Magic Items

[The Undying]

Thread Items require a Key Knowledge, whether it's a fact or a deed. This is a requirement. Rank 1 must have one. Now, for simple items (e.g., Novice crafted items), it may only HAVE the one - but it WILL have one.

Okay, I think this is what I still need to grasp my head around.

Thread Items are generally "more powerful" / legendary items with a history to them. "Simple items" are magical items that are imbued with magic but really haven't seen much of the outside world, right?

Ah, I see what you're asking now. I meant "simple" as in kind of power level. The Gamemaster's Guide provides you with tiers of Thread Items. They're all Thread Items, they just vary in Ranks, pricing tier, uniqueness, etc.

[Lys]

Thread Items are generally "more powerful" / legendary items with a history to them. "Simple items" are magical items that are imbued with magic but really haven't seen much of the outside world, right?

Not all Thread Items are legendary or have a history, though the strongest ones invariably do. What makes Thread Items special is that through artifice or circumstance they have a Name and a True Pattern of their own. In game terms it means that you can invest Legend Points in them in order to unlock their powers. Mundane magical items don't have a True Pattern, meaning no Name or powers to unlock, they just do whatever it is they do and that's it. Example a firestarter is basically a wand-shaped magical lighter, and that's pretty much all it does. It is possible for a magical item to become a Thread Item though, either from it being enchanted by an Adept, or from being associated with the heroic deeds of its wielder. For example, Candlewand could be a Thread Item firestarter, and tying threads to it would give bonuses to fire based spells.

[The Undying]

Ah, I need to go back and re-read the Talent. I couldn't remember if Item History Rank unlocked (a) up to Thread Item Rank or (b) up to Key Knowledge number.

Example with Item History 4:

(a) Can determine Key Knowledges up to Rank 4, so the ones at 1 and 3.

(b) Can determine the first 4 Key Knowledges, so all three: 1, 3, and 6.

(a) is the correct way to do it, and has been since the earliest days.

Is there a right way to do the Rank and Effect discovery? As in "one Item History success show all Ranks and their associated effects" versus "Item History success shows only relevant rank and effects" versus "what I just said, but you at least also know how many ranks there are even if not the effects" etc

[Jason]

Ah, I need to go back and re-read the Talent. I couldn't remember if Item History Rank unlocked (a) up to Thread Item Rank or (b) up to Key Knowledge number.

Example with Item History 4:

(a) Can determine Key Knowledges up to Rank 4, so the ones at 1 and 3.

(b) Can determine the first 4 Key Knowledges, so all three: 1, 3, and 6.

(a) is the correct way to do it, and has been since the earliest days.

Is there a right way to do the Rank and Effect discovery? As in "one Item History success show all Ranks and their associated effects" versus "Item History success shows only relevant rank and effects" versus "what I just said, but you at least also know how many ranks there are even if not the effects" etc

It seems to be fairly clear per the Item history talent description (ED4E Player's Guide Page 155) that:
a) Item history vs Mystic Defense after 1 week of study
b) One new key knowledge per success
c) Max key knowledges of Item history rank

[The Undying]

See, that doesn't address the question. None of the things you just mentioned talk about when rank maximum and rank effect is discovered, only Key Knowledge (KK).

You'll also notice that you said "one new key knowledge per success," and Mataxes & I just discussed that: it isn't ACTUALLY "one new key knowledge," it's "the next rank and whether or not there is a key knowledge." "One new key knowledge" SOUNDS pretty straight forward - you find out the next KK, which may not be the next rank (look back at my example, KK is at 1, 3, and 6). HOWEVER, that's not the case, an "empty" KK is apparently still considered a KK, which is a bit counter-intuitive.

[Lys]

Pretty sure Metaxes doesn't mean that you need successes on your Item History roll to know that there are no Test Knowledges for the empty ranks. You just know that there's nothing there. The rules are just not explicit about this because the writers did not imagine that anyone would spend any time thinking about the empty ranks. If it's unlocked, then the player can advance to it with no further action required. So if you have Item History 5, and you get three successes when examining the Elemental Spear, you then you know the Test Knowledges for Rank 1, Rank 3, and Rank 5. If you only have Item History 4, then the third success gets you nothing, because your rank isn't high enough to know Rank 5 Test Knowledges. Just from knowing which ranks have Test Knowledges you automatically know which ranks don't.

If you want to know how this works in character, i assume the Adept tries increase the strength of the thread as normal, and if it's an unlocked rank then she simply does it. If it's a locked rank, or she already has the last rank, then she finds that there is nothing more to tie the thread to, so she can't even make the attempt. An Item History check is then made to see if there is more power to be unlocked, and if so what are the requirements.

[PiXeL01]

So is it

A: A single success reveals information about a number of ranks equal to Item History

B: a single success only gives information about one rank meaning you will need a total of five successes should an Pattern have five ranks

[Lys]

Okay so, rereading the ED4 Player's Guide i found this on page 221:

"The first Key Knowledge of an item is always at Rank One. This Key Knowledge contains the information that will give the character a starting place to learn the rest of the item’s Key Knowledges. A successful Item History test reveals the number of Thread Ranks the item or weapon has, how many threads can be woven to the item (how many different people can weave threads to it), whether or not the character is required to perform any Deeds to attach a thread to item or increase the rank and that he has to learn the item’s Name as the Research Knowledge."

So a lot of information about the item is revealed with the first success from an Item History test. Additionally the actual text for the Item History Talent says, "If successful, each success reveals one new Key Knowledge from the item’s history. [...] The adept can learn a maximum number of Key Knowledges from a given item equal to his Item History rank." The way i interpret this is that each success in Item History reveals the next Key Knowledge, skipping over any ranks that don't have any Key Knowledges, because you can't reveal a new Key Knowledge that doesn't exist.

[The Undying]

So is it

A: A single success reveals information about a number of ranks equal to Item History

B: a single success only gives information about one rank meaning you will need a total of five successes should an Pattern have five ranks

Based on Mataxes's post earlier, it'd be B. I'm completely onboard with that, I think it's more interesting, and it makes accessing the higher Ranks of really powerful (Warden+ tier) Thread Items non-trivial. However, it is not communicated well in the Item History Talent description.

Okay so, rereading the ED4 Player's Guide i found this on page 221:

"The first Key Knowledge of an item is always at Rank One. This Key Knowledge contains the information that will give the character a starting place to learn the rest of the item’s Key Knowledges. A successful Item History test reveals the number of Thread Ranks the item or weapon has, how many threads can be woven to the item (how many different people can weave threads to it), whether or not the character is required to perform any Deeds to attach a thread to item or increase the rank and that he has to learn the item’s Name as the Research Knowledge."

So a lot of information about the item is revealed with the first success from an Item History test. Additionally the actual text for Item History says, "If successful, each success reveals one new Key Knowledge from the item’s history. [...] The adept can learn a maximum number of Key Knowledges from a given item equal to his Item History rank." The way i interpret this is that each success in Item History reveals the next Key Knowledge, skipping over any ranks that don't have any Key Knowledges, because you can't reveal a new Key Knowledge that doesn't exist.

That PG information is super helpful, thanks. From there, what we have is from the first Item History success:

- Number of Ranks
- Number of Threads
- First Rank Key Knowledge (which makes sense - a successful Item History test requires at least Rank 1, which means at least the first KK is revealed, which is almost always the name)

What we're still missing is:

- When do Rank effects get revealed?

As for the text about "whether or not the character is required to perform any Deeds to attach a thread to item or increase the rank," it isn't clear, but it is my ASSUMPTION they are referring to Rank 1. The idea that it would reveal all Deeds, regardless of Rank, doesn't really make much sense, given it doesn't all reveal where TK are in the various Ranks (even if it doesn't reveal what the later TK are).

As for your last paragraph, I'd recommend re-reading this topic history. Mataxes has weighed in pretty definitively here. Basically, the Talent text is a bit misleading or oddly written, and the intent is not "next KK" but "next rank, whether it has a KK or not, and if there is one, what the TK is." Given this is Mataxes (the designer and product manager), and his statement is pretty clear (often he'll say "my thoughts/opinion on this are..." but here he just says "it is ... not ..."), I think we can consider this official clarification/errata.

[Lys]

Item History has been written pretty much the same way since First Edition. Given that Metaxes only started writing for Earthdawn in 3rd Edition, i'm inclined to see his clarification (assuming we're not misinterpreting it) as how he understood the rules as a player, which has now become how he understand the rules as a writer. It's not necessarily the original intent of the rule in question. While this is a new edition which is free to have its own rules, they chose to keep the wording more or less the same, which i see as them choosing to keep the way it has always worked. That way being, as i see it, that each success gets you the next Key Knowledge, ignoring ranks that have no Key Knowledges, because you can't get a Key Knowledge that does not exist.

This is supported by going back ED1 write-up of Item History, where you find the following: "The character's rank in Item History is the maximum number of Key Knowledges that a character can learn through his talent. Once he increases the rank of Item History, he can then learn more Key Knowledges. The rank of Item History is also the maximum thread rank of any Key Knowledge that can be learned from an item." Notice how the number of Key Knowledges and the Thread Rank of the Key Knowledges are treated as two separate items. This would not be required if "No Key Knowledge" was itself a Key Knowledge, suggesting that such empty ranks are in fact skipped over for the purposes of Item History. The third sentence of the quoted text was removed in Classic Edition, and has remained missing in ED3 and ED4. Likely it was removed to give players earlier access to high rank Thread Items. If it was Metaxes' intention to have high ranks be as inaccessible as in ED1, then he should have reinstated it. Because i don't believe that at any point were the rules intended to have successes on an Item History test wasted on the unsatisfying answer of, "There's no Deeds or Key Knowledges at this Rank."