When Should a PC get a Second Skill Roll?

Basically you don't. Any situation where they could just reroll until success is a situation they should not be rolling in. It just works.

Rerolling for the same task is typically done if there are time constraints, potential consequences or if the situation changes from one roll to the next. Imagine a door that could conceivably be kicked down. If the party isn't pressed by any other complications, it just works. Don't bog it down with rolls.

If the party is being chased, or chasing someone or otherwise in a race against time, you start rerolls. Each failed attempt costs time and brings danger or total failure.
Maybe a guard is on the other side, with his friends playing cards in the room below. The fighter kicking it in with one blow means you catch him by surprise and scrambling for his carelessly misplaced weapon. But previous failed attempts gives him time to alert his friends, with even more failure allowing them to get into position.

For knowledge checks, persuasion, trap spotting etc it's generally done once - with the main exception being if the situation changes. A failed lore check on a strange idol means you don't recognize it at all. However finding another one near a religious shrine with a successful religion check might offer some hints as to its origin, which the character can use to help inform a new lore check. A guard might fail to be persuaded, until you present an envelope sealed with the mark of a neighbouring duke. Ordinarily he might simply take the letter and deliver it himself, but perhaps now he could also be swayed to let the party enter, after the PC assures him that they were told to deliver it in person.

As a forever DM, I tend to give out a second chance at some more important rolls. Mostly because none of my players is fond of fudging, but I've already skimped them out of good gear because of a shit perception/investigation roll. I keep telling them I can work with old-school rules (I search the wardrobe/under the bed/etc) but since they're 5e babbys they're used to the whole "hurr, i roll da deic to get da ting" so fuck 'em.

>he doesn't fail forward
This is why your games are terrible, user

Rolls should only be called for if there is a meaningful impact of failure, or chance for that matter. What that means is heavily contextual. Sometimes the time it takes to try is valuable and a failure becomes meaningful because you're now wasting a resource to try again.

If a roll can be repeated again comes up to context, which relies heavily on what you think defines that meaningful failure.

If there is legitimately no meaningful failure state. No material wasted, no injury sustained, no baddie catching up, no time pressure, no nothing. Then a roll should never have been called for to begin with assuming the character is actually capable of bringing about the desired result (if they aren't its perfectly acceptable to say that they don't know how to do something that's why skills exist). Apply passage of time and what not as you see fit.

>How do you handle this sort of thing? If a character fails at their detect traps check (assuming that doesn't itself trigger a trap), or at some kind of knowledge check, or at searching, or opening a lock, or whatever else: when do you let them try again, if ever?
When the situation changes. Generally speaking, I'll use my Fail Forward table to make the roll Success//Success with Consequences in a "retry forever" situation.
>How do you decide that a failure means they just can't figure it out ever, and/or how do you let them try again?
Changing the situation means: getting more information, getting more experience (skill modifier used is at least 1 higher), getting better tools, or something similar.
>On a related note, how would you justify someone trying a skill check again once without having to allow them to just keep trying until they succeed?
It's boring, and we get to decide what rolls mean. I don't use a system where the rules are flexible enough for me to shape them that way.
>This is all assuming skill checks that have no particular consequence for failure other than not getting what they wanted; i.e., no monsters attack, no traps go off, no external time limit to figure things out, etc.
The fail forward table I use has more "keyword" type consequences (breaking gear and suffering injury are usually relevant) and the rule is that if one consequence makes absolutely no sense (or has no impact ont he situation) we move one row down until you get a consequence that does change things.

I'll let them try again with a different check. Investigation if Perception fails. But that'll take extra time.

I like the idea of this, but i still have some irks with it.
What about checks that have no reasonable relative, such as disable device?
and
Why would a character actively look further for traps when he could not see any when he looked for them?

They can try again on that specific thing once they've gained another level.

>1st level person fails to unlock a door
Don't worry, you can try again in an hour.
>19th level person fails to unlock the same door
Try again in 23 years bucko

Seems like a legit plan.

>his leveling XP requirements increase exponentially
????

Aight, not that user, but i can give a better example then
>20.th level person fails to unlock the door
Sorry senpai, the door can never be opened by you. Tought luck!
Unless you of course actively kill yourself to be revived with negative levels, and then level up. THEN you can try the door again.

>Why would a character actively look further for traps when he could not see any when he looked for them?
"It really feels like there might be static defences here, but a fingertip search turned up nothing... I might do a little research before going further, these [monster] engineers can be canny bastards."

>Fingertip search
When you use perception in the attempt of looking for trap, your character is trying his best to look for hazards. When he cant find one, he should reasonably believe there are none.
I would even go as far to say that an investigative search should be impossible, because when someone investigates, they try to pinpoint something or find out further information based on already discovered information.

Consult books on known [monster] construction.
Collate blueprints and survey information on dungeon (as collected so far) and do some calculations
Blue-sky-think some concepts for traps you might not find based on your search, then devise schemes to find them
Divination magic (admittedly not a skill roll, but same sort of thing)

>When he cant find one, he should reasonably believe there are none.
No. They should activate, because dickholes like like to try and ruin things by grinding everything to a halt in order to quintuple check everything. It's a necessary evil in my eyes.

I generally inflict a penalty of 5 for similar checks within the same encounter. If they are trying to find anything new, traps or treasure, this makes sense because even though their character may be trying to be extra vigilant, they don't get to know their first roll failed, so the character is self-assured. If I have a trap or hidden treasure though I only give descriptions, never a pass or fail.

Literally the most non-answer ever.

Yeah, this does heavily depend on the tone of the game. I wouldn't hold up a crawl too long on this unless I was super convinced there was a trap in an area I hadn't found (in the sense of being able to roll disable).

i dunno user, it really activated my almonds

Generally I also apply this to diplomacy and other things that you to be interacting with a character as well. Pick pocketing the guard after he's caught you or retrying to convince someone is going to cause it to be a lot harder.

Long-time checks shouldn't get this sort of punishment though, failing a long smithing roll once is simply a loss of the turn, and in critical failures, perhaps even negative progress, but the extra time is punishment enough here.

''Wait a little guys, im just going to set up my library, put on my sherlock holmes hat, take out my buble pipe and get into the the head of these goblins. I once saw them use a spear, so there could reasonably possibly be a spear ballista or a chaingun here. Also, cleric, use some of your spells to see if there is exactly that there! It will only take about 5 hours.''
>''But user... you are a barbarian. you cant even read''
>Turns out there was no traps there, and the person you were sent to save was executed by the goblins, all because user was slightly paranoid and wanted to over-complicate things.

I would go as far as to call bullshit and metagaming when you start disbelieving your own rolls.

I also like this one

The roll is for seeing if your character can pick the lock. It's not if they manage, it's if they *can*. If they can't then they need to increase in skill, which is what leveling is an abstraction for.

Nah you sound annoying

>Consult books on known [monster] construction.
Stretch
>Collate blueprints and survey information on dungeon (as collected so far) and do some calculations
Stretch that is going to take quite a while, I hope understanding there aren't actually traps in this hallway was worth the extra wandering checks
>Blue-sky-think some concepts for traps you might not find based on your search, then devise schemes to find them
Literally pulling shit out of your ass with a magnet by now
>Divination magic (admittedly not a skill roll, but same sort of thing)
Overkill as hell, what makes you that convinced there absolutely must be traps here?

That's stupid. The roll is to see if a particular attempt to pick a lock succeeds, not if the character can pick the lock. There are no rules whatsoever that support your interpretation.

This is exactly how Call of Cthulhu does it RAW and I love the tradeoff.

>There are no rules whatsoever that support your interpretation.

But you would be wrong.

By that logic, if a thief accidentally fatfingers a lock he will never be able to take on that lock even if he has the required skills and more, but was struck by bad luck or was bumped by someone.

>How do you handle this sort of thing? If a character fails at their detect traps check (assuming that doesn't itself trigger a trap), or at some kind of knowledge check, or at searching, or opening a lock, or whatever else: when do you let them try again, if ever?

No retries, Allowing them to just keep trying makes the whole check pointless. You get one shot and that one roll will determine if you're ever capable of doing the thing.

Obviously one should not put anything progress-critical behind a roll like this.

Except given the luck aspect of the roll it's reasonable to assume there's an amount of recall your character has to undergo to pick it. Pertaining to locks this should be a situation where they can try again after either taking time to study the lock or taking a time punishment.

When you jerk off in the morning, if you fail to finish do you never get to masturbate again? You can try again later without increasing your skill,

The other way to do it is to get their modifier and roll for them, behind screen.

Not really the biggest fan of doing that though

>There are no rules whatsoever that support your interpretation.
>what is OD&D, B/X D&D, and AD&D 1e

>>Turns out there was no traps there, and the person you were sent to save was executed by the goblins, all because user was slightly paranoid and wanted to over-complicate things.
Blame the GM in our group, who loves throwing CR>Average Party Level traps and justifying it with "extra clues in description." It's worth being paranoid when you can get hit with a twinned maximised enervation out of a trap, turned into a wight from level drain and the GM rules your party members _don't necessarily know_ one of their team is now an advanced and cunning undead monster.
>Overkill as hell, what makes you that convinced there absolutely must be traps here?
I might have misunderstood, I was just providing options is I WERE convinced there was a trap in an area and I hadn't initially found it. Again, I play in a campaign where the GM lays down unreasonable traps.

your homebrew, like everything else you've ever done, will never matter.

Im for rolling things such as stealth checks, but thats about it.
IF and only IF the party start to ignore their own rolls, i will move their rolls to my ballpark.

>implying masturbating requires skill

If your GM is a dick like that go ahead in my opinion, but if they're putting traps that eviscerate most of the party behind hard checks and not letting you try a lot to find them, your GM isn't playing with you, they're playing against you.

I could make a Eunuch cum like Old Faithful, do not doubt my Fap-Fu

Masturbating is like cooking user. Everyone can do it. But chefs pour their heart, soul, and a pack of cigarettes into it, and the results are usually worth it.

I do blame the gm of your group. That sounds like some obnoxious bullshit. But i will still stand on my point that what you described earlier was paranoid pc drivvel.
Also, i am sorry your GM has done this to you.

Your gm is a cunt, and assuming that the tomb of horror's retarded cousin is in anyway default to be assumed in this discussion is why you're an idiot. Also that you play with your gm.

That's not me though. If you think it's stupid, what would you recommend as an alternative, and please without pointing out the limitations of my mental faculties this time.

The roll for lockpicking isn't just about the character doing the lockpicking, it also defines the lock within the world. If the roll fails, the lock is defined as being too difficult for the character to pick. If this isn't okay with you, just let the character pick the lock without a roll.

I don't ALWAYS play this way, I'm just saying: if you think you have a trap on your hands and fluffed the check to find it, this is what you can do to keep yourself from getting hit. You don't have to, in some games you SHOULDN'T, but these are your options.
And yeah, I know the GM's a dick, but I got my GMing card taken off me for trying to run a more sandboxy game when they are happy with a more crawl-based 3.5 game. I'm looking for another group. QQ

The lock is defined by the difficulty assigned to it, not by random rolls.

>''I want to lockpick this door GM''
>''All right, roll to lockpick''
>Roll nat 1
>''You sit down and get into position to start your lockpicking. As you put your pick into the lock, one of your legs slip slightly beneath and you lose your balance. The lockpick snaps in the lock and the lock is probably impossible to get open now''
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I guess this common household lock was too hard for our lv 15 rouge.

Fags like you are why I can't use illusions anymore.

>Fags like you are why I can't use illusions anymore.
Because I know absence of proof isn't proof of absence, or because I'll take it as license to double check everything?
Because a single comment out of character would be all it takes to get me to lighten up in the second situation.

why is a lvl 15 rogue even rolling to open a common household lock?

surely not because you're a tool?

No such thing as difficulty assigned to locks before 3e.

Why is the thief rolling for household locks? The rules are for picking locks in dungeons.

Never.
>I want to do x
>I roll poorly
You alert somebody you don't want to alert. You take too much time. You damage something you care about (including possibly yourself).

>and fluffed the check to find it
>What is metagaming

This is what brings me to do what said.
Its like your character going up to a flower, smelling it, and saying ''this flower smells sweet, but i dont believe it does, so i want to roll again to find out if it ACTAULLY smells like decaying corpses

>why is a pc doing something a pc is good at just because he can and want to?

>Is this plant poisonous
>I don't think so
>I'll eat 100 of them and I guess we'll find out
Good times.

Because despite most people magically being forced to see/interact/hear/whatever something. Everyone seems to think dave shouting "its totally fake guys" is justification to treat the thing as fake, and not dave like a nutter.

You're doing that with traps. There must, be a trap here. But there clearly isn't a trap here. So there really must be a trap here because I rolled a 4. Can't fool me.

What I mean is, a roll is not needed. The level 15 rogue picks the damn mundane household lock automatically.

>Nat 1 on Skill Checks
>A Level 15 Rogue even having to roll for a common household lock instead of taking 10.

Even if you want to be retarded, you could at least learn how to abstract better.

>"I want to lockpick this door"
>Rolls a 3
>"You awkwardly fumble with the picks in the lock for awhile, but the tumblers apply far more pressure than you're. Every time you withdraw the picks, the tumblers snap back into place. You can't make heads or tails of it."

Guess your level 2 rogue will need to learn a thing or two or come back with some better tools.

In literally 4th edition d&d, and why would anyone assume that's what we're on about?

Agreed, but that was to put out an example. Sometimes unfortune strikes, and it does not mean the rouge is not actually incompetent or that the lock is made by the best locksmiths of the land.

I'm talking about OD&D, B/X D&D, and AD&D 1e. I'm just explaining how the rules were supposed to work.

>or opening a lock

I like to use what I refer to as the Skyrim Method; that being that failure has an associated cost. That's why I have Class/Skill related items available for sale in town which confer proficiency bonus+1 when used.

As per this example, failure denotes the loss of 1 Lock Pick. They're free to keep rolling as long as they have spare Lock Picks. After which I'll let them teleport back to town to get more. And because I'm the DM, I can also houserule if it's important for the shared narrative of our story to get past this lock (it isn't just a sideroom/random lootchest to use up their Lock Picks), that they can use something else within the area, something makeshift, to attempt to Pick the Lock, even without the Lock Picks, like if they were trapped in a Dungeon Prison Cell without Lock Picks, but there were Scraps of Bones that could possibly fit in the Hole of the Lock to Pick it with a makeshift Lock Pick.

I hope this is helpful to other DMs who might not know what to do if the Party has a Thief-type character that doesn't have Lock Picks to Pick Locks with.

I've got other homebrewed Systems if you need more help, or clarification.

>Is this fruit poisonous?
>I don't think so
>Use knowledge nature
>No, this fruit has in fact been eaten for centuries and taste fantastic on top of cakes
>I dont believe it, despite my knowledge of it. It must be poisonous

The lock being amazing 1% of the time for a level 15 thief isn't that weird in a chthonic dungeon of strange magic. Also, if the players *had* to go through that door specifically, then you're designing the dungeon wrong.

*sigh* OK, let me give you an example from a recent game session I was in.
We're in a subterranean temple of some dickbag Vampire god. We pass through halls, and every so often, there's a hall or doorway or such with a big statue of the guardian Vampire saint-type guy. Every one of them is trapped somehow. Animate statue, spear trap, magic glyph, what have you.
We come to another one of these doorways with a locked iron door and a statue of this looming sword-wielding prick who has been staring at us at each of the last 7 traps.
I go to look for a pressure plate. The DM rolls behind the screen and says "you don't find any mechanisms in that space."
Do I:
a) herpdyderp my way through the door without hesitation
b) try a few other trapfinding options
c) find a new group
d) both b AND c

I've played ad&d, not a thing in that book says jack shit about high level thief only rolling when faced with some kind of mega lock. They have a skill. It's called open locks. It goes up in success chance per level.

As written a level 10 thief has a 67% chance to open the same fucking lock that a level 1 thief has a 25% chance to open. You bs spewing rectal tornado.

This is the best answer. If they can keep rerolling until they can get it, there shouldn't be a roll. Rolling usually means you get a restricted number of chances due to time limitations or there are consequences for failure.

Yes we get it. Your gm needs a good hard twist of the old vice grip to the hidden rubies (assuming you can ever find them).

This thread wasn't about how to react to cunty gms. Your story has no place in this discussion because the discussion doesn't assume your shitty circumstance is the norm. Because there can't be a discussion like this about your game. Because your gm is a jack ass, regardless of anyone's conclusions they've already won.

>The lock being amazing 1%
Stop.
What i am describing is a fumble, not a lock being reasonably difficult.
The entire subject here was about what would allow another knock at a lock.
Some stated that only a level up would allow it, and i asked ''What about lv 20 adventurers?''
Then someone said that if the rouge could not get the lock one on his roll, he was just too bad at it, and i asked ''What about fumbles?''

Even a legendary lockpicker, famous for being best in the entire world can be struck by unfortune.
>Also, if the players *had* to go through that door
This. 100% agreed. Of course there are several ways to get to the goal, but i like to put in small things, no matter how minor, for my pc's, so they can say ''i want to do that. im good at this and want to contribute'' and not just feel like they are following a herd.

Player's Handbook, page 28.

>Opening Locks may be attempted by any given thief but once per lock. If the score generated exceeds the adjusted (for ability and race) base score, the thief has failed; and no amount of trying will ever enable him or her to succeed with that lock, although the thief may try again when he or she has risen to a higher level of experience. Success opens the lock.

Meant for

I wasn't arguing over that point fucknuckle. Now cite the page where it says that the 10th level thief doesn't need to roll for the same locks the 1st level thief is most likely to encounter. Because as I said. That's literally 4th ed.

Here's what happened: you carefully searched each pressure plate and despite being sure one exits, you have no idea which one it is. No amount of staring will help. But you can try something else. Your character is *certain* there's a pressure plate.

>What i am describing is a fumble, not a lock being reasonably difficult.
There's no such thing as a fumble on a d100 roll.

>''What about lv 20 adventurers?''
It doesn't go that far, and even at the highest there would only be a 1% chance of failing.

>Even a legendary lockpicker, famous for being best in the entire world can be struck by unfortune.
But it's not about unfortune. A level 17 thief can pick 99/100 locks. Some locks are just too difficult.

It is implied by the fact that AD&D is about adventurers doing their thing in dungeons, not in farmhouses.

>There's no such thing as a fumble on a d100 roll
>d100 roll
Im sorry fucking what?

3e wasn't the first D&D.

We dont know what game OP is playing so i just based mine on pathfinder, and
1) In pathfinder there most certainly are fumbles.
2) In pathfinder there most certainly exist lv 20 adventurers +
3) Everyone can get struck by misfortune.

HAha holy shit, thanks for the laugh. This is a system that suggests laying deadly eggs in the ears of players that listen at too many doors user. Why would you ever assume high level characters would ever get a free pass?

That's not an implication of the system user, that's you using what you know of modern d&d to infer things that aren't there.

>Inb4 pathfinder is shit

>pf
out

Fucking called it

In that case, we can't really discuss it since skills are defined differently in the systems. Still, I can't imagine it being very fun to have one player rolling over and over just to open some lock. Kind of ruins the pacing.

I'm not inferring, D&D is first and foremost about dungeons and how the rules work there. In OD&D there often completely different rules for how things work. In fact, why do you think that locks are even a thing above dungeons? Most people just barred their doors in medieval times.

>This is a system that suggests laying deadly eggs in the ears of players that listen at too many doors user.
Put a handkerchief in front of your ear as you're listening next time, chump.

>1) In pathfinder there most certainly are fumbles.
No there aren't, though that's a common houserule that helps recognize bad GMs.

You can't bar the chest with the town charter in it user. You know. Those things people found. With valuables in them. That people kept in their homes and places of business in urban areas especially? They sometimes even had multiple locks on them (the town administrative example that comes to mind had something like 9 on it, one for each of the town councilmen so it could only be opened by all of them).

But why would a thief ever want with someone's private valuables? I mean it isn't like ad&d pre-written adventures didn't contain the location of every last copper in each settlement for shits and giggles dipshit.

>Put a handkerchief in front of your ear as you're listening next time, chump.
And here I thought you'd be saying something like level 15 thief don't have to worry about ear seekers because by that level their ears are made of diamonds. Only level 1 adventures with their mortal flesh ears have anything to fear.

Agreed on the pacing part, im just trying to state that if something maybe goes to shit, its not necesarrily because the pc is shit. A dice rolling game is not a skill-based game.

>If something is a houserule for someone, someone else cannot enjoy it or it flat out does not exist.

>>If something is a houserule for someone, someone else cannot enjoy it or it flat out does not exist.
If you're talking about your houserules, you don't say "In Pathfinder" as if it were an actual rule, idiot.

The sign says danger, do not enter, hazardous area, electrified fence, etc, but I don't see anything dangerous. It must actually be safe.

You use investigation to put together clues to get information like like "this is an important place that should logically be protected by something"

Making the huge assumption that you actually use traps where they make sense and not randomly.

Well shit, i learned something new today.

It's true that AD&D modules sometimes used settlements as training for thieves. At the same time, the point of the modules were the dungeons. The settlements and their treasure is not the focus. The rules are primarily made for dungeon crawling.

>And here I thought you'd be saying something like level 15 thief don't have to worry about ear seekers because by that level their ears are made of diamonds. Only level 1 adventures with their mortal flesh ears have anything to fear.
Why would I say that?

>he has limited amount of levels
Okey dokey.

>The sign
>Sign
>Clearly marked danger
I thought traps were supposed to be hidden and spring upon people.
There is also a fucking difference between a marked minefield and a random cave.

>"this is an important place that should logically be protected by something"
Although this is a fair point, you dont know WHERE the traps would be in a cave, or in your example, the hazardous area. It also could just be an old weary sign or even just a ruse set up.

Additionally, knowing that there exist danger, but not what the danger is does not make you miraculously understand that ''Ah, there is a pitfall-trap in this mansion, about 10 ft forward, although i have not seen it nor any indication that it would be, other than an unspecified danger sign''