Magical skills, like spell-songs, are all open-ended. We don’t spend a Fate artha to make them that way.
So if I meet an Ob 6 test with a Song of Bonding B2 (two 6s, two more 6s, and another two successes), does that stay a Challenging Test or become a Difficult Test? After all, I rolled 6 dice on an Ob 6 without spending any artha. By the chart that’s Difficult, not Challenging.
Or do the exploded dice never count, even without artha?
You’re not actually rolling more dice, you’re technically just re-rolling sixes–even if you use different dice to do it. It still stays a Challenging, because you were rolling an effective B2 vs Ob6. It works just like if you’d used a Fate to open-end it. (In case you weren’t aware, on tests that are already open-ended like this, you can still spend Fate, only it lets you re-roll a traitor instead!)
Thanks! Good to know. I wasn’t that lucky, by any means, but I could have been and I wondered.
You can use Fate to reroll one traitor when tests are already open-ended?! I had no idea. I missed that in the artha chapter. I’ll have to review it again.
Damn, there it is, right on p. 66. Awesome.
P. 66: “If the roll is already open-ended–Perception, Steel, Faith, Sorcery–then the player may reroll a single traitor (which is not open-ended).”