Yes, it is true that if he gives himself a +2, if he rolls an 18 or 19 while straw man rolls a 1-6, he will still get beaten, but not as badly: in an extended contest he forfeits fewer AP, and in a simple one ends up dazed rather than hurt, or hurt rather than injured. But he also increases his chance of winning, because when he rolls 18 or 19 straw man is more likely to roll 7-19, in which case he wins (the exchange) instead of losing. It's not that bad a deal.
> If the augment reduced the dice result, e.g. a 3 augment would
> reduce a die result of 8 to 5 would be far better. It would mean
> that the augment would have a real effect.
Yes, it could have an immense effect: among other things, even a -1 to the die roll means he can no longer fumble, and has doubled his chance of a critical; given a skill of 17, he would normally need a +5 to get that effect. The real trouble comes when *both* sides augment in this fashion: you end up with vastly many more situations where both sides critical than you meet under standard rules. This means that, when both sides get a chance to augment, simple contests will much more often end in ties, and extended contests will have lots of "narrator decides" results. You could say that such die reductions must be cancelled (e.g., Iron Hand has -4, Straw Man has -2 ==> Iron Hand has -2 and Straw Man is unmodified), but in extended contests that still results in many more transfers to the augmented contestant than you would otherwise see.
> I haven't had time to do the math and unsure exactly where to
> start. Anyone have any idea whether this would be a good rule
> change for augment??
It would certainly make small augmentations much more powerful. The questions are whether it makes them too powerful, and whether you can live with the side effects (more ties/transfers).
Ryan Caveney
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