Success Degrees on Extended tests

[pathstrider]

Was hoping someone could help....

When you conduct an exteneded test, do you still use the degrees of success table?

Cause if you do, I'm not sure how....

Thanks!

Mark

[Lt Cmdr Matt]

You do to a certain degree. For example if you wanted a player to make a TN 20 equivalent test then you could say TN100 but you have five rounds to do it in. 20x5=100

If you wanted them to do a mundane test that just takes a wile you could have a TN 5 x 10 = TN 50.

Everything is relative and the formula for it is Original TN wanted x Rounds it takes to do the action= Total TN

[FDor]

In my game I use following:
I state time taken by each attempt (seconds, minutes, 10 minutes, hours or whatever) and total target number (say 50 or 100).
That way character can be assumption of time taken by test depending on his skill (say, if skill total is +3 then each roll is averaged to 10, say 5 minutes per attempt TN 50 time estimate is 25 minutes). If time available would be 15 minutes then that character could be in a hurry. =)
That way I can create long lasting tasks without a need to roll for each round and using amazingly high TN numbers.

If task is difficult then I assign minimum number for succesfull roll (say, TN 10 for that example).

I am not absolutely sure was this the official version or not.

Vesku

[pathstrider]

Thanks for the replies, but what if it's the case you're using an extended test to see how long a PC takes and there is no set time limit?

The example is that I know the PC's have about 6 hours to repair their ships systems before they get to the enemy. Several systems (well, lots actually) are damaged.

Now, say they have an agregate TN of 45 each - when a PC hits that TN (Say after about 3 hours worth of rolling) how do you establish the degree of success - would it be on the final roll that gets over the TN? Or could they roll again to get a higher success (and cut the time down)

And how does a failure work since you could just keep going (Though I suppose this does increase the time and so does the same.....

Sound of a penny dropping

Nuts. Nevermind.

Though I now appreciate another aspect of the system

Mark

[FDor]

Originally posted by pathstrider
The example is that I know the PC's have about 6 hours to repair their ships systems before they get to the enemy. Several systems (well, lots actually) are damaged.

Now, say they have an agregate TN of 45 each - when a PC hits that TN (Say after about 3 hours worth of rolling) how do you establish the degree of success - would it be on the final roll that gets over the TN? Or could they roll again to get a higher success (and cut the time down)

And how does a failure work since you could just keep going (Though I suppose this does increase the time and so does the same.....

I tend to think that system is just either repaired or not repaired. There is no superior success with extended tests, character has a very specific goal he is trying to reach and is not making any miracle moves (if reducing time is not counted). If character does the job fast he might as GM to roll for making a better fix on the system. First he would think of a theory before starting to do actual work (at least on Starfleet). Theory could be a extended test but with higher minimum TN per roll required.

Depending on missing cap to reach required TN character can make a estimate of time left needed to repair the system.
Let's assume shields are damaged and can not be brought up. There is an aggregate TN of 45 to fix them, each attempt taking 10 minutes. After 10 minutes (one try) captain informs engineer that shields must come up very soon. Engineering team has taken a lot of systems apart and are fixing them properly. Now only thing they can do is try to put them together fast and try to keep system up. There is a table in NG that specifies TNs for quick repairs, that could be very useful in that kind of situations.
If characters have unlimited time they rarely fail in extended tests. If test is very difficult (TN 20 .. 25) characters with poor skill could cause failures and more damage (as with skill successes).

I hope this helps at least a bit.

Vesku

[pathstrider]

Actually, when I was reffering to superior successes, it was for the cutting down of the time it takes to do the task -rather then extra shiny results

But thanks for the help.

Mark