diff --git a/egs/librispeech/ASR/conformer_ctc/decode.py b/egs/librispeech/ASR/conformer_ctc/decode.py
index 470bdd682..6b0ae0931 100755
--- a/egs/librispeech/ASR/conformer_ctc/decode.py
+++ b/egs/librispeech/ASR/conformer_ctc/decode.py
@@ -63,7 +63,10 @@ def get_parser():
         type=float,
         default=1.0,
         help="The scale to be applied to `lattice.scores`."
-        "A smaller value results in more unique paths",
+        "It's needed if you use any kinds of n-best based rescoring. "
+        "Currently, it is used when the decoding method is: nbest, "
+        "nbest-rescoring, attention-decoder, and nbest-oracle. "
+        "A smaller value results in more unique paths.",
     )
 
     return parser
@@ -96,6 +99,8 @@ def get_params() -> AttributeDict:
             #  - whole-lattice-rescoring
             #  - attention-decoder
             #  - nbest-oracle
+            #  "method": "nbest",
+            #  "method": "nbest-rescoring",
             #  "method": "whole-lattice-rescoring",
             "method": "attention-decoder",
             #  "method": "nbest-oracle",
@@ -215,8 +220,9 @@ def decode_one_batch(
                 lattice=lattice,
                 num_paths=params.num_paths,
                 use_double_scores=params.use_double_scores,
+                scale=params.scale,
             )
-            key = f"no_rescore-{params.num_paths}"
+            key = f"no_rescore-scale-{params.scale}-{params.num_paths}"
 
         hyps = get_texts(best_path)
         hyps = [[lexicon.word_table[i] for i in ids] for ids in hyps]
@@ -237,6 +243,7 @@ def decode_one_batch(
             G=G,
             num_paths=params.num_paths,
             lm_scale_list=lm_scale_list,
+            scale=params.scale,
         )
     elif params.method == "whole-lattice-rescoring":
         best_path_dict = rescore_with_whole_lattice(
@@ -256,6 +263,7 @@ def decode_one_batch(
             memory_key_padding_mask=memory_key_padding_mask,
             sos_id=sos_id,
             eos_id=eos_id,
+            scale=params.scale,
         )
     else:
         assert False, f"Unsupported decoding method: {params.method}"
diff --git a/icefall/decode.py b/icefall/decode.py
index 43524a02a..bdcab23f3 100644
--- a/icefall/decode.py
+++ b/icefall/decode.py
@@ -9,6 +9,36 @@ import torch.nn as nn
 from icefall.lexicon import Lexicon
 
 
+def _get_random_paths(
+    lattice: k2.Fsa,
+    num_paths: int,
+    use_double_scores: bool = True,
+    scale: float = 1.0,
+):
+    """
+    Args:
+      lattice:
+        The decoding lattice, returned by :func:`get_lattice`.
+      num_paths:
+        It specifies the size `n` in n-best. Note: Paths are selected randomly
+        and those containing identical word sequences are remove dand only one
+        of them is kept.
+      use_double_scores:
+        True to use double precision floating point in the computation.
+        False to use single precision.
+      scale:
+        It's the scale applied to the lattice.scores. A smaller value
+        yields more unique paths.
+    Returns:
+      Return a k2.RaggedInt with 3 axes [seq][path][arc_pos]
+    """
+    saved_scores = lattice.scores.clone()
+    lattice.scores *= scale
+    path = k2.random_paths(lattice, num_paths=num_paths, use_double_scores=True)
+    lattice.scores = saved_scores
+    return path
+
+
 def _intersect_device(
     a_fsas: k2.Fsa,
     b_fsas: k2.Fsa,
@@ -132,7 +162,10 @@ def one_best_decoding(
 
 
 def nbest_decoding(
-    lattice: k2.Fsa, num_paths: int, use_double_scores: bool = True
+    lattice: k2.Fsa,
+    num_paths: int,
+    use_double_scores: bool = True,
+    scale: float = 1.0,
 ) -> k2.Fsa:
     """It implements something like CTC prefix beam search using n-best lists.
 
@@ -155,12 +188,18 @@ def nbest_decoding(
       use_double_scores:
         True to use double precision floating point in the computation.
         False to use single precision.
+      scale:
+        It's the scale applied to the lattice.scores. A smaller value
+        yields more unique paths.
     Returns:
       An FsaVec containing linear FSAs.
     """
-    # First, extract `num_paths` paths for each sequence.
-    # path is a k2.RaggedInt with axes [seq][path][arc_pos]
-    path = k2.random_paths(lattice, num_paths=num_paths, use_double_scores=True)
+    path = _get_random_paths(
+        lattice=lattice,
+        num_paths=num_paths,
+        use_double_scores=use_double_scores,
+        scale=scale,
+    )
 
     # word_seq is a k2.RaggedInt sharing the same shape as `path`
     # but it contains word IDs. Note that it also contains 0s and -1s.
@@ -323,7 +362,11 @@ def compute_am_and_lm_scores(
 
 
 def rescore_with_n_best_list(
-    lattice: k2.Fsa, G: k2.Fsa, num_paths: int, lm_scale_list: List[float]
+    lattice: k2.Fsa,
+    G: k2.Fsa,
+    num_paths: int,
+    lm_scale_list: List[float],
+    scale: float = 1.0,
 ) -> Dict[str, k2.Fsa]:
     """Decode using n-best list with LM rescoring.
 
@@ -345,6 +388,9 @@ def rescore_with_n_best_list(
         It is the size `n` in `n-best` list.
       lm_scale_list:
         A list containing lm_scale values.
+      scale:
+        It's the scale applied to the lattice.scores. A smaller value
+        yields more unique paths.
     Returns:
       A dict of FsaVec, whose key is an lm_scale and the value is the
       best decoding path for each sequence in the lattice.
@@ -359,9 +405,12 @@ def rescore_with_n_best_list(
     assert G.device == device
     assert hasattr(G, "aux_labels") is False
 
-    # First, extract `num_paths` paths for each sequence.
-    # path is a k2.RaggedInt with axes [seq][path][arc_pos]
-    path = k2.random_paths(lattice, num_paths=num_paths, use_double_scores=True)
+    path = _get_random_paths(
+        lattice=lattice,
+        num_paths=num_paths,
+        use_double_scores=True,
+        scale=scale,
+    )
 
     # word_seq is a k2.RaggedInt sharing the same shape as `path`
     # but it contains word IDs. Note that it also contains 0s and -1s.
@@ -587,11 +636,12 @@ def nbest_oracle(
       when calling this function, while its value contains the decoding output.
       `len(ans_dict) == len(ref_texts)`
     """
-    saved_scores = lattice.scores.clone()
-
-    lattice.scores *= scale
-    path = k2.random_paths(lattice, num_paths=num_paths, use_double_scores=True)
-    lattice.scores = saved_scores
+    path = _get_random_paths(
+        lattice=lattice,
+        num_paths=num_paths,
+        use_double_scores=True,
+        scale=scale,
+    )
 
     word_seq = k2.index(lattice.aux_labels, path)
     word_seq = k2.ragged.remove_values_leq(word_seq, 0)
@@ -630,6 +680,7 @@ def rescore_with_attention_decoder(
     memory_key_padding_mask: torch.Tensor,
     sos_id: int,
     eos_id: int,
+    scale: float = 1.0,
 ) -> Dict[str, k2.Fsa]:
     """This function extracts n paths from the given lattice and uses
     an attention decoder to rescore them. The path with the highest
@@ -653,6 +704,9 @@ def rescore_with_attention_decoder(
         The token ID for SOS.
       eos_id:
         The token ID for EOS.
+      scale:
+        It's the scale applied to the lattice.scores. A smaller value
+        yields more unique paths.
     Returns:
       A dict of FsaVec, whose key contains a string
       ngram_lm_scale_attention_scale and the value is the
@@ -660,7 +714,12 @@ def rescore_with_attention_decoder(
     """
     # First, extract `num_paths` paths for each sequence.
     # path is a k2.RaggedInt with axes [seq][path][arc_pos]
-    path = k2.random_paths(lattice, num_paths=num_paths, use_double_scores=True)
+    path = _get_random_paths(
+        lattice=lattice,
+        num_paths=num_paths,
+        use_double_scores=True,
+        scale=scale,
+    )
 
     # word_seq is a k2.RaggedInt sharing the same shape as `path`
     # but it contains word IDs. Note that it also contains 0s and -1s.