Not sure I understand Boxcars

Games Discussion Feng Shui
1

So I don't fully understand how to treat Boxcars. When you get boxcars, and re-roll the dice, do you still add skills and the fortune die (if rolled) to the result of the re-rolled boxcars?

The following roll occurred in our game played on Roll20: (6+4)-(6+5)+15= 14. The difficulty of the check was 13. We have boxcars with 4 on the re-rolled positive die, and 5 on the re-rolled negative die. A total swerve of -1. To that, the Action Value of 15 got added, for a total Action Result of 14. This was all done automatically by a macro in Roll20. On page 11, it states that one of the two ways Way-Awful Failures occur is to "...roll double sixes (boxcars) and then score an Action Result less than the Difficulty of the check." The glossary defines Action Result as "Your Action Value plus your Swerve. Compare to Difficulty." Action Value is defined as "A rating assigned to an ability or skill that defines how likely a character is to succeed at an action. Abbreviated to AV." That tells me that you do add Action Values (skills), and by implication a possible Fortune Die, to the swerve created by the re-rolled boxcars.

This has come up because I had initially thought that once you got boxcars, you re-rolled the dice and then used just the result of that roll (without any added Action Values or Fortune Dice) to determine whether you had a fabulous success or a Way-Awful Failure. The consensus on the G+ forums has been that this is indeed the way it is, but my reading of the rule book seems to suggest otherwise.

How are boxcars intended to be resolved, and where can I find that in the rules?

Thank you.

Keith

2

Your interpretation of the rules is accurate. You use everything you would normally use, and whether the box-cars are good or bad is determined by the overall success of the final number. This is how it has always been in both Feng Shui 1 and Feng Shui 2. I do not know where those "other people" got their interpretation, but you are playing things correctly.

3

So just to be clear, in the above example, boxcars with an Action Result of 15 vs. a difficulty of 13, it would be a fabulous success. However if the Action Result had been a 12 vs a difficulty of 13, it would have been a Way-Awful Failure, correct?

4

Yes, it really is that simple.