AbdulAlhazred
Legend
Wonder if you could use a feature from 13A to help that out as well each round up the number on a die and add that to player character attacks and defenses its more subtle perhaps but should combine nicely with the above as things go more in their favor later in the fight.
Bloodied condition abilities that for players get stronger when they or their target are bloodied also seem important.
One of those things basically thrown out by 5e.
I was never that fond of escalation dice. It seems like a kind of a blunt instrument of game design. Clumsy. [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION], your suggestions for DW seem feasible, at least to first glance. I'd think there'd have to be some reworking of a bit of the math, like damage vs hit points is going to change.
DW is also pretty much totally 'FLAT', you do get some higher attack bonuses, but there's not very much progression. HP never increase for instance. A weak monster is always the same threat even if your PC is 10th level! Granted, that you probably will have a couple pluses on your dice, and some extra moves that can largely negate said monster, but if you go hack-n-slash with an orc and you're level 10 it CAN gank you pretty hard with a little bad luck!
Obviously HS and such would change that equation in some fashion. You might need to introduce some escalation in hit points, at least for monsters. DW already does have higher hit points for 'big baddies', so that wouldn't really be a significant change, it just might need to be widened a bit. As-written DW has a certain element of 'grittiness' that it is emulating from classic D&D which you'd be ironing out.
I'd almost create a separate PbtA for this. You could definitely riff off of DW a bit, but why not skew it from dungeon crawly adventures to more 'epic' stuff?
Actually, this is a bit off-the-wall, but have you read the FATE Accelerated 'Gods & Monsters' mini-rpg? I think that would be a very cool model for a PbtA!