# Difficulties
**Difficulty of the Action****Required Success**
**Routine** (striking a stationary target, convincing a loyal friend to help you)1
**Straightforward** (seducing someone who’s already in the mood, intimidating a weakling)2
**Moderate** (replacing a car’s sound system, walking a tightrope)3
**Challenging** (locating the source of a whisper, creating a memorable piece of art)c4
**Hard** (convincing a cop that this isn’t your cocaine, rebuilding a wrecked engine block)5
**Very Hard** (running across a tightrope while under fire, calming a hostile and violent mob)6
**Nearly Impossible** (finding one specific homeless person in Los Angeles in one night, flawlessly reciting a long text in a language you don’t speak)7+
##### **Automatic Wins:** If a character’s dice pool is twice the task’s Difficulty, the Storyteller may opt to rule that the character wins automatically without a dice roll. Automatic wins streamline play and reduce distracting rules interludes. Apply them vigorously, especially outside of combat or for tests where character failure is boring: information-gathering tests, conversation-openers, or gambits that open up the scene or let it move forward dramatically. Automatic wins seldom apply in combat or other stressful situations. A Storyteller willing to speed up opening rounds or to blow through a location they didn’t intend to be challenging, might allow automatic wins against mooks and nameless obstacle humans: renta-cops in the office lobby, not real cops in the streets.