Troll Lord Games

Let's say, someone had a medalion of detect thoughts, am I correct in assuming the save is as the 2nd level spell?

Does this rule apply to all magic item effects?

Or is it different entirely.

ie. a wand of cone of cold or something:

a caster of 9th lvl is required to cast cone of cold, so the save is cl 9, etc.?

There is no save for detect thoughts, but SR applies.

All items function as the spell (or most similar spell,) unless they say otherwise, and at whatever level the Castle Keeper wants, remembering that the minimum level to create an item is Xth level, variant based on what the item is. If the Castle Keeper has absolutely no idea (that should be a very rare event) what the caster level of the item is, there are two simple options: it can either be the minimum needed for the spell effect to be cast, or it can be the minimum needed for the item to be created, noting that this can put the item's CL above that ordinarily required (ie, a staff with a 9th level spell would still require the creator to be 18th level, and not 11th because 9th level spells aren't available to that level caster except under unusual circumstances.) This allows the Castle Keeper to fluctuate the power of any particular item based on exactly what they desire for their game, and allows wand of fireballs 1 being totally different than wand of fireballs 2.