Complex Roll- Who Wins, and What's the Obstacle

Burning Empires General Questions
1

The situation: a very messy firefight. The enemy Anvil commander is trying his darnedest to find the rebels and get a lock on them, but the rebel kerrn commander’s been jarred by some suppressive fire- so the other PC, an insurrectionist has taken over.

So it’s Advance vs. Observe, as the rebels try to storm the food depot (a Position 3 location.)

My dude has 4D Observation, and gets 2 successes. He also wears Anvil Armor that gives him +1 obstacle to all his Observation rolls.

Tavis does not have command. He rolls his Beginner’s Luck Will of 5, and gets 3 successes.

So, I think this is a tie- Tavis needs to get twice as many successes as me, which would be 4, but I have +1 obstacle, so that’s 3 instead. So I don’t exceed what I needed to get to Observe him. (Unless the +1 obstacle in a versus test translates to -1 success, which would give Tavis and obstacle of 2. He’d still fail, because it’s a Position 3 place.)

So, that’s curious, because however you calculate it, we both pretty much fail.

But I want to know what to give Tavis for his advancement. Is this a Routine test (he only needed 2 successes- my 2, minus 1, times 2, or if he needed 3, my 2 times 2, and then minus 1), a Difficult test (he needed 4- my 2, times 2, and my +1 obstacle doesn’t factor into his calculation), or a Challenging test (if the +3 Position of the position counts as an obstacle increase- he was trying to beat me by three, but the text of Advance does not specify that this is actually an increase in the obstacle.)

2

It’s an ob 5 test for advancement.

Add the obstacle penalty to your opponent’s successes, don’t subtract from yours.

3

That’s pretty much the one obstacle I was not at all expecting to hear. I am now baffled. Could you elaborate?

4

Obstacle for an advance is equal to the position being occupied, right?

The versus test successes add to that.

5

So that’d be 7 then, because the advancer is making a beginner’s luck test and base obstacle doubles, yes?

6

It’s an Ob 7 test, so he fails that, but it counts as Ob 5 for advancement. Advancement doesn’t count the doubling for Beginner’s Luck.

-B

7

I would factor the Beginner’s Luck test at Ob 10, but that’s just me.

8

That makes sense. Double the base Ob the Position adds, and double the rolled successes your opponent gets which still count as the base Ob for your action. Harsh!

-B