A problem with the rules, and a simple fix

[TheMouse]

The problem is they've been misreading "the roll" to mean only what you rolled on the 4df rather than roll+modifiers(stealth+environment+etc...).  I was going to comment on it a while back but I didn't feel like getting pedantic'd to death.

Who has been making this mistake? I haven't noticed anyone doing it.

[Morgan]

That's not how the rules work. You're actually repeating one of my fixes.

That's my problem. Your mistaken impression of how the rules work is actually one of my proposed fixes, and it does indeed seem to solve the problem. But it's not how the rules in the book actually work.

Okay perhaps I am mistaken. Can you tell me where the -2 to rolls comes from in the rules? It seems like from the pages you quote in your original post example, say that difficulty modifiers add to the difficulty to do tasks rather than subtract from the roll to do them. My reading of a Contested roll is that the difficulty to succeed is set by the opponent's roll and so there is no base difficulty other than what is rolled by the opponent. Whatever difficulty modifiers there are therefore added to the opponent's roll rather than being subtracted from the roll of the person who is having the difficulty.

If Environmental modifiers add to the difficulty of making a roll, and the difficulty of a Contested roll is determined by an opponents roll, then it seems to me that in that case Environmental modifiers do add to rolls.

In a Contested roll it is not difficulty 0 to do a thing. Skill A rolls and sets the difficulty against the opponent who rolls Skill B and tries to meet or beat the difficulty set by Skill A's roll.

[Tedronai]

Now something good happens for the person rolling Skill A. They get a -2 difficulty! Now they need only roll a -2 or higher Effort to succeed. Great! Wait... While they succeed more often, the opposition still only needs to match the Skill A Effort, which now begins at -2 and goes up. So while Skill A succeeds more of the time, Skill B beats it more of the time.

Again, this is fallacious logic.
It would be more accurate to say that Skill A's success rate while being contested by Skill B is only minisculely improved by a reduced base difficulty to Skill A, as Skill B is then more likely to actually have to bother rolling, rather than simply having Skill A fail the base difficulty and thus fail the task without contest.

[The Mighty Buzzard]

Who has been making this mistake? I haven't noticed anyone doing it.

Pretty much everyone.  The way I read it in YW it's Roll=4df+Stealth+other modifiers.  If Roll > difficulty, you didn't completely fail to be sneaky.  Anyone in a position to see you rolls 4df+Alertness/Investigation/whatever+modifiers and has Roll as their difficulty to beat to detect you.

Standard contested skill mechanics.

[TheMouse]

Pretty much everyone.

Well, I haven't. If you think I have, go back and take a look at what I wrote. Unless the context is explicitly about what the dice rolled (which I don't think I said anything about, but I'm too lazy to read everything I wrote), you should read me as talking about the effect.

[noclue]

Pretty much everyone.  The way I read it in YW it's Roll=4df+Stealth+other modifiers.  If Roll > difficulty, you didn't completely fail to be sneaky.  Anyone in a position to see you rolls 4df+Alertness/Investigation/whatever+modifiers and has Roll as their difficulty to beat to detect you.

Standard contested skill mechanics.

Actually, Lots of folks in the thread have said to do the same thing. So "essentially everyone" is a bit much.

Now, I can see how one could parse the Hiding trapping as saying something else. Namely, roll to hide vs. a difficulty + modifiers. Then use the roll as a the base difficulty for the finder's roll. But, there are problems with this reading:

1. Ignores the text on Stealth which says Stealth is always directly opposed by alertness.
2. Ignores the established mechanics of contested rolls, which fit the situation perfectly. The hider is either defending, blocking or maneuvering. Why set a static difficulty? What good is it to succeed at hiding and then fail at remaining hid in the next roll?
3. Requires special rules to make it work at all.
4. Ignores the commonsense notion that if you're hiding in an empty room nothing of import happens until the guy looking for you rolls.

But hey...