I understand and like the idea of prolonged actions reducing the difficulty but increasing the number of successful rolls required.

"For example, finding the exit of a maze is better presented as a prolonged action with a TN of 14 requiring six successful Riddle rolls to figure out, than making it a single test with a TN of 20." And in the extreme case, the LMB mentions the possibility that a complex and difficult prolonged action could require 9 successful rolls.

I'm confused in one respect, though. Does this mean that this number of successful rolls must be made in succession without a single failure?

For example, in the 6 roll TN 14 prolonged action to exit the above maze, what happens if the company rolls 5 successes followed by a single failure? Assuming for the sake of discussion that the company has a hero with level 3 (good) Riddle skills, there's 30% chance of failure on any given roll making the overall probability around 90% that at least 1 of the 6 rolls will fail. (If my math is correct...)

Thanks in advance for the help. (And thanks for the excellent help and advice in all the other threads.)

Prolonged Actions allow you to break down a single roll into many whilst maintaining a equivalent chance of success or failure.

So, TN20 is an exceedingly high number. If the maze is meant to be Daunting then 30% chance of failure per roll sounds about right. What is the chance of failure at a single roll at TN20? My guess is that it would close to 90% too.

Thanks!

The LMB does say that one use of prolonged actions is to increase the atmosphere of tension. In that sort of situation, I'd definitely agree that the overall success probability would not change.

How about the other use of prolonged actions to allow characters to take their time to cautiously tackle a difficult task? I'd think the characters taking this approach would increase their overall probability of success.

"Prolonged actions are particularly suited to evoke an atmosphere of tension, but may also be employed when the acting characters want to tackle a difficult task with
caution, and have time to do it."

I think the idea is that a Prolonged Action can bring an impossible TN down into a possible but difficult one. It also allows more PCs to contribute and perhaps use a wider range of Skills at a better level. All these result in advantages with nothing else.

On saying that, I don't see any reason that all prolonged actions need to have failure bringing down the entire effort such as where there is no time pressure. There is a rule against rerolling for the same action, but I don't think it restricts this idea.

In other systems that use an equivalent of prolonged actions, you are allowed a preset number of failures before you blow the roll.

Mutants and Masterminds, for example, allows 2 failures, with the 3rd being an end to the check.

You could use something similar in TOR, with an 'eye' roll being an immediate failure.

It may also depend on circumstances..

Shimmying along a ledge as a prolonged action has consequences if you fail, a death fall!

Whereas if following a trail, failure simply delay the trackers or perhaps lead them to a 'Hazard' where the guide has get back on course!

For some cases you could treat it similar to the journey rolls. Each failure adds time to the task.

For the example of the maze you could set a base time, say 2 hours + 1 hour per failed roll. Rolling a Sauron would trigger some sort of hazzard.

This would be good for situations where the PCs can't really fail its just a matter of how long it takes, and what condition they arrive in.

My thoughts exactly. I was just about to post something similar. I think that Prolonged Actions are also a good opportunity for Loremasters to narrate and build tension, describing the results of successful and failed rolls. With creative use of language by the Loremaster, players will feel how important those rolls were, as opposed to just making one very difficult roll without all the drama.