Goals are a problem for both these mid-table sides.
Luton have leaked more than any other team in the second division and things looked bad for them when they went behind in the second minute.
They failed to clear their lines after blocking a shot from City's young Australian Luke Wilkshire who hit a hard ball as he drove in from the right.
The clearance fell to Joe Burnell and City's acting skipper, 20 yards out, drilled it first time inside Marlon Beresford's left hand post.
It was his first league goal and only City's second strike in six matches but there was no goal-fest to follow.
City are still adapting to a 3-5-2 formation and not making a very good fist of it.
Luton saw a weakness down Bristol's right-hand side where Kevin Amankwaah, newly returned from loan at Cheltenham, was leaving too many gaps.
The speed wasn't there either, and City's centre-back Danny Coles was being pulled too far out of position, and this led directly to the equaliser in the 18th minute.
An intelligent ball out of defence by Emmerson Boyce was played on by Matthew Spring and after shrugging off two tackles Gary McSheffrey rolled in the tenth goal of his loan spell from Coventry.
McSheffrey and his partner Adrian Forbes make up one of the smallest strike forces in the Nationwide League and Bristol's tall defenders had a difficult time trying to mark them.
When Luton broke away close to the half-hour they looked for a penalty when Alan Neilson went down under a challenge, but the referee didn't want to know.
Bristol's first-half performance was lacklustre but they stepped up the pace after the break with Brian Tinnion and Lee Peacock both going fairly close to scoring.
Luton made a tactical switch pulling off Forbes and sending on the tall figure of Enoch Showunmi as a target man, but without success.
For half an hour, Luton hardly shaped to get in a shot but then right at the end might have grabbed a winner if Showunmi had been more alert to a deep cross from the left from McSheffrey.