Yep, thanks.
I had another ?: When you're dealing with D&R together you just add them together to find out how many stones the player has to over come. Like with weight: if the D=2 then R=2 and the player has to put in at least 4 stones in a related action/ability. I think thats correct.
But I have no idea how the resistance deals with flying or driving vehicles. How are you supposed to know how many operators the craft requires to run at optimal output?
Thanks again. ;D
Difficulty and Resistance are seperate factors.
Difficulty is the effort/skill required to do the task just once, or partially. For example, a small safe at my house may have a Difficulty to being cracked at 2. A safe at Fort Knox might have a Difficulty of 4. Yet they both may have the same Resistance--let's say, 8 stones of effort total.
That would mean that if your character has Thieving at Lv. 3, he could crack my home safe, but it would take 3 panels. Three stones in the first panel, 3 in the second, and 2 in the last to total the 8 stones needed to overcome Resistance. However, your character would NOT be able to crack the Fort Knox safe. Yes, he could put in 8 stones of effort over time--but they'd be useless since the safe is more complicated than he can handle (it's Difficulty is too high.)
A safe that had a Difficulty of 1 and a Resistance of 2 could be cracked by your character in 1 panel, by just putting 2 stones into Thieving. Keep in mind that a device CAN have a higher Difficulty than Resistance. For example, the safe may rely upon intimate knowledge of locks, and have a Difficulty of 9--but once you know the trick, it's a snap, and so the Resistance is only 2. A character could then open the safe with only 2 stones of effort, but he would STILL need to have Thieving (or some other appropriate skill) at Lv. 9.
You might want to also note that Resistance doesn't have to be some low number... if you can only put 5 stones per panel into cracking a safe with a Resistance of 600, that means you'll be at it for 120 panels (1 hour, according to the Duration row of the D&R chart.)
For vehicles, it works the same way. If no one on the team has an appropriate ability that's high enough to match the vehicle's Difficulty, the team can't operate it, period. If someone does, then the team can pitch in and operate it, with the skilled character giving direction to the others. They all then combine their stones of effort each panel, and are hopefully able to overcome the Resistance and operate it.
Unlike safes and other items however, vehicles don't loose Resistance as you apply stones. You have to apply the stones to overcome Resistance *each* panel. If the team can't overcome Resistance each panel, they get partial results.
Example:
JADE - 4 stone regeneration, Vehicle Ops. Lv. 3
BLUR - 5 stone regeneration, Vehicle Ops. Lv. 2
JOHN DOE - 3 stone regeneration, no Vehicle Ops. Action
CORTEX - 4 stone regeneration, Vehicle Ops. Lv. 5
ACE - 3 stone regeneration, Vehicle Ops. Lv. 9
BREAKOUT - 6 stone regeneration, Vehicle Ops. Lv. 6
The above team is wandering an alien planet, wondering how to get off, and come across a mysteriously abandoned small spaceship. They check it out, and everything seems OK. The GM states that the ship has a Difficulty of 8 and Resistance of 16 to being piloted (it's largely automated.) Since Ace has a high enough Vehicle Ops., they can fly the ship. They hop in, and Ace directs them each to a console, and gives them each a quick rundown on what to do.
Jade puts 3 stones per panel into Vehicle Ops.
Blur puts in 2 stones/panel.
John Doe puts in 1/panel (3 into AGI, with a -2 Sit. Mod. for no V.Ops Action.)
Cortex puts in 4/panel, since that's as much as he can regenerate.
Ace puts in 3/panel.
Breakout puts in 6/panel.
Together, they're putting in 19 stones per panel toward flying the ship, which is enough to do it and cover for minor situation modifiers. (As it stands, since John Doe is pretty much wasting 2 stones of effort per panel, he could sit out and put his stones toward making coffee or something and they'd STILL be OK.) The team takes off and heads home.
Had Ace not been with the team, they would have been stuck--no matter how hard they tried, they wouldn't be able to fly the ship at all since no one else had Vehicle Ops. of 8 or better.
Had Breakout not been with them, they would have only been able to put in 13 stones per panel. The ship might have flown, but only partially--laser cannons might not have worked, or they might have had navigation problems, etc. The GM would determine the results of only partially overcoming the Resistance.
-Wayne
