Wild Homebrew Jam Winner: Pacci’s Flipbook

Due to a messaging snafu, I ended up totally skipping over the article celebrating idkwhatever’s winning Homebrew Jam contest entry! So let’s take a moment to celebrate it now – and as befits a topsy-turvy mixup, their “Developer’s Choice”-award-winning entry is all about playing around with the ideas and ideals of that ever-enjoyable Spell, Pacci’s Flip!

We selected these spells for our Developer’s Choice award for two big reasons: they’re fun, they’re well-designed, and they’re focused. idk was able to really explore the design space that the original Pacci’s Flip spell provided, and the spells are more than just funny jokes – they’re potent, useful additions to any mage’s arsenal, while also not overshadowing existing Spells and Techniques.

This unit came from two thoughts that come very naturally to those inclined to DMing, I feel: the urge to overthink things and to make serious moments out of dumb jokes. After days of considering how to make trains as I originally planned and getting discouraged, a conversation over a potential future April Fools article grew into this – what if there was an expansion, and thus additional uses, to the Pacci’s Flip spell? Work at referencing the canon books to ensure balance, and bouncing plenty of ideas off of friends, and here we have the humble little trio of spells before you.

I always love creative use of abilities, and it’s one of my favourite parts of tabletop gaming in general. I’ve mentioned several times of when I managed to use Calm Emotions as a finishing blow on an enemy berserker in Pathfinder, or a ton of great mileage out of Prestidigitation. Introducing and encouraging spells with creative uses feels right to me, and this felt like a fantastic place to start.

In terms of specific inspirations, I have to admit that the moves are lifted a fair bit from a webcomic where a character later gains a very similar ability to flip objects (vagueness entirely intentional to avoid spoilers). It gets a similar treatment as a useless power as I allude to in the fluff, and it becomes far more useful once she learns to use it creatively. Add in the “hole-to-trampoline” from Minish Cap that was absent from the official version, and we have our power set.

Hopefully this can introduce some interesting options into your games, and have fun with a good cathartic flip-out~

If you’d like to flip the script and add idkwhatever’s parcel of Pacci procurements to your game, you can check them out here!