"Push Your Luck" - Fantasy AGE Luck (Fortune) and Spell Push

I have been researching the math behind fortune and have found that the new luck and spell push are basically the same mechanic. As a result we can craft a unified mechanic that allows any player to spend a resource to ensure their action succeeds. This address the problem of a "miss" feeling bad in TTRPG play and creating decent trade off of short term success versus long term penalty.

TLDR; Summary

• Combine fortune based "luck" and spell push into the same mechanic for all characters
• call it "Push Your Luck"
• player is allowed to replace one die with a new face for the cost of the new die face
• for example, if you roll a 1 and want at least a 3 to succeed, then you pay a cost of 3 for the new die face value
• stunts are not allowed since this was initially a failed roll.
• choose an appropriate resource pool to spend from
• Modern AGE Master book on page 47 has fortune as an independent resource. This is probably the easiest way to implement fortune even for Fantasy AGE 2e since fortune as HP seems like a rather large resource pool.
• For an HP based resource pool, use a 2HP to 1 luck point conversion
• this is different from the 1 to 1 in the rules for Fortune as Health, but better fits the natural equivalence conversion of 2HP = 1SP = 1TN
• For an MP based resource pool, use a 1MP to 2 luck point conversion
• this is different from the 1 to 1 conversion from spell push, but better fits the natural equivalence of 1MP = 2SP = 2TN

The Cost of Spell Push

Spell push is easier to calculate since there are less dice related restrictions. You can spend as much additional MP as you need to make the spell succeed. The average cost per of spell push depends the difference between your current average TN (11 + Ability + Focus) and the spell TN. The following list shows what the cost is for those differences. If the TN difference is positive then your average TN is higher than the spell. The higher the difference the lower the spell push costs. The interesting numbers are when the difference in negative as that is when you are more likely to need spell push and a higher push.

• TN +4 : 0.16 MP
• TN +3 : 0.32 MP
• TN +2 : 0.58 MP
• TN +1 : 0.95 MP
• TN +0 : 1.46 MP
• TN -1 : 2.08 MP
• TN -2 : 2.82 MP
• TN -3 : 3.66 MP
• TN -4 : 4.57 MP
• TN -5 : 5.52 MP
• TN -6 : 6.50 MP
• TN -7 : 7.5 MP
• TN -8 : 8.5 MP

TN differences above +4 approach zero. TN differences below -8 increase the MP cost by one. For example a difference of -10 would cost on average 10.5 MP.

A conservative assumption would be that a character has a TN difference of zero which would mean on average they spend 1.5 MP a round pushing spell successes. Most of the time they will spend 5 or less MP and rarely the maximum of 8 MP if rolling a 3. Overall this is a relatively low cost to force success and is a really good mechanic to prevent misses.

A quick aside on spell failure, which refunds half the MP cost if the cast fails. I have trouble trying to figure out when this option is better than spell push. My intuition says to always spell push since the cost of wasting an action is quite large. If there is a rule of thumb when to take the failure it might be something like take the failure when the cost to push the spell is greater than have the original MP. In general though I would rather cast spells with decent chance to hit and use spell push to recover from bad rolls.

The Cost of Luck

The cost of luck is similar to spell push with the following constraint. The most you can spend is capped as you are only "manipulating" a single die. This means you have a cap of at most 5 (changing a 1 to a 6). In reality the lowest die in a 3d6 rolls is on average around 2 which means the average cap is 4. We can put that average cap of 4 into the spell push calculations and figure out the average cost given a TN difference. The cost of using luck also relies on the dice and the fact you are more paying for a replacement die instead of an incremental improvement. We can use the average minimum die of two and add that to the incremental cost. We also switch the unit from MP to FP which isn't as important right now as the overall number at the moment.

• TN +4 : 2.16 FP
• TN +3 : 2.30 FP
• TN +2 : 2.49 FP
• TN +1 : 2.70 FP
• TN +0 : 2.93 FP
• TN -1 : 3.11 FP
• TN -2 : 3.20 FP
• TN -3 : 3.20 FP
• TN -4 : 3.11 FP
• TN -5 : 2.94 FP
• TN -6 : 2.71 FP
• TN -7 : 2.49 FP
• TN -8 : 2.30 FP

Since there is a cap of 4 we see that the cost doesn't continue to rise but rise and fall again at TN -2/-3. This is because at such a low chance of success there are some rolls we cannot spend out of failure and must fail and a failure costs zero MP. As compared to spell push the cap lower the maximum cost to 1.20 incrementally making it more affordable, however the base cost of 2 to follow the rules as written increases it to just over 3 FP.

Combining the Best of Luck and Spell Push

Luck and spell push are both similar and interesting mechanics. We can combine the best of both for a single mechanic that can be used on all characters. We start with luck as it already is supposed to be broadly applied to all characters. Using the TN+0 baseline we know that in the long term this costs 3 Fortune on a failed round to guarantee successes at a cost. This only applies if you fail so over all success and failures this is more like 1.5 cost per round. I actually like the increased cost for luck as compared to spell push as well as the tie into the die rolls. While the numbers I have given have a number of averages and assumptions, the specific constraints from the die manipulation are tactile and the extremes don't affect the long term costs.

What is good about spell push is the application that the roll is technically a failure and stunt points no longer apply. Factoring in stunt point generation was very difficult and while I have a working spreadsheet with it, it is the most complex one to date to get it perfect. After all of that I felt bad about the complexity and was going to struggle to explain the process. As a result I think it would benefit the system to not allow stunt point manipulation as a result of the failure. We can leave it open as a future option if a roll is successful.

To address the FP versus MP cost comparison we have to realize that in both cases the result is manipulating the rolled TN and with that we can draw equivalencies. For Fortune when keep the one to one cost. For MP we can use a 1MP = 2TN conversion as reconstructed from existing spell stats. Given that the rules as written are converting 1MP = 1TN which is a large loss of value of MP. It worked out for original spell push if you did realize it was a suboptimal conversion. I prefer the transparent costs of using the die manipulation and maintaining a consistent resource equivalency.

The resulting mechanic of "Push Your Luck" then becomes:

• If you fail to roll a success you can replace the outcome of one die at a cost of the face value of the new die. Since this is a failed roll stunt points do not apply.
• Subtract the cost of the new die from your desired resource (to be discussed) and continue as the action has now succeeded at a cost.

Fortune Points, Health Points, Mana Points

Looking to the Modern AGE Mastery Guide on page 47, it implemented fortune as either a stand alone resource or tied to HP. As a stand alone resource it makes a lot of sense (despite missing resting rules). The level scaling for Fortune there is 1d6 per level with a base of 6.

For a health point based resource I would spend 2HP per cost since the equivalence from 1TN = 2HP using the assumption from the "Healing Power" stunt on page 133 such that 2HP = 1SP and the equivalence of 1SP = 1TN.

For a mana point based resource I would recommend utilizing the equivalence of 1MP = 2SP = 2TN. So essentially this converts spell push to be a little cheaper on the conversion, but a little more expensive due to the die face value cost.

"Push Your Luck"

This feels like a much better priced and intuitive mechanic overall. It can be applied to existing HP or MP resource pools, or to a new Fortune point pool. I am definitely  excited to use this in my next game.