When your character uses a skill, you make a skill check to see how well he or she does. The higher the result of the skill check, the better. Based on the circumstances, your result must match or beat a particular number (a DC or the result of an opposed skill check) for the check to be successful. The harder the task, the higher the number you need to roll.
Circumstances can affect your check. A character who is free to work without distractions can make a careful attempt and avoid simple mistakes. A character who has lots of time can try over and over again, thereby assuring the best outcome. If others help, the character may succeed where otherwise he or she would fail.
A skill check takes into account a character’s training (skill rank), natural talent (ability modifier) and luck (the die roll). It may also take into account his or her race’s knack for doing certain things (racial bonus) or what armour he or she is wearing (armour check penalty), or a certain feat the character possesses, amongst other things. For instance, a character who has the Skill Focus feat related to a certain skill gets a +3 bonus on all checks involving that skill.
To make a skill check, roll 1d20 and add your character’s skill modifier for that skill. The skill modifier incorporates the character’s ranks in that skill and the ability modifier for that skill’s key ability, plus any other miscellaneous modifiers that may apply, including racial bonuses and armour check penalties. The higher the result, the better. Unlike with attack rolls and saving throws, a natural roll of 20 on the d20 is not an automatic success, and a natural roll of 1 is not an automatic failure.
Some checks are made against a Difficulty Class (DC). The DC is a number (set using the skill rules as a guideline) that you must score as a result on your skill check in order to succeed. For example, climbing the outer wall of a ruined tower may have a DC of 15. For your character to climb the wall, you must get a result of 15 or better on a Climb check. A Climb check is 1d20 + Climb ranks (if any) + Strength modifier + any other modifiers that apply. Table: Difficulty Class Examples shows some example DCs for skill checks.
| Difficulty (DC) | Example (Skill Used) |
|---|---|
| Very easy (0) | Notice something large in plain sight (Spot) |
| Easy (5) | Climb a knotted rope (Climb) |
| Average (10) | Hear an approaching guard (Listen) |
| Tough (15) | Rig a wagon wheel to fall off (Disable Device) |
| Challenging (20) | Swim in stormy water (Swim) |
| Formidable (25) | Open an average lock (Open Lock) |
| Heroic (30) | Leap across a 30-foot chasm (Jump) |
| Nearly impossible (40) | Track a squad of orcs across hard ground after 24 hours of rainfall (Survival) |
An opposed check is a check whose success or failure is determined by comparing the check result to another character’s check result. In an opposed check, the higher result succeeds, while the lower result fails. In case of a tie, the higher skill modifier wins. If these scores are the same, roll again to break the tie.
For example, to sneak up on someone, you make a Move Silently check. Anyone who might hear you can make a Listen check to react to your presence. For the opponent to hear you, his or her Listen check result must equal or exceed your Move Silently check result.
| Task | Skill (Key Ability) | Opposing Skill (Key Ability) |
|---|---|---|
| Con someone | Bluff (Cha) | Sense Motive (Wis) |
| Pretend to be someone else | Disguise (Cha) | Spot (Wis) |
| Create a false map | Forgery (Int) | Forgery (Int) |
| Hide from someone | Hide (Dex) | Spot (Wis) |
| Make a bully back down | Intimidate (Cha) | Special1 |
| Sneak up on someone | Move Silently (Dex) | Listen (Wis) |
| Steal a coin pouch | Sleight of Hand (Dex) | Spot (Wis) |
| Tie a prisoner securely | Use Rope (Dex) | Escape Artist (Dex) |
1 An Intimidate check is opposed by the target’s level check, not a skill check. See the Intimidate skill description for more information.
In general, you can try a skill check again if you fail, and you can keep trying indefinitely. Some skills, however, have consequences of failure that must be taken into account. A few skills are virtually useless once a check has failed on an attempt to accomplish a particular task. For most skills, when a character has succeeded once at a given task, additional successes are meaningless.
For example, if Lidda the rogue misses an Open Lock check, she can try again and keep trying. If, however, a trap in the lock goes off if she misses an Open Lock check by 5 or more, then failure has its own penalties.
Note: The Open Lock skill does not include a penalty for failure as indicated by the above example. This penalty comes from the Disable Device skill check. If a lock is trapped, the process would be to Search for traps, and if a trap is found, to perform a Disable Device check. Once the trap has been disabled, an Open Lock check can be done. If the trap had not been disabled or not found, then the Open Lock check would cause the trap to discharge, but this would not be dependent on the success of the Open Lock check.
Similarly, if Lidda misses a Climb check, she can keep trying, but if she misses by 5 or more, she falls (after which she can get up and try again).
If Tordek has negative hit points and is dying, Lidda can make an untrained Heal check to make him stable. If the check fails, Tordek probably loses another hit point, but Lidda can try again in the next round.
If a skill carries no penalties for failure, you can take 20 and assume that you go at it long enough to eventually succeed eventually.
Generally, if your character attempts to use a skill he or she does not possess, you make a skill check as normal. The skill modifier doesn’t have a skill rank added in because the character has no ranks in the skill. Any other applicable modifiers, such as the modifier for the skill’s key ability, are applied to the check.
Many skills can be used only by someone who is trained in them. If you don’t have Spellcraft, for example, you just don’t know enough about magic even to attempt to identify a spell, regardless of your class, ability scores or experience level.
For example, Krusk the barbarian’s 4 ranks in Climb make his Climb check results 4 points higher than they otherwise would be, but even Gimble the bard, with no Climb ranks, can make a Climb check because Climb can be used untrained. Gimble has a skill modifier of -1 (+0 for his Strength, -1 for armour), but he can give it a try. However, Gimble’s ranks in Use Magic Device let him do something that he otherwise couldn’t do at all — namely, use a magic item as if he had a particular spell on his class spell list that he actually doesn’t have. Krusk, with no ranks in the skill, can’t make a Use Magic Device check even at a penalty because Use Magic Device can’t be used untrained.
Some situations may make a skill easier or harder to use, resulting in a bonus or penalty to the skill modifier for a skill check or a change to the DC of the skill check. It’s one thing for Krusk, with his Survival skill, to hunt down enough food to eat while he’s camping for the day in the middle of a lush forest, but foraging for food while travelling across barren desert is an entirely different matter.
The chance of success can be altered in four ways to take into account exceptional circumstances.
Conditions that affect your character’s ability to perform the skill, change the skill modifier. Conditions that modify how well the character has to perform the skill to succeed, change the DC. A bonus to the skill modifier and a reduction in the check’s DC have the same result; they create a better chance of success. However, they represent different circumstances, and sometimes that difference is important.
For example, Gimble the bard wants to entertain a band of dwarves who are staying at the same inn where he and his party are staying. Before playing his lute, Gimble listens to the dwarves’ drinking songs so he can judge their mood. Doing so improves his performance, giving him a +2 circumstance bonus on his check. His player rolls a 5 and adds +9 for his skill modifier (4 ranks, +3 Charisma modifier and +2 for his impromptu research). His check result is 14. The DM sets the base DC at 15. However, the dwarves are in a good mood because they have recently won a skirmish with orc bandits, so the DM reduces the DC to 13. (Gimble’s performance isn’t better just because the dwarves are in a good mood, so Gimble doesn’t get a bonus to add to his skill modifier. Instead, the DC goes down.) The leader of the dwarven band, however, has heard that a gnome spy works for the bandits, and he’s suspicious of Gimble. The DC to entertain him is higher than normal: 17 instead of 15. Gimble’s skill check result (14) is high enough to entertain the dwarves (DC 13) but not their leader (DC 17). The dwarves applaud Gimble and offer to buy him drinks, but their leader eyes him suspiciously.
Using a skill might take a round, take no time or take several rounds or even longer. Most skill uses are standard actions, move actions, or full-round actions. Types of actions define how long activities take to perform within the framework of a combat round (6 seconds) and how movement is treated with respect to the activity. Some skill checks are instant and represent reactions to an event, or are included as part of an action. These skill checks are not actions. Other skill checks represent part of movement. The distance you jump when making a Jump check, for example, is part of your movement. Each skill description specifies the time required to make a check
Sometimes you want to do something that seems practically impossible. In general, a task considered practically impossible has a DC of 40, 60 or even higher (or it carries a modifier of +20 or more to the DC).
Practically impossible tasks are hard to delineate ahead of time. They’re the accomplishments that represent incredible, almost logic-defying skill and luck. Picking a lock by giving it a single, swift kick might entail a +20 modifier to the DC; swimming up a waterfall could require a Swim check against DC 80; and balancing on a fragile tree branch might have a DC of 90.
The DM decides what is actually impossible and what is merely practically impossible. Characters with very high skill modifiers are capable of accomplishing incredible, almost unbelievable tasks, just as characters with very high combat bonuses are.
A skill check represents an attempt to accomplish some goal, usually while under some sort of time pressure or distraction. Sometimes, though, a character can use a skill under more favourable conditions and eliminate the luck factor.
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 (such as using Climb to ascend a knotted rope, or using Heal to give a wounded PC long-term care).
For example, Krusk the barbarian has a Climb skill modifier of +6 (4 ranks, +3 Strength modifier, -1 penalty for wearing studded leather armour). The steep, rocky slope he’s climbing has a Climb DC of 10. With a little care, he can take 10 and succeed automatically. But partway up the slope, a goblin scout begins pelting him with sling stones. Krusk needs to make a Climb check to get up to the goblin, and this time he can’t simply take 10. If his player rolls 4 or higher on 1d20, he succeeds.
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 (for instance, a Disable Device check to disarm a trap, 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.
For example, Krusk comes to a cliff face. He attempts to take 10, for a result of 16 (10 plus his +6 skill modifier), but the DC is 20, and the DM tells him that he fails to make progress up the cliff. (His check result is at least high enough that he does not fall.) Krusk cannot take 20 because there is a penalty associated with failure (falling, in this case). He can try over and over, and eventually he may succeed, but he might fall one or more times in the process. Later, Krusk finds a cave in the cliff and searches it. The DM sees in the Search skill description that each 5-foot-square area takes a full-round action to search, and she secretly assigns a DC of 15 to the attempt. She estimates that the floors, walls and ceiling of the cave make up about ten 5-foot squares, so she tells Krusk’s player that it takes 1 minute (10 rounds) to search the whole cave. Krusk’s player gets a result of 12 on 1d20, adds no skill ranks because Krusk doesn’t have the Search skill, and adds -1 because that is Krusk’s Intelligence modifier. His roll fails. Now the player declares that Krusk is going to search the cavern high and low, taking as long as it takes. The DM takes the original time of 1 minute and multiplies it by 20, for 20 minutes. That’s how long it takes for Krusk to search the whole cave in exacting detail. Now Krusk’s player treats his roll as if it were 20, for a result of 19. That’s good enough to beat the DC of 15, and Krusk finds an old bronze key under a loose rock.
The normal take 10 and take 20 rules apply for ability checks. Neither rule applies to caster level checks (such as when casting dispel magic or attempting to overcome spell resistance), unless the character has the Arcane Mastery feat.
When more than one character tries the same skill at the same time and for the same purpose, their efforts may overlap.
Often, several characters attempt some action and each succeeds or fails independently. The result of one character’s Climb check does not influence the results of other characters Climb check.
For example, Krusk and each of his friends needs to climb a slope if they’re all to get to the top. Regardless of Krusk’s roll, the other characters need successful checks, too. Every character makes a skill check.
Even in some cases where several characters attempt the same action, with each succeeding or failing as a result of separate checks, characters can assist one another.
A character with 5 or more ranks in a skill who is engaged in a task using that skill can voluntarily accept a -4 penalty on the check in order to grant a +2 circumstance bonus on the same skill checks made by nearby allies engaged in the same task.
At higher levels, a character can grant more assistance, but at a greater cost. A character with 15 or more ranks in a skill can accept a -10 penalty on the check to grant a +5 circumstance bonus on the same skill checks made by nearby allies engaged in the same task.
An ally must be within 30 feet of you to gain the bonus, and you must be able to see and hear each other.
Typically, only the following skills can be assisted in this manner: Balance, Bluff, Climb, Craft, Diplomacy, Escape Artist, Handle Animal, Hide, Move Silently, Ride, Search, Survival and Swim. In special circumstances, other skills can benefit from this assistance, or perhaps that characters may be denied the benefit from this form of assistance even when using the skills described above.
Source: Complete Adventurer (Page 96)
You can help another character achieve success on his or her skill check by making the same kind of skill check in a cooperative effort. If you roll a 10 or higher on your check, the character you are helping gets a +2 bonus to his or her check, as per the rule for favourable conditions. (You can’t take 10 on a skill check to aid another.) In many cases, a character’s help won’t be beneficial, or only a limited number of characters can help at once. The DM limits cooperation as he or she sees fit for the given conditions.
For instance, if Krusk has been badly wounded and is dying, Jozan can try a Heal check to keep him from losing more hit points. One other character can help Jozan. If the other character makes a Heal check against DC 10, then Jozan gets a +2 circumstance bonus on the Heal check he makes to help Krusk. The DM rules that two characters couldn’t help Jozan at the same time because a third person would just get in the way.
In cases where the skill restricts who can achieve certain results (such as with Disable Device, Search and Survival), you can’t aid another to grant a bonus to a task that your character couldn’t achieve alone. For instance, a character who doesn’t have the trapfinding class feature can’t use Search to help a rogue find a magic trap, since the helper couldn’t attempt to find the magic trap on his own.
When a character with 5 or more ranks in a skill uses the aid another action to assist another character’s skill check, he can grant a higher bonus than that described above. For every 10 points of the helper’s check result above 10, the circumstance bonus increases by 1. Thus, a result of 10—19 would grant a +2 circumstance bonus (as normal), a result of 20—29 would grant a +3 circumstance bonus, a result of 30—39 a +4 circumstance bonus, and so on.
This higher bonus is available only to helpers with at least 5 ranks in the skill being used. Only experienced characters have the ability to provide the extra assistance offered by this rule.
Optionally, this rule can also be extended to using the aid another action in combat to improve an ally’s attack roll or AC. Any character with a base attack bonus of +5 or higher can grant a greater bonus on an ally’s attack roll or AC as described above.
Source: Complete Adventurer (Page 96)
See also: Aid Another in Combat
It’s possible for a character to have two skills that work well together, such as someone with both Jump and Tumble. In general, having 5 or more ranks in one skill gives the character a +2 bonus on skill checks with each of its synergistic skills, as noted in the skill description and on Table: Skill Synergies.
This synergy bonus increases by +2 for every additional 20 ranks the character has in the skill. For instance, if you have 5 or more ranks in Tumble, you get a +2 synergy bonus on Balance checks. If you have 25 or more ranks in Tumble, this synergy bonus increases to +4, with 45 or more ranks to +6, and so forth. In some cases, this bonus applies only to specific uses of the skill in question, and not to all checks. Some skills provide benefits on other checks made by a character, such as those checks required to use certain class features.
In addition to helping a character’s own skill checks, skill synergies can be used to aid the checks of allies as well. A character with 5 or more ranks in a skill that offers a bonus on another skill due to synergy can make a check using the first skill to aid the skill that would normally receive the bonus from synergy.
The normal rules for aiding another still apply, and the character must be able to make the check himself. Some combinations may be difficult to imagine, but reasonable synergistic aid another attempts should be possible.
Source: Complete Adventurer (Page 96), Epic Level Handbook (Page 38)
Your DM may limit certain synergies if desired, or he may add more synergies for specific situations.
Sometimes a character tries to do something for which no specific skill really applies. In these cases, you make an ability check. An ability check is a roll of 1d20 plus the appropriate ability modifier. Essentially, you’re making an untrained skill check. The DM assigns a Difficulty Class, or sets up an opposed check when two characters are engaged in a contest using one ability score or another. The initiative check in combat, for example, is essentially a Dexterity check. The character who rolls highest goes first.
In some cases, an action is a straight test of one’s ability with no luck involved. Just as you wouldn’t make a height check to see who is taller, you don’t make a Strength check to see who is stronger. When two characters arm wrestle, for example, the stronger character simply wins. In the case of identical scores, roll a die.
| Task | Key Ability |
|---|---|
| Breaking open a jammed or locked door | Strength |
| Threading a needle | Dexterity |
| Holding one’s breath | Constitution |
| Navigating a maze | Intelligence |
| Recognizing a stranger you’ve seen before | Wisdom |
| Getting oneself singled out in a crowd | Charisma |