Your favorite escalation die type of mechanics

[TakeoBR]

I'm looking for games that implement some version of the escalation die mechanic seen in 13th age. For those unfamiliar, it's a bonus to attack rolls that increases as the fight goes on. I'm also interested in hearing about homebrew versions you might have tried.
What did you like/dislike about It?
Does the escalation die always reset completely after each fight?
How do you feel about requiring escalation levels for characther abilities?
What type of fiction does this mechanic work best for?

 

[Morrus]

I like it in 13th Age but I haven't tried it in anything else.

 

[MGibster]

The Escalation Die from 13th Age is both simple and helps speed combat up making it less tedious. For those of you who might not know, the Escalation Die starts at 1 and gives all the PCs and +1 to their roll, when it goes to 2 and everyone gets a +2, and I think you can see where this is going.

Conan has something called Momentum. When you roll a number of successes that exceeds what you need those excess successes become Momentum. You can use that Momentum immediately or you can save it and another PC can use it to do extra damage, improve the quality of success, shorten the amount of time it takes to perform a task, etc., etc.

 

[angille]

I'm really loving the GYRO (green/yellow/red/out, pronounced "hero") system in Sentinel Comics.

• each action scene has a status tracker, which advances from green to yellow to red.
  • scene environments generate more dire twists as the scene progresses.
• each hero has a status trait, which changes depending on which status the scene is in, but also how much health the hero has left.
  • each hero has a number of color-coded abilities, and must wait for the right status to activate them.

it's a brilliant and elegant extension of the simplicity of the escalation die. it codifies the superhero trope of "well why didn't they pull out the Blazing Sword at the start of the fight and finish it quickly?" and it adds a satisfying level of strategy (in choosing the abilities) and tactics (in manipulating either the scene status or your own).

 

[aramis erak]

I'm rather fond of SCRPG's GYRO as well. I even went so far as to order color trackers from Litko. (One space hallway pieces, really.)

For all the same reasons as @angille mentions.

I also like that not all villains use the same mechanic, either.

 

[Umbran]

The most interesting escalation mechanic I have seen recently isn't a die. It is a scene mechanic baked into the entire system down to character generation.

The characters and scenes have a status - Green, Yellow, or Red. If a character goes past Red, they are out of the scene. If the scene goes past red, something bad happens, and you get a new scene.

Character abilities and dice are based on this status - as the scene gets to greater danger, or they get more beat up, more character abilities become available.

 

[TakeoBR]

The most interesting escalation mechanic I have seen recently isn't a die. It is a scene mechanic baked into the entire system down to character generation.

The characters and scenes have a status - Green, Yellow, or Red. If a character goes past Red, they are out of the scene. If the scene goes past red, something bad happens, and you get a new scene.

Character abilities and dice are based on this status - as the scene gets to greater danger, or they get more beat up, more character abilities become available.

Interesting, where's this from?

 

[TakeoBR]

Thank you for your recommendations! I'll look into both GYRO and Conan.

 

[Umbran]

Interesting, where's this from?

The Sentinels Comics RPG - I had not noted that others had also mentioned it as GYRO.

The digital version of their Starter Kit is available for free from the publisher: Sentinel Comics: The Roleplaying Game Starter Kit DIGITAL DOWNLOAD

 

[GMMichael]

Horror-genre escalation: every time your BBEG gets a kill/does something scary, its escalation die goes up. The die provides a damage/attack bonus to the BBEG, not the players.