Am I right in assuming that if, when building a dice pool, the attribute and the skill are the same rank, no dice are upgraded?  To use the example in the book, say 41-VEX had an Intellect of 2 and a Computers of 2.  That would just be two Ability dice, right?

DailyRich said:

No, you would have 2 Proficiency dice.

DailyRich said:

The higher of the two numbers is the number of ability dice. In this case, 2. You then upgrade a number of dice equal to the other number. In this case, also two.

So you have 2 yellow dice.

-EF

 But if both numbers are 2, there is no higher number.  Or maybe I'm just being too literal…

DailyRich said:

You're failing to account for certain values of "2."

DailyRich said:

True. But If you have a skill you get upgrades, so the only time you roll only ability dice is when you have no skill ranks.

They could use one sentence that simply states, "if your skill rankings ability are the same, roll that many proficiency dice." Or something similar.

-EF

I and a friend of mine have purchased the books and are testing it in advance of our group getting together to play (this Saturday night). Thus far, we love a lot of the way the mechanics are, from obligations to motivations, the careers and specialization.

HOWEVER…

We hate the dice.  Mostly, because don't get it. We read through it several times, and continue to struggle. Is there some sort of "For example" walkthrough that we've missed? 

That would be HUGELY helpful in learning this game. From rolling the obligation percentile at the beginning, to initiative and combat, destiny, and everything else.  

Yeah, we feel stupid, since we just don't get it. We have had a gaming group playing RPGs from Star Wars Saga to the older d20 system to the even older D6 system to Pathfinder to Modern to Mutants & Masterminds- all since the late 80's. 

Did someone post a better breakdown or a 'for example' walkthrough of how this should go? If so, please link!

Something step by step would be incredible, rather than flipping to multiple locations in the book just to get past a couple of rolls (and the whole time that we're doing it right).

We really want to like this game and introduce our player to it.

If this was all covered in another post or thread, forgive me for not finding it.

Talon Wolfe

 well, You've got 3 good dice (pale blue, Green, yellow), 3 bad dice (black, red, purple), and the force die (not used much, more later)

Good dice have:

Successes, look like explosions

Advantages, Look like a winged crest with a dot

Triumphs, look like a saber in a circle

Bad dice have:

Failures, look like triangles, or 3 pointed stars

Threats, look like concentric hexagons

Despairs, like the failure in a circle.

Interpreting the dice pool:

Add up the success and triumphs, subtract the number of failures and despairs.  If this number is one or higher, the roll succeeded.  If it's less, the roll failed.

Add up the number of advantages and subtract the number of threats.  These can be used in various way depending on whats going on (Combat has some rules, each skill has some rules)

Separately, you can use any triumphs (even if the roll failed) and any despairs (even if the roll succeeded).  These don't cancel each other out (but the successes and failures they count as do).

Is that all clear?  I can see where there'd be confusion.  We can produce some examples if you need, but there aren't any that I'm currently aware of.

-WJL

And in terms of building a dice pool - every action a PC wants to take involves assembling and rolling a dice pool that is governed by the skill involved (even combat uses skills) and the difficulty of what is being attempted. Each skill has an associated characteristic, and a PC will have a numerical rating in each skill (often 0) or characteristic (always 1 or higher).

To build the dice pool for each action attempted, you take a number of green (Ability) dice equal to the higher of the governing skill rating and it's associated characteristic rating. You then upgrade a number of green (Ability) dice, equal to the lower of the governing skill rating and it's associated characteristic rating, to yellow (Proficiency) dice.

The GM then adds a number of purple (Difficulty) dice determined by the difficulty of the task you're attempting, which may be upgraded to red (Challenge) dice if attempting a particularly challenging task.

Finally blue (boost) or setback (black) dice may be added to the dice pool to represent particularly beneficial or complicating factors that aren't direclty related to your character's skill or the inherent difficulty of the task being attempted.

The pool is then rolled - all dice together - and the symbols interpreted as per LethalDose's previous post.

For example, say my PC wants to shoot his pistol at the dark Force user at the far end of a corridor illuminated by dim red emergency lighting. When making a ranged attack with a pistol (or any one handed weapon), you use the Ranged(light) skill, which has Agility as it's associated characteristic. My PC has Ranged(light) of 2, with Agility of 3. I take the higher of those two ratings (Agility 3) and add three green dice to the pool. I then take the lower of those two ratings (Ranged (light) 2) and upgrade that many of those green dice to yellow dice, i.e.: I remove two of the three green dice from the pool and replace them with two yellow dice.

The GM determines that the end of the corridor is at "Short" (previously "Close" before this weeks update) range from my PC, so that is an Average difficulty check which adds two purple dice to the pool. However, the dark Force user has the sense Force power active, which upgrades the difficulty of my attack, so the GM removes one of the purple dice from the dice pool and replaces it with a red die.

Finally the GM determines that the dim lighting provides my opponent some concealment, adding one black die to the pool, and my character used their maneuver this round to aim, adding one blue die to the pool.

Having assembled my pool, I now roll 1 green, 2 yellow, 1 purple, 1 red, 1 black and one blue dice, and interpret the symbols to determine success/failure and advantage/threat.

One suggestion I would like to make is that if a player(or the GM) can't think of anything to spend a Triumph result on then this could be used to buy a Destiny Point to add to the destiny pool (light or dark depending if its from the player or GM).  A player would add a light destiny point and a GM would add a dark destiny point. 

And to follow on from this, if a player (or GM) can't think of anything to spend a Despair result on then this could be spent to remove a destiny point from the destiny point pool (light or dark depending if its from a player or GM).  A player would remove a dark destiny point, and a GM would remove a light destiny point. 

This would ensure that the Triumph or Despair isn't wasted, particularly during non-combat encounters, by defering gratification of spending a destiny point later in the session, it would also make the amount of destiny points flow a bit more.

What do you think?

Triumphs and Despairs count as Successes and Failures, but they're not negated by Successes and Failures, just by each other, right?

It seems obvious, I'm just trying to be prepared for any possible player question.

DailyRich said:

So if I roll a Triumph and a regular Failure, the Success aspect is cancelled by the Failure?

DailyRich said:

Yes, but you can still spend your triumph in an appropriate manner.

Got it, we were having a good back and forth about that, since it doesn't really specifically state that it acts as a Success in all respects.