What is a good method of modeling how super powers or “greater than human abilities” work in EZD6?
The current model of how magic and psionics work in both the core rulebook and Wasted World are entertaining in their unpredictability as they model chaotic magic and unreliable psychic abilities.
However, I am trying to work through a good scale model of D6s to roll when you want more reliable modeling of powers and abilities, whether that’s transhuman abilities like in Eclipse Phase, super powers, or supernatural powers as in World of Darkness games.
EZD6 assumes a baseline human effort at 1D6. Trained / skilled inclinations provide a boon, bumping that to 2D6. Powerful but unpredictable abilities like chaotic magic or psychic powers provide the potential to bump that to 3D6 (1D6 to 3D6), but at a cost - first, it’s gambling with your ability, and if the player rolls even a single 1, the power will either fail or cost the player character a strike to use.
DM Scotty demonstrates one interesting way to work in abilities beyond simply adding dice to an initial roll through his Cyborg Survivor Inclination/Talent on p. 28 of Wasted World. For example, one might say that having a cybernetic arm would simply add another boon to strength-based tasks, but that bonus is already covered by Big Guns in Wasted World. Instead, a cybernetic arm adds a boon to confirming melee crits - an interesting option.
The only difficulty I see is that too many of these kinds of alternate options have the potential to add a lot of fiddly bits to what is already a fairly streamlined and intentionally “EZ” system that is meant to be the opposite of rules-intensive.
So is it possible to scale EZD6 by adding boons upon boons (for example, in the same way many magic items work in the core rules) without breaking the system by adding so many dice that players essentially succeed all of the time?
Perhaps one way to do this would be to enable very specific powers and abilities and incorporate them using the same rules for scrolls / more reliable EZD6 magic. For example, the player can spend a power inclination to gain the ability to become invisible (bane to all attacks attempting to target the invisible character, unless the attacker has access to special senses, etc.).
Or allow for a multi-tiered boon system. For example, my character has his mind housed in a gorilla body (boon to all strength-based tasks, plus associated abilities like grappling and climbing), and then has a cybernetic gorilla arm on top of it (2 boons with strength-based tasks, and a boon to confirm melee crits).
Or adapt the magic system to be less punishing - my character has pyrokinesis (as with the Elementalist Conjurer Circle of Sorcery from the core rulebook, p. 36), but the character can crit with their attacks, and adverse effects result on rolls of 1s (accidentally set something on fire you didn’t intend to, potentially causing your character further problems in-game).
The EZD6 system promises to be extremely adaptable to a variety of genres and settings. I am just curious to see if anyone else has already tinkered with using the system to emulate and model other kinds of abilities from other genres.
Thanks for listening, and any constructive thoughts are welcome.