Here is a quick down and dirty….
My character, Bosco, armed with a sword and shield faces 4 skeleton goons trying to stop him from delving further into the catacombs.
I create a spark…. “Defeat goons” with an overturn of overwhelmed and pushed back- forced to find another path…
they are goons and I am kind of a bad ass so I will say an OK hit is 1 ray, 15 is two and 20 is three.
However, I might just add an element of time so I create another spark. A bad or very bad as a ray to the spark “exhausted” with an overturn of 2nd wind.
So now I engage the skeletons, take a mighty swing and roll! 7… ugh. So I will add a ray to both sparks and check. Didn’t hit a ray..: whew… gather my self up after a poor attack, and take another swing…. 14! Heck ya! 2 rays on defeat goons! Check… 4 bummer… still going…
I am getting the better of them, I am gaining confidence and shield bash a few! Roll… 9…. I will add another ray to defeat goons and check.. 1! The last skeleton falls to bones with my mighty shield bash…. If I go, continuing my journey deeper into the catacombs.
Set clear expectations before combat about what success and failure looks like.
The second spark could have been an injury spark. If I hit that I would take an injury…. “Injured arm.” If I would hit that, then might reduce my success and make hits worth less rays or even reduce the defeat goons by one ray