My group have a doubt regarding use of fate on some of the Role abilities.

The hierophant, the seeker and the sage have abilities that grant automatic success on certain tests. The question at hand is if these roles would be able to spend a fate to turn a failed test into a success.

I am the DM on this game and my interpretation of the rule is that they can’t. The rule states that you can spend a fate to have an automatic success on a test, that implies that you are actually doing a test at that moment. If the player rolled the dice and failed this test is concluded, he can either accept the result of the test or use a fate to reroll this test. During the reroll would be acceptable that he spent another fate to use his role ability since this is another roll on that previous test, as long as he do not roll and choose to use the ability instead.

To corroborate with my point of view I reference the Chirurgeon role, which allows you to change the result of a failed test by spending a fate point. Thus demonstrating that if the game developers wanted failed rolls to be turned into success they would clearly state it.

My players defend that the automatic success would allow them to change the result of a successful or failed test by simply using a fate, because otherwise those abilities would become too weak.

For the sake of this argument we are talking about tests that would not allow the player a second chance to try again.

What you guys think about this? Which interpretation you consider correct.

Sorry, it doubled my post.

That seems about right. Once you have made the choice to roll the dice, the only use a Fate Point can be is to reroll it, if you failed it. The "automatic success" rolls seem mainly to be used BEFORE you take the test since, as you say, you could just go: "Well, I rolled a pass but not very many degrees of success so I'll boost it up!" or automatically replace a fail with a success.

In my games, it is before rolling, not after.

I agree with your interpretation. Since the Chirurgeon ability specifically allows you to turn a fail into a pass and the others don't I'd say they have to be used instead of rolling.

Concerning the same role bonuses i have two other questions that come to mind.

1 - As per the rule the Chirurgeon can only use his role bonus to change a failed medicae test into a successful test. However potentially this once failed test will be better than the successful one. A close result on a successful medicae test would heal the patient for Int Bonus + DoS, but in this case the DoS probably will be 1 or 2. Meanwhile a failed test can be turned into a success with a high number of DoS, most likely 4 or 5. I wonder if this power was supposed to work both on a sucessful and a failed roll equally and was poorly worded.

2 - The Sage bonus role is meant to allow the player to get an automatic success on any Logic or Lore roll. However i realized now that since all lore skills are specialist skills he needs to be trained to be able to do the test. Thus the Quest for Knowledge role bonus can only be used on Lore skills which the character already have trained. Is this right?

1 - As per the rule the Chirurgeon can only use his role bonus to change a failed medicae test into a successful test. However potentially this once failed test will be better than the successful one. A close result on a successful medicae test would heal the patient for Int Bonus + DoS, but in this case the DoS probably will be 1 or 2. Meanwhile a failed test can be turned into a success with a high number of DoS, most likely 4 or 5. I wonder if this power was supposed to work both on a sucessful and a failed roll equally and was poorly worded.

Well, instead give your player the right to use it on a successful test, in the end he's wasting FP he could use in better situation...like a failed test.

2 - The Sage bonus role is meant to allow the player to get an automatic success on any Logic or Lore roll. However i realized now that since all lore skills are specialist skills he needs to be trained to be able to do the test. Thus the Quest for Knowledge role bonus can only be used on Lore skills which the character already have trained. Is this right?

If he can't make the roll, he can't get the autosuccess that comes with it.