Luck Variant: No Fumbles

[kirbwarrior]

So, I was talking with one of my players and we both liked the idea of an advantage that just negates critical failures from happening while talking about Luck. And I realized that never once has anyone who had base Luck actually get a critical failure. So, I was thinking, trading off the other advantages of Luck (being able to significantly increase chances of both success and critical success) for completely negating critical failures seems fair, if not cheaper. Right now I'm making it 15pts. What does everyone else think of this?

Some further thoughts;
I think Magic talks about not being allowed to use Luck with enchanting or magic in general. While I can see why that rule is in place, I'd rather just make that a limitation on Luck directly, and then I'd put the same limitation on No Fumbles.
I think you can't use Luck on Job rolls. Since that's not too big of a deal, I'd just let this new trait work there anyway.
I'm not sure if I'd let someone take this and regular Luck, but I also can't think of why that would be an issue. Maybe someone else can come up with some?

[Icelander]

It sounds balanced, point-wise. A lot of the value in Luck is the ability to prevent critical hits against you, which in any setting with powerful magical attacks or just TL4+ firearms, can easily be instantly career ending for a PC. Luck which can't perform its primary role of keeping characters alive is limited enough so that it's a fair trade to allow it to work all the time.

However, it's a very boring Advantage, I think. Non-fatal failures are both dramatic, interesting and often funny.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by Icelander

However, it's a very boring Advantage, I think. Non-fatal failures are both dramatic, interesting and often funny.

I definitely agree it's a boring advantage. It falls under other traits like Immunity to Metabolic Hazards and Doesn't Eat/Drink.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

I definitely agree it's a boring advantage. It falls under other traits like Immunity to Metabolic Hazards and Doesn't Eat/Drink.

More boring than them. Immunities let you show off by doing things like walking through clouds of toxic gas and doesn't eat or drink lets you be blatantly weird by doing things like getting walled up for a year while you slowly chip away at the masonry until you escape.

Originally Posted by Icelander

However, it's a very boring Advantage, I think. Non-fatal failures are both dramatic, interesting and often funny.

Nothing stopping failures from occurring, just critical failures.

[Andreas]

15 points would be way too low if it can be taken together with RPM magic (unless limited to not work for magic of course). The risk of very dangerous critical failures is one of the main limiting factors in that magic system.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

More boring than them. Immunities let you show off by doing things like walking through clouds of toxic gas and doesn't eat or drink lets you be blatantly weird by doing things like getting walled up for a year while you slowly chip away at the masonry until you escape.

True. It is hard to show off being able to avoid critical failures, but on the other hand Deadpool 2 taught us that taking Visible can let it look cinematic.

Originally Posted by Andreas

15 points would be way too low if it can be taken together with RPM magic (unless limited to not work for magic of course). The risk of very dangerous critical failures is one of the main limiting factors in that magic system.

Is Luck or Impulse Buys OP with RPM? Or is this one of those situations where there are far more rolls than usual when doing a given task (like Verb-Noun magic)? Either way, sounds like a perfect place for Accessibility.

[aesir23]

Another way of looking at this would be as a limitation on Luck.

Luck (Focused: Only for Critical Failures -?%)

If we decide that -75% is fair, then Ridiculous Luck (Only Critical Failures -75%) costs 15.

This still leaves the absurdly unlikely event of two critical failures in 10 minutes, but that might alleviate some people's concerns about RPM, where critical failures while gathering energy might happen back to back in this way.

Another thing to consider is that this Advantage already kind of exists in the form of Daredevil. Is the trade of your +1 on the roll worth the trade of not necessarily having to be doing something foolhardy and dangerous? Maybe.

The final thing I'd add is that this advantage should be mutually exclusive with Total Klutz for the obvious reason.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

True. It is hard to show off being able to avoid critical failures, but on the other hand Deadpool 2 taught us that taking Visible can let it look cinematic.

.

<snort> No that swirling whirlpool of chaos wasn't just avoiding critical failures. It was kind of an extreme application of Serendipity.