Just out of curiosity, has anyone ever tried testing the vague attribute of Luck to it's maximum ability? This would be making Luck a major attribute (i'm not sure if you can or not and don't feel like creating a new character just to find out), fortifying it, maybe picking the Thief as a birthsign, just doing everything possible to generate as much "luck" as you can. Anyone tried this or seen any known effects from it?

My character has 110 points of luck... but I'm not exactly sure about what it does though. :laugh:

I know people have (I have but did not go far enough with the character to see a difference), but I can't remember all of the effects. You can make it one of your two chosen attributes and with the Thief birthsign you start with 65 Luck. You can also raise it by 1 pt each level.

It does have effects (spell cost, alchemy, etc...), but I don't know if it is worth it in the end.

Luck is pretty well understood actually. You can read the details here: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Luck

There are some minor effects (Arena betting, Mehrunes' Razor, etc), however the main impact of this attribute is on skills.

The main effect is that luck above 50 can boost skills that are less than 100. Once those skills get to 100, this aspect of luck becomes worthless.

It lowers spell costs, and raises damage as Acadian mentions its capped at what you get for having 100 in that skill.
A level one character with 240 luck points is pretty much the same as a level 50 with 100 in his majors, minus the perks / spell level casting cap.

My elf mage lost all her luck somehow (she was down to 17) awhile back, and I neglected to restore it back to where it should be (like, 52). I didn't really think it mattered. Then I started to notice she wasn't able to sell items for nearly as much money as she should have been. Luck is li

Probably had something to do with Ancotar.....

Yeah-- what luck does specifically is: 40% of the difference between your current luck and 50 is added (or, in the case of your character, subtracted) from every single skill in the game, except for athletics and acrobatics. So 17 luck-- the difference between 17 and 50 is 33, 40% of 33 is 13.2, so that's a -13 to all of her skills. Including, as you noticed, mercantile.....

Wow that's crazy! So do you guys add points to Luck when you level (or would you if you weren't level XX if you're a high level)?

I almost never do. You only get to add 1 point at a time, and since the bonus for luck is 40% of the amount over 50, 1 point isn't even enough to make a difference. By the time you've added enough points to luck to actually make a difference, your character's probably going to be a high enough level that those extra few points toward skills won't make that much difference anyway. And since skill calculations are capped at 100, if your skills are maxed out, luck makes absolutely no difference anyway.

If I don't have anything else particularly pressing, I'll make Luck one of the favored attributes for a character. The +5 for that works out to a +2 to skills. With a particularly gimped character, I'll sometimes go with The Thief for a birthsign, often with Luck as a favored attribute as well. That bumps luck up to 65, which is a +6 to skills. That's generally worth it, particularly in the early- to mid-game. But no-- I almost never add to it after that.

On my main ive been putting 1 point in luck each level up - currently at 82. Its difficult to see where it comes in and I've probably severely gimped my character by not spending the points elsewhere but seeing as it adds a nice little bonus to everything (whenever I get hit it adds points to light/heavy armour, whenever I fire my bow it adds points to marksmanship etc) I figure its a nice way of getting a general boost.

No, I never touch luck. I just start it at 50 and leave it alone. I have much more important things to use my attribute points for.

I'm putting 1 point to Luck for every level, just because i like maxed stats. So, it's all about priority.

Never. It's wasted points you can't get back.

I'm not a big fan of Luck.

As mentioned above, it's main effect is to increase skills behind the scenes. However, also as pointed out it does not have any affect once skills reach 100.

I might make Luck a major attribute and take the Thief sign. Because luck does have an effect at lower levels, and Favored+Thief gives a very significant boost to Luck. But I usually won't put points into luck when leveling up, I'd prefer other attributes. Unless of course I max other attributes that are critical to my character.

I add points to my Luck as a spellcaster, because it reduces the magicka cost of my custom spells when my magic skills have hit 100. As a warrior, I never do, and leave it at 50.

YIKEs! :facepalm: I can't believe she walked around like that!