What does the Luck spell actually do?

dashteacup

The in-game text for this spell says that it gives a 5% boost to any of the character's actions. I've used it to open locks/disarm traps that I otherwise couldn't, so I know that works. However, when I tried to use it to boost my chance to learn spells to 100% it didn't work. It says it works on "saving throws, to-hit rolls, thieving skills, etc.", but I guess etc doesn't include your chance to learn spells. What is the full list of affected things?

lunar

Luck works peculiarly. It is mysterious and hard to understand, as it should be. It gives thieving, to hit and save bonuses. It also adjusts damage rolls in your favour. It is not a flat +1 bonus to damage, but rather an adjustment.

Like, if you have +1 luck, and you cast a spell that does 1d8 damage to an enemy. d8 roll is adjusted, so the result of the roll is always 1 better, up to maximum. So if you roll 1, it becomes 2, and you do minimum of 2 damage every time. A roll of 7 becomes 8, and a roll of 8 stays 8 (the maximum) If you are hit by a spell, and have +1 luck, the damage you receive is lowered by 1 per dice rolled. A roll of 1 is still 1, however. Wİth +5 luck, your fireball will do maximum damage. (10d6, even a roll of 1 is automatic 6, so you do whopping 60 damage!) or if you are hit by a fireball, it will automatically do minimum damage of 10. (10d6, each dice roll even a 6 is lowered to 1)

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bbear

Wish the duration of luck can last longer, like at least a turn.

JuliusBorisov

It doesn't affect the chance to learn spells. Only the intellect of a character does. You can improve it temporarily by drinking the potion of Genius or the potion of Mind Focusing. Also these potions' effect stack with each other.

The most useful usage of the Luck spell is reducing the damage the target takes from magic and elemental damage (by one point per die, down to a minimum of 1), I think. But you must pay attention to it's longevity.

The reduction in average damage taken per die varies like this depending on the die of the spell:

d4 (e.g. Magic Missile) - 2.5 -> 1.75 (30% reduction)
d6 (e.g. Fireball) - 3.5 -> 2.67 (24% reduction)
d8 (e.g. Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wilting) - 4.5 -> 3.63 (19.4% reduction)
d10 (e.g. Dragon's Breath) - 5.5 -> 4.6 (16.4% reduction)

The Chant spell has the same effect and stacks with the Luck spell to reduce rolls by two per die (down to min of 1 again).

If you have the SCS-mod installed the Luck spell can save you 60 damage when somebody drops a Sequencer: 3x Skull Trap on you.

syllog

If luck either:
(a) Lasted 6-10 rounds (~turn)
(b) Stacked (!!!) [Put 2 in a minor sequencer, then 3 in another sequencer - most spells would do max damage for three rounds...]
(c) or was a free cast (alacrity like effect so you burn a spell slot but not a round)

It would be an awesome spell!
Never critically failing. Boosting all the damage done, crits made, decrease damage taken, etc.
But it lasts 3 rounds (2 rounds of casting time) and doesn't stack (in my tests with Magic Missile at least).

It's still theoretically much better than you think, but it's effects too obscure and BG too buggy.
e.g. in tests with magic missile, acid arrow, and melfs meteors it mostly works as described.

But at least once it reduced damage to a protectect character of a (single) magic missle to 1 (the minimum should be 2). Another time the offending character was lucked but an arrow only did 3 damage (2d4 - that means one of those rolls came up 1).

I just don't trust the programmers enough to use the spell sadly. (It also only lasts two turns for casting purposes - the first turn being the turn you first cast it on!!!!)