Task System for GURPS Space

This question involves GURPS Space and MegaTraveller.

One thing that I like about the task system is that the level
of difficulty for various tasks uses words from the English
language.  In GURPS, you generally assign a penalty for very
difficult tasks which is subtracted from skill.  I've seen
GM's assign as much as a -12 penalty to perform a task that
I didn't think was impossible.

I was thinking about trying to use the MT difficulty levels
since saying that a task is "formidable" is more descriptive
than saying its a -5 feat.  Can anyone advise me as to what
is reasonable?  And BTW, are there guidelines concerning when
to assign a "difficult" instead of a "formidable" roll or
a "simple" versus "routine?"

I was thinking of something like this:

Simple:     skill + 2
Routine:    skill
Difficult:  skill - 3
Formidable: skill - 6
Impossible: skill - 12

In GURPS, you roll three 6 sided dice for an average roll of 10.5 .
It just so happens that a novice in a certain skill will have a
skill of 10 or 11 and will therefore succeed with a routine task
about 50% of the time.  A reasonably experienced operator will
usually have a skill of about 13 (maybe level 1 or 2 in traveller)
and succeed in a routine task around 60-70% of the time.  So, how
often should this reasonably experienced operator succeed if the
task is simple, difficult, formidable or impossible?


        Ron Abramson   email: [email removed]
                      telnet: 1-[phone removed]


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