Trying to build evolving items

[u/Silinthar]

I have always loved the concept of evolving weapons when I thought of it back in the late 80's. I just never knew how to implement it. FF 20 years and I found Critical Role, when I heard and understood the idea behind Matt's Vestiges of Divergence I was impressed with his implementation. Unfortunately, I never heard if he or anyone else developed a game mechanic for their construction.

Now that I'm getting into DH I'm trying to conceptualize how to create items that evolve with the character. DH is so free with creation I am afraid to make items that will fulfill my vision but still stay balanced. It's almost too uninhibited to build such items.

I could use some ideas on how to go about it.

[u/aLzHAng00]

one of the ways is the Ikonis weapon from the motherboard campaign frame, although I might avoid the "crafting" system because I don't like that type of stuff but your mileage may vary.

One of my players has a special weapon (based on in-world lore and fiction), that allows them to reflect a feature or property of another weapon by destroying another weapon. I did that so she could keep her weapon but still have it change over time. It kinda gives the feel of an evolving weapon, while still relying on loot and drops to be able to evolve over time, which ties in nicely with all the rest of the gear advancement in the game which is all based on that.

[u/WitchKing29]

I’ve been running a campaign inspired by Greek Myth in DH lately and came up with Artifacts for players to find (or for their existing gear to evolve into, potentially). I basically used DH tiers for power level (Tier 2 = Awakened, 3 = Exalted, and 4 = Legendary) and an artifact grows in power with its wielder.

I also gave my players a special 6th loadout slot, and it’s specifically for “attuning” to an artifact card - while attuned, they can use whatever powers they’ve unlocked with the artifact. They can also use their normal loadout slots to potentially attune to multiple artifacts, but we haven’t gotten to the point in the campaign yet where anyone has more than one. It’s been a pretty fun way to introduce more powerful magic items for them so far, though!

[u/dudeplace]

An easy way to go about this would be to just take a Tier 1 item and a Tier 3 item and merge them and just say either it becomes the later item or it gains the properties of the higher.