Skill Chains and Assisting

[Misroi]

Hello everyone! I've only recently picked up Traveller, and have been suitably impressed at its rather svelte rules set. I've pretty much got the hang of how everything works, with the exception of skill chains.

I get that the idea is to take a difficult roll and make it simpler by performing tasks that lower the eventual DM. To make this plain, let's take a hypothetical example. The crew of the Starkiller are approaching a planet, but automated orbital satellites fire upon it. They destroy the satellites, but not before sustaining major damage to the ship. They're now careening towards the planet, and if they aren't able to pull up in time, they'll crash and turn into a spectacular fireball.

Let's also assume the crew wants to avoid this nasty fate, but due to the damage to the ship and the velocity it was travelling at, they're currently at a -6 to the roll. This is, of course, impossible unless they've got a bunch of modifiers, so let's say their pilot has two ranks in Pilot and an appropriate Trait DM of one (lowering the DM to a mere -3).

This is where things get fuzzy. Now, to deal with the -3, other crewmembers can perform other related actions that will lower the eventual DM, based upon the test they make. A few questions arise.

1. I assume the GM is the final arbiter for what constitutes a useful skill in this situation, and what does not. For example, rushing down to the M-drive to scratch-fix the engines would be an appropriate task, while trying to use Athletics to "get out and push" would not.

2. Does the task that the secondary (or tertiary for that matter) crewman undertake have the same DM? Or is it a lower DM? Or is it also up to the GM to assign an appropriate DM to the task they're attempting?

3. Once they make their test, they reference the Effect total chart, and give the next test in the chain the appropriate DM. Am I correct here?

Anything else I'm missing?

 

[nats]

I get that the idea is to take a difficult roll and make it simpler by performing tasks that lower the eventual DM. To make this plain, let's take a hypothetical example. The crew of the Starkiller are approaching a planet, but automated orbital satellites fire upon it. They destroy the satellites, but not before sustaining major damage to the ship. They're now careening towards the planet, and if they aren't able to pull up in time, they'll crash and turn into a spectacular fireball.

Let's also assume the crew wants to avoid this nasty fate, but due to the damage to the ship and the velocity it was travelling at, they're currently at a -6 to the roll. This is, of course, impossible unless they've got a bunch of modifiers, so let's say their pilot has two ranks in Pilot and an appropriate Trait DM of one (lowering the DM to a mere -3).

This is where things get fuzzy. Now, to deal with the -3, other crewmembers can perform other related actions that will lower the eventual DM, based upon the test they make. A few questions arise

I am not going to be much help here as MT rules leave me very confused and this is exactly a case in point.

But my understanding is that by using endless Mongoose cascading DMs and several continuing overriding rolls, one every hour for example, it is likely the characters will eventually save the ship whether its due to spending lots of time and rerolling several times over a few hours, with endless chain DMs, skill DMs, assistance DMs etc etc until they save the situation somehow by getting the engines back on or whatever. This is just not realistic for me and treats the characters as being blessed or omnipotent, ie they can do anything given time.

However how I would treat it (in Classic Traveller admittedly): the characters would have to suggest ways to remedy the situation dependant on what the damage actually is - for example fixing the computer (if thats the problem - esp if good computer bloke is around), calling for help (not very likely to be possible in the time but they may be able to slow then decent till help arrived from the planet), trying to fix the engines (if they are the problem - esp if a good engineer is available), using an evacuation bubble or vacc suit (last option esp if they have good vacc skill) or using manual controls to land the ship in the atmosphere (if streamlined and the pilot is very good). And dice rolls would be made for each attempt to suit the difficulty with various DMs for Skill, Int, Educ, Assistance, Tools etc. So the whole process would be split up into phases rather than lumping it all together into continuing dice rolls and lots of endless DMs. Sure if the characters are unskilled they arent going to last long but hey thats life!

Whether they actually save the ship would therefore be dependant on the characters skills which the characters would have to learn to play to, rather than, as in the first example above, trying the impossible over and over until it works.

 

[Mytholder]

Firstly, not all skill chains will lower the difficulty of the final check. It's possible to have chains that just open up the possibility of making that final roll. For example, say the characters are trying to steal data from a corporate headquarters that culminates in a character hacking open the secure safe. The previous tests won't make that safe any easier to open, they just allow the character to make the attempt.

1. I assume the GM is the final arbiter for what constitutes a useful skill in this situation, and what does not. For example, rushing down to the M-drive to scratch-fix the engines would be an appropriate task, while trying to use Athletics to "get out and push" would not.

Yep.

2. Does the task that the secondary (or tertiary for that matter) crewman undertake have the same DM? Or is it a lower DM? Or is it also up to the GM to assign an appropriate DM to the task they're attempting?

Up to the Referee. Set the difficulties based on the individual skill, not the overall chain.

3. Once they make their test, they reference the Effect total chart, and give the next test in the chain the appropriate DM. Am I correct here?

Yep, apply the chart on page 51. It limits the bonus or penalty that one check can give to the next.

 

[Mytholder]

But my understanding is that by using endless Mongoose cascading DMs and several continuing overriding rolls, one every hour for example, it is likely the characters will eventually save the ship whether its due to spending lots of time and rerolling several times over a few hours, with endless chain DMs, skill DMs, assistance DMs etc etc until they save the situation somehow by getting the engines back on or whatever. This is just not realistic for me and treats the characters as being blessed or omnipotent, ie they can do anything given time.

Your understanding is incorrect. The skill chain rules are there to cover situations where one skill check feeds into another, that's all. They're not there to make the impossible doable, and characters aren't omnipotent.

The rules do assume that the characters are doing things that are difficult but achievable. The Referee is free to declare that a lock is beyond the characters' skills or that the ship cannot be repaired no matter how well the players roll, but that, and the skill chain system doesn't override that.

 

[rust]

But my understanding is that by using endless Mongoose cascading DMs and several continuing overriding rolls, one every hour for example, it is likely the characters will eventually save the ship whether its due to spending lots of time and rerolling several times over a few hours, with endless chain DMs, skill DMs, assistance DMs etc etc until they save the situation somehow by getting the engines back on or whatever.

Well, no.

First one determines how long the intended action will take, and this in
turn determines how often it could theoretically be repeated. If a repair
attempt will take four hours and the ship will enter the atmosphere in six
hours, there is no way to make more than one normal attempt and per-
haps a second, very hasty one with a big negative modifier.

Even a very successful chain action with an effect of 6+ will only give the
next action in the chain a modifier of +2, so the final action of the entire
chain - the actual repair attempt - cannot be made easier by more than
this +2 modifier with a chain action.

So, no re-rolling until one succeeds, at least not with any actions that ha-
ve to be completed within a specific timeframe, and no way to make any
difficult action a real lot easier with a chain action.

 

[rinku]

Also note that unless the charcaters are decently skilled, skill chaining can easily *reduce* the chance of success:

Pilot-0, Dex 7 trying to improve the chances of a gunner hitting a target will give a +1 on a roll of 9-12, no effect on a roll of 8, a -1 to hit on a roll of 7, -2 to hit on a roll of 6 or less. Gunner says "thanks..."

If the net mods make the supporting roll +1 or less, you're usually better off not chaining (unless the situation is so deperate that at least +1 is going to be required to make the final roll succeed at all). Multiple chaining rolls rarely have much effect - those are more to *reduce* the net chance of overall success than to improve it (i.e. when the task is complex and may fail at several critical stages).

 

[Misroi]

I'd noticed that possibility, and it seems as though the assisting rules can lead towards PCs refusing to help each other, on the off chance they might actually hinder the task. To put this in context, I was looking at one of the Living Traveller adventures, and it seems to have some fairly high penalties to some of the checks for what is supposed to be an introductory adventure to the system and to the universe. Asking for checks in a skill that not every PC is going to have, and then having a -4 on top of it, seems a bad plan. The adventure suggests aiding and skill chains, but I didn't see how a skill chain could possibly help too much with that large a penalty.

 

[locarno24]

The adventure suggests aiding and skill chains, but I didn't see how a skill chain could possibly help too much with that large a penalty.

Long chains don't, really. As noted, one good prior assistance task (which you think you can reliably pass with effect 1 or more) will give you +1 DM.

However, what can help is not a single long chain but lots of shorter ones. Chains aren't always linear - they can branch, and rejoin.

Example 1:
A managing to breach the engineering compartment bulkhead, letting B get in and restore power letting C boost the engines back up to something like working order letting D make a better piloting check still only hands D a positive DM based on C's check.

Example 2:
By comparison, if A is working on the jammed aerofins, B is working on securing any loose cargo and transferring fuel about in the tanks to balance the ship, and C is working on the engines, all of these are doing something to directly benefit D's piloting check, and (assuming none of them screw up) you can get a better DM since you can get an effect bonus from each of them.

The problem is that (as in real life) there's a distinctly limited number of things in any situation one can do that can actually help, and coming up with something practical is one of the challenges that the players face. If there's only two things to do that are of any use, the other players just have to sit on the bridge and watch that planet keep getting bigger in the window.

This may well result still result in task chains, because (as in the first example) you may need to do several things before you can start working on the engines.


Other things to help - Taking Extra Time

Taking more time over something can give you a DM, although when the task is 'avoid hitting the planet', the time frame is kind of fixed...

Whether a task where time is available is better modelled as a single test with a 'taking time' DM, or a test that the player gets several goes at, is up to the GM, depending on the task. One 'all or nothing' roll certainly amps the tension, however the downside is that a failed roll for a catastrophic starship crash from orbit pretty much has to mean a total party kill.