More successes with low skills Options

[Xirces]

Does anyone have a good, simple, unbalancing house-rule on increasing the number of successes for low skill characters?

The situation I'm looking at is where Joe has a skill of 2 or 3, but wants/needs (for whatever reason) 4 successes. Currently, even with a TN of 2 a skill of 2 is never going to achieve 3 successes and that doesn't seem entirely right to me.

I saw a method once where for each die that came up double the base TN was treated as an additional success - in this example a 4 would count as 2 successes, an 8 as 3, a 16 as 4 etc...

(As an aside, this would also have the advantage of meaning that someone with very low skill has at least a small chance of staging up damage in combat)

Something like that would be good - but it would quickly get unmanageable with greater numbers of dice and there are certain situations where I probably wouldn;t want it to apply (although I can't think of any it seems likely there would be).

Any thoughts?

[Austere Emancipa...]

I give an additional success for every 6 by which a roll exceeds the TN. With a TN of 2, 8 would count as 2 successes, 14 as 3, 20 as 4, etc. This applies to all tests in my games (at least I can't think of any tests that it wouldn't apply to).

I don't like multipliers, so I always use addition/subtraction where possible. I've concluded that they are easier to do when very tired or slightly intoxicated or both.

[Diesel]

I do it for every 10 the die exceeds it by, making it extremely unlikely but still possible, as every now and again people will make those madass twelve+ rolls. But not usually. :D

[Sphynx]

Simplest rule is to let a success be a success.

Seriously, aside from certain combat and magic situations (both where you have some pool that can apply) and cybersurgery rules, the skill system isn't intended on needing multiple successes. Multiple successes just make your completion of the task that much faster/better. 1-success is enough is the best rule (and it's Canon. :P)

Sphynx

[Shockwave_IIc]

Actually with the exception of combat. The next most frequent and needed place for multiple success is perception. (sometimes i feel it's more important then combat)

[EDIT]
ettiquette tests in the legwork of published adventures[/EDIT]

[Austere Emancipa...]

[Kagetenshi]

I typically give an extra success for every 12 the rolled total is higher than the TN. I have a friend who is toying with the idea of giving an automatic karma point to anyone who rolls over a 24.

~J

[Tanka]

[Austere Emancipa...]

Every 1296th die will come up as 25 or more, so to get lots of Karma in such a game, just do a lot of menial tasks with a high skill. You'll get at least a few bonus karma per game in the long run.

[spotlite]

I've seen plenty of examples in printed adventures (contacts, especially) where one success just won't cut it and may lead to failure or innacurate results.

[Xirces]

The main areas I'd want to use it are combat, perception, B/R, Etiquette and healing. If someone has a skill of 1 and is attempting a BR task with a time of 1 hour, then they either succeed and take an hour or fail completely. Is that right? At least with a rule like this there's a possibility they could do it quicker...

[moosegod]

By the rules, yes he either succeeds or takes an hour.

[Kagetenshi]

The karma for +24 thing was dependent on player cooperation, as we did in fact think of making tests for everything under the sun. Furthermore, for anything someone is rolling four or less dice on, they have at least an equal chance of Rule-of-1ing it.

~J

[Talia Invierno]

Granted, we've added a Social Pool option, but shouldn't the existing pools be adequate for potential staging for most other tests? And if more successes are needed than can be rolled with the skill + appropriate pool, well, there's always room for personal improvement.

[Diesel]

Social pool...?, and damn Kag, my group wants that now.

[Talia Invierno]

IN + CH / 2 , for use with any CH-based skill.

[Backgammon]

We use double successes (not always, depends how generous I feel), but any 1s negate these extra successes. Works pretty well.

Of course, if you want a "good, simple, unbalancing house-rule", I suggest you triple the result of the roll and use that as the number of successes generated . :P

[Rev]

[Siege]

If your character needs more successes, (s)he probably shouldn't be attempting the feat.

Or hedge your bets with gadgets, gizmos and gear to better enhance your chances.

Alternatively, you can adapt the "take 20" rule from (ack spit) d20.

-Siege

[mfb]

i typically allow characters to spend karma to permanently raise their skills. i'm known as a pretty generous gm, though.

[Siege]

[RedmondLarry]

When it is important, a character can of course use Karma Pool to give additional dice to a roll, or can "burn" Karma Pool permanently for additional successes.

[GoldenAri]

If you've got 3 dice and need 4 successes use your karma pool. That's what it's there for. Now I don't mean burn points for automatic successes, just buy extra dice. I've never understood why so many players are averse to this. You can buy extra dice at a one to one ratio and it comes back at the end of the scene.

[Shockwave_IIc]

[GoldenAri]

I do have a question about the social pool. When would you ever have to split your dice? Why not just give everyone bonus dice to a CHA linked skills equal to the pool?