Retrying a Task After Failure

If you fail a task (whether it's climbing a wall, picking a lock, trying to figure out a mysterious device, or something else) you can attempt it again, but you have to use Effort when retrying it. A retry is a new action, not part of the same action that failed, and it takes the same amount of time as the first attempt did. Additional retries may be possible if your first retry fails, but the same rule applies: you have to apply at least one level of Effort each time.

Sometimes the GM might rule that retries are impossible. Perhaps you only have one chance to convince the leader of a group of thugs not to attack, and after that, no amount of talking will stop them.

The retrying rule doesn't apply to something like attacking a foe in combat because combat is always changing and fluid. Each round's situation is new, not a repeat of a previous situation, so a missed attack can't be retried (other than as a new attack action on the following round).