stone up to 24 hours after they've passed with 0% chance of failure (or similarly, a tiny target through the forest in a fog bank) In short, taking 20 on a track check seems pretty powerful. In the vast majority of situations, you'll never need more than 1 rank in survival to be a superhero tracker...
stoicfaux 06-21-07, 03:42 PM	Con: -anyone with track feat and 1 rank in survival can track one or more medium targets up to a mile over bare stone up to 24 hours after they've passed with 0% chance of failure (or similarly, a tiny target through the forest in a fog bank) In short, taking 20 on a track check seems pretty powerful. In the vast majority of situations, you'll never need more than 1 rank in survival to be a superhero tracker... Check the feat and skill descriptions. You can retry a failed check after 1 hour (outdoors) or 10 minutes(indoors) of searching. Taking 20 would take 19 hours outdoors. Which means you're covering up to 1 mile every 19 hours. Indoors it's 190 minutes. You would travel at 1/2 speed divided by 19, or 1/38th speed.
Bob Loblaw 06-21-07, 03:45 PM	You cannot Take 20 on a Forgery check because the skill explicitly states that you cannot retry. It isn't because it's an Opposed check (you can Take 20 on some, Escape Artist v Use Rope is one example). It isn't because you can't know how well you did (this is what the "opposed check" means, you are setting the DC and how well you did is based on the observer). It has nothing to do with "consequences for failure" (there may or may not be any consequences depending on the circumstances). The only reason you cannot Take 20 is because the skill says you cannot retry. Taking 20 requires you to retry 19 times. You can Take 10 if you meet the requirements. There is no reason why not. Remember that your failure or success depends upon the observer.
Elrond Hubbard 06-21-07, 04:00 PM	Check the feat and skill descriptions. You can retry a failed check after 1 hour (outdoors) or 10 minutes(indoors) of searching. Taking 20 would take 19 hours outdoors. Which means you're covering up to 1 mile every 19 hours. Indoors it's 190 minutes. You would travel at 1/2 speed divided by 19, or 1/38th speed. Great point about the time such an effort would take. Also consider that characters would not even be able to follow most tracks unless they had actually taken the feat.... and who's going to do that?
Prince_of_Parkness 06-21-07, 04:21 PM	IMO, it would be a mistake to treat this as anything other than "aiding another" on the Forgery check (i.e., a +2 bonus on the original forger's Forgery check). Exactly. If your copying homework and ask your friend "does this sound like my work" your friend may very well think it does. That doesn't mean your teacher will think the same thing
ravenshrike 06-21-07, 06:47 PM	Fine, then all his character has to do is make 40 different documents, go to the nearest temple/druids circle NOT affiliated with whatever organization he's attempting to infiltrate and have 40 different people examine each of the documents for authenticity. Effectively it's the same thing and will end up with the same result.
Bob Loblaw 06-21-07, 07:13 PM	Fine, then all his character has to do is make 40 different documents, go to the nearest temple/druids circle NOT affiliated with whatever organization he's attempting to infiltrate and have 40 different people examine each of the documents for authenticity. Effectively it's the same thing and will end up with the same result. This is not really doing the same thing. First, it is entirely possible that you will not roll a 20 on your check. Remember that you actually only have a 5% chance of rolling a 20, regardless of how many times you roll the dice. This is actually a better time to Take 10 since you are trying to remove the odds that you fail. Second, if people start seeing that you are a professional forger, there may be some other problems you have to deal with. You don't want everyone to start questioning your documents. Eventually, no matter how good they are, you may still be accused of forgeries even when they are not. Note that Forgery is opposed by Forgery. Only 1 PC class and 1 NPC class has this on their skill list. This already makes it unlikely that the person you are presenting the document to has any decent chance of seeing through your ruse. If the forgery does not need to be written by a specific individual, you get a +8 bonus. If a signature is needed, you need a copy of the signature to get a +4 bonus. Even if the document is of a type well known by the reader and he is intimately familiar with the handwriting, he is only at a +4. This means that if you are focused on forgeries as a skill, even at first level you can start with a bonus of +4 (ranks) +1 (Int 12) +8 (document does not have to be written by a specific person) +4 (signature to copy) = +17. If you take 10, the DC is set at 27. There really is no reason to Take 20 in most circumstances.
Jagyr Ebonwood 06-21-07, 07:24 PM	Note that Forgery is opposed by Forgery. Only 1 PC class and 1 NPC class has this on their skill list. This already makes it unlikely that the person you are presenting the document to has any decent chance of seeing through your ruse. If the forgery does not need to be written by a specific individual, you get a +8 bonus. If a signature is needed, you need a copy of the signature to get a +4 bonus. Even if the document is of a type well known by the reader and he is intimately familiar with the handwriting, he is only at a +4. This means that if you are focused on forgeries as a skill, even at first level you can start with a bonus of +4 (ranks) +1 (Int 12) +8 (document does not have to be written by a specific person) +4 (signature to copy) = +17. If you take 10, the DC is set at 27. There really is no reason to Take 20 in most circumstances. This kind of thing is why NPCs in my campaigns that have to deal with potentially forged documents as part of their job (government officials, guards and merchants who must check papers, nobles and letters of credit/debt, etc) get competence bonuses on their opposed forgery checks, especially if they have ranks in sense motive.
Bob Loblaw 06-21-07, 08:04 PM	This kind of thing is why NPCs in my campaigns that have to deal with potentially forged documents as part of their job (government officials, guards and merchants who must check papers, nobles and letters of credit/debt, etc) get competence bonuses on their opposed forgery checks, especially if they have ranks in sense motive. Even then, so long as we just use the RAW, unless the observer is a rogue or aristocrat (not likely in most of the positions you listed), the skill is cross-class. This means max ranks of (Level+3)/2. At level 20, that's 11 ranks. Intelligence 12 brings this to +12. 5 ranks in Sense Motive (a bit of a stretch for synergy, but that's what you want) brings it to +14. Competence bonus of +2, brings it to +16. So the level 20 NPC has a 50/50 shot of seeing if the document is a fake. I would argue that if you give a synergy bonus for Sense Motive, then I should get one for Bluff as well. I also skipped feats. At first level, I can add +5 more, assuming that I want to be really good (I think the two feats would be better spent on something else unless this is an NPC counterfeiter.
runestar 06-21-07, 10:57 PM	Fine, then all his character has to do is make 40 different documents, go to the nearest temple/druids circle NOT affiliated with whatever organization he's attempting to infiltrate and have 40 different people examine each of the documents for authenticity. Effectively it's the same thing and will end up with the same result. Problem with this is that it is an opposed check. You are essentially pitting your forgery check against the forgery check of the person examining it. This means that it is not impossible that the 1 letter which you rolled a 20 on is examined by someone who happens to roll a natural 20 on his forgery check as well. Meanwhile, the crappier version, which you rolled only 3-4 on, might be examined by someone who happened to roll a 1 on his check. The result is that your best efforts are not not enough to fool one of the examiners who just happened to luck out and spot your trick, while one of your worst efforts succeeded at fooling someone simply because they were too careless. End of the day, the one which you think is the "best" may not be the one you rolled the highest check on.:P
ravenshrike 06-22-07, 12:30 PM	Problem with this is that it is an opposed check. You are essentially pitting your forgery check against the forgery check of the person examining it. This means that it is not impossible that the 1 letter which you rolled a 20 on is examined by someone who happens to roll a natural 20 on his forgery check as well. Meanwhile, the crappier version, which you rolled only 3-4 on, might be examined by someone who happened to roll a 1 on his check. The result is that your best efforts are not not enough to fool one of the examiners who just happened to luck out and spot your trick, while one of your worst efforts succeeded at fooling someone simply because they were too careless. End of the day, the one which you think is the "best" may not be the one you rolled the highest check on.:P Um, I meant for him to have all 40 people check all 40 documents. That greatly, greatly reduces the chance that he'll end up with a ****** document.
Prince_of_Parkness 06-22-07, 12:47 PM	And what are the chances that not a single one of those 40 people, who are are usually lawful, will frown on the idea forgery and alert the town/city guard? I dont consider myself a harsh DM, but if my players did that then by default at least one person would spit the beans, unless they went to a thieves guild (in which case the chances would be reduced, not eliminated)
Kevin Andrew Murphy 06-22-07, 02:21 PM	I had this exact situation come up in my game last week. The Master Thief had decided to impersonate the Imperial Censor so as to scam the characters and confiscate some of their contraband or improperly licensed magic items. With the help of the thieves guild for error-checking, he took 20 on all his forgery rolls for all his pre-prepared documents, used those to scam some minor NPC officials into joining his retinue (and thus adding a circumstance bonus to his Bluff and Disguise checks, since he'd surrounded himself with real courtiers and bureaucrats) and then went off to scam the characters. As part of the scam, he had to occasionally sign official receipts as the Imperial Censor. For that, he could not take 20, not having a thieves guild handy to check documents and a wastebasket to toss obvious fakes in, and he likewise could not even take ten, since it would have raised eyebrows and drawn Sense Motive checks if the players had seen the imperious and curt Imperial Censor suddenly concentrating on making out a receipt as carefully as a child being graded on a penmanship lesson. So straight Forgery roll off-the-cuff for each receipt. On dealing with the character who had personally encountered him earlier--and thus who had a better chance to spot his ruse--he rolled a 1 on a d20. I play with critical botches as well as critical successes, so this was the worst possible disaster--he'd affixed his own personal chop to the document, the one that read FU YU, MASTER THIEF, rather than the fake he'd made up to play the Imperial Censor. I then followed this with a Bluff check as he tried to not let on that he'd just realized his mistake, folding up the receipt and handing it to the character who, after failing a Sense Motive, simply pocketed it without inspecting it. Only after the "Imperial Censor" and his retinue had left with several bits of contraband did anyone bother to check the receipts, with the defrauded mage immediately spotting the obvious forgery. If you have access to a thieves guild or a similar peanut gallery of critics, you can take 20 on a Forgery or Disguise roll. In the field, however, it's a different matter.
tui 06-22-07, 05:06 PM	If you've got 40 people (especially Rogues) to look over your forgery, why don't you just use Aid Another and be done with it? I agree that the combined experience of many forgers should make it easier to make a really good forgery. Folks have been talking about making lots of different documents and then asking them "which is best?" How about if you ask them for advice first, put together all the information gathered ("The king makes his G's with a big swoop like this", "He writes at an angle like this", "He places his seal here", etc.), then try to make a really good document? I realize that sort of "information gathered" seems like knowledge checks and not forgery checks, but I think that's fine... after all, Forgery is an Int check, not Dex.. Is there any reason Aid Another can't work with Forgery??
ServanWolf 06-22-07, 05:56 PM	Aid another means that you work together with the person you help to finish the skill. Ti si true that you could give some tips, but that person still will have to "craft"/ forgery your document. Thus it still depends on how well you are skilled on in forgery if you could use the information you get wel...and there are still written in the PHB that aring well known will the originial,.. give you bonuses to your check, and thus getting information counts as that.
Kalarus 06-22-07, 06:05 PM	IMO, it would be a mistake to treat this as anything other than "aiding another" on the Forgery check (i.e., a +2 bonus on the original forger's Forgery check). Actually it wouldn't be a problem at all. Let's assume a person tries to "take 20" by making new forgeries every time. The teammate who views the forgery can NOT take 20 on his Forgery check. Instead he has to make a new roll every time he is presented with a new document. Assuming "take 20" starts at 1 and increases to finally 20 after 20 tries, it probably won't take long for a person untrained in Forgery to roll under the person's "take X" result. e.g. by the time the person who was taking 20 got the 11 in the result, there's already a 50% chance that the teammate viewing the forgery does not recognise it as a fake (assuming equal result favors the viewer, else it's at 10). Now there is no reason to assume a take 20 starts at 1 and then goes up to 20, in fact the numbers are considered to be random, you are just assumed that in 20 tries you will in fact get a natural 20 in the end. Point of the illustration is that even if you used a teammate to verify your work in order for *you* to take 20, your teammate becomes the wildcard since he can not take 20 to check your forgeries, and thus the variability of the d20 roll is shifted from you, to him. Logically speaking you would stop when your friend approves of your forgery because he cannot tell the difference. For taking 20 purposes, this is your experience of having taken 20, your forgery is now so good that he could not recognize it. However, you have no way of differentiating between the permutations possible that had the result of him approving of your check. Net result? Same deal, DM rolls a secret number that is the value of the Forgery, only this time he uses the viewer's Forgery modifier instead of the forger's Forgery modifier. Given that usually the party picks the one who is best at Forgery to make the forgery, you just lowered your best possible result by trying to take 20 :D
Francius 06-22-07, 06:56 PM	Yes, but it would take the maximum amount of time times 20. So 80 minutes. It makes sense, as the idea is that you're taking your time and making sure everything's perfect. It's like writing in calligraphy. You're much more likely to do so well if you take your time and concentrate fully on what you're doing. This works for me too.
ServanWolf 06-23-07, 04:03 PM	taking 20 is simply FORBIDDEN to a forgery check due that there are maluses :)
Kevin Andrew Murphy 06-23-07, 10:52 PM	taking 20 is simply FORBIDDEN to a forgery check due that there are maluses :) So you make 20 forgery checks and get a panel of appraisers to judge the best one. Odds are, one will be the 20.
Kalarus 06-23-07, 11:11 PM	So you make 20 forgery checks and get a panel of appraisers to judge the best one. Odds are, one will be the 20. and you'll never be able to tell, because the judges can't take 20 on the forgery check to verify the work. Instead, they'll roll randomly. You will get a normal distribution of works that cannot be verified as forgeries and works that are obviously forged. So what's your next step? People for some reason seem to assume that there is a gradation in "how good" a forgery is. They seem to assume that a forgery check of 30 compared to a forgery check of 10 actually improves their chances of success at a flat rate. It doesn't. Forgery is an opposed check, this means that your opponent's check result matters equally in the success of your endeavour as your own check. If you have no ranks in forgery, taking 20 nets you 20 forgeries which all have different check results, one of which is a 20. Having someone who has no ranks in forgery evaluate them will yield 10 results which are obviously fake and 10 results which are obviously real. Having someone who has more ranks in forgery check them will yield more results who are obviously fake. You still don't end up knowing which forgery is the 20.
Nom 06-24-07, 10:33 AM	Well, the judges could 'take 10'. However, that won't help if you're getting it checked out by your mates, since their 'take 10' probably won't even beat your natural 1.
Bob Loblaw 06-24-07, 10:36 AM	So you make 20 forgery checks and get a panel of appraisers to judge the best one. Odds are, one will be the 20. This is irrelevant though. A natural 20 is not automatic success. Look at the example I gave earlier. The 1st level rogue has his check at DC 27. This mean that you would need another character with a +7 bonus. Let's assume that the character in question is a rogue or aristocrat so Forgery is a class skill. +2 if the document type is known to the reader, +2 if the reader is intimately familiar with the handwriting, we'll give him a +1 Intelligence modifier, maximum ranks, and let's even give him the Deceitful feat. This puts him at 4 +2 +2 +1 +2 = +11. He would have to roll a 16 or better on his check. The rogue has a 75% chance of success. Let's go to a better scenario, one where the rogue wants to succeed. Level 5. 8 (ranks) +1 (Int) +8 (type of document) +4 (copy of signature) = +21, taking 10 he's at DC 31. Reader, level 2 guard. 1 rank +1 (Int) +2 (document type known) -2 (handwriting unknown) -2 (casually read) = +0. The rogue is at a 100% chance of success. Let's bring this up a notch. Level 5 Aristocrat (prince), document forged to appear to be written by the king. We'll even give the prince maximum ranks. 8 + 1 (Int) +2 (familiar with document type) +2 (familiar with handwriting) = +13. The rogue has a 90% chance of success. There is no getting around the Take 20 rule without houseruling it. While that is something one can choose, it certainly isn't something that can simply be worked around.
Tolby 06-24-07, 10:43 AM	You can not take 20 on a roll that involves some risk of failure. Ergo you get caught. So I would say nope. No take 20. Spend as much time as you want on it. Take more time at working hard to make a good forgery I would use the old DM tool of a +2 circemstance bonus. Lastly I would also argue not Take 20 from the practical standpoint of its really hard to concentrate on something for 20 hours and still be on top of your game.
Tolby 06-24-07, 10:45 AM	Fine, then all his character has to do is make 40 different documents, go to the nearest temple/druids circle NOT affiliated with whatever organization he's attempting to infiltrate and have 40 different people examine each of the documents for authenticity. Effectively it's the same thing and will end up with the same result. And pray to whatever god he worships one of them doesn't rat him out.
runestar 06-24-07, 10:51 AM	I still don't understand how people can blithely state that judges can simply take 20 to determine which of your forgeries is your best.:confused: Say a 1st lv rogue with a forgery score of +7 "takes 20" to create 20 copies. First, since you can't actually take 20, there is no guarantee that any of the documents has a forgery check of +27. If you are lucky, you might have rolled a natural 20 for 1 or more of them. If you are unlucky, you could roll your die 60+ times and not a single 20 will come up. (I once tried this - seems my record was 100+ die rolls without a single 20 coming up...:weep: ) Second, even if you do roll a 20, you won't know it, since your dm rolls your check secretly. Next, you give all your copies to the respective judges to review. They also cannot take 20, they have to roll as well to see if they can beat your forgery check. This is where things get problematic. Say there was one copy which you rolled a 19 for, giving you a check of +26. But say the judge with a check of +7 happens to roll a natural 20. With his opposed check of +27, he is able to spot that your document is a forgery. By definition, your attempt has failed, because it was not good enough. Conversely, say for another copy which you rolled a 2 for, the judge examining it might luck out and roll a natural 1. Thus, he cannot spot anything amiss with your copy. You have succeeded, even though that was one of your lousier attempts. So can someone please enlighten me how taking 20 comes into this picture?:confused:
Kevin Andrew Murphy 06-24-07, 05:49 PM	A single judge can't take 20, but a panel of judges can "effectively take 20" which is exactly the sort of situation you'd get into with a thieve's guild or assembly of aristocrats. Let's say the emperor has signed one document and forgers have made twenty copies. These are numbered with the real document inserted somewhere in the sequence of fakes. The stack is passed around to the thieves and aristocrats to see if they can winnow out the fakes and get down to the original. In the end, you will have one original and one or two extremely good fakes, which are likely the 19 or 20s. Of course I also go with the house rule of botches on a natural 1, since it's far more entertaining and realistic to have a chance that someone, even an exceptionally skilled and learned someone, to have a chance of declaring the emperor's actual signature to be a forgery. An excellent forgery, perhaps, but a forgery all the same. And one expects that the imperial court and the thieves guild does this sort of thing all the time, with the emperor/master thief varying the number of authentic signatures in the stack from 0-21 so as to keep everyone on their toes. The same thing goes with disguise rolls, including the chance of making a horrible mistake on a natural 1: "That's not the dwarvish ambassador--that's a female goblin in a fake beard!"
Kalarus 06-24-07, 09:10 PM	A single judge can't take 20, but a panel of judges can "effectively take 20" which is exactly the sort of situation you'd get into with a thieve's guild or assembly of aristocrats. Let's say the emperor has signed one document and forgers have made twenty copies. These are numbered with the real document inserted somewhere in the sequence of fakes. The stack is passed around to the thieves and aristocrats to see if they can winnow out the fakes and get down to the original. In the end, you will have one original and one or two extremely good fakes, which are likely the 19 or 20s. There is no such thing as "effectively taking 20". You do not know who has "taken 20", you do not know who got the 20 and who rolled the 1. 20 people trying something does not net you success because you do not know who got which result, both in the case of the forgeries as in the case of the judges. The real document can in fact be discounted, since Forgery does not have rules for this. If someone checks the real document, which was not created by Forgery, to see if it is a fake, his Forgery check will not have an opposed DC. It will in fact always fail because the genuine article is by definition of the Forgery rules practically perfect. It is perfect because nothing resembles any object more than the actual object itself. As for the fakes, when the first judge reads the first document, both you and he do not know how succesful it was. He then gets a random roll to see if he believes it to be real or fake. Result random. The second judge then gets a random roll as well. Result, random. This can go on till infinity, but because you do not know which document was made with which result, and the judges never know what they rolled to inspect the document, you never know which ones are real and which ones are fake. A document is considered real not because the Forgery maker's check was high, it was considered real because the viewer's Forgery check was lower than the maker's result. Let's say we have 20 documents, and they happen to be have the Forgery check results 1-20. Since you do not know how good the Forgeries are, you do not know which document is which result. However, you can make a decent guess as you can tell which ones are the best results given how many people approve of the document, leaving, as you say, "one or two extremely good fakes". This still does not give you the result of a 20. You still have not concluded that one of them is the absolute best, you might be holding the 18 and 19 as real documents, with two judges having rolled lucky 20s on the "20" result, but no judges rolling over 18 and 19 for those documents respectively. The take 20 rule calculates your roll as a 20, this means that you need to have the 20 in your hands, not the 18 or 19, and especially not more options than one. However, take 20 does not even work like this. Take 20 only assumes you try many times, and you will fail many times before you get it right. It does not mean that you first roll 1-19, you might be rolling straight 10s for the first 19 attempts. It is merely assumed that statistically speaking, eventually you get that 20. Now the random factor becomes much, much larger, you cannot decide by statistics which documents were the good forgeries and which the bad ones, because you have no clue how many judges should correlate to a failure. Taking it one step further, you have no clue at ALL about the success by roll chances of your creations. Calculating your forgery result like this is pure metagaming, it is not possible to justify this kind of behaviour in-game as in-game you have no notion of taking 20 and check results. You do your best and that's it. If you have no success you try again. You stop when you have success. That is what take 20 respresents, and on average you will have succes after 2 minutes. You could've gotten the natural 20 on the third roll. You could've gotten it on the 40th roll. Two minutes is a statistically average time and thus a fair time to base the rule on. It does not mean that you get the 20 after exactly two minutes, else your character could just write forgeries for two minutes, knowing that his last one is by definition perfect because apparently that's how the multiverse works.
Bob Loblaw 06-24-07, 11:06 PM	You can not take 20 on a roll that involves some risk of failure. Ergo you get caught. So I would say nope. No take 20. Spend as much time as you want on it. Take more time at working hard to make a good forgery I would use the old DM tool of a +2 circemstance bonus. Lastly I would also argue not Take 20 from the practical standpoint of its really hard to concentrate on something for 20 hours and still be on top of your game. There is no penalty for failure. Getting caught is not a penalty. It is entirely possible that there is no consequence for failure. Maybe you are simply turned away. I actually work with documents that are forged quite often (I work in a pharmacy). Most of the time, we simply inform the person that the document is fake and we cannot legally accept it (and then call all the other pharmacies to let them know). That's it. No penalty. There is only a penalty when we need to call the authorities. A single judge can't take 20, but a panel of judges can "effectively take 20" which is exactly the sort of situation you'd get into with a thieve's guild or assembly of aristocrats. What you have actually described is Aid Another. This is a perfect example of how to use the Aid Another action. They can take all the time they wish with the document. When they are ready to announce their findings, add up all those involved, subtract 1, multiply by 2 and add this result to one of their die rolls. No problem at all. I would wonder what type of document you are dealing with that needs this type of attention, but that's a different issue. I know there are times when this may happen, but honestly, most forged documents shouldn't undergo this scrutiny.
Kevin Andrew Murphy 06-24-07, 11:24 PM	There is no such thing as "effectively taking 20". You do not know who has "taken 20", you do not know who got the 20 and who rolled the 1. 20 people trying something does not net you success because you do not know who got which result, both in the case of the forgeries as in the case of the judges. The real document can in fact be discounted, since Forgery does not have rules for this. If someone checks the real document, which was not created by Forgery, to see if it is a fake, his Forgery check will not have an opposed DC. It will in fact always fail because the genuine article is by definition of the Forgery rules practically perfect. It is perfect because nothing resembles any object more than the actual object itself. As for the fakes, when the first judge reads the first document, both you and he do not know how succesful it was. He then gets a random roll to see if he believes it to be real or fake. Result random. The second judge then gets a random roll as well. Result, random. This can go on till infinity, but because you do not know which document was made with which result, and the judges never know what they rolled to inspect the document, you never know which ones are real and which ones are fake. A document is considered real not because the Forgery maker's check was high, it was considered real because the viewer's Forgery check was lower than the maker's result. Let's say we have 20 documents, and they happen to be have the Forgery check results 1-20. Since you do not know how good the Forgeries are, you do not know which document is which result. However, you can make a decent guess as you can tell which ones are the best results given how many people approve of the document, leaving, as you say, "one or two extremely good fakes". This still does not give you the result of a 20. You still have not concluded that one of them is the absolute best, you might be holding the 18 and 19 as real documents, with two judges having rolled lucky 20s on the "20" result, but no judges rolling over 18 and 19 for those documents respectively. The take 20 rule calculates your roll as a 20, this means that you need to have the 20 in your hands, not the 18 or 19, and especially not more options than one. However, take 20 does not even work like this. Take 20 only assumes you try many times, and you will fail many times before you get it right. It does not mean that you first roll 1-19, you might be rolling straight 10s for the first 19 attempts. It is merely assumed that statistically speaking, eventually you get that 20. Now the random factor becomes much, much larger, you cannot decide by statistics which documents were the good forgeries and which the bad ones, because you have no clue how many judges should correlate to a failure. Taking it one step further, you have no clue at ALL about the success by roll chances of your creations. Calculating your forgery result like this is pure metagaming, it is not possible to justify this kind of behaviour in-game as in-game you have no notion of taking 20 and check results. You do your best and that's it. If you have no success you try again. You stop when you have success. That is what take 20 respresents, and on average you will have succes after 2 minutes. You could've gotten the natural 20 on the third roll. You could've gotten it on the 40th roll. Two minutes is a statistically average time and thus a fair time to base the rule on. It does not mean that you get the 20 after exactly two minutes, else your character could just write forgeries for two minutes, knowing that his last one is by definition perfect because apparently that's how the multiverse works. A multiverse that never allows the experts to be wrong is by definition broken anyway. As for "taking 20," sometimes there are judgement calls. If you have to pick a lock and could only succeed on a 20, you know when you get the 20 by when the lock clicks open. Other times you don't know and the result is secret--if anything about a 15 will open the lock, how do you know if you rolled a 15, 17 or a 20? Taking 20 is an approximation and a nicety anyway, and it depends on the character knowing when they've done badly. And even if they're not fit to judge their own flaws, others will be, so you might as well allow it for the "peer review" scenarios. There's also the case where you can have the master thief or grand duchess whose forgery skill is so high that with a cursory glance, they can spot anything but the best forgery. If you've made something that can get past them, you've gotten a 20. Forgery can also be gotten around perfectly anyway by means of nothing more than Charm Person and Modify Memory. The Grand Duchess has written you a cheque for 90,000 gp and has absolutely no memory of the loan she gave that charming young bard.
Mystyc 06-24-07, 11:48 PM	IYou obviously can't present 20 copies of the same document to the npc scrutinizing them... No, but if you're preparing the document ahead of time, you can present your attempt to a party member with a good modifier and ask, "how does this look?" Of course, that raises some in-game knowledge/out-of-game knowledge questions -- if the helper gets like a 32 on his Spot and can see that it's fake, does he know how good the fake is? I can certainly imagine someone saying, "Yeah, I can tell it's a forgery, but only because the signature is slightly misaligned with the seal down here. It's really minor, and I doubt a city guard would ever catch it." IMO, it would be a mistake to treat this as anything other than "aiding another" on the Forgery check (i.e., a +2 bonus on the original forger's Forgery check). If it's done after the forgery is prepared, how could it suddenly make the document look better? Aiding another would be standing there during the writing, saying things like, "remember the flourish on the J in the duke's name" or "don't get too wordy -- this is supposed to be a routine order."
Voletta 06-25-07, 12:47 AM	Life (ok, gaming) would be nice if they just stated which skills you can take 10 or 20 on. It really didn't need to be left open to interpretation, but alas.
Bob Loblaw 06-25-07, 12:53 AM	Life (ok, gaming) would be nice if they just stated which skills you can take 10 or 20 on. It really didn't need to be left open to interpretation, but alas. This is so very true. Iron Heroes did this. Sean Reynolds (http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/misc/take20.html) did his interpretation for 3.0 as well. There is little difference between 3.0 skills and 3.5 so I see no reason to discount the article.
Kevin Andrew Murphy 06-25-07, 03:06 AM	This is so very true. Iron Heroes did this. Sean Reynolds (http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/misc/take20.html) did his interpretation for 3.0 as well. There is little difference between 3.0 skills and 3.5 so I see no reason to discount the article. I think Sean's logic is good in general, but looking at the relevant listings: Forgery: No, because Forgery implies patience and care already, and because taking 20 would mean you'd end up with either 20 copies of the document (none of which look obviously better because the check is made secretly by the DM) or a single document that has parts that are brilliantly forged and other parts that are incompetently forged (and again, the forger can't tell). And related: Disguise: No, because the normal Disguise check represents 10-30 minutes of work, which implies the patience and attention to detail assumed in taking 20 (plus, taking 20 would mean you're working on the disguise for 3-10 hours, and this isn't Hollywood). The question: What if it is Hollywood? What if the thieves guild is employing the make-up artists of the local theatre company to help with the disguises needed for some grand con? What if so much depends on the quality of the forgeries that they are indeed willing to make twenty copies and pick the most convicing one? Anyone who goes to the trouble to pull a major con will do their utmost to make things work, and I'd rather just give a bonus for having things vetted by the thieves guild rather than having to have the thief hire ten 3rd level bardic cheerleaders to come in and go "YEA, FORGER! YOU'RE THE BEST! DIP THAT QUILL AND MAKE THE TEST!" to get a +20 Inspire Competence bonus.
Leilond 06-25-07, 05:57 AM	Forgery No, because there's a failure penalty Disguise No, because yuo cannot take 20 in a skill that require an "opposed check"
Kalarus 06-25-07, 07:58 AM	A multiverse that never allows the experts to be wrong is by definition broken anyway. This is true, but D&D is not exactly meant to represent any form of reality. As for "taking 20," sometimes there are judgement calls. If you have to pick a lock and could only succeed on a 20, you know when you get the 20 by when the lock clicks open. Other times you don't know and the result is secret--if anything about a 15 will open the lock, how do you know if you rolled a 15, 17 or a 20? There's a funny thing there: none of my DMs make a habit of informing players of the DC for the thing they are attempting. Also, informing the player does not inform the character and in order to make sense of the Take-20 rule, we need to look at what happens for a character, since the rule can only be applied under certain in-character circumstances. A character will never know he just took 20, he'll know he did his best (but not necessarily his utmost best) and he opened the lock. This is the funny thing about knowing how good you are: you can never measure your ability by your success, instead you can only measure it by your failures. If you are succesful at something, obviously you're good enough to do it, but you do not know how much better you could be until you meet progressively more difficult challenges and the only time you can know where your true limits lie is when you meet a challenge that you cannot overcome. Taking 20 is an approximation and a nicety anyway, and it depends on the character knowing when they've done badly. And even if they're not fit to judge their own flaws, others will be, so you might as well allow it for the "peer review" scenarios. Others in-character are as unable to decide what a take 20 looks like as the person in question. There's also the case where you can have the master thief or grand duchess whose forgery skill is so high that with a cursory glance, they can spot anything but the best forgery. If you've made something that can get past them, you've gotten a 20. Euh, not really. Only if the master thief or grand duchess has exactly 10 more ranks in Forgery than you do, and they always take 10 while you always take 20. If I have 20 ranks in Forgery, and the master thief and grand duchess do as well, I don't need take 20 to get past them. If I have no ranks in Forgery, there's nothing I could make to get past them, even if I got 20. Keep in mind that there is a difference beween taking 20 and rolling a natural 20. This difference is critical if you allow skills to crit success or crit fail. I also play with skill critical success/failures, but take 20 is different than rolling a critical 20. Allowing skills to crit on a take 20 (or in fact, to allow them to crit on a 20) implies that some tasks which are so difficult the character has nowhere near the skill to overcome them (such as for example swimming up into a waterfall), will succeed if the character just practices for two minutes. This obviously should not happen but now you are suddenly relying on DM fiat/common sense to adjucate the result, rather than the rules of the roll. Forgery can also be gotten around perfectly anyway by means of nothing more than Charm Person and Modify Memory. The Grand Duchess has written you a cheque for 90,000 gp and has absolutely no memory of the loan she gave that charming young bard. True, but that isn't what the OP asked ;)
ArcTan 06-25-07, 08:15 AM	There's a funny thing there: none of my DMs make a habit of informing players of the DC for the thing they are attempting. Also, informing the player does not inform the character and in order to make sense of the Take-20 rule, we need to look at what happens for a character, since the rule can only be applied under certain in-character circumstances. A character will never know he just took 20, he'll know he did his best (but not necessarily his utmost best) and he opened the lock. This is the funny thing about knowing how good you are: you can never measure your ability by your success, instead you can only measure it by your failures. If you are succesful at something, obviously you're good enough to do it, but you do not know how much better you could be until you meet progressively more difficult challenges and the only time you can know where your true limits lie is when you meet a challenge that you cannot overcome. Right. And you can't test how well you forged a document or crafted a disguise until the specific person you're trying to fool reads the document or interacts with your disguise. That's the point. I can try to forge a document 20 times, but, given that every time I'm trying to forge the document I think I'm doing my best and am trying to do my best, I'll just end up with 20 copies of a document that *I* think are all excellent forgeries. I have no way of knowing which one is actually the best one, because knowing what makes a forgery a good forgery is *itself* part of the Forgery skill. (Forgery is one of those skills that opposes itself.) Basically, "Take 20" can't be its own action. "Take 20" means "I do it until I succeed", and can always be broken down into an actual sequence of ordinary skill checks. Taking 20 on a lock is the same as actually sitting there rolling your d20 over and over again until the DM says "All right, the lock pops open". So what would taking 20 on a Forgery check boil down to? Basically, the DM rolls Forgery for me in secret. Then I check to see how good the Forgery is, which means the DM rolls Forgery for me *again* in secret. I do this over and over and over again. End result is that I have some forgeries where my second skill check beat my first one ("You found a mistake") and some where I didn't. However, I have *no knowledge* of how objectively high or low the skill checks actually were. For the document where I found a mistake, maybe it really was a really, really good forgery and I just happened to find the mistake because I know my own work (rolled a 19 the first time and a 20 the second time). For the document where I didn't, maybe I made a big glaring error and then just happened to make the *same* error when I read it again (rolled a 2 the first time and a 1 the second time). I don't know. The best I can do is show the document around to a bunch of other experts and see if *they* can see through it, but this still doesn't tell me whether I "rolled a 20" on Forgery -- it's possible my other two friends will also get really weird rolls on their Forgery checks (a problem compounded because I don't know their base Forgery modifiers). For Disguise, it's even worse, since Disguise checks aren't rolled until you interact with someone who might try to Spot you. Unless you think you can tell how good you are at acting by listening to yourself act (which, let me tell you, you can't), there's no way to take 20 on this whatsoever.
ArcTan 06-25-07, 08:18 AM	You cannot Take 20 on a Forgery check because the skill explicitly states that you cannot retry. It isn't because it's an Opposed check (you can Take 20 on some, Escape Artist v Use Rope is one example). It isn't because you can't know how well you did (this is what the "opposed check" means, you are setting the DC and how well you did is based on the observer). No, it *is* because you can't know how well you did. Opposed checks are sometimes because the person opposing you is the only person who determines success (did he see you or didn't he see you?), but it's not always. With Use Rope and Escape Artist, there's a pretty obvious definition of having escaped one's bonds -- Use Rope doesn't mean that the person who tied you up gets to subjectively define when you've escaped, it means that they're *objectively* defining how hard it is to escape. Totally different from Forgery or Disguise.
ArcTan 06-25-07, 08:19 AM	Life (ok, gaming) would be nice if they just stated which skills you can take 10 or 20 on. It really didn't need to be left open to interpretation, but alas. Sometimes it depends, though. You can take 20 on Open Lock as long as the lock you're trying to open is just a regular lock and not the kind that, say, blows up and kills you if it detects someone trying to pick it.
Bob Loblaw 06-25-07, 09:28 AM	I think Sean's logic is good in general, but looking at the relevant listings:The question: What if it is Hollywood? What if the thieves guild is employing the make-up artists of the local theatre company to help with the disguises needed for some grand con? What if so much depends on the quality of the forgeries that they are indeed willing to make twenty copies and pick the most convicing one? Anyone who goes to the trouble to pull a major con will do their utmost to make things work, and I'd rather just give a bonus for having things vetted by the thieves guild rather than having to have the thief hire ten 3rd level bardic cheerleaders to come in and go "YEA, FORGER! YOU'RE THE BEST! DIP THAT QUILL AND MAKE THE TEST!" to get a +20 Inspire Competence bonus. When you Take 20, you know how well you are doing. You know that you will succeed eventually and that it will be obvious. Look at the skills that you can Take 20 to see what I mean. In all cases, the one performing the check will know, without a doubt, that he has succeeded. With Forgery, you succeed at forging the document, even if you roll a 1. The document has been forged. The quality of that forgery is what is in question. Besides, Forgery states that you cannot retry. This alone is why you cannot Take 20. You can make 20 documents, but there is no reason to believe that one of them will be a 20. It is entirely possible that none of them will be over 15. You only have a 5% chance of getting a 20 and in this case, because you have to roll each time, the odds are not cumulative. Taking 20 makes those odds cumulative.
ServanWolf 06-25-07, 12:23 PM	it is stated in the rulez simply that yopu cant take 20 cause taking 20 represent two things: - that you try it 20 times again - or that you take much time so you are sure you do well. Skills and Taking 20 Skills you can use it for: - Escape Artist - Open Lock - Search - Concetration (except for spells) - Craft (but it will be really expensive) - Gather Information (but not only if DM accept you may try multiple times and long time gatering information) - Handle Animal (except rearing animal) - Jump (but i hope you dont wanna jump over a 200 feet deep canyon) - Knowledge (Bardic) - Hear (lets hope that guy is not too near you) - Spot - Swim ("oh ****, this is a waterfall") - Use magic Device ( but you must roll till you have a d20 and if you get a natural 1 your taking 20 fails !!!) - Use Rope Skills you cant use it for: - Appraise - Balance (you could try 20 times but would faal each time..ouch) - Concentration (for spells) - Decipher Script - Diplomacy (no penalty but if i told anyone 20 times he is an undead when he isnt he still wont believe i think) - Disguise (No and Yes, you may try again but not with the same person) - Forgery (there is stated it is forbidden to try again) - Handle Animal (for rearing animal) - Hide - Knowledge (axcept bardic) - Move Silently - Ride - Sence Motive - Sleight of Hand - Tumble - Use magic device (if assuming you always will have a natural 1 during the attempt) Skills who depend on situation: - Bluff - Open Lock - Escape Artist - Heal - Profession - Spellcraft - Survival
Bob Loblaw 06-25-07, 10:15 PM	Skills and Taking 20 Skills you can use it for: - Escape Artist - Open Lock - Search - Concetration (except for spells) - Craft (but it will be really expensive) - Gather Information (but not only if DM accept you may try multiple times and long time gatering information) - Handle Animal (except rearing animal) - Jump (but i hope you dont wanna jump over a 200 feet deep canyon) - Knowledge (Bardic) - Hear (lets hope that guy is not too near you) - Spot - Swim ("oh ****, this is a waterfall") - Use magic Device ( but you must roll till you have a d20 and if you get a natural 1 your taking 20 fails !!!) - Use Rope I would not allow Concentration because it represents a single moment in time. You can't redo that moment in time 20 times. Craft I would not allow since failure has a definitive penalty for failure: increased costs. Jump I would also not allow because you really aren't going to jump over something 20 times in hopes that you succeed. It's a single moment in time. Knowledge checks of any kind cannot be retried. You either know something or you don't. Swim I would not allow Take 20 for the same reason as Jump. Skills you cant use it for: - Appraise - Balance (you could try 20 times but would faal each time..ouch) - Concentration (for spells) - Decipher Script - Diplomacy (no penalty but if i told anyone 20 times he is an undead when he isnt he still wont believe i think) - Disguise (No and Yes, you may try again but not with the same person) - Forgery (there is stated it is forbidden to try again) - Handle Animal (for rearing animal) - Hide - Knowledge (axcept bardic) - Move Silently - Ride - Sence Motive - Sleight of Hand - Tumble - Use magic device (if assuming you always will have a natural 1 during the attempt) I would allow it for Diplomacy. This would be one rousing speech where the speaker is really following the crowd. However, this goes against the rules and the spirit of the skill so I would be houseruling. Many of the skills you listed would actually be better candidates for Taking 10 even though you could Take 20. For example, you could Take 20 in some circumstances for Climb. You would be better off just Taking 10.
runestar 06-25-07, 10:15 PM	Kalarus, what the heck is that giant black block in your messages?:confused:
Kalarus 06-25-07, 10:17 PM	... giant black block?
ksbsnowowl 06-25-07, 10:33 PM	... giant black block?I see it too. It wasn't there before, but now it looks like your messages (or at least your last long one) aren't loading correctly. All your text is smushed into the left-most 1/3 of your numbered response square, and the right 2/3 is just black.
runestar 06-25-07, 11:01 PM	It doesn't seem limited to Kalarus. I have noticed the same thing for a few other posters, such as Phrenzy and Pegasos989. Oddly enough, it does not show up when I am replying to a post, only when I am viewing the thread. There are bars separating the post from the black box, so I am inclined to believe that this is not some sort of bug, but perhaps some new board feature or some browser incompatibility?:confused:
ksbsnowowl 06-25-07, 11:12 PM	I've noticed a few other board irregularities this evening. Such as the Quote button not appearing at the bottom of someone's post, but rather inside the [sblock] tag in their sig.
KurenaiYami 06-25-07, 11:30 PM	Can you fail a forgery check? If so, then you can't take a 20. You can fail at any skill check. By this logic you can never take 20. Failing and having a penalty for failing are not the same thing. To fail simply means not to succeed.
Kevin Andrew Murphy 06-26-07, 12:08 AM	I just noted something relevant on p. 27 of the BoVD. It mentions that you can't take 10 or take 20 on your Knowledge Religion check to please the dark gods with a sacrifice, but if you have multiple sacrifices, you can keep sacrificing them and then take the best roll as your Knowledge Religion check for your offering to the dark gods. One expects that somewhere after roll 6 or 7 of 20+, the DM says, "Alright already, we assume you've rolled a 20 somewhere in there. Now just calculate your bonuses and get on with it." I have no trouble with declaring an analogous situation with your average thieves guild and a Disguise or Forgery check. Sacrifice 20 doses of "Disguise Kit" make-up and appropriate time and you can get a 20, and ditto with the expenses for a Forgery check. There is no listed "Forgers Kit" in the book, but it's easy enough to declare it a box of pens, papers, inks and sealing wax which costs the same as the Disguise Kit and is used up the exact same way with Forgery attempts.
Bob Loblaw 06-26-07, 01:11 AM	I just noted something relevant on p. 27 of the BoVD. It mentions that you can't take 10 or take 20 on your Knowledge Religion check to please the dark gods with a sacrifice, but if you have multiple sacrifices, you can keep sacrificing them and then take the best roll as your Knowledge Religion check for your offering to the dark gods. This would be relevant if the Forgery check was not done in secret. Since you will never know what your result is, there is no way you can take the best of your rolls. Also note that you know whether or not you fail the Knowledge (religion) check in this case. With Forgery, you cannot fail. This is important. You cannot fail. All you are doing is determining how well you succeeded. Once again, you cannot fail a Forgery check when creating false documents. It is impossible. One expects that somewhere after roll 6 or 7 of 20+, the DM says, "Alright already, we assume you've rolled a 20 somewhere in there. Now just calculate your bonuses and get on with it." I wouldn't. I have no trouble with declaring an analogous situation with your average thieves guild and a Disguise or Forgery check. Sacrifice 20 doses of "Disguise Kit" make-up and appropriate time and you can get a 20, and ditto with the expenses for a Forgery check. I have no issues with a masterwork Forgery kit. This would grant a +2 modifier to the check. That's it. Not bad. In fact, I can see it working for both writing and detecting forgeries.
runestar 06-26-07, 01:29 AM	With Forgery, you cannot fail. This is important. I think this is the crux of the entire argument - can you fail? One might argue that you technically cannot fail - it is matter of just how well or badly you forged a letter. But then, I could just as easily argue that you fail if your letter fails to fool the person. It might not be construed as failure in the conventional use of the term, but it may very well be "failure" in how the rules of the game handles it. Then, it becomes a matter of semantics. So now - which version does the game subscribe to?:confused:
Kevin Andrew Murphy 06-26-07, 01:58 AM	This would be relevant if the Forgery check was not done in secret. Since you will never know what your result is, there is no way you can take the best of your rolls. Also note that you know whether or not you fail the Knowledge (religion) check in this case. With Forgery, you cannot fail. This is important. You cannot fail. All you are doing is determining how well you succeeded. Once again, you cannot fail a Forgery check when creating false documents. It is impossible. Okay, I can buy that but have a counter-question: If, once you've made you're Forgery check, you have a forgery, and it's a matter of how good it is whether it will fool someone else who tries to detect it with their own use of the Forgery skill, well then, once detected, is it possible to use Appraise to judge how good of a forgery it is? The Grand Duchess sniffs. "This? This is an excellent likeness of the Emperor's signature. Flourishes, scribbles, all very well done. However, I also know for a fact that the Emperor uses a particular variety of perfumed ink and this was apparently penned with duck sauce." I have no issues with a masterwork Forgery kit. This would grant a +2 modifier to the check. That's it. Not bad. In fact, I can see it working for both writing and detecting forgeries. I'd leave it to simply creating forgeries and save detecting them to be a separate use of the Magnifying Glass and the Eyes of Minute Seeing (which I believe even mention something about detecting forgeries as part of them).
Leilond 06-26-07, 03:41 AM	Okay, I can buy that but have a counter-question: If, once you've made you're Forgery check, you have a forgery, and it's a matter of how good it is whether it will fool someone else who tries to detect it with their own use of the Forgery skill, well then, once detected, is it possible to use Appraise to judge how good of a forgery it is? The Grand Duchess sniffs. "This? This is an excellent likeness of the Emperor's signature. Flourishes, scribbles, all very well done. However, I also know for a fact that the Emperor uses a particular variety of perfumed ink and this was apparently penned with duck sauce." Sure you can, but the "appraise" roll is made in secret too, so you cannot know if you succeded for a bad "apprise" roll or a good "forgery" roll. That's because you cannot take 20 on opposed checks I'd leave it to simply creating forgeries and save detecting them to be a separate use of the Magnifying Glass and the Eyes of Minute Seeing (which I believe even mention something about detecting forgeries as part of them). Always a roll is required and you cannot know if your forgery was good for a good "forgery" roll or a bad "appraise" roll, because the rules do not admit a take 20 on an opposed check
ServanWolf 06-26-07, 04:43 AM	I would not allow Concentration because it represents a single moment in time. You can't redo that moment in time 20 times. Craft I would not allow since failure has a definitive penalty for failure: increased costs. Jump I would also not allow because you really aren't going to jump over something 20 times in hopes that you succeed. It's a single moment in time. Knowledge checks of any kind cannot be retried. You either know something or you don't. Swim I would not allow Take 20 for the same reason as Jump. concentration , is not always should be allowed. But if it is quete and if you ahve all your time you may make such a check (evne if you may forbid is as DM) craft may be taking 20, but with a higher creating cost (you may try again, taht written) jump..oke thats true :) that knowledge check, was Bardic Knowledge !!! Swim..why not? you could try again and again to swim over a river :). Oke it would take long time and hp loss but you could do it and i only listed those who you COULD use it from theoritical point
Bob Loblaw 06-26-07, 08:38 AM	Okay, I can buy that but have a counter-question: If, once you've made you're Forgery check, you have a forgery, and it's a matter of how good it is whether it will fool someone else who tries to detect it with their own use of the Forgery skill, well then, once detected, is it possible to use Appraise to judge how good of a forgery it is? I would say no. You could determine the value of the forgery, but not the quality. I know this is kinda weird because the two go hand in hand here. The only think that Appraise does is determine value. A forged document can have a variety of values depending on the document. The Grand Duchess sniffs. "This? This is an excellent likeness of the Emperor's signature. Flourishes, scribbles, all very well done. However, I also know for a fact that the Emperor uses a particular variety of perfumed ink and this was apparently penned with duck sauce." :D That was a good start to my morning. I still think this would be part of the Forgery check. Maybe one could use a Bluff check to explain why the Emperor had to use a different ink. I'd leave it to simply creating forgeries and save detecting them to be a separate use of the Magnifying Glass and the Eyes of Minute Seeing (which I believe even mention something about detecting forgeries as part of them).[/QUOTE] concentration , is not always should be allowed. But if it is quete and if you ahve all your time you may make such a check (evne if you may forbid is as DM) craft may be taking 20, but with a higher creating cost (you may try again, taht written) jump..oke thats true :) that knowledge check, was Bardic Knowledge !!! Swim..why not? you could try again and again to swim over a river :). Oke it would take long time and hp loss but you could do it and i only listed those who you COULD use it from theoritical point Why would you use Concentration when you have all the time in the world? I used to agree with you on Craft. After a thorough reading of Craft, I don't see it as necessary nor possible. Most characters that want to be able to craft well will be able to make masterwork items by level 4 or 5 by Taking 10. Also, the expenditure of resources, in my opinion, is a penalty for failure. The bardic knowledge works just like any other knowledge check. You either know something or you don't. The only time you may be able to Take 20 while Swimming would be in Calm Water to keep yourself afloat. Rough Water and Stormy weather are too distracting to Take 20. Treat Swim as Jump. You are moving somewhere. You either get there or you don't. Once there, you no longer need to keep trying. Taking 10 would be a much better option (in calm water only).
BW0222 06-26-07, 07:10 PM	Kevin Andrew Murphy, The question: What if it is Hollywood? What if the thieves guild is employing the make-up artists of the local theatre company to help with the disguises needed for some grand con? What if so much depends on the quality of the forgeries that they are indeed willing to make twenty copies and pick the most convicing one? The problem isn't that they can't make 20 copies -- the issue is they don't know what one is the most convincing one or how to make the other 19 copies any more convincing. The only way they are going to know is when someone stops them. For example, suppose you forge some identity papers. They look fine to you. You make nineteen more copies. You pick the 'best' document. You give it to one member and sent him to get past the Duke's guards. However, the guard looks at them and says, "We don't use red wax." or "The Duke is left handed, he puts the mark on the right of the paper." or "The Duke doesn't stamp papers on Godsday." The issue is you (or your friends) will never know what flaw your documents might have. If the flaw was obvious enough to notice, you would have torn up the document and started again yourself. However, they don't know what others might look for, how they might examine the documents, what tests they might perform, what papers they are comparing them to, etc. It is like playing hide and seek. If you have a third friend look for you while the person is still counting, it doesn't affect the outcome. If you hide under the bed and your friend finds you, you move to the closet and try again, etc. Finally you hide behind the plant and your friend doesn't find you. However, that is your friend. Nothing says that when the real game starts, that the real seeker won't choose the plant as the first place he looks and he may never actually look under the bed. At best, your friends can 'aid another'. He can point out some obvious flaws in your documents by reviewing them using what knowledge about forgery he might have. A few others could also each aid another to increase your roll. However, that won't stop the guard from finding the something which only the guard knows he is looking for.
runestar 06-26-07, 11:14 PM	With regards to the Hollywood reference, I assume it was talking about dressing up characters like Msytique, which easily took over 10 hours. In this case, how do we know if it is just 1 very long disguise attempt, or 20 separate disguise attempts, each aimed as disguising a specific part of her body?:P That makes all the difference between taking 20 on just 1 disguise check, and making 20 individual disguise checks.
Bob Loblaw 06-27-07, 02:05 AM	With regards to the Hollywood reference, I assume it was talking about dressing up characters like Msytique, which easily took over 10 hours. Just want to say: Best. Job. Ever. In this case, how do we know if it is just 1 very long disguise attempt, or 20 separate disguise attempts, each aimed as disguising a specific part of her body?:P That makes all the difference between taking 20 on just 1 disguise check, and making 20 individual disguise checks. I would actually say that since this was done as a team effort, it would actually be a very well qualified individual (lots of ranks, Skill Focus, etc) and several Aid Another Actions. Also, keep in mind that the general audience member has virtually no ranks in Spot. Those who have good skill modifiers tend to notice the minor flaws.
Kalarus 06-27-07, 09:03 AM	Just want to say: Best. Job. Ever. On a side note, do you here mean that they did very well at applying the make-up, or do you mean that being allowed to rub stuff on that woman's body would be the best job any man could have? ;) :P
Bob Loblaw 06-27-07, 10:48 AM	On a side note, do you here mean that they did very well at applying the make-up, or do you mean that being allowed to rub stuff on that woman's body would be the best job any man could have? ;) :P I would love the opportunity to smurf that woman's body :D I doubt that makeup guy ever went home complaining about how his day went.
NASCAR_1080i 07-01-07, 06:50 PM	no taking 20 (uses up materials) aid another would work imagine the other player looking over your shoulder and giving advice for example Rogue: how do you spell Magistrate Bard: M A G I S T R A T E ... you frickin idiot