[Cosmos] Item - Anti-Current Rod

Much like fire extinguishers in a flammable mine, these rods were designed to tame unexpected Current leaks at energy mining facilities. Unsurprisingly, they have been adapted into anti-drone products by military industries.

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Anti-Current Rod
Rod, technomancy, rare (optional attunement)

This rod can be wielded as a club.

Disruptor Pulse. While holding this rod, you can use an action to activate it immediately, or set a timer that causes the rod to self-activate at any chosen time within the next 10 minutes.

When the rod activates, it casts the blackout* spell centered on itself (save DC 15), lasting only until the start of your next turn. The rod itself is immune to this spell. The rod continues to intermittently emit afterpulses for 1 minute or until a creature uses an action to touch and disarm it. During that time, roll a d20 at the end of each of your turns. On a roll of 15 or higher, the rod casts the blackout* spell again, targeting itself and lasting only until the start of your next turn.

Once activated, this rod can't be activated again until the next dawn.

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Optional Attunement. If you choose to attune to this rod, you can use an action to remotely use the rod's Disruptor Pulse property while it is within 120 feet of you without needing to hold it. Additionally, once per turn, when you use this club to hit a creature with the Technomancy tag, the target must succeed on a DC 15 Constitution saving throw or suffer disadvantage on the next ability check or attack roll it makes before the end of its next turn. Constructs have disadvantage on this saving throw.

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Uncommon Variant. The uncommon version of this rod has these changes. Its DCs are 13 instead of 15, and its Disruptor Pulse property casts the slow spell instead of blackout*. This spell has the same modifications described and only affects creatures with the Technomancy tag.

Very Rare Variant. The very rare version of this rod has these changes. Its DCs are 17 instead of 15, and it grants a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with it. Additionally, the Disruptor Pulse property's blackout* spell is cast normally, lasting for its full duration.

*See Cosmos 3 - Spells.

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DESIGN COMMENTARY

The goal of this item was filling the niche of anti-Technomancy, modeled after an EMP pulse, as it would be remiss of me to not include items that interact with Technomancy negatively. The basic idea is to make use of the blackout spell – a really good spell to tie into an item that guards, bounty hunters, or rebels might use.

Blackout is a 6th-level spell, which is normally restricted to Very Rare+ items, so the move is adding restrictions to the spell (the "pulsing"). That's why Very Rare variant is normal; I wanted to keep the rarity down to ensure availability to lower-level enemies and games.

Reducing the rod's spell from the normal 1 minute duration to 1 turn effectively halves its effectiveness. The possibility of additional pulses is more thematic than effective, though still very useful if it occurs.

The optional attunement encourages attunement, by offering an additional, useful benefit. The trade-off is a very low club damage (a d4), and this only works against Technomancy creatures (it's got no use if you're fighting an organic alien), forcing you to decide on attunement. Constructs tend to have high Constitution as well, so this effect should take about half the time – good for a constant benefit.