[Chance] Armor - Roulette Plate

Bearing the recognizable shimmer of the Golden Hoard casino's lights, this plate armor combines the accessibility of gambling with gaudy display of wealth. Some may say only fools entrust their luck to the chaos of the universe, but those who know better understand how to nudge luck in the right direction.

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Roulette Plate
Armor (half plate or plate), rare (requires attunement)

You have a +1 bonus to your AC while you wear this armor.

Roulette. This armor has a spinning wheel built into the chest piece. Whenever you roll for initiative and are not surprised or incapacitated, you can spin the wheel for a potential boon. Choose one bet from the following list.

• Paths. When you choose this bet, you must declare either "Even" (even numbers) or "Odd" (odd numbers). Then roll a d20. If the result matches your declaration, your walking speed increases by 10 feet for 1 minute.
• Heights. When you choose this bet, you must declare either "High" (11 or higher) or "Low" (10 or lower). Then roll a d20. If the result matches your declaration, the bonus to your AC for wearing this armor becomes +2 instead of +1 for 1 minute.
• Compass. When you choose this bet, you must declare either "North" (numbers 16-20), "East" (numbers 11-15), "West" (numbers 6-10), or "South" (numbers 1-5). Then roll a d20. If the result matches your declaration, you have advantage on saving throws for 1 minute.
• Target. When you choose this bet, you must declare one number of your choice (numbers 1-20). Then roll a d20. If the result matches your declaration, you have the benefits of the Dash, Dodge, and Disengage actions for 1 minute.

Very Rare Variant: Push Your Luck. This higher rarity variant also has this additional property. Immediately after you roll the d20 for spinning the wheel, you can choose to lose 5 hit points to re-roll the d20. This hit point loss cannot be prevented or deflected in any way. You can repeat this re-roll any number of times, losing another 5 hit points each time you do so.

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DESIGN COMMENTARY

I isolated gambling/casino design concepts during the brainstorm phase. I simplified this roulette into four choices, though savvy GMs could allow for more divisions. I considered setting 1 and 20 aside as "House Edge" similar to 0 and 00 on a roulette wheel, but it became too complicated then.

It was important that the armor itself still provided a benefit, hence the base +1. A 50% chance of a basic boon in battle seemed well within rarity tier ranges (the +1/+2 to AC difference is the similar to attunement-free +1/+2 armor, but halved because of the probability).

The very rare variant introduces a cost for repeat rolls, which nearly guarantees one of the basic benefits (Paths or Heights), which is normal for very rare armor anyways. The difference is how willing a character might push for the harder ones. Rolling a Compass requires an average of 4 rolls or 20 HP (1/4) and rolling a Target requires an average of 20 rolls or 100 HP (here's a good summary of how that probability breaks down).

Note that these rolls are not ability checks and does not meet requirements for a Divination wizard's Portent.