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Comments on What's the average skill gain from successes in Call of Cthulhu?

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What's the average skill gain from successes in Call of Cthulhu?

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As you use skills in Call of Cthulhu 7e, any successes get marked on your character sheet, and can be used to make skill advancement checks when requested by the Keeper. Any extreme successes are also marked.

To succeed a skill increase check you must roll higher than your skill number. If it was an Extreme success you roll the increase check with a penalty die.

If that result is above the skill number, you add 1d10 to that skill.

e.g. if you roll against a Pilot(boat) of 40, and you get a 5, that's an extreme success. If asked by the keeper, you can roll 2d00 and keep the highest (the penalty die) and see if it's over your skill (in this case 40). Say you pass by rolling a 30 and a 50, you then add 1d10 to Pilot(Boat)

That got me wondering, are you more likely to gain skill increases with skill values that are already high (as you can pass with an extreme success and get the penalty die on your advancement check), or one that's low, as it's easier to roll over it even if that's less frequent due to the initial check being lower?

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1 comment thread

Confusion (3 comments)
Confusion
Quintec‭ wrote 6 months ago

Sorry, I'm still kind of confused how this system works. From your example: why is rolling a 5 against a 40 an extreme success? What di(c)e are you rolling?

Mithical‭ wrote 6 months ago

Skill checks in Call of Cthulhu use a "roll under" system, where you want to roll below the number of the skill. CoC uses a d100 to make the checks. If you have a number for your skill, such as 40, you want to get a result that is underneath 40 on your d100 for a regular success. There are different levels of success. If you roll underneath your skill, that's a regular success. If you roll underneath half of your skill, that's a Hard success. If you roll under 1/5th of your skill, that's an Extreme success.

Quintec‭ wrote 6 months ago

Ah, got it, thanks. Might be helpful information to have in the question for people unfamiliar with the system like me.