I don't know how many of you know this, but in the original trilogy (Avernum 1-3, Exile 1-3, but not the newest remakes), if you boost your luck to 19, you have a 95% chance of surviving otherwise fatal hits.

This means that you can have a high luck character taking hits from enemies, and unless the enemy gets lucky (5% chance per hit), you will not die.

Sadly, this mechanic is not present in the recent remakes, even though it wouldn't be gamebreaking with Luck being capped at 5 (25% survival).

In case anyone is wondering, a luck of 20 won't boost your chance of survival any further.

Well, that's certainly interesting (seriously).

That is interesting. I wonder if it was kind of a sneaky piece of design, since most players probably don't consider luck to be a useful statistic, so they wouldn't think to spend lots of points on it. It seems like the kind of stat that gets included in a lot of games just because RPGs usually have it, but it never has as direct of an impact as the other statistics so most players don't prioritize it. But then it turns out to be extremely useful in Avernum.

Even a small investment in the original Exile Games could save your skin. But those games were also much harder to solo.

Hmmm I think I'll put high luck when I got to play the original Avernum games finally. Thanks for the tip!

So how does luck work in avernum escape from pit?
Does it even matter to have 6 luck and more or i can get it to maximum of 20 and then i won't need it anymore since it will fully protect from fatal hits.
I only just started playing this game.

In Avernum: Escape from the Pit, it does not protect against fatal hits, and it can't be raised above 5. I think it might provide some defensive benefits (the game gives you information about each skill if you move the cursor there IIRC).

In the earlier versions (Exile 1 and Avernum 1), it will protect you from fatal hits, but the chance is capped at 95% at 19 Luck; getting the 20th point only gives you a minor defensive benefit (and is not worth the cost in Avernum 1, where skill point costs increase as the skill increases). No matter how high your Luck is, you can still be killed if you get unlucky.

This is one aspect in which the recent remakes differ from the games they are remakes of.

Thanks for the info
Also are fatal hits frequent in the game? Do they get annoying?

By "fatal hit" I mean a hit that would kill you from damage alone; I don't think there are any instant death effects in the series.

In Avernum 1 (and I think Exile 1), a hit that does more damage than your HP will leave you at 0 HP (think MIght and Magic, except that you can still act). If you are hit while at 0 HP, then the game checks luck to see if the attack kills you; if it doesn't, you got lucky and are still alive. If you have high HP and good healing spells, or if you can win battles before you take too much damage, this should not happen too frequently.

I am not sure, but I think Averunm: Escape from the Pit may have dropped this rule entirely, leading to characters dying as soon as they reach 0 HP. However, I believe that simply entering town is enough to cure the "dead" condition, so it's not a big deal if this happens (unless you're in a situation where you can't escape the dungeon you're in).