How works traits wile helping?

I have though of some cases where I don’t know what to do while helping:

  • an adanan with Zenite to the core helps in a geology task, theoretically he has an extra d20
  • what about Intense Scrutiny during en extensive task, can it decrease resistance ?

Regarding your first question, I think the rules are pretty clear: “Assistants may only ever roll 1d20 while assisting.”, p. 82 of the Core Rules. Only the leader can roll more than one die. Bonus dice of Assistants never apply.

As for talents, as I see it, the rules are silent. Yet, I’d argue that talents do not apply. First, any talent that would grant bonus dice would not apply due to the abovementioned rule. If no talent would apply, all talents would be treated equal. Second, teamwork and assist is designed to grant a single bonus die. GMs are encouraged to not allow more than one assistant for the most tasks and can apply limitations and/or penalties for every assistant after the first, p. 81. Applying talents to assist rolls would imbalance this.

That being said, the specific talent you mention would, in my opinion, not apply, regardless of one’s position regarding the generall applicability of talents. Intense Scrutiny is specifically triggered when succeeding at a task. Yet, assistants do not succeed to tasks. Instead, with (of course) the help of the assistants, the tasks’ leaders succeed. Thus, the Intense Scrutiny of the assistant is not triggered.

Just as an obiter dictum: Foci would apply. :wink:

I would allow the players to create an advantage (cf. p. 91 for extended tasks), maybe for the reduced cost of one instead of two momentum. For instance, if a player with Intense Scrutiny would assist in an extended task the talent would be applicable in, if the player was the leader, I’d let the players have Scrutinize 1 for two or down to zero Momentum, depending on the circumstances. Another idea would be to simply increase the complication range by the amount of the effect, representing the risk of too many persons having a say in how to do things.

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Thanks for your reply.
I agree with you it’s rules as written. But i think that sometimes it’s a bit illogical, because of the talent, the quality of help is increased.
As a game master I tend to resolve the above mentioned examples this way:

  • only one die by assistant
  • Zenite to the core assistant will have a re-roll for his dice only
  • On a critical success of the assistant I will reduce the resistance by 2 (and only 2) with Scrutiny if the task leader succeed and generates at least one effect

I want to know what do you think of it

Well, why not? I would probably make my players use Momentum to establish these advantages, but they seem balanced enough to be granted by circumstances.

Regarding Intense Scrutiny, you may want to look at p. 91 of the Core Rules (at least in the english version. I tend to assume that you don’t use those…? Je suis curieux: existe-t-il une version francaise?) for an advantage you might want to grant because of the talent.

Star Trek is a setting where assisting each other is a common thing to do. The effect is that players almost always get at least one die from an assisting player. Sometimes this feels to easy. So I’m greedy for Momentum. But this is a question of playing styles.

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I didn’t want to give the full scrutiny 1, this would need a full create advantage, task, and 2 time intervals, the most important value of all, just an edge from the good help.
Yes, I’m French, but I’m using English rules. I didn’t want to make it with a momentum price because basic uses of momentum can roughly do the same without talent.

Well, the advantage, in my opinion, is paid for once, but active throughout the whole extended task. Normal Momentum spends are paid when activated. :wink:

Just a note on assisting with talents- there are some talents that specifically talk about being used as part of an assist.

For that reason, any talent that talks about “succeeding at a task” I would take the assumption that it does not apply to an assist, unless stated otherwise.

However, there would probably be some exceptions. The “Direct” task is specifically a task that can be used by a command officer, providing an assist. You could argue that by using direct you as still completing a task. This gets very interesting when you take a combination of talents (Advisor + Follow my Lead + Pack Tactics, as a veteran captain can get stupidly powerful).

At the end of the day, I can make a case for a GM to rule either way.

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