I know there is a guideline in the book already and probably some house rules floating around, but I had this thought recently, and so far I think it could work well.

What do you think?

When making Extended Tests, you can make a number of rolls equal to half your Rating in the Skill (round up) plus two. If the Threshold isn't met after these rolls, you failed and have to start over.

Using the full Skill Rating (as opposed to the Dice Pool as normal) as the cap was my first idea (as with many others apparantly), but that seems too harsh for low Skill Ratings (or those with a Rating of 0), hence the half Rating + fixed number approach.

Bye
Thanee

I use rating + 1 rolls for skill critical tests (not all extended tests are skill critical, like reaction in combat)

edit: rerolls = rolls

The +1 is the same as my +2, since you list rerolls.

Isn't full Rating too much, though?

Common Thresholds do not seem to be that high, and even the highest ones still seem reasonably easy to manage that way.

Typical Extended Tests are Availability or Programming (there's also Hardware stuff and Hacking on the Fly; anything else, that's important to look at?).

Thresholds there go as high as 20, but that seems to be about the upper limit (or is there anything with more than 20?). Typical stuff is more like 8-12.

On average, you need 60 dice to beat the 20 Threshold.
(Skill Rating 4 / Dice Pool 10 under your system, nothing outrageous.)

You should be *really* good to manage that without some luck, IMHO.

Threshold 8-12 shouldn't be overly hard to do with an average Skill Rating, though.

I think half Skill Rating works quite well there (in theory at least).

Bye
Thanee

I use the skill rating (instead of the suggestion dice pool rating) to cap the number of attempts. If you can't succeed in that time, you basically give up thinking you can't do it (people do that in RL). If you can get a new positive modifier to your dice pool (like better equipment, aid, etc.) you can try again.

Come to think about it that makes extended test with low skill almost impossible... I underestimate the chances of glitching. Perhaps I'll use the dice pool instead.

Still, a newbie hacker with cheap program (dice pool 2) will not be able to get admin access even to an easy system (threshold 7) without using edge.

We use the Skill rating as the number for extended test rerolls as well and haven't had any problems with that. Personally, I think that the dice pool as a limitation is still to easy.

Just to chime in, we use skill rating as well to cap the amount of attempts for an extended test.

Using Skill Rating was my first idea as well, but that seems too harsh for low Skill Ratings (or those with a Rating of 0), hence the half Rating + fixed number approach.

Bye
Thanee

..yup, skill rating as the cap. Even with this, I find characters usually have a fairly good chance if they posess a decent skill. I do no allow the use of edge on extended tests for that can make it way too easy.

Well, Edge would only count for a single test then (not each)... so why not? Edge is meant to give an edge.

Bye
Thanee

...I've seen some really outrageous incidences of exploding 6s (including one which I rolled recently for my own PC Hannah who had only 3 Edge). Yeah it's supposed to reflect that "lucky shot", which is why I tend to reserve Edge for situations where the character's bacon is on the line. Messing up on an opposed test means you usually just have to start over again.

About Extended Tests: I usually have a difficulty threshold on extended tests. This keeps them from getting silly. You may need to get 12 successes but when the threshold is a 4 then you may only get 1 or 2 per interval. This can make it take a while.

About exploding dice: Don't use them around open flame...

No seriously. My rule is that you can never have more successes from a pool then the dice in that pool. If you have penalties that take that pool down to 3 but all explode - you still only have 3 successes.

Edge adds to the dice pool. You can't have more successes then the total number of dice you rolled.

I don't really allow for the lucky shot that way. I cover that with a good roll from one side and a critical glitch from the other side. This makes them rare (but usually funny).