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Lightning Rod
🕑 Added 2025-01-16 15:40:17 +0000 UTCGreetings adventurers!
Even as a young boy, I was as fascinated by storms as I was terrified by them. I grew up not far from the sea, so the tumultuous seas would often tell the tail of a coming gale. The lightning and thunder rattled the windows of our cliffside home and I would lay in bed watching the world outside be illuminated by the bolts from the skies above. I never lost that sense of wonder. Observing the power of a storm is still awe inspiring to this day. That’s why I knew when there were reports of a spear crafted from the captured essence of the storms themselves, I knew I had to get my hands on it. It was no easy feat, but well… It’s worth a look, adventurer.
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Design notes from Matthew:
One of the things that I’ve been adamant about when it comes to creating items for two systems is that I can’t start out trying to make an item for one system and then convert it to another. You end up with a great idea and one that you just shoehorned to try to fit. Basically it’s impossible to write two great items when you’re just trying to use one as a conversion of the other. That’s why I took up the mindset that I would write one theme and then the best item I could for each system within that theme. That sometimes means the items for 5E and PF2E operate very differently, like this one.
In the 5E version, I wanted to offer two options that would make the spear powerful enough to be a legendary, but still offer a few limitations where necessary. The charge system provided enough balance and control to make sure it didn’t get out of hand quickly and made a meaningful choice in how many bolts you might like to use in a day. There was an additional limitation that I wanted to provide to make it only usable with a clear view of the sky above. I always say that the power in something is more in the limits you give it and this limitation means players have to choose their battleground wisely.
For the PF2E version, runes do the heavy lifting of the base part of the utility of this weapon with the shockwave rune carrying particular value. The other part of this was having the storm aspect that I wanted. Thankfully I was able to pull from an existing spell to stop from reinventing the wheel. I always think that it’s better to pull from what is present in Pathfinder instead of reinventing if you don’t have to. The second part of this was a fun little minigame that it offers that incentivizes protecting the spear and keeping creatures away from it. Introduce those little twists that make it unique when you have the opportunity.
I’m glad that we’ve reached the point where I’m no longer trying to intentionally fill out a catalogue with the things that I think we need to offer. Instead, we get to just make what we want week to week and there’s something really freeing about that. Hopefully you’ll come along for the ride as we have a lot of interesting items that we’re cooking.
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Kraken's Kollaborators ($10 Tier)
You’ve been Thunderstruck!,
- Fernando & Matthew
