[Otaku]

Originally Posted by RGTraynor

I can't imagine this being much of a problem. I have yet to design a 4th edition PC that doesn't have Luck; 15 pts for an Advantage that largely immunizes me from rolling critical failures is just too damn awesome not to take for any conceivable character.

Heh, fair point. I've warmed up to quite a bit myself; then again 15 points is quite a bit. I'll present the counterpoint that 15 points is quite a bit, and if you're taking it only as insurance, you're probably not getting 15 points out of it unless you need to "file a claim" both often and on schedule.

Taking a step back to a back-and-forth discussion over a hypothetical Perk (1 point) form of Luck, which I'll refer to in the rest of this post as "Lucky Break" since I still can't think of a better name for it. The big thing is that I think there is some confusion between TheBenj and I; I proposed something that was completely rejected, and was persuaded it needed to be rejected. Gnome suggested an alternative, I tried changing it, TheBenj suggested something nearly identical to what Gnome suggested... so by that point I took it as us discussing that form for Lucky Break instead of either of my proposals.

Originally Posted by Gnome

Perk: Lucky Break
Once per session, you may retroactively turn a failure by one into a success, provided the failure was not a critical failure. This only affects your own rolls, and only if your margin of failure was exactly one.

Originally Posted by Otaku

What about the other idea, a +1 once per session to a roll, possibly capable of being applied retroactively, maybe with some other stipulations.

Yes, that is more than a bit vague and incomplete, but its a work in progress. ;)

Originally Posted by The Benj

I think if it only lets you turn a failure by 1 into a success by 0, that's probably okay.

Originally Posted by Otaku

Perks are supposed to be quite narrow, but I worry this is too narrow... or are we dropping the "once per session" thing?

Originally Posted by The Benj

Certainly not. If you drop the once per session aspect it's practically +1 to everything (with -1 to margin of success and for critical success).

So... does that help clear things up a bit? I was staying with the wording about failure by 1 being treated as success by 0, while allowing for it to be more frequent than once per session, but not an Always On effect*. Rather I meant a different restriction more akin to actual Luck, in that this bonus would be unavailable for an hour after it is actually used.

I am not good at statistics and probability, and part of that is considering all factors. If what I am about to say seems condescending, it isn't because I don't know for sure what I am talking about; I am going into detail so that if I have valid considerations they can be properly understood and if I am mistaken then it is easier to see and to explain my errors.

Lucky break isn't an effective +1 to any (all) rolls because - as Gnome and then you worded it, and at this point I was continuing to discuss (I took my earlier suggestion as "rejected") - it only turns failure by 1 into success by 0. So... how often does that happen per session?

When we roll 3d6, we generate one of 216 outcomes... but as we are using numerical dice, these outcomes are divided between the sum of the dice which must total 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, or 18, just 16 different outcomes. The rules of GURPS further modify this; as outlined Lucky Break was only for "success rolls", and for now at least I am narrowly interpreting this as just that; no damage rolls, no Fright Checks, no Reaction Rolls, etc.

It will never matter when you roll a 3 or 4, because by RAW those are never a failure and Lucky Break is worded so that it doesn't turn a target number of 2 into 3: you don't need it to attempt a miracle Dodge when your Dodge Score is under 3 and it won't allow you to change an effective Skill of 2 into Skill 3 so that you are even allowed to roll. I don't quite know how it is intended to work with rolls of 17 or 18, as they also break the usual rules. They aren't misses by "1" in the game mechanic sense because they are always failures, so I would assume they don't benefit from Lucky Break either. It also won't allow you to pad the margin of success (the probability, but not the margin) for any roll because it only causes a failure by 1 to be treated as a success by 0. Its only going to allow you to avoid a fail or miss when it aligns properly with the target number; if you needed a 12 and rolled a 13, you could invoke this and succeed... but if you needed a 3 through 11, you still blew it.

My apologies for having to repeatedly edit this post, but my initial attempt was even more rambling and less accurate, having incorrectly attributed some suggestions from the thread, hence going back and quoting the "chain".

*Or if for some reason I did, I was wrong, but I don't see any text suggesting that specific outcome. ;)