House Rules

[Balgin Stondraeg]

The Luck Rules:

I've condensed this a bit because the full version is about two and a half pages long.

Luck is exactly that, just luck. If you walk into a ruined building with dangerous rotting floorboards in the dark then the chances of you stepping on a bad patch and plummeting through into the dark below is just as much down to luck as it is to your skills of perception.

Luck is treated like an ability score in every respect. That is that lost ability score points will return slowly (1/day).

Using Luck

A character may use luck to change or influence events, reducing damage taken from an enemies attack, for instance, or increasing the chance of picking a lock. Luck can be used to modify a characters skill checks, saving throws, attack rolls and melee/ranged damage dealt. You can also use your luck to reduce the damage you take from an enemy's attack.

Luck checks must be resolved before the action that they are affecting is undertaken (exeption: reducing damage taken). The result of the luck check is applied as a modifier to the action.

A character's luck score is temporarily reduced by 1 every time luck is checked (so over time luck can run out :)).

Luck cannot be used to give a character feats or special abilities that they would not normaly have (a fighter cannot use luck to turn undead etc).

Luck Difficulty Class:

Luck is checked against a difficulty class (DC). The base DC for luck is 10.

Ability check = d20 + ability score modifier (current ability score modifier for luck) against DC 10.

A total roll of 10 will give you a +1 bonus. For every 2 points over 10 that you roll you gain an additional +1 bonus (so 10=+1, 12=+2, 14=+3, 18=+5 etc).

If you fail a luck check by up to 5 then there is no penalty. However, if you fail by more than 5 (6 or more) then you get a flat -2 penalty to the roll Luck was about to affect (you've had bad luck/been unlucky).

Minimum Luck Score:

When a character's luck score reaches 0 they can no longer test their luck. Luck cannot be lower than 0 and cannot be used again untill it reaches 1.

Saving throws and Luck:

Luck can be used to modify the result of a saving throw using the same method as described above. The character makes a luck check and then applies the resulting bonus as a modifier to the savin throw.

Skills & Luck:

Luck can also be used to give you small bonuses to skill checks, just like saving throws. It can also be used for opposed skill checks. You cannot take 10 or take 20 when using your luck.

Luck in Battles:

You can use luck to add a bonus to your next attack roll.
Once an attack has struck home, you may use luck to increase the damage done.
If a monster hurts you, you may use luck to reduce the damage dealt (this is the only time you may test for luck after seeing the result of the roll, rather than beforehand).

Luck and Magic:

Luck may not be used to increase the effect of a spell.
Luck can be used to increase the chance of hitting with touch attack/ranged touch attack spells.
Luck can be used to increase the spellcraft check to recognise a spell being cast.
Luck may be used to increase your chances of saving against a spell.

Luck & Turn Undead:

Luck may be used to increase the turning roll (luck + charisma). It can not be used to increase the turning damage.

Stand Alone Luck Checks:

On rare occassions the GM may call for players to test their luck. This follows the normal procedure (involving losing a point of luck - if you test your luck 4 times, then your luck is 4 points lower than usual untill it may be restored to it's normal level).

Restoring Luck:

Luck returns daily as do other drained ability scores. Some spells (lesser restoration, restoration etc) treat luck as any other drained ability score and can restore it. SImilarly some potions can restore luck too.

Luck Awards:

Occassionaly the characters may gain a bonus luck point. This is not an increase to their original luck but they're getting a point back. This won't happen often but it does happen (usualy for major achievements and stuff).

Monsters and Luck:

Monsters and npc's don't get luck. A pc's bad luck is the monster's good luck :).