Third-Partystravaganza 5: Luckbringer (Base Class; Rite Publishing)
So this special full-class version of third-partystravaganza is coming to a close, and I gotta say, it wasn’t as much an ordeal that I thought it would be.
Anyway, bringing up the rear is another fun concept realized as a class, the fate-bender. Masters of the cinematic, these are the characters who seem to have a lucky horseshoe hidden somewhere unmentionable, because their luck is literally at superpower levels.
In my experience, comic books in particular have always used this power set to explain a character that gets into and miraculously survives dangerous situations, but always survives, sometimes completely unscathed, and often due to completely implausible events.
Whatever god of fate is smiling down on them, these folk have likely done so much on pure luck alone that the thrill of adventuring is just too tempting to ignore. Of course that makes it all the more dangerous when their luck runs out, but that likely only thrills them more.
Drawing upon a pool of luck, these blessed folk can bend fate around them, rewriting an event to possibly change the outcome, adding good or bad luck to an action, or even narrowly escaping harm in various forms.
Over time, they learn a host of other ways to bend fate to their whim, which varies between individual luckbringers. Some can project an aura that makes them nigh-impossible to hit with projectiles, minor inconveniences throwing off the aim of their foes or various things taking the blow for them. Others can dramatically reveal that their wounds were not nearly as bad as previously thought, healing themselves. Some can even use bad luck as a deadly weapon, causing violent impropable hazards to smite their foes, everything from pianos on ropes, to random lightning strikes, to sudden attacks from burrowing monsters that immediately leave without engaging in combat. The list goes on and on.
Of course, not every fate-bending power they have is under their control, nor do they require energy to activate, but rather seem to be properties of their very being. These include things like being able to influence random magic like a rod of wonder or what card is drawn from a magic deck, improve or negate the effectiveness of concealment with sheer luck, become evasive, or even ignore the partial effects of magic that they resist.
Later on, they gain access to particularly improbable outcomes and abilities, such as gaining a pool of good luck each day that they can divide between different actions, negate any extra consequences of a particularly effective or particularly ineffectual attack, manipulate events so that a nearby object, even magical or attended, ends up in their hand, and so on.
More powerful luckbringers learn to use their fate-bending powers in more impressive ways. Some are just improved versions of past abilities, but others are entirely new, such as risking great harm to deal decisive strikes against foes, warping magic around them to create random effects unless their foe can push past it, and so on.
The most powerful luckbringers can truly bring fate’s wrath down on their foes, calling down disasters on an area, dealing massive damage to all within. This disaster can literally be anything, from sudden volcanic eruptions on that spot, to collapsing buildings, localized storms, even the occasional rampaging cosmic being.
Interested in a class whose abilities are almost all picked from a list, and relies mostly on manipulating dice rolls? This may be the one for you. These characters don’t really excel at any one thing, but they can make for an interesting replacement for a rogue or fighter if built right. Mobility builds make the most sense to me.
Perhaps something I like even more than the idea of a daring, lucky character is the idea of the hapless lucky character, who feels fear, who is not entirely cool with the idea of getting into danger, but manages to avoid harm anyway by inexplicable. A luckbringer who doesn’t trust, or perhaps doesn’t even realize they have their abilities, could be interesting.
Inexplicably crushed beneath under a donkey cart, random chance did what so many mortals could not: slay the dread lord Itursa. However, those reading through his correspondence in his now-abandoned tower seem to confirm that his death had everything to do with a small child at the village where he died, and worse, that he had a necromantic contingency plan in place to continue trying to remove this “child of destiny”.
Ever since the loss of her village in a disaster, bad luck has seemed to follow Meila, never allowing her to come to real harm, but causing friend and foe alike to take the brunt of her terrible fate. As such, she never stays in one place for too long, and actively rejects companionship. Hundreds of years of solitude and fearing yourself, however, can take a toll on anyone, even an elf.
Seeking to improve their fate-bending powers, the Seekers of the Final Portent, a cult of doomsaying diviners, seek to capture a luckbringer for study. However, they find themselves vexed at every turn, for few luckbringers can be held against their will for long. Their frustration is beginning to show, as they resort to more and more dangerous and violent methods to get their way.
