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Fleshgrinder wrote:

Goblet of Grim Panacea

I found myself liking this one, and it's one that I saw over and over again. But it was also the first of the bloody items I saw and I think the first evil one as well.

It was a cool effect and I don't see anything wrong with it mechanically. (But my rules fu is not my strong suit) It did seem like a major niche item though. This is for evil people prone to disease. I could see it being used a great deal by Chaotic Evil Hedonists though.

Which I may currently be playing one. Who would totally use this.

That was the general idea, an item that would be used by an evil or hedonistic society to ensure their rulers remain healthy, and also one that could be a corrupting influence for good rulers since they'd be tempted to just put blood in the goblet in leave it there, under guard.

I feel the item would have "come into its own" if I had the chance to show off the archetype I had been planning, a plague-based anti-paladin, but I didn't make the cut and when they added the "From the Riverlands" part it kind of shattered the idea anyway.

Goblet of Grim Panacea
Aura moderate necromancy, faint conjuration (healing); CL 9th
Slot none; Price 90,000 gp; Weight 1 lbs.
Description
This item is an obsidian goblet in the shape of an upturned, fanged skull.
The goblet is activated by piercing one's wrists on the skull's fangs and filling the goblet with blood. The blood-giver will be cured of any diseases they contracted before using the goblet. This relief will last as long as the blood remains in the goblet. If the blood is spilled from the goblet, the effect ends immediately and all diseases return to the blood-giver as though they had never been cured.
The blood-giver can become permanently cured if another living creature drinks blood from the goblet, willingly or otherwise. The drinker instantly becomes afflicted with all diseases suffered by the blood-giver, no saving throw, as though the drinker had been infected for the same length of time as the blood-giver. This effect ignores immunity to disease.
Construction
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, absorb toxicity, remove disease; Cost 45,000 gp

Be brutal.

For me, the weird part will be if I even register within the top 100 items.

After submitting my item and seeing the competition I became quite sure my item was terrible.

I did not use XP for years but recently returned to XP as a method to create friendly competition between players.

I weight XP gained based on contribution slightly, and I give bonus XP for actually RPing and such.

I find the addition of competition increases their interest level significantly.

Thank you to both of you.

I am creating a homebrew world including custom races and I have created a humanoid insect player race.

Now, an Ettercap is similar to what I have done and it is an Aberration.

But in some 3rd party stuff where humanoid insects have been included as PCs, they make them "Humanoid (Insect)" or "Humanoid (Aberration)" so that they are not immune to some spells that only work on humanoids.

I'm more interested in if any first party stuff has ever used "Humanoid (Aberrant) or (Insect)" before?

The race I have created has 2 arms, 2 legs, one head and is humanoid in every way, but is evolved from arachnids (the arms and legs are the result of fusing 8 limbs into 4)

Sounds like you need to check out Kobold Quarterly #14. This is an alternate racial trait for Tengu.

Quote:

Skybound: Some tengu view their avian appearance as a sign that their race was meant to soar the skies. Known for spending hours or days atop trees, buildings, mountains, or any other structure of any height, eyes to the sun, feeling the wind play across their feathers, these tengu long to float among the clouds. Tengu with this racial trait gain Fly as a class skill and can take ranks in Fly without having a natural fly speed and can use Fly to negate falling damage (see Fly skill) without a having a fly speed. This ability replaces low-light vision and sneaky.

edit: ah, missed this was for PFS...not sure if thats approved yet.

What's actually cute is that's pretty much how bird flight evolved.

A bunch of feathered dinosaurs hanging out in trees (the feathers were for warmth). Sometimes they'd fall, and those with better gliding feather patterns would survive, creating a natural selective pressure to ensure that those who could glide would survive more often than those who couldn't.

At least that's what our best evidence points to.

So, potentially, an entire clan of Tengu with that trait could eventually evolve flight assuming their environment favored those who could glide.

With a high level arcane and divine caster and an alchemist I bet I could come up with some way to stop fusion and be semi-scientifically accurate.

Could take me some time, but I think its doable.

Any magic item that makes things inert/in stasis could potentially work.

Or at item that makes something move faster, as the sun's fusion isn't going to go forever.

As has been mentioned, Tengu have no wings, their forelimbs evolved/were made into taloned hands, hence they'd have no reason to be good at flying.

http://screamsheet.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/kikra-blackwing.jpg?w=450

That is what a PF Tengu looks like.

Bunnies have to eat their own poo to survive.

Just consider that when making them sentient.

"Uh... what are you eating?"
"My poo. Why?"
"... WHY ARE YOU EATING YOUR POO!?"
"My fermentation chamber evolved on the wrong side of my intestines. The first run through my body packages it up and then my fermentation chamber breaks down the plant matter so my intestines can absorb it... this means I have to eat everything twice."
"So how long ago was it that your race angered the gods?"
"Jokes on you, I evolved to think my poo tastes delicious."

I actually think the addition of moral conundrums could actually assist in parenting.

What better way to get an idea of their morality than to actually test it?

Random semi-related aside:

I once had a Goat god of fire named Goatee in my campaign.

He was just a goat, on fire, with wings.

I was 11 at the time.

There are "Armor as DR" alternate rules on the PFSRD that, imho, makes armor act a lot more like real armor.

It means your less armored characters will be harder to hit due to high Dex and stuff, while your heavy armored characters will pretty much get hit every time someone swings at them, but the hit will be reduced in power.

This variant does really affect monster balance though.

A dragon now becomes extremely easy to hit, but extremely hard to actually damage with those hits.

Anything with high AC from armor now becomes a hard to kill punching bag.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/variant-rules#TOC-Armor-As-Damage-Red uction

Characters get a DC (Defense Class) that determines how hard they are to hit as the AC now now a Damage Reduction thing.

While I do not have specific suggestions for alternate racial traits, try the naturalist approach.

Look at this new species and figure out what does it NEED to survive? What traits would it have evolved? What does it eat? Maybe one variety had no choice but to eat poisonous mushrooms, and so the surviving lineage must have evolved an immunity to the poison.

What kind of eye sight would be required? Would fire dwarves still have dark vision if they're always hanging out in volcanic areas with fire lighting up the darkness? Maybe they now only have low-light vision.

Get on your best Attenborough impression going and look at the situation like a biologist.

Then use this http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/arg-creating-new-races to balance it all out.

Fleshgrinder wrote:

A ranked pair voting system is actually the best voting system ever devised.

A ranked pair voting system is the best voting system ever designed for ranking a few dozen candidates. Unfiltered ranked pair voting is thousands of man-hours of wasted time in a field with hundreds of candidates.

But since the manpower is currently free and voluntary, it works out fine.

Remember, the voting isn't determining who wins, it is only determining the best items so the real judges can look through them and choose the top 32.

This is just the masses separating chaff from wheat for them.

Have a very brutal Blutmas.

And cower is fear as Crom judges you today based on your haul.

This could lead to more people trying to "subtly" defending their item on the forums if they knew it was doing bad.

The anonymity ensures people aren't sitting around freaking out that their item is doing poorly.

And, don't forget, the judges still have final say, so what if your item had more votes than anyone but the judges still felt there were better items, how upset would you be?

Just relax and do a rough outline of your archetype, there is enough info on the Riverlands online to at least get an idea of where to start.

Dennis Baker wrote:

I think the stigma against something being a spell in a can is over-done. Some of the best items in the game are spell-in-a-can. The thing is the low hanging spell in a can fruit has been picked many times over.

I agree completely. Spells-in-a-can are easy to made and can be very decent items but they often lack that spark which would turn them into something greater than decent item.

Since the voting started I have seen a lot of decent spell-in-a-can items that were good items that could show in published modules but only a few of them were reaching beyond decent-but-unimpressive.

A good spell in a can is all about what the item is and how you activate it.

A rock that is warm and when you activate and throw it it acts like a fireball... that's boring.

A little mechanical monkey that you activate and it runs forward screaming and then explodes, that's awesome.

A ranked pair voting system is actually the best voting system ever devised.

There is a specific variation known as the Shulze Method that would make an excellent political voting system.

It is a little odd compared to what we're used to in voting systems, but it really is the best way to ensure the best items get to the top.

It allows a hierarchy to form naturally over time and does basically rank items without the need for arbitrary numbers.

Item 1 and 2 come up, you vote 1.

Item 3 and 4 come up, you vote 4.

Item 2 and 3 come up, you vote 3.

Item 1 and 4 come up, you vote 4.

You just ranked those items:

4 is best, 1 is second, 3 is third, 2 is last.

So you did pretty much score them, you just did it without actually using a scoring system.

Fleshgrinder's Totally Subjective Method of Price Consideration:

Is it so cheap that there is no way I wouldn't buy it? Then it's probably too cheap.

Is it so expensive I'd never, ever consider buying or building it? It's probably too expensive.

You gotta find that middle ground where a player goes "Ehhhhhhhhhh... maybe."

People who completely ignore the formatting drive me nuts.

Minor mistakes like not bolding stuff I can understand, they probably cut and pasted bolded material from a word processor and didn't realize it wouldn't carry over, but some people just literally ignore the template completely.

In dead ties, the formatting is where I decide who wins.

I have seen maybe 10 totally amazing items, a lot of decent though uninspired items, and a good amount of formatting mistakes, pricing mistakes, or items that just straight up ignored the advice threads.

Though some of the SIAC items had interesting enough activation methods or were made from odd items so I would give them a pass for being interesting despite being a SIAC.

Problem with that is... how do you vote when both break the rules?

There is a "vote for neither" option in the center, a little offset to the bottom.

I tend to only use it if both are terrible. If both break the rules, I'll still tend to vote for one if it is really cool or neat.

I've voted for a few SIAC because the item or activation method was neat.

Thank you.

I had not reported any yet as they were more heavily influenced than direct rip offs.

I also wonder how often it's totally accidental. I was once creating a sci-fi setting and I recreated the American Civil War in space completely by accident, it was just a war over cyborg slavery between the inner system and outer system.

I ended up making the thing so similar that my American friends (I am Canadian) didn't believe me that it was accidental.

One of the reasons to report an item is that it is content stolen from another published work.

How strict is this though?

I have seen items that are semi-similar to the idea of the Venom symbiote from Spiderman, I've seen something akin to the every flavour jelly beans from Harry Potter.

Now, obviously human creativity is mostly a remix of a remix, everything we create is influenced by everything we've seen before, so how direct do these infringements have to be?

Should I be reporting stuff that is very obviously influenced by other work or only stuff that uses actual proper, trademarked/copyright names and content?

Am I the only person that reads an item, and mentally votes it down to violating one of Shawn's rules?

I will even admit to voting for an item due to Rule 27.

Speaking as a Sean:

Might not bug Shawns and Shauns as much, but it drives us Seans up the wall.

You didn't miss it, you put Knight of the Sepulcher under Paladin archetypes.

It is listed on the PRD like this as well despite being an Antipaladin archetype.

KotS appears to be the only official Antipaladin archetype.

*crosses fingers that the 'no vomit' rule doesn't persist into the second round*

As a man raised on a steady diet of all things grim-dark, I have a similar issue more along the lines of "grim vs too much".

For instance, the "no vomit" rule feels like it was written specifically for me.

I didn't spend as much time as I should have on my Wondrous Item, the Archetype is getting more work for sure. I'm going with a theme based on my Wondrous Item for round 1 and 2, maybe 3.

So sticking with my theme for round 1 and 2 and then judging feedback may be the best course of action.

I feel those are the two strongest ideas I had for the theme anyway, so that works well.

Thank you for the advice.

Is it a good idea to tie all your submissions together with a sort of theme?

If not a "good" idea, is it a bad idea or a totally inconsequential idea?

As an example:

A wondrous item that works well for "class x"
An archetype that focuses on the skill the item enhances/deals with.
A monster that directly counters this archetype's skills, or a monster with class levels using the archetype.
An encounter map using that monster
etc.

Does this come across as lazy?

Every min-maxed character has weaknesses. Usually big glaring ones.

Just make sure to include encounters that exploit that weakness.

Usually low Will saves.

Chokers with class levels, especially monk.

Flurry of Grabs.

Yeah, only that it doesn't work that way in reality. Villains have better stuff to do than spend their action on chugging a Cure Not Enough Wounds potion, while four or more PCs are wailing on them. Players hoard consumables. Most of the time a group will not let an enemy disengage and retreat, so that he can actually heal himself up as described in his tactics.

There's an entire "villain's escape tool box" listed on the NPC page of the PFSRD.

It gives you an entire list of spells and gadgets to assist in an escape.

Again, your problems appear to be completely confined to your GMing style, not the system itself.

Me and a group of 7 or 8 hobos that I've been roaming from MMO to MMO with for 8 years will be playing the game on launch.

We'll most likely be on Tarnished Coast (US), the unofficial RP server, and we'll be the guild None So Vile (NSV)

I've just preferred kind of taking the opposite approach from E6.

E6 makes the players weaker so that the world around them seems more threatening.

I just made the world around my players more threatening.

Sure, they can scry, but lots of people can scry, so EVERYONE owns anti-scrying stuff.

The wizard can fly, but this is common, so anti-flight traps and such are installed everywhere.

He's still better than his old employers in Metallica. Mentally and musically.

But that's like comparing two s&%! sandwiches but once has corn in it.

Depends on the individual interpretation of Jihad.

Some Muslims believe it is a philosophical battle to convert people with words.

Some believe it is a physical war.

All my experience has been that the first kind are the most numerous.

Black and white morality.

I am for gay marriage FOR NOW.

In the future I would like to see marriage abolished as a legal structure.

Alkenstar is a similar idea, but where as Alkenstar does it by necessity, my orcs decided that magic in general is cowardly.

The only magic they do use is religious necromancy. They believe the greatest honour one can do for the dead is to raise them to fight in battle.

They even have their own custom vampire variant called a "gorezerker" who feeds through their skin by shedding blood in combat.

A gorezerker is rare and random as to when one is risen, but he actually can eat his way back to life and basically become a living orc again, though usually they're more cruel and twisted than the first time around.

They don't see this all as magic as much as they see it as their ancestors willingly rising from the dead. The clerics know it's magic, but they kind of hide it behind ritual.

To just reinforce the no peeing thing, it's even an actual sacrament of LeVayan Satanism to eat something akin to the cracker you eat in church, but it's been soaked in urine first.

I believe it's actually a triangle or trapezoid of turnip soaked in female urine.

It's been a long time since I read into it though, so I may be slightly off.

But yeah, pissing all over a black mass probably wouldn't even bother an evil religion.

This topic went off the rails. Its too bad.

So for land ownership how would you solve it? first come first serve? traveling nomads?. If i leave my house to go to work and you come along and live there so now its yours? I'm assuming same would go with gaming materials? pets? etc. If you wanted it back how would you take it. Waht about your children?

Copyright protects someones invention so that you cant steal it. Some of these people have spent their whole lives coming up with an idea and we shouldnt protect them? If you want to improve the idea of say the touchpad why not submit your idea directly to the company, etc. Come up with a unique better idea. Right now someone (say Apple) is at the top but thats not always going to be the case.

Your ancestors came willinging or unwilling to society. They took your vote. People agreed that there should be land ownership/laws etc. If you get enough like minds start a revolution or leave. Happens all the time.

I choose to exist in the cracks left over when the rules were formed.

The number of "double lefts" in the world is rising, the anticopywrite movement is basically going forward just because the technology is outpacing the laws.

I think we're going to naturally end up a society more to my liking simply by allowing technology to continue to expand.

Just like copyright is now impossible to enforced in the media marketplace, the rise of three dimensional printers will start to do the same in physical goods.

Eventually, and I mean probably 20 years+ from now, I'll be able to "pirate" physical objects using a 3D printer.

I'm basically living a life of "If you won't let me choose the laws, then I'm just going to break the ones I disagree with."

Oh and of course, Grod Son of Grod.

Right, forgot about Grod. He's a new invention for these forums.

Yeah, see, I agree with you on things like something I built, or earned, or was gifted to me. The ownership of these items is more concrete because they were constructed, made, or took some energy to find (like a rare rock).

Land is land, resources are resources. It's just always seemed a little unfair to me that guys were able to buy land before I was ever born, and there is no way for me to use that land unless they give me permission.

Usually, we get to agree or disagree to rules. We have options to walk away from situations where we disagree.

Land ownership was thrust upon me without a choice, and all the land on earth is owned by someone.

I'm also aggressively anti copyright.

I should be able to improve on someone else's product, and then they can feel free to improve on my improvement. That was the nature of human innovation for centuries. Human progress was iterative, now a lot of time gets wasted "reinvented the wheel" because some simple idea (like two finger zooming on an iPhone) gets patented so other companies are supposed to invent new finger motions for zooming when we have a perfectly good method already.

Something akin to copyrights must exist, but not in the form they exist now.

It just came to me.

Why give it a special name?

If it's a well written novel, it's a novel.

A well written screenplay? It's a screenplay.

A terribly written masturbation fantasy? Fanfic... and/or porn.