Luck

[Cyl]

just some information here not suggesting anything...

in TES games (of which i own Morrowind and Oblivion) there is a stat called luck. in the description i quote Oblivion: "Luck affects everything you do." I looked it up in the game manual and it was also very cryptic. Then i tried looking it up on the Internet and found out how it works. So here goes.

Luck is one of the attributes you have. It has the same affect on every single thing you do from attacking to how many heathers are in a heather plant (those of you who have played Morrowind will think that its completely random, but its not). Its as if the higher your luck is, the more it adds to each of your other attributes and major, minor, and misc skills. I read in another forum that it also is the equivelent of having levels or fractions of levels (depending on the level of your luck) added to each of your skills. Which, in turn, gives you a better success rate for everything.

Just for clarification, Morrowind and Oblivion are similar to Planeshift in that you dont gain attribute levels by training skills in those areas. Every time you gain a level, you may choose 3 attributes that you want to raise and they can go up by anywhere from 1 to 5 levels at a time depending on how much you used the attribute. (except in PS you do that for everything, not just attributes)

There, take that home, eat it, its good.

TES III and Planeshift cannot be compared. In TES attributes and skills are two different pairs of boots, and advancement in one is knit to advancement in the other. In planeshift training your blacksmith skill does not effect your strength in any way. Furthermore there are no levels in planeshift, Morrowind's solution cannot be directly aplied to Planeshift. period.

[Ahriman]

I also have TES3 and TES4, and yeah, thats where I got the idea of it not being trainable, and since there aren't any "Levels", just skill levels in PS, I trhought of it being determined at what things you chose at Char Creation.

[Kerol]

I actually see good points in the suggestion. Baldur's Gate and other RPGs have this implemented and it works pretty well. For the use in PS I like to tweak the idea a bit:

- Base value for everyone is fixed at a certain value (maybe 30 or 50%) luck
- A special birth event or a specifc choice of race in the CC could raise that starting value for example for about 5%
- luck is not trainable but modifyable by spells, potions and items
- luck could affect looting, chances to successfully cast a spell, or avoid negative effects of different things; chances to hit or avoid a hit
- to balance it, i suggest to make it impossible to modify luck with multiply instances of one sort (multiple rings of luck plus necklace plus boots plus or multiple casting "greater luck" or whatever). So it could be only possible to higher luck with one ring plus spell plus potion. That also eliminates the +100% chances of finding magic items insanity like it is in Diable 2 (one could assume that the % are referring to the real chance, but it highers a given value for _that_ %. So with over 1000% (which is more or less common for certain chars) you don't get 100% probability of finding, but thats just a weird system imho).
- Also, for temporary raising like spells and potions, I can think of pretty big effects like raising luck for 10 or 15%, but afterwards for a certain time, lowering the luck for about the same amount. So you have to plan very well on when to use it. Also higher additional values might also wear off faster. For instance a permanent raise (like a ring) would only give a plus of 5%, while an extremely powerful potion of luck could raise the value for 20%, but only for 10 seconds.

With that system I don't see a problem with people abusing the CC as it is very clear on how the CC affects the value, neither I see a problem with abuse by being able to train it. If 100% luck are not acceptable even for a short time, one could cap it at 90% for instance. Eliminating the random factor at the "stats"-side, it also makes it much more convenient, streamlined, for people without removing the random chance factor at all. Also it doesn't mean that people can abuse the system better if the the mechanics are revealed (principle of open source ).

[morgondor]

give everyone 1 point luck for the rest of the game. It can change by charms such as rings or a necklace or any other clothing piece. it could be lowered by long time curses which can be purified at the temple of a god or by the curse caster him/herself