I noticed some modifiers in the core rulebook such as the Arch Militant's weapon master special ability are listed as +10%. I'm only confused by this because the percent sign does not typically appear behind modfiers like that and it got me thinking maybe there's some special thing going on there. So my question is does this represent nothing but an inconsistancy on the part of Fantasy Flight's writing staff or are these bonuses supposed to be calculated differently?

For instance if when applying the Arch Militant's Weapon Master special to a Ballistic Skill of 45 does that mean that it becomes 55 like a normal +10 modifier or do you devide 45 by ten round and up to get a +5 and come out with a roll of 50? If it's the latter do you calculate it before other modifiers or after them? Personally I suspect it's just supposed to mean +10 but it's written differently than normal so I want some reassurance.

Oh and one other question, I've been GMing a game and now that the module has concluded I'm turning the screen over to one of my players for awhile so I can get to play. Anyway rolled up a rank 2 Manhunter/Arch Militant and I got two natural tens for my BS another +3 to his BS from the origin path and two advances to his BS for another +10 resulting in a final BS of 58 . I'm also carrying a Basic class weapon with the accurate special rule. The short of it is there are likely to be alot of situations where his chance to hit will be well over 100 without ever running afoul of the rule stating you can only get a modifier of 60 or less in either direction.

Obviously in those situations I'll still be rolling to determine degrees of success, hit location and that I don't run afoul of the high nineties jamming windows. I'm also assuming that bonuses in excess of 100 do not count toward degrees of success, for instance if he had a modified chance to hit of 120 and he rolled a 90 that would not mean he would have three additional degrees of sucess it would still mean that he just barely succeeded correct? I just want to have it all straight before I start playing, I did roll my stats and I did have a witness but this guy's ability to shoot **** is going to be absolutely unreal and honestly as a GM if someone just walked up to me with this character sheet I'd likely suspect some serious munchkin bull.

It doesn't help that he appears absurdly minmaxed, with his intelligence of 27 and his typically modified (frontier world penalty) fellowship of 29.

It's an inconsistency in FFG's editing. In any case referring to Characteristics and Tests, a plus or minus percent means you increase or decrease the roll as per normal.

As for the cap, that depends on your GM's decision. By RAW, there's no cap. Effectively you're rolling the hit solely for degrees of success and chance of jamming.

It's never come up with our group before but I think I'm going to suggest a house rule whereby any percentile roll 91 or over is a failure regardless of positive modifiers. It's more fun and more believable if my dude can miss one time out of ten and if I really need him not to that's what fate is for.

Amazing Larry said:

For your example, yes, a roll of 90 towards 120 is a basic success and two degrees to be exact. There is no cap for bonuses or penalties apart from a roll with a total modification of zero or less is an automatic fail. A roll against a modified target of above 100 is an automatic success unless a 100 (which is an automatic failure always as far as I know) is rolled as far as I know, not counting Unreliable or other traits.

So a roll of 35 against 135 is indeed a basic and nine degrees of success.

I talked it over with my friend today, the two of us take turns being the GM and our characters wander in and out of the party like Wolverine does with superteams. We decided on a house rule that if something warrants rolling dice that a result of 96-100 is always a failure because no matter how good you are at something you can still screw it up somehow through complacency, bad luck or equipment failure. We haven't ruled on phantom (including a number in excess of 100) degrees of success yet.

I feel that if the player can manage a 99 or higher (and the roll doesn't have specific rules for high rolls, like most ranged weapons have Jamming that occurs at very high rolls), that they should be able to succeed on a 99. One thing that drives me crazy about most systems is the constant 5% chance of failure no matter how good you are at something, and being able to reduce it to 1% is one thing that I really like about this system, even if most characters will never see a 1% chance of failure, just the possibility is nice to have. I'd probably allow "phantom" degrees of success as well, if a bonus managed to get that high, which gives them a reason to still roll and still have that 1% chance to screw something up ("you said WHAT to the Imperial Navy liaison?"). Also, ruling that other than 100's being auto-fails, things like Jams being auto-fails make weapon qualities like Reliable count for even more at the highest levels of ability as well… Unreliable weapons and their 10% chance to fail would be a terrible choice for a character who could otherwise still hit on a 95, while Reliable weapons could still hit on a 99 if they passed their 1-in-10 reroll.