I seem to recall Alex mentioning something about this back in the depths of time (when the game was being playtested) but I can't remember what the conclusions were. If it's been done to death, if someone'll be kind enough to point me in the right direction I'll shut up!
Being an inveterate power gamer, this mastery cancelling thing worries me slightly. Say I've got an affinity of 1W3 and want to use it to gain a +4 augment it all comes down to a simple contest between my affinity and a resistance of 20. However, this means that the resistance is going to get a success 95% of the time, making it impossible for my character to get any more than a minor victory - whatever I roll.
Crank the bonus up to +5 and the resistance is now 5W against my 1W3. Now, the resistance only succeeds 25% of the time, making a major victory much more likely (I still get two bumps - 95% of a critical). Dunno about you lot, but it seems a bit weird that if I aim for +4 I'm likely to get it while if I go for +5 I'm more likely to get +10...
Another manifestation of this problem is transferring to the other side during a HQ. The rules say (and I couldn't see an errata for this, but I may be blind) that you need a major victory to succeed. This means that however high your skill, however carefully you prepare with feats, rituals and whatever else you have it all comes down to a toss up - does the barrier between the world make it's target number or not?
If this is a problem (and I accept that it's probably only a problem for people with an overly anal view of the world) has anyone come up with any ways 'round it?
Cheers,
Ash
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