The other day I posted about how a magic item adds a die to checks. The short form, I expect many magic items grant the user a talent and an extra die to roll on the related checks. Simple to implement and meets my ‘gives more options, not just a bonus’ bias.
What I didn’t consider, though, is what die should be added.
Untiered Magic Items
The easiest answer is to say magic items don’t have a tier, and any bonus dice rolled are based on the user’s tier. If a veteran gets a sword of cutting wind they add a d8 to their rolls for the relevant checks, and a champion would add a d12. This keeps things simple and causes items to automatically scale with the user’s tier.
Having the item scaling with the user is the simplest and is the easiest to balance: the item is always appropriate for the user’s level. However, this can feel a little flat, everything like this is at your level. It’s hard to have a ‘minor’ item when you’re at high level, or a ‘major’ item at lower level. All swords of cutting wind are the same to you (assuming the same base sword type).
But it is simple.
Tiered Magic Items
Another approach is to have items assigned to specific tiers. You don’t get a sword of cutting wind, you get a heroic sword of cutting wind. Gives you the talent abilities and die up to the tier of the item (d10 in this case). Clearly if you are higher-tier you don’t get more than that, which can encourage you to look for a more powerful version as you advance… but it can be disappointing to have an item you’ve used fade from relevance.
And what happens if you are lower tier than the item? Is the item’s efficacy (options and die) capped by the user’s tier? Or can they have the higher-tier benefits?
Clearly, a paragon sword of cutting wind is more valuable than a heroic sword of cutting wind. If nothing else, it stays relevant longer as the user gains levels. I wonder, though, about the interaction of the item granting the talent and the user. I see this having a few possibilities.
Abilities Granted
It seems obvious a tiered magic item would grant the talent abilities only up to the item’s tier. A higher-tier character using a lower-tier item will gain limited abilities. A paragon wielding a heroic weapon can gain only up to the heroic tier abilities of that item.
What about a lower-tier character, though? The easiest balance option is to limit it to the lesser of the item’s tier and the user’s tier. A hero wielding a paragon weapon can gain only up to the heroic tier abilities of that item, to start. This allows a character to grow into the abilities of a powerful item, and keeps things on par for their tier.
On the other hand, magic items are about breaking rules. Maybe the better answer is that the user gains the abilities of all tiers of the item. When the user’s tier is greater than the item’s tier this doesn’t make a difference, but a veteran wielding a legendary sword could have options well above their grade. Harder to imbalance — almost certainly unbalanced, in fact — but will stand out.
And makes me think of a third option: a user can safely use an item’s abilities up to their tier, but using abilities of higher tiers have increased cost or risk. You have the option to punch above your weight, but there’s a chance (possibly a good chance) it will cost you dearly.
Okay, three options here regarding abilities gained from tiered items:
- Lesser of user tier and item tier. Easiest to balance, keeps things on par.
- Item tier, regardless user tier. Caps lower-tier items in the hands of higher-tier users and makes sense, higher-tier items in the hands of lower-tier users is inherently imbalanced but makes the item truly wondrous (or at least exceptionally powerful) for the tier.
- Lesser of user tier and item tier, safely, but with the option of exceed user tier (up to item tier) at a cost or risk.
Right now, I’m leaning toward the third option. Can be safely used at a tier-appropriate level, but the user can push beyond that if they’re willing to deal with the consequences.
Item Die
My initial assumption was that the item die (added to checks) would be the lower of the user’s tier and the item’s tier. It doesn’t need to be that way, though. I see four options I’d consider for the item die
- The lesser of item’s tier and the user’s tier. The die scales with the user, up to the limit of the item. Stays balanced with the user’s tier, to a point, then fades in relevance.
- The wielder’s tier. This is the same as for untiered items.
- The item’s tier. The item doesn’t scale with the user at all: minor items eventually fade in relevance, major items are imbalanced at lower user tiers.
- The greater of item’s tier and the user’s tier. Major items are imbalanced at lower user tiers, becomes more balanced when the tiers match, and stays a more relevant as the user’s tier exceeds the item’s (no additional abilities gained, so still not as good as a tier-appropriate item).
Right now, I’m leaning toward the fourth option. As with the abilities granted, it means using a higher-tier item is a little imbalanced and feels more awesome. A veteran using a legendary sword will be rolling at least d8+d20, which against a tier-appropriate target number of 5 means they’re not often going to whiff (10% that both dice fail).
This isn’t as unbalancing as gaining higher-tier abilities, I think. A veteran character with one supporting talent would be rolling 2d8, which against a tier-appropriate target number of 5 would fail 25% of the time. Rolling d8+d20 will succeed at least once 90% of the time.
The resolution system has diminishing returns (on a pass/fail basis) as more dice are added. The talented character rolling 2d8+d20 would have at least one success 95% of the time: nice, and will succeed more and thus have more stunt dice than a double-talented character rolling 3d8 (87.5% of at least one success) or even 4d8 (93.75%), but I can accept that.
Closing Comments
My natural inclination is to keep things balanced. Untiered items automatically scale with user level, which means they are pretty much automatically balanced. This solution is simple but feels a little flat.
I like more variety in grade, and tiered items give me that. It’s not all that hard to keep them ‘safe’ (not exceeding user tier) and that doesn’t feel flat, but having items drop in relevance doesn’t feel good.
Having the abilities granted fixed by item tier makes the tier important. At lower user tiers this makes the item potentially more powerful (with consequences), which feels good to me (from a narrative perspective), and using the item tier for the item die helps the item feel good even if the higher-tier abilities aren’t used. At higher user tiers the item is reduced in relevance because higher-tier abilities aren’t gained, but this is mitigated by the item die being the higher of the item tier and the user tier.
I think I found my answer. I’ll have to give it a try, of course, and see how it plays at the table, but right now I like it. Magic items are supposed to break rules, after all, and letting them deviate from tier expectations does that.
