As I now know from reading How many dice does the GM roll when challenging the players?, there is almost certainly no clear ruling on this.
Consider the situation:
- Player A is a chef
- Player B is an armored knight.
- Player A has the skill Spoon as Knife 3 from (Cooking 2<-Anything 1) from the time he had to prepare a fine meal with only the most basic utensils.
- Player A declares that he wants slit the armored knight's throat, the Player B's character has Armour-ed 3 from (Knighting 2<-Anything 1)
- There is no question that that Player A's character can cut someones throat with a spoon, he proved this with Spoon as Knife
- But a spoon is a poor weapon for doing so, particularly if Player B's character is wearing a Bevor, compared to say an Axe which would cut right through the chain mail neck piece, or a stiletto that could slide between.
Should either player be get a dice bonus/penalty? Or a modification to the rolled sum?**
Or that that the way the game goes. And it is to be embraced as part of the experience?
This is just a exaggerated PvP example, but same might apply to a character:
- trying steal say a letter out of another's hand without them noticing.
- Or to whisper a message to an NPC without a player who is wearing a heavy helm hearing.
- Or sneak in to a dimly lite room without the other players spotting them.