artofcheatery's page

Parliamagne wrote:

In my campaign, credsticks have no intrinsic value. They are bits of plastic and silicon worth nothing. The only thing that gives them value is that they are an encrypted reference to transaction held in escrow at the central bank.

Doesn't that make the whole "criminal and underground enterprises use credsticks for anonymous transactions" kind of impossible? Wouldn't you then have to make some sort of physical currency for those transactions?

They state there are several type of credsticks, the most common ones are anonymous and can be handed to someone without issue, while you can get ones personally encrypted to you and you can transfer money from credstick to credstick. More security though means that the banks have a much better idea about what you're using your money for.

They also reference a credstick with an unlimited line of credit and that there is some non-credit money on most planets. Pact Worlds have to have Credits as the official currency, but there are others.

I'm okay with them. The stationwear is intended for space stations where there is a chance that the area you are in will suddenly decompress. The more advanced stationwear is simply better protection for more important people or for adventurers who want weird clothing.

Normal people have normal clothing. Have a gas attack in planetside and the civilians will be harmed. Have a pleasure cruise crash on an asteroid and the PCs can last for three weeks, but most of the civilians and probably the crew have a couple of days.

There are ways to make the environment an obstacle, you just have to work at it, like in Pathfinder.

The Ace Pilot is still an Ace Pilot even though he refuses to touch the controls. The Bounty Hunter still retains that skill set. The Outlaw still approaches problems like a criminal.

Starfinder is less into the 'you dramatically change' concept. Theme in particular is something internal that the character doesn't even really chose for themselves. There is a way to change it, but it's basically erasing one's memory and rewriting it to better suit them.

So with the 'We're just anthomorphicalized apes' comment: you know how we don't look anything like apes? Like red panda look more like great pandas than we look like apes. People have even made anthropomorphic ape races.

The problem is they always make them look like their base race but on two legs. Rats would probably have a smaller head to body ratio as they get larger and then the question is whether they'd retain their heavy fur. Humans lost their hair for a few possible reasons, like bugs and fleas would nest in it and it was combustible once fire was discovered. Would rats wearing clothing need fur? Would they shave it off? Would they go naked.

These are the important questions not asked with most anthropomorphic races.

He could preemptively disable the terminal they used to insert the crystal into the first time. Given how steep the penalties are, he'd be crazy not to.

I don't think he'd risk it. The memory facet interface deeply connects to the system to alter how the AI in control functions (which is how the inhibitor facet works so well). Damaging that console could permanently damage the excavator and even if he could repair it, it would be another delay to his plans. It's safer to avoid connecting until he deals with the PCs.

So I'm here for the 'Oh god, my PCs did that' segment.

They outright murdered Sanvil. They lured him down into the ship (it was just about the point he was going to sneak down) had him help them explore a bit, then literally stabbed him in the back. He never saw it coming. then they posed some vegepygmy around him to make it look like they did it.

Congratulations everyone, welcome to the club!

I swear this year I'll pay attention to the entire contest and vote in every round (per usual, I'm suddenly getting very busy. It's like there's is some unseen force preventing me from paying attention to RPGSS)

Well, the cull didn't encourage me to vote anymore, but I was already pretty dead from before. I'm just trying to get myself to pay attention to the entire contest this year (which I haven't been able to for the last two years).

Dude, I was flat out called on the carpet and publicly flayed for suggesting the thread was getting nasty. The whole "self-moderation" is apparently only something part of the forum is aware of. There are too many posts and Paizo simply cannot read them all. This is what happened last two years and sadly I imagine it will happen again next year. I will continue to flag bad posts and speak up, but I would hope that we would back one another up when it gets ugly.

Maybe it is best to just keep your snark private among your closest friends and be done with talking about stuff here.

Moderation needs to be impartial. You might have looked at it as 'Hey guys calm down' but it was coming off as more 'Everyone shut up and stop being mean [to me? to people?]' It's hard to tell as you were part of the ongoing conversation.

I'm a moderator on another website and probably overstepped myself, but moderator alarms were ringing in my head - your posts were warning signs of someone pissed off for some reason and you were venting at everyone. Even when moderating, we look at it as a 'polite note' to remind people of the rules, not rant at the entire thread about how they are being 'nasty'. If someone is being 'nasty' you need to tell them in private, not make a spectacle. How often do you tell off strangers in public?

And either way, You shouldn't moderate* a conversation you're part of, because it means you're elevating yourself above the other participants. (yes, I kind of broke that rule). Self-moderation is where you calm things down before they become too heated and if they do anyway, you bring in the actual moderators to determine if any rules have been broken. As GM_Solspiral suggested, flagging posts, I don't know how the Paizo system works but sometimes enough flags suppresses the comment.

I still state the worst of the borderline rule breaking post(s) were the scavenger hunts. And the rant thread was no where near as bad as some of the other threads throughout the forum.
-Xander

Looking for crappy spells and no one has mentioned skinsend?
I honestly have an aneurysm just reading it.

Your skin leaps off your body and does stuff with half your hitpoints while you are helpless. Anyone can come and stab you and you are dead. If someone prevents your flimsy wizard skin from returning while it's out on the town, you wake up flayed (at 0 hp and unable to heal) and have to get a regeneration or heal spell to fix it.

If it gets destroyed, you're dead!

There are like two pros for this spell, and endless cons.

Alexander Bennett wrote:

I'm thinking they just saw the unformatted and ditched all of those.

I still have seen some incorrectly formatted items. It is unlikely any criteria other than voter scores have been used. Paizo, among everything else they do right, is very good about listening to the fan-base.

There's unformatted and incorrectly formatted. Those are completely different countries. You missed an italics is a lot different than you missed all the formatting and used dashes to make a line.

One of my personal favorite items did not survive the cull, had a lot of formatting mistakes, and was utterly wonderful.

As much as people liked some of the unformatted ones and thought they were superstar, in previous years the judges have declared that a deal breaker. I mean, I think some previous years they didn't even get read if they had a fraction of the formatting issues I saw.

One, I'm going to point out that the settlement creation rules actually go with the limited magic items idea, though it's poorly phrased and hard to do. If you use the settlement rules the town has every item below a certain value (I'd assume potions/scrolls and maybe wondrous) and then a handful of more powerful items (which are intended to be randomly generated - but there is no easy way to do this).

My last long term game, my GM tried to declare it 'low magic'. THere were no restrictions on us, we could be casters, but as we gained levels, we'd suddenly be in charge of all arcane casters in the world (ie there are only 20 12th level casters in the world and they are in charge).

We were able to buy magic everywhere, use it constantly, found tons of it in treasure, even traveled into the future where magic 'didn't exist' but really meant that using any magic was 10x more powerful (I might have lit up a building like a Christmas tree with a single light spell). The only thing it really meant was we rarely encountered enemy spellcasters, which as we gained levels and experience the melee and monsters were not able to challenge us and particularly couldn't counter our casters, one of whom was a synthesist summoner (and the most effective way to get rid of him was dispel magic or dismissal).

Just throwing that out as a really bad example of 'low magic'

Damn, my favorite joke items, like the corny one, got culled.

Aroden is dead.

I thought my item was good, but I'll admit, it didn't have enough flair. If it hadn't been mine, it would have gotten downvoted the first time I saw it at least (every other time it was paired with something sucky)

I'm thinking they just saw the unformatted and ditched all of those.

See, 'pull' doesn't have the same meaning or intention. You pull your favorites for review, you cull (or cut - cut would be a more singular way of looking at it) those that are not meeting the criteria.

Most of my "how are you still here?"s have been for items I don't like, but I'm sure some people do.

So we've gotten rid of the formatting fails at least.

Saw an item I'd seen before, but didn't care for. Actually looked at the price this time and I am not comfortable with anyone getting those powers for that cheap. So instead I voted for the other item, that I not interested in at to any greater degree.

Wait, there are MULTIPLE Mjölnirs? Everything I know is a lie.

I'm not even Marathon and I'm relaxing until the cull. Depending on the day, my brain just melts reading some of the bad entries.

Sorry, the first part of superstar competition is writing a magic item, not a flavor-establishing scene.

I know the entry you're talking about. I think they were theming it for a website/company.

#84 Wonder why I can tab away from voting and have the clock still tick down on my desktop but my tablet seems intent on making me wait impatiently.

Tablets don't keep the page open in the background, they refresh the page when you return to it. When it refreshes the page to a pair you've already been assigned it gives you twenty seconds instead of a minute.

Had some issues with friends attempting to use IRC through a tablet.

A Ringbearer, carries the ring, but does not wear it.

I didn't vote for you a minute ago joke item, and unless you get paired with a complete fail item you aren't getting any votes at all!

It's when you look at the item and realize that it just really shouldn't be a [sword] it's intended to be cloak. It has standard cloak abilities, gives standard cloak buffs, but the designer is claiming it's a [sword] and you think "if you just called it a [armor], I might not have noticed"

Or worse, when they do make it an [armor] but it billows dramatically in the wind like a cloak and claims the free cloak that comes with it is essential to it's powers.

Heh heh heh. I would totally buy that item and risk terrible death to use it just for the reaction.

Not the best written item (and too expensive for a disposable), but I'm still voting for you cause it's an intriguing concept.

or a two bladed sword or dire flail… Unless those aren't weapons in PF, or are, but are actually not staves but weapons. Or...

Oh, they're legal, though I cannot understand how someone would be able to use a dire flail without dying a terrible bloody death while their enemy laughs.

Huh. My old GM had a massively large mat and we used it constantly. If only so when we moved out of the room he wouldn't have to wipe down the previous room.

I'd have liked to have seen a better variety in the weapons department. They should attuned to what the item does, not just to the slot.

But I totally understand the dagger. It's a light simple weapon that literally anyone can use.

Mjölnir is a warhammer. Make it a warhammer.

Moik wrote:

quibblemuch wrote:

pareidolia

Is it just me or did your post teleport? Forum wizardry skills.

Teleport would be overkill. It was dimension door. Never bring more spell than you need...

Okay, so it wasn't just me.

Hm, I think this is one someone mentioned should be a rod.

Mamaursula - you are also on a stage and you're not necessarily snipping at me. I'm talking more about James' comment and your response, which felt like you wrote and posted without realizing it was intended to be lighthearted (something I'd forgive more in person than online, but either way is a mood killer).

You now have a couple comments here complaining to the entire thread about how we're being inappropriate and insulting which is borderline abusive itself.

Leave the moderating to the moderators.

If you see something inappropriate, flag the post so it can be reviewed. I've yet to see someone from Paizo coming in here to warn us away or telling us we're getting too close to the line.

I did not expect that from the item's name. That's an interesting idea.

It is getting super ugly in here. Voter fatigue is setting in and some of you need a break in the worst possible way. We're not solving world hunger or creating cold fusion here, this is a game and you're electing to play it. If you aren't having fun playing this game, please walk away, no one will know if you take the night off or the rest of the voting for the Top 32.

Neil Spicer even warned you, the words you type up and post here are seen by a lot of people, people that will pay you money to design gaming stuff. Do you really want prospective publishers seeing you act like this?

I know it's frustrating - how dare they not have formatted their item using the template; that is someone else's intellectual property; or the audacity of 15 people to have the same design idea, the very nerve of them! Well, no one is making you stay here to vote. This isn't your job. If you aren't enjoying yourself, please take a moment to figure out what the "you" problem is here and decide how to fix it.

You are all awesome people who bring great things to the conversation, please stop bringing the pointed vitriol and nearly rule breaking commentary about specific items to the boards. You can type whatever you like into the little blue box, but no one said you had to post it. Self censorship is a crucial skill.

Most of the negative comments ended awhile ago, most of the comments have gone to "These items again?" or "I swore I wouldn't vote for that, but now I have no choice!"

Yes, someone coming in and not knowing this is the venting thread might be insulted, but if they can't take criticism this isn't the contest for them (even if it's tongue-in-cheek criticism since we can't do anything more complex without mentioning the item).

Considering how you're snipping at other posters for trying to make light of the situation, maybe you're the one who need to take a step away from the thread.

Lots of nasty comments in this thread. As far as I know there was no grand collusion to create similarly themed items.

You missed the meeting?

The 'nasty comments' come from us seeing [x] items that do basically the same thing and thinking "I've never considered that as a viable answer to any problem in game. Why did [x] people think it would make for a Superstar item?"

And then there are the things that people are specifically told not to do... like filigree, intellectual property violations, 'prized by', 'created by', complete ignorance of the template, etc.

Two angelic armors and the one I liked better had too many technical mistakes.

How often would these marriage items come up in game?

Two "tether" items against each other.

+1 armor that after the special abilities cost enough for me to get +10 armor and still have money for a decent sword

How to make rules for a gunblade in one easy step: open Ultimate Equipment to the entry for the sword cane pistol. Done.

*shakes head*

Meanwhile I just saw a cool item, but they chose the wrong spell... again. Stop doing that people.

I've roughed out how to make a gunblade. That's not how you do it.

(Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Gunblade) to be able to take the shot during the strike, you decide before you hit and lose the ammo either way. It's counts as a bastard sword for one handed/two handed rules. And of course you need Firearms proficiency if guns aren't commonplace.)

They'll never release the list. What everyone forgets is that after we make our choices, the judges make the final decision. If the rumor numbers are true, then there's a full set of items that got voted higher last year than what was released. They wouldn't want to have to deal with someone going "hey, I was voted higher, why aren't I in the top 32?". Even if they choose the literal top 32 from the votes, they can't release it because what happens next year when they don't take the literal top?

First, a meh item with a sign of the creator not understanding dem rules makes me vote for something I don't like and then I see the lightsaber...

...Really? Did you even try? I could make a better lightsaber.

If your item steals or otherwise manipulates souls, I will vote for any old piece of crap against you.

Yeah, particularly since there are very few uses for souls in Pathfinder (You can sell them to a demon or you can sell them to a devil).

Someone needs to make rules for this and I want the power level to be on par with Supernatural (you know, "souls are powerful reactors of energy that can do just about anything if you don't mind taking the risk").

I just pulled out my graph paper - discovered it got wet, and the cheapness means I'll barely be able to use it for practice (also got some mold on one side - what did I do to this pad?) but I had to flip through to save anything from it.

And thus I realized one of the continents I drew last year looks like Cthulhu. I can't remember if this was on purpose.

Would Cthulhu win the next round?

"Uses a number of charges equal to half of [static value]."

Well, why don't you just give me that number?

Cthulhudrew wrote:

Mark Seifter wrote:

The cheapest possible staff costs 560 gp, but it's just about the most pointless item you can imagine owning (two cantrips, each of which costs all 10 charges to use).

Couldn't you do it with just one cantrip?

Staff of opening/closing anyone? :D

By definition if it only has one spell of 4th level or below it's a wand. So anyone doing that has messed up their design space! :)

Thanks for proving my point. A staff of fireball (10 charges, rechargeable, CL matches yours, not viable use via UMD) would be a very different item than a wand of fireball (50 charges, static CL, usable by anyone via UMD).