D&D House Rule: Retrying a Skill Check

This is part of the D&D House Rules series.

Sometimes a player fails a skill check and there’s no good reason they can’t just try again. Most systems allow the player to Take 10 or Take 20, which is an acceptable way to handle most scenarios. Otherwise, I allow the player check again with incrementing difficulty: Each failed check will increase the difficulty of the next check by the failure amount.

Example

Seri is a stealthy rogue that’s found herself alone with a locked treasure chest. She attempts to pick the lock (DC 15), but fails with a 11 (failed by 4). Since the player is not in combat and skillfully stealthed her way into this postiion, there’s nothing stopping her from trying again. I allow another attempt, but now the DC is 19 (DC 15 + 4).

Seri recognises this kind of lock and is confident she should be able to pick it. Knowing she’s alone and unknown, she attempts to pick the lock again (DC 19).

The player rolls terribly, a 3 (failed by 16). Now, the difficulty to pick the lock is a whopping DC 35 (DC 19 + 16).

Seri’s lockpick breaks off inside the lock and snaps loudly. You overhear someone asking “What was that?”.

Eventually, continued failures will identify the check as impossible or introduce new circumstances to the scenario (or both!).