A statistic in a game that is given a rather vague description from almost all sources, even official. Of course this stat will go under scrutiny by the fan base for its purpose in the game.
Common interpretations of the Ever-so-Vague Stat:
- It determines how often a Critical Hit can happen.
- It determines how often you get nicer things from Random Drops.
- it determines how more often you hit and/or get hit.
- It determines how lucky you are at the Mini Game, especially the gambling based ones.
- It helps raise the other stats every now and then by just a little bit.
The fact that this is probably the hardest stat in the game to raise permanently
and temporarily doesn't help to add to the mysticism. Expect a
guide to arise explaining what the stat actually does (if the guide itself isn't vague about it either).
Named after the ever-so-vague Luck Stat that appears in video games and gets paired with the aforementioned ever-so-vague description. Of course, this also applies to other kinds of stats.
Examples of THE Luck Stat:
- The Tales Series has a luck stat that requires luck to have at a high level, since it randomizes every time you stay at an inn.
- In Tales Of Symphonia maxing the luck stat at the expense of physical attack power is a potential route to awesome power; it seems to affect not only critical chances but the amount of damage critical hits do. Getting a critical hit on every single attack for greater multipliers can make up for lower stats in other areas.
- Zelos's luck stat in Tales Of Symphonia also seems to increase your chances of getting a better item when talking to women with Zelos as your avatar.
- Although the luck stat in Fire Emblem games is generally well-understood by veterans, its lack of in-game explanation has lead to confusion among beginners. Contrary to what many beginners think, luck does not affect a unit's critical hit rate, but does influence accuracy, evasion, and critical evade.
- Even among veterans, the luck stat in Seiken Densetsu III is not fully understood. It has a noticeable effect on opening booby-trapped chests, but beyond that its vague effects may or may not include getting rarer items, avoiding enemy counterattacks, or increasing accuracy.
- In Nethack luck affects a number of things, but the oddest is that it determines your deity's reaction when you pray. One would think that your deity's attitude towards you wouldn't be influenced so much by random chance...
- Nethack's "luck" statistic is perhaps inaccurately named; the term that best describes it is perhaps "divine favor". The most common factors for increasing one's luck stat are sacrifices to your god, and offerings of gems to co-aligned unicorns.
- In most of the other Roguelike games with a Luck Stat its primary effect is determining the quality of items created when a level is first generated.
- Some Final Fantasy games have a luck stat. It is invariably responsible for critical hits but may influence steal rates or certain Limit Breaks, depending on the game.
- The instruction booklet's description of the Lck (Luck) stat in Sonic Chronicles The Dark Brotherhood is the critical hit one, plus increasing the chance of beginning combat with an ambush. (Basically, every character in your current party gets to use a normal attack against a random enemy once without being attacked themselves.)
- In every Castlevania with RPG Elements, Luck determines how often items Randomly Drop.
- In Symphony of the Night it also determined the damage done on a critical hit, but not the rate in which they occurred.
- Luck is the last stat in Fallout's SPECIAL system, and vital if you want to get a lot of critical hits or beneficial random encounters.
- In Oblivion: "Luck has an effect on everything you do, but governs no skills." The most prominent example of the Luck stat at work here is that a high Luck stat reduces the cost of all spells.
- In Morrowind however, the Luck stat would reduce the already existing failure rate of anything (i.e. picking locks, making potions, etc.) and determines the quality of stuff in containers and on people.
Examples of stats similar to the Luck Stat
- Pokémon: the Accuracy and Evasion stats that aren't listed in the Pokémon stat window. There's no way to permanently increase the stats outside of battle, but they can make or break the One-Hit KO moves.
- A few Pokemon have a special ability Serene Grace which doubles the chance of special effects coming into play.
- Mario And Luigi has the "Stache" stat, which gives you discounts at shops and increases critical hit chances.
- In a literary example, the Felix Felicis potion in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince bestowed exceptional luck upon the drinker, giving them, for a short period of time, a sort of reverse-Finagles Law wherein if anything could possibly go right, it would. They also gives a kind of instinctive sense of how to be in the right place at just the right time.
- Final Fantasy IX's Spirit stat. Affects random damage, critical hits, how quickly the trance bar fills up, and just about anything else the programmers would normally just have a constant in the equations for.
- Final Fantasy XI's Charisma stat has been proven to effect Bard songs, Dancer dances, and Beastmaster charms, and a few other things... and also rumored to effect almost anything else at one point, and still does.
