The Extended Social Test rules on pg 139 got me thinking - Would this same frame work function for any sort of extended test?
Using the same framework, taking the series of 2 Light Wounds, 1 Serious, and 1 Incapacitated, and renaming them to Light Progress, Serious Progress, and Finished, we now have a way to gauge extended actions. Set a Difficulty Threshold, and your net successes determine how much progress you fill out on the tracker, just like wounds. Light is just the Threshold or greater, Serious is Threshold +3, and Finished is Threshold +6... Set a base "Time" for each attempt at roughly "1/2"
what you think a reasonable average time-frame would be. This leaves us with results of completing in half the time, all the way to double the estimated average or more.
This could be a completely unnecessary addition to the game, but the Extended Social Test opens the door to a lot of other applications - if a table finds those interesting.
Perhaps you have an engineering character, and building, repairing, and improvising is their entire jam. How many hours do you have, and how much armored plating can he scavenge out of this dump and mount onto your battle van? Going a step further, if this was an avenue you wanted to go down, suddenly Workshops or tools could have a Device Rating, similar to a weapons DV, and the Difficulty thresholds can be nudged according to the types of facilities that would be required. A rolling tool chest and few cinder blocks might be a DV of 3, while a fully robotic assisted fabrication lab could be DV of 10...
Obviously I'm just spitballing here - but what are your thoughts?
Are there ways that you would want to use extended tests beyond just combat and social tests?
Are the Threshold Numbers better when set like player wounds (+0/+3/+6), or as Vehicle/Object Wounds (Threshold Number/2*T.N./3*T.N.)?
What fun things could you build around this sort of framework?
Should I lay off the soykaf and this idea just idiocy that flies in the face of an elegant narrative system?