Imagine Character A has Stalker and adds a boost die to all of his stealth checks. Now imagine Character B has Uncanny Senses and adds a boost die to all of his perception checks. When A tries to sneak past B, they roll an opposed check - probably let the PC roll the attempt, the NPC's stats become the difficulty pool. What happens to the boost die that he ordinarily adds? Does it become a setback die in the difficulty pool? Ignored?

Similarly, if a character gets an auto-advantage to a check (like from the Reflec Shadowskin attachment), how does that affect the perception check to find the sneaker with the attachment?

I'm assuming this'll just be a matter for GM adjudication, but I feel like this should have been asked before, even if I can't find anything addressing it.

What adversary are you using that has Uncanny Senses?

Just follow the Talent description and if you need to be the active player rolling the pool in order for the Talent to work, then it doesn't apply.

if i am not mistaken , you're completely right that the rules dont specify this any further.

yes, id turn them around and add a setback dice into the challenge check if the opponent has a boost dice he could make permanently use of (if there is only roll overall for the situation. if you go to oppose with an perception check on the other side, then not)

automatic advantages on a 'defender' could be used to neutralize advantages of the 'attacker' (again, if it goes for one overall roll). but thats house-ruling.

The Boost & Setback dice easily swap to their respective counterparts for Opposed checks.

I wouldn't mess around with auto-Advantage, though. Too finicky.

17 minutes ago, awayputurwpn said:

The Boost & Setback dice easily swap to their respective counterparts for Opposed checks.

Not really, because the Boost dice is better than the Setback dice. The Boost dice has 4 advantages, 2 successes and 2 blanks compared to the Setback dices 2 threats, 2 failures and 2 blanks. So, representing the NPCs boost dice as a setback dice could be considered an unfair disadvantage to him.

Just now, Natsymir said:

Not really, because the Boost dice is better than the Setback dice. The Boost dice has 4 advantages, 2 successes and 2 blanks compared to the Setback dices 2 threats, 2 failures and 2 blanks. So, representing the NPCs boost dice as a setback dice could be considered an unfair disadvantage to him.

How else are you gonna do it?? Not putting the setback dice in would be even less fair

3 minutes ago, awayputurwpn said:

How else are you gonna do it?? Not putting the setback dice in would be even less fair

I would consider rolling a Boost dice for the NPC and just inverting its results, converting the advantages to threats etc. But it depends, for the only thing the NPC loses in the Boost dice to Setback dice conversion is the potential for a few advantages, which might not be considered that significant. So in many cases, if it were an unimportant NPC or situation for instance, I wouldn't bother.

10 minutes ago, Natsymir said:

I would consider rolling a Boost dice for the NPC and just inverting its results, converting the advantages to threats etc.

The dice are purposefully weighted towards Success with Threat. So that in itself would be unbalancing, and unfair to the acting character.

Any anyway, if you consider Setback & Boosts out of balance, then Difficulty/Advantage dice and Proficiency/Challenge dice are also out of balance. Might as well just roll competitive checks and completely ignore any Opposed checks. Better that than reinvent the dice pool mechanics.

That said..if you're worried about being "unfair" to an NPC, then that's kind of another problem, IMO. It is honestly, really not a big deal. Just convert the dice nice and quick, roll the check, resolve it, and move on with the action.

There's a difference between actively doing something and passively doing something. If you're the active character, you're attempting Stealth & you have Stalker, you get the boost die. If you are not the active character, the opposition is rolling for Perception & you have Stalker, that boost die you get for stealth does not have an effect. However, your natural skill with stealth would still apply for the opposition to their Perception check, as you are passively skilled with Stealth.

it must be permanent passive thingy using common sense I'd say - at GM' discretion foe sue

5 hours ago, Natsymir said:

Not really, because the Boost dice is better than the Setback dice. The Boost dice has 4 advantages, 2 successes and 2 blanks compared to the Setback dices 2 threats, 2 failures and 2 blanks. So, representing the NPCs boost dice as a setback dice could be considered an unfair disadvantage to him.

Giving him at all the dice is already giving him an unfair advantage, because he certainly is not making a check and thus certainly should not get any boost dice, nor add setbacks to his opponent. Those talents are supposed to make your checks easier, not someone's else checks harder. There are plenty of things that already make someones elses check harder.

52 minutes ago, SEApocalypse said:

Giving him at all the dice is already giving him an unfair advantage, because he certainly is not making a check and thus certainly should not get any boost dice, nor add setbacks to his opponent. Those talents are supposed to make your checks easier, not someone's else checks harder. There are plenty of things that already make someones elses check harder.

This is true.

But I'll take any excuse to add setbacks to a player's roll! Abilities that add Boost dice are as good as any.

For an opposed check, I do invert every single die, the opponent would be entitled to, if active. No one's complained yet.

3 hours ago, SEApocalypse said:

Those talents are supposed to make your checks easier, not someone's else checks harder.

I can't subscribe to that. Talents, by themselves, represent certain capabilities a character has, full stop. Their impact on dice is only a means of implementing the narrative into the randomising mechanics. Is someone only good at stealth, when they're rolling dice? Or, whenever they're sneaking around? The latter, I'd assume.

You assume wrong, he is worse the second he is not making the roll and that by design. The system is designed for successful rolls and encourages to let the players roll primary those opposed rolls, thus giving the players the edge in opposed checks.

If this action deals with player vs player than the guy who is in the active role has advantage for this roll.

Lastly, there are plenty of options which are centered around the idea to make things harder for the opposition and hand out difficulty increases or upgrades or setback dices. Now you basically give offensive talents defensive properties.

So, you're trying to tell me one and the exact same action under the exact same circumstances is easier, when you roll dice, than when you're not. Beg your pardon, but I call that nonsensical. It's against common sense; and Common Sense will always have constitutional status at my table, I'm afraid.

43 minutes ago, SEApocalypse said:

If this action deals with player vs player than the guy who is in the active role has advantage for this roll.

Your own words do expose the inconsistency in your interpretation. How are you going to decide who will get the active roll?

The guy who takes action has the active roll, which is in case of stealth vs perception usually the guy rolling stealth, except when one is a player and one is not ;-)
Try the dice calc, 5 ability dice vs 5 difficulty dice ;-)

Do you hand out boost dice for piloting for defensive driving talents? *g*

And don't get me wrong, you can houserule the system however you want. You might even use common sense on your table, I will not complain about, feel free to do so, customisation is everything with RPGs. But the rules in this case are build in a certain way with reason, they help players feel good about the dice results. Same reason that upgrading a check to challenge dice instead of increasing difficulty make checks easier, but more dangerous, the dice are in more ways narrative tools than just by having the advantage/threat mechanics.

But, when one is sneaking and the other is looking out, they're both "acting", are they not?

5 vs 5 is about 50% success rate; so? But let's argue dice probability, if you do insist:

5 vs 5: ~50%,

5 2 vs 5: >60%,

5 2 vs 5 2: again ~50%. Does represent equal proficiency better, I'd say.

Defensive Driving is of no relevance in this context, as you insinuated yourself.

The one advantage, I am willing to concede the rolling agent is removing Blacks (inverted from opponents Blues).

No, they are not acting both, the guy who initiate the opposed check is acting. Ain't so hard, and when honest in doubt, you can always use initiative to see who goes first. They guy acting is spending an action btw, the guy who is just opposing does not spend an action. So being the acting character comes with a large price tag attached in structured time. ;-)

Now instead of opposed you could always just roll competitive to determine a winner, all boost dice count in that case. Reasonable for stuff that happens out of turn or outside of structured time.

7 minutes ago, SEApocalypse said:

No, they are not acting both, the guy who initiate the opposed check is acting.

Yes, they are. You imply that "acting" is only referring to someone taking an action during their turn in structured time. But that's not what this is all about (anybody doing anything is acting). The OP didn't refer to it; nor do most Stealth vs Perception comparisons happen, in my experience, during combat.

Regarding competitive rolls; I try to avoid them; why roll twice, when one is enough. They are seldom necessary, e.g. when comparing more than two agents, or when accumulating successes over time.

It's the same outside of structured time. One participant is acting, the other reacting to the action.

But whatever works for you.

13 hours ago, Natsymir said:

Not really, because the Boost dice is better than the Setback dice. The Boost dice has 4 advantages, 2 successes and 2 blanks compared to the Setback dices 2 threats, 2 failures and 2 blanks. So, representing the NPCs boost dice as a setback dice could be considered an unfair disadvantage to him.

Yea, but keep in mind that since a wash counts as a failure in this game the setback die has effectively more chances to fail than the boost die by having the same number of failures as it has successes.