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Gloves, Tree Frog's
Aura moderate illusion and transmutation; CL 3rd
Slot hands; Price 20,700 gp; Weight —.
Description
The fingertips of these supple leather gloves are broad and flat. The gloves' backs are decorated with stitched outlines of frogs.
Favored by woodland spies and scouts, these gloves grant their wearer exceptional agility while navigating forested regions. She benefits from a constant spider climb effect while in contact with trees, and always counts as having a running start when making Acrobatics checks to jump between tree branches and trunks.
Once per day, while in contact with a tree, the gloves can camouflage their wearer, allowing her to hide in plain sight for up to five minutes, as the ranger class feature by the same name. The wearer gains a +20 circumstance bonus to Stealth checks while this effect lasts if she remains stationary. The effect ends prematurely if she breaks contact with the tree.
Construction
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, invisibility, spider climb, creator must have 5 ranks in the Acrobatics skill; Cost 10,350 gp
Nice! This item shows a good mix of abilities. Good use of the "running start" bump. That's the kind of thing a good wondrous item does. Nice tight design theme. This is one of the stronger items in my opinion. Looking forward to what this author has for us.
Contributor; Publisher, Kobold Press; RPG Superstar Judge
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It seems that people like woodland, climbing, and/or fey items in the contest and the voting this year. This is cool and might encourage PCs to do crazy Acrobatics in the trees. I like items that encourage PC bravado, so definitely points for that.
However, I am not all that delighted by the duplication of a class ability here. It is limited to forests so... Let's keep this one around. It feels wondrous, and the naming seems right on as well.
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I don't like duplicating a class ability, especially as its a 17th level ranger ability. And especially as HIPS technically does NOTHING, because the Stealth rules are messed up.
I like the feel of it, though. Could be cleaned up and simplified.
Contributor
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Star Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 9
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Welcome to the Top 32, Flak!
I love how you've taken the tree frog concept and applied it to a clever magic item that keeps to a tight theme. You also had no errors in your item formatting. You did fall into the "prized by" trap that Sean cautioned against, but the coolness of your item obliterated that pitfall.
Keep up the great work and best of luck to you in future rounds!
Price seems a little steep compared to slippers of spider climbing, which work on non-tree surfaces. Is the all-day use, running start, and once per day stationary invisibility worth the extra 15,900 gp? Otherwise, solid entry.
First of all, congratulations on making the Top 32! That in itself is a major accomplishment and it’s something you should take great pride in. You rock!
Ribbet-ribbet! Nice tight design wrapped around a weird little tree frog theme. I like it. The only thing I'd change is switching out the hide in plain sight ability to something like a ranger's camouflage ability, maybe allowing the wearer to use Stealth to hide on trees even when the tree can't provide practical cover -- like when you're attached to a tree and not hiding behind it. Ah well, that's just my two coppers. Nice work and best of luck going forward!
I like this a lot. Elegant solutions, tight theme. Would be fun to use. Might be a little expensive. Recommended.
I'll start by saying thanks to the judges & voters, and then I won't say much else without prompting. I'm happy to discuss the item/my thinking behind it if engaged, but I don't want to preemptively defend anything. I will say, though, that I knew it was overpriced ;)
Anyway, I feel quite fortunate to be here, and look forward to seeing what the next days have in store.
Yes, this here is another item that stood out to me. Nice, tight theme, as has been said. The writing didn't stand out to me as being clunky or anything, so I liked it.
(Also, Glove Bros.)
Congrats!
I saw this one a lot. I voted for it more times than not, but only just. It squirted by on theme and flavor from me.
Mechanically, I'm with Sean about duplicating class abilities and spider climbing is not so expensive.
I am not sure if it would have benefitted from having a poison skin effect as opposed to the conceling effect, but that's neither here nor there now.
I'm really hoping that your Round 2 has some more awesome to it.
Flaaaaaak! Way to represent! Nice work. You should have some nice ideas for next round!!! ;p
I was neutral to this one while voting. The running start mechanism was my favorite part of it.
This item is fun. It inspires loads of wuxia-esque running, jumping, climbing trees in combat.
Congratulations! I'll see you in Round 2!
This is another one I don't remember seeing at all during voting. Not my usual cup of tea, but I think this is a great example of a tightly crafted theme. Yeah, maybe there are some issues with it, but I think it shows off a designer with a lot of potential. I can't wait to see what you come up with for the next round! Congrats on making it to the Top 32!
Favoured by woodland scouts, judges and me! You can't beat frogs. Unless perhaps, you're a cobra hood.
I'm a big fan of this one. Simple, elegent effects designed around a tight theme. Congrats!
A tight design with good grammar and formatting, conservative word count, and no blatant errors that I could spot. This one only crossed my path once or twice during voting, and although I liked it, it was usually paired with a submission I thought was a bit stronger on the whole. I don't begrudge it taking a spot in the top 32, though. Nicely done!
The good: Great combo of theme, description, and design execution. These were the best gloves in my opinion.
The Bad: Nitpicking a little but its a little SAK but still fairly balanced in my opinion.
The Ugly: CL 3rd seems wrong to me... Can't put my finger on it.
OVerall, really nice job these will make it into my homebrew.
Congratulations Michael,
This was in my keeper pile because I love the flavor. We recently finished Savage Tide & had a phanaton scout who would have loved these. It does not seem too much power, but its flavor is tightly kept in check around the trees. Not something most dungeons will have, but enough outdoor adventures and feather tokens keeps this usable.
Suggestion for round 2: tight theme. You did it here you can do it again :)
Good luck and nice job.
Congrats Michael!
This is an interesting item that at once seems over and underpowered, but is also absolutely wondrous. I can see a small subset of adventuring parties wanting to have one of these on-hand, particularly rogues in or near forests, which is good, but... It's a little *too* focused.
Though it would be great if you carried a pocket of feather tokens with you. ;)
Though it would be great if you carried a pocket of feather tokens with you. ;)
To make trees? :D
I hadn't thought of using these with tokens, but actually, they're what, 400 gp a pop? And a scroll of invisibility — which is basically what the HiPS part of these gloves do — is 150?
Note that I basically priced this item as though its abilities functioned in all terrain; given that, Ronars, is it still overpowered in your book? -- just curious, not trying to be defensive --
To everyone else who's commented, thank you so much. Your feedback is very helpful. Wondrous item design is actually one of the things I do the least, and honestly I wasn't feeling super inspired this year. It seems that I skated by on "tight design" but I definitely hear all the criticism you guys are giving my item and it is all on point. I'm going to do my best to provide something a notch above this in the next round.
OVerall, really nice job these will make it into my homebrew.
That's basically the greatest thing you could tell someone in my position. Thank you. :)
Well, the thing is that the item does work in any terrain - but it requires a tree to be within arm's reach, which really cuts their usefulness down heavily.
Unless you have the ability to *make* trees - hence my comment on feather tokens. If the price were adjusted downwards a little to compensate.. I think it would be a little better, but it's hard to say. I can't be sure if the item is too good or not good enough without having players try it out.
Still, while I think this might be a little too focused, I do think it's a good item. Like I said, a party adventuring in a forest will fight over a pair of these gloves if they're in a treasure hoard - which is exactly what you want.
I voted for this item quite a bit when it came up. This would be fun for a villian or a hero to own. When I can visualize the item or the item in use, then that is the mojo.
Congrats.
Some people see a nice tight theme, i see a boring, mostly useless item. Sorry, but i just don't see the superstar in this thing, but the judges know what they want so congrats and good luck.
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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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I voted for this one often, I liked the tight theme, and mix of powers that aren't common with other items. I agree that the price is pretty high given the tree limitation though.
As prior entries will tell you, Template Fu is one mean point eating machine, but will also praise where praise is due.
These reviews being this in depth usually take me a while to do and they get fitted in around other demands on my time, so please bear with me if I haven’t gotten to your item yet. I will get there in the end.
Review Caveat: I try to keep things totally dispassionate and all comments herein are my own. Having not made the illustrious levels that you have achieved this year, I can only caveat that anything I propose in feedback may not be totally in line with what Paizo thinks or needs of its freelance game designers, so do consider carefully any and all feedback I make under this light.
I start your review with…
Congratulations on being selected by the public at large and then the stalwart judges!
Review Breakdown:
Template: 4/5
This looks pretty good – please excuse Template Fu, he’s started that happy humming again. Ah, I see it now. The period on weight is only used for lb. or lbs., when you have no discernible weight for an item, the emdash is used – as you have done so, but without the period. Reluctantly, I hand over a point of food to Template Fu – yeah, he’s tough.
You were pretty much perfect apart from that one hiccup, even down to the correct skill wording in Requirements – well done on that one.
Spelling: 5/5
This bit IS boilerplate to avoid confusion. Everyone should know to use US English, so you just know that I am going to eat points for stray ‘u’ letters and similar.
The sound of crunching can be heard from the Template Fu den, let’s stealth past while we can…
Readability: 5/5
These are readings you can get from most spelling and grammar check options in word processors, for this, I am pasting everyone’s description into Word for consistency. My grading’s are purely my own personal feelings for target scores but it should be noted these are very helpful during development to spot problems in your writing, especially passivity.
Passive Sentences 14% (Very good, but as one of the smaller entries, keep an eye on this)
There are whole threads on this and it is possible to get 0%, which is wicked, but I would expect scores of less than 20% to be around the ideal mark for item descriptions (sometimes, you need the passive, but only rarely).
Flesch Reading Ease 63.1 (nice, easily understood)
(0-30 best understood by university graduates, 60-70 easily understood by 13-15 year olds, 90-100 easily understood by 11 year olds)
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level 9.2 (and ditto)
(This equates to the grades found in the US schooling system, e,g. 8.2 means it should be understandable by the average 8th grade student)
Me as a Designer Review: 4/5
Ok, let’s get the obvious bit our of the way – “Favored by”. A post was made by Sean about this already, but in general, if a phrase is done to death that is not a rule crunch phrase (i.e. it is a fluff/description phrase), avoid it like the plague if you can. ‘Nuff said!
That said, the designer in me is going to dock for the +20 modifier in the item, for me, it is simply just too big. Let’s look at what this affects, a +20 to the stealth is the same size as the penalty to perception checks to see notice something that is invisible. If we couple that with price, if a rogue hears of this item, it becomes a save every gold piece and get it by level 5 or 6 item that basically renders the thief who will already have a very high stealth score into a backstabbing in the forest undetectable nightmare for all but the most epic of characters. If you find yourself putting any skill bonus greater than +5, really look deep, at +20 you need to ask yourself, do I want this item to grant auto succeed – because that is what such a bonus does on any skill.
Now all that being said, how could you have avoided this criticism? There are two possibilities.
If you are intending the circumstance bonus is like some sort of chameleon like melt into the tree bark camouflage effect, then I wouldn’t have been too upset with a +10 bonus.
If it is intentional that it is to mimic being invisible when not moving, then simply say, standing still and touching the tree renders the wearer invisible, which break as soon as they move. That way you don’t mention any bonus because it’s already catered for by the rules for perception when trying to notice something is invisible, and in game terms, you can even get away with reducing the rolling this way because there needs to be some suspicion first that something needs to be perceived rather than always going straight to opposed stealth and perception rolls. If you do this, your item doesn’t automatically clue the players in that something is amiss.
Other than this, the design, rules, template is all very, very tight and looks to be a fun item with interesting possibilities in game play. Some may consider the one point dock here harsh, but I think I have given good food for thought for the cost of that point.
Overall Impression: 5/5
Once past bonus issue that is my personal grindstone on bonus awarding, the mechanics are simple and elegant and well defined. I think for the size of bonus, the price is out but it isn’t very out, and is fixable in a number of ways as discussed.
Having already deducted for the bonus, I won’t deduct again here, so full marks. Well done.
I certainly look forward to your archetype with great expectation!
Final Score: 23/25
I won’t give a final score comment as I haven’t for anyone else as I work through the items.
If this interests for personal reasons, please feel free to check out everyone else’s scores and at the same time check out your competition and their feedback too!
Closing, as I started…
Congratulations on being selected!
Honored to get chomped on. I didn't even realize I had that period until you pointed it out, heh. Agreed with you on the bonus - it's supposed to be somewhere between hide in plain sight and invisibility, and it's really not actually worth the price no matter where it falls on that spectrum, but at the end of the day it's awkward to do it the way I did it.