Age of Sigmar RPG soulbound : How tests work - Part 2

Morning everyone !!

Every Monday we get new infos on the age of Sigmar RPG : Soulbound. last week we got a presentation on how test works : here and a week before that the presentation of the product here . Today we are looking at how opposed test works.

Opposed Test

In a ropeplaying game when two characters are in direct opposition, the GM will call for an Opposed Test. Combat, arm wrestlying, hide and seek are all opposed test.

The basic TN for an opposed test is 4 ( see test ). It's the difference with normal tests were TN reflect the difficulty of the task at hand. Here to goal is to roll more 4 than the opponent.

Example: Ahnika, a Witch Aelf of the Daughters of Khaine, is trying to escape an enraged Skaven Rat Ogor. She darts through the doorway of a crumbled warehouse in the Anvilgard docks and slams the door behind her, trying to hold it closed. The Rat Ogor roars and starts smashing its fists against the door, splintering the wood. The GM calls for an Opposed Test between Ahnika and the Rat Ogor to see if Ahnika can hold the door closed.

The GM decides that it is a DN 4 Body (Might) Opposed Test for both participants. Ahnika has Body 3 but is not Trained in the Might Skill, giving her a dice pool of just 3. The Rat Ogor has Body 5 and has one level of Trained in Might, giving it a dice pool of 6. Ahnika rolls a gets a result of 2, 4, and 5, giving her two successes (4 and 5). The GM rolls for the Rat Ogor and gets a result of 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 6, giving it four successes (4, 5, 6, and 6). The Rat Ogor wins the Opposed Test and smashes the warehouse door to pieces. Ahnika recoils from the splintering wood and starts running again.

If you are used to pen & paper rpg and ever played a "success based" game like shadowrun or any white wolf games (with d10) this is all very classical. The only surprise is the Tie Breaker, it say the defender win on a tie, i am not a big fan of this as it promote being passive and math vise the bonus is like +2dices on average.

Advantage and Disadvantage

To represent benefit and hindrance a side could have in an opposed test, Soulbound use Advantage and Disadvantage (note : Since DnD 5th this concept is super popular don't you think ?). Having advantage reduce test to 3 and having disadvantage increase tn to 5.

Example:Ahnika has managed to put some distance between her and the Rat Ogor, and quickly ducks into an alley to hide. The Rat Ogor catches up and starts sniffing around for the Witch Aelf. The GM calls for another Opposed Test.

For the Test, the GM decides that Ahnika must use Body (Stealth) and the Rat Ogor must use Mind (Awareness). Ahnika has Body 3 and is Trained in Stealth, giving her a dice pool of 4. The Rat Ogor only has Mind 1 but is Trained in Awareness, giving it a dice pool of just 2. Since the Opposed Test is taking place at night in the shadowy docks of Anvilgard, the GM declares that Ahnika has Advantage to hide and the Rat Ogor has Disadvantage to spot her. This means the DN for Ahnika is 3 and the DN for the Rat Ogor is 5.

Ahnika rolls and gets a result of 2, 3, 5, and 5, giving her three successes (3, 5, and 5). The GM rolls for the Rat Ogor and gets a 1 and a 4, meaning it has gotten no successes. The Rat Ogor stomps away and continues its search, while Ahnika breathes a sigh of relief.

At Gm discretion it's possible to increase or reduce Tn by 2 and affect one party or both of them.

I like this idea in modern game design were instead of counting each of the bonus/malus we have one big modifier. What i don't like is in conjunction with the Tie breaker rule : A player with disadvantage and the active role is very unlikely to succeed. Ex :with 9 dices (and that seem hard to get that many dices) trying to sneak past a guard with 4 dices in perceptions feel super hard. I know it's good that a game system encourage player seeking favorable situation but being a PC is also overcoming bad situation ^^

Group test

Group Tests are an excellent way to track success and failure as a group. Like Complex Tests from Part 1 , Group Tests require multiple successes. Unlike Complex Tests, they have a much higher threshold for success. The Age of Sigmar: Soulbound corebook will provide guidance on setting the DN and complexity for a Group Test, but on average the GM should assume two successes per participant. This means the typical DN for a Group Test for a party of four would be DN 4:8 (difficulty 4, requiring 8 successes total).

Nothing special here, normal group rolls

That's it for this week, we'll get more info on Soubound the Age of Sigmar Rpg next Monday(combat or magic would be awesome)

/Cheers.
bob.

source :https://www.cubicle7games.com/soulbound-how-tests-work-part-2