abyssalbrews

Umbral Arsenal

Added 2024-09-05 15:00:09 +0000 UTC

Greetings adventurers!

There are many things born out of shadow that those of us who dwell in the light might not understand at first glance. It’s our nature to pursue the light and seek it out for safety, but within those dark corners can dwell things of immense power. Should they end up in the wrong hands, they could easily be twisted to evil, but in the right hands the shadows may yet serve an altruistic purpose. One such dweller of the dark used to hold this very weapon. I could feels it’s power as soon as I liberated it from the beast. How will you wield it?

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Design notes from Matthew:
There’s something to be said for shapeshifting weapons. I try not to do them very much as they can be a bit of a bear to get the balance right. You’re not just balancing the stats on one thing, but two and then you’re also trying to balance them together. Giving any form too much power and you’ve just thrown the whole thing out of alignment. Give anything too little power and now that form is useless.
I think my take on it has been that the best thing you can do is use the base mechanics to deliver fundamental power, but then offer convenience or alternative non-combat benefits where possible. For both forms of this weapon, I knew I wanted to give them normal fundamental power in the form of +2 and striking runes for the PF2E variant. When you’re already giving basic power like that in 5E and PF2E, then the next things to turn to are non-combat bonuses and convenience.
Both of the versions are pretty similar in how they function here. That’s mostly because I kept the benefits to straight combat power, then offered some slight alternatives to each shapeshifted form. It’s a much more nuanced piece that has definitive uses, but I prefer that to a “tool for every job” approach.

We don’t usually do themes in our releases, but heck it’s Swordtember and I’m kind of tempted to jump in and do some of that. We’ll see if we end up doing it for the whole month, but I have some interesting ideas that I think could bend the formulas out there. I’d like to explore some of them.

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