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)c	4
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.