I discovered recently why most of the ambushes that I've set up during 3rd Edition have failed spectacularly, falling foul of such lethal PC weapons as... Spot checks, and that mother of all annoyances, Scent.

While I can't do anything about the latter (although you could make it harder for an ambush to be sniffed out using magical wind or other extraordinary effects), the answer to the former is spectacularly obvious and something that I forget about on a regular basis: Take 20.

There's nothing in the SRD's Hide entry that says you can't Take 20, but there are a few complications, most notably that the Hide skill is in effect an opposed roll (versus your opponent's Spot check)... therefore how would one be able to repeatedly retry when the outcome of any one try is unresolved until your opponent wanders into shot? One possible answer is that you can only Take 20 on a Hide check if you have someone available to help... which then has other benefits, namely the use of Aid Another to get a further +2 bonus (or bonuses, from multiple allies) to help you with your effort.

However all of those factors are ignoring the obvious, in-game logic which is that given enough time and opportunities for cover or concealment, a skilled exponent can scout out a decent place to hide, secrete himself within it, cover his tracks, and use whatever detritus is available at hand to cover himself up. If he couldn't, then a villain who dove behind a bush with the PC's a few seconds behind him would have exactly as much chance of concealing himself as a ninja in active camouflage who took a day to dig a foxhole and cover the entrance with dried twigs.

Conclusion: characters, NPC's, and monsters can Take 20 on a Hide check as long as they have 2 minutes in which to do so. This makes ambushes suddenly very viable, as creatures with even average Hide checks (say, +8 to +10) are now setting Spot DC's in the high 20's/low 30's; meanwhile villains with exceptional Hide abilities will be practically impossible for all but the most experienced adventurers to spot, setting DC's in the 40's or 50's quite easily.

And that all sounds just fine to me.

Welcome! This is a new blog about roleplaying in general and d20 (my system of choice at the moment), meant as a way to organise my thoughts a bit, and maybe report on the roleplaying I'm doing... such as it is.

Who is the mysterious DM I'm chasing? Me, I hope. Somewhere out there is the DM I want to be, the guy who effortlessly adjudicates rules at the table, constructs exciting campaigns for his players, and has endless, ever-running ideas about where the game should go next and how he's going to do it. He's out there somewhere. I know it. Sometimes I think I'm reading about that guy when I check out the Story Hours on ENWorld, or read some of the threads that pop up over there, or when I stumble over some random guy's campaign web site that just blows me clear away. That's the guy I'm chasing. I don't even think I've caught sight of his coat-tails yet, but I could've sworn he dropped a bunch of d6's one time...

I'm no expert on the d20 rules... we just don't play regularly enough for the nuances to sink in, so don't expect this blog to be an authority on the game. I will make mistakes. I will post ludicrous narratives drawing derisive laughter from my peers. I will constantly change my thinking. But that's kind of the point... because maybe there are DM's out there who have the same questions that I do, who have slammed head-first into rules anomalies or contradictions and say to themselves, "I really should know the answer to this...", while being forced to make arbitrary decisions just to keep the game moving.

Hopefully those of you out there who do have superior rules knowledge (and experience of the game) will hop on board and offer your thoughts and guidance. That would be swell. Meantime, let's see what mess I can get myself into...

Edit (26/01/09): Obviously this blog is now much less about d20 and more about 4E. The circle of life in action. It also includes the ongoing adventures of my own little 4E group as they wind their way through the campaign world of Cradle Plain in pursuit of dreams (and loot), and a selection of reviews, articles, thought-provoking treatises, genre-shattering essays, and general chit-chat that I hope you, the fellow gamer, might enjoy.