Perception question

Burning Wheel Subsystem Advice and Guidance
1

On page #43 of BWG it states "Perception, Resources and Faith tests must be successful to count towards advancement. " and on page #66 it states under the Luck option, “If the roll is open-ended Perception, Steel, Faith, Sorcery then the player may reroll a single traitor (which is not open-ended)”.

This leads me to the conclusion that Perception tests are open-ended and so you don’t need to spend a Fate to re-roll 6’s. However due to this advantage failures don’t count towards advancement. While listening to a podcast the host mentioned that somewhere on these boards Luke mentioned reversing this rule. Perception would not be open-ended, so you would need to spend a Fate for Luck. However failures would count towards advancement.

If this is accurate, can someone point me to the article so that I can read what Luke suggested rather than taking the word of some guy.

2

Perception is no longer open-ended. That sentence on page 66 is a holdover from Revised and is in the list of errata on the wiki. See: http://www.burningwheel.org/wiki/index.php?title=Burning_Wheel_Gold_Errata#Open-Ended_Tests

3

Perception is no longer open-ended as it was in older versions of the game. However, you still need successful tests to advance.

4

So was this done because perception gets so many tests that it was advancing too quickly?

5

Essentially, although that is maybe a bit backwards in terms of how it went. It was made non-open-ended to eliminate a needless exception in the game rules. But playtesting showed that if it was allowed to advance like any other stat, players could use wises and beginner’s luck rules to very rapidly get the tests they need to make it shoot up too quickly. So the requirement that only successful tests count was kept in place.

6

Is Steel, Faith and Sorcery still open ended? Do resources and Faith still need successes to advance? It almost seems like the resources rules are stacked heavily against you. As if no matter how many resources you start with eventually you will be broke. Of course I am possibly paranoid due to the fact that dice hate me.

7

Well, the Resources rules are stacked so you need to do something besides wander around spending money. You’ll either need to be pretty shrewd and make heavy use of Help and Linked Tests, or you’ll spend much of your time using Get A Job to recover taxed Resources. Speaking of which, it’s time for me to go to work…

(Adventurers who do not bring in mighty hauls of loot do tend to become poorer, yes. And in the game.)

8

After playing for a while, I have to say the Resource mechanic works wonderfully - because it is rather punishing. Not only does it create a lot of incentive for adventure and creative playing, it also dissuades the players from using their resources unless it really matters. And all that makes for difficult choices, which makes for interesting play.