Searching a room : extended contest

I still have some problems to evaluate AP bidding for passive "oponents".

Let's go straigth to an example.
A character wants to search a room to find a valuable magic item hidden by some wizard. It is an important plot in the story, so the Narrator decides to play it as an extended contest. The Starting AP and Resistance roll for the Narrator will probably be the Hide skill of the Wizard. The character starts searching, trying not to make noise. I guess the Narrator will give some penalty to his Search skill.

1/ Is that modifier considered a "permanent" one, and therefore reducing as well the Starting AP of the character ? Or is is just a temporary one, as the Character may decide otherwise at any time ? In the first case, what if the character decides in the middle of the contest to take more risk and make noise ?

2/ How to represent a low stakes and a high stakes for such actions ? Low bid is searching drawer per drawer, while high bid is emptying the whole cupboard on the bed ?

3/ What will be the stakes level of the Narrator (on the basis of the Wizard's Hide skill), and what do they represent ?

Alain.             Received on Mon 22 May 2000 - 14:25:29 EEST