Complimentary Skills & Open Tests Options

[Sigil]

Either I'm blind or missing it. Are there rules for complimentary skills and open tests? I don't see it in the main book and I've seen this before. I've seen '1/2 complimentary skill rolled', but don't know where. Or is this a house rule people use often? Thanks.

[Kagetenshi]

Thread from past week.

~J

[Dashifen]

That one came up again fast ;) No offense intended, Sigil, it's a good question and all but usually there's a longer turn around time :wobble:

[Sigil]

I'm asking where it -says- this. :) I've heard of it. I can't find it in the Core Rulebook.

[Ol' Scratch]

It's not an actual rule. It's a house rule derived from the standard rules for Complimentary Skills (SR3 p. 97). Technically, Open Tests can't make use of Complimentary Skills because 1) you have to score at least one success before you can make a Complimentary Skill Test while Open Tests don't use the success system and 2) Complimentary Skills grant one extra success per two successes scored, and that pesky "Open Tests don't use the success system" problem crops up again.

'Course Open Tests have no place in Shadowrun to begin with. They're wholly alien to the rest of the system. I have no idea what kind of crack they were smoking when they decided to introduce them into the game.

[Zeel De Mort]

Yep, I agree. Open tests are garbage. We've house ruled most of them away.

I kinda wonder though, what the hell is the point of things like Improved Ability (Stealth)? At least for Sneaking and Hiding, it's completely useless right? Assuming you're using open tests of course.

[Ol' Scratch]

No, it's not useless. Each die gives you another chance to make a high roll.

[Kagetenshi]

Indeed, it's far from useless. With six dice you can expect to give them a TN of 12+ one in every six tries. With twelve, that drops to one in three.

Since there's no pool applicable to Stealth (CEDs aside), an Adept with Stealth 6 and Imp. Stealth 6 is world-class in every way, except that it costs less to become even better.

~J

[Zeel De Mort]

But do extra dice count as natural on an open test? I'd need to read the rules, so long since we've actually used open tests..

[Ol' Scratch]

The problem, however, is that Mr. Nobody with Stealth 1 can still beat the bajeevus out of Mr. World Class Stealth with Stealth 18 by making a single lucky roll. Unlike any other mechanic in the game.

[Kagetenshi]

It doesn't affect your game mechanic skill level. Whether it means you're better at sneaking than you should be given your training or if it means you make mistakes but they magically don't matter (for instance, twigs not snapping when they might have normally, happening to open a door at the right angle so that it doesn't squeak, etc.) depends on the player or GM.

Hm. Or am I forgetting something in SR3? I don't have my books at the moment, but I'll check when I get back.

~J

[Zeel De Mort]

No I guess it must just be a house rule of ours. I can't see anywhere that it says you need to score a success with your skill dice for any successes with combat pool or bonus dice to be effective, which is what we play by. Odd, I always thought that was a real rule...

[Ol' Scratch]

You need it for most Pools (it's up in the front of the book where they're introducing the system to players), but not Improved Ability. The only time they're of no use is when a Skill Rating is a target number... and I can't think of any examples of where that's the case in the skills an adept can use that power with.

[mfb]

the MitS errata say that Centering adds half its dice to open tests. that's not quite a hard rule for all complementary dice, but it can be used to make a case for adding half complementary dice on any open test.

[Sigil]

Yeah, so it's a common house rule then. :) Thanks. I was curious where I'd seen it before. Thanks!

[toturi]

Actually it is essential that Imp Ability doesn't add levels to the base skill. For example if the Imp Ability added to the based skill, a PC with a skill of 1 can have Improved Ability of 6.

[Nikoli]

pg 169. BBB Corrected [12th ptinting (third printing by Fantasy Products)]
Improved Ability
You cannot have more additional dice than your base skill or your Magic Attribute, whichever is less.

As IA is not skill improvement, it would not add to any test as complimentary dice. IMO.

[Ol' Scratch]

Actually, it will. Those dice are used anytime the skill is used. They're just not considered "skill points." As previously mentioned, I have no idea why they made that distinction since functionally they are "skill points." An adept with Athletics 6 (Improved Ability: Athletics 6) is indistinguishable in practice from a mundane with Athletics 12.

[Nikoli]

Escept when a case of needing to use Athletics as complimantary dice for some other task. The Athletics 12 person would get 6 dice, the Adept with 6 Athletics and IA Athletics 6 gets 3. Big difference IMO.

[Ol' Scratch]

No, that would be your house ruling.

First of all, Complimentary Skills aren't halved. You just need two successes to equal one success.
Second, in practice, the adept would still be getting 12 dice.

I'm unaware of any situation where pure Skill is used alone except, possibly, in the case where a Skill is used as a target number. But since I can't think of any examples where that's the case either, it's a moot point.

[Nikoli]

Fair enough.
Though I think the main distiction of IA and skill improvement is that an Adept going from 4 to 5 in athletics and has IA athletics 4 only spends karma for the 4 to 5 not 8 to 9.

I cna definitely see your point on the text "added dice for all uses of the skill" that could definitely be interpreted as addtional dice in appropriate complimentary situations.

[Fortune]

The reason IA is worded in that way is to limit any applicable Pool dice. An Adept with Unarmed Combat 6 and IA Unarmed Combat 6 could still only use 6 dice from his Combat Pool. If IA added directly to the skill, the Adept could use (up to) 12 Pool dice.

[Nikoli]

And adepts are scary enough without that.

[Shockwave_IIc]

The only time it's better to have a skill at say 6 instead of a skill of 4 +4 dice from IA is in upossed tests. One guy is rolling 6 dice vs a Tn of 4, the other 8 vs a Tn of 6.

Big difference in the amount of success's, though im not sure how many skills actually work like that....

[Zeel De Mort]

Well there are still plenty of other times when having a skill of 8 is better than 4+4.

For example when teaching someone that skill at a level higher than 4, or when taking a specialisation in it, when you want to gain maneuvers in a martial art, or eh... lots of others I'm sure.

When making Skillchips, em...