...getting a bit hacked off with augments recently. They're too damned fiddly. You've got the never-ending arithmetic as the players narrate what they do, adds all the bits up and come up with a number.
I agree with his complaint.
My solution was (for simple contests) to just roll the contest without augments, then allow a rolled augment after the contest if it would change the result. ie TN 15, vs 10, roll 16 and 7 respectively (fail vs sucess). Our TN 15 could go for a rolled augment to get +1 (changing result to success vs success). TN10 could try to get a +20 to achieve a bump up to a critical vs success.
The negative effects of failed rolls are applied in some relevant way to the character, but not negatively affecting the contest. The player does not add augments, just picks the highest.
The idea is to limit the number of augments, because although you can roll lots of augments, but there is a risk of negative side effects, and once you've got a good result you're unlikely to improve it.
The effect is similar to what Ashley is suggesting - less minor accretions of minimal augments, with no clear guide as to what actually helped you succeed,, but potentially big results. For extended contests, you need to use an action to roll for an augment - but again, you only keep the highest result (negative results can be applied to other abilities or other contests).
I recommend trying this approach.
Keith
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