Luck

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jmucchiello
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Luck

Post by jmucchiello »

The copy around where you determine your birth augur (awesome word) should explicitly state the you roll a 1d30 unmodified on table 1-2.
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Re: Luck

Post by finarvyn »

True, although it's probably obvious based on the number range in the chart.
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jmucchiello
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Re: Luck

Post by jmucchiello »

finarvyn wrote:True, although it's probably obvious based on the number range in the chart.
I'm pretty experienced with RPGs and it took me a few too much brain power at 2 am to figure it out. Besides, explicit is always better than implicit in this kind of thing.

Luck sure is fickle since there is a result for "all saving throws" as well 3 other results for each kind of save. Some folks are just really lucky.
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Re: Luck

Post by rabindranath72 »

jmucchiello wrote: Luck sure is fickle since there is a result for "all saving throws" as well 3 other results for each kind of save. Some folks are just really lucky.
This doesn't seem right. Perhaps the table should be changed to a % table, where a result for each save has a range (say, 3%) whereas the result for all saves has a shorter range, or a single percent point.
jmucchiello
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Re: Luck

Post by jmucchiello »

rabindranath72 wrote:
jmucchiello wrote: Luck sure is fickle since there is a result for "all saving throws" as well 3 other results for each kind of save. Some folks are just really lucky.
This doesn't seem right. Perhaps the table should be changed to a % table, where a result for each save has a range (say, 3%) whereas the result for all saves has a shorter range, or a single percent point.
Given all the other "luck" in the chargen system, this is really not necessary. What are the odds that you will have a 16+ (more than +1 bonus) in your 6th stat (luck) and then roll a 17 on d30? And if you are a fighter, what good is it since you would have been better off with "any attack" (1 on d30) which is better than "melee attacks" (2 on d30).
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Re: Luck

Post by kataskicana »

Keep in mind you will lose luck. So the first time you burn 3 points of luck to stave off certain death you aren't plus anything to saves any more... and if you happen to need to burn off more luck later in 'life'... you might wind up with a penalty to all saves as your 'luck' has run out!
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Re: Luck

Post by finarvyn »

rabindranath72 wrote:
jmucchiello wrote:Luck sure is fickle since there is a result for "all saving throws" as well 3 other results for each kind of save. Some folks are just really lucky.
This doesn't seem right. Perhaps the table should be changed to a % table, where a result for each save has a range (say, 3%) whereas the result for all saves has a shorter range, or a single percent point.
But then you don't get to use the "funky" d30! :P
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jmucchiello
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Re: Luck

Post by jmucchiello »

By that token should you roll d5+d6+d7 for your 6 ability scores. Use those zocchi dice!!
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Re: Luck

Post by goodmangames »

jmucchiello wrote:By that token should you roll d5+d6+d7 for your 6 ability scores. Use those zocchi dice!!
Heh, I love this idea but somehow I know it won't fly. :)

Harley just turned in a module that includes, at one point, a roll for the distance of a roll. He indicated the judge should roll 1d5+6...not 1d6+5. Brilliant! I had to give him kudos for that one.

As for the Luck question, a couple thoughts...

Yes, Luck fluctuates over the course of an adventurer's career. One of the playtesters in Chicago (Hamakto on these boards) told me last week that in one of his games, a character burned 8 points of Luck to make a Reflex save and avoid tumbling down a 90' cliff. Those positive Luck modifiers can quickly become negatives.

The other thing to remember is that there are a couple layers of random rolls going on. The Luck table is intentionally not that "fair." Some results are definitely better than others. But the guy with the awesome bonus to, say, spell checks, may also have a lousy Int and be completely inappropriate as a wizard. The Luck bonus doesn't always match the other character stats.

And remember the character creation funnel...you'll have a couple 0-level guys, of varying stats, and the guys with the best stats don't always survive. My experience has been that the first adventure often forces a lot of "character creation questions" at the tip of a sword-point! But I'd love to hear your experiences once you start playing.
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jmucchiello
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Re: Luck

Post by jmucchiello »

goodmangames wrote:And remember the character creation funnel...you'll have a couple 0-level guys, of varying stats, and the guys with the best stats don't always survive. My experience has been that the first adventure often forces a lot of "character creation questions" at the tip of a sword-point! But I'd love to hear your experiences once you start playing.
I just posted that somewhere else except in a my dumb luck format where my mook with a couple 17s is the guy who dies and the guy with 7s across the board survives the funnel.
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Re: Luck

Post by talmor »

How do you get luck back? It wasn't very clear from the rules--seemed more like "plot/GM" than anything specific.

Unless, of course, you're a halfling or a thief...
jmucchiello
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Re: Luck

Post by jmucchiello »

You don't get it back. It says permanently burn luck for a single die roll. If you are that desperate, chances are you better retire soon. And not in a largely settled area unless you hope the meteor that strikes takes out a few hundred of your fellow mankind.
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Re: Luck

Post by viktor_haag »

jmucchiello wrote:You don't get it back. It says permanently burn luck for a single die roll. If you are that desperate, chances are you better retire soon. And not in a largely settled area unless you hope the meteor that strikes takes out a few hundred of your fellow mankind.
We have to start playing of course (projected start date is probably next Tuesday), but my first gut reaction is that (a) passing up attribute points for momentary bonuses is an interesting feature, and (b) if you make the loss permanent without some recovery mechanism, player's won't use it.

If you provide a way for PCs to recover Luck, it becomes an in-game economy, and that can produce quite interesting effects. If you're forcing PCs to burn it "just before death", then I ask why make them burn it anyway -- give them some sort of "last stand" option (you can get +6 to this roll if you're willing to turn the character into an NPC permanently, or for some GM-determined length of time, or whatever).

On a related topic -- I think the roll to see how your luck manifests itself idea is quite interesting. Having me potentially end up in a class that would render that manifestation useless (as the rules state) seems like a wet blanket. One way to moderate this would be to have "generic benefits" offered to L-0 characters that then transmute into class-specific benefits once a PC has an assigned class... (or do I misunderstand that PCs don't get to choose a class until they "survive" L-0?)
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Re: Luck

Post by kataskicana »

Each class also has places where luck applies, so regardless of your D30 roll it will be used by your class in some way and for critical hits.

For Example a Wizards luck modifies rolls for Mercurial Magic and Corruption.


You are correct that 0 level characters have no class. (in many way!) When a character survives his first adventure they choose a class (if human) or become level one in their race.
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Re: Luck

Post by goodmangames »

viktor_haag wrote:If you provide a way for PCs to recover Luck, it becomes an in-game economy, and that can produce quite interesting effects. If you're forcing PCs to burn it "just before death", then I ask why make them burn it anyway -- give them some sort of "last stand" option (you can get +6 to this roll if you're willing to turn the character into an NPC permanently, or for some GM-determined length of time, or whatever).
Hopefully I actually wrote this somewhere in the beta, but Luck can be restored in one of two ways.

* If you're a halfling or thief, it recovers at the rate of 1 point per day.
* For all classes, you can recover Luck by performing deeds worthy of the cosmic powers. Gain the favor of a deity or demigod, and you'll be favored by chance: reflected in an improvement to Luck. Hmm, now that I think about it, I think this may be in the judge's rules that didn't make it into the beta rules. Anyway, in my games, I usually award 1-2 points of Luck per adventure, depending on what great tasks the PCs completed that would have warranted the attention of the gods. (And, opposite of that, offending a deity could result in a Luck penalty.) Things like saving a temple, protecting a favored saint, performing an act that embodies a deity's beliefs, etc. can also benefit Luck.
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Re: Luck

Post by talmor »

goodmangames wrote:For all classes, you can recover Luck by performing deeds worthy of the cosmic powers. Gain the favor of a deity or demigod, and you'll be favored by chance: reflected in an improvement to Luck. Hmm, now that I think about it, I think this may be in the judge's rules that didn't make it into the beta rules. Anyway, in my games, I usually award 1-2 points of Luck per adventure, depending on what great tasks the PCs completed that would have warranted the attention of the gods. (And, opposite of that, offending a deity could result in a Luck penalty.) Things like saving a temple, protecting a favored saint, performing an act that embodies a deity's beliefs, etc. can also benefit Luck.
Do you ever allow characters to increase their base luck? I was thinking of either particularly heroic and noble actions, the result of divine or supernatural favor, or the result of fairy tale like magic.
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Re: Luck

Post by Hamakto »

talmor wrote:
goodmangames wrote:For all classes, you can recover Luck by performing deeds worthy of the cosmic powers. Gain the favor of a deity or demigod, and you'll be favored by chance: reflected in an improvement to Luck. Hmm, now that I think about it, I think this may be in the judge's rules that didn't make it into the beta rules. Anyway, in my games, I usually award 1-2 points of Luck per adventure, depending on what great tasks the PCs completed that would have warranted the attention of the gods. (And, opposite of that, offending a deity could result in a Luck penalty.) Things like saving a temple, protecting a favored saint, performing an act that embodies a deity's beliefs, etc. can also benefit Luck.
Do you ever allow characters to increase their base luck? I was thinking of either particularly heroic and noble actions, the result of divine or supernatural favor, or the result of fairy tale like magic.
If you do not burn any luck, you can keep gaining luck until you hit 18 luck.

But that is TOUGH feat to accomplish as the world is not a safe place and you need to use a little luck here and there to survive.
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Re: Luck

Post by finarvyn »

Hamakto wrote:But that is TOUGH feat to accomplish as the world is not a safe place and you need to use a little luck here and there to survive.
I'm terribly sorry, but the "word police" has to arrest you for using THAT WORD on these boards. You need to take a "time out" for ten minutes. :P
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Re: Luck

Post by Hamakto »

finarvyn wrote:
Hamakto wrote:But that is TOUGH feat to accomplish as the world is not a safe place and you need to use a little luck here and there to survive.
I'm terribly sorry, but the "word police" has to arrest you for using THAT WORD on these boards. You need to take a "time out" for ten minutes. :P
* pulls his head up out of the sand where he has been hiding for the last hour *

Umm... can I come and play again?

Let me endeavor to state it differently...

But that is a difficult road to take in DCC RPG. The world is not a safe place, so you will need to "use a little luck" now and then to survive!

Better?
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Re: Luck

Post by bholmes4 »

goodmangames wrote:
viktor_haag wrote: * If you're a halfling or thief, it recovers at the rate of 1 point per day.
* For all classes, you can recover Luck by performing deeds worthy of the cosmic powers. Gain the favor of a deity or demigod, and you'll be favored by chance: reflected in an improvement to Luck. Hmm, now that I think about it, I think this may be in the judge's rules that didn't make it into the beta rules. Anyway, in my games, I usually award 1-2 points of Luck per adventure, depending on what great tasks the PCs completed that would have warranted the attention of the gods. (And, opposite of that, offending a deity could result in a Luck penalty.) Things like saving a temple, protecting a favored saint, performing an act that embodies a deity's beliefs, etc. can also benefit Luck.
I love this, awarding 1-2 luck per adventure encourages spending it here and there to save your skin without fear that you will forever gimp your character.

The problem is how do you get around thieves/halflings forever increasing their luck? Since their luck recovers, if you give them 1-2 points they will soon have 18 luck after only a few adventures. I really hope someone has a work-around for this because I love the idea of awarding luck after adventures. I suppose you could rule that you can't surpass your original luck score (it's only awarded to build back up those who've spent it) which might make more sense. Only truly great deeds could boost your luck (ie. protecting a saint, saving a temple).

Somehow I don't think that is the intent though?
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Re: Luck

Post by GnomeBoy »

Somewhere someone pointed out that in the long-term play testing, if you don't spend the Luck, and get awards, your Luck stat can go up to 18 (max).

If thieves and halflings work their way up to that as they are reaching upper levels, I think that's good for the party, highlights their specialities even more, and let's them pull off ever greater stunts as they level up.

Sounds okay.

Alternately, the awards could just add to what you have at the moment. Which means thieves and halflings will essentially 'heal' that burned Luck faster -- unless somehow they didn't spend as much as the adventure is awarding them...
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bholmes4
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Re: Luck

Post by bholmes4 »

GnomeBoy wrote: Alternately, the awards could just add to what you have at the moment. Which means thieves and halflings will essentially 'heal' that burned Luck faster -- unless somehow they didn't spend as much as the adventure is awarding them...
I may use this but not sure I should. On one hand it really slows thieves and halfling progression (which is good) on the other it basically hurts thieves that choose to use their most fun, interesting mechanic (which is bad). I don't think it would be horrible to force thieves to try "risking" an adventure without spending luck but do I want them doing so when that is what they are supposed to do?

Maybe I will force thieves and halflings to roll over their stat to get the bonus. So if a thief has 15 luck and I award 2 luck to everyone at the end of play, he rolls 3d6 twice. If either roll is over 15 he gets +1 for each. As such getting to 18 is not an inevitability...
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Re: Luck

Post by Ze Groupe »

I personnaly think the whole Luck mechanic needs to be rethought.

There are so many oddities to how it functions currently that I think it adds very little to the game other than a lot of head scratching "huh? that makes no sense" moments.

My 2c.
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Re: Luck

Post by bholmes4 »

Ze Groupe wrote:I personnaly think the whole Luck mechanic needs to be rethought.

There are so many oddities to how it functions currently that I think it adds very little to the game other than a lot of head scratching "huh? that makes no sense" moments.

My 2c.
Actually I agree with this.

I would like to see the concept of luck retained but it definitely needs a fair bit of work. I'm not even entirely sold that it should be an ability. It's sort of like fitting a square peg in a round hole. If it was reworked as a trackable stat, more like hit points it may work more smoothly.

Lucky birth mechanics (ie. Augurs etc.) could still be rolled but on a table or two (one to pick the augur, one for the +/- modifier) so no need to lose this flavour, it would just be a constant score.
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Re: Luck

Post by CEBrown »

bholmes4 wrote:
Ze Groupe wrote:I personnaly think the whole Luck mechanic needs to be rethought.

There are so many oddities to how it functions currently that I think it adds very little to the game other than a lot of head scratching "huh? that makes no sense" moments.

My 2c.
Actually I agree with this.

I would like to see the concept of luck retained but it definitely needs a fair bit of work. I'm not even entirely sold that it should be an ability. It's sort of like fitting a square peg in a round hole. If it was reworked as a trackable stat, more like hit points it may work more smoothly.

Lucky birth mechanics (ie. Augurs etc.) could still be rolled but on a table or two (one to pick the augur, one for the +/- modifier) so no need to lose this flavour, it would just be a constant score.
I'm thinking that maybe it's the ONE attribute you should have some "wiggle room" with - say 4d6 drop one, or 5d4 (so min. 5 max 20 to start), or even a base of 6+2d6 so that a low roll doesn't mean near-instant death...
Oh, and the Beta DOES include that passage about regaining luck (though the "increasing it" part... either I skimmed past it or it was omitted during editing!), but it's not as obvious as the rules for LOSING luck...

'Course, I'm the guy who, in HERO system, always wanted to buy "Luck: Costs Endurance to use" so I could Push my Luck; what do I know... :)
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