"You've got to ask yourself one question: do I feel lucky? Well do ya punk?" -- Clint Eastwood (Dirty Harry)

Contents

  1. Starting luck
  2. Descriptions
  3. Items affecting luck
  4. What does it affect
  5. Chatter

Starting luck

The starting luck is a random number between -5 and 5, modified depending on race and subrace. Most races start with no luck points. Those that start with luck are listed below from most luck to least luck.

Most subraces start with no luck points. Those that start with luck are listed below from most luck to least luck.

So, a Hobbit has a starting luck between 0 and 10, a Beorning Barbarian starts with -3,...,7 luck points, while a Yeek Zombie starts with -14,...,-4 luck points.

Descriptions

Drinking a potion of self-knowledge will tell you how lucky or unlucky your character is.

DESCRIPTION

VALUE

incredibly unlucky

less than -27

extremely unlucky

less than -18

very unlucky

less than -9

unlucky

less than 0

normal luck

0

lucky

more than 0

very lucky

more than 9

extremely lucky

more than 18

incredibly lucky

more than 27

Luck < -30 is treated as -30, and luck > 30 is treated as +30.

Items affecting luck

Elven cloaks give a bonus to luck.

Only one type of ego item is lucky, or perhaps that should be unlucky: all Morgul items have -10 luck.

Artifacts can affect your luck. Beware: not all artifacts give you good luck. Listed below are the artifacts which affect your luck.

In ToME 2.3.0 and 3.0.0 also

What does it affect

It prevents the death fate if you are lucky.

It affects your chance to-hit in ranged combat and melee combat.

It affects your chance of critical hits in ranged combat and melee combat.

It affects your chance of being missed by a monster attack. This effectively changes armour class by -13 (incredibly unlucky) to +13 (incredibly lucky).

It affects the rarity of special objects, artifacts, and ego items.

It affects the quality of alchemy-produced ego items and jewelry, with maxluck equivalent to 3.500 more in alchemy skill.

It affects the number of wishes on a staff of wishing.

It affects the base level for applying magic to an item (clarify? Is that the scrolls of enchant foo?).

It affects the chance of an item being good or great.

It affects the chance of creating a special object.

It affects the number of skill points you receive when quaffing the Potion of Learning. It's still partly random.

Written for ToME 2.0 by Chris Hadgis

Chatter

After verification, Hobbits are the only ones to never get death fates because their luck isn't negative (unless they wear something unlucky, or use an unlucky subclass). Hobbit Barbarians to guarantee positive luck are not allowed.

ReenenLaurie: Don't Vampires have negative luck too? And another Question: When the demonset is completed, the pval of the blade goes to +7. I *know* that the luck is still negative, but is it -7, or still -20? It says -20 in the *ID* description, but it also decreases my speed, str and con by -20, which is +7.

amaurea: The Demonblade of Gothmog gets +7 to speed, str and con, and stays at -20 to luck. This is a hack in tome2, but will be naturally supported in tome3.

MassimilianoMarangio: Vampires had a -3 modifier to luck, but not in the actual versions of the game. The Demonblade of Gothmog bug is already known, see BugReport13.

Kalirion: Could we get some information on how much luck affects the generation of rare items/artifacts? Would +3 Luck make a noticeable difference for example, or is the Robe of Great Luck needed for that? Also, with the Potion of Learning, does the "number of skill points" get decided when the potion is found, or when it is drunk?

MassimilianoMarangio: Luck changes many of the rolls needed to create an object. For example, +4 to luck adds 2% to the chance of creating a good item instead of a normal item (max. 75%) as well as 1% to the chance of creating an excellent item or nonrandom artifact (max. 20%). This part is only important at shallow depths, since the base chance for a normal item equals to the dungeon level + 10.

A luck of +30 also halves the rarity rolls needed for artifacts or ego items, a luck of +3 reduces these rolls by 1/20 of the value (Ringil (rarity 120) needs a roll of 1 in 120, of 1 in 114 with luck +3, of 1 in 60 with luck +30).

Kalirion: Thanks! Wow, so with the Demonblade of Gothmog as the only external luck modifier, for a +0 luck character Ringil would have a rarity of 160? Wow...

GreyCat: The part about "applying magic to an item" up above is a reference to the apply_magic() function in the source code, which is one of the earliest parts of the item generation code. Luck is referenced once at the start of that function, and adds or subtracts up to 7 from the level (meaning dungeon depth) for which the item is being generated. (E.g., on dungeon level 10, with maxed luck, you generate items as if you were a zero-luck character on dungeon level 17.) Then there's another call to luck later in that function when determining whether the item should become "good": it adds or subtracts up to 15% from the probability, which is subsequently capped at 75% no matter what. (E.g. on dungeon level 20, a normal character has a 30% chance for each item to be "good", but a max-luck character has a 45% chance. On dungeon level 65, they both have a 75% chance, but a character with horrendous luck doesn't get 75% until dungeon level 90.)

The chance of being "good" is then divided by 2, then capped at 20, to produce the chance of being "great" (only relevant if the "good" roll succeeded already).

If the "good" roll fails, another roll is made with the same probability, and if that second one succeeds, the item becomes "cursed". If that happens, then another roll is made at the same probability as a "great" roll, and if that one succeeds, the item becomes "broken". What's interesting here is that lucky characters will not only get more really good items, but also more really bad ones (but more of the really good ones than of the really bad ones, if you get my meaning).

"great" items have a chance to become artifacts, which is checked for first. Failing that:

Spoilers/Character attribute/Luck (last edited 2008-06-18 00:37:07 by 201-15-76-241)