Goodman Games

First, thank you to everyone that I have seen handing out great advice and resources on the forums. I don't usually join forums but this game is awesome and I have seen some great material on here.

I have a question: On character creation there is the "Lucky Roll" chart that gives you a bonus or negative to one attribute based on the roll. But if your character has a Luck score that falls in the average range, they would not have a bonus one way or another.

As we have rolled up 0-levels a few times trying the game out, my players have questioned the reason for rolling if the character isn't going to get a bonus one way or the other?

I understand it gives a bit of flavor to the character even if they do not get a boon or hindrance. But, am I playing this right or does the Lucky Roll do something even for characters with an average Luck score?

By the rules, you're right -- the modifier of zero for the Lucky Roll never changes for those with a Luck of 9 to 12.

Some have ruled that it does change, keeping pace with wherever that character's Luck is at the moment. And some have ruled that it's always a minimum of +1 (if not higher, based on a starting Luck that is higher), and then is fixed for the life of the character.

I'd say, go with whatever sounds like more fun for you and yours.

It has an effect in Stars in the Darkness.

The judge can certainly create situations that give bonuses or penalties based on birth auger, even if it is an average score. The judge can also make a penalty into a bonus if he desires, especially for a particular effect. He may also make the base Luck roll change, and thus change the modifier.

See, this is why I joined this board. Thank you for the clarification and the ideas folks.
I think I will go with the Luck changing over time affecting the birth auger idea.

Plus it has the added benefit of burning luck that much more unique.

What we did in my game was that 9-10 also gave -1 penalty, and 11-12 also gave +1 bonus.

But if I were to redo this, I'd perhaps give a straight up bonus of +1 or better (if luck is 14 or more, you'd get your usual bonus), pursuant to the idea seen above.

I decided to consider the "lucky roll" more as an astrological thing. I actually wrote up a replacement table where each result - though mechanically the same - referenced a constellation or other celestial event (comet, eclipse, etc.) for each listing. Positive and negative Luck mods meant that the character was born under that sign during a Full or New Moon, while the average person was born during a plain ol' waxing or waning moon. Thus, some people are unlucky (or even cursed) at whatever their birth constellation governs, while others are lucky/blessed, and most folks are just folks.

This did away with my angst (which went all the way back to the beta) of someone who (for example) "survived a spider bite" not having a bonus to his/her saving throw against poison because of a low or average Luck score. I mean, you "survived" the bite. That should mean you're tougher against it! I admit that I can see a negative value working there (it weakened you), but the middle ground just gnawed at me. So I quested for it, so to speak.

Anyway, my players couldn't have cared less about the intricacies of my chart (or the semantics that drove me to create it). So the chart got dropped and we moved on. But it helped me reconcile the concept in my head.

By the way, to a player who says "who cares what my birth augur is, my luck modifier is zero anyway", you can reply: "wait, you mean that you would not care to know that you were BORN ON THE BATTLEFIELD??! I mean, that would be pretty amazing, wouldn't it?" (I.e. show that YOU care. Maybe they'll catch on.)

I have also ruled that the Halfling can lend his Birth Augur bonus to the other party members (or hinder them if it's negative)

Skyscraper wrote:By the way, to a player who says "who cares what my birth augur is, my luck modifier is zero anyway", you can reply: "wait, you mean that you would not care to know that you were BORN ON THE BATTLEFIELD??! I mean, that would be pretty amazing, wouldn't it?" (I.e. show that YOU care. Maybe they'll catch on.)

I agree with you on this point as well. It can definitely be a very cool part of character creation. Trust me, most of the Grognards I game with think I have gone batty with my exuberance concerning the flavoring in this game. I do wish the list (and therefore variety of birth augers) was longer in the book. The random roll for a piece of gear and mercurial magic have longer lists than the birth augers.

The other day I had several people rolling up 0 levels, lost count of the number of characters that had been "bit by a spider".

Spiders must be plague like levels in this game

-MonsterSlayer

MonsterSlayer wrote:

Skyscraper wrote:By the way, to a player who says "who cares what my birth augur is, my luck modifier is zero anyway", you can reply: "wait, you mean that you would not care to know that you were BORN ON THE BATTLEFIELD??! I mean, that would be pretty amazing, wouldn't it?" (I.e. show that YOU care. Maybe they'll catch on.)

I agree with you on this point as well. It can definitely be a very cool part of character creation. Trust me, most of the Grognards I game with think I have gone batty with my exuberance concerning the flavoring in this game. I do wish the list (and therefore variety of birth augers) was longer in the book. The random roll for a piece of gear and mercurial magic have longer lists than the birth augers.

The other day I had several people rolling up 0 levels, lost count of the number of characters that had been "bit by a spider".

Spiders must be plague like levels in this game

-MonsterSlayer

Haha, it reminds me of my players rolling up their zeros, five players rolling four each, they ended up with three shamans. The game was set to start in a village of 150 people. With 3 shamans. What was the likelihood?

Maybe you could provide a longer list of birth augurs and share it with us? (I'm pretty good to hand out work to everyone )

I think even if you have no luck bonus, this auger can give you a skill you did not have.

Think "find traps" on a non theif. Normal chance is a D10, theives and those with this as
a birth auger roll a D20 modified by the normal attribute. Quite a bonus!

Think "turn undead/unholy" on a warrior. Get a chance on D20 plus personality to be a
ghetto paladin!

Think outside the box people!

Monster