Critical Success (Rolling 10s on a 10-sided die)
On any roll of a ten-sided die there is a 10% chance of rolling the number ten. Each ten rolled is counted as a critical success and adds an extra d10 to the character’s dice pool for the round. For example, Mary is having her character Arslan perform a Bio-Medicine roll on an injured comrade. The GM decides that this roll will call for Wits + Bio-Medicine with a difficulty = 6. This gives Mary a total of six dice to roll and she scores a 6, 6, 6, 7, 9, and a 10. Because Mary rolled one die as a 10, she receives an additional die for this roll. Rolling the additional dice, Mary scores an 8 bringing her total number of success to seven. In this way critical successes can allow for a character to score more total successes than they have number of dice in their original dice pool. When players roll numerous 10s on a particular roll, the GM should allow them to describe how their Character is preforming the task particularly well.
Overdrive
On rare occasions, a character will roll more total successes than they have available dice in their dice pool because of critical successes. When this happens the character is said to be in overdrive and the GM should play that character’s pre-selected theme song. For the duration that the character’s theme song plays, the GM should grant some form of bonus to the character whether that be easier difficulty ratings, smaller thresholds for success, or advantage on all contested rolls. The GM may also declare that the Character remains in overdrive after their theme song ends if the action sequence ended prematurely or they were not able to experience adequate levels of reward during the course of the theme song. A good rule of thumb is that a character in overdrive should gain a benefit to at least three separate rolls.
Helpful Links for Dice Mechanics
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