If an external circumstances makes a task easier or harder. Modify the difficulty up or down. Usually it should stay within a three point swing. Once you get to a -4 or +4 difficulty modifier you are in the realm of "impossible to fail" or "impossible to succeed".
Bonus/Penalties
+/-3 Major penalty/bonus
+/-2 Medium penalty/bonus
+/-1 Minor penalty/bonus
+/-0 Basic normal situation
If the character background, innate traits, or emotional state would make a task easier or harder. Add bonus dice or subract penalty dice. You have a little bit more leeway to stack dice since +4 dice or -4 is not as extreme as +4/-4 difficutly, but try to keep things reasonable.
Example, character is picking a lock
Picking a lock with a lock pick is normal. Base difficulty. Using a masterwork lockpick makes it a bit easier. Using a magical lockpick makes it really easy.
Using a logical improvised tool like a piece of wire would make things slightly harder. Using a stick would make things a lot harder.
Difficulty modifiers for picking a lock
+2 a stick
+1 wire
0 normal lock pick
-1 masterwork lock pick
-2 magical lock pick
Now let us look at bonus or penalty dice.
"Hey I've seen this type of lock before" would be +1 bonus die.
But lets say this is a well planned heist and in preparation for the heist, you bought an exact duplicate of the lock in question practiced with it dozens of times for rehearsal. That would be +3 bonus dice.
The most obvious source of penalty dice is being wounded (it's written on the character sheet how much you are penalized at different health levels). Failed
Fatigue rolls also give dice penalties on everything. These stack.
Less common personal modifiers are also applicable at the Game Master's discretion.
Distractions are a thing. Going back to the lock pick example, if the person is picking a lock while his friends are fighting a skirmish to keep enemies away from him, he's going to want to look away from what he's doing, so that's at least one penalty die.
If the lock picker has to pick a lock while hanging upside down on an improvised rope harness, that's probably two penalty die.
If the character is hanging upside down, near a big battle, and failed a fatigue check, thats four penalty dice.
Bonuses and penalties can cancel each other out
You could have a situation where you get three bonus dice for having practiced on this type of lock thoroughly and get two penalty dice for hanging upside down. That washes out to ONE bonus die.
Just don't overcomplicate things, when things look like they might get bogged down fall back on
the Golden Rule of Dramatic Dice Systems.
An example of overcomplicating things
Let's say you are shooting at enemies with a bow.
"You got the high ground so that's -1 difficulty. There is smoke cover so that's +1 difficulty. The target is prone so that's another +1 difficulty but you have a magical buff providing enhanced eyesight so that's -1 difficulty."
"What about the flare, does that negate the smoke?"
"Yeah, that's -1 difficulty to hit, but it also creates a bit of glare which is even worse with your magically sensitive eyes so that's +1 difficulty. Oh wait their camoflaged too..."
"Yeah but my character is color blind, remember?
That's a lot of extra steps to get to "difficulty 6".
Comments