OK. I've done a bit of a search through the past topics, but wasn't able to access the old forums for some odd reason. This is something I'm reasonably sure has to have been asked before but I don't know what the answer was.

Essetially: An adept can center for success or against penalties for Stealth, but how exactly would you apply this to open tests where the highest roll wins and there are no set target numbers?

To my knowledge no rules are given for that.

[RANT]
My suggestion: talk your GM into the elimination of all open tests, as they are bastard rules antithetical to all of the ways dice work in the game except for the fact that someone got a hair up their ass to make a new test that bothces the &%&@ out of a dice system that worked well and was intuitive before. It tosses aside the whole "success" system of multiple sucesses instead using an absolutely @$$&#($ method of either you succeed or fail, period. It's the worst thing in my opinion, since Greedo shooting first. It is the spawn of all satan. It is the d6 antichrist. it kills baby kittens.
[/RANT]

check the FAQ and the MitS errata--somewhere, it says that on open tests, you add half your centering die directly to the roll. i emailed rob about this way back when, and that was the answer he gave me.

Or short of BitBashers spot on rant you could just roll half your centering dice in the open test (cause its two centering sucesses per real success right? SO two dice per one dice). (wohoo I guess the faq contents )

[rant]Which is the way the cursed complementary tests ought to have been so we could avoid the nonsense of rolling the full die number then halving the results which has the three disadvantages of requiring that more dice be rolled, requiring that more sucesses be counted, and requiring a division by two to come up with a test which has insignificantly different odds from just rolling half the dice to begin with! Not to mention the fact that complementary skills, by thier very nature, encourage and reward whining for dice on practically every non-combat test in the game.[/rant]

Bitbasher: While I do agree that it would be nice to eliminate open tests from the game, the specific example of stealth strikes me as one where an open test ends up working much better than a standard # of successes test. I cant think of a way to use the existing visibility modifiers without making it VASTLY easier to hide than it is to notice someone hiding.

Assume the base TN for both the perception test and the stealth test is 4, and you have goon A with stealth 6 trying to get past a guard with int 6 and stealth 6 in partial lighting (+2 perception TN). Even with those 6 complementary skill dice, the guard will average only 1-2 successes, while goon A will average 3 successes. Now lets assume goon A has a ruthenium suit and 4 image scanners -- even in broad daylight, the guard doesnt stand a chance of seeing the goon because he needs to get as many successes at TN 8 as the goon gets at TN 4, which simply wont happen.

If you have managed to devise a completely reworked system of perception test and stealth test modifiers that keeps the two balanced against each other without interfering with other aspects of the game (such as combat), I'd like to see it. The way the rules are, I dont think a straight conversion over to a standard opposed test would work particularly well

Lilt: I have altered the way complementary skills work somewhat in my games for the sake of simplicity, and that alteration just happens to work rather well in this case. If you dont mind a houserule solution, roll the centering skill against TN 4 and add one die to the stealth skill test for every two successes gained on the centering test.

you'd have to come up with a set of modifiers for the guy using the Stealth skill. things like +1 TN per perceiving entity you're aware of, +2 per perceiving entity you're not aware of (GM wouldn't tell you whether or not that mod applied, of course), mods for terrain type, etc.

no dodge necessary. high AC!

Y'know, you could try other ways to even out the wild dumb-luck results of open tests. I've been frustrated by their generally inconsistent and wild results in the past but never spent a moments thought on altering it.

I just thought of a relatively painless way: have them roll twice as many dice and average the two highest rolls.

Well, we didn't have to deal with any open tests in second edition, so use those rules for the appropriate tests. No making up anything necessary.

Could someone describe to me the 2nd edition method? Was it any good?