the LUCKY feat is ridiculously broken

[LucianoAr]

to the point im thinking of banning it altogether. it started with one, then two, now 3 out of 5 players in the table have it now seeing how useful and life saving it has been for anyone that had it in the adventure. on things that take days to do its 3, 6 , 9 rerrolls, to the point that the gm has to flush out our luck before throwing the real stuff at us.

anyone thinks the same? i think if you had a single lucky a day with maybe a +5 bonus it would be still REALLY REALLY good. 3 is just broken.

maybe ways to balance it?

[Easy_Lee]

Rerolling dice is always beneficial, but I don't think it's any more powerful than the diviner's ability to force certain roles. A diviner with lucky could be a potent character.

[OldTrees1]

Ablative defenses like lucky are highly subjective. Make each roll less important to nerf ablative defenses relative to passive defenses.

[Whammydill]

On a side note, how does one spontaneously become lucky? You are either lucky or you aren't. Mechanically no one in the entire world (except halflings and variant human) can be lucky unless they are a semi-seasoned adventurer...weird.

[pwykersotz]

On a side note, how does one spontaneously become lucky? You are either lucky or you aren't. Mechanically no one in the entire world (except halflings and variant human) can be lucky unless they are a semi-seasoned adventurer...weird.

You forget the whims of the dice gods. I once had a session where a player rolled 11 natural 20's no crit fails, and had 90% of the rest of his rolls above 15.

[McBars]

Have played it and DMd for several characters with Lucky and don't find it to be op or broken. Just a lot of fun (rolling dice usually is.)

You don't become spontaneously lucky, you accept that you're playing a game where a feat allows your elf man to get a mulligan in certain situations. What an absurd question.

[Whammydill]

Have played it and DMd for several characters with Lucky and don't find it to be op or broken. Just a lot of fun (rolling dice usually is.)

You don't become spontaneously lucky, you accept that you're playing a game where a feat allows your elf man to get a mulligan in certain situations. What an absurd question.

Oh,...it was absurd...my bad.

[GWJ_DanyBoy]

Trying to imagine the Lucky feat a real-life mechanism of some kind is pretty absurd.

[brainface]

On a side note, how does one spontaneously become lucky? You are either lucky or you aren't. Mechanically no one in the entire world (except halflings and variant human) can be lucky unless they are a semi-seasoned adventurer...weird.

A god sees you, likes the cut of your gib, and starts cheating in your favor whenever the other gods aren't looking. Not a lot, mind, you're not their favored servant or anything, they can just dull their divine boredom by watching your exploits! And why would they do that when you're still some boring farmboy? Raking hay is not exciting to watch! Why would they fudge the numbers in your favor then?

Seriously I could see any number of ways to justify gaining luck in D&D: "meh I took a feat and it's a game" is frankly valid (albeit boring), but so's finding a lucky coin that really is lucky, having a guardian angel, ancestor spirits, any number of things. ^_^

[MaxWilson]

Lucky isn't really broken--either it's well-suited to your group for some reason (maybe your DM likes to use lots of big save-or-die effects) or your group simply hasn't discovered the opportunity cost yet. If Lucky were the only feat, you'd take it every time, but when you have to choose between Sharpshooter and Lucky and Alert and Mobile and Resilient (Con) and Polearm Master and Great Weapon Mastery and Mage Slayer, it becomes a much harder decision.

Lucky is insurance against disaster. Other feats increase your baseline effectiveness. It's a balance, but I'd be surprised if there weren't at least one guy in your group who'd rather double his damage output via GWM than go from 15% to 27% chance of saving successfully vs. dragonbreath.

(Also, the Mobile feat is fantastically fun combined with Longstrider and/or Cunning Action or Expeditious Retreat. Run up, hit somebody, run away with no opportunity attack.)


Seriously I could see any number of ways to justify gaining luck in D&D: "meh I took a feat and it's a game" is frankly valid (albeit boring), but so's finding a lucky coin that really is lucky, having a guardian angel, ancestor spirits, any number of things. ^_^

Most feat selections are disassociated mechanics, not just Lucky. It's not like your character wakes up one morning and says to himself, "I think I'll develop a Keen Mind and an excellent memory for remembering conversations!" No, it just happens. In this case, the "god" who is taking interest in the PC is the player.

[DanyBallon]

You forget the whims of the dice gods. I once had a session where a player rolled 11 natural 20's no crit fails, and had 90% of the rest of his rolls above 15.

I kinda roll like this most of the time ...not as much crit, but a lot of high rolls. Unfortunately for the others around the table, I'm the DM :smallbiggrin:

[pwykersotz]

I kinda roll like this most of the time ...not as much crit, but a lot of high rolls. Unfortunately for the others around the table, I'm the DM :smallbiggrin:

Ouch...I feel your pain. Just three sessions ago my friend played a monk that apparently just had to die. I rolled more crits and hits against this monk than against the rest of the party combined. And then, as insult to injury, a party member fell and became a Mummy, attacking the party. He hit the monk and rolled four 6's and a 5 on the damage dice.

Poor Chen. Rest in pieces.

[Easy_Lee]

Ouch...I feel your pain. Just three sessions ago my friend played a monk that apparently just had to die. I rolled more crits and hits against this monk than against the rest of the party combined. And then, as insult to injury, a party member fell and became a Mummy, attacking the party. He hit the monk and rolled four 6's and a 5 on the damage dice.

Poor Chen. Rest in pieces.

I had something like this happen. Had an idea for kobolds to ride ambush drakes into battle, meaning they both get advantage via pack tactics. Then I had both roll crits due to advantage against the same player at the same time. He plays a hill dwarf life cleric, and it still would have killed him outright if I didn't fudge the numbers.

[GiantOctopodes]

The one thing I will say about lucky is the whole "use it against your enemy" part of it get much more powerful the more people you have in the party with that ability using it in that way. You can really shut an enemy down in that fashion. However, that is only true to a point- obviously both dice rolls can be great, leading to no impact, and there is a certain point at which more would cease to provide additional benefit.

It is extremely random, but I will say that it is more likely to be beneficial than an ASI. On any given roll where a success can be obtained on a number between 3 and 19 (most things), there is a 5% chance that you fail by 1, or put another way, a 5% chance that your ASI put into the statistic in question results in success where there was previously failure. If you need a 10 to succeed, that means that a reroll (having a 50% chance of resulting in success when it was not going to be obtained previously) is worth it for any amount of rolls in that ability less than 10. A total of 3 rerolls means that unless you roll 30 or more checks with that ability per long rest, you are better off with lucky. If you would have succeeded on a 5 or more, lucky is better unless you make 45 rolls, and if you would succeed on a 15 or more, lucky is better if you make less than 15 rolls. Basically the formula would go 3 x (20 - the number needed for success) = number of rolls before an ASI is better.

There are of course complications- an ASI may grant you additional benefits beyond success on a check, such as increased damage, higher AC, more HP, higher DCs for enemies to resist your abilities, etc. Lucky, on the other hand, guarantees that it applies to the correct ability check, providing much greater versatility and coverage than the ASI. Conversely, a +1 in two different abilities that results in increasing their modifier halves the number of rolls before Lucky is better. As all of that cannot be directly compared without including Vastly more variables, to the point at which it is impossible to draw meaningful conclusions, I will instead give this generality:

- For those who are looking for a specific benefit beyond improving their odds of success on checks, an ASI is the better choice.
- For those who are reliant on successful ability checks to make meaningful contributions, such as Rogues and Grapplers, Lucky is likely the better choice.

tl;dr: Lucky is a powerful and useful feat, and often better than just an ASI, as it provides a more versatile benefit. However, it is not strictly better than an ASI in 100% of cases (to say nothing of how random it is), so it is definitely not "broken". Keep in mind that Lucky can only be applied to a die roll once, further uses cancel it out.

[MaxWilson]

If you're considering only defensive saving throw benefits, you can't just compare Lucky to ASI. You have to compare Lucky to Resilient.

[WickerNipple]

A diviner with lucky could be a potent character.

I'm trying to talk a friend into playing a Halfling one of these. Should make for some good stories.

[MaxWilson]

I'm trying to talk a friend into playing a Halfling one of these. Should make for some good stories.

Don't forget to multiclass as a Wild Mage Sorc and a Bard.

[RustyArmor]

Oddly enough I think its one of the worst feats in the book. Granted I roll bad and getting a reroll most likely won't save my butt. And if player uses it on an enemy to save his own hide from a strong hit, no biggie. We have one player in our game that took it and he still the worst roller in our group through out most encounters.

[Slipperychicken]

Trying to imagine the Lucky feat a real-life mechanism of some kind is pretty absurd.

Heaven forbid our magic elf game contains mechanisms which don't work in real life.

[Windrammer]

to the point im thinking of banning it altogether. it started with one, then two, now 3 out of 5 players in the table have it now seeing how useful and life saving it has been for anyone that had it in the adventure. on things that take days to do its 3, 6 , 9 rerrolls, to the point that the gm has to flush out our luck before throwing the real stuff at us.

anyone thinks the same? i think if you had a single lucky a day with maybe a +5 bonus it would be still REALLY REALLY good. 3 is just broken.

maybe ways to balance it?

I used to think it was broken as well, as a player. After a long time playing with it I've decided otherwise. Your players have been fortunate, but it rarely turns the tables in my experience. It's basically just advantage you can activate. You're just as likely to roll ****ty again with it. It's great to have in your pocket to avoid a crit fail or pull off some crucial roll, but it only ever amounts to what it's supposed to: That character is lucky.

Think about what being lucky means. It means that you're probably not going to crit fail. You're going to pull off that crucial action. The feat has it's place. The problem is that it frustrates your DM and he wants to be a **** about it instead of just letting the characters be lucky - if he's flushing out the roles, then he's basically killing a part of your character's lore that you made a large investment in.

[Windrammer]

Trying to imagine the Lucky feat a real-life mechanism of some kind is pretty absurd.

I don't think you're understanding it correctly. When a player uses that reroll, it doesn't mean the character has made some sort of decision. It means they're lucky and avoided a worse outcome.

A character attacking with advantage isn't actually attacking twice, you know. Advantage is an equally absurd "mechanism".

[Tenmujiin]

Ouch...I feel your pain. Just three sessions ago my friend played a monk that apparently just had to die. I rolled more crits and hits against this monk than against the rest of the party combined. And then, as insult to injury, a party member fell and became a Mummy, attacking the party. He hit the monk and rolled four 6's and a 5 on the damage dice.

Poor Chen. Rest in pieces.

I think the dice gods hate monks, one of the members of my group plays a monk as every character, his first character after finding the class (back in 3e) died to a pair of critical hits from a werewolf, his second character died two sessions later to more critical instakill. He continues to be the worst roller in the group and took lucky when I ran LMoP because 'I need it to counteract my bad luck'

[Totema]

Ehh, I wouldn't call it broken. It helps a character out while doing the things they normally do, not give them new options entirely. (e.g. Sentinel and Polearm Master) If you think it's too strong for your games, that's just a different issue.

[LucianoAr]

lets put this in perspective

fighter lvl 9 feat

INDOMITABLE
Beginning at 9th level, you can reroll a saving throw that youfail. If you do, you must use the new roll ,and you can't use this feature again until you finish a long rest



not only you get lucky at lvl 1 or 4. you can do a reroll for ANYTHING, three times a day, and you pick the first or second roll.

[MaxWilson]

Indomitable and Lucky actually stack pretty nicely.

Indomitable has one advantage in that you learn whether or not you succeeded before you have to decide to use it. Lucky has edge cases where you roll moderately well but don't know the DC: do you blow a Lucky roll to ensure it goes higher, or just hope that the DC is 13 and not 16?

"You must use the new roll" is not actually a disadvantage for Indomitable vs. Lucky. You'd never use Indomitable if the first roll was already good enough to pass. What that clause means is that you can't use Indomitable twice on the same saving throw: one re-roll is the maximum.

[Gnomes2169]

I kinda roll like this most of the time ...not as much crit, but a lot of high rolls. Unfortunately for the others around the table, I'm the DM :smallbiggrin:

Man, in my last session the only reason the lizardfolk didn't crit 6 times in a row was because of disadvantage... Which made the rolls 18 or 19 instead. Those three lizardfolk were beasts...

[Easy_Lee]

Indomitable and Lucky actually stack pretty nicely.

Indomitable has one advantage in that you learn whether or not you succeeded before you have to decide to use it. Lucky has edge cases where you roll moderately well but don't know the DC: do you blow a Lucky roll to ensure it goes higher, or just hope that the DC is 13 and not 16?

"You must use the new roll" is not actually a disadvantage for Indomitable vs. Lucky. You'd never use Indomitable if the first roll was already good enough to pass. What that clause means is that you can't use Indomitable twice on the same saving throw: one re-roll is the maximum.

To this I would also add that class features and feats are not necessarily equivalent. Just because a feat is better in some cases than a class feature does not mean the class feature is bad or the feat is too powerful.

[CrusaderJoe]

to the point im thinking of banning it altogether. it started with one, then two, now 3 out of 5 players in the table have it now seeing how useful and life saving it has been for anyone that had it in the adventure. on things that take days to do its 3, 6 , 9 rerrolls, to the point that the gm has to flush out our luck before throwing the real stuff at us.

anyone thinks the same? i think if you had a single lucky a day with maybe a +5 bonus it would be still REALLY REALLY good. 3 is just broken.

maybe ways to balance it?

When you take this feat choose skills or saving throws.

You may use lucky on these rolls but only once per 5 minutes.

[Easy_Lee]

When you take this feat choose skills or saving throws.

You may use lucky on these rolls but only once per 5 minutes.

Overly complex, hard to keep track of, and defeats the purpose of the feat. Feels more like "Accountant" than Lucky.

[CrusaderJoe]

Overly complex, hard to keep track of, and defeats the purpose of the feat. Feels more like "Accountant" than Lucky.

How is that hard to keep track of?

Choose Saves or Skills
May use lucky as is for those type of rolls
May use 1/5 Min up to 3/day

Wow if that is hard to keep track of then don't look at 90% of the class/subclasses in the game haha.

[Talderas]

And why would they do that when you're still some boring farmboy? Raking hay is not exciting to watch!

It's not, but as a farmboy I do shoot womp-rats in my T-16 back home.

[Easy_Lee]

How is that hard to keep track of?

Choose Saves or Skills
May use lucky as is for those type of rolls
May use 1/5 Min up to 3/day

Wow if that is hard to keep track of then don't look at 90% of the class/subclasses in the game haha.

How long is 5 minutes out of combat and who keeps track of exactly how long it's been since last use? If I'm DM, and several of my players pick this feat, I don't want to try to remember who picked saves vs skills and how many in-game minutes it's been since last use for each of them in addition to number of times used. That's not a fun minigame.

Once per encounter might be okay, but you're still nerfing something that doesn't need to be nerfed. It's a feat, it's supposed to be good. If you're changing the RAW, it's best to have a good reason for doing so.

[MaxWilson]

How long is 5 minutes out of combat and who keeps track of exactly how long it's been since last use? If I'm DM, and several of my players pick this feat, I don't want to try to remember who picked saves vs skills and how many in-game minutes it's been since last use for each of them in addition to number of times used. That's not a fun minigame.

While I'm not a fan of the proposed rule change due to metagameyness, it's not really hard to keep track of this: every time you use Lucky, write down the time on the character sheet. If you want to use it again, compare the current time to the last time. If it's more than 5 minutes, you're golden, use it! If it's less than 5 minutes, start an argument about some minutia of rules until 5 minutes have passed. (Said tongue-in-cheek.)

I hate games that make game physics dependent on what is happening in the real universe with the players at the DM's table.

[Easy_Lee]

While I'm not a fan of the proposed rule change due to metagameyness, it's not really hard to keep track of this: every time you use Lucky, write down the time on the character sheet. If you want to use it again, compare the current time to the last time. If it's more than 5 minutes, you're golden, use it! If it's less than 5 minutes, start an argument about some minutia of rules until 5 minutes have passed. (Said tongue-in-cheek.)

I hate games that make game physics dependent on what is happening in the real universe with the players at the DM's table.

It's not hard for an honest, experienced player to keep track of this kind of thing. However, my players don't even remember to cast guidance on each other. And, of course, munchkins exist.

[CrusaderJoe]

5 minutes in game time, not out of game time. I really didn't think that would need explained.

[MaxWilson]

5 minutes in game time, not out of game time. I really didn't think that would need explained.

Oh, sorry, I thought you were cribbing the GURPS mechanic for Lucky, which is based on player time.

[Grayson01]

On a side note, how does one spontaneously become lucky? You are either lucky or you aren't. Mechanically no one in the entire world (except halflings and variant human) can be lucky unless they are a semi-seasoned adventurer...weird.

You also forgot any NPC with class levels (Hencmen, Big Bads, ETC) could be "Lucky".

Or any NPC that for story reasons (or on a whim) the DM decides should be "Lucky". (like for instance the Town Drunk who has amazing luck and the evil Cult leader wants him captured to divine the source of his blessing to steal it. Thus creating a need for the PC's to rescue and/or protect and follow said Lucky Drunk.)

[RedMage125]

You forget the whims of the dice gods. I once had a session where a player rolled 11 natural 20's no crit fails, and had 90% of the rest of his rolls above 15.

Could be his dice. Most dice do not accurately give an even chance to produce any number on their surface. This is due to air bubbles inside the die during molding, uneven rounding of the edges during the tumbling process, or maybe even a thicker layer of paint on one side or the other. Hence people having "lucky" dice.

I'm not saying this is cheating by any means, but it's just a fact that unless you are going out of your way to get specially calibrated dice (like GameScience dice), you have dice that have a higher chance to produce some numbers over others.

I myself have a d20 that rolls so well, I refuse to use it as a DM as a matter of professional ethics (I'm not actively TRYING to kill players, after all). When I get to play it's my primary die, however.

[pwykersotz]

Could be his dice. Most dice do not accurately give an even chance to produce any number on their surface. This is due to air bubbles inside the die during molding, uneven rounding of the edges during the tumbling process, or maybe even a thicker layer of paint on one side or the other. Hence people having "lucky" dice.

I'm not saying this is cheating by any means, but it's just a fact that unless you are going out of your way to get specially calibrated dice (like GameScience dice), you have dice that have a higher chance to produce some numbers over others.

I myself have a d20 that rolls so well, I refuse to use it as a DM as a matter of professional ethics (I'm not actively TRYING to kill players, after all). When I get to play it's my primary die, however.

Nah, the dice were from our normal pool. It was just a statistical anomaly. It's never happened since, after years with the same dice. Naturally, I choose to believe he garnered the favor of Asmodeus for a brief time. It makes for a better story. :smallbiggrin:

[RedMage125]

Nah, the dice were from our normal pool. It was just a statistical anomaly. It's never happened since, after years with the same dice. Naturally, I choose to believe he garnered the favor of Asmodeus for a brief time. It makes for a better story. :smallbiggrin:

LOL. I once had a player in a 3.5e game who had the opposite kind of luck. If he hadn't been playing a paladin (with his d10 Hit Dice, heavy armor, and self-healing), he would have died many a time over. Dude rolled more 1's than anyone I've ever seen.

[LucianoAr]

LOL. I once had a player in a 3.5e game who had the opposite kind of luck. If he hadn't been playing a paladin (with his d10 Hit Dice, heavy armor, and self-healing), he would have died many a time over. Dude rolled more 1's than anyone I've ever seen.

last week i rolled 11 1's out of 23 rolls. it was game history. i managed not to die tho.


as of the adventure, its ****ed , cause every npc seems to be lucky now (since half our table got the feat)

and its not funny anymore when your 20's get cancelled at critical moments.

[MarkTriumphant]

as of the adventure, its ****ed as of now, cause every npc seems to be lucky now (since half our table got the feat)

and its not funny anymore when your 20's get cancelled at critical moments.

That sounds like your DM is an arse. What is the point in allowing players to choose a feat, and then nerfing that feat? If he/she doesn't want too many people to have the feat, then restrict it and allow them to choose something else. At least that way some of the feats will be functional.