[Chance] Item - Orb of the All or the Nothing

The glass orb used by the pair of mystics at the Scintella Faire may not actually have precognitive properties, but surprisingly contains a small measure of divination magic. One must be warned, however, of the dangers of reducing outcomes into a binary proposition of absolute success or failure.

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Orb of the All or the Nothing
Wondrous item, rare

Immediately before you make an attack roll, you can speak this orb's command word and roll a d6. On a roll of 4 or higher, you automatically score a critical hit on the attack. On a roll of 3 or lower, you hit yourself with the attack. Once used, this property cannot be used again until the next dawn. 

Very Rare Variant: Push Your Luck. This higher rarity variant also has this property. Immediately after you roll a 3 or lower on the d6 and hit yourself with your attack, you can choose to push your luck (no action required). You can roll the d6 again, which produces the same results described except any damage you deal to yourself for rolling a 3 or lower is doubled. You can continue to roll the d6 this way, doubling any damage you deal to yourself each consecutive time you do so.

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DESIGN COMMENTARY

"All or Nothing" is a common desperate gambling phrase. In my home game I have an item called Ball or Nothing that basically did something similar (reduce attacks to a coin flip). It actually has the same stats as Game of Chicken from the Cooking compendium, so I knew I needed something different.

I kept the ball theme (since a crystal ball exists at a fairground's mystic hut/tent), but added the variant for pushing your luck. I'm personally not sure how far I'd go with pushing my luck - maybe once.

It's also interesting to note that doubling the damage you deal to yourself is actually worse than critting your enemy, since you'd double the ability modifier damage dealt to yourself (but not for your enemy). The house odds always wins!

Also note that this is balanced around base critical hit rules. If you use alternative crit rules (such as doubling all damage or max first die roll), the balance will end up different.