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[thunderhead.hierophant]

Simplicity, and something testable. 

To that end I pared it down to the essentials of what I want and I'll be testing it today on a chessboard.

Gone is the concept of "combo depth levels."  Basically, chaining together multiple moves is it's own reward...no need to have more powerful moves unlocked if you're on a hot streak.   Gone is "momentum," an artefact from the design's previous incarnation. 

I'll keep you posted.

[Graham-]

cool

[thunderhead.hierophant]

I'm testing against humans, and I'm really pleased so far.

I stripped it down so almost every unit has just move or attack on a regular winning roll and another special action on the bonus roll.  Or on a bonus roll, you can do 2 regular actions.  Double bonus is 3 regular actions or one regular and one bonus.

A lot of the tension comes from knowing when to commit to a strategem.  You might lose initiative after you give your plans away!  So I imagine in high-level play there'll be a lot of fake-outs and feints.  Of course, if you roll in the bonus, you can execute a couple moves in succession, really altering the game space.

None of the (now 8 ) classes seem to be OP, and I'm not even sure what the best is.  But you can only have 2 units from the same class on your squad of 8...that and the randomness gives me some balance breathing room.

Edit: Ruleset is here:

http://www.fantasystrike.com/forums/index.php?threads/evaluate-my-ruleset-competitive-trpg.7220/

[joseph ¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

I'm sorry to reply so late. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Riddle_of_Steel The riddle of steel uses a similar 'dice vs dice, compare difference' mechanic to what you're proposing, but places around it an elaborate tactical game based on betting and losing dice on actions -- it's wonderful and an effective simulation of the risk/reward of attacking and defending. It's emphasis is modeling simultaneous action in a turnbased dice game.

There's a playable combat simulator here to feel out the ruleset -- it's pretty great.

http://www.driftwoodpublishing.com/support/