Assigning Difficulty to Actions

The Target Difficulty is a number used to determine how likely an action would succeed under “average” circumstances and the ability/trait would be used to affect such a number.

Step 1. Determine Target Difficulty

The Narrator will provide this number. Typically, this is generated by predicting how likely a “generic human” would be to succeed at the action or it may be provided in-game.

Step 2. Determine Trait-of-Ease

Reduce the target difficulty set in Step 1.A. by the score of the corresponding Trait. This is the action’s new target difficulty number.

Adjusting Speed for Accuracy

There are times when it may be advantageous to wait before acting or acting with haste is worth the risk of accuracy. Once speed and target difficulty have been determined for the actions, all players have an additional choice to either to continue as planned, adjust their character’s speed/difficulty, or bide.

Speed vs. Accuracy

By choosing to adjust their character’s speed and difficulty, you can decrease up to one (and only one) level in speed stage in order to decrease a level in difficulty or vice versa. If Antagonists chose their actions first, then Protagonists choose whether to make an adjustment first (or vice versa). This adjustment step allows each character to sacrifice accuracy for speed or speed for accuracy.

For example, it has been determined that a Protagonist is going to draw a “sheathed” rod and fire a Calm spell at a charging monster to hopefully prevent an attack. The speed of this action is slow (it has more than two movements: draw, aim, fire) and the difficulty has been set at 7 as it is a large monster. The Lead decides that she wants to sacrifice accuracy to increase the speed of the draw. The action is now in the “regular” speed bucket and the difficulty raises to 8.

Biding

By choosing to “bide”, your Protagonist remains still this round in order to have the action resolve first next round. Bided actions resolve before any other actions in the next round (even quick phase actions). If you bided in the previous round, you may choose to perform your bided action, continue to bide the action, or switch actions. Performing a bided action decreases the target difficulty by one (and only one regardless of how many turns the action was bided). Switching actions does not garner the bide bonus and timing is resolved as normal for the action; however, the target difficulty is increased by one for switching the bided action.

Adjusting Difficulty for Size Class Differential

When attempting to attack or otherwise affect a bioform of differing size, the target difficulty will increment or decrement by one for each difference in size class from the actor.

For example, Breamith is a soldier trying to put a large Gelephant to sleep. The Gelephant is two class sizes larger than Breamith. Due to this, the target difficulty for the attack is increased by two.

Determining Difficulty for Supporting Actions

Sometimes the action of one character supports the action of another character, such as a group of spellcasters conjuring a bridge.

For supporting actions, add the lobe-of-ease scores for all the supporting characters and reduce the target difficulty by this number. In addition, after players draw their cards for the action, the cards are combined to form a single hand. The action is successful if there are at least a number of successes equal to or greater than the participating characters.

Example: Conjuring a Bridge

 

Character                Surge  Focal

Chay                         3          1

Grobin                      5          2

 

Chay and Grobin are working together to conjure a simple bridge to span a narrow, but deep chasm. The ability associated with this action is Surge and the lobe-of-ease is Focal. The Narrator determines the target difficulty to be a 9 for the action.

 

The scores of the characters’ traits are combined to reduce the target difficulty to 6 (9 – the total of Chay’s Focal(1) + Grobin’s Focal(2)).

 

The modified difficulty for this action: 6

 

Since the ability for this action is Surge, Chay will draw 3 cards and Grobin will draw 5 cards. They will combine the cards into one hand and refer to the best two cards, attempting to get two successes of 8 or higher.

 Determine Difficulty for Opposing Actions

Sometimes the action of one character is in direct opposition of another character’s action, such as peers participating in an arm wrestling match.

For opposing actions, the difficulty for each participating character is equal to the opponent’s score in the associated ability plus the opponent’s score in the associated lobe plus the number 3 (Ability Score + Lobe Score + 3). If both characters make their target or if both fail, the action is a stalemate. A character wins the opposing action if they are able to meet or exceed their target and their opponent is not.

Example: Arm Wrestling Match

 Character                Labor  Focal

Chay                         4          1

Grobin                      2          2

 

Chay and Grobin are participating in an arm wrestling match. The ability associated with this action is Labor and the lobe-of-ease is Focal. To determine the target difficulty for each participant, sum the opponent’s Ability and Lobe score and add 3. Doing so means Chay’s target difficulty is 7; (Grobin’s Labor(2) + Grobin’s Focal(2) + 3 = 2 + 2 + 3 = 7) and Grobin’s target difficulty is 8 (Chay’s Labor(4) + Chay’s Focal(1) + 3 = 4 + 1 + 3 = 8).

 

The base target difficulty for Chay: 7

The base target difficulty for Grobin: 8

 

For each character, the target difficulty is reduced by lobe-of-ease as normal. With Focal as the trait-of-ease, the target difficulty for Chay is now 6 (Chay’s base target difficulty(7) – Chay’s Focal(1)) and for Grobin, the target difficulty is now also 6 (Grobin’s target difficulty(8) – Grobin’s Focal(2)).

 

The modified difficulty for Chay: 6

The modified difficulty for Grobin: 6

 

Since the ability for this action is Labor, Chay will draw 4 cards in an attempt to get a 6 or higher and Grobin will draw 2 cards to get a 6 or higher. They will do this every round until one player draws a success and the other does not.

Determining Difficulty for Complex Actions

Sometimes the action of one character is both in direct opposition of one or more characters and in support of other characters, such as two allies pushing a resisting enemy inside a teleporter.

In instances where characters are performing supporting actions in opposition to the action of one or more characters then the target difficulty of the supporting characters can be found by adding the sum of scores for each supporting character’s ability, each supporting character’s lobe, and the number 3 (Ability Score [for each supporting player] + Lobe Score [for each supporting player] + 3).

Example: Pushing an Enemy into a Teleporter

 

Character                Labor  Focal

Chay                         4          1

Grobin                      2          2

Dread Vonkul          5          3

 

Chay and Grobin are working together to push Dread Vonkul into a teleporter. The ability associated with this action is Labor and the lobe-of-ease is Focal. To determine the target difficulty for Chay and Grobin, sum Dread Vonkul’s Ability and Lobe score and add 3. Doing so results in a target difficulty of 11 (Dread Vonkul’s Labor(5) + Dread Vonkul’s Focal(3) + 3 = 5 + 3 + 3 = 11).

 

The base target difficulty for Chay and Grobin: 11

 

To determine the target difficulty for Dread Vonkul, sum Chay and Grobin’s Ability and Lobe scores and add 3. Doing so results in a target difficulty of 12 (Chay’s Labor(4) + Chay’s Focal(1) + Grobin’s Labor(2) + Grobin’s Focal(2) + 3 = 4 + 1 + 2 + 2 + 3 = 12).

 

The base target difficulty for Dread Vonkul: 12

For Dread Vonkul, the target difficulty is reduced by lobe-of-ease as normal. With Focal as the lobe-of-ease, the target difficulty for Dread Vonkul is now 9 (12 – 3).

 

 

The modified target difficulty for Dread Vonkul: 9

 

For Chay and Grobin, the scores of the characters’ Focal lobes are combined to reduce the target difficulty to 8 (11 – the total of Chay’s Focal(1) + Grobin’s Focal(2)).

 

The modified target difficulty for Chay and Grobin: 8

 

With the ability for this action being Labor, Dread Vonkul will draw 5 cards in an attempt to get a 9 or higher. Chay will draw 4 cards and Grobin will draw 2 card. Chay and Grobin will combine their cards into one hand and pick the best two cards, attempting to get two successes of 8 or higher. These draws will continue every round until one side draws a success and the other does not.