Another Experiment!

I'll explain what this stuff does in the combat example but the laptop is near flat and its sack time anyhow.

Basically, Jade Hood is a martial arts type fella with skills and weapons. Stone Fist is a big guy with ultra dense skin that helps him resist nasty things like bullets and knives. Added to that it acts like natural knuckle dusters. Jade Hood is the better fighter, Stone Fist is the guy able to take and dish out more punishment. The game will be set in the early 1930s, out of continuity with our main game and in New York City at the height of the depression. It'll be a way to try out and explain stuff, and come up with new things to try.

Both are Class 1 (5 energy, recover 1 per round they don't use any energy in) and usually battle against class 0 (thugs, yakuza, mafia etc).

Admin wrote:Points taken!


Watch this space. We'll see how that goes then come up with some changes/fixes and go from there...

Excellent, can't wait. I'm happy to be either character, just pleased that we seemed to have boiled things down so.

Sj

Issue 1 of the new tryout is up. Cooked up a couple of characters (pick one and post away!). If anyone else other than the two Davids wants to get in on the (admittedly short) game let me know and I'll cook up a 1930s 'Mystery Man' for you to run. Characters are either skilled or low powered superhumans, or possibly gadgeteers.



or

I'll take Stone Fist. Will post in a few hours.

Effort Points and Penalty Dice explained. Plus... HERO points when you HAVE to succeed!

Normally only two dice (d10s) are rolled and added together whenever a task is attempted. Then the appropriate Ability/Power/Skill is added, any modifier (good or bad) applied and the result compared to a target number. If the total exceeds the target number, the task attempt succeeds. if it is equal or less than the target number, the task fails. Alternately if opposing another character compare their totals. Ties are rerolled and the highest total wins.

When a character uses one or more effort points, an extra d10 is rolled per effort point, and the player/character chooses the best two dice to use, discarding the rest. Usually those are doubles, but if the dice would give a high total that would succeed at the task, that might be better (for example rolling a double 2 or a 10 and 9, I'd probably pick the 10 and 9). Effort points are recovered every time the GM posts (in play by post, for which these rules are intended) whereby they resolve an action that the player hasn't used effort points for.

Example:

Kestrel the dark vigilante named after a bird of prey, uses two effort points to attack a ninja. The next action, he uses no effort points, and so the GM has Kestrel recover an effort point.

You don't recover effort points in the same round as using any.

Penalty Dice are effectively the opposite of Effort points. the GM applies them when things might go bad for the character. A penalty die and effort point cancel each other out but if there are more penalty dice than effort points for a task, the GM rolls 1d10 per penalty die, and chooses the lowest/worst dice to use (avoiding doubles if possible unless a double 1).

Example:

Kestrel is falling down a lift shaft! He fires his grapple line at a door, hoping to snag it and slow his fall! The GM applies 3 penalty dice (he's wounded, falling, and needs to get the grapple out and shoot in one move). Kestrel throws in his last effort point, which cancels out a Penalty die. He then rolls 2d10, whilst the GM rolls 2D10 (remaining Penalty dice) and picks the lowest two dice to use. odds are that kestrel will need to find some other way to stop himself falling to the bottom!

Hero Points are special and hard to come by, earned by doing heroic deeds. When spent, they are gone, and don't recover like effort points do. At any time before a roll is made, a character can use a hero point. This allows the player to pick one of their two dice rolled, discard the other, and basically roll the same as the remaining die, in other words a guaranteed double result. They should not be used lightly! Hero points are hard to come by, usually as a result of:

1) Saving innocent bystanders
2) Thwarting the villain
3) Saving the town/city/country/world
4) Going above and beyond the call of duty
5) Personal Sacrifice

Example:

Despite his 'anti hero' status, Kestrel fights for Justice. Over the years he has gathered hero points, and needs one to stop himself going splat! He fires his grapple line again, and once more the GM rules there are three Penalty dice to roll. This time he uses a hero point. 2d10 are rolled, and the Hero Point cancels out the penalty dice. The dice come up 1 and 8. The hero point allows him to drop the 1 and assume a roll of 8 for his first die, giving him a total of 16 rolled and a double, so he gets to roll 2d10 again and add to his total roll of 16. This time he should save his skin!

Admin wrote:Despite his 'anti hero' status, Kestrel fights for Justice. Over the years he has gathered hero points, and needs one to stop himself going splat! He fires his grapple line again, and once more the GM rules there are three Penalty dice to roll. This time he uses a hero point. 2d10 are rolled, and the Hero Point cancels out the penalty dice. The dice come up 1 and 8. The hero point allows him to drop the 1 and assume a roll of 8 for his first die, giving him a total of 16 rolled and a double, so he gets to roll 2d10 again and add to his total roll of 16. This time he should save his skin![/i]

I like it particularly the hero points mechanic, in addition to the effort points, very good.

Sj

Just after Jade Hood (Dave E) actions/target and will move this on...

Issue 2 up...

Looking for feedback, suggestions, ideas, things that aren't clear, things that are good/bad. I'm aware I've given you nothing to read yet, only explained things but it's in a draft state. I've written a section on the Core Mechanics of the game (It's actually been re-written about a dozen times, from scratch because I wanted to to get it right) and that's ready to post up or as email attachment (PDF) to you guys. It's all text, there are a few fancy headings to break up the text walls but I will sprinkle some public domain comic book art in to spice it up a bit. Once the combat section is written the character creation section is quite closely tied to the DC Heroes game, which is what I wanted this to be in the first place (the system you guys used with Morningstar and Bowcaster) and I'm hoping it won't take too many tweaks to get that knocked out. I want you to be able to make your own characters (it's a point buy system done as simply as possible, so no Champions/Mutants and Masterminds level math that to me kills my enthusiasm stone dead. I will need your feedback on that at some point, but for now we'll continue with our playtesting.)

Gotta thank you guys as well - a lot of this I am thinking up on the fly as I post (I find I get 'flashes' that stick out as a reasonable thing to try and you guys are the guinea pigs unfortunately). Eventually we will move onto Class 2 or 3 characters (far more powerful than you have) and we'll really try to break the system with tank tossing and mountain destroying antics. If that works Class 4 and 5 (think Lionheart and Adjutant) level characters will provide adventures in space and beyond. That's a way off, and we may not even need to get there. Successful trials of this system might see us switch from the GH system. The powers in the DC Heroes game are far more flexible, wide ranging and outright powerful than our house ruled GH system, which for all it's faults, still serves us well, so nothing is cast in stone!

Opinions sought!

Hi Paul

ok I am no expert on rules, what I know about GH I know because I read the rules and played them, where as DC stuff is very abstract to me. Playing them in a PBEM, for some reason only more so. So I don't feel I've got a huge amount to say other than what I like in a game.

For me, I like a certain amount of similitude, but I don't want to have it at the expense of loosing some of the fantastic. I am not very gammy, in that the mechanics really don't bother me since I gave up rolling dice I'm not worried what I need to hit, or indeed what they need to hit me, as I find I am responding to the narrative, and the bottom line.

If I were you, writing out the dice rolls and what not would drive me nuts, but I know you don't mind this. But, being honest I really only glance at that stuff and get to the line, do I hit and how much. After all I trust you, if I didn't the game would quickly break down. So keeping the game stuff to a minimum - apart from where necessary suits me better.

For example I'd prefer, "Lionheart struck out against the Robot and succeeded in dealing it a mighty blow [Hit and did 34 HTK damage after dividers]" Job done. That for me works better because it doesn't detract overly much from the game back into naked mechanics. I think at the moment there is a lot of rolling, to hit, for damage for resistance, where GH did this right was that there was only one roll, this meant game mechanics also took up less space, I like that. The way around it, for me, isn't not to do it, but simply to tell us the bottom line. Also I love the whole idea of speed or agility giving an attacker a harder time. How often does Spidey dodge bullets, or Batman? There has to be a reason these guys avoid being hit, esp Batman who isn't a tank.

As regards to building characters and powers and stuff like that - then yes I do want to know about the mechanics. Though I am not a min maxer, I like coming up with interesting characters, who regardless of power levels can work and make a contribution to the game. What I hate about GH, is basically if you don't have a grade of strength, you're contribution to the game is going to run out real quick, esp if it relies on magic, psi or energy. So this is one area where I do want to know can I create this type of character and give him these tweaks and see him advance in this way.

Otherwise I like the effort system and hero points, that sounds fine, since we are always in situations that demand we give our best, do our best, try our hardest to win over despite the odds. And for me that aspect beautifully and elegantly makes that point. I'm not just doing x I'm doing it with added incentive to make it succeed. For me then this means we get the focus on the game, mechanics pop up only where needed, and the game the story, the characters get to really shine.

Anyway hope what I am saying doesn't come across in a negative way, believe me I wouldn't stick around if I didn't enjoy what we've been doing. But I have noticed that as the game has gone on the naked mechanics pop in more and more, if anything I'd like to simplify what gets fed back, so I see what has happened without having to know every dice spent getting there.

But hey I'm just one person and I'm open to being shot down. As a DM I realise you've got to enjoy this as well, I know how much hard work it is.

Sj

Points taken - I'll reduce the mechanics babble as sometimes that is a pain in the backside to write out. I guess I do that simply to prove we are playing an RPG and not 'interactive fiction' where stuff gets hand waved and you're more or less story writing. That'll be less work for me as well, and I have wondered in the past whether anyone reads that stuff (I must admit I do skim over it as I often include notes on what the bad guy is using so if they come up again I'm not making it up from scratch again). Maybe for my reference I'll put some text in a different colour and keep the 'in character' stuff totally separate rather than breaking up posts.

Remember as well the GH rules are only a single roll because we house ruled it that way - rolling D6s was a nightmare and for that I'm glad we use the system we have now. One roll, determines if you hit and how well you hit, done.

The effort/hero point system I guess I'm most pleased with. Gives you guys some genuine control over how well your character does. No guarantee of success, but with effort points and hero points you can get a spectacular result (as Jade Hood did). It might get a tweak or two but right now I can't think of a way to improve it, so it'll stay.

I'm thinking of incorporating the round/frame system into it as well, but combats might be over far too quickly and effort points might be less effective then. Will think on that. Thanks for your patience anyway. Been a rough few days (11-12 hour shifts, 12 hours between shifts, no sleep...) but last shift for a week tonight so regular updates on the way back

Mate with your work and shifts I don't know how you do it, but I am supremely thankful you do. This has been the most fun you could have with a forum and email that I know.

Sj

For example I'd prefer, "Lionheart struck out against the Robot and succeeded in dealing it a mighty blow [Hit and did 34 HTK damage after dividers]" Job done. That for me works better because it doesn't detract overly much from the game back into naked mechanics

I agree with pretty much all SJ said, especially the bit above. If you want to write out the mechanics of the rolling, lets keep it separate from the narrative. I thought you were doing that so you could keep track of what was going on, in case you started rolling then went away to do some RL stuff and came back and could remember where you left off.

The big weakness to GH is that you need superstrength to fight all the time. No sense getting any other power as your main power. That is something I don't like and very much want to see your new game rules for making characters and how other powers will finally become effective.

Here's a weird thought since we are doing pulp adventure here. A number of pulp and comic strip magicians, like Mandrake, didn't have "real" magic powers, they had a form of super-hypnotism. If we ever get a third person to help with this testing, maybe they should play someone with that power so we can see how well it does?

I'm open to anything. I kind of get what you mean - Mandrake hypnotises his target into thinking he's doing all sorts of weird stuff (flying etc) when in actual fact he's just stood there? Or am I barking up wrong tree? I think Mandrake turned up in the Defenders of the Earth cartoon in the 80s didn't he? (With Phantom, Flash Gordon and others)

Actually it was more like an illusion that only that person or persons could see. If Mandrake "gestures hypnotically" or "gestures mystically" at a bunch of crooks trying to run him down in a car, they would think that all of a sudden, he put a steel wall in the middle of the street for their car to smash into and would swerve to avoid it and smash into a building instead when there was actually nothing in the street.

They could even think themselves fighting a bunch of guys and getting beat up and pass out from the beating that they didn't really get. It is a powerful yet at the same time limiting power because if crooks didn't look your way, you couldn't affect them or if they attacked you in the dark or were blind ninjas, the power would not have any affect on them. Others with high 'mystic' senses or the same power could sometimes break through the illusions. And if your hands were tied or full of a person in your arms, you couldn't gesture to bring them under your spell.

But it is powerful. He has been known to make a copy of himself, to their eyes, while making himself invisible, so that they attack the copy, which they then capture thinking it is the real him and he follows them - invisible to their eyes - to find their hideout. And that copy could gesture and cause them to see illusions while the real Mandrake stood to the side and observed. Sneaky tough power, but weak in some ways.

I think this is important enough to post up here as it will affect the way the game is played...

Note that BEFORE Initiative is rolled you should decide how many effort points you wish to allocate to each stage of combat. If you do not, and decide to allocate effort points after any dice (from initiative onwards in a round) are rolled, it costs double the normal number of Effort Points per die.

Example:
ForceLord attacks a Supervillain with his Force Blast. His die roll is lousy (4 and 1) so the player decides to add Effort points to improve it. He wants 3 extra dice to roll so must pay 6 Effort points.

Note that this rule of being able to add Effort Points AFTER dice are rolled was introduced to be used in play by post/forum play, because of the nature of that gaming format and the possible delay/slow down of combat whilst the to/fro of combat takes place. When playing by post the player MUST state something along the lines of “If I roll less than 10, I will spend 4 effort points to get two extra dice”, in order to keep things moving. By stating the “if this happens, do this” method Combat will speed along much faster, and the player can cover themselves to reduce the risk of failure. If they get great rolls, they won’t have to spend any Effort Points at all with this method, with the only downside being that any Effort Points they do spend cost double.

Example:
A player, David, decides his character Stone Fist will attack a Nazi Goon. He doesn’t allocate any Effort Points, thinking that the Goon won’t need any to be knocked into next week. However, to cover himself, he adds “If the attack roll misses, spend 2 effort points for an extra die. If the attack roll hits, add an extra damage die for 2 effort points.” Later, when Stone Fist has recovered some Effort Points (3 rounds have passed or the player has attempted 3 Dice actions) he’s attacked by a Nazi Robot. The Player (David) states “If Stone Fist is struck and takes damage, spend four effort points to increase resistance by two dice.” By doing this Stone Fist won’t use any Effort Points at all if he’s not struck, and gets extra resistance dice if he is struck.

Apologies if that appears as a big text wall. The formatting will have been lost copying from Word/PDF so not sure on how it will come out until I preview.

I wanted a mechanic whereby Players by post can cover themselves and not but left high and dry by lousy dice rolls, so had a think and I reckon this will do the trick.

Simply state "if this happens spend effort points on...<insert action>" whenever you attempt a dice action (in combat or out)

Any questions, holler!

Right, some more bedtime reading for you. First up, the Measurement Point table.



When you see a number on a character sheet and want to know what it means, take a look on this table. It only shows Distance, Weight and Time right now, and is subject to tweaking (values) but will eventually include things like Volume, Information, Money and anything else that might be useful.

Example:

Jade Hood has 3 Strength. He can lift up to 160kg (300 or so lbs) before needing to push himself. Stone Fist has 5 strength. His limit of 750kg makes him as strong as the strongest normal human being in the world (probably stronger actually, as the world record for a deadlift is 507 kg, which still falls in the range of 5 strength.)

The thing to note is that a measurement of weight, distance, time falls within the range of one Measurement Point and another but are covered under the same measurement point. For instance someone who can run at 16 miles/hour is moving at 5 speed, the same as someone moving at 30mph. Both fall in the range of 5 movement.

And there's another thing. Want to know how fast your character is moving?

Distance=Time+Speed

If your character can run at 4 speed how fast can they move in 1 hour? 1 Hour is 10 MPs. Simply add 10Mps to the Speed of 4 and look at the distance (in this case 15 miles per hour). Stone Fist Jumps Distance 3 (12m or around 40 feet) which works out at 8mph (add 10 to his distance for how far he travels in 1 hour by jumping). I may tweak and change things to make it fit. For instance Stone Fists Jumping has gone up one to 3 but it doesn't change anything - he was jumping 40 feet before and can still jump 40 feet, but needs 3 Jumping to do it, so gets it.

Other equations to have a play with:

Speed=Distance-Time

To work out how fast someone is moving, take the Distance then subtract the time it takes for the character to cover it. For example, if a character called Mr Speedyfeet travels 4 miles (12 Distance) in 2 minutes (5 time) he's moving at 7 Speed. Add 10 to his speed to find out how fast he moves in one hour and it comes up with 125mph. Pretty fast (probably grade 3 or 4 in Golden Heroes as well ) but hardly 'Flash' pace.

And another to be getting on with:

Time=Distance-Speed

How long does it take Jade Hood to run 1 mile? Without a speed power his Agility is his movement rate and it's capped at 4 which is the human maximum without some kind of superhuman power (though you can push beyond your limits, which is what sprinters do for 10 seconds or so). 1 Mile = 10mp. Time taken equals 10 (Distance) - Speed (jade Hoods speed of 4) = 6 Time (4 minutes). Jade Hood can run a mile in 4 minutes, which makes him amongst the worlds fastest natural (non superhuman) athletes!

UPDATED CHARACTER SHEETS for Jade Hood and Stone Fist



Stone Fist gains Ultra Vision 4 which allows him to see in complete darkness at a distance of up to 25m as if it were daylight. Jumping gets a tweak to 3 points to keep him jumping the same distance as he has been doing.



Stone Fists Martial Arts skill goes up 2 points to 7. That makes him one of the Worlds best Martial Artists and deadly not just with his hands and feet, but with related martial arts weapons which also use this versatile skill (his nunchucks and throwing stars use this too). Because he's more accurate with it now, it also increases the chances of inflicting more damage, which is nice.

For some peculiar reason the size/formatting got messed up so Jade Hoods character sheet looks bigger. *shrug* I'll never figure these computer thingies out...

EDIT: Tweaked size of formatting.

NOTE TO SELF: Updated character sheets and all the Vanguard rules (inlcuding MP table) ARE ON YOUR LAPTOP YOU GOON! Hopefully that will stop me having to type this stuff out from scratch again...

I've taken a brief look at what you've put up and it all looks fine to me (in truth I am totally useless with numbers and as I get older I find I worry about them less and less) as I trust you in any case. Thinking through what this means in real terms doesn't worry me too much until I am faced with what we are to do. Since most combats are balanced and apart from stupid dice most of the time we get by ok, I'm good with this. Although at least if we face a Hulk type character and you start saying strength 12 or something I now know what a difference that makes.

ok saved Jade Hood's character sheet on my HD where I put all the others, so got a copy I can now look up.

Have you been weighing in on the SQuk debate, to be honest people are way ahead of me, I've still not read the revised rules, which seem a bit tame to me still. And stuff seems to be missing, to be honest as I read it I still prefer the original game! Sounding like a Grognard now ;-)!

Sj

I don't think I'm 'in' on the SQUK thread (in yahoo groups?) but I do think some of the ideas we've been bouncing around (Speed/Agility making you harder to hit, one roll for hit/damage, having stat as bonus to a die roll, exploding dice etc) would improve the game. That's not just me being big headed, but we have tried a lot of that stuff and it works. The combat (one roll) thing whereby the higher you roll, the more accurate you are is one I intend to adopt in every game I run from now on, including D&D and anything else. It speeds things up no end instead of getting a die for this, pile of dice for that and so on.

If there's any specifics of the revised SQUK rules you want to quote or bounce off me just drop me a line. I understand you'll be under some kind of NDA (non disclosure thing) so don't be specific, just give an idea as to what works/don't work and I could throw my own (meagre) brain at the problem. It is worrying that Simon might not go far enough in updating the game - it's not as if its played by thousands of players that will be upset, so if I were him I'd start from the ground up, keeping the combat rounds/frames thing and maybe campaign ratings, and start from fresh with everything else. Don't restrict it to the UK either, but have settings the players can choose from.

e.g.

UK - the British people took a long time to come round to people in brightly coloured underwear flying about and the press in particular had a field day. At first there was a hard line and crack down on Vigilante activity until the authorities realised they were alienating the people who were trying to help them and driving others to the side of the criminals. Now there exists an uneasy truce whereby the...

Europe - Germany was quick to enlist its superhuman citizens and uniform them, put them out there for all to see. They operate as 'special forces' and are handsomely paid for it. In France most of the supers have public identities and are treated like movie stars (in fact, a few have 'acted' with spectacular results in the adult film industry...). In Italy riots broke out when the government declared all superhuman activity illegal and...

USA - there exists a kind of 'Wild west' mentality with regards supers. Because they are so many and varied, with power levels all over the place, the US administration has taken a different stance every four years as the public generally supports supers. As a result the hard line anti supers tend not to get a look in come election time and as a result unrest is growing...

China - Information is Classified and restricted. Western experts predict that China was quick to take superhumans under their wing and indeed, some say they are exploiting the superhuman resources at their disposal - to make more of them...

Russia - Behind closed doors the leaders of Russia are worried. They have the Soviet Stars, the huge group of state sponsored heroes, who are the public face of superhuman activity, and then there is the undergound. Disaffected superhumans who work from the shadows to help the common man - which is not always in the best interest of the Ruling Party at Moscow. Things were already building to a head when it was revealed that some breakaway Russian states have their own superhumans and that the people in those states are demanding justice against certain Russian sanctions/aggressions...

That's a 'top of my head' thing but there's no reason why different genres can't be listed in the core book (including future and past) and expanded on in future supplements. Right, I'd best get a shower (my sleep patterns are all over the place at the moment so only got up at 11.00...)

I came up with a backstory for a superhero universe that I may actually try my hand at writing. Victor has encouraged me to do it and I toy with it but nothing serious yet.

Anyway, I came up with the idea that the US government back in WW2 or perhaps earlier came up with a Supers Public ID law. It is sort of a registration law which allows them to have two identities. The Super gets a legally 'confirmed' or 'real' identify in his super persona. He gets an ID card, can get a driver's license, enter into contracts, get a job, buy a house, get a Social Securty card, pay taxes, etc. So that he can do whatever a 'normal' person can do. It also allows him to be a witness in trials. And then his secret ID that the government doesn't know about.

In one way, he is also like a registered sex offender or ex-felon, he has to register with the police, with an address and phone number or some other way where they can reach him when they want him.

When you stop and think about it, there are very few jobs where you can disappear from work for an hour or two to take down some bank robbers and not have your co-workers wonder where you are. The Maestro, my premier hero for this universe I created, has a secret ID as a romance novel writer and makes good money at it.

So he makes money as the Maestro by having a stipend from the police - being on call and helping out when they need him, plus any deals with toy companies, comic books companies, movies, etc. He owns a very nice old home in downtown Raleigh, filled with statues - actually more statues to be nice and into the realm of a cluttered mess but since they can come alive and protect his known superhero home ....

It *kind of* reminds me of the Incredibles storyline, but in that Bob Parr (Mr Incredible) is more like in the witness protection program and the government cleans up his mess after he goes 'off piste' and does something public - and super - and probably stupid which means they all have to move again.

Sounds like fun - I'd encourage you to play about with it and (dare I say?) run a game with it if you have the time If you wanted to do it on here feel free as you and Dave E have been moderators for months, so I assume you can make new forums and the like as well as heading off any dreaded spam which we have been spared from, thankfully.

A heads up on this. After much head scratching I have another tweak to add/play around with which we'll adopt as we continue Jade Hood and Stone Fists adventures in the next issue.

1) No more effort points - it was book keeping, I couldn't nail down a decent way of recovering energy without 'hand waving' and hopefully a new method is easier and faster.

2) To roll extra dice when you attempt any action, you can sacrifice 3 points of an ability, power or skill from your roll and roll an extra die. You then get to pick the best two dice and drop any extra.

Example:

Anyman clobbers a Nazi goon. He has an Attack (Composed of Agility, Intelligence, Perception and Brawling) of 12 points. Normally his attack would be: Roll 2D10 + 12, compare against opponents defence. He can sacrifice (temporarily, for this roll only) 3 points to roll an extra die and pick the best two of three dice, plus 9. If he wanted more dice he could sacrifice another 9 points and roll 6D10 in total, pick the best two dice and add 0 points to the roll result.

If you feel a dice roll bonus is of more benefit than potentially rolling higher or rolling a double, you don't have to do anything, just roll as is.

3) I'm thinking about cutting down dice rolling, so there'd be a roll for initiative, to hit, and defence, cutting out the damage and resistance rolls. That said, every roll that is made gives you guys, as players, more options and control over your characters (decide whether to add bonus to roll or increase number of dice, and whether to spend hero points which also buy extra dice). Will have a look.

None of this really impacts on you guys. You state your intentions, the dice get rolled, you react on the results that I spout. I'm just juggling things around whilst trying to give you options and tweaking the rules for speed, hopefully.

If you want to make new characters, there'll be further delay whilst I give you a (very basic) rundown on character creation and a list of powers with very limited explanations to choose from. Or, we stick with the kung fu guy and battling bruiser, your call.

I'm fine with Stone Fist.

Not sure about the new dice idea though. Math is a bit shakey so correct me where I'm wrong.

Normally his attack would be: Roll 2D10 + 12, compare against opponents defence. He can sacrifice (temporarily, for this roll only) 3 points to roll an extra die and pick the best two of three dice, plus 9. If he wanted more dice he could sacrifice another 9 points and roll 6D10 in total, pick the best two dice and add 0 points to the roll result.

In the above example, 3 points of damage would be lost to gain between 1 and 10 points of damage, average damage being 5.5 points. So you would gain on average 2.5 points of damage if you do it [5.5-3]. There is a slight increased chance of getting doubles since it would be three dice and not two dice. A minor increase in damage but is it worth doing that much paperwork for a PBEM game for that little increase? I can see it for a tabletop game but not sure for a home game.