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Hello! Brand new LM here. I'm having a hard time understanding how to use skill endeavors and councils in my game. Thinking about the math, it seems like low-mid "level" companies will have a pretty high chance of failing to pass even low-level skill-endeavors/councils.

For example, if you had a party with a '3' in all of their relevant skills. To make the math easy, pretend the fate die is just a d10 and none of the skills are favored, and the PC's have a 13 in all of their TN's. They have a 79.17% chance of succeeding a single roll. (https://anydice.com/program/14abc). For a council with resistance 3 or a skill endeavor with resistance 3 and a "short" time limit, this means the company only has a 49% chance of passing!

In the system, is the expectation that players will need to use a lot of resources like hope, perform roleplaying to get extra advantages (talk with NPCs before a council, etc) to be able to count on succeeding at a skill endeavor/council?

Remember that 6s add an additional success. In your example you don't need to pass all three rolls, your successes could go 2/0/1, so the % chance of overall success you have calculated is incorrect, as it doesn't allow for 6s adding additional successes. So even against TN 15, 3d, no favoured skills you've still got slightly over a 60% chance of passing a Resistance 3 Council/Skill Endeavour with a Time Limit of 3 (I've crunched the numbers with 6s adding an extra success for you).

Indeed, at moderate to high dice pools the maths of skill endeavours breaks down, and what are supposed to be harder challenges become easier, as PCs are likely to pass rolls and more rolls = more chances at 6s. Even starting PCs can hit moderate to high dice pools if they spend hope (especially if inspired for +2d), add 1d for a useful item, spend hope for support etc.

Therefore, I recommend using the alternative rules in Ruins of the Lost Realm, where the Resistance and the Time Limit are independent of one another rather than increasing 1:1.

Additionally, note that you don't need to "talk with NPCs before doing a council" - appropriate role play can add 1d or 2d (p107 of the Core rulebook).

For both skill endeavours and councils, using distinctive features of NPCs can add flavour and reward/penalise decisions from PCs by adding 1d/2d to a roll, or imposing a -1d penalty. For example, if the Skill Endeavour is "Scout the Orc Camp" and our "Rebellious" orc soldiers are squabbling and distracted, maybe Stealth checks get +1d.

Hope the above helps!

Thank you, that's very helpful! Ah, yes I missed the part about the success rune being able to grant an extra success. And even more reason to pick up Ruins of the Lost Realm

No worries! Glad to help and I can recommend Ruins of the Lost Realm and Tales from the Lone Lands.

Just thought I'd add that the other weekend my players (starting ranks in all skills, before first fellowship phase) had a middle difficulty council and passed it in two rolls (each was a success with two 6's) so it's very possible. I do much prefer the modified rules in Ruins of the Lost Realm so if you are not using those I'd check them out.