Yes! This is an item I would put in my game in a second.
This item reminds me of the nausea pill. Not just because they are both items you swallow, but like the nausea pill the gut-stone tackles something that's already there in the rules (sneak attacks) in a unique way and does so both simply and evocatively (two things you don't often see together). Well done.
The only thing I would tweak would be to up the damage of the sunder to 1d6 - it just makes the secondary function of the stone a little more tempting.
It might also do some minor damage against the attacking weapon. It can deal a maximum of 4 points of damage, so if you are sneak-attacked by a weapon made of glass, rope, cloth, paper, ice, or animal skin, or by a small wooden chest, your opponent will be suitably hindered.
Bingo. That part of the weapon is worthless. Cut that aspect. 'Cause if you're sundering the weapons of tiny creatures, you have other problems. And if you think sundering nonmagical small weapons is worth losing a magic item, it's the same problem.
And, while it is gross and I support all Paizo products that produce nausea, I'm not sold on the idea that all precision damage is inflicted on the lower gastro-intestinal tract. Not a fave, but you picked up the judges you needed. Good luck next round.
Congratulations Ben!
I like the simplicity of it. One great advantage I like is that a rogue will sneak attack when you are flat footed, meaning you cannot normally react. With this you have a whole week of being able to react to that dagger from the dark. Nice job.
I wish I could offer some constructive criticism for future rounds, but your writing is pretty tight (keep it that way?) And from my home state too!
Others have other swallow items are forthcoming and I wanted to add one where my insides turn to stone--I lose vital organs and gain immunity to a critical attack. !?! That kind of springboarding is why you are in Top 32!
If a gut-stone is not used within a week of being swallowed, or is destroyed, it crumbles apart and is passed harmlessly out of the body.
Passes harmlessly??? Wow, what a let-down. ;-)
Of course I'm kidding! This is my favorite of the 32. It's a very clever, moderately-powered item, that every single one of my players is going to want. One minor thing--I'd probably up the amount of damage the stone does to a weapon to 1d8 instead of 1d4. I figure you should get a little more bang for sacrificing the item.
Kudos and good luck!
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Love the notion of something bumping around in your body, attempting to protect you from harm.
[Ooh, a whole new class of items. One that absorbs poisons that enter your body. Another that fights off disease. A third that attacks any critters, such as rot grubs, that find their way into your body...]
Given that the item only protects you from 10 pts. of critical / precision / sneak attack damage, ever, its pretty neat.
I love that it's such a low-powered item, although a higher powered version (made of a stone with Hardness, or just more hit points, or that healed itself overnight to give 10 pts of protection each day) could be an interesting development.
Basically this item gives you 10 temporary hit points, usable only against sneak attacks and some other corner-cases. It might also do some minor damage against the attacking weapon. It can deal a maximum of 4 points of damage, so if you are sneak-attacked by a weapon made of glass, rope, cloth, paper, ice, or animal skin, or by a small wooden chest, your opponent will be suitably hindered. Since you can't swallow more than one at a time, you will need to rely on someone else to finish the sundering job for every other weapon.
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This item is conceptually interesting and provides a nice visual image, but I can't imagine choosing this over a potion of extended Aid or False Life, both less expensive by 150 gold and useful in more situations. This particular item just fails to grab me in the way it hooks the judges.
These were my exact thoughts as I was reading this item. I just don't see how it's useful.
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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Star Voter Season 6, Star Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9
aka JoelF847
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These were my exact thoughts as I was reading this item. I just don't see how it's useful.Basically this item gives you 10 temporary hit points, usable only against sneak attacks and some other corner-cases. It might also do some minor damage against the attacking weapon. It can deal a maximum of 4 points of damage, so if you are sneak-attacked by a weapon made of glass, rope, cloth, paper, ice, or animal skin, or by a small wooden chest, your opponent will be suitably hindered. Since you can't swallow more than one at a time, you will need to rely on someone else to finish the sundering job for every other weapon.
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This item is conceptually interesting and provides a nice visual image, but I can't imagine choosing this over a potion of extended Aid or False Life, both less expensive by 150 gold and useful in more situations. This particular item just fails to grab me in the way it hooks the judges.
Two main reasons it's useful.
1) it lasts for a week, not the 3 hours a potion of false life would.2) It stacks with false life or aid, since it doesn't provide temporary hp.
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
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Congrats on making it in to RPG Superstar 2010! I asked myself the same three question for each of the top 32 items. Here are my responses to your item:
Would this wondrous item unbalance my game if my PCs were to find it and use it?
Seems good on this front. My big concern is that your use of the phrase "precision based damage" is a bit subjective. There are many ways a PC could take damage ranging from very precise (i.e. stiletto sneak attack) to very broad (AOE fireball), and everything in between, and I'm not quite sure where this item draws the line.
Just to clarify, the term "precision based damage" has a specific game-mechanical meaning in PFRPG, which uses it to describe sneak attack damage, a duelist's extra damage, and a few other effects. It's not just an adjective.
As for the item - it does in fact rock, I could totally swallow using it in a game and letting it pass, and every other pun related to it. It's fun, it's a little odd, and yet it is still useful.
I do think Charles' concern about it breaking adamantine weapons is a reasonable concern, but (a) IT'S MAGIC and (b) did I mention IT'S MAGIC? Adamantine weapons don't get a save bonus vs. shatter and they don't get special immunity here, and I'm fine with that. You might think about making shatter a prereq, but I don't think it's a necessity.
Overall: The item is great. It's fun, useful, and has just the right dollop of "wondrous" without being gonzo.
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
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Love the notion of something bumping around in your body, attempting to protect you from harm.
[Ooh, a whole new class of items. One that absorbs poisons that enter your body. Another that fights off disease. A third that attacks any critters, such as rot grubs, that find their way into your body...]
Given that the item only protects you from 10 pts. of critical / precision / sneak attack damage, ever, its pretty neat.
I love that it's such a low-powered item, although a higher powered version (made of a stone with Hardness, or just more hit points, or that healed itself overnight to give 10 pts of protection each day) could be an interesting development.
Hey, Professor Snape taught me that a bezoar is a stone from the stomach of a goat that is a sovereign cure for poisons - there's even precedent for the item!
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Hey, Professor Snape taught me that a bezoar is a stone from the stomach of a goat that is a sovereign cure for poisons - there's even precedent for the item!
Cordelia "Why do they call it a toadstone? It doesn't look like a toad."
Giles "It's called a toadstone because it comes from inside a toad."
Cordelia, dropping stone, "I hate you people."
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8
aka Benchak the Nightstalker
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Love the notion of something bumping around in your body, attempting to protect you from harm.
[Ooh, a whole new class of items. One that absorbs poisons that enter your body. Another that fights off disease. A third that attacks any critters, such as rot grubs, that find their way into your body...]
Given that the item only protects you from 10 pts. of critical / precision / sneak attack damage, ever, its pretty neat.
I love that it's such a low-powered item, although a higher powered version (made of a stone with Hardness, or just more hit points, or that healed itself overnight to give 10 pts of protection each day) could be an interesting development.
Thanks for the comments! I was angling for a lower level item when I started to design this one, but I did have higher level variants floating around in my mind. Some of the alternatives you've mentioned sound really cool (protection from rot grubs!).
Just to clarify, the term "precision based damage" has a specific game-mechanical meaning in PFRPG, which uses it to describe sneak attack damage, a duelist's extra damage, and a few other effects. It's not just an adjective.
Thats actually what gave me the idea for the item. I noticed that in the core rulebook and the APG Cavalier playtest that they were really starting to standardize the idea of "precision based damage", so I thought I'd make an item that used that took advantage of that somehow.
Hey, Professor Snape taught me that a bezoar is a stone from the stomach of a goat that is a sovereign cure for poisons - there's even precedent for the item!
See, now, as icky as people are saying my item is, bezoars are just that much ickier. Some of them are made of hair.
Personally, if the choice comes down to sucking down a hairball, I think I might just rather be poisoned. :D
Thanks for the nice comments by the way, happy you enjoy my item!
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Bezoars are believed in many cultures to nullify ingested poisons. This is not true, but the power of belief is strong enough that some people are willing to risk it.
Consuming the bezoar provides a +2 morale bonus to Fortitude saves against ingested poisons, but after one day you must make a DC 15 Fortitude save to expel the bezoar or suffer from an intestinal blockage, causing you to become sickened. This Fortitude save can be repeated every day until the bezoar is no longer in your digestive system, at which point the sickened condition ends. A DC 15 Heal check may be substituted for the Fortitude save.
You probably should have just taken the 1d3 Str damage, buddy. Sucks. To. Be. You.
This is why I don't enter RPG Superstar contests.
The thing that really grabs me about this one is the sneaky aspect. Sneak attack someone and your blade suddenly snaps for seemingly no reason? That's a lot of fun.
Looking forward to more stuff from you.
TM
This is pretty cool, and just weird enough to tickle my love of the bizarre. Definitely a useful function, but even more than that I enjoy the flavor behind the mechanics.It fills my head with ideas like 'what does a stone bouncing around my innards during combat FEEL like?', and the implied spacial distortion effect when you shove it down your throat in the first place is really tingly to me. Good tingly.
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Contributor
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Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Dedicated Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9
aka Boxhead
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Very interesting concept with this one, I do enjoy it immensely and definitely see my paranoid characters eating them week in, week out.
With sunder attempt, is the CMB/CMD roll still needed? I assume not, but just wanted to know. Can you "sacrifice" the stone if it has already taken 10 points of damage from an attack? Just curious...
Really neat item, looking forward to more!
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8
aka Benchak the Nightstalker
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Very interesting concept with this one, I do enjoy it immensely and definitely see my paranoid characters eating them week in, week out.
With sunder attempt, is the CMB/CMD roll still needed? I assume not, but just wanted to know. Can you "sacrifice" the stone if it has already taken 10 points of damage from an attack? Just curious...
Really neat item, looking forward to more!
Thanks for the kind words.
Yeah, the CMB roll should still be necessary, since it works like a standard sunder attempt. I thought about giving the stone a set CMB value to use for the attack, since I didn't want this item to be the sort of thing high-level characters eat like candy, but I decided to limit the damage to 1d4, ignores hardness, instead. That way its really only useful against non-magic weapons.
Also, my intent was that since the stone deals its sunder after being damaged, you wouldn't be able to use it this way once it'd taken 10 points of damage (as at that point it would be destroyed). I probably should have clarified this somewhat in the text.
Thanks for the questions!
What a fun item. And so many new directions to take the concept. Every noble will be buying these by the case! Very nicely done.
Good luck next round!
Not much else I can say that hasn't already been said. I like it, I want one(or one bag of holding full of them), and I want to give them to my players. Congratulations, sir!
Not much else I can say that hasn't already been said. I like it, I want one(or one bag of holding full of them), and I want to give them to my players. Congratulations, sir!
from my pbp:
Steadfast gutstones hitting the streets in Sasserine.
800 g.p.
There's a line of adventurers, like college kids waiting for the newest iphone. ;)
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8
aka Benchak the Nightstalker
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Not much else I can say that hasn't already been said. I like it, I want one(or one bag of holding full of them), and I want to give them to my players. Congratulations, sir!from my pbp:
Steadfast gutstones hitting the streets in Sasserine.
800 g.p.
There's a line of adventurers, like college kids waiting for the newest iphone. ;)
Thank you for that, I just almost fell off the couch from laughing so hard. Best. Comment. Ever.
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8
aka Benchak the Nightstalker
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I just want a movie of a swordfight, with this damn gutstone rolling around in some guy's innards, blocking stabwounds and whatever.
Shoot, in a movie, it could extend the dude's abdomen out three feet like a birthing Alien and crack some dude in the skull.
Haha! I can totally see that. That would probably be some kind of crazy, artifact-level, intelligent gut-stone. I can just see the little bugger bouncing around inside some guy, spoiling for a fight.