Take X (3.5e Variant Rule)

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Author: Sulacu (talk)
Date Created: February 21, 2012
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Take X

Introduction

In regular games, when a character needs to resolve an obstacle in a nonstandard manner - that is to say using skill checks to circumvent, solve or otherwise decide the matter in favor of beating it to submission with brute force - they often take 10 or take 20. This has proven to be an adequate measure as long as a character has sufficient time available to perform the action, and isn't currently threatened by combat. However, between taking 10 and taking 20, there is a rather huge gap to be exploited. What if you could use just as much force, skill or luck as is needed to succeed, and not more?

Rule Mechanics

The duration of any difficult check you make depends on its DC. While actions at a DC below or equal to your appropriate skill or ability modifier +1 are still trivial and cannot fail, and actions at a DC over your appropriate skill modifier +20 cannot be completed by you under this particular situation, a check whose DC you can overcome by rolling a d20 and applying the appropriate skill modifier requires just as many tries as is needed to roll at least the necessary number with a 65% probability. For example, the chance of rolling an 8 or higher on a single d20 roll is 65%, and as such, a skill check that you require natural 8 or less to beat takes no extra time to complete while not under any immediate danger. See the below table for the time required to 'take X'.

Table: Take X

X Time Multiplier*
1-8 1
9-12 2
13-15 3
16 4
17 5
18 7
19 10
20 20
  1. Apply this multiplier to the amount of time that attempting
    a particular action requires: generally rounds for basic
    skill checks, but this can also be minutes, multiples of 10
    minutes, hours or days, depending on circumstances.

Rolling Immediate Skill Checks vs Taking Applied Skill Checks

This variant rule attempts to introduce the concept of dynamic time to the undertaking of skillful actions. For this reason, consider the difference between 'immediate' skills and 'applied' skills.

Immediate skill checks are actions that need to succeed on the spot. If you fail to Hide properly, the enemy spots you. If you fail to Move Silently by stepping on a twig, the enemy hears you. At the same time, you can only Listen or Spot once, as the source of the sight or sound that prompted the skill check is only there as the opposed checks occur. In other words, immediate skill checks have immediate results, generally allow no retries, and cannot usually be attempted at leisure. Furthermore, actions that provoke opposed skill checks are generally immediate in nature, even if they allow retries. As such, immediate actions can only be resolved by rolling the dice and you generally cannot Take X on them under any ordinary circumstance.

Applied skill checks are actions that can take a while to resolve. They have no immediate consequences for failure, so the user can keep attempting the appropriate skill without pausing. For example, picking a simple lock on a locked door using the Open Lock skill has no consequence for failure and can be attempted for any amount of time. When you're not in combat or in some other immediate danger, you may Take X on applied skill checks. Similarly, if you're in the process of Taking X on a skill check, any sudden hazard or hostile action against you will cause it to fail and you will lose any progress of time you've made.

In a situation where a character can Take X, the check DC needs not be known: the character can start taking X and take as much time as is needed to hit the required DC as per the above table. The difference between success and failure is often merely the amount of time and energy one is willing and able to dedicate to the endeavour.

Applied Skill Checks

The following actions are considered applied skill checks under the listed circumstances and can be used in conjunction with the Take X rules with little to no additional rules. You can only take X when out of danger and only on skill checks involving trained skills unless noted otherwise. Under any circumstance where you can naturally take 10 on an action, you can also take X on it even if the associated skill is untrained.

DM Notes: Further applications of Take X

Due how various skills are written to work, allowing to take X on them, even under specific circumstances, will probably require some minor additional rules and caveats. For example, you might want to allow your players to take X on certain actions provided a source of information pertaining to the action is available. Depending on the nature of a campaign or the current in-game situation you might wish to allow certain specific uses of Take X. Written below are several skills that could go either way, or that could be considered usable additions for the Take X variant rule only if you are willing to add some contingent rules to support them.

  • Appraise: Appraising items would generally allow a character to try for very long periods of time provided they possess the knowledge and the tools to do so. However, a merchant will likely not wish to give the character ample opportunity to appraise an item he intends to sell and may actively prohibit lengthy study of the item or even try to misdirect potential buyers with something like Bluff or Sleight of Hand before the item is sold, potentially turning the action into an immediate opposed skill check instead. If there are no outside factors prohibiting prolonged study of an item, such as when the item is in the character's possession, you may wish to allow taking X on appraisals.
  • Search: It should probably be possible to take X on Search checks by default, but this skill is listed separately because the amount of time a character spends on searching an area should generally be left up to the player's discretion. For this reason, Search DCs should be kept ambiguous, and players should be allowed to draw their own conclusions about specific rooms or locations that might contain secret doors or other valuable hidden loot. For example, a party that enters a simple dungeon room might be disinclined to search thoroughly and simply make a basic Search check. However, if a character has a reason to believe there's a hidden passageway leading to riches somewhere in the basement of a ruined castle, they will want to search thoroughly. In the event that a character wishes to search thoroughly, taking X is applicable. This makes it so lucky or persistent parties can stumble upon unexpected riches, but also enables a character with specific foreknowledge to find what they need to find.
  • Knowledge, Learning and Studying: Knowledge skills are a whole can of worms at times, due to the poor implementation of learning and study in D&D. Generally though, knowing something can be seen as an immediate action; you make a Knowledge check and you either know or don't know it. However, you may wish to allow players to take X on Knowledge checks when they are learning or studying. When a character wishes to learn or study for a specific subject that is a subset of a specific Knowledge skill, they may take X provided enough research materials are available.
The time spent trying to learn desired information using Take X depends on the Knowledge DC of the subject, the level of expertise required and how rare the desired information is to come by, as per the below table.

Table: Duration of Study1

Desired Information
Common Uncommon (DC +10)2
Subject (Base DC)2 General Specific (DC +5)2 Exclusive Secret (DC +5)2
Basic 1 minute 10 minutes 1 hour 1 day
Intermediate (DC +5)2 10 minutes 1 hour 1 day 1 week
Expert (DC +10)2 1 hour 1 day 1 week 1 month
  1. When taking X to learn information, apply the time multiplier from Table: Take X to the time values in this table.
  2. Knowledge DC of the desired information is cumulative.


Examples

Gortok the half orc barbarian tries to break down a strong steel door with a break DC of 26. His Strength is 20, giving him a +5 modifier. Under regular conditions, success is not possible. Frustrated by his failures to break down the door, he enters a barbarian rage, gaining a +4 bonus to his Strength and Constitution that, with his usual Constitution score of 16, will last for 8 rounds. Trying again, Gortok now needs a roll of 19 or higher to succeed on breaking down the door. Unfortunately, he cannot take 19 quickly enough to break the door down before the effects of his rage disappear. As such. Gortok fails to break down the door yet again.

A burglar tries to open a door with his Open Lock skill. His skill modifier is +12. The difficulty of the lock is as of yet unknown, and while wary of any possible watchmen on patrol, he starts carefully picking the lock. On the 5th round, the lock suddenly clicks open; the Open Lock DC was 29.

AuthorSulacu +
Identifier3.5e Variant Rule +
RatingUndiscussed +
TitleTake X +