abyssalbrews

Upheaver

Added 2025-04-10 15:00:10 +0000 UTC

Greetings adventurers!

The general forces of this world are well known to those that profess to study science. Heat and cold, wind and rain, the forces of gravity that keep our feet planted on the floor. What we’re less sure of is the interactions of the magical with those natural forces. Are magics truly able to counteract the very fabrics of this world and if so, what are the consequences? All things are push and pull and it’s not lost on me that there must be some side effects to the ways we mess with nature. Either way, this little piece has something special in store that may just change how you view the phrase “what goes up, must come down”.

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Design notes from Matthew:
This is another one of those times where we thought about bringing in a pair of items that could loosely work with one another but aren’t locked to each other in a pair. We did this last month and quite enjoyed the idea of set up and knock down on two separate items. It’s something we said we wanted to try more of and so we’re back with the set up item, Upheaver. It’s interesting to try to think of something in a pair/set but not lock them to one another. It’s more just providing interesting mechanics to interact with.
For the 5E version, I’m fully aware that reverse gravity exists in the game, but it’s not my favorite implementation as there’s not a lot of great counters to it. I wanted to then instead write my own way to launch people into the air for a short period of time. Something I always think about when it comes to game design is that taking away control from the players is way less fun than letting the players take away control from the monsters. Something to consider in your mechanic design.
In the PF2E version, I’m more of a fan of how they implemented reverse gravity, even if the remaster didn’t address it. As usual, my general take on PF2E is to not reinvent the wheel when a spell exists, but merely augment how it works with the item. For example, this item makes you immune to it and also has the benefits of the grievous rune built in. Augment, don’t reinvent. That’s the best PF2E balancing advice I have.

As we said, this is the first in a pair of items that we’re doing that could work together this month. Next week we’ll be bringing you a bow themed around birds that hunt other airborne prey, so stay tuned for that!

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