D&D 5E What makes the Lucky feat so good?

[CapnZapp]

I was reading a thread about homebrew feat costs, and Lucky was in the same highest tier as SS and GWM. There's been a lot of discussion back and forth about the later two, but Lucky seems to be more of a solid choice then an overpowered choice.

Among the friendly gang of optimizers that is a good chunk of my FLGS's AL league, I can't point out that I have any memories of it in play. And they are usually quick to leap on things that are good, but also most play is in the 5-12 zone so maybe it's a great feat to take after you've already maxed your prime ability score and taking any defining feats. But that right there would put it lower then tier 1.

I can see from a reading that it's strong, can you share your practical experiences seeing it in play? I'm sure it's got some great stories around the perfect skill check, about misses turning to hits or foe crits negated, or missed saves. But is is consistently good every session?

(Just for normalization, if your table averages less encounters per day, can you say that. Just because I can see it stronger when there's less rolls per day.)

Thanks!

Think of it this way.

Except at the lowest levels (where the following really does not apply), how many crucial saves* that you really really do not want to fail do you have in one day?

*) Also checks, but not nearly to the same degree. Also attacks, but definitely not to the same degree.


There you have it.

Anytime you think "but what does three rerolls in a day change when you make dozens of rolls" you're not thinking like a minmaxer.

A minmaxer thinks "I probably won't suffer more than half a dozen super-important save-or-suck rolls in a day; and probably not even half that most days; so taking a feat that allows me to reroll no less than 50% of those and probably all of them is INCREDIBLY POWERFUL".

But if you're not a pesky roll-player - you're one of the far superior role-players?

Well then...

Consider pivotal roleplaying instances, where you feel your character's concept heavily relies on succeeding at a particular task. If you're Casanova, say, you REALLY don't want to be remembered for blowing your Charisma check to seduce the Countess Emanuelle. Since you are unlikely to ever face more than three such character-defining challenges in one day, the feat is INCREDIBLY ENABLING.

Okay, so you're not a particular type of player at all. Except you hate to lose.

Well then...

Anytime you suffer disadvantage, Lucky makes your day. Suddenly you gain SUPER ADVANTAGE where everybody else is just miserable.

Questions on that?

 

[CapnZapp]

Anytime you suffer disadvantage, Lucky makes your day. Suddenly you gain SUPER ADVANTAGE where everybody else is just miserable.

Yes, by the RAW this is how it goes down.

You roll a respectable 16 but you suffer disadvantage and have to roll a second die and take the lowest. You roll 3. Darn. Failure.

But wait! You use Lucky to roll one more die... and roll 2. F*ck.

BUT THE RULES ALLOW YOU TO SELECT THE 16.




So, yeah... Yes, this means you can wait to spend your Luck point until you know it will make you succeed. (In the above case, the third die could be anything. You already know you can pick the 16 and succeed, assuming you suspect 16 will be enough, before even spending the Luck point)

 

[CapnZapp]

How many attack rolls do you attempt in an adventuring day?

Doesn't matter.

9 out of 10 attack rolls aren't individually so important you will spend a Luck point to change them. (In short: You miss an attack? Just attack again. No feat needed for that)

It's saves, and possibly character-defining ability checks, where the feat's real power lie.

 

[Horwath]

It's great for 5MWD parties with only one "more than deadly" encounter per day.

It's OK feat if your DM pushes you every day into 5-6 hard to deadly encounters.

 

[Shiroiken]

Lucky is the equivalent of GWM and Sharpshooter for people that don't use heavy melee weapons or ranged weapons. It can be amazing for a concentrating caster when someone breaks through the line to get in a nasty hit (especially a critical hit). It's awesome for the rogue who fails to notice the trap of endless doom to avoid/mitigate its horrible effect. It's great for any "face" character who rolls a 1 when trying to convince the powerful NPC to not kill them. It's definitely a top tier feat.

 

[Li Shenron]

There is no such thing as "superadvantage". It only means that (a) if you had disadvantage and rolled two failures, spending a Lucky point gives effectively you an extra chance, and (b) if you had disadvantage and rolled a failure and a success, spending a Lucky point gives you an automatic success. In both cases, you still technically have disadvantage, in case it matters (probably it rarely matters... but you may be unable to use some special abilities while disadvantaged, even if the actual roll is successful).

The oddity of the RAW is that it makes the case (b) more convenient for the purpose of using Lucky than the case when you have advantage but rolled two failures (in which case, Lucky gives you an extra chance, not an automatic success). But what should be better? The individual dice could be abstract artefacts but could also represent something. In the latter case, should someone rolling a failure and a success while disadvantaged be represented as better or worse than someone rolling two failures while advantaged? I think either way can make sense.

That said, Crawford admitted at some point that this particular oddity in the RAW of the Lucky feat was a design mistake. But they are not willing to correct design mistakes in 5e, they would rather defend the RAW, and that's why Sage Advice confirmed this interpretation.

---

But the main point is that even if you rule it more sensibly, and possibly including a ruling that goes as far as simply forbidding using Lucky while disadvantaged, the feat is indeed VERY GOOD for at least 3 reasons:

- you can decide to use it after you see the normal dice result*
- it can be applied to almost every d20 roll in the game
- 3 times per day is a lot

Compare it for instance with the Fighter's Indomitable class feature, which works 1/day (it takes 2.5 levels worth of features only to be used 3/day) and is limited to saving throws.

Personally I think the feat would be worth even with 1 use per day + the favorable Sage Advice ruling, or 2 uses per day but with a more sensible ruling in case of disadvantage.

*the only redeeming feature of the feat is that on the other hand you have to decide before the outcome is determined, so the DM must not tell you whether your roll(s) was a failure. Once you're told that, you can't use Lucky anymore. Naturally, in some cases you can figure out easily if it's convenient (i.e. when each dice rolled is either very low or very high), but when your roll(s) were average you have the risk of wasting the Lucky points for nothing, or alternatively you decide not to use them only to find out that you should have.

 

[Li Shenron]

In my experience with it in other systems, same basic thing a handful of free rerolls after the roll is made - etc... Unless there are a lot of encounters with lotsa checks (importsnt checks) luck becomes too much a "almost never fail check that matters" thing and thats huge.

Additionally, it hits every possible aspect of play... It can be defensive, offensive, utility skill, social skill, perception, initistive...etc. Whenever you think it matters.

While I just wrote myself that I think it's a VERY GOOD feat, I would not go as far as saying it makes you "almost never fail check that matters"

There is also a catch, that you don't always know which checks matters... your last death saving throws certainly matters, as well the proverbial athletic check to jump over the chasm - and I am not going to be picky on someone wanting to save their life, even if it means to use a broken feat to do so! But with other checks, you don't usually know it really matters until after you've failed and seen the consequences, and that's too late to use Lucky.

 

[CapnZapp]

While I just wrote myself that I think it's a VERY GOOD feat, I would not go as far as saying it makes you "almost never fail check that matters"

There is also a catch, that you don't always know which checks matters... your last death saving throws certainly matters, as well the proverbial athletic check to jump over the chasm - and I am not going to be picky on someone wanting to save their life, even if it means to use a broken feat to do so! But with other checks, you don't usually know it really matters until after you've failed and seen the consequences, and that's too late to use Lucky.

I realize you want to hang onto this as the last defence against having to say the feat is too good...

But...

Asking a player to...

...doubt his result is good enough, spend his Luck point only to be told he wasted his point, he did succeed is just not any fun.

...just hope his roll was good enough, not use the Luck point, and then be told his character <s>dies<s/> sucks as a result is even less fun.

In other words if the sole redeeming aspect that holds the feat back is something that's decidedly unfun...

...maybe it's time ask ourselves if it isn't better to just accept the feat is too good, and stop our attempts at actively using unfun to stop its power?

Just an idea...

 

[5ekyu]

While I just wrote myself that I think it's a VERY GOOD feat, I would not go as far as saying it makes you "almost never fail check that matters"

There is also a catch, that you don't always know which checks matters... your last death saving throws certainly matters, as well the proverbial athletic check to jump over the chasm - and I am not going to be picky on someone wanting to save their life, even if it means to use a broken feat to do so! But with other checks, you don't usually know it really matters until after you've failed and seen the consequences, and that's too late to use Lucky.

It depends on how many moments arise when the player **thinks it might be** a key momenr **and* they roll bad in a single long rest bounded period.

These are unlikely to be during the warm up resource fights and in a between long rest period there are not that many tough fights...

If you then spread those key monents with failure betwen those few big fights abd between the four or more pcs... Remembering that your character has three post roll lucks... the odds shift pretty good.

Consider the impact if every pc took luck, so that you were dealing with a dozen rerolls between each long rest.

A lot depends on the structure of the campaign of course. But in my experience three per character per long rest is easily two too many.

 

[Mort]

I've only seen the lucky feat in play once:

Mage (variant human) takes the lucky feat.

First encounter of the first session is with a crossbow sniper on the 2nd floor of a building (recognizing how deadly crossbows can be at low level, lots of cover available etc.).

Mage decides to charge the building (he wanted to play up the fool-heartiness), I inform him that he can make it to the door but that he'll be risking a shot from the sniper before he gets into the building. He decides to risk it.

Sniper takes a shot on his turn: Rolls a Natural 20, mage uses a luck point, also rolls a natural 20. Damage rolled is enough to take him from full to dead in 1 shot. (adding to the effect, the player had just bought 2 of those big d20s that light up on a crit - gave me one for my birthday an it was my first time using it!).

Surprisingly enough, haven't seen the lucky feat since then.