I’m also curious about the boons rules. I only got into ToR with Revised Edition and haven’t come across it.

For me, there are two really big deals about encounters…

(*) The TN doesn’t always have to be 14.

(*) The “push your luck” mechanic, which is kind of implied RAW and kind of not…running out of Tolerance is bad, and ruins things or leads to different bad consequences, regardless of the number of accumulated successes.

Without the first, it can be too easy. Without the second, I find the whole thing “blah” with no choices involved and no consequences (or really possibility) for failure.