Goodman Games

I thought I answered this but I can't find my post so maybe it got eatenby the Internet! Just wanted to let you know quickly that although thieves and halflings are the only classes that can restore "used" Luck, all classes can earn new Luck through the completion of great deeds and adventure-specific acts. Cleansing a temple, completing a quest for a god, righting a great wrong, restoring balance between Law and Chaos, and so on all earn the award of a point or two of Luck. There is some guidance on this in the rules.

As far as the thief who expends all his Luck in a mighty blow: yes, it's definitely possible. And when he walks out of that encounter with a Luck score of 3, well, if I were the DM, I would have that PC very nervous about walking down stairs, going near an open window, etc. Bad things happen to characters with low Luck, often at the judge's discretion...

If your players are in a downward death spiral with luck, then something has gone horribly wrong. The first thing I see wrong with that scenario is that 0-level characters should not be fighting an Ogre.

That's actually a common misconception. Bigger monsters have higher XP rewards, lower level characters have lower XP requirements to level. Should be balanced, right? A quick look at the three little books shows that this was never intended, however. Experience rewards scale according to the difficulty of the fight. In fact, an Ogre should only provide his base XP reward to 4th level characters. I would give 1st level characters 1600 XP (if using OD&D experience) for that fight (Ogres in OD&D are worth 400xp to start, and then the ratio of levels is 1:4).

But the reward is not really the problem. The problem is that low level players should be earning their XP from treasure and exploration. All fights should be hopelessly rigged with clever ambushes, ruses and ploys. The ideal fight goes down without the players even drawing a weapon, let alone allowing the enemy to make a single attack. Got an owlbear in your way? Lead him to the middle of a raging river, then release some logs that knock him over and flush him over the watefalls. Bingo, dead Owlbear.

Early level fights are either unplanned accidents that have the characters running for their lives, or battles that take all day to plan out and prepare. The players should scout out and find the enemy first, and then think of clever ways to get around them or otherwise dispose of them. Dungeons aren't really littered with enemy occupants, so time and consideration should be taken with those that are encountered.

hehehe, interesting. Going along with this, I might modify my random die rolls to see who gets attacked by which monsters based on luck. So the person with the worse luck will have a higher chanch of getting attacked. Maybe I will also increase the chanch of wandering monsters if the overall party luck score is a negative. Maybe some item they want to try to buy at a shop is unavailible even though its a commen item if their luck score reduces the chanches of items being avalible at the store. Lot of potential there I have not thought of...

You are on EXACTLY the right track! There is a section in the core rulebook that covers this exact subject matter. There is a real downside to low Luck scores, that crops up in lots of "everyday" ways...

I think I'd want to know a player is ready to embrace that before I used it too often on them. Otherwise, Luck just becomes a stat that no one is willing to be bad in -- as in switch the character out for a new one ASAP...

At the same time you don't want it to turn LUCK into some sort of "pool". Dump stats have always been a problem in some versions of D&D. It's in everyone's best interest that the Judge strikes a balance and make sure characters with high ability scores have their shining moments as well as those with low scores to show their failings. And the best way to do that is to test, or factor, every Ability equally-not just Luck.