Non-consumable magic items have always been a bit nebulous in my mind, when it comes to Echelon. I want them to be meaningful, useful, and not boring. I’m okay with consumables like potions and the like being simple, useful, but potentially boring and not particularly meaningful otherwise; I don’t want to get hung up on trying to make a utility item such as a potion of healing an ‘exciting find’.
‘Just numbers’ (bonuses) can be useful, but not very interesting. I like magic items that give me new options, so let’s start with that.
One of the simplest ways to implement magic items that give new options is to have items grant talents. A sword of cutting wind that grants the Cutting Wind talent is simple to design, provides a meaningful benefit (if you don’t already have the talent), and can be useful. I’m not sure about ‘not boring’, but two out of three isn’t bad.
However, that “if you don’t already have the talent” doesn’t feel good. On the one hand, why should an item that does what the wielder already can do provide a benefit to that wielder? On the other hand, why should someone who already has the talent be the only one who doesn’t benefit from it?
Over the weekend I realized a few possibilities, in order. In all examples below, the ‘untalented’ character has a supporting cornerstone talent at their current tier, and the ‘talented’ character has a supporting cornerstone talent at their current tier and the Cutting Wind common talent at their current tier. Both are of the Heroic tier (d10), and are given a sword of cutting wind. I’m using a target number (TN) of 6, common for heroic-tier characters (50% of at least one success with the tier die, improving with additional dice).
First, a talented magic item grants an untalented user that talent while the item is used. That is unchanged. For a talented user, it can add an advantage die: instead of rolling one die for that talent, they can roll two and pick one. They don’t get a new option out of it, but they can get better results. Slightly better results.
| Character | Roll | 0 | 1 | 2 (1 sp) | 3 (3 sp) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Untalented | 3d10 | 12.5 | 37.5 | 37.5 | 12.5 |
| Talented | 2d10 + 2d10k1 | 6.25 | 31.25 | 43.75 | 18.75 |
That led to a second possibility, a simpler one. The untalented character doesn’t change, but the talented character simply adds another die and keeps the normal number of rolls.
| Character | Roll | 0 | 1 | 2 (1 sp) | 3 (3 sp) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Untalented | 3d10 | 12.5 | 37.5 | 37.5 | 12.5 |
| Talented | 4d10k3 | 6.25 | 25.0 | 37.5 | 31.25 |
Of course, the next possibility is even simpler: let the talented character simply keep all dice rolled.
| Character | Roll | 0 | 1 | 2 (1 sp) | 3 (3 sp) | 4 (6 sp) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Untalented | 3d10 | 12.5 | 37.5 | 37.5 | 12.5 | 0 |
| Talented | 4d10 | 6.25 | 25.0 | 37.5 | 25.0 | 6.25 |
The untalented character gets more successes than without the item, and options (from the talent gained from the item) they didn’t have before. The talented character doesn’t get new options but tends to get more successes, and can get a number of successes the untalented character can’t. It feels to me like the talented character actually has a reason to use this item..
Since more successes means more stunt points, this means the talented character could expect to see more stunt points on average. The untalented character would see an average of 0.75 stunt points per roll, the talented character would see an average of 1.5 stunt points per roll.
Which raises the question of what happens if the characters also have a supporting capstone? The last option would look like this.
| Character | Roll | 0 | 1 | 2 (1 sp) | 3 (3 sp) | 4 (6 sp) | 5 (10 sp) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Untalented | 4d10 | 6.26 | 25.0 | 37.5 | 25.0 | 6.25 | 0 |
| Talented | 5d10 | 3.125 | 15.625 | 31.25 | 31.25 | 15.625 | 3.125 |
The untalented character has the same results as the talented character in the previous version, but the talented character now has the potential — small, but present — of getting 5 successes and 10 stunt points. On average the character would see 2.5 stunt points per roll.
At first I hesitated because I wanted to keep rolls to four dice, but now that I’ve looked at it closely this is
- A pretty uncommon circumstance: having cornerstone, common, and capstone talents all at tier level, and a supporting magic item, is either unlikely or the result of specific effort;
- An unlikely roll (3.125% does not come up often); and
- A moment of awesome someone who’s gone to that effort deserves.
Okay, I’m pretty good with this.
A talented magic item can straight up add a die to the character’s roll. If that exceeds normal limits, that’s fine by me.
Now I wonder what happens if ‘cornerstone magic items’ or ‘capstone magic items’ could be a thing. I’m not excited about someone having to roll seven dice on a check, but think about what you could do with 21 stunt points!
I’ll think about it.
It comes to me that this might be a way to implement panoply, a set of three (or potentially more, if they interact well) items that push someone beyond their normal limits. Even someone completely untalented with three panoply items could be rolling 4d on checks, and someone who is totally talented could be rolling 7d… which is a lot of dice and has a quite small (~0.78%, which isn’t necessarily that small) chance of rolling 7 successes (21 stunt points).
Yes indeed, I will think about this.
