Combining actions.. All use the same skill, or all assist?

[garhkal]

Brought out of the sniper thread..
When combining actions, must all those being cooridinated use the same skill (ie all shooting, hacking, repairing) or can they just assist (say hand over tools, give sensor info etc)?
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[jmanski]

1 vote for assist. The way I see it, I've aided a mechanic (when I have very, very little mechanical aptitude) when fixing a car. All I did was hand him tools and follow his directions. I'd say I added a +1d bonus to getting the car fixed just by being an extra set of hands.
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Blasted rules. Why can't they just be perfect?

[Fallon Kell]

[Bren]

Quotes from the Second Edition Revised and Expanded rules

[garhkal]

But he is still at the controls, to provide said assist.. Remember the part i quoted in the sniper thread about computer programming.. Only those who can use terminals that can link in, are able to combine... by your thoughts, someone sitting on the side lines, reading code from a book would get to assist.
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Bren]

[thedemonapostle]

[Orion]

[Crimson_red]

I'm of the mind the activity in a combined roll can be what ever will reasonably give a meaningful improvement to the task at hand. Mechanically, the assistants are not actual performing any one skill or activity beyond combining their efforts with a lead person (the one rolling) to accomplish a task, and that has its own defined restrictions (no other activities that round besides reaction skills). Narrative defines, specifically, what it is they are doing to assist, and by extension, the task would have to reasonably fit within the narrative to be allowed.

I can see a potential for abuse by players, 'Dak assists Wedge by cheering him on, improving his enthusiasm and moral!' My first impression would likely 'hell no,' as my players would need a REALLY good excuse why that would offer any substantive effect. If they managed to convince me (slim), they would be facing one nasty command roll, and risking penalties if they failed (outright against RAW, but I can be as evil as I can be compromising... I'd warn them first...) "Sorry all that yipping and yelling distracted him, he's going to be taking a -1D penalty instead!"

I certainly put restrictions on the number of people who can reasonably assist. Things like available work space, usable terminals, or the number of people who can advise before it just become a distracting cacophony can all hamper how many can participate, and thus the bonus that can be gained. They can even reduce the number to zero, meaning they can't combine actions at all.

For the question in the sniper thread, for me it boils down to: Are the spotter's actions substantive enough to warrant a minimum 1D bonus? If the answer is yes, I'd allow it, but with a difficult command roll and chance of penalty due to delicacy of the task. As a GM, I try to be accommodating as long as something strikes me a reasonable.

Boy, I say that a lot... starting to sound like a broke record...

[Fallon Kell]

[Crimson_red]

[Orion]

[Bren]

[Orion]

Ok, after reading and rereading the section on combined actions here's what I've come up with:

Command roll: The possible bonus from the command roll is +1 per participant in the task. You get the full bonus if the command roll succeeds, but you can still get some bonus if it fails, you subtract 1D from the bonus for each point that the command roll missed by until the bonus is gone. Does not require Command skill you can use Perception instead.

Single skill roll tasks: In these cases anybody can help they do not need the appropriate skill (defaults to attribute which the GM is supposed to take into consideration by upping the Command Roll difficulty). Bonus gained from the Command Roll is applied to the character with the highest skill for the task.

Combat tasks: The bonus gained from the Command roll can be split between to hit and damage or applied to totally to one or the other. No definitive statement as to who gets the bonus or specification that all participants must be using the same skill or weapon. Example implies that any character may be chosen to make the rolls and that may have different skills and or weapons(really not much to go on here). The only thing I can say here as it relates to sniping is the example refers to combining fire, but the "rule"(if you can call it that) makes no kind of reference to how you can use combined actions in combat other than disbursement of the the Command bonus dice.

Multiple skill tasks: There is no example given for this and the only wording is, "If the task requires two or more skill rolls, the bonus can be split up among the any of these rolls. My guess would be that the bonus if any is applied would be given to the character with the highest skill for that roll, meaning if the task required 3 rolls you might have 3 different characters making rolls to complete it.

The bulk of the section is devoted to determining the Difficulty of the Command roll which takes into account a bit of everything:

• Skill/experience or lack of it
  
• How well the characters know/have worked with each other.
  
• Complexity of the task
  
• Precision needed to complete the task
  
• Number of characters involved
  
• Time taken to complete the task
  
• Other factors(which includes weather)

It really is a mess. Other than the Command roll, how to handle single skill roll tasks, and guidelines on how to choose a Difficulty, which seem to be defined reasonably well, the rest is, to say the least, lacking in explanation. What's more the section this comes from is Gamemastering Tips, which state that it's a collection of tips and game options, so use of these 'rules' are definitely GM discretion.

[Naaman]

On the other hand, if you check out d20, they've got a rule for everything from how a character ties his shoes (which requires a feat) to how to use the force telekinetically slam one living creature into another. The level of specificity in that system really bogs it down. It seems rather apparent to me that D6 is a lot looser purpose, and the only thing that really matters in th end is the GM's interpretation.