Take a talent like "Inspiring Rhetoric" which says: make an average (Diff 2) leadership check as an Inspiring Rhetoric action and so on...

Question: is the check Difficulty always 2, or can I upgrade the difficulty for extremely hard circumstances, or perhaps add one or more Setback die to reflect that the targets of the skill are particularly unwilling?

Thank you!

I would upgrade if in the middle of combat or in any otherwise dangerous setting. Add setback if the targets are unfriendly or don't speak any basic.

41 minutes ago, Lukey84 said:

I would upgrade if in the middle of combat or in any otherwise dangerous setting. Add setback if the targets are unfriendly or don't speak any basic.

Talents like Inspiring Rhetoric are meant to be used in combat to give an option for social characters that don't use weapons. Would you similarly upgrade attack rolls since combat shooting is going to be harder than shooting in non-dangerous situations?

Personally, I'd say you could , but you should do so sparingly. Part of the appeal of these talents is that they let you do things you can't normally do, or do them in a more efficient way. Players have a reasonable expectation that the talent will work in-game as it is written in-book, and messing with that constantly risks that player feeling singled out for grabbing abilities the GM just doesn't like. I wouldn't modify the difficult directly without flipping a Destiny Point to upgrade it, but adding setbacks for a particularly hostile crowd might make sense.

8 hours ago, kael123 said:

Take a talent like "Inspiring Rhetoric" which says: make an average (Diff 2) leadership check as an Inspiring Rhetoric action and so on...

Question: is the check Difficulty always 2, or can I upgrade the difficulty for extremely hard circumstances, or perhaps add one or more Setback die to reflect that the targets of the skill are particularly unwilling?

Thank you!

By default, the difficulty is static.

You could add setback dice to account for really adverse circumstances, but I would recommend against directly tweaking the difficulty. After all, the whole notion of setback dice is to represent less ideal circumstances that make a task harder.

2 hours ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

By default, the difficulty is static.

You could add setback dice to account for really adverse circumstances, but I would recommend against directly tweaking the difficulty. After all, the whole notion of setback dice is to represent less ideal circumstances that make a task harder.

Does this apply to things like the Unleash Force Power then as well? It specifies an average check but it is considered a ranged combat check, so I always went with the idea that it can be modified by everything that normally modifies combat checks.

1 minute ago, GroggyGolem said:

Does this apply to things like the Unleash Force Power then as well? It specifies an average check but it is considered a ranged combat check, so I always went with the idea that it can be modified by everything that normally modifies combat checks.

I would say, no. Unleash is a combat check, and as such, would be bound to the same rules as any other combat check, including being affected by Adversary .

1 hour ago, GroggyGolem said:

Does this apply to things like the Unleash Force Power then as well? It specifies an average check but it is considered a ranged combat check, so I always went with the idea that it can be modified by everything that normally modifies combat checks.

Nope, because Unleash (as well as Move to hurl an object) are called out as ranged combat checks, with all that entails.

Inspiring Rhetoric and Scathing Tirade on the other hand are both skill checks against a pre-established difficulty.

I agree; if you decide to upgrade an Inspiring Rhetoric check, you should flip a Destiny Point when you do so. Setbacks are fair game, I think, but only for circumstances that make logical sense. For instance, if the character is trying to use Inspiring Rhetoric in the middle of a very loud factory floor, it would make sense to add a setback or two to account for the trouble of being heard over the din.