RPGs where "Luck" is a God-stat

[Just Locus]

One of my pet peeves in RPGs is when "Luck" has such a minute effect on the game that it's often considered a poster-boy dump stat alongside "Charisma." in some instances.

The only one I can think of, where Luck was slightly viable was Morrowind for mage builds since it dictated how successful you can cast spells. The main reason I believe Luck is often so useless is because of how broad of a spectrum it covers, that it's hard to design it in a way that's both useful and non-game breaking.

This brings me to this question; Are there any RPGs where "Luck" is considered a god-stat?

 

[harhar!]

Atom RPG Trudograd. With high enough luck, you are basically a god who can will anything into existence.

 

[Storyfag]

Fallout 1. High luck lets you find a crashed flying saucer, and the energy pistol within it.

 

[Saduj]

Many of my favorite perks in Fallout, Fallout 2 and Tactics require 6 Luck.

Edit: I'm not calling it a "God-stat" in these games but IMO, the most God-like builds require high Luck.

 

[JarlFrank]

Luck
Morrowind

 

[lukaszek]

Luck was slightly viable was Morrowind for mage builds

luck got significant sway on pretty much every action in morrowind. You might have not noticed it much if you were playing as mage who was backpedalling with destruction spells. Even then you might have been surprised to find that someone with maxed/fortified luck would receive 10-20% boost in casting success.
On other hand melee character with maxed luck will be unlikely to both get hit and miss. Easier to pick locks etc.


back to your original questions: warlock of firetop mountain - luck is strong in that one

 

[Funposter]

Luck was integral to using the Blueblood Sword in Demon's Souls, which was one of the better weapons since it dealt physical and magical damage while also being buffable.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

Fear & Hunger. But it's real life luck. You toss a coin even to save the game.

 

[Just Locus]

luck got significant sway on pretty much every action in morrowind.

Absolutely. However, the fact that Luck never governed any skills, you had to willingly spend 1 point because it never multiplied upon level-up, so you had to waste a level-up point over other attributes that were always going to be useful and for a lengthy playthrough. In other words; Too much investment for too little reward. I think if the myth that it dictated the quality of loot you find was true, there would be a lot more luck-centered builds.

 

[Serus]

Many of my favorite perks in Fallout, Fallout 2 and Tactics require 6 Luck.

Edit: I'm not calling it a "God-stat" in these games but IMO, the most God-like builds require high Luck.

I wouldn't call 6 on scale 1 to 10 exactly "high". Let's say, you can't be unlucky.

 

[lukaszek]

luck got significant sway on pretty much every action in morrowind.

Absolutely. However, the fact that Luck never governed any skills, you had to willingly spend 1 point because it never multiplied upon level-up, so you had to waste a level-up point over other attributes that were always going to be useful and for a lengthy playthrough. In other words; Too much investment for too little reward. I think if the myth that it dictated the quality of loot you find was true, there would be a lot more luck-centered builds.

stat cap is 100, easy to hit. You can max 2 main attributes by lvl15. Powergamer would in fact not lock just luck to each lvlup, but endurance too. And still be fine

 

[Yosharian]

One of my pet peeves in RPGs is when "Luck" has such a minute effect on the game that it's often considered a poster-boy dump stat alongside "Charisma." in some instances.

The only one I can think of, where Luck was slightly viable was Morrowind for mage builds since it dictated how successful you can cast spells. The main reason I believe Luck is often so useless is because of how broad of a spectrum it covers, that it's hard to design it in a way that's both useful and non-game breaking.

This brings me to this question; Are there any RPGs where "Luck" is considered a god-stat?

Fallout New Vegas, with high Luck you can make insane piles of cash in the casinos and just break the game

 

[NecroLord]

One of my pet peeves in RPGs is when "Luck" has such a minute effect on the game that it's often considered a poster-boy dump stat alongside "Charisma." in some instances.

The only one I can think of, where Luck was slightly viable was Morrowind for mage builds since it dictated how successful you can cast spells. The main reason I believe Luck is often so useless is because of how broad of a spectrum it covers, that it's hard to design it in a way that's both useful and non-game breaking.

This brings me to this question; Are there any RPGs where "Luck" is considered a god-stat?

Luck plays a role in pretty much all calculations and formulas in Morrowind.
Therefore high Luck will help with your casting of spells, dodging hits, crafting more poweful items and enchantments, successfully hitting an enemy, and so on.
Luck also plays a major factor in Fallout, where it gives you access to the Sniper perk. Basically all of your ranged firearm attacks have a chance equal to your Luck score (for example 8 Luck= 80 percent chance) of scoring a critical hit.
Also provides some minor benefits in the game world, as well as access to some other perks.

 

[spectre]

While the Sniper perk is indeed nice in F1/2, what you really want is to top off with Better Criticals, which open up one-hit kills on the crit table, regardless of damage dealt.

Off the top of my head, Wasteland 2 also had some luck-related effects but wouldn't perhaps call them "god tier".

A decent IRL luck stat helps immensely in a lot of roguelikes. Though if if you are willing to stretch it to include things such as "find more items" and "find items of higher quality", pretty much every diablo clone can qualify here,
albeit when the overall balancing tends to rely on having those stats (as Path of Exile did at one point), it ends up being a pretty shitty system.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Does really bad luck count as god-tier?
I mean just try starting ADOM run during Friday 13th.

 

[Just Locus]

Luck was integral to using the Blueblood Sword in Demon's Souls, which was one of the better weapons since it dealt physical and magical damage while also being buffable.

Can't you one-shot the final boss if you increase your luck high enough with the Blueblood sword?

 

[Desiderius]

HoMM?

 

[Cheesedragon117]

Dark Souls III lets you deal damage with your Luck stat if you infuse your weapon with a Hollow Gem.

If you want to count the Arcane stat as Luck, Elden Ring counts too. Arcane builds are legitimately game-breaking with the right equipment.

 

[MerchantKing]

Real life requires you to have a high luck stat.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Morrwind luck seems pretty bad to me tbh. You generally need 5 points of luck to get the equivalent of a single point of the relevant stat. Since you can also get other stats 5 times faster, it's basically garbage unless you're planning to max out all your stats. Which, fair enough, is fun. But in that case you don't need the luck anyways because you can just break a few systems by that point. The hardest part of Morrowind is when you've got like 30 as your highest combat skill and no money, and luck won't help you there.

I think Nethack has the most bonkers luck stat. of a proper rpg I know of. Aside from affecting a million other incredibly important things like prayer, equipment loss effects, making wishes and so forth, it increases your to-hit roll. Nethack uses d20 for to hit rolls. Luck can vary between -13 and +13. The moment you get a luckstone in Nethack (and therefore can max out your luck) is basically the moment you never miss a melee attack ever again.

Honourable mention goes to Risk of Rain 2. I wouldn't consider an RPG; but it has a luck stat and basically each point of luck lets you reroll any random chance mechanics if they fail. Given half the items in the game are shit like 'fire chain lightning 10% of the time you hit something' and 'hit something' includes when '10% of the time you hit something shoot an extra missile at it' that gets out of hand very, very quickly.

 

[MerchantKing]

Morrwind luck seems pretty bad to me tbh. You generally need 5 points of luck to get the equivalent of a single point of the relevant stat. Since you can also get other stats 5 times faster, it's basically garbage unless you're planning to max out all your stats. Which, fair enough, is fun. But in that case you don't need the luck anyways because you can just break a few systems by that point. The hardest part of Morrowind is when you've got like 30 as your highest combat skill and no money, and luck won't help you there.

It's better in daggerfall where it gives you a higher chance to get better loot. With high enough luck, you can start to get daedric gear fairly early.

 

[Funposter]

Luck was integral to using the Blueblood Sword in Demon's Souls, which was one of the better weapons since it dealt physical and magical damage while also being buffable.

Can't you one-shot the final boss if you increase your luck high enough with the Blueblood sword?

The magical and physical damage scale infinitely, which means that if you get your Luck above 99 by using glitches, yes you can just one-shot every enemy in the game. At the maximum level of 712, with 99 Luck, using the traditional "hyper mode" build you will be doing about 2,000 damage. That's enough to two or three shot everything in the game on a normal NG playthrough and enough to three or four shot everything in NG+7.

Morrwind luck seems pretty bad to me tbh. You generally need 5 points of luck to get the equivalent of a single point of the relevant stat. Since you can also get other stats 5 times faster, it's basically garbage unless you're planning to max out all your stats. Which, fair enough, is fun. But in that case you don't need the luck anyways because you can just break a few systems by that point. The hardest part of Morrowind is when you've got like 30 as your highest combat skill and no money, and luck won't help you there.

So it's "good" if you're powergaming +5 multipliers at every single level up and therefore levelling in the most efficient way possible. The issue is that if you're powerlevelling like that, the game doesn't have the challenges to stand up to your build regardless of if you're getting the extra bonuses from levelling Luck every time. Even the silly expansion content is defined primarily by HP sponge enemies, which Luck isn't helping with.

 

[TedNugent]

I think I killed the final boss in Fallout 1 with two or three shots at most.

A good sniper rifle with an aimed shot to the eyeball plus 8 luck or so and kablooie. I don't remember the exact details because it was a while ago, but it was somewhere about 100-200 damage on crit.

Was kind of satisfying watching people explode after a well placed crit.