Exemplar Prestige Class - Take 10?

[PandaMaster619]

Hi all, I'm busy looking up for prestige classes for my bard and came across the Exemplar Prestige Class and in the description it mentioned "Skill Mastery – Choose (Intelligence modifier + 1) skills.
You may “Take 10” with these skills even when
under stress and/or when distracted."

So my question here is what does the take 10 mean? I add 10 to my rolls?

I'm relatively new to DnD so still got a lot to learn.

Thanks in advance.

[Dread_Head]

Take 10 means that rather than rolling a d20 to determine your success you instead take a result of 10. This allows you to accept an average result in situations where you will make the check with an average result but don't want to risk failing on a 1. For example a jump check over a 15ft gap and you have a modifier of 10. Most of the time rolling you will pass but if you roll poorly you will fail, by taking 10 you eliminate that chance of failure. Basically it lets you take out the chance of failure for using some skills which can be pretty useful for certain skills.

[Vaz]

It is worth noting that you cannot always take 10. When distracted, such as be leaping a chasm while being harrassed by archers or batswarms for example making it rough going and hence stopping you from performing at an average result, and hence you need to throw yourself into space with only luck to support you (plus your ability to jump based on ranks and appropriate skill modifying stat)

[Dread_Head]

It is worth noting that you cannot always take 10. When distracted, such as be leaping a chasm while being harrassed by archers or batswarms for example making it rough going and hence stopping you from performing at an average result, and hence you need to throw yourself into space with only luck to support you (plus your ability to jump based on ranks and appropriate skill modifying stat)

Under the standard rules for taking 10 this is indeed the case. However with the examplars class feature (or the rogues or a couple of others) you can take 10 even in these dangerous or distracting situations. Here are the rules for taking 10 in normal situations, I should probably just have linked them earlier they explain it pretty clearly. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/usingSkills.htm#checksWithoutRolls)

[BowStreetRunner]

Skill Mastery is actually quite a common ability which first appeared with the Rogue class (as an option at level 10) and has appeared in many prestige classes, alternate class features, and such ever since. It is obviously not useful when you need to roll higher than a 10 for success. But it is also less than optimal when you have it in a skill you never attempt to use while threatened or distracted. The corollary of this is of course that it becomes very useful when you only need an average roll to be successful but are constantly threatened or distracted or otherwise prevented from taking 10.

As someone who often plays the party skill-monkey, I am very fond of this ability. I rarely apply it to skills in which I normally take maximum ranks however. Usually, I apply this to skills that almost always have to overcome static DCs. Once I have those skills high enough that I can pretty much nail the checks by taking 10 I can then free up any future skill points for other skills.

[PandaMaster619]

Hey guys, thanks so much for the info it really helped. Was just curious as to how the "take 10" worked. It would come in pretty handy though that for a skill with high ranks will always be 20+ when used. The only difficult part is to choose which skill to develop high enough to make use of the "take 10".

Since I'm a bard, was thinking of making one of my perform skills use this take 10 so that whenever I play music to boost my team with bardic music it will never fail.

[DEMON]

To use a particular bardic music, you require a set amount of ranks in the perform skill. You don't roll a perform check however, and thus can't fail the check (as there isn't one).

[Chronos]

Well, you don't roll for most forms of bardic music, at least. Fascinate, for instance, has you roll a Perform check to use as the save DC (but that's going to be absurdly high even without optimization). But yeah, Inspire Courage (the most commonly-used one) is just automatic.

[Necroticplague]

Since I'm a bard, was thinking of making one of my perform skills use this take 10 so that whenever I play music to boost my team with bardic music it will never fail.

? You don't need to make Perform checks to use bardic music (except for Countersong, and Fascinate, which are rather meh).

[BowStreetRunner]

Concentration would be a good example of a skill that you can get up into ranks where taking 10 will usually succeed but you often need to use when threatened or distracted - such as casting defensively in combat. Tumble might be another good one if you can get ranks high enough to tumble through an opponent's space without provoking attacks of opportunity.

[Telonius]

Use Magic Device is another good one to take.

But backing up a bit, you mentioned that you're thinking of going into Exemplar from Bard. While Prestige Classes can help you focus on a particular aspect of the character, in some cases (where the focus is on a less-powerful part of your character) they can actually make your character weaker. Bard going into Exemplar is (usually) an example of this, if you're planning on taking more than a single level. One of the general rules of D&D in 3rd edition is that magic is better than mundane. A lot better. The more magic you can use, the more powerful your character is. Now, pretty much any Bard does a few things pretty well. They're good at casting, they're good at improving the rest of the party with their Bardic Music, they're charismatic and good at social skills (a natural "Party Face"), they have a big list of class skills, and usually a lot of skill points to play around with. While Exemplar is an interesting class, there two very important things it does not help with. It does not advance spellcasting, and it does not advance Bardic Music. This means that when you take a level of Exemplar, you don't get any new spells from your Bard list, and you don't get any new kinds of Bardic Music. If you're only in for one level, then that's probably okay. But don't take more than that.

Perform would actually be a good choice for Skill Mastery, if you have the Melodic Casting feat (from Complete Mage) - it allows you to use Perform instead of Concentration to cast defensively. If Complete Mage is available, you should definitely take that feat.

[Curmudgeon]

Use Magic Device is another good one to take.
Use Magic Device is the one skill you can't apply "take 10" to, regardless of circumstances.
Special: You cannot take 10 with this skill.

[Quertus]

Use Magic Device is the one skill you can't apply "take 10" to, regardless of circumstances.

Unless you can. IIRC, Warlock class ability lets you take 10 on UMD; I don't know if Examplar does or not.

Note, also, that rolling a "1" on most skills (UMD being the exception) does nothing, other than mean you only get a result of <your skill> + 1. Most skills do not have a "botch" result.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Warlocks have an specific exception to the "you can't take 10 on UMD checks". Exemplars AFAIK don't