Thoughts on Bankable Luck Enhancement

[adam1234]

I am looking for something to add to Luck akin to "You may bank up to 2 uses of luck". I really want to keep one use around for life-or-death situations but still want to be able to just do dumb, cinematic stuff once in a while.

So instead of 1 use per hour, it would be "you can use as many as you have banked, but only gain one per hour".

Thoughts on how much of an enhancement that would be? 50% cosmic sort? 25%? Note this is not a terribly combat-heavy (nor even so far risk heavy) game, so keep that in mind.

Obviously final say goes to my GM, but just wanted some thoughts if you folks had done anything of the sort.

We also considered "you get 4 uses at the start since the sessions are usually 4 hours; use as needed". Similar question, thoughts on cost?

Summary:

1. Can bank up to 2 uses. Gain as normal. Modifier?
2. Start with 1 per expected session hour. Use as needed. Modifier?

Thanks in advance!

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by adam1234

I am looking for something to add to Luck akin to "You may bank up to 2 uses of luck". I really want to keep one use around for life-or-death situations but still want to be able to just do dumb, cinematic stuff once in a while.

So instead of 1 use per hour, it would be "you can use as many as you have banked, but only gain one per hour".

Thoughts on how much of an enhancement that would be? 50% cosmic sort? 25%? Note this is not a terribly combat-heavy (nor even so far risk heavy) game, so keep that in mind.

Obviously final say goes to my GM, but just wanted some thoughts if you folks had done anything of the sort.

We also considered "you get 4 uses at the start since the sessions are usually 4 hours; use as needed". Similar question, thoughts on cost?

Summary:

1. Can bank up to 2 uses. Gain as normal. Modifier?
2. Start with 1 per expected session hour. Use as needed. Modifier?

Thanks in advance!

I'm afraid we might be starting at +100%. Putting this on 15 pts of Luck isn't quite the same as buying 30 pts of standard Luck but you can spend this Luck faster than standard Luck even if it recharges a little slower.

If you think thoe Enahncement and Limitation balnce out (and they might roughly at least at the first level of Luck) it still amkes 15pts of Luck as useful as 30 pts of the standard variety. So that's +100%.

When you look at putting this ion 30pts of Luck I think it might eb more than a +100% Enhcnement.

[Celjabba]

Originally Posted by adam1234

I am looking for something to add to Luck akin to "You may bank up to 2 uses of luck". I really want to keep one use around for life-or-death situations but still want to be able to just do dumb, cinematic stuff once in a while.

So instead of 1 use per hour, it would be "you can use as many as you have banked, but only gain one per hour".

Thoughts on how much of an enhancement that would be? 50% cosmic sort? 25%? Note this is not a terribly combat-heavy (nor even so far risk heavy) game, so keep that in mind.

Obviously final say goes to my GM, but just wanted some thoughts if you folks had done anything of the sort.

We also considered "you get 4 uses at the start since the sessions are usually 4 hours; use as needed". Similar question, thoughts on cost?

Summary:

1. Can bank up to 2 uses. Gain as normal. Modifier?
2. Start with 1 per expected session hour. Use as needed. Modifier?

Thanks in advance!

I have been using "Start with 1 per expected session hour (or other time interval), use as needed" for years, using tokens (poker chips, ...).
No cost modifier.

I only allow one use per roll.
I sometimes (rarely) restrict to one use per scene (per player) - it depend on the mood of the game.
Unused tokens do not carry between sessions.

It mostly*** work without any problem, and avoid players deliberately wasting time when there is 10 minutes left on the luck refresh.
I found it also encourage players to use luck for "unimportant" actions that the player want to succeed but which are neither critical to the story or dangerous if failed, as long as they have one token in reserve for life-or-death situations.

*** : One problem, a player with ridiculous luck in a 5 hours game start with 30 tokens...
That can be unbalancing, especially in a combat-light game with perhaps a few rolls per hours.
With the standard rules, he would rarely if ever get to use all of them.
With the token rule, he can go wild.
I haven't found it a real problem, but you have to be attentive to the possibility.

[adam1234]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

I'm afraid we might be starting at +100%. Putting this on 15 pts of Luck isn't quite the same as buying 30 pts of standard Luck but you can spend this Luck faster than standard Luck even if it recharges a little slower.

If you think thoe Enahncement and Limitation balnce out (and they might roughly at least at the first level of Luck) it still amkes 15pts of Luck as useful as 30 pts of the standard variety. So that's +100%.

When you look at putting this ion 30pts of Luck I think it might eb more than a +100% Enhcnement.

So that is a comparison to look at. Extraordinary Luck is 1 use per 30 minutes and effectively a +100% modifier to Luck. I think "Bankable" is less than 100% because of that; if you use each Luck as soon as it comes up, you still only get 1 use per hour. And similarly if you took Luck twice, you could have 2 uses banked, and each refreshes independently so you would get faster than one/hr - which again, is 100% cost. (Technically it is not RAW to take it twice, just making a comparison.)

So somewhere in the middle is where I am looking: same max uses per hour, same refresh time, but the ability to have 2 banked. I would think 25% is reasonable because it merely increases the flexibility and safety, not the throughput. But I could see 50% or so because it does remove the "one use and you are now unsafe" downside.

But hey, "start with 4, use as needed, no extra cost" is definitely my preference so as to avoid timekeeping. :)