Unwelcome Mat

Greetings adventurers! 

I’m not so well versed in the process of soulbinding, but I have heard it’s a particularly cruel technique that technically traps a creature in something else for seeming permanence. I would normally deride such a thing as barbaric, but since I nearly lost a hand to a playful mimic a few years back, I’m perhaps more willing to make an exception for one of them. This particular little piece will make sure that any who try to enter your abode will think twice before doing so in the future. Just make sure to feed it every once in awhile, will you?

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Design notes from Matthew:

I have a lot of love for making things that are just a little off-kilter or might be present in a world where people have taken to magically altering any specific thing that they can get their hands on. Certainly getting an unwelcome knock at your door can be bothersome to the introverts out there, and more often than not it’s someone trying to sell you something. Certainly this mat might be a little overboard for your normal applications, but as a final line of defense against someone who has ignored the other signs, I can see the viability.

In the 5E version, I wanted to treat this a bit like a rug of smothering without getting into all the creature stats along with it. One thing you have to be careful about when doing that though is that you need to offer things that would otherwise be handled by the statblock. That means needing to provide it with a proper escape DC. You also need to provide it with a method of being detected once it’s laid out. All of these are little concerns when converting a monster style thing into an item.

For the PF2E version, I had to go back and forth a number of times when considering what to tag this in the end. The Snare trait could have been beneficial, but those are really only useful to those who have snare crafting and this doesn’t really require much thought or effort. Similarly, I thought about giving it the Trap trait, but that’s more reserved for hazards (along with snares) that aren’t typically player facing. In the end I decided it didn’t fit with either. Sometimes design is about examining all the options and deciding on none of them.

It was a fun process figuring out how to bring an item like this into a balanced state for both systems. I’ve said before that I feel like low rarity items are where the most interesting design is as you can’t just throw power at something to make it work. You actually have to have interesting ideas in lieu of power and I find that fascinating.

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Watch your step,

- Fernando & Matthew