Luck - let's figure this out shall we?

[Vox]

Alright! I've stuck mostly on GF1 - 3 and I've been testing out how valuable 'luck' is.

I haven't found any other topics that fully cover this but I'm interested to know what people have figured out.

In Blades if Avernum for example, luck gives almost 5% extra resistance to just about everything per level.

In GF1 I found that it just wasted skill points. GF2 I felt like it reduced a lot of damage (but may have just been the implemented parry skill) in GF3 I gave up on it and decided it has almost nothing to do with combat.

 

Has anyone truly figured it out? I'd really like to know!

[Randomizer]

Luck is suppose to provide minor increases to armor, resistances, and to hit. I forget if it is 1 or 2% per level, but it isn't a great way to spend skill points.

 

In GF1 you can buy Luck.

[Nim]

From testing and reading threads here putting points into luck is utterly worthless.

 

In G1 as randomizer said you can buy luck up to the max rather cheap.

 

G2 has at least on torment some parts where I regularly run into to-hit trouble. But if you divert points into luck you are gonna miss them in your attack skills thus having even less to-hit . Armor bonus doesn't matter due to monster damage dies being very high (infinitely better to go with parry). Not sure about the resistance bonus here.

 

G3 introduces multiplicative armor/resis, making luck just another small increase alongside your items. You also shouldn't have any to-hit problems here.

[Hume]

In GF1, luck gives 1% to hit, 1% dodge, and 1/2 (If I remember correctly) armor.

It also affects some scripted event. I always put enough points to trigger these event, and then train the rest with money

 

In GF2, luck is twice as powerful. Definitely worth to get it to 2. Maybe 4.

 

In GF3 and later, luck gives 1% resist all, as well as the 2% hit chance and 2% dodge chance. I usually get it at 6.

[Hyena of Ice]

I thought luck was also supposed to increase item/money drop rates. And in G2, increase the likelihood/amount of goodies you find on bodies/containers/etc. (for example, it seems like that one corpse in the Crystal Caves in G2 doesn't always have the Carnelian Gloves on it)

Though whether it does or not, I've definitely noticed in G3 that the item drops by monsters are determined the first time you load up/enter the scene (which in some cases means you can farm for rare items if you have the patience-- e.g. rotgoroth fangs, or if you want money, platinum rings from the deformed trolls the first time you kill them)

This is not the case for the crystals in the pillars in the Kentia Mines. You can actually cheat and save the game, then reload if you don't get the best crystal every time I have no idea if luck affects how often you get the better crystals.

 

I usually devote 10 ranks to luck, and 10 or 11 to mechanics-- and I invest as early as possible. And unless I only get 1-8 exp for it, I ALWAYS use the living tools, since you can get up to 40 exp for lockpicking, whereas you don't get anything for using the unlock spell. Oh, and I also try to avoid getting the keys to unlock the doors for this same reason. (I also devote about 9 or 10 to leadership) Of course, the downside to all of that is that I have fewer points to spend on combat and magic skills or attributes.

[Randomizer]

We asked Jeff and he said that luck doesn't affect item drops.