TOPIC: Personal Top 3 Tokens?

What are your personal top 3 tokens, and why?

Mine are:

1. Wicked Charm: +1 STR, -1 to saves.

This is the first token I can think of that was impactful and had a substantial drawback.

It’s hard to believe that this was equiappable in best in slot type builds for a while due to a combination of: fewer STR boosters overall making +1 more relevant, lack of important saves in the dungeon, and lack of good charms.

2. Wand of Life Stealing - DC-12 Fort save or target takes 6 pts and Wizard healed 6 points.

I had one of these as a holdout weapon that went through many dungeons - it was in my first set of tokens.

I retired it with 1 use left - it’s still in the collection.

3. Ring of the Deep - a reminder that anything is possible in TD. The ambition of the underwater year still stands out to me as incredible.

I have to rule out tokens I could equip but don't, even though a lot of tokens I don't equip either due to the difficulty level being too high or a theme run wouldn't allow certain tokens. This rules out tokens I used to use like Bracers of Fast Fitness or ones I never end up using like Ring of Pandemonium.

Then, my collection never mattered to my play until I was winning relics on eBay, so c/u/r just have never meant much of anything to me.

1. +2 Light Crossbow of Frost

I ran this in VTD13. Still amuses me.

2. Charm of Final Repose

I asked myself a few times which tokens were actually fun in isolation. I'll play plenty of power tokens and enjoy them as part of a holistic build, but, once attribute bonuses became ubiquitous, I stopped caring about a lot of power tokens in isolation.

I realized that I enjoy crits. They produce a variance in play. I've been tracking damage output on runs (seemingly pointlessly as people would rather argue theoreticals than what people actually do), and it's very, very boring to see 42, 44, 42, 46, 42, 45, 43, ...

I also prefer undead to other monster types as more tokens interact with them. This is a de rigueur metagame play for rm7 undead that few people seem to do.

3. Lenses of the Fae

I have gotten a lot of enjoyment out of Hood of Reflection and ran it in multiple builds last weekend. I will still run Troll Hide Armor when only Fort saves matter in a dungeon in very esoteric builds. But, I run this all of the time. When I started acquiring high end tokens, I was into CON and DEX bonuses (there were so, so many less back then). I still will run extreme attribute builds. This combines a penchant for attributes, a constant goal to increase AC in builds where it matters, and an immunity, where I'm big on immunities (see Hood of Reflection, if only Medallion of Greyhawk didn't have so much competition).

Out of legendaries, I get more enjoyment out of Iktomi's than anything else, though: lot of legendaries are just bigger numbers; I don't often get to play druid due to whom I play with.

The only woodie I've actually gotten meaningful use out of is +1 Quarter Staff, and that's just to be iconoclastic.

My favorites are cheap but solid buffs for beginners, bringing back fond memories.

#1) Canteen of Quaffing. For $9, lets you heal yourself in the boss fight just enough to keep on swinging one more round -- which is often all you need.

#2) Medallion of Energy. For $1, the Elf can give the party first strike an average of roughly two rooms per dungeon more than it would have otherwise. That's 20 extra actions. We'll see if Alertness survives the upcoming character redesign.

#3) Defender Set. For $10, a trio of solid helm/shield/armor that then adds another +1 AC and Free Movement.

Honorable Mention: Enchanter's Whetstone. One slotless token that makes all your Rare weapons as good as many ultra-rares. In 4th place because its price is now up to about $40, so it might not make the first round of a new person's purchases. But it should definitely be on the short list for the second round.

My personal faves -

1- Bowl of Spirit Sight - after finally getting lucky to score a ticket in 2 straight years - a friend and I decided it was a permanent thing and split a $250 order (felt like such a huge investment back then). We chose an Amulet of Wonder as our PYP - and would draft the tokens we wanted. In the 30th pack we opened there was a Bowl of Spirit Sight. My buddy had first pick and took the Amulet - I chose the Bowl and thus decided to start playing Druid (I was usually the healer with my friends already). While not game changing - it’s often been a lot of fun especially with pick up groups to get free clues or let a new player rogue get some treasure without feeling bad.

2- Dragonscale Armor - the first UR token I went after and paid for on its own. While I was able to get good Druid pieces from my PYP’s - Baton of Focus, Twolf’s Helm, Ring of (Greater) Focus, Shield of the Scholar - I wanted this cool +8 armor (as good as any fighter’s) with some fire resistance. I kept getting sniped on E-bay and had a self imposed limit of $100 to spend - and felt like it would be a fruitless quest. Smakdown was THE MAN at WhosYerCon that set me up with one when they were very hard to find. It felt like the final piece to make my “Nightmare Druid” a reality and I still love using this armor to this day.

3 - Rod of Persuasion. I just love this piece and its tongue in cheek nature. I love the idea of a Rogue beating someone over the head with the same crowbar they use to break into treasure chests. Originally I got it so my friends that would play Rogue could be sure to get the clue for us - and it’s a great loaner in pick up groups too. But then at TD Celebration - the first run I was on had both Cleric and Druid but surprisingly no Rogue - so I got to have the fun of breaking chests myself (my true dexterity means I’ve never successfully completed a rogue box even in training room). I’ve ended up playing a Poor Man’s Rogue more often than I would have expected over the years since then and LOVE using the Rod. (Libram of Looting is nice too - but doesn’t have the visceral fun of using the Rod).

So those would be my three sentimental favorites

Matthew, fun topic! I imagine I could give numerous different answers to this. Let's see:

Horn of Plenty: I had 10 of these long before the Charm of Avarice, and really enjoyed using them for our group. My favorite moment was when our Coach asked to look at them, saying "I believe you have them, I just want to see 10 Horns of Plenty in one place".

SeyLah's Shimmering Cestus Artisan Token: This was a gift from one of my best friends at a True Dungeon party my friends threw for me (my Avatar is the cake from that party), and another friend gave it to him to give to me, so it is doubly priceless.

Amulet of Wonder signed Proof Token: I got this as a prize from Jeff for coming up with the Amulet of Wonder idea. This is back when Jeff offered a Proof Token for the best token suggestion during the design process - I think he hadn't yet realized that the community would gladly give endless suggestions when asked (and even when not asked).

Ring of dark health - i started in TD trying a couple runs per year but didn’t seriously start building much of a character until 2017. This ring was part of my early rogue builds. I love how it still makes appearances even today.

+2 assassin’s crossbow - crits are fun. When the legendary rogue amulet came out, I picked one of these up for $200. It is the most fun weapon I’ve used in TD. In person, I can slide a rogue crit about 70% of the time. Going from 60-70 damage to *boom* 200+ on a single attack is i pressive.

Tankard mug of celebration - the whole group yelling Who-Haa! Shouting after a 20 is rolled is just right for d&d.

+2 Deadly Drow Blood Mace - Back when I was still fairly new (GHC 2016), a very friendly member of this forum traded me this for every single monster bit I had at that point since I didn't really have any valuable tokens at that point and a good weapon gets used every round of combat. I won't say exactly how many bits, but let's just say neither one of us realized that the Mace is in a legendary recipe and we both probably undervalued it a bit. Even though there's no real reason to keep it nowdays since the Whetstone exists and I'd probably be much better served with a Whetstone and any other usable Ultra Rare, I don't think I could ever part with it.

Ring of Lone Justice (Uncommon, +5 damage when you're the only one on '20') - like Fred said, crits are fun. I'm not sure anyone in the entire TD game got as excited over 5 damage as I did whenever I got this to fire off for the 2-3 years I ran it.

+2 Boom Stick - I wanted to try out ranged, but Ranged damage was just so pitiful compared to all of the melee boosters that existed at the time that the only way I could even bring myself to bother is if I had a token with a ridiculous damage wheel like this one and pray variance was on my side, so in 2017 or 2019 I traded the Ultra Rare I got in a treasure pool for one of these and honestly, it's the best TD decision I ever made. Every DM's face ever lights up when they see the Boom Stick, *my* face lights up whenever I swing my Boom Stick, and it almost never fails that I shoot myself in the face twice in the first couple combats and redeem myself in the boss fight. Sadly, my Boom Stick broke a few years ago, but it's still usable and like the Mace, I'm not sure I could ever part with it.

+2 Death Flail - It's not very strong compared to recent tokens, but the small chance of landing a 3x crit with a barbarian is very exciting. It's kinda dumb and I love it.

Abyssal Lenses of Taunting - Encourages me to tell a monster what I REALLY think of it. I usually get a funny look from the DM when they look at my AC, then my retribution damage. It's kinda dumb and I love it.

Gambler's Grenade - Gives you a decent chance of hitting any monster at the cost of blowing yourself up. I pull out a stack when I can't hit with melee, like when I've silvered my weapons but come down with a bout of lycanthropy. It's kinda dumb and I love it.

Honorable mention: Skull of Cavadar. Lots of lore and stories are behind this token. It's cool, and comes up in some surprising ways. It's not dumb at all and I love it.

Andy Strassmann wrote: My favorites are cheap but solid buffs for beginners, bringing back fond memories.

#1) Canteen of Quaffing. For $9, lets you heal yourself in the boss fight just enough to keep on swinging one more round -- which is often all you need.

#2) Medallion of Energy. For $1, the Elf can give the party first strike an average of roughly two rooms per dungeon more than it would have otherwise. That's 20 extra actions. We'll see if Alertness survives the upcoming character redesign.

#3) Defender Set. For $10, a trio of solid helm/shield/armor that then adds another +1 AC and Free Movement.

Honorable Mention: Enchanter's Whetstone. One slotless token that makes all your Rare weapons as good as many ultra-rares. In 4th place because its price is now up to about $40, so it might not make the first round of a new person's purchases. But it should definitely be on the short list for the second round.

Defender set is great - provides some real differentiation at rare for the heavy armor classes vs everyone else. Great pick.

Ian Lee wrote: I have to rule out tokens I could equip but don't, even though a lot of tokens I don't equip either due to the difficulty level being too high or a theme run wouldn't allow certain tokens. This rules out tokens I used to use like Bracers of Fast Fitness or ones I never end up using like Ring of Pandemonium.

Then, my collection never mattered to my play until I was winning relics on eBay, so c/u/r just have never meant much of anything to me.

1. +2 Light Crossbow of Frost

I ran this in VTD13. Still amuses me.

2. Charm of Final Repose

I asked myself a few times which tokens were actually fun in isolation. I'll play plenty of power tokens and enjoy them as part of a holistic build, but, once attribute bonuses became ubiquitous, I stopped caring about a lot of power tokens in isolation.

I realized that I enjoy crits. They produce a variance in play. I've been tracking damage output on runs (seemingly pointlessly as people would rather argue theoreticals than what people actually do), and it's very, very boring to see 42, 44, 42, 46, 42, 45, 43, ...

I also prefer undead to other monster types as more tokens interact with them. This is a de rigueur metagame play for rm7 undead that few people seem to do.

3. Lenses of the Fae

I have gotten a lot of enjoyment out of Hood of Reflection and ran it in multiple builds last weekend. I will still run Troll Hide Armor when only Fort saves matter in a dungeon in very esoteric builds. But, I run this all of the time. When I started acquiring high end tokens, I was into CON and DEX bonuses (there were so, so many less back then). I still will run extreme attribute builds. This combines a penchant for attributes, a constant goal to increase AC in builds where it matters, and an immunity, where I'm big on immunities (see Hood of Reflection, if only Medallion of Greyhawk didn't have so much competition).

Out of legendaries, I get more enjoyment out of Iktomi's than anything else, though: lot of legendaries are just bigger numbers; I don't often get to play druid due to whom I play with.

The only woodie I've actually gotten meaningful use out of is +1 Quarter Staff, and that's just to be iconoclastic.

I tend to hang onto stat boosting URs - I’ve recently been thinking about putting together a one-build-for-any-class build with the dead shot set and bracers of fast fitness and lenses of the fae - definitely underrated in my opinion.

Ian Lee wrote: I have to rule out tokens I could equip but don't, even though a lot of tokens I don't equip either due to the difficulty level being too high or a theme run wouldn't allow certain tokens. This rules out tokens I used to use like Bracers of Fast Fitness or ones I never end up using like Ring of Pandemonium.

Then, my collection never mattered to my play until I was winning relics on eBay, so c/u/r just have never meant much of anything to me.

1. +2 Light Crossbow of Frost

I ran this in VTD13. Still amuses me.

2. Charm of Final Repose

I asked myself a few times which tokens were actually fun in isolation. I'll play plenty of power tokens and enjoy them as part of a holistic build, but, once attribute bonuses became ubiquitous, I stopped caring about a lot of power tokens in isolation.

I realized that I enjoy crits. They produce a variance in play. I've been tracking damage output on runs (seemingly pointlessly as people would rather argue theoreticals than what people actually do), and it's very, very boring to see 42, 44, 42, 46, 42, 45, 43, ...

I also prefer undead to other monster types as more tokens interact with them. This is a de rigueur metagame play for rm7 undead that few people seem to do.

3. Lenses of the Fae

I have gotten a lot of enjoyment out of Hood of Reflection and ran it in multiple builds last weekend. I will still run Troll Hide Armor when only Fort saves matter in a dungeon in very esoteric builds. But, I run this all of the time. When I started acquiring high end tokens, I was into CON and DEX bonuses (there were so, so many less back then). I still will run extreme attribute builds. This combines a penchant for attributes, a constant goal to increase AC in builds where it matters, and an immunity, where I'm big on immunities (see Hood of Reflection, if only Medallion of Greyhawk didn't have so much competition).

Out of legendaries, I get more enjoyment out of Iktomi's than anything else, though: lot of legendaries are just bigger numbers; I don't often get to play druid due to whom I play with.

The only woodie I've actually gotten meaningful use out of is +1 Quarter Staff, and that's just to be iconoclastic.

Your mention of medallion of greyhawk reminded me - that was on my short list - I think it’s an an interesting example of a token that is too good for its own good.

After it came out for a few years there were frequent controversies about it because poison and oetrification would come up but in ways that the medallion didn’t work for - leading to people to be upset. In particular I remember a puzzle that thematically had a bunch of containers of drinks and one (or all but one?) we’re poison - people tried to brute force it with the Medallion of Greyhawk but were told that didn’t work.


I wonder - do you ever use Dragon Tooth Amulet? I think that might low key be one of the most powerful tokens in the right setting - but it’s hard to know if a monster effect is a spell, or just spell-like.

Cary Kelly wrote: My personal faves -

1- Bowl of Spirit Sight - after finally getting lucky to score a ticket in 2 straight years - a friend and I decided it was a permanent thing and split a $250 order (felt like such a huge investment back then). We chose an Amulet of Wonder as our PYP - and would draft the tokens we wanted. In the 30th pack we opened there was a Bowl of Spirit Sight. My buddy had first pick and took the Amulet - I chose the Bowl and thus decided to start playing Druid (I was usually the healer with my friends already). While not game changing - it’s often been a lot of fun especially with pick up groups to get free clues or let a new player rogue get some treasure without feeling bad.

2- Dragonscale Armor - the first UR token I went after and paid for on its own. While I was able to get good Druid pieces from my PYP’s - Baton of Focus, Twolf’s Helm, Ring of (Greater) Focus, Shield of the Scholar - I wanted this cool +8 armor (as good as any fighter’s) with some fire resistance. I kept getting sniped on E-bay and had a self imposed limit of $100 to spend - and felt like it would be a fruitless quest. Smakdown was THE MAN at WhosYerCon that set me up with one when they were very hard to find. It felt like the final piece to make my “Nightmare Druid” a reality and I still love using this armor to this day.

3 - Rod of Persuasion. I just love this piece and its tongue in cheek nature. I love the idea of a Rogue beating someone over the head with the same crowbar they use to break into treasure chests. Originally I got it so my friends that would play Rogue could be sure to get the clue for us - and it’s a great loaner in pick up groups too. But then at TD Celebration - the first run I was on had both Cleric and Druid but surprisingly no Rogue - so I got to have the fun of breaking chests myself (my true dexterity means I’ve never successfully completed a rogue box even in training room). I’ve ended up playing a Poor Man’s Rogue more often than I would have expected over the years since then and LOVE using the Rod. (Libram of Looting is nice too - but doesn’t have the visceral fun of using the Rod).

So those would be my three sentimental favorites

Dragonscale is so great - especially for Druids when it came out.

I may be misremembering, but I think I proposed the token that originally became Rod of Persuasion, my dad had a “rod of persuasion” that was a hollow pipe you could fit over the end of a wrench or socket to give a longer lever arm on tough bolts which is where I think the name came from.