Luck and Drains/Transfers

[Broadsword]

I was thinking about a Luck based character thought of some questions.

 

Is it too much to have a Transfer that took from Dex, say, and put the points in Luck. With a limitation or two, a 4d6 Transfer could give 5 or 6d6 of Luck. Is that a game breaker? For little points you get a powerful effect.

 

Also I was wondering that if you Drain Luck, should the GM allow for the CPs to go to Negative and thus create Unluck on a person who has Luck Drained on them? Would you treat a person with no Luck power as having 0d6 Luck? And thus as being already at 0 CPs.

 

How would you represent a Unluck effect, where a Character is unlucky for all others, but not for himself? Can you take Unluck with Hole in the Middle, or Does not Affect Self? I think the description specifically forbids this. So, then would you actually use the Power Luck and just specify how it is reverse luck on those in the AoE?

 

Broadsword -|--->

[Daltwisney]

Re: Luck and Drains/Transfers

 

Since you are talking Transfer, I'll answer based on 5ER

 

Is it too much to have a Transfer that took from Dex' date=' say, and put the points in Luck. With a limitation or two, a 4d6 Transfer could give 5 or 6d6 of Luck. Is that a game breaker? For little points you get a powerful effect.[/quote']

 

4d6 of Transfer is a base of 60 AP. In order to Transfer into Luck, you have to buy at least 1d6 of Luck to start with (you cannot add Powers with Adjustment powers). And while 5 or 6d6 of Luck CAN be powerful, it isn't guaranteed to succeed, and many GMs have some sort of cooldown or limit on how often a Luck roll can be made. So even with Limitations, you are looking at a decent investment (outside of Frameworks) to get that effect, so I'd say it isn't a gamebreaker.

 

Also I was wondering that if you Drain Luck, should the GM allow for the CPs to go to Negative and thus create Unluck on a person who has Luck Drained on them? Would you treat a person with no Luck power as having 0d6 Luck? And thus as being already at 0 CPs.

This can be somewhat of a gray area, depending on how you perceive the relationship between Luck and Unluck.

According to the rules, you can purchase both on the same character, so it seems clear they are independent 'powers', and thus draining Luck would only count negative points for the purposes of determining the time the power takes to recover.

 

So, to me, the first answer is no, and then the rest of the questions are moot. But generally, not having a Power is not the same as having 0 points in a power with respect to Adjustment powers. If I have a Blast, and it has been drained to 0 points, it can be Aided, but if I never purchased one, it cannot.

 

How would you represent a Unluck effect, where a Character is unlucky for all others, but not for himself? Can you take Unluck with Hole in the Middle, or Does not Affect Self? I think the description specifically forbids this. So, then would you actually use the Power Luck and just specify how it is reverse luck on those in the AoE?

I think that is more of an SFX description for a Luck power, where Bad Things that might otherwise affect the Character affect others nearby instead. Disads are normally reserved for things that hinder or limit the character that has them, not for offensive use.

[Broadsword]

Re: Luck and Drains/Transfers

 

So, the Transfer I suggested really isn't that much more powerful then any other 60 Active Point power.

 

I see what you mean about the two being mutually exclusive, it would take a GM over-ride to make such a thing work. But it would be too powerful now that I think of it. It would be like doing a drain on Energy Blast when someone doesn't have EB and then having them take a penalty for being Drained into a negative. Points above what is needed to drain the Luck power would just be there to offset recovery time.

[Daltwisney]

Re: Luck and Drains/Transfers

 

But it would be too powerful now that I think of it.

 

Just imagine a character who has Unluck to begin with in a game where you can 'Drain' people into Unluck. That could become a VERY bad day.