Phantom Corsair Boots

Phantom Corsair Boots
Aura faint illusion; CL 1st
Slot feet; Price 10,600 gp; Weight 1 lb.
Description
These thigh-high leather boots constantly permeate with a salty smell. The malleable material used to construct them allows for comfortable movement, providing a +2 bonus to Acrobatics checks.

The wearer of these boots becomes translucent and distorted as they move, becoming more insubstantial as they accelerate. Any time she moves more than 10 feet, she gains concealment (20% miss chance). This concealment ends when she stops moving.

When using two move actions in a single turn, or using a run or withdraw action, she instead becomes invisible (as invisibility) for one round.

Construction
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, blurred movement, vanish, creator must have 2 ranks in Acrobatics; Cost 5,300 gp

The only other feet item on my keep list. Congrats.

Cool item. Congrats!

In voting, I didn't pay much attention to these boots the first time but they grew on me very quickly.

Pretty much every "Spring Attack" character would try to get these on.

I think these are a little better than having a ring of invisibility which is almost twice the price.

I don't recall seeing this, but if I had, I definitely would have voted for it! Congratulations!

Congrats on making the top 32!

I'm excited about:
I want these! Invisibility is cool and moving too fast to be seen is cool. Your mechanics don't make me work too hard to get what I think of when I hear those ideas. Nice.

I'm cautious about:
If I'm walking around out of combat, can I stay invisible indefinitely? I would have liked to see something about out-of-combat use.
Does the salty smell give away my position when I'm invisible?

If you were in my creative writing group:
Disclaimer: gorgeous prose is hardly a requirement for a good item, so take what I say here with a pinch of salt.

*twitch* That's not how "permeate" works. I know what you mean, but something like "the air around the boots is constantly permeated with a salty aroma" is a better use of the word. I think my first choice would be to go super simple and say "These boots fill the air with a salty aroma."

"malleable material" is awfully vague. If you're going to call out the material, tell us what it is! Otherwise, just say that the boots allow for comfortable movement. Given your spare word count, I would vote for a little more description. Tie this in to the corsair and the salty smell, perhaps?

This feels like a really great idea that could perhaps use just a little more editing. Despite that, you were very successful in making me want those boots!

In voting, I didn't pay much attention to these boots the first time but they grew on me very quickly.

I don't recall seeing this, but if I had, I definitely would have voted for it! Congratulations!

Looks like it was mission accomplished. These were designed to hopefully stealth their way through round 1. Not as flashy as many other items, but was hoping they would be well liked.

Thanks to everyone for the critiques and the support. And thanks to everyone and everyone who gave me advice before submitting. It's pretty intimidating doing this for the first time.

Now back to cartography.

Congratulations on making it in!

Phantom Corsair Boots

Aura faint illusion; CL 1st
Slot feet; Price 10,600 gp; Weight 1 lb.
Description
These thigh-high leather boots constantly permeate with a salty smell. The malleable material used to construct them allows for comfortable movement, providing a +2 bonus to Acrobatics checks.

The wearer of these boots becomes translucent and distorted as they move, becoming more insubstantial as they accelerate. Any time she moves more than 10 feet, she gains concealment (20% miss chance). This concealment ends when she stops moving.

When using two move actions in a single turn, or using a run or withdraw action, she instead becomes invisible (as invisibility) for one round.

Construction
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, blurred movement, vanish, creator must have 2 ranks in Acrobatics; Cost 5,300 gp

If I ever play Skull & Shackles again, I know what I'm buying. ^_^

Good luck next round!

Nice work, Robert Thomson.

I like your item. I'm sure I can find some sultry villain of either gender to wear thigh-high boots and force the PCs to kneel and lick them. "Salty."

It's your listing of your final power that I have to ask about. Allowing someone to benefit from invisibility while running or doing a withdraw makes enough sense when paired with the concealment from moving more than 10 feet. You mention that its the movement that triggers the power of the boots, making someone harder to hit. The two move action thing is puzzling and difficult for me to grasp.

Did you mean, they have to use two move actions and actually move? Because taking your sword out is a move action, as is drawing a potion, or standing up. If you actually did intend to give the item that power just from doing move actions and not moving, then I would feel a bit tricked because of your explanation for the boot's power.

This item is practically an all the time invisibility item. "I sheathe my sword, move action. I draw my sword, not using my Quick Draw." Sure, not on any rounds you need to use an attack action, but if you're attacking you're already gonna lose your invisibility that round anyway.

Congratulations on making it to the next round. You've managed to pull off a rare feat.

I passed over this item at first, as I thought it was just a flavorful ring of invisibility, but the second time I read it, I took a liking to the part where your character becomes more and more insubstantial as they move, slowly disappearing from sight. That's a cool effect. Good luck in the rest of the competition!

Congratulations on earning a spot in Season 9’s Top 32, Robert! Here’s a few of my thoughts regarding your item:

• Nice imagery in the description, though I would edit out “constantly” and “used to construct them.”
  
• Sounds like the +2 bonus to Acrobatics should be a circumstance bonus since it’s described as being a mundane consequence. I rather like these functioning like a masterwork tool. If the bonus comes from the magic of the boots, then I would like to see it described more flavorfully.
  
• You’re playing with mobility on the battlefield, and making it valuable to keep moving. Anything that makes people consider something besides the “optimized” full attack action is a welcome addition to the game.
  
• I like that you play with degrees of functionality. Blur > Invisibility based on how fast one is moving. Very nice.
  
• Item is useful both in an out of combat.
  
• Villains and players alike will find a fun use for this item. A quickling will certainly enjoy having a pair.

Congrats on making Top 32!

I like these boots, but the unlimited duration as long as you are moving is just way too much benefit. The owner is effectively invisible whenever they want to be. I much prefer the blur effect. While that is also unlimited l=use, it ends as soon as they stop moving, which is much more balance. At least then it's only a benefit for AoO's or readied actions. I think that giving each effect a maximum number of rounds but having them be activated by moving would be more in line with balance and price. I'm terrified of characters who are constantly invisible until they decide to stop moving and attack. Also, if the character double moved away, would they go invisible before moving, or only once they have moved more that their speed and are actually using the second move actions worth of movement. That would be a little better too.

I like the game style you are trying to promote, but it just seems way too powerful.

Best of luck in all future rounds!

Congratulations, Robert!

These are a great example of how much impact flavor has on an item's appeal. Broken down it's rules are similar to a ring of invisibility or the Wind Stance feat tree, but you tied everything together into such an attractive package that these boots already seem like a natural addition to the game. I also have to agree with Brian: the scaling of blurred to invisible is quite masterful.

Can't wait to see what you conjure up for round 2!

It seems to be my day to congratulate you, Robert. I saw your both a lot, but unfortunately, I was pretty mixed on them. I liked the idea, but they just seemed too powerful to me especially for that price. I suppose it would make combat more mobile -- which is something it could use -- but I still just thought it was a little too much.

Good luck in Round 2, though!

Loving all the feedback everyone, both positive and negative.

I'm going to wait for more feedback, because I don't want to influence any of the pure reactions, but later on in the contest I have the following to share about this item:

1) Design Philosophy
2) Inspirations
3) The pros and cons of workshopping
4) Possibly some in progress examples from the design steps of this item.

I will be starting my reviews soon, and they can be bumpy at times, so here's a starter for 10 on Template ...

You nailed it!

After 9 seasons, the Fu is starting to feel his job is done. Well done on perfect execution.

Full review to follow in due course.

As promised yesterday, the GB&U this year is courtesy of me rather than GM_solsprial (he is busy drawing furiously). So without further ado, our amazing and awesome top 32+4 get the first set of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly critiques, and then on to everyone else who requested a critique in the CMI official thread, or in my shiny The GB&U Season 9 thread.

Phantom Corsair Boots

The Good: I like items that reward mobility, and these sure as heck do so.

The Bad: I would have used some more word count to give a bit more description, also I generally dislike items that avoid calling out what they are primarily made of. I see that as a chance for more mojo, skipping out on it can hurt an otherwise good item.

The Ugly: For the price, a mobile fighter or any other highly mobile character can get some serious and unlimited defence from these bad boys. My inner player loves that, my inner GM needs an antacid.

Welcome to the Top 32, Robert! Your submission has overcome the magic item horde and the many culls to emerge at the top of the heap. Congratulations!

I'll be one of the judges for this first round, offering my humble commentary which I hope will be helpful to you moving into Round 2. I will be considering each item based on three factors: functionality (does the item fill a useful niche within the rules?), mojo ("wow" factor--would I point out this item to someone else, or immediately get some cool concept to go with it?), and writing (is the formatting and text clear and error free? Is the prose interesting and evocative?)

Combining these elements successfully is, I feel, key to defining that elusive "Superstar" quality that we all want to see.

So you know what I'm looking for, now let's move on to the good bit: your phantom corsair boots!

Functionality and Usefulness
Battlefield mobility is an underutilized advantage, and it's nice to see something in that design space.

So as long as the wearer keeps moving, these boots grant an unlimited blur effect, and can go invisible with enough momentum. These are at a good price point, but the boots are very easy to make, meaning PCs can see these sooner rather than later.

And that invisibility effect is very potent, especially since it keys off move actions and not movement. A lot of things are move actions. That's a loophole I think needs to be closed to fit in with the item.

I am not really a fan of the unlimited time span a character can spend in blur or invisible. Especially since it sounds a lot like when the character is out of combat--which is where characters tend to spend most of their time--she's going to be running around blurry and possibly invisible so long as they're mostly just moving around.

Some kind of duration would be nice to have, such as a number of rounds per day. It'd also be good to specify how this works outside combat. Can the wearer willingly suppress the boots' effects?

The Cool Factor/Mojo
You buried your lead under a +2 Acrobatics bonus. That doesn't set me up to look forward to what I'll read next.

It's still an interesting little item. Playing with movement and momentum is a neat concept, though I'm on the fence about whether I'd have preferred you dropped the invisibility effect and the skill bonus and stuck with the blur. I could have even seen scaling the blur effect gradually, with more movement increasing the concealment chance. That would have also innovated the spells used more, since right now this is really just two spells of (potentially) unlimited duration with different triggers.

Your imagery and flavor went in a good direction, though, and you really hit on a good design niche. There's not enough cool stuff with battlefield mobility at its core, and bringing in something to play with that garnered you a lot of interest.

Prose and Editing
"Constantly permeate" doesn't really work. You could say "salty air permeates these boots" or "a salty smell permeates the air around these boots" or a number of other ways.

You don't really need to say bonus after a +2. The "+" already indicates it's a bonus.

Don't use "they" as a singular pronoun. You use "her/she" for the rest of the text.

Overall
It's a neat item with some good creativity in how you envisioned it, but it has some abuseable elements that concern me. I also think it could have been simplified. The Acrobatics bonus is unnecessary, and I'd have liked to see a scaling blur effect rather than going from blur to invisible which represents a significant step up.

I haven't seen the innovation I'd like to in the mechanics presented, though. I do hope you break out as you move forward and show off what you can do.

I am honored to have been allowed to provide feedback this year. I look forward to your entry for Round 2, Robert, and hope to see your map with your same instinct for player appeal you exhibited here.

Congratulations again!

Okay now that we have a few days before Top 16 reveals I've decided to comment on my competitors work. First, congrats one being a people's choice top 36. To me connecting more directly with the pathfinder community as an audience is even more impressive then clicking for a group of judges.

This was pretty dam cool. Smartest design choice was making ti so that the invisibility is hard to pull off an attack with. That said Quick runner's shirt would pretty much be a mandatory buy. Good luck with next round.

First off Congratulations, and I suspect you already know my feelings about these from workshoping.

Probably a good thing you didn't really listen to me =)

I still feel like these are a bit too close to what exists in the Wind Stance and Lightning Stance feats (being feats with quite a few prereqs, this makes these boots very powerful for the price).

That said, I've never seen anyone with those feats, so perhaps the feats are over expensive.

Again Congrats and Good Luck moving forward!

I've got my full detail post ready to go. Just don't want to influence the comments coming in, because they are very good points, and a lot of them are things I was actually concerned about as well.

Phantom Corsair Boots

Congratulations for making it into the Top 32!

Seeing as that's how I had to start this, you're already a potential "Superstar" so keep that in mind!

That out of the way, I'm going to treat your item the same as if I saw it in the Critique My Item Thread, which means I'll be using the following comments, and assuming you're submitting this item as your "sample" for an Open Call to Fat Goblin Game's Call to Arms book line.

Feel free to disagree with me and DEFEND YOUR CHOICES!

Superstar — I've not read all the other comments, but I like what you're going for. I'd maybe play with it a little more personally, adding in a 50% concealment effect when doing a full-round action or double move, and then have invisibility be for each additional round after that 50% concealment build up round that you continue to move (so that you could remain invisible for as long as you kept running, becoming 50% if you only use a move action, or 20% if you move less than 10 feet and the invisibility going away but rebuilding if you "broke" the spell with an attack, etc... Anyways, I like it. Not sure the "sea" would have been the direction I went either but I see it.

The core idea here is very cool. Keep moving, keep gaining a benefit.

I get where you're going with the name and the salty smell, but I think that needed to be tied in just a little more closely with the blur/invisibility effect. Just a sentence, or a phrase really, that brought that idea home.

I do think in the right (wrong? heh) player's hands these could be overpowered. But to do it they'd have to play in a way they might not otherwise, and it might be cool anyway.

Congrats on making the top 32!

I have to admit that phantom corsair boots were not one of my favourite items, and I didn't vote for it very often. Your title confused me a bit after reading the item, and although I understand that pirates tie in with the salty smell, I don't really see why you brought the ocean into these boots at all. They've got a strong enough visual with the phantom/blur parts of the item and I think the extra corsair feel to them was unnecessary (as was the acrobatics bonus). On the other hand, they're thigh-high. Awesome! Bold! I love it!

I really like the concept that these boots make you so fast you become hard to see. That's cool, flashy, and frankly it'd make a player feel pretty darn proud of themselves (always a good design choice!). The first part of your ability is worded really well (regarding blur). It's the next paragraph's wording which makes these need some more editing, but since it's been discussed above multiple times, I don't need to point out the details.

Even though these boots weren't a favourite of mine, they certainly were for a lot of others (and it's not hard to see why)! They have a cool concept and neat execution, and I think if you cleaned up the second paragraph's mechanics I would have voted for your entry a whole lot more.

Best of luck in the next round.

Other than not having some kind of limit on how much a player can use them and the invisibility triggering on move actions not movement, I really like this item.

I also have two questions about how the item should work. Is the acrobatics bonus supposed to have a type?

At what point does the wearer become invisible? As soon as they declare the actions? After moving?

Robert! Welcome..to the Top 32!

As one of the judges who'll be along for the entire ride of the competition, it's my duty (and pleasure) to offer up some commentary on your winning submission, as well as a bit of advice for the challenges to come. First up...your item...the phantom corsair boots...

Okay. The name is interesting. It's a pair of boots, so I know what they physically are. And, there's a phantom aspect to them. And with "corsair" in the title, I'm expecting a bit of a swashbuckling nautical theme.

Mojo. Okay. Yeah. There's a bit of mojo behind the overall idea. Not super sexy, but it's easy to see why this appealed to the voters given the benefit it provides with move actions.

Cinematic. Definitely. The blur effect and invisibility granted as a result of movement creates an immediate visual in seeing them in action.

Usefulness. Mostly defensive, really. There's a bit of utility with an Acrobatics boost, but that's about it.

Mechanics. I agree with some of the earlier concerns. Move actions can't be the trigger for these boots. It needs to be actual movement. Also, we're really just looking at a couple of feats-in-a-can with this design. Wind Stance and Lightning Stance can achieve similar outcomes, but true invisibility takes it up a notch, because that not only grants a 50% miss chance, but someone has to identify the right square to attack before that even applies. And, given that it activates during your movement, I'm guessing that should only be halfway through, because I know a fair number of players who start out with a single move action and then don't know if they're going to double move or take a standard action until after they evaluate their circumstances. Plus, a single move action should be triggering the blur effect anyway. So, might as well have blur for the first move and then invisibility triggered on the second one. That way, onlookers might have a slightly better chance of pinpointing the wearer on their action.

Polish. This looks pretty tight. Lots of word count left to spare, though. And, you led with its weakest power. Adding a boost to Acrobatics isn't really worth much anyway. Probably best to take that out.

Other than that, this was a creative design playing around with movement rules as the activation for the item's powers. There are still some mechanical ramifications with how it's worded, but that can be cleaned up. In the meantime, I'm happy to offer you my hearty congratulations on making the Top 32, and I look forward to seeing what you've got for us in Round 2.

My two cents,
--Neil

Hello, Robert, and welcome to the Top 32!

I'll be a judge for this round, and I'm honored and pleased to offer feedback on your phantom corsair boots. I hope this feedback provides some helpful insight to you as you move forward in the competition.

As an assistant developer at Paizo, I'll offer you three levels of commentary that approximate the development process: some first impressions, a deeper look, and some measured feedback.

So, let's get started!

First impressions: Pretty darn cool name. Based on it, I was expecting something perhaps keyed to the swashbuckler class, or imagery more evocative of a pirate theme, but the actual usability here is pretty solid.

Deeper look: I certainly understand the sentiment to want to make sure your Superstar item is as useful as possible, so the instinct to start out with a static +2 bonus to Acrobatics checks makes sense on the surface. However, this is Superstar, and particularly because your item has a lot more going for it than just that bonus, I'd have liked to see you drop this relatively mundane feature and really come out swinging with the wondrous goodness. And there's a lot of wondrous goodness here.

I think the item stumbles a bit in its failure to distinguish move actions from movement. I'm fairly certain that you did not intend the invisibility to trigger simply after two move actions regardless of actual movement, but that's the way this works as written. Taking a few extra words to simplify how these boots' abilities trigger off move actions would really improve this design; the blur should really trigger after a single movement, anyway.

Measured feedback: Don't be afraid to use up that word count to make sure that your designs are precise and your writing is evocative. An extra few sentences here could have really gone a long way to making this item blow voters out of the water; it's amazing how an inspired description can get players excited, especially if the item is as useful as yours. Reach a little further for those descriptions and for very specific rules language, and you'll do really well going forward.

That said, thanks for reading, and best of luck in the competition!

Alright, as we prepare to move to round two voting, I want to thank everyone one more time for all the great feedback. I welcome more, but I wanted to respond to some of it and elaborate on things.

Why did I go with this item?

Boots of the Ghost Pirate?

Workshopping

If I had to do it again

Thanks again to everyone. I can't wait to get feedback on the maps for the next round, and hopefully on everything from future rounds as well. I know I've learned quite a bit from this process already, and I hope my experiences will be valuable for others in future competitions.

Oh, one added piece of "strategy" in this. Here is where I metagamed things. I know that the judges consistently mentioned using up word count. This was actually a very conscious choice on my part. I was avoiding using word count if at all possible.

Why? Because of the format of this competition. If the judges were choosing the top 32, I absolutely would have tried to be closer to 300 words. However, this season was selected by voters. Thinking as a voter, I thought "do I want to read 1000 pairs of lengthier more complex items at 300 words while voting, or would I rather read 1000 leaner and cleaner items."

This is probably a negative for potential development employers and for the judges, but I took that part as a bit of a social experiment, that looks like it worked out for me.

I actually had 12 items in all I mocked up for the competition, and one of the leading reasons this is the one I proceeded with, was that I felt I could do it with low word count.

With that said...I really needed "better" words, not necessarily "more" words in order to clean up that double move issue. As stated above, that was the last change I made to the item before submission, and I had some regrets around not wording that part better.

I wonder if one way to prevent abuse would be to give the user the Fatigued condition after X rounds of use.

All that constant moving around...

Robert, congratulations on making it through Round 1!

My favourite part of these boots is how the invisibility is purely defensive. "Uh-oh I need to get out of here! *poof* " I've had a few characters that would have greatly enjoyed these.

Great work and good luck in the rest of the competition!