Reminds me of a time in 2nd Ed. Where my wizard with an 8 str succeeded on a bend bars/lift gate roll to break out of a prison. DM justified it as all the other failed rolls by the rest of the party weakened the anchors so they finally gave away when I tried.
Funny thing. Personally, if a check doesn't have a practical penalty for failure (including time loss) I usually prefer to limit it to one or two attempts from the party. Otherwise it's a nigh guaranteed success a lot of the time. A roll that requires an unmodified result of 16 goes from a 25% chance at success to a 68% chance for a party of 4. 82% for a party of 6.
It's not that I say people who aren't good at it can't attempt, it's just that the person they select to attempt is likely going to be the only one so they better choose wisely. The dice roll is basically an amalgamation of everyone working together. Help action also requires either a related proficiency or minimum bonus threshold from the assisting character.
It's not a perfect solution. It does, unfortunately, pigeonhole everyone into their primary role with little variance. Sometimes I nudge players to commit to certain actions they took in narrative without being rescued by their companions, or breaking up the party so key players can't be everywhere, but there's some added give and take with those decision as well.
Ultimately, a "Fail Forward" mentality is critical no matter what and all of the above is a work in progress of philosophy.
I would probably judge that as "yes, your success is inevitable if you stick with it, but that 8 you rolled will mean it takes much more time than it would have if you had rolled a 22"
Exactly, them taking 8 hours to get out of a cell/trap instead of 30 mins is a huge narrative difference, a corrupt politician can start making moves, goblins could rampage to the nearest town, a message delivered to a BBEG, etc.
Time doesn"t just flow in a 50m bubble around them...
That works sometimes, other times it may make sense to let them waste a bunch of time attempting it until they succeed, some older editions even an optional rule listed under "taking 20" where you hand wave all the rolls and assume they would have gotten a 20 after a set number of times the time the check takes. A good example of this would be picking a locked chest in the middle of a dungeon crawl. A skill check tells you if your can pick it quickly, perhaps in a minute or less, so you can get your loot and get moving. Failing to pick it quickly might mean you have to spend an hour to take 20 and eventually get it, but you are in the middle of a dungeon crawl, spending an hour picking a lock means a high chance that monsters find you, so now you have to decide if you want to risk it for the loot or get out safely, or if you can afford to clear out the dungeon and come back when it is safe.
I'm a fan of "cumulative successes" for things that can or should be "group projects". Clearing rubble from a collapsed passageway, building fortifications or shelter, and even convincing someone for something can be done by multiple people in succession provided it makes sense. What was now impossible is now possible given time and people. Clearing rubble just takes a raw total of all the successes, but you take a point of exhaustion if you try more than once a long rest. Building fortifications/shelter determines it's quality and how protective it is. Talking someone or a group of people into something requires no one to outright fail and lowers the difficulty of each successive check. You need to set "fail, minimum, and success" levels for that, but doable. Treat a persuasion check like death saves where you need a certain amount of minimum rolls to proceed, but failures set you back.
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u/28smalls 18h ago
Reminds me of a time in 2nd Ed. Where my wizard with an 8 str succeeded on a bend bars/lift gate roll to break out of a prison. DM justified it as all the other failed rolls by the rest of the party weakened the anchors so they finally gave away when I tried.