WOIN NPCs LUCK Scores

[Suskeyhose]

So all NPCs have a LUCK score, but there's not any specific guidance given to the GM on how to use it for them. So far I've been running enemies as if they do not have a LUCK pool at all, but I'm curious about how others run this.

So far the reason I've run it this way is motivated by two quotes from the book. The first one is from The Role of Luck in Chapter 4:

At the start of each game day, each player should form a LUCK dice pool.

This sounds to me like only the players form a dice pool, but also this chapter is addressed to the players, so it could just be a general thing that refers to all characters.
The second quote is from the Leadership exploit in the Support role in Creating Monsters or NPCs in Chapter 7:

The support has a dice pool equal to its MDP to donate to its allies; it must declare this before any dice are rolled.

This is very similar to the wording of the Leadership exploit in the player's Universal Exploits section in Chapter 2, but that one says you donate your luck dice to an ally. If NPCs had a luck pool then I'd figure that the Support leadership exploit would be the same.

The reason I pose the question though is that not only does every NPC have a LUCK score, but the monster creation rules set it as the lowest score for almost every role, which feels like it's trying to account for NPCs only ever spending luck dice "on screen" by making their pool low enough to not have a problem.

So I guess that leads to the question: how do you run it? Do NPCs get Luck pools? Only important ones, or all of them? How do you decide if/when to spend them?

 

[lichmaster]

I cannot give you a general guideline, but in a sticky post about encounter building guidelines @Morrus specifies that it is expected that both parts fully employ tactics, including LUCK dice.

Maybe you can decide that goons cannot spend the LUCK dice if the encounter should be an easy one, or maybe they only spend it if you think the encounter is too much easier than expected. For important NPCs or monsters I'd always roll them as a PC would

 

[TheHirumaChico]

I absolutely give my NPCs luck dice just like the PCs. I don't usually give them to the lower lever minions, but I definitely give LUCK dice pools to the mini-bosses, key henchmen, BBGs and their lieutenants. If you follow the "Designing Foes" section that starts on p. 186 of the NOW Rulebook, then the NPCs really need the luck dice pools or else they are even more outclassed than they should be by following those formulas.

If you look at the Monsters & Minions in Appendix B starting on p. 204, foes like an Insect Swarm have 0 luck, but other BBGs like the Kingpin have 10 (4d6) LUCK. The Kingpin would be a lot weaker as a foe if s/he/they could not spend a luck die to negate a Condition as a reaction, add to or subtract from a roll to deal with a particularly troublesome PC, etc.

 

[Suskeyhose]

Yeah, I was seeing that and the luc scores in monster creation rules and it made me think they're supposed to use it. Good to know others do actively use it. I might have to adjust my encounter balancing somewhat for some of my parties as a result of this, but it's a good thing to work with.