I've been working on rules for managing extraordinary abilities like magic or superpowers. I like to include some restrictions on the number of times a character can use extraordinary abilities just to keep characters in check and help them from being over powered.

I'm noodling with the following, which when going through some test rolls seemed like a good fit for the game mechanics.

Example: magic and superpowers. Characters have 6 ability points and must have at least 1 to use an ability. Include a d6 with a Will test to use an ability. Reduce the ability points by 1 on a Partial Success when the d6 is a 1-2. It takes time for characters to recover points.

My first attempt just based everything on the attribute die, but as the characters Will die increases, the likelihood of getting a 1-2 and a partial success gets pretty slim. Fixing the die at a d6 alleviates some of that because 33% of the time it will land on a 1-2.

I thought of some other things like reducing the ability points by the difficulty cost, but that resulted in the ability points dropping very quickly, which didn't feel good as a player.

I also considered adding an "effort" level to the difficulty and requiring the character to have at least the number of ability points as the effort (for example, Moderate would require a 3 effort, so once the character is below 3 ability points, they can't try anything of moderate difficulty or higher). While that is a fun mechanic, it seems like it may not really align with the design goals of this game.

Which leads me to the rule above. It is simple and only requires adding another die to the roll (rolling lots of die is fun anyway) and only looking at it when there's a partial success. Simple, easy to remember, and fits into the games general design and feel.

I'm interested in your thoughts.