There are a number of powers that allow to add success to a roll. For example, Mage Fate 5 spell Miracle allows you to add a success per Interdiction spent after the roll. Some others (sorry, can't remember an exact example) allow you to add a guaranteed success before the roll. It's clear what they do when you've already rolled a success: you add one more. It is implied that their primary use is to guarantee at least one success even if you roll a failure. But what I'm not clear on, is what happens when you add an automatic success to a chance die roll that gave you dramatic failure (i.e. rolled 1).
I can see two interpretations here:
- As long as you have one success, it is a successful roll. Since dramatic failure is an absence of successes (with additional condition), not a negative success, it doesn't differ from a simple failure for this issue.
- A single success transforms dramatic failure into failure, and you need two to make it an actual success. Since when an opposite power takes away successes from a roll, you get failure on zero successes and dramatic failure on negative successes, dramatic failure actually does mean negative success, which you need to negate first.
Are there any official rules or rulings on this matter, or is it grey area left up to the ST?
Bonus questions:
- Does it matter if someone adds success before or after the roll? I can see it argued, that since a person already made the roll automatic success, she doesn't need to roll (when the actual number of successes is irrelevant). On the other hand, when a dramatic failure has happened already, it may be harder to mitigate it retroactively.
- Does it matter how negative the dice pool was? If it doesn't, e.g. a Mage can dump spell factors all the way to -5 dice pool, since it's no different from 0 dice pool for him.
