I believe Dark Heresy lists the maximum modifiers, situational or from skills or talents, applied to a test are +/- 30. Black Crusade, however, seems to have a very coherent set of rules, benefiting from 3+ years of experience starting with Dark Heresy. It limits tests +/- 60.

What limit do people use?

furashgf said:

+-60 for combat tests, +-30 for everything else. Which is what the DH errata says IIRC.

We just ignore the caps. Has never really caused any trouble..

RT has +- 60, so I roll with that generally.

Thanks. That sounds great. I like the idea of a higher cap at least for combat. Player's need to be able to do cool stuff.

furashgf said:

Dark Heresy does list it as +30/-30, but the errata changed it to +60/-60. Later rules in the newer games just use the new limits. You can download the errata from this very website.

andrewm9 said:

I believe it's still +3-/-30 for noncombat tests (?)

bogi_khaosa said:

Technically, this is correct,

"The maximum situational modifiers in combat should
be +60/–60, instead of +30/–30 as described in the
Combining Difficulties sidebar on page 197."

However for the sake of simplicity, I see no reason to not allow the +/- 60 to apply to non-combat tests as well. If there is an issue with players having too high of a modifier, I can always add in a negative to the test to keep it within reason.

That said, I do think there is a purpose for the modifier caps, so they shouldn't just be tossed. Each new book always seems to come up more and more ways for the players to get bonuses on tests, and if this power creep is left unchecked, players will eventually never fail at tests.

KommissarK said:

Players will definitely succeed more often at mundane tests for sure. If a character survives that long, has spend their hard earned cash on good equipment and come up with clever ideas on how to earn additional situational bonuses, then they deserve to have a good chance at success.

BUT never forget the flip-side: that the GM can impose difficulty penalties up to -60 too. And at higher levels, important checks SHOULD be harder, right?

In short, it should even out.

Personally, I just add all the modifiers up. If the Acolytes are clever enough to set up a "Just as planned" moment that they only fail on 95-100, well, that happens. If they've managed to screw up royally enough to only pass on a 1-5, well...that happens too.

Necrozius said:

Ah, that feeling when the GM gives you a -60 difficulty and you shrug, roll and ask him, "are five degrees of success enough?"

But yes, it should and, in my experience, does mostly even out. True, characters fail less often, but the fun part is not failing, rather succeeding despite the real possibility of failing and horrible consequences thereof.