Is it possible for a person to fail a roll on purpose?

Example... My investigator is traded in location A and I draw an encounter that says if I fail a skill check I am moved to location B and have another encounter. This would be beneficial to me because a monster is outside of location A. My question is if the investigator qualifies for the skill check can I force him to fail it without rolling?

Is it possible for a person to fail a roll on purpose?

Example... My investigator is stuck in location A and I draw an encounter that says if I fail a skill check I am moved to location B and have another encounter. This would be beneficial to me because a monster is outside of location A. My question is if the investigator qualifies for the skill check can I force him to fail it without rolling?

Chagned word "traded" to "stuck". Sorry : (

If you have the dice, you roll them. In combat, you can choose not to use weapons to boost your combat check, beneficial vs Nightgaunts especially.

I have never done so myself, but is it possible to "turn off" Skills and Allies for purposes of trying to fail a Check?

I consider all investigator cards optional, which means you could ignore ones that give flat bonuses to skills.

Really? I didn't think you could choose not to use cards that give a passive bonus, such as skill or ally cards.

"Wait here, Tom, I'm going alone. This is going to work out really, really well. Trust me."

It can also prove useful when you're not allowed to gain a certain type of resource(like monster trophies) due to a fail condition of a personal story, for instance. Like the salesman's personal story: he fails it if he gains three monster trophies. Failing the personal story, he gets a curse and he cannot be blessed as long as he has money remaining. That's what happened in our last game with Yig; it was better to let the third monster kill him(and he would have walked out with an injury) than gain that curse, which got him devoured.

zealot12 said:

I could see that, but what shocks me is that you somehow failed Bob's really easy, really nice pass-clause on his PS. I mean, collect 5 Clues to pass??? That's a breeze! And afterwards you can once per turn cash in $3 for 1 Clue. Or maybe it's just for me, since I don't generally fight monsters if I can get to a gate without dealing with one.

Well, he starts without Clue tokens and didn't manage to draw any Clue-producing items,although he did draw an Elder Sign on startup) and was forced to battle monsters more than once.Actuall,y having accumulated 5 toughness worth of monster trophies with two trophies,I thought he could trade those for clue tokens at the Science building, but fate interferred, and several critters blocked his path.

My use of Bob after getting IH is: first turn, Curiositie Shoppe, Turns 2-4 (ideally) collect 5 Clues. If the investigator order is nice enough, could even trade off his money to another investigator and hit the double-clue location on turn 1. Should things go his way, another double-clue on turn 2. He shouldn't be even going near monsters, especially if/when he accidentally gets 2 monster trophies.

we play that you can choose to fail a check without trying.

the rules say nothing about it, but if i don't want to try, then i don't want. if i don't want to jump over the pit, i fall in it. i don't see why this shouldn't be possible. this can be argued for luck (and maybe will) checks, but we rule it for everything. a high skill shouldn't be a disadvantage.

letsdance said:

Most encounters are clear on whether the investigator (and hence the player) has a choice or not. If there is no choice and you have dice, hope you fail (can of course use a reroll Skill if you have one). If you have a choice, then decline the check if passing would be a bad thing.

msmithamp said:

The way I play it, anyway, you cannot simply choose to fail a roll. You don't need to use any optional bonuses you have if you don't want to, but I would insist on you using passive bonuses. The investigator has a sense of self-preservation that isn't always in line with what's mechanically best for you as a player. As much as you know that losing to the nightgaunt will help you win the game by dropping you in a nearby gate, it's not so easy for your investigator to just ignore the giant flying beastie that's clawing at his torso. He will try to fight it, although he might "conveniently" find his shotgun is empty and he doesn't have time to reload it. Similarly, an ally who grants a passive bonus won't just let you go into the mouth of danger - they're your ally, they care about you. Even if you tell them to stay back, they'll just sneak up and look for an "opportunity" to help.

Bottom line, as I've said several times before, the game is automated. It can't react to player's tactics other than how it's programmed to do. Anything that makes it harder for the players keeps the game interesting longer, so I generally side against the players in questionable situtations. I believe this philosophy has even been given the term "Arkham's Razor" in past forum discussions. =)

You can choose not to roll if the text says "may make an XXX check" but assuming the check itself is not optional, the dice you have must be rolled.

Steve-O said:

but this shows, how bad that suggestion is. either he tries to fight it, using whatever he can or not. the distinction between active and passive skills is stupid. if you just read the posts here, people don't agree if allies are active or passive. forgetting to load the gun on purpose doesn't really need a comment, does it?

always using all possibilities, because the investigator doesn't know the consequences doesn't happen anyways. otherwise you'd have to roll all your clue tokens to avoid failing any check. but in fact, you decide buying (or not buying) additional dice with clue tokens, depending on the consequences, as if you knew them.

therefore i see no reason why investigators shouldn't as well decide on failing a check on purpose depending on consequences, as if they knew them.

Dam said:

The problem with our game was that on his first turn, Jenkins went to the other world(I think it was Celeano), since he started with an Elder Sign. killing his first monster-the one that was guarding the gate. then had to fend off another monster in OW encounter. A monster surge occurred while he was still in another world, putting more monsters on that gate, so he had to evade them in order not to meet the three monsters' quota. It was a nerve-wrecking game for poor ol' Bob, ha.

I now realize he could've avoided all difficulties simply by trading his Elder Sign to another investigator and letting him do all the fighting and other world exploration. Oh, well...

If you want to fail a roll, all you have to do is roll the dice without first getting an attractive member of the opposite/preferred sex to blow on them for you.

I think that if the game wanted you to try and fail at skill check then it would have given you the choice to do so and it would say so in the rules. Since it doesn't say anything in the rules about failing in purpose I guess you cannot do it. But if you are not to hang up on the rules I don't see why it couldn't be done. That is why house ruling exists. Also, you could argue the "self preservation" thing by claiming that your character is fed up with the horror and wants to end it with any way possible.