I thought I had most of the basics of this game down by now, but we encountered something that had me a bit off balance last night in our game.
During a Duel of Wits, one character with very few social skills was using Beginner’s Luck for almost every roll. A couple of enthusiastic members of the audience were handing out helping dice, and they hade skills to do it with. Now - these helping dice, are they still counted only as one die for the Beginner’s Luck test (with the whole lot of dice counted as “half-successes” since they are rolled unskilled) or should these “skilled dice” somehow be rolled separately?
By the same logic - the two bonus dice awarded for a Dismissal, should these also be simply added to the Beginner’s Luck dice pool, or are they also separate in some way?
Sadly, helping dice take on the characteristic of whatever test you are doing. For example, Henadad, He Who Is Full Of Grace and Whose Dance Is Without Equal (Dance W7) helps your un-skilled Dancing roll with his two white shade dance dice, they roll in your hands as two B shade Speed dice.
Don’t think of it in terms of “half-successes,” think of it in terms of doubling the base obstacle. Even if the player gets more dice to roll, they’re still facing the same obstacle.
At the heart of it, a beginner’s luck test is really just a stat test with a couple of quirks. At least, that’s how I understand it. (Though that raises the question - can stats therefore help beginner’s luck? And would the helper then earn a test as per beginner’s luck for the skill, or would they earn a test for the stat? And if the latter, against the doubled obstacle or the original?)