How to use luck?

[Overdrive]

I'd like to hear some of the practices of using luck. I think there are differences on how people use it, and if we gather those under the same topic, it is easier to check them through and decide which method suits the best in your games.

1) Do you use luck dice before or after the normal dice are thrown?

I've always had the opinion that you should announce the use of luck dice before the dice are cast, but does it take the luck dice edge off?

2) What can you get by burning a luck point? Normal situations / in combat?

For instance, can you change the combat maneuver you've just chosen? How's it work if two PCs are fighting each other and both use luck? Can you make sure that the guard doesn't come during the time you're checking the old baron's papers in his chambers, or is the 'auto success' for those 'haycart in front of the window' moments?

Ok, that's about what I came up with in such a short time.

[toli]

1) Do you use luck dice before or after the normal dice are thrown?

I'd vote for AFTER.  The luck dice should get you out of situations that you would otherwise have suffered defeat..or what ever.

2) What can you get by burning a luck point? Normal situations / in combat?

In terms of buring a luck point, I usually see it as a last ditch thing that lets you survive.  That is, you've smacked on the head with an axe and you're not wearing a helmet.  Buring a luck point allows you to survive without long-term physical consequences, but you lose the fight in a big way and are captured or left for dead...

I don't think I would allow it to 'go back in time' and change a maneuver or other action.  

BTW, I would also allow the buring of destiny points in a similar way.  If you are destined to be king, you should be killed by bandits...

[Tash]

I thought luck was handled like this (I may be halucinating though, if I am this is a cool way to employ it IMO): each point of luck can be spent to reroll a die on any roll.  You don't have to declare it in advance, but you can't change what roll you made, just get another shot at getting a better result, and you are stuck with what you get on the new roll.  Spent luck points come back at the start of the next session.

So if you are only a success or two short of a goal, push you luck reroll a couple die and you just might make out better.  It makes luck useful and controlable by the player, but not completely infailable.

[Jake Norwood]

I handle it like Toli, I think.

I use luck after dice are thrown, and the PC in question can tack them on one at a time until he runs out or gets the roll he wants (or gives up on it).

Burning a luck point, in my games, brings an automatic success as if the TN had been rolled. Luck points in my games can be burned even after they've been used for the evening.

Jake