The idea of adding both the ability die and pressure die if the ability rolls >= the pressure die is pretty neat for dealing damage.
It does create a strange effect where having a high pressure die and a high ability die can allow a character to deal more damage than if the pressure die was lower (i.e. 8 on the ability die and a 7 on the d8 pressure die [15 total] in comparison to 8 on the ability die and a 2 on the d4 pressure die [10 total]).
Normally, when a PC would have a high skill roll vs a low difficulty TN, their success would be more profound than if it were a high skill roll barely beating a high difficulty TN.
Is this an intended effect that you're trying to produce with these game mechanics? If so, what's the correlation between those game mechanics and what's happening in the game world (or what genre concession are you trying to emulate)?
The Marvel Multiverse RPG has a similar mechanical outcome, where damage is calculated off of a hero's base damage times the result of the Marvel die (a d6 where the "1" is actually a "Marvel result," which counts as a 6, so it's spread is 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6). For enemies that are hard to hit, due to having the Marvel die be part of the 3d6 dice roll, this creates an effect where hard-to-hit enemies often get walloped when you do manage to hit them, due to the 3d6 roll required to hit them after modifiers have been factored in. IIRC, the lead designer admitted that this was a feature meant to emulate those moments in Marvel Comics where, say, Hawkeye would get in a lucky shot on a really tough villain, hitting them in a weak spot.
Really appreciate the feedback, Ronwise! So in this post https://jfacegames.substack.com/p/pressure-system-toolkit you can see a mathematical breakdown of Effort if interested. The major take away is that your average effort is much more against a lower Pressure Die, but yes, you can have bigger spikes potentially against a larger one.
I think the explanation that you posted about the Marvel Designer is a solid explanation that I eventually came to thematically. But I will say that it was a retroactive theme-ing, since I liked the idea first :P
So i like the idea that you can produce on average much more effort against smaller PD, but that you have the potential for large spike against bigger ones. But your spike against higher pressure is still limited by the size of your own Ability/Effort die.
Hope that helps explaining my own thought. Really appreciate the comment
The idea of adding both the ability die and pressure die if the ability rolls >= the pressure die is pretty neat for dealing damage.
It does create a strange effect where having a high pressure die and a high ability die can allow a character to deal more damage than if the pressure die was lower (i.e. 8 on the ability die and a 7 on the d8 pressure die [15 total] in comparison to 8 on the ability die and a 2 on the d4 pressure die [10 total]).
Normally, when a PC would have a high skill roll vs a low difficulty TN, their success would be more profound than if it were a high skill roll barely beating a high difficulty TN.
Is this an intended effect that you're trying to produce with these game mechanics? If so, what's the correlation between those game mechanics and what's happening in the game world (or what genre concession are you trying to emulate)?
The Marvel Multiverse RPG has a similar mechanical outcome, where damage is calculated off of a hero's base damage times the result of the Marvel die (a d6 where the "1" is actually a "Marvel result," which counts as a 6, so it's spread is 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6). For enemies that are hard to hit, due to having the Marvel die be part of the 3d6 dice roll, this creates an effect where hard-to-hit enemies often get walloped when you do manage to hit them, due to the 3d6 roll required to hit them after modifiers have been factored in. IIRC, the lead designer admitted that this was a feature meant to emulate those moments in Marvel Comics where, say, Hawkeye would get in a lucky shot on a really tough villain, hitting them in a weak spot.
Really appreciate the feedback, Ronwise! So in this post https://jfacegames.substack.com/p/pressure-system-toolkit you can see a mathematical breakdown of Effort if interested. The major take away is that your average effort is much more against a lower Pressure Die, but yes, you can have bigger spikes potentially against a larger one.
I think the explanation that you posted about the Marvel Designer is a solid explanation that I eventually came to thematically. But I will say that it was a retroactive theme-ing, since I liked the idea first :P
So i like the idea that you can produce on average much more effort against smaller PD, but that you have the potential for large spike against bigger ones. But your spike against higher pressure is still limited by the size of your own Ability/Effort die.
Hope that helps explaining my own thought. Really appreciate the comment