Unluckily lucky

[WaterAndWindSpirit]

Hello everyone!

So I've been reading the backstory of Setback from Sentinels of the Multiverse, and I wondered how to make a "luckiest unlucky person" type character.

To use Setback as an example, he was in serious need of money and took part in medical experimentation (actually human tests by a supervillain) but was the only test subject who survived and got powers from the weird genetic goop he was injected with. Setback is the kind of guy who can fall three stories from a rooftop while fighting a bad guy and survive the fall because he lands on another bad guy who cushions his fall, taking out said bad guy who was just about to kill his best friend and fellow hero. Basically, what advantage/disadvantage combo should one take to play a character who has both the bad luck to always get into messes but some massive good luck that means that whatever what mess said character gets into, he'll come out without permanent damage and successful in preventing world ending crises and preventing injuries on his friends and allies.

Thanks!

[johndallman]

Weirdness Magnet and Serendipity.

If he looks very unlucky, and his life is very inconvenient, but things always come out well through fortunate events, these two will do the job nicely.

[Icelander]

Also Luck, at high levels.

Note that Luck has nothing to do with avoiding what we colloquially call 'bad luck', it's exclusively concerned with making it more likely that you'll succeed at the dice rolls you need to survive a series of increasingly unlucky situations.

[Maz]

You might also want to add Klutz, for a feeling of "unluckiness"

[Bruno]

I would specifically allow multiple levels of Serendipity, but for this character they should be limited to only mitigating/turning around disastrous events (whether caused by critical failures or combat or whatever).

Otherwise the character can be lucky even without something unfortunate happening first.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by WaterAndWindSpirit

Basically, what advantage/disadvantage combo should one take to play a character who has both the bad luck to always get into messes but some massive good luck that means that whatever what mess said character gets into, he'll come out without permanent damage and successful in preventing world ending crises and preventing injuries on his friends and allies.

Serendipity, Luck (probably Ridiculous), Daredevil, Destiny, even Super Luck.

At worst I might refluff Weirdness Magnet into "Trouble Magnet"... however 'getting into trouble' really is a character's job so unless the Player is willing to accept 'serious' setbacks in his path, I might drop it to 5 points, or even call it a Quirk.

Of course there is also Unluckiness if the Player really wants to be hosed every so often.

[Rolando]

all the above and cursed for added real bad luck.

There is nothing saying you can't take unluckiness with levels of luck. Both may apply perfectly to a single character.

[Plane]

Super Luck (Aftermath, Unluckiness -5%) ?

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Rolando

all the above and cursed for added real bad luck.

There is nothing saying you can't take unluckiness with levels of luck. Both may apply perfectly to a single character.

I can think of more than a few comic book figures that have Unluckiness and Serendipity too.

[Andreas]

The good luck part sounds like a lot of levels of serendipidity to me, but I have always found high levels of that trait hard to deal with. The advatage does after all say that you won't necessarily get lucky more times because you have high levels, instead multiple uses can be used up on less plausible coincidences (and less plausible does of course not necessarily mean more useful...).

Originally Posted by Bruno

I would specifically allow multiple levels of Serendipity, but for this character they should be limited to only mitigating/turning around disastrous events (whether caused by critical failures or combat or whatever).

I'm not sure how such limitations on serendipity should be handled. That does after all in a way give you more control over how the advantage is used, while otherwise it would be used at the GMs whim. Being able to save it for when it is really needed sounds like it could be advantagous. Especially since if it isn't used during one game session, you get the use during the next one instead, so a rare condition isn't necessarily disadvantagous.