Does anyone understand how they're actually meant to work? The explanation on p186 of the DH Core Rulebook doesn't make any sense to me...

It seems to imply that you make a roll and the only difference it changes the length to complete the investigation by d10ish hour. Does that mean it's impossible to fail an investigation outright? It goes on to say that if you reduce the length of time to 0 you get the available information on the subject you're investigating - does that mean you're meant to make multiple rolls? When do you make them?

I've been using my own gut-feeling rules on investigation but having ecently acquired RT and discovered they haven't fixed it, it is bugging me. Can anyone explain?

I think the additional degrees of success are meant to reduce the time each investigation takes and/or provide additional details and information that might not have been acquired if the success was only moderate.

If you fail, you simply fail (i.e you don't learn anything, or you don't learn enough needed information). If the GM carries a meanstreak then he/she could rule that extreme amounts of degrees of faliure generates severely negative consequences for the PC's.

That sounds like a perfectly good way of doing things, but it doesn't seem terribly consistent with the book - which says that if you fail, the time taken increases (i.e., by implication, you don't actually fail to get the info). Also, the book says if you pass your time is reduced by d10ish hours - which in the case of some tasks is completely negligible.

I feel sure FFG wouldn't publish a system that didn't work *twice*, but I just can't see how it makes sense as written!

Cardinalsin said:

Uhm, most the things you've read are assuming that the GM gives permission. For instance, the GM could give permission for the players to try the same investigation twice if the first try fails, but according to this system the failed result always adds additional time taken even if the second test pass with flying colours (I think).

But I would't be too particular and concerned about it. These things are a sort of "pirate code" ("more like guidelines anyway")

So you're saying that (assuming the GM gives permission) you keep rolling until you pass, and every fail increases the time? That makes a bit more sense, but I still think it doesn't actually match the RAW - and even if it did, adding d10 hours to a task which already takes months seems like a bit of a joke.

Varnias Tybalt said:

Well, as I said in my OP, I've never used these rules and go with what I think works. I'd just really like to know if there is an interpretation of the RAW here which makes any sense. Even if they are just guidelines, they seem to inconsistent as to be unusable.

Cardinalsin said:

As I understand it, the use of Investigation Skills tends to fall into the extended action category and any complicated task is going to take multiple tests to complete (although this isn't helped by the omission of how long a single investigation roll should take). Also bear in mind that simply failing the test doesn't actually mean anything catastrophic, just that no progress was made.

For example, locating a specific general's service record is listed as an Ordinary task that takes 24 hours. Passing the investigation test allows a roll of a d10 + the appropriate bonus to be subtracted from the base time of 24 hours, when that hits zero you have the general's service record. If you fail the test no progress is made and you have to keep looking. Failing by 3+ degrees of failure means that 1d10 hours are added onto the base time and 5+ increases the difficulty by 2 steps.

Personally I think they should have run the Investigation skills in a similar manner to crafting where the GM sets a time interval and a target number of successes when the appropriate number of successes are accumulated the information is revealed otherwise the time passes away without benefit (or in the case of degrees of failure, starts to go backwards).

Khouri said:

Precisely. Suppose I start with a 24 hour time requirement. I successfully roll my investigation skill and reduce the time taken to find the information I need by, say, 12 hours. I then need to roll again; I do so, successfully. Repeat until the time taken equals zero. How long did it take me to find the information? We don't know. All we know is how many times I had to roll.

For me, I decide roughly how long it takes to find some information. If you pass the test then you find it in that length of time. If you get extra degrees of success then maybe I'll cut the time a bit. If you fail then you fail to find the information in that length of time. You can have another go if you like (though you have no way of knowing whether the information is even available, so it may be that you're wasting your time); repeated attempts may incur penalties, and/or may require some explanation of what you're doing differently each time, depending on the situation. But that isn't the RAW - just my way of doing it.

Hi Cardinal,

I am puzzled about the "Investigation skills" example/rules as well. I tended to simply "em" after having a look at how things were run in some adventures. ... and copied the mechanismen.

"Edge of Darkness" is a good source, the "Eternal Tide" (http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_minisite_sec.asp?eidm=50&esem=4) offers a good alternative as well.

[These "example" in the core rules was one of the reason why I wa´s quiet stunned that the DH Core rules receipt an award for "best rules/best rulebook"...]

If it might help, you could adapt the crafting system in the IH (pg 245) to the investigation system. There they have tables set up for difficulty and duration. These rules could be easily tweaked to accommodate extended investigations.