Roll mechanic
From Sagataflwiki
This article describes the primary roll mechanic of Sagatafl, including the rules for determining the degree of Fumble, as well as Safe Rolls, Opposed Rolls, Saving Throws, and...?
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Rolling
The primary roll mechanic of Sagatafl consists of rolling a number of twelve-sided dice (d12) equal to the rolled-for trait (skill, attribute, sub-attribute, or other stat), plus one extra die if the activity involves the specialization of the skill, e.g. a character whose Lockpicking skill is specialized in using improvised tools, or one extra die of the roll involves the Edge of a stat, as used in the Unit rules.
A specialization or a Stat Edge is always stated after the trait, usually before the numerical value of the trait, in paranthesis, e.g. Lockpicking (Impr. Tools) 5 or Body (Dex) 4. In the first case, the character would roll 5d12 when trying to pick locks, except when using improved tools, then he'd roll 6d12, and in the second case, the members of the Unit roll 4d12 for Body rolls except if the Body roll is completely or primarily about Dexterity, in which case they roll 5d12 instead.
Successes
Once the dice have been rolled, all dice that equal or exceed the RD, Roll Difficulty, of the activity, should be counted. For the convenience of the GM, a player may want to physically seperate these dice from the others, after the roll. Each such die, that comes up equal or higher than the RD, counts as one Success. The more Successes rolled, the better the outcome. If there are no Successes, refer to the next section.
No Successes
If there are no Successes among the rolled dice, then find the highest die, the HD. It makes no difference if there are several dice that came up with this number, just islate any one of them. Then subtract its value from the RD. This gives a result of 1 or higher (if it gives 0 or less, then there were Successes, and you're in the wrong section!). The shorthand for a successful roll is XS where X is the number of Successes rolled, e.g. 1S or 4S.
failure (RD-HD = 1)
If the difference between the RD and the HD is 1, then the roll has failed, not Fumbled. The absence of Success can in itself be a problem, e.g. when trying to save someone's life via a medical procedure and there is no time or opportunity to try again, but the character did not screw up in any fatal or disastrous way. He simply failed to achieve that which he was trying to do. The shorthand for a failed roll is f-1, and please note that a small "f" is used, to make it clearer that the roll wasn't a Fumble.
Fumble (RD-HD = 2 or more)
If the difference between the RD and the HD is 2 or more, then the roll was a Fumble, for which the shorthand is F-X, where X is the difference between the RD and the HD, but capped at 6, so that even if the difference is higher than that, the result isn't more disastrous. Thus the possible outcomes range from F-2, a Minor Fumble, to F-6, a Disastrous Fumble.
Safe Rolls
A Safe Roll is one that cannot Fumble. Unlike other rolls, a Safe Rolls outcome has a lower cap of f-1. Even if the difference between the Rd and the HD is 2 or more, the outcome is still only a failure, not a Fumble. Safe Rolls are used for activities that cannot Fumble at all, such as most Sense rolls. The worst that can happen is that a character fails to hear a sound. He cannot do worse than fail. The exception is that some Sense rolls, made under very stressful circumstances, can Fumble, in that the character misinterprets sensory input. He may "notice" something when there is nothing, or notice something very different from what is actually there.
Opposed Rolls
An Opposed Roll
Saving Throws
A Saving Throw is an explicitly more coarse-grained version of a roll, and also has some different possible outcomes. A Saving Throw can either Succeed, Partially Succeed, or fail. It Succeeds if 2S or better are rolled, and fails if F-2 or worse are rolled. If 1S or f-1 is rolled, then the outcome is a Partial Success. In a context where it is clearly understood to involve a Saving Throw, Partial Success may be abreviated to Partial.
