abyssalbrews

High Roller

Added 2022-07-14 16:01:03 +0000 UTC

Greetings adventurers!

This one was a bit to the point. In fact it was very pointy indeed. We’ll be honest, we won this one in a card game. The guy just couldn’t walk away no matter how many losing hands he played. It’s sad to see, but now we can bring you the ultimate gamblers weapon. Something for those rogue’s that can’t help but put a little risk into their lives. It’s a perfectly functional blade from what we can tell, but for those that want to twist the knife a bit, it’s also a way to tempt fate.

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Design notes from Matthew:

This was another one of those items where a phrase inspired it more than anything else. Just hearing the phrase “High Roller” immediately makes me think of gambling and playing the odds, but also it brings into mind dice games. Since we spend so much time fiddling with dice as it is, why not try to make that into a little game of chance as part of the item.

Rogues were the first that came to mind when I started writing this. The fact that they already roll a massive pool of dice on their sneak attack damage was basically prime for messing with as a game of its own. Dice pool games aren’t uncommon at all. We see examples with games like Yahtzee. I had to take into consideration how complex I wanted to make the game. The answer in the end was “interesting, but quick to resolve.

Prediction games like Liar’s Dice typically involve a series of bluffs and calls that go along with it. While that could be fun, the reality is that this needs to be fast to resolve in combat and not interrupt the flow of the game. I figured a simple call and resolution could be handled quite quickly and not get in the way. It’s an interesting set of odds too. It basically rewards you for rolling well and calling well by allowing you to roll even better. It was interesting designing a little game within a game. I could definitely do more in the future.

Illustration notes from Fernando:

The original vision for this item was pretty different but after discussing it and doing some back and forth we felt this format fit the concept better. I don’t want to say what it was originally because we’re definitely going to use that for something else :)

I ended up making quite a few concepts for this item, it was always meant to have a 6 sided die motif and I really explored several ways on how to incorporate it into it; I also played around with different blade shapes though in the end we felt the most recognizable switchblade silhouette was the way to go.

This was the first item after a two week or so hiatus I had to take from illustrating in order to move to a different state, it felt good to be back in the saddle after such a long break!

Making items for rogues is always about altering their abilities in my opinion. Rogues are quite strong depending on how they’re built so I am always hesitant to give them more power without some risk as well. I think we were able to accomplish that with this weapon. Hopefully it finds a place in some dastardly devil’s hand.

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