The colonist signature ability Unmatched Expertise lets the colonist reduce the difficulty of checks involving his class skills. there is an upgrade that lets him reduce it twice. It has a minimum difficuty of easy.

Hypothetical scenerio: a Marshal (or politico that took ranged (something) for Well Rounded, so it's a carear skill) is shooting an Inquisitor at short range with Unmatched Expertise on for a 2 difficulty reduction. The inquisitor has Adversary 3, so if the ability wasnt in play, it would be a RR difficulty pool.

Does unmatched expertise reduce the difficult granted by adversary?

Is the final difficulty pool:

RR

RP

R

PP

I believe you upgrade and downgrade after determining the difficulty. So, in this case, the short range P wouldn't be touched by UE, since it's already at easy. So the difficulty would be RR. If he had the upgrade to make it simple, rather than easy, the difficulty would be R.

Keep in mind, though, that the ability lasts the entire encounter and works for all career skills. If I was in this situation, I wouldn't waste it on a short-range enemy, especially one with high ranks in Adversary, and I'd also look into how I could use other career skills as well. Might as well get the most mileage out of it as you can.

Yep, Increasing/Decreasing the Difficulty simply determines what Difficulty your check is at, and so that's done before any upgrades happen.

The proper order its, first add, second substract or am I wrong?

This is a good question, and I'm not sure I understand (or agree with) the answers so far.

I can't imagine this ability has zero effect whatsoever just because the target is an Adversary. Shouldn't an upgraded difficulty be somewhat negated by a reduced difficulty? Or are we saying since the talent "reduces" the difficulty but doesn't "downgrade" it, it's not powerful enough to have any effect on red dice?

The proper order its, first add, second substract or am I wrong?

I found this on page 20 of the Core rulebook:

"First, players assemble the basic pool. Then they add additional dice. Then they upgrade dice. Then they downgrade dice. Finally, they remove dice."

So it seems like this might be right that the talent has no impact on reds, since removing dice (lowering difficulty) is the last step, and it shouldn't remove reds?

That still doesn't seem quite right to me, especially since this is a signature ability that is a huge XP investment just to get there, and even more to upgrade fully.

I think that are two facts there:

- Downgrade changed from Red to Purple and substracts Purples if there isn't no more Reds on the pool.

- Decrease just substract the difficulty dice by X without care if is a Red or Purple dice, it just reduces the pool.

Again, I'm wright with this?

I'm unsure. Here's the exact wording of Unmatched Expertise:

Once per game session as an action, the character may spend two Destiny Points to reduce the difficulty of all career skill checks he makes by one to a minimum of (Easy, One Purple Die) for the remainder of the encounter.

It says "reduce", not "downgrade." If it was downgrade it would start by turning the reds to purples then the purple to nothing. But because it says reduce, I'd have to go to the book itself and check how that affects red die.

I think that are two facts there:

- Downgrade changed from Red to Purple and substracts Purples if there isn't no more Reds on the pool.

- Decrease just substract the difficulty dice by X without care if is a Red or Purple dice, it just reduces the pool.

Again, I'm wright with this?

Your first point is correct.

The second one, I'm not so sure.. Decreasing the difficulty certainly applies to Purple dice. I don't see it mentioned in the rules that decreasing the difficulty applies to Red dice. That doesn't mean it does or it doesn't, I don't know the answer.

Starting on page 19:

1. Apply skills and characteristics (determine ability and proficiency)

2. Apply task difficulty (difficulty dice)

3. Modify Dice pool

a) Add dice (boost and setback)

b) Upgrade dice (ability to proficiency or difficulty to challenge)

c) Downgrade dice (proficiency to ability or challenge to difficulty)

d) Remove Dice (setback and boost)

So, if something decreases the difficulty, I would think it would happen on step 2. The adversary talent would be applied during step 3b.

Upgrading and downgrading work a bit differently. When you upgrade, you change an ability/difficulty to a proficiency/challenge. If there's no more ability/difficulty, you add a new one. Then if you need to upgrade again, you upgrade the one just added.

Downgrading will remove proficiency/challenge dice and convert them to ability/difficulty. If there's no more proficiency/challenge dice available to downgrade, you stop. You don't start removing the basic dice.

Starting on page 19:

1. Apply skills and characteristics (determine ability and proficiency)

2. Apply task difficulty (difficulty dice)

3. Modify Dice pool

a) Add dice (boost and setback)

b) Upgrade dice (ability to proficiency or difficulty to challenge)

c) Downgrade dice (proficiency to ability or challenge to difficulty)

d) Remove Dice (setback and boost)

So, if something decreases the difficulty, I would think it would happen on step 2. The adversary talent would be applied during step 3b.

Upgrading and downgrading work a bit differently. When you upgrade, you change an ability/difficulty to a proficiency/challenge. If there's no more ability/difficulty, you add a new one. Then if you need to upgrade again, you upgrade the one just added.

Downgrading will remove proficiency/challenge dice and convert them to ability/difficulty. If there's no more proficiency/challenge dice available to downgrade, you stop. You don't start removing the basic dice.

After thinking about this and reading the rules and thinking about it some more and reading this, I believe this is correct.

Soooo, back to the original topic. If you have Unmatched Expertise such that it reduces difficulty to a minimum of Easy, then the ability will have no impact on a Short ranged attack - since it's already Easy, no reduction occurs. The three Adversary upgrades are: 1) Upgrade that one purple to a red, 2) add another purple, 3) upgrade that second purple to a red. Final dice pool: 2 Reds.

However, if the ability has been specced into the box that allows that it reducing to a minimum of Simple (zero purples), then that step does get applied during step 2, and it goes from 1 purple to zero purples. The Adversary 3 upgrade then goes 1) add one purple, 2) upgrade that one purple to a red, 3) add a second purple. Final dice pool: 1 Purple, 1 Red.

This was fun! Haha.

Starting on page 19:

1. Apply skills and characteristics (determine ability and proficiency)

2. Apply task difficulty (difficulty dice)

3. Modify Dice pool

a) Add dice (boost and setback)

b) Upgrade dice (ability to proficiency or difficulty to challenge)

c) Downgrade dice (proficiency to ability or challenge to difficulty)

d) Remove Dice (setback and boost)

So, if something decreases the difficulty, I would think it would happen on step 2. The adversary talent would be applied during step 3b.

Upgrading and downgrading work a bit differently. When you upgrade, you change an ability/difficulty to a proficiency/challenge. If there's no more ability/difficulty, you add a new one. Then if you need to upgrade again, you upgrade the one just added.

Downgrading will remove proficiency/challenge dice and convert them to ability/difficulty. If there's no more proficiency/challenge dice available to downgrade, you stop. You don't start removing the basic dice.

After thinking about this and reading the rules and thinking about it some more and reading this, I believe this is correct.

Soooo, back to the original topic. If you have Unmatched Expertise such that it reduces difficulty to a minimum of Easy, then the ability will have no impact on a Short ranged attack - since it's already Easy, no reduction occurs. The three Adversary upgrades are: 1) Upgrade that one purple to a red, 2) add another purple, 3) upgrade that second purple to a red. Final dice pool: 2 Reds.

However, if the ability has been specced into the box that allows that it reducing to a minimum of Simple (zero purples), then that step does get applied during step 2, and it goes from 1 purple to zero purples. The Adversary 3 upgrade then goes 1) add one purple, 2) upgrade that one purple to a red, 3) add a second purple. Final dice pool: 1 Purple, 1 Red.

This was fun! Haha.

Yup, you're right. I only upgraded twice in my second example instead of three times, so it's P, then R, then RP.

Not sure if this clarifies anything else.

DOWNGRADING MORE DICE THAN AVAILABLE

"There may be situations in which a player needs to downgrade more Proficiency dice Yellow into Ability dice Green or Challenge dice Red into Difficulty dice Purple than are available. If all of the potential dice are already in their downgraded form, any further downgrades are ignored."

UPGRADES & DOWNGRADES IN THE SAME POOL

"Sometimes abilities will call for both upgrades and downgrades in the same dice pool. When this occurs, all upgrades are applied first. Then, any downgrades are applied. This is important, since upgrading dice could add more dice to the overall pool."

Soooo, back to the original topic. If you have Unmatched Expertise such that it reduces difficulty to a minimum of Easy, then the ability will have no impact on a Short ranged attack - since it's already Easy, no reduction occurs. The three Adversary upgrades are: 1) Upgrade that one purple to a red, 2) add another purple, 3) upgrade that second purple to a red. Final dice pool: 2 Reds.

However, if the ability has been specced into the box that allows that it reducing to a minimum of Simple (zero purples), then that step does get applied during step 2, and it goes from 1 purple to zero purples. The Adversary 3 upgrade then goes 1) add one purple, 2) upgrade that one purple to a red, 3) add a second purple. Final dice pool: 1 Purple, 1 Red.

This was fun! Haha.

If you're not getting enough out of the ability, I guess you could always use two weapons or autofire to get more difficulty dice to subsequently decrease before all the upgrading/downgrading.

Thanks, Josep - that's really helpful.

For my own game, I put in a house rule that no combat check even with those talent upgrades, could be reduced below Easy. (Our Doctor already has Pressure Points so I don't want him having a free pass.) Other skill checks can be reduced to Simple just fine, but combat is the one arena where things can go horribly awry, and I want at least some element of 'badness' remaining.

If you're not getting enough out of the ability, I guess you could always use two weapons or autofire to get more difficulty dice to subsequently decrease before all the upgrading/downgrading.

True. But this is kind of an extreme situation. An NPC with Adversary rank 3 is probably pretty rare. (Hell, even Adversary 2 is probably unusual unless your PCs are really high level and that's what the GM is throwing at them consistently.) In a typical fight, maybe with an Adversary 1, the ability is just fine.