I was accidentally having players roll Average (2d) checks for all combat dice pools for over a year before we realized that the base is supposed to be Easy (1d). Upon discovering this, we actually decided to stick with the Average (2d) difficulty, as my players said it made combat "grittier" and "more realistic" and "made sense thematically". I mean, wouldn't swinging a sword at someone be a little more difficult than "easy"?
Anywho, I saw over at THIS thread, that others were up-ing their base difficulties for spell casting as well.
GMs: What scale do you base the difficulties for checks on? Do you use the RAW, or do you have houserules for this sorta thing? If so, what's been your experience with making things a bit harder for your PCs?
I've pesonally found that as my players have moved up in Ranks and experience (most of them moving into their 3rd careers at this point), encounters and combat have grown with them. In other words, when they started out at Rank 1, encounters and combat felt truly challenging and difficult (most checks and combat pools being made at and Average (2d) or harder difficulty). I've heard folks complain that characters feel too powerful at lower Ranks in this edition as opposed to older (1st/2nd) editions...this simple houserule seems to fix that problem.
Edited by GoblynKing