abyssalbrews

Bait & Switch

Added 2024-04-04 15:00:10 +0000 UTC

Greetings adventurers!

The underbelly of this world has some seedy characters in it, but I find them to be some of the most ingenuitive individuals you could ever hope to meet. I think with scarcity comes innovation at times and certainly for those running the proper kind of scams, the right bit of magic can go a long way. Someone with a bent for such diversions seems to have pieced together this two part item to run just the right kind of scam. Or maybe they were just into kidnappings. Whatever the reason for its creativity, it now could be yours for the right price. No, I won’t be trusting any gold pouches you pull out.

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Design notes from Matthew:
This concept actually started out much different than what it became in the end. I had an idea of the name first of all and that stuck through the end. Bait & Switch was always going to be what it was called, but I had originally envisioned some form of fishing rod with a magical thread or something of that nature. You know, literally lure someone in with it. After talking to Fernando, he thought it would read better if we switched it up to a little flying creature. I have to agree that it certainly made it more unique in the end.
For D&D, the wording on this has to get quite more complex as there are a few moving parts in it. You have to specify what it takes to put it down, pick it up, so on so forth. That wording can get quite long so I ended up doing a number of iterations that were entirely focused around slimming down the word count. This is an exercise that I do a lot. I think it’s great when writing technical materials to try to get down to the most necessary pieces of information and only present those. Give it a try some time.
In Pathfinder, we have a few more options in listing frequency and things of that nature so it can end up being a less verbose item. The biggest difference in writing for Pathfinder is that you are often left scrambling to find the proper way to write something so that it meshes with the tightly bound ruleset that’s there. Thankfully Archives of Nethys exists and I just end up referencing similar spells and items to pull pieces from when I need. Don’t be afraid to draw from other works to make your own. It’s one of the best ways to learn.

One of my favorite methods of making a new item is just coming up with an interesting word or phrase and figuring out how to theme an item around that. It’s just the way that works for my brain. I know plenty of folks will just write the item then give it a fitting name after, but for me it all starts with the flavor of what we’re calling it. Challenging yourself to write from different angles is a pretty fun exercise. I recommend you try it if possible!

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