You can't take 20 in 4th Edition.

[RobbyPants]

The fighter only gets one shot in her entire life to force a door open.

Or until she levels or gets some further bonus; failure indicates that the door is too tough for her, kicking it again won't make the door flimsier. This isn't perfect, but its way better than take 20 where the DM either decides: this door can be kicked down or this door can't be kicked down, and nothing is really up to chance. There is never a chance that the players will succeed, it's always guaranteed success or guaranteed failure where taking 20 is possible, and that is stupid.

I take it you've never kicked a door down before.

The door absolutely is flimsier for the second kick.

The real problem with this example here is that it should be resolved with an attack that deals damage. If you don't succeed, then you at least deal some damage (assuming you overcome hardness) to make the next attempt easier. It should never be modeled with a flat success/fail d20 roll in the first place.

The success/fail model can make sense in other situations, so long as multiple attempts wouldn't make successive attempts easier. So, trying to climb a wall won't get easier each time, but trying to break something probably will.

[Psychic Robot]

I don't think that it's accurate to say that kicking down a door does damage to it. Yes, the locking mechanism is damaged, but structurally, the door is fine. I expect damage to a door to result in rents and splinters. If your foot goes through the door, then you can call it damage. But since you don't actually harm the door itself, it's incorrect to say that a kick damages it.

[Koumei]

The door has HP: HP in this case is an abstract number representing how good it is at doing its job. What you're implying is that HP == physical size or structural integrity, in which case piercing attacks would be less damaging due to creating a smaller area of physical harm than clubs and axes.

[Psychic Robot]

Yes. Yes, they would. But this is 4e, and we don't have hardness or DR based on (physical) damage type any more.

[JonSetanta]

Abstraction is the key here.
Taking 20 shouldn't be as literal as it seems (or is in 3e)

Instead it should be like decreasing resolution with an image to the point when details are insignificant, you see the Whole Picture.
Like zooming out in Google Maps.

The situation would be: "Did the party get through the door?" or "Did the party acquire the information they needed?"
The optional details are: "How long did it take?" and "How much of their (abstracted non-time physical) resources did the effort consume?"

Upon removing the details, an encounter becomes binary.
Yes or No.
Pass or Fail.
Sometimes it's desired, sometimes not.
There could be more to accomplishing the "when" and "how long" than that...


A single d20 check is made to "save time"; pass means DM does not add more time, fail means DM adds more time. A specified number of fails might be accumulated as a limit and no retries allowed beyond that point since it's impossible within .

Time passed is randomized by DM and the scale is decided (minutes, hours, days). Perhaps a fistful of d6s suffice to generate a total.
Party rolls more dice to reduce the abstracted time total. One d6 removed from total per individual, perhaps more if trained, even more if prepared and/or supplied.
Task is completed regardless.

[RobbyPants]

I don't think that it's accurate to say that kicking down a door does damage to it. Yes, the locking mechanism is damaged, but structurally, the door is fine. I expect damage to a door to result in rents and splinters. If your foot goes through the door, then you can call it damage. But since you don't actually harm the door itself, it's incorrect to say that a kick damages it.

I guess I'd still want to use some damage metric (HP) for tracking how close you are to busting the door open. Whether it's the lock, the door jamb, the frame, or the door itself, I don't really care; I just want that door open.

Similarly, 2E had an entire column in the Str table for opening stuck (not locked) doors. The idea was that age and changes in humidity and what-not would swell the door stuck. I think the HP system applies here much better than a single pass/fail roll as well. The HP aren't representing the door's structual strength, but rather, how close you are to getting the door unstuck.

So, long post short: as I said above, for some situations, a simple pass/fail will do. Other situations are affected by past attempts and need to take this into account.

Yes. Yes, they would. But this is 4e, and we don't have hardness or DR based on (physical) damage type any more.

Ugh. One more reason I'm glad I didn't switch.

[Roy]

Have your Wizard punch the door down.