Should We Have Depesperate Efforts?

When prepping for my Play-by-Post Anglo-Saxon game a year or so ago, I wrote up a little thing of Spellcraft & Swordplay house-rules for the game.  As loyal, imaginary readers already know, I'm a rules-fiddler (see any of my twelve hundred posts on the Weapons vs. Armour Class chart). As that game has gotten to an R&R stage (return from the dungeon), I have been, unsurprisingly, adding to the house-rules.  But I haven't updated the web-site yet, only done so in my head.  As I went to the site to begin the update (including incorporating my brand-new Weapons vs. AC Chart from Under the Dying Sun, as well as new stuff like replacing the Wizard/Cleric magic split with a Natural/Demonic magic split), I noticed a rule that I had half-forgotten, since none of the players has ever used it: Heroic Effort.

With this rule, a character may alter the results of certain class-appropriate rolls to grant himself a better result. To do so, he uses up some of his vitality and luck i.e. Hit Points. Points can be sacrificed to raise the dice result on a one-for-one basis plus an additional 1d6-1. This means that Heroic Effort is an uncertain action. Lower levels characters are unlikely to use it much since it could easily kill them (although they may do just that for an heroic death scene). But that is fitting, since low-level characters are not great heroes. Not yet.  Characters can only use Heroic Effort to affect certain class-appropriate rolls:

• Warriors: Combat Rolls (both To Hit and Damage), Strength- and Constitution-based Saves.
• Wizards: Casting rolls (including dispelling), Intelligence- and Charisma-based Saves.
• Champions: To Hit rolls, Casting rolls, Wisdom- and Charisma-based Saves.
• Thieves: Thief Abilities, Dexterity- and Intelligence-based Saves.

Now, I'm wondering if some version of that would be a good addition to Dying Sun.   As the title of this posts suggests, I think I would rename it Desperate Effort or something along those lines, but the idea would be pretty much the same.

Good idea, bad idea, or ugly idea?