A lesser super-luck: saved roll

[Culture20]

We've all had that one time where we roll a critical success early in a session for a largely irrelevant action and later wished we could have saved the roll for a crucial action later. So what would it cost to have a sort of Super Luck where you can "choose" a roll, but must have rolled it before in the same session (time period), set it aside, and rerolled the original?

[Lia Valenth]

Originally Posted by Culture20

...So what would it cost to have a sort of Super Luck where you can "choose" a roll, but must have rolled it before in the same session (time period), set it aside, and rerolled the original?

Can the character bank any roll? You mention rolling a critical success on something of lesser importance, but could I also bank a critical failure I roll on something extremely important so I can reroll that but have to fail something later?

I think I would do it like this:
Roll once when you get the power and put that roll in the "bank". Every given amount of time (1 hour?) you can replace whatever you rolled with what is currently in your "bank", and place your current roll into the "bank".

This is definitely not as good as Super Luck (100, 1/hour), and I am not even sure it is as good as Luck with how I have designed it. I would probably price it the same as Luck.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Lia Valenth

Can the character bank any roll? You mention rolling a critical success on something of lesser importance, but could I also bank a critical failure I roll on something extremely important so I can reroll that but have to fail something later?

There isa Corruption (or some such) mechanic/effect in one of the books where in one gets a bene now in exchange for losing a Critical Success into a Failure later.


Don't ask me which GURPS books or Pyramid article I read it in though.


[EDIT]
I think it's a Dungeon Fantasy template Power-Up.
[/EDIT]

[khorboth]

I probably wouldn't allow this. I feel like it would devolve into a bunch of "can I roll for that? what about that? Hmmm... maybe I'll try to seduce the woman at the bar. Maybe I'll try some default acrobatics rolls. Maybe... we'll roll out lots of extra stuff just so I can get the roll I want in the bank."

Maybe that's just my group of roll-light gamers, but that's my thought.

[Culture20]

Originally Posted by khorboth

I probably wouldn't allow this. I feel like it would devolve into a bunch of "can I roll for that? what about that? Hmmm... maybe I'll try to seduce the woman at the bar. Maybe I'll try some default acrobatics rolls. Maybe... we'll roll out lots of extra stuff just so I can get the roll I want in the bank."

Maybe that's just my group of roll-light gamers, but that's my thought.

I can totally see this as a problem with some groups. But assuming your players are rational actors who won't try to grind for the session's good roll... any ideas on how this would be priced? It's a limitation on Super Luck, to be sure, but it's kind of like a temporary disadvantage of anti-luck, where you're required to re-roll a good roll (of your choice, not the GM's).

[Culture20]

Originally Posted by Ransom

Sounds like a sort of Preparation Required limitation.

Except the preparation is in real life. For the character it's more like saving good fortune for a rainy day.

[Anaraxes]

How do you resolve the original action that was rolled for? The first two options that come to mind are first, to push the good roll, and then just re-roll, with abiding by the second result mandatory (though you might allow use of the just-saved roll). Second, "karma", so that if you save a success, you have to take a failure on that roll, and to save a crit success, you have to take a crit fail. (That's not as bad as it sounds, because as has been pointed out, players will choose non-critical rolls without really terrible consequences as the sort to generate a lot of re-stocking rolls.)

[starslayer]

Super luck (side effect: unluckiness(time spanning))

[kirbwarrior]

While it would normally be based on Super Luck, I'd just make it a perk;

You can turn a critical success into a failure to make a later roll into a critical success.

It would last until used and you can't refill it until then. I'd only allow it if the players don't try to 'fix' it, especially since I do light rolling outside of combat (it might be better in combat heavy campaigns, but then you're choosing to fail in combat...)

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

While it would normally be based on Super Luck, I'd just make it a perk;

You can turn a critical success into a failure to make a later roll into a critical success.

I could go with that as well, but either the roll has to be a '3' or you'd have to record the exact result rolled.

One way leads to simplicity, the other to a bit of bookkeeping.