Eskero: The pen and paper RPG system

The idea of sturdy dice vs. random dice is interesting, though I think we should do our homework as to how other dice pool systems work. The thing I think we should be looking at along with the mathematical balance issues and how they're solved is also how user friendly the system is. How easy is it to tell which dice to award a player. Like, such a system seems hard to follow since keeping track of the average of values along with which dice of yours are the D4+2 as opposed to just regular D4 would seem like a hassle.

Depth vs. Complexity is the problem here. The rule of thumb is to cut down complexity as much as possible while retaining depth. The "What do I use for offense vs. defense" issue is a good example of depth since it's a deep question that's integral to your survival and while it's a very simple choice to save dice or bank on an attack, it's something that a player might take a lot of factors into considering the situation. "Can I kill them this turn?" "What are the chances of that?" "Is it worth the risk?" The different types of dice described with their modifiers seem like a complexity that players would have to trudge through to figure out, with a lot of mental calculations, which odds are best for what they want to do, and might get in the way of the action in a way that isn't actually that fun.

We're making a pen and paper game, remember that. There's a greater human factor here that has to shine, not a computer doing calculations for the players, or the players being forced into doing too many rough calculations on their own in the heat of combat.

I think there's a lot of value in the basic ideas there, but the execution could use a lot of work.