Scoring and Stacking - D6 Core Mechanic

[shaninator]

Hey guys. I've been pondering over an original, yet simple mechanic for a classless fantasy system. And, I wanna see you guys' take on it, and be honest.
It started as an idea for a basic D6 pool system, but I decided I wanted to something less rigid. The advantage to this system (at least I believe) is that it
provides room for random chance, but also helps improvement through advancement.


SCORING & STACKING
Players roll two sets of six-sided dice - Scoring dice and Stacking dice. Scoring dice is simply 2 six-sided dice. These are first rolled, and the player
chooses to take the highest of the two. Highest of the two was a 5. Second, the player rolls his Stack, which is a pool of dice equal to his Ability + Skill.
The character is trying to chase a cut-purse, so he rolls Agility (AGI) + Athletics (Ath). His stack is 6. Now,  he rolls 6 six-sided dice, and he rolls a 1,3,
4,2,5,6. The player separates the dice by their value. High die are 4,5 and 6s, and Low die are 1,2, and 3s. Each High die adds a +1 to his Score
(6s add +2). This step is called Stacking. In the example, his base Score is 5, but he adds the High values for a grant total of 9. The GM decided
that the Difficulty to catch the cut-purse was 7, and the PC succeeded. A PC could take a skill specialty for Running under the Athletics skill, which
would make the example Stack a 7.


THOUGHTS
Your honesty would be appreciated. I think I some advantages to this over using a D6 pool system for my system, because I wanted the PCs to be
able to choose a plethora of Benefits (very akin to Advantages in GURPS or edges for Savage Worlds). I felt this mechanic provided more
opportunities to make Benefit purchases that could modify their character. Here is an example:

Skill Mastery
Skill: Rank 4 or higher
Your character rolls 3d6 instead of 2d6 to determine his Score, when using the chosen skill.

In Closing
I know its not much to go on, but I wanted some thoughts from an outside perspective before I invested too much. What do you think?

[chance.thirteen]

On a purely mechanical level, why the two pools?

I personally am attracted to a roll some take the best few approach for many things, and I see the value of having that in there.

Unless you have some significant ideas for the two pools being treated differently, I believe you could do just as well by just rolling the Second pool, take the highest value, then add 1 for every die that rolls 4  or 5, and +2 for every (additional as you could choose this first) 6.

You would want to adjust final expectations for having lost your one extra die.

Example: Using your rolls of 1,3,4,2,5,6 you would take the 6 as a base, +1 for the 4 and 5, for an 8 total.

If you were aiming for a larger base value range, I would suggest having the Scoring Dice be larger, e.g. roll 2d10, or 3 d10, take the best roll, then add the Stacking results. This increases the variability, and you could roll all of it at once and not get confused about which were which.

[shaninator]

When I was first looking into the concept, my original didn't use the Scoring Dice, but did as you said, taking the highest result and then
Stacking them. The only reason I've been looking another way is because the math was simple after you get into larger pool sizes, and
it just became Stacking +1 on a score of 6. The math became somewhat arbitrary, or at least I thought. Do you agree or disagree?

I'll look into using different size die for the Scoring Dice also, any more input would be appreciated.

[CKNIGHT]

I like this idea.

Is the scoring related to initiative or skill level?

Maybe allocating the scoring to skills and stacking to raw abilities....

[shaninator]

I like this idea.

Is the scoring related to initiative or skill level?

The way I was going to design it (though any other ideas are certainly welcome!), was that the character had a Dice Pool
equal to their Ability + Skill. Like if they were attacking an enemy with a sword, it would be Agility + Sword-fighting.

Maybe allocating the scoring to skills and stacking to raw abilities....

I hadn't thought about that. It would be more random, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. The only concern I see
is smaller dice pools making "stacking" seem less fruitful. What do you think?

I've thought of different reasons why I like the mechanic, but I've noticed some issues that may occur as well. Any
replies that could affirm or invalidate these would be awesome as well. Here's what I've got:

WHY I LIKE IT
- If using one giant pool, then as the pool gets larger, the chances of "pushing" the target up increase. Which makes it
   possible for legendary characters to achieve more difficult tasks. It bridges the gap for average joes and heroes,
   without HP or a level system.
- Math is still low. My girlfriend hates math, but she loves roleplaying. She liked that the numbers rarely pushed more than
   10 or 11. This could appeal to gamers that don't care for complex mechanics.

ISSUES I SEE
- Math is very simple. I could possibly see the math getting boring to some people, because eventually you are just
   "Stacking" +1s on a 5 or a 6. Its own advantage is kinda also its shortcoming.