Modified Rule of Six, ...and "always having a shot" Options

[GunnerJ]

I've tried, since SR4 was announced, to stay current on all the important discussions, but alas, I have recently fallen behind. So, if an idea like what I am about to suggest has already been brought up, my apologies.

Some people seem worried that the new system will remove the possibility that existed in SR3 to always be theoretically able to succeed, no matter how hard the task. This is because the Rule of Six made it so that no matter how high the TN was, there was a theoretical chance that at least a single die could hit it. With the new system, it is feared, this will go away. If you need at least X successes against a TN of 5 and you have less than X dice to roll, tough luck.

I don't think it necessarily has to be this way. The "always have a shot" feel of SR3 can be maintained in SR4 with a simple reworking of the Rule of Six. Basically, if you get a 6 on a die roll, not only do you have a success, you can roll that die again. This process does not terminate, so if you roll a 6 again, you get another success and another re-roll. If, on a re-roll, you fail, then you stop and have as many successes as the roll generated so far. Same with a 5 on a re-roll, except you get another success before stopping.

In this way, even a single D6 has a theoretical chance of generating any number of successes. It seems a very basic idea, so I'd bet someone else has thought of it; so again, sorry if this is redundant. But I figure this idea is worth a(nother) mention, at least for a potential house rule.