Went to the office, climbed some stairs, ate some spicy pork dumplings, did not eat any pecan waffles, spent all day working on TLS certificates.

Read (novel): Jett Jamison and the Secret Storm (Kimberly Behre Kenna): A middle-grade book about being a survivor of sexual assault and books about being a survivor of sexual assault and censorship of books about being survivor and also how much American “Christians” suck.

Read (manga): A Bride’s Story vol 1 (Kaoru Mori): It’s been a long time since I read this, but the fabrics and landscapes are still just as amazing.

Written (game design): 282:

Going off on another tangent, from the idea of conditions having
levels, the ultimate condition is Dead With a Body. (Dead Without a
Body is barely worse than Knocked Unconscious.) But does it have
levels? Does the Wounded condition turn into Dead at level 4? That’s a
lot like hit points, although to be fair, having 4 hit points when
attacks can do up to 4 damage is a lot different than having 200 hit
points when attacks can do up to 20 damage.

Probably a lot of conditions can take out the target, or severely
disable them at level 4, although if lower levels reduce the relevant
defenses, then it’s a death spiral. Possibly lower levels of Wounded
or Battered don’t impose any penalties general, because we are
heroic and full of adrenaline, and also just beating on people is not
what we want to encourage.

Even without a death spiral, if every die of a powerset is also 1
point of defense, then with a 9d6 or greater powerset, it’s possible
(though very unlikely) to inflict a level 4 condition against someone
defending with a 9d6 powerset straight up. Against someone undefended,
5d6 is enough to potentially-but-practically-never do it. This
doesn’t seem right; surely Xd6 offense vs X defense should produce
the same range of results, regardless of the value of X? Perhaps we
need Feng Shui/Nexus die minus die, or FATE dice, or something else
0-centered.

If all conditions were invented for the specific situation, we could
dismiss the notion of a condition coming in multiple levels, but if we
have to have a finite set of conditions, that’s a natural way to
categorize them. The effects don’t have to scale linearly with level,
though, so level 1-3 can be penalties but 4 can still be “completely
____”.