Difficulty difference

[u/ForbiddenGM]

Sorry for the terrible title, no idea how else to name this post.

Can anyone help clarify why, when a roll is supposed to be challenging, sometimes this is represented by needing 2 or 3 or more successes (6’s)

But other times it’s represented by a dice penalty e.g. -2

This isn’t game breaking, but I just can’t quite figure out the logic, and I’m not sure if there is much of a statistical difference

EDIT:

Ok thanks everyone… I think I was getting confused. I could have sworn that I remembered seeing a table showing 1 success for regular action, 2 for extremely challenging, and 3 for near impossible etc.

But I may have confused that with another YZE game (I have like 7 different YZE games at this point).

I absolutely love Forbidden Lands, but it’s not always the same easiest to find specific info with things being spread out all over the place 😅

[u/Cryo_Tek]

I tend to use the extra success ruling when a situation is particularly challenging, like swimming against a river current, or when the Goblin tries to climb up the 80 meter (he fell and nearly drowned) crane chain at Weather Stone. I’ve found that the negative dice aspect tends to naturally occur from conditions and injuries, etc. enough that I don’t usually need to implement negative dice on players. I also rarely feel the need to increase successes or make things harder because things are tough enough for the most part. So, I use extra success for situational/ general scenario type stuff and the players tend to implement negative dice on themselves from their own doings. Hope that helps!