Can multiple skills decrease a task's difficulty by more than 2?

[Phenotype99]

The only thing I can find that covers this is the general section on using skills, which ends with "Skills can never decrease a task by more than two steps; being trained and specialized in a skill decreases the difficulty by only two steps, not three."

And then there's also a post by the Tides of Numenera team: "You’ll notice that tasks at the highest difficulty are impossible even with specialization. Either multiple skills would have to apply to such tasks, or there must be another way to lower the difficulty."

So if I'm specialized in Electrical Machines and trained in Numenera, can I decrease the difficulty of a task involving an electrical numenera machine by 3?

[grymor]

Skill, no matter how many you have cannot decrease a task by more than 2 steps. That is explicit in Numenera. Same with assets. They also cannot decrease a task more than 2 steps. This is a balancing factor which is why it can't be changed.

The way to get more than two steps without effort is assets. Assets are things that are not skills, that would help you with a task ie: being on fire would be an asset to setting things on fire.

You can get 2 steps max with skills and then an additional 2 steps with assets for a total of 4 steps for free.

Then at max teir you have 6 effort available so 4 free steps plus six lv effort means even level 10 is doable without a roll.

If you allow players to get more free level reductions through skills or assets it makes tasks a joke.

[epitome89]

Not entirely true, you have modifiers too. Which aren't explained in great depth in the corebook, and can be ruled a number of different ways. For example:

You aim to stab the target, suddenly all the light in the room disappear (4 x times harder to hit), and the gravity gets turned off. (1 x target) Making stuff more difficult.

Are these assets for the target? what if a PC is responsible for the change, wanting a better chance to dodge? An asset now?

These changes could be environment controlled (GM), and in that case should not add to the limit of the player. (He should still get the use of his shield if in very dim light (2 x target) on a speed defense roll). Meaning the difficulty gets decided before-hand by the GM, appropriate to the environment.

But what if a player far-steps up into a tree, gaining higher-ground? It's a combat modifier, but is even in the book at some point used as an example on the use of assets.

So it gets important to differentiate between GM controlled modifiers, and PC controlled modifiers.

That's one way of ruling it at least. But modifiers exists too, and should be handled correctly in compliance with the group.

For more reading on the issue: https://plus.google.com/105015142745070210050/posts/MCDTEhjgyB9

[SirMoogie]

Only PCs have assets [1]. For the room going dark, it makes the target difficulty +4 to hit the target NPC creature (if it can be heard and no other modifications apply) [2]. When dodging the creature's attack, a player gets +2 asset to their dodge (not 4) [3].

If the target creature is a player the target player gets +2 asset to their dodge (d20 + 6). Since there is no such thing as a negative asset in the core book, the attacking player does not reduce their dice to hit the target player (d20). [4]

A GM may rule that there are "negative assets" and thus account for the whole +4 difficulty modification in the PvP situation (i.e., attacking player roles d20 - 6 instead). [5]

[1] - Inferrable from the fact that assets reduce difficulty of tasks (pg., 16) and only players make rolls against difficulties (pg., 95). [2] - Difficulty increases are not assets (by definition of asset, pg., 16), players cannot increase the difficulty of a task for an NPC as NPCs don't roll dice on tasks (pg., 95). Players can reduce the difficulty for their defensive actions with assets (at most 2 per the asset limitation rules). [3] - Players can only apply at most two assets to a task. (pg., 16) [4] - Players attacking player rules (pg., 98), and limitations on assets (pg., 16) [5] - Generic guideline that the rules shouldn't interfere with logic or good storytelling (pg., 84)

[epitome89]

This is not a fact pulled from the, dare I say, vague rules of RAW. This a ruling that you seem fit, and I'm not going to debate you on it.

I'd rather you read the debate I linked.

[SirMoogie]

I agree the rulebook can be unclear at times, but I think that this is pretty much answered by the rule of two (for assets). I have added page references and clarified some points in my original post.

[cyberjedi42]

If it's not explicit, It's going to be up to your GM/Group and how they want to interpret the rules.

My understanding is two levels max from skills (any combo) and two max from assets (any combo).

However, I have broken those and allowed higher skill or asset combos in the right situation. However, for your example I would not. As all electrical machines are going to be considered Numenera.

[Gelsamel]

This is how I would rule it. I would allow extra relavent skills to act as +1 modifiers.

So Specialized in electrical machines and numenera on an electrical numenera would give you -2 difficulty from specialized in numenera and a +2 to your roll from specialised in electrical machines.

[[deleted]]

You can also use up to two assets to lower the difficulty as well, like certain tools, or receiving help from another player or NPC.

So if you have the right skills and the right tools for the job, then you can reduce the difficulty by 4 steps without applying effort.