One Extra Second

Most of the time we treat a skill roll as a snapshot. The lock is there. The roll happens. The door is open, or it isn’t.

The book already gives you another handle. Extra Time (Basic Set, p. 346) is not just a combat option. On a non-combat task, taking twice as long is +1. Four times as long is +2. Eight times is +3. You can keep going. The table stops you before the math does.

A lock that would be skill-12 in a hurry is skill-13 if nobody is kicking the door. A first-aid roll with the patient already stable is not the same roll as the one you make while arrows are still in the air. A Mechanic check on a quiet afternoon is not the check you make with the engine on fire.

You do not need a new rule. You need the sentence: “How long do you actually have?”

If the answer is “as long as we want,” give them the +1 and keep playing. If they actually take four times as long, that is the +2. If the answer is “the patrol turns this corner in twenty seconds,” they roll the number on the sheet. The difference is the scene, not a house rule.

Be careful dragging it out much longer, or it stops being Extra Time and starts being a lifestyle. Sure, I can take a week to clean the house. At that point I am not careful. I am hiding from the vacuum. The book does not owe that a +5. The book owes that a dirty kitchen.

This also keeps complementary skills from doing work they don’t have to do. Two characters hovering over the same lock is useful. So is one character who simply isn’t rushing. Use both when they apply. Don’t spend the first one because you forgot the second exists.

The cheap version of “cinematic competence” is not a wildcard and not a talent. It is the party agreeing that this job can take a minute.