Clinton Boomer's page

Rofl! Now that I've stopped laughing my butt off I'm going to prod my DM into using this.

I like to think that I am funny. I'm glad that I'm not alone on that one.

*grin*

These are all highly creative and kudos go out to all of you. I still think this is one of the better ones - it's one of my top three. Thanks muchly!

Man, they're ALL good. Hell, they're all GREAT. I'm flattered that I'm in your top three, and best of luck on the new campaign - with a little luck, the next round will give you an entire world to set the game in.

The writing needs work. And I'm not certain how often you'd get to use the elemental suit effect. At the levels at which you could afford something this, a large elemental isn't much more than a speed bump. I could very easily see this thing destroyed after one use. Is that really worth the 58000?

In defense of the item, the wearer technically rides around stomping ass inside a Huge elemental - kicks the CR up by a mere 2, of course, but gives the "elemental power-suit" a lot more kick and a crap-ton more hit points.

This item is actually my favorite from the entire list, kicking the ass of my own item by a pretty fair degree. The sheer awesomeness of my Rogue slapping on a "Mask of the Earth Guardian" and stomping (or earth-gliding) my way out of an ugly fight is making me giddy.

Heh. Sweet. Yeah, it appeals to my anime-Jr. High-super-power sensibilities, but D&D is about fun. The day that I'm too cool to think that my Huge, lightening-quick burn-happy battle-chassis is a heaping helping of rockstar awesome, I'm going to stop playing D&D.

Yeah, that's a thing. I think more 200,000 gp itesm are a great idea. Much like 9rth level spells, they outline the far end of a power level. Plus, they give characters something to yearn for.

I applaud your thinking on this one.

Thank you. Now I'm blushing.

So: while the far end of the power-spectrum probably shouldn't be TOTALLY known - do I really need Cronus's CR 58 stats, regardless of how fun they are, and isn't the defining quality of Ultimate Power the ability to break the rules? - I think that items (and spells, like you mentioned) like the Crown give PCs something to point at and say "That's what I'm going to use when I'm a God."

The question then pops up as to what kind of items we might see for other neglected high-level-play characters. The uber-necromancer or evoker has a whole host of items to play with, but what does the Grand Master of Illusions, Divinations or Abjurations dream of?

But among other things, I'll be looking at coherence of concept, how much internal sense it all makes and so on.

And how many adventure ideas the setting launches off in my head (not so big on provided hooks really, but more what hooks the setting inspires for me).

And overall, does the description include only pieces that lead to the sorts of things I'm indicating above, or does it go off on some useless tangent?

Exactly the sort of thing I'm looking for, too.

Trying to look at this as fairly as possible for all entrants.

Good idea - reading 32,000 words of countries will start to tax even the brightest and sharpest of minds, but fairness and impartiality are the goal. A little bit of "I like this" or "This will make me hate a country" is probably useful for the judges (read: us) to start talking about now.

And man, we're going to look at a LOT of countries. Honestly, how many times have you read through the entire Five Nations book in one sitting? Considering that these aren't supposed to be 32 interlocking countries around a single world, but a nearly three dozen independent realms potentially running the gamut from tribe to empire, with a host of common elements (there are only SO many critters in the SRD, after all), things could get very blurry very quickly.

Let's have some open discussion about what we, as judge, jury and executioner (and, in my case, petitioner) want to see and how we will rule.

I also didn't like the Crown of the Breaching Legion much at first, but the more I read the discussion thread on it the more I decided I liked it after all.

And hey, I liked my item too! Glad to see the Phial gettin some love.

Dude, the Phial is wicked slick - from the first time a PC gets his hands on one to the high level encounter where everyone in the party storms the City of Brass, belts slung low with dozens of them, this item is cool and fun.

Happy to see that further discussion makes the Crown a bit less . . . whatever it was that you didn't like about it. We'll see if the Crown can convince the masses - or, barring that, if people will still read about my country if my item can't sway the populace.

Rockstar, bro.

I like that it's hard to use in combat. that just makes my players start thinking in terms of complex plans and ambushes, and that's always good fun

I wholeheartly agree - my one, only, and absurdly minor quibble with this kick-ass item is the poor fit on the name/ability . . . and considering the problems that people have had with MY item's name/ability, I think that I could be well and rightly told to shut the hell up.

Very well done.

I haven't run many high level campaigns so this item would have limited use for me but it shows guts to throw a really expensive item into a contest like this.

I'm nothing if not absurdly over-confident.

*grin*

As for high-level campaigns: one of my intentions during design was to make the Crown less useful for lower-level characters, meaning that it could actually show up at 1st to 3rd level without breaking the game.

In the hands of a low-level party, it's basically a Metamagic Rod of Quicken that, while freakishly expensive, only works once a day and is limited to a single sub-school. Hell, I've played in games where literally not a single party member could have used it, because the party healer was a Favored Soul without a single Summon Monster spell and the wizard was a specialist Illusionist, Evoker or Necromancer who dropped Conjuration entirely.

And where on earth are you going to sell it?

At that point, the only "power" of the Crown is, at the DM's discretion, to shed light like a torch. By which, of course, I mean: "make the wearer a big, juicy target".

Maybe Crown of the Monkey Legion would be better?

Dammit. Looking back, I should have gone with that.

Good luck.

Thanks. I'll need it.

I immediately thought of the "evil hellboy" with the crown in the Hellboy movie. The visual is cool, and I haven't seen it anywhere but there.

Honestly, that's probably where the image came from - I'm a huge, giant comic/film fanboy, and I do really love that scene, despite the movie's many flaws.

My girlfriend informs me that there are, apparently, floating crowns wreathed in flame in some MMORPG, but as a strictly pen-and-paper guy, I had no idea.

For one of "just shy of epic" items (200,000 gpo is the cap), this is good and cool. In fact, I think there ought to be one 200k item for every character concept.

I tried to hit the limit on cash exactly, for good reason: I'll never forget my (and my party's) anger and disappointment when we rolled a natural 100 for a major wondrous item during a near-epic, almost-end of campaign treasure haul (we smoked an epic bad-guy while he was prepping a Minor Artifact, so he was unarmed at the time) and scored a "totally sweet" Mirror of Life Trapping.

Yes, it would have made sense for the villain to own one. And sure, it has some DAMN cool flavor. But it's basically a trap, at the end of the day - not much use for a party headed into a late-campaign dungeon, unless there are important NPCs jammed in there.

And there weren't. What are we gonna go, tack it to the wall during the final fight? Sell it? To who?

The DM took pity on us and let us re-roll, but it just wasn't the same.

Very cool item, both the name and the effect. One question though, which I know my players would ask: If it floats above your head instead of you actually wearing it, does it occupy the headgear item slot, or can you wear a headband of intellect or something with the crown floating above and still functioning?

Good question - I intended the Crown to occupy the headband/helmet/hat slot, which is why I defined it as a "headpiece" in the first sentence, but there's just something about a floating crown that's kick-ass. Because I used the SRD format, that distinction doesn't come across as easily as it does in the MIC format, obviously.

Still, any DM would be within his or her rights to make the item "slotless." I mean, Jesus, you're hardly going to snap the power-level of your game in two by tacking one extra little ability onto the item.

Word of Caution, though: the crown WAS intended to be used, primarily, by Outsiders, who otherwise DON'T use a whole ton of treasure - unlike, say, adventurers. Freeing up the Crown to be worn "over" a headband makes the thing more uselful to wizards, and I have a feeling that the thing is pretty damn useful to wizards, no matter what.

Actually, it might be more useful to Clerics this way.

Thank you all.

It is perhaps a tired old cliche to say this, but I was actually quite (pleasently) suprised I made into the second round (it is uncharacteristically lucky.)

I, for one, crapped myself twice when I found my name on the board, and have been drunk ever since.

I have a ton of gamer friends who really dig monkeys for some reason

I can explain this: monkeys are awesome.

but they were the first to pelt me with jokes about 'flinging poo' when I shared this item with them.

I can explain this, too: people are jerks.

Sad but true.

Awesome item, by the way!

Interesting, useful item. I think the name is weak, though.

Of course, my stupid brain immediately assumed that the Lantern allowed the user to Percieve, Selectively . . .

Not to, you know, be Perceived by Selective people. I guess. Right?

Somehow, I imagined a magical lantern that would "allow" the user to, for example, not notice something that he chose not to notice.

Which might be really useful against a Medusa, come to think of it.

Man, I need sleep. Great item, though!

Yeah, the crown is rad. And the name is so old school. It hit me right in my first edition.

Amusingly, the idea for this item actually hit me, I s@*@ you not, on Halloween - the day before the contest was announced.

Funny enough, I was banging my head against the table at the time, trying to figure out how, in the name of all that is good and holy, I could get an lone Ultraloth to bring a small army of daemons into a conflict to mop up after a Symbol of Death was thrown down.

(I'm a very visual DM, and I couldn't get this video out of my head at the time:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxP2VW-vLpM

which probably wasn't helping much)

The moment was intended to be the opening of a new campaign, where the PCs would witness a single uber-fiend take on an entire capitol city on the night of the Prince's wedding - and leave with three very important people Bound into gems. I loved the image of the Ultraloth striding through the burned out ruins, the air thick and cloying yellow with cloudkill from Mezzoloths chittering in the darkness, Canoloths flanking their dread commander, stalking blindly through the streets, Royal Guards shrieking in pain, as the wind filled with shrieks of horror.

But somehow, I wanted the Ultraloth to walk up the gates of the city alone, smile, and then unleash Gehenna.

And I kept staring at that damn '35% chance of success' line.

And, as I said, beating my head against the table.

Huh.

. . . glad it all worked out, I guess.

HOORAY!

It's certainly something my DM would enjoy - as would my Epic players who are starting to get a little bored. Excellent idea!

SWEEEET. Glad that I could help.

Oh, and make those Epic players earn it, man. Here's my advice:

1) Slap a Marilith down on the board. Remember, she's a phatty CR 17 to begin with, reppin' both Standard Items and Double Goods for her rating, so the Crown wouldn't be an inappropriate toy for her to be toting around.

2) Mariliths never, ever attempt to summon - not flavor text, but a one-shot-a-day standard action with mere 50% chance of success on 4d10 dretches, 1d4 hezrou or a nalfeshnee is a pretty piss-poor move for a gal who can reliably, every SINGLE round, chew out 5 or more hits (with nice crit ranges and an Improved Grab featuring a KILLER constrict, no less), a Blade Barrier or the wicked fun of Telekinesis.

3) ESPECIALLY for a supposed tactical super genius.

4) Crank that Crown up. A squad of four Hezrou is scary, even at a level where PCs fight Mariliths. Just for gits and shiggles, have them waste a round tossing d100s, just to see if you hit the 35% of 4d10 dretches once or twice.

5) Well, NOW that Marilith looks like a tactical commander, doesn't she? Get 'em, boys!

6) When the dust clears, the PCs have a shiny new toy . . . that they can use tomorrow. Of course, if they don’t have anyone in the party who casts summoning spells, at least often, then the damn thing might as well be very shiny, totally inefficient earmuffs.

7) Profit!

I have to agree that the name kicks a$$ but it does evoke a different idea than what is actually given by the item. Like Grimcleaver, I was expecting more of a battle oriented "breach" making device. Then again, I push the limits of D&D with the battle scenarios I run and often run mass combats and things like sieges, etc. are probably far more common than in most games being played. That could be part of my misunderstanding the name.

This is a great way to boost summoning though and is a good visual. Well done!

Man. If I wasn't feeling a might-bit munchkiny before, these last few posta have really clinched it.

The closest I've ever come to a 'siege' encounter was an epic-scale, campaign-changing, living-room-filling battle for the fate of an island city that featured my Tiefling Fighter-Monk (a naginata-swinging, jump-kicking sort of Ye Olde Darth Maul) leaping between Dragon Turtles, flinging hacked-apart Lizardfolk in his wake as he anime-style blew across the map towards the Lich Druid on the Black Dragon.

. . . good times, now that I think about it.

Wait, what were we talking about?

Hilarious. This contest is going to be fun to watch.

I should hope so - you've all worked your asses off so far, so it only seems fitting that you should get to kick back a bit and enjoy.

By the way, I'm still stunned that I moved to the next round, which is why IO've been so quiet on the boards. I swear to Christ that the only way that this honor could be MORE surreal for me would have been winning with the "Pants of the Many Monkeys".

Lord. I've loved the Paizo community (and Dragon, Dungeon, and Pathfinder, nowadays) for years, but I've always been the kid in the back of the room shooting spitwads. Hell, the only thing Dragon ever published with my name on it was a letter to the editor about how the mag was leading the way on a new paradigm of "Geek is Cool".

. . . I stand by that statement, even after watching "Fear of Girls, Part 2".

Here's to the next round!

Great name.

Thank you!

Not crazy about much else about it though, really. You don't really get a breaching legion with this item, and really it doesn't seem to fill a nice specific niche--but instead is just a demon spawning machine with the ability to swift cast a bunch of magic. Seems munchkiny, yeah.

Well, in your defense, I am a bit of a munchkin - raised on Planescape, Mountain Dew, Ninja Scroll, KMFDM and unfiltered Lucky Strikes.

As for the item itself: the niche that I was looking to fill (and whether or not I actually FILLED the damn thing is open to debate, clearly) was that of 2nd Ed. summoning - an Outsider trait that was nerfed (on purpose, but perhaps too far) for 3rd Ed.

Where are the avenging armies of Heaven, roiling down from the sky, blistering the very air with radiant arrows? Where are the swarms of twisted, dancing Slaadi, vomiting forth wave after wave of their horrid kind into the unprotected realms of the Real?

The answer, of course, is that summoning got the short end of the stick after an entire edition as the biggest threat in every DM's toolkit.

Por ejemplo: an Ultraloth (not SRD, but out of MM3 or MM4, I think), just to pull a random powerful Outsider out of the hat, has something like a 35% chance of getting 1d4 Nycoloths or 1d6 Canoloths. Once a day.

As a standard action. And then he owes them all "favors".

We're talking about a critter who can cast Symbol of Death as a standard action. A guy who can rip handfuls of Scorching Rays into foes like some people blink. He's got an 8th level spell with a multi-round casting time (Binding) 3/day, as a standard action.

Without an item like the Crown, he will never, ever use his summoning special attack in any competently run combat.

I tried to find a way to get the flavor of the old rules back without returning to the days of:

"99 blue and green Slaad at the door,
99 blue and green Slaad,
you take one down, they Gate in two more,
100 blue and green Slaad at the door."

The name of the item got me thinking more of something that a leader could use when coodinating a seige. Something with Shatter abilities, and other sorts of hulk-smashy stuff for getting past barricades and locked portals (maybe even a bit of knock and open/close just for opportunities when blasting something down is harder than just opening it) and a few radius buffs to improve the morale and defenses of the champion units composing said "breaching legion". I dunno'--that sort of thing.

That's also a really, really cool idea for an item.

Never actually seen a siege run in D&D - might be awesome.

Matthew Morris wrote:

My only concern is bogging down the table in combat time. When it takes a half hour for the wizard's turn, it gets boring for everyone else.

That is true if you started with the villain casting the first summon spells. You could always have the party encounter start at the half way point of some of spells effect.

Good call, actually - I hate being the Rogue who has a nearly real-time combat round (Five foot step to close on flank. Move action to Bluff. Failed. Roll to hit. Missed. Done.) and then having to sit through sixteen minutes of the Party Wizard checking charts, rolling dice and moving pieces around a table.

It always makes me want to smoke intensely, and I'm sorta-kinda-trying to quit.

Anyway: my hope was, as a designer, that there would be potentially HUNDREDS of ways to get around the insane effects of the Crown, and a lot of neat ways to use it as a DM.

The insane effects being, of course, filling the entire table with hordes of tiny demons or devils. I love my pre-painted plastic mins.

Point its: Considering that the Crown can only activate once a day, a single Dispel or Greater Dispel at the right time neuters the entire item down to garish headwear - assuming that you're toe-to-toe with a caster, rather than a Solar.

Similarly, every one of the little buggers, from the Vrocks to the Babau to the Manes (or whatever), kicks back to the Abyss (or wherever) after a mere ten rounds - if you're a fleet-of-foot party, bumping into a Balor with a flaming crown should be a cue to "fight another day" in the first place, but the problem of the crown's effects can literally be 'waited out'.

In the end, the Crown was meant to both:

1) serve as an answer to the question "why would this Outsider bother to waste a standard action to (potentially) summon a bunch of Sissy-Mary underlings, when EVERY other option on the plate is both cooler and more efficient?"

and

2) give a DM something that high CR beings (all fiends, all celestials, all dragons, all liches, all titans, many others) would want, would kill for, and would pay good cash for, but that the low-level PC really has almost no use for - the One Ring effect.

Definitely at the top for evocative names. Regardless of fluff or crunch, I might have kept it based solely on the name.

Thanks! The name was definitely the hardest single part to come up with & then set in stone, so I'm glad that it "clicks" for every body.

I mean, the original name was "Crown of the Conjurer King", which, as my girlfriend just pointed out, isn't really a very good name.

Or, probably, the sort of thing that I really want to share, for that matter. Also, "conjurers" aren't the only ones who summon, you know?

A few cigarette-powered brain-storming sessions later, and . . . BLAMMO! Crown of the Breaching Legion!

. . . because who doesn't want a breaching legion on their side?

Boomer, how can you second that? It includes none of your three movie ingredients--booze, naked women and D&D.

Hey, man: I lack talent, not taste.

Casablanca, greatest movie of all time

Seconded.

Oh god. The idea of going back through all of the 850+ just seems too much at this point. I dont know. I cant commit to it. You have no idea how much work that was...

Considering how jaw-droppingly easy my job is, you’re probably right.

“I opened your bottle of Bud, old man. Now gimmie three dollars, which I will spend on making crappy movies about sex, drinking and Dungeons & Dragons. By the way, is your daughter interested in juggling her boobs online?”

Boom, I still think your monkey pants deserve an honorable mention... I loved them! Hopefully your submitted item makes the cut.

Awww. Now I am blushing.

Also: If my item makes the cut, I will crap myself twice and die. Then you WILL need those extra, back-up Honorary Mention writers.

Out of curiosity, will you have Special Mention Awards, for things like:
- “Longest Entry (disqualified)”
- “Funniest Entry, Not Submitted" (that would be me, one hopes)
or
- “Heartbreaker Award for Best Entry Totally Missing a Price Tag” ?

That would be fun, I think.

Maps: There will not be any maps.

Perfect. Thank you for the prompt clarification.

We will not be providing a blank one for you to fill in (though that is kind of a neat idea and I wish I had thought of that).

Same here. I didn't think of it either, I mean.

But that was a great question and I am happy to clarify it.

Awww. You’re going to make me blush.

But seriously, thanks again to all of the fine folks at Paizo (and beyond). Win or lose, this has been wonderful.

*A sample format will be provided, but it is not mandatory that you use it if you feel a better format will show off your creation to better advantage.

. . . and THAT answers all of my other questions. Perfect.

Lastly, do we have to map out the country, or just describe it?

Thanks :)

Good call. One of the major issues to be addressed, I think, is the question of maps: will the contest (as one of the other folks on the board earlier suggested) be a fill-in-the-blank competition, with a generic black and white map featuring a small number of icons (sans legend, obviously), or will we have to do without visual representation?

Maybe we could get a couple of maps? Six, perhaps?

I, for one, would need at least SOME level of imagery to “get” a country in a way I don’t need, necessarily, for an item or even a villain.

Just my $0.02, of course.

I dont know. I've never seen it. I'm not sure why I am so worried. He's on vacation right now. He couldnt do anything for atleast another day. And I'm 6'5" anyway... But Lisa has ninjas. I guess I am more worried about those.

I feel you, man. I always want to post videos, like, the exact second that they get filmed.

Resist the urge. Seriously. In the end, we will still love and respect you, no matter what you do. But death by Lisa’s ninjas is a terrible way to go.

We’ll all gladly wait for Wednesday.

Err . . . semi-gladly.

No . . . “Anxiously”. That’s the word I’m looking for.

My entry is cheap. I figure that cheap equals "used a lot" while very, very expensive equals "not used at all".

And "not used at all" equals "200 words that could have been put to good use" in my opinion.

Hmm. You know, I've been thinking about this observation a LOT over the past week or so, probably more than is ENTIRELY healthy, but I think that I've come to a conclusion. Let me see if I can get it on paper:

I most wholeheartedly agree, up to a point. To me, however, the major exceptions to that hard-and-fast train of thought outweighed the drawbacks, and I had many reasons for deciding on my high priced item.

Let's be clear: no one opinion on this topic is really the ONLY opinion (unless the Judges feel like weighing in, in which case I'll gladly learn at the feet of the masters), but I contend that there are some VERY rarely-seen, QUITE rarely-used pocket-change Wondrous Items, and a few several-tens-of-thousands-in-gold Uber-Items that show up (at least in my experience) with semi-consistency, even if only as MacGuffin-esque set-pieces.

Por Ejemplo: One shot of Elixir of Love is both fluff-ful and cost effective, priced in a range where any 2nd-level scoundrel could get his grubby, commoner mitts on one (and with a pretty formidable save DC, now that I look at it), yet I have never, EVER seen one used in play. Ever. Same with most of the Feather Tokens, sadly.

Yet the nut-rupturing, jaw-dropping prices on the Helm of Brilliance, the Cubic Gate or, god help me, the Iron Flask have never kept them out of play for any of MY many campaigns, played or run. Hell, the appearance of THAT level of power tends to kick PC-fear and paranoia into over-drive, because, as the Bad Boys put it, "The s~~! just got real."

Now, I'll never, ever poo-poo the greatness that is Hand of the Mage over the waste of cash that is the Mirror of Life Trapping. And okay, sure: my formative gaming years were a mess of PlaneScape, Mountain Dew, Ninja Scroll, FF7 and Reel Big Fish, so maybe I'm a bit of a munchkin. Yes, I like ninjas, demons, boobs, undead and explosions, in that order. And my OTHER hobby is making silly movies about sex and D&D, so maybe I'm not the best guy to ask about this stuff.

Still, I think that there's plenty of room for awesome, earth-shattering, cost-prohibitive items of Truly Wondrous Power, that shake the pillars of heaven and spatter poisoned arrows from the sky like darkening rain.

And I felt like throwing my 200 words towards that.

thatboomerkid wrote:

I, however, WILL do a bikini challenge.

Win OR lose.

Promise.

Belts don't count. ;)

Damn it. I’m out.

Ragwaine wrote:

Clark Peterson wrote:

... failing to provide any creation/costing info.

Just to be clear here, you mean the line with the price, spells etc... right? NOT any kind of information about how you came up with your price.

I didn't have any words left to show the logic behind my choice of price.

That's correct. Some people didn't include a price, spells, feat, etc line. Failure to include that is an auto-reject.

It sounds crazy, but one of my players did exactly that: he came up with a brilliant item, at least by my standards, and then he forgot to put on a price tag.

Oi. Broke my frigging heart.

If I get voted onto the Island i refuse to do a bikini challenge, my hairy legs just would scare people as much as my manly gut would frighten the children that may be watching at home.

I can also say that I have no intention of petitioning for world peace, what kind of game would it be if all the various races got along chipper and just wanted tea and biscuits instead of a good fight!

If I get votes I promise to remember the little people... IE: the players that have inspired me to run games. ;)

Fair enough. You have my vote.

I, however, WILL do a bikini challenge.

Win OR lose.

Promise.

-- the Boom,
1/3 of the CreativeJuices Team,
Writer and Producer,
Player of Hennet, Blackrazor and Pazuzu

Yes, much thanks to Lisa, the Paizo crew and the judges ... these sort of things really get the creative juices flowing!

Well, it got ME going. Or, uh . . . "flowing".

*grin*

- the Boom,
1/3 of the CreativeJuices Team,
Writer and Producer,
Player of Hennet, Blackrazor and Pazuzu

Clark Peterson wrote:

The fact that I keep thinking about this item tells me that it is a good one.

Either that, or you're obsessed with monkeys. ;)

In his defense, I think we’re ALL a little obsessed with monkeys. They’re so damn cute!

And yes, I submitted a real entry. And I’m VERY flattered that my silly pants have been so well received.

Glad they sparked some love and/or discussion.

200,000 gp., here.

Same as the single most expensive item in the DMG, but hopefully a hell of a lot more popular.

Technically, these are Uncouth Minor Artifacts, but whatev.

Spheres of the Meta-Game

These strange, glowing gem-like objects are crafted from pure Meta and contain the power of raw Game. Rare, and thankfully becoming rarer every day, these tiny spheres, when crushed, enact a powerful magic that temporarily "scribbles over" the laws of reality, changing the basic nature of the entire multiverse and its mechanics.

Crushing one of the spheres is a full-round action that provokes attacks of opportunity. The effects of the sphere last until the end of the current gaming session.

If necassary, the DM can call game early on account of shenanigans.

There are many types of Spheres of the Meta-Game. The most common effects are listed below.

Sphere of the Previous Edition: for the rest of tonight's session, the rules of spells such as Haste and Polymorph are "re-broken" back to their previous rulings. Feats such as Power Attack are similarly "nerfed".

Sphere of the Missing PHB: for the rest of tonight's session, no one may check the PHB for any reason. Any rules not clearly written down on a character sheet are subject to group vote. The DM recieves a number of votes equal to the number of players, minus one.

Sphere of the Dead Cheater: for the rest of tonight's session, everyone must roll their dice in front of the entire group, on a hard and well-lit surface, at the exact time of the DM's call.

Sphere of the Shadow-Run: for the rest of tonight's session, spell-casters do not "lose" spells when cast. Each caster must, after casting, succeed at a Will save, DC: 10 + spell level + caster level, or suffer non-lethal damage equal to 1d6 per spell level. In addition, the duration of all spells with a standard duration longer than intantaneous now have the duration: Concentration (max of 1 hr./level). Casters may cast another spell while maintaining concentration by succeeding at a Concentration check at difficulty 15 + spell level + number of spells currently active. Failure of a concentration check deals non-lethal damage equal to 1d6 per spell level.

Sphere of the Gritty Realism: for the rest of tonight's session, all creatures have hit points equal to their Constitution score times two.

Sphere of the Quote-Free Game: for the rest of tonight's session, anyone caught quoting from ANY non-game source, including but not limited to Monty Python, the PSAs, Tiny Toons, or Spider-Man, gains one negative level. These negative levels stack, and cannot be removed until the next session.

Sphere of the Play-Tester: each player choses one small rule change that will remain in play for the duration of tonight's session. Examples of small rules changes include, but are not limited to, allowing Power Attack with light weapons, extending the "disabled and dying" window from -10 to -(10+con. modifier), eliminating any house rule, bringing in a rule from any other game, and halving or doubling the penalty from any normal rule. The DM may, at his option, veto any ONE of these rules.

Other known Spheres include the Sphere of the Basic Red Box, Sphere of the Silly Voices, Sphere of the Musical Chairs, and Sphere of the Settling it Like Men, Outside.

Wow! People, including smart, awesome people, (not just my goofy idiot friends), liked my magical Monkey Pants!

And to think that I was worried that my monkey obsession was somehow . . . unhealthy.

/just likes the idea of screaming “Monkeys!” during a fight. If some monkeys actually show up, so much the better.

The only annoying part about these occasional “We still want entries!” pep-talks, near identical as they are to the pep-talks that I’m giving to all of my players – because I want to, if beaten, know that I was beaten by the best, and I'd take it as rather personal vindication and validation if someone that I knew, ran, played with, gamed under, coached, edited or had shaken hands with won this thing, even if I'm left in smoking ruin – is that I keep having visions of our judges glancing at my entry, rolling their eyes, and tossing it in the ‘burn pile’.

Silly fear, I know. And, obviously, all the best to the winners – better writers, better game for all of us players and DMs.

But . . . oi. Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.

Actually, a city of ninjas would , well, actually work.

Unlike viking warriors or visigoth raiders, the whole idea behind ninjas are that they're secret. So the local miller would be a ninja, pretending day after day to be a miller, actually milling grain as part of his cover. And the wainwright would be a ninja, making wheels as part of his disguise.

Everybody would secretly be a ninja, and none of them would know that the others are ninjas, too. Kind of like "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" on a really large level.

Oh my God, that's awesome. Thank you.

Enh. I'll probably just take one of the countries from my homebrew setting, change the names to protect my IP, and slap the info into the template that want us to use.

Same here. But I'm changing the name to:

"Mystic Lair of the Super-Death-Ninja: Country-Edition!"

Sweet, huh?

Gimmie, gimmie, gimmie – I would wager that we’re pretty much ALL interested in that sort of dialogue, especially after being part of this competition. Win or lose, the whole challenge has really sparked some interest in under-the-hood design-theory, from a fluff perspective as well as the nuts and bolts of the game.

Right, guys?

Pants of the Many Monkeys

This simple pair of khaki adventuring pants contains, hidden in its many goody-sized pockets, monkeys. Many, many monkeys.

Each day, upon command ("Monkeys!") the pants produce 3d12 monkeys (see page 267, MM). These monkeys are CRAZY monkeys, however, and no amount of training, yelling or stomping of feet will get these monkeys to stop it with their crazy monkey shenanigans. The monkeys are possessed both a limited magical 'hive-mind' and an overwhelming, capricious desire to perform acts of mischief and tomfoolery.

The monkeys will probably eat all the rations and poop in the bedrolls. They will pants the cleric and 'honk' the elf's boobs. Also, they like to trip people, drink ale, and steal hats. The monkeys speak French.

Moderate Conjuration; CL 5th; Craft Wondrous Item, Summon Nature's Ally III, Prestidigitation; Price 8,000 gp., 2 lbs.

Oi! Away and sent she is, swift to the inboxes of the fine Paizo crew, beloved be our remembrance of the Dragon!

I feel like I've just sent my kid of to his first day of school, certain in my heart of hearts that he'll be beaten up, nose badly bloodied & lunch money snatched, before he even makes it to his desk.

Sigh. His mother dresses him funny, after all.

But regarding the deep soul-searching that accompanied the brainstorming process, and the culling of submission candidates from the Many to the Few to the Only, and the polishing of that Only into the finest mere ten-score of words that I could manage:

Good times. I second the emotion that no matter the outcome, should I find myself on the endless roll of the dead and discarded or not, I now have an exciting item to set into the hands of my PCs and NPCs alike.

I applaud the good people of Paizo for making the time to do a contest of this scope and style. We're a mere week into the contest, and I'm already having the best time ever. Here's hoping that the judges are having as good a time reading the entries as I had writing mine up; and if I'm beaten, I hope only that it's by the very best of the best of the best.

Crown of the Breaching Legion

This ornate silver and cold iron headpiece floats silently above its bearer's head, roiling with an unearthly flame. Once per day, the wearer of the crown may cast or activate a summoning spell, spell-like ability or special attack as a swift action. The chosen spell or effect is also maximized, as per the feat Maximize Spell, assuming that there are a variable number of creatures who may arrive. In addition, while wearing the crown, outsiders who summon members of their own kind do not risk the normal percentage chance for failure, nor are they ‘beholden’ to those they summon, at least while they still bear the crown.
Creatures so summoned by the crown’s wearer are not considered ‘summoned’ for purposes of their own summoning special abilities; thus, a summon monster VI, empowered by the crown, could, for example, yield to the caster three bearded devils, who might then attempt to summon 2d10 lemures apiece at regular chance of success. All summoned beings, primary or secondary, depart at the end of the normal spell effect or after one minute, whichever is sooner.

Strong Conjuration; CL 20th; Craft Wondrous Item, gate, summon monster IX; Price 200,000 gp.

Where the hell were these girls when I was gaming? :(

. . .
but honestly I would kill to have a hottie like darlene at my games O_O rawr! hmm.... i do have a philipino hot chick friend....

Well, in your defense, most of the ladies in the vids don't actually PLAY the game - we live in a college town, and Wes is friends with a lot of women in the theatre department, so we've got a near-never-ending supply of lovely young gamer-friendly people who enjoy delivering badly-written dick-jokes on camera.

For example, the aforementioned Darlene.

Still, there ARE plenty of girls who game, if you know where to look, including some damn cute ones. For a few weeks, the Wednesday night 'Shackled City' game that I play in was dominated by women - four female players, three guy players and the male DM - which was super-fun. Sure, all but one of the girls at the table was dating or married to one of the male players or the DM, and the one who WASN'T dating someone at the table was dating a gamer in another town, but that just proves that some women love the gaming and LOVE the gamers.

I always try to point out to people that the only thing stopping you from knowing more girls who game is the antiquainted notion that women "don't game" or "can't game" or "wouldn't want to game" - given half a chance and a positive introduction, a good percentage of women really enjoy the D&D experience. Hell, my friend Kari runs a Sunday-night Forgotten Realms game for an all-male party, including her boyfriend, and we all enjoy the hell out of it.

My advice, worth about what you paid for it, is to find out if your female friend plays any games like 'Sims' - if so, she might actually be interested in D&D and not know it yet.

Best of luck.

- the Boom,
1/3 of the CreativeJuices Team,
Writer and Producer,
Player of Hennet, Blackrazor and Pazuzu

Yeah, you've created a new series of quotes for gaming tables.

If I've done nothing else of any real value with my life, I'm at least proud of that.

My people (the nerds) are a much-maligned and under-represented collective of brilliant scientist-poet-philosopher-kings, and the idea that I've improved the day-to-day existance of someone, especially at the gaming table, fills my dark heart with glee.

At the end of the day, people like Phil Foglio and Aaron Williams are the reason that I love my D&D so very much - no offense meant to the Monte Cooks & Jonathan Tweets of the world, of course - and I'd like to (to some small degree) benefit the world of gaming-related humor the way that they have.

Or at least raise the bar past "one more version of the Dead Alewives Sketch".

I've taught my 2-year old now to say "Sneak Attack!" as she pummels my players with a plastic pretend sword. It's too cute!

*grin* I could not possibly be more charmed by that.

One of my players went to school with the blonde-haired girl in the 2nd (or 3rd?) one that I referred to about caressing her melons and I guess she told him that you all were doing this as a university project (if I'm remembering right). Is that right?

See, now I'm trying to guess which breast-grabbing blonde girl you're referring to. Man, I love my hobby.

While we do use whatever college students and professors we can trick into helping us, it's just a labor of love. That is, none of us have recieved a damn thing for these films - college credit, money or otherwise.

But if my mom asks: yes, this is for school.

Too funny, man. But the guy playing Hennet in the later ones is just too creepy. I get the feeling there isn't any role-playing with that dude.

*grin*

As both the writer/producer of the series and the actor who portrays Hennet, I can assure you that it is, indeed, all acting - I'm a role-player from about 1993 on, a big fan of playing against type, and I'm flattered that I come across as genuinely disturbed.

Also, perhaps disturbed that I'm genuinely flattered.

Regardless, I'm glad that such fine people as yourselves dig on my silly videos - and thank you for sharing the love. Without fans like yourselves, there would be no PSAs, and I sure do enjoy making them.

- the Boom,
1/3 of the CreativeJuices Team,
Writer and Producer,
Player of Hennet, Blackrazor and Pazuzu