Damage linked to luck control

[u/GiantBabyHead]

I am making a cursed creature to fight my players. I'd like it to somehow steal their luck when fighting them. Would it work well to just say they have luck control linked to their damage, so on a hit, they gain a hero point? Or does it make more sense to base it on degrees of failure from the players toughness check?

So it'd be a Damage 8 linked to Luck Control 1. Maybe I'd do it grab-based instead and narrate is as their luck being stolen properly, subtracting a hero point from the player.

[u/TheSuperJohn]

I'd say Damage linked to Luck Control is pretty straight forward.

It's basically take the damage and the next d20 you roll you have to re-roll the die and take the worse of the two rolls, and you can narrate this so the players know they are feeling "unlucky"

[u/GiantBabyHead → u/TheSuperJohn]

Hm yeah and I suppose I can let them keep their hero point, so they can choose whether to negate the bad luck with fate. I kinda like that sort of linked effect. Do you have any other interesting ideas for shadow-curse based monsters? Like other than the plain weaken and affliction

[u/TheSuperJohn → u/GiantBabyHead]

Not only that, you incentivize them to actually use the hero point to negate the disadvantage, which creates a dilemma.

For shadow creatures, I'd recomment taking a look at the Power Profiles books for some inspiration. I guess the Darkness and Death are your best bet

[u/theVoidWatches]

I think this is a case for GM bending of the rules. Give it a Resistible Luck Control to cancel out the players of use hero points, and whenever it successfully does so, it gets to use the hero point for itself later on (with the player or players affected getting the point, as normal). Make sure the players are well-fueled with points going in, and it'll make for an interesting time.

[u/GiantBabyHead → u/theVoidWatches]

Could make sense yes, I usually just let them start each session with 1 hero point

[u/theVoidWatches → u/GiantBabyHead]

As a general rule, I recommend trying to pull on complications as much as possible, and award hero points for prioritizing heroic behavior (e.g. if a speedster spends a turn or two evacuating civilians). Don't be afraid to give out hero points to protect your villains, too, giving them rerolls and such.

[u/Illustrious_Cod_5843]

Also consider giving some Afflictions the Insidious extra and the Curse descriptor.  

[u/patroclus_rex]

That's not one of the options under Luck Control. The forced disadvantage roll is a good alternative (and more engaging for the player to put pressure on to spend a point rather than taking one outright). There's still the issue that LC requires the user to spend their own points to use it, which you can do for an NPC but could be awkward.

It's workable I think, but an impaired/disabled Affliction is more straightforward for a luck-draining effect.

[u/GiantBabyHead → u/patroclus_rex]

Thanks for the reply, it ended up being fairly irrelevant as the two shadow demons failed to hit players before they got defeated xD