Coleman's page

Here is my item. I appreciate any feedback and will try to share my thoughts on others' items as time permits. Thanks in advance!

Warbreaker’s Staff
Aura moderate abjuration; CL 11th
Slot none; Price 46,200 gp; Weight 5 lbs.
Description
First crafted long ago by an order of pacifists, this staff appears to be made from glass or crystal, but it is far sturdier. The staff allows use of the following spells:
• Dispel magic (1 charge)
• Sanctuary (1 charge)
• Shatter (1 charge)
Both dispel magic and shatter can only be used to target weapons. In addition to these abilities, the staff grants its wielder the Improved Sunder feat, ignoring any prerequisites. When used in a sunder attempt on a weapon, the staff ignores the first 5 points of the weapon’s hardness, and deals damage as a quarterstaff, with a +2 enhancement bonus to the damage roll. This ability functions even when the staff is out of charges. For all other attacks, including sunder attempts against items that are not weapons, the staff functions as a masterwork quarterstaff. When the staff reduces a weapon to 0 hit points, that weapon appears to transform into the same crystalline substance as the staff itself, before shattering into pieces.
Construction
Requirements Craft Staff, Craft Magical Arms and Armor, Improved Sunder, dispel magic, sanctuary, shatter; Cost 23,100 gp

Brigg, that's exactly the kind of reasoning that I think is intended with the item creation rules, and I also think that such reasoning displays a deeper understanding of the game. It is much harder to quantify, though. That's why, for me, pricing was a very small part of my voting process. I most often wouldn't even look at the pricing.

Of all the comments that have been made about voting, I've seen many comments along the lines of "with that spell usable x times a day, the pricing should have been y amount....downvote" but I don't recall seeing even one comment that said "wow, smart design to scale the price back even though the table would say it should be more".

I think people are sticklers for the math because math.

As someone who has entered for the past few years, I can understand being upset at not advancing. It is disappointing. But you either take that failure as a sign that you need to improve or you take it as a disheartening defeat that prevents you from submitting ever again.

That is a choice of the individual. No amount of change to the process will make that any different. We as creators or just as people choose to either get back on the horse or lay there in the grass. No one decides that for us.

Based on the myriad of posts on this topic, there is clearly no system that will please everyone. No matter what, there will be people who have criticisms of how things work. And some of those criticisms will have merit. But ultimately any changes made will just result in different people being upset.

If your item has been culled or if you don't make it to the top 32, the best you can do is ask for criticism and then listen to that criticism. That's really all that is within your power to do, and ultimately it is all that will actually help you.

If someone whose item was culled instead advanced because the cull was lesser in some way would only prolong things. If your item was on the cusp of not making it, then it isn't going to somehow squeak through to the top 32. Better to find out as soon as possible and work to improve.

If we go on the cull statistics which have only 27% of rings surviving the cull then they were obviously the "hard mode" of the comp.

I did notice a lot of rings had charges (which I think is a fail), so presumably people just converted their wondrous item to a ring with no other change.

Further, based on the stats - shields, staffs and rods were easy mode
as over 50% survived the cull (which averaged 44% survival).

I don't know if we can draw those conclusions from that info. I get your point, but the fact that more people tried to create a ring and didn't make it passed the cull doesn't mean that rings were harder to design.

I've been voting consistently but not as much as many others, but I've seen a good amount of items. I'd say that there were so many ring entries because I think the design space is pretty wide open. I also think that rings would have been the easiest item to port a wondrous item over to, which I think many entrants did when the change from previous years was announced.

As stated earlier in the thread, I think each item type posed its own challenges. And I am not sure which I would say was the most challenging. But the failure rate for a given item isn't necessarily indicative of how challenging a design that item type had. It could indicate all manner of things.

I think the general quality is up. I've seen a handful of really great items I'd expect to make it to the top. And most others that I've seen are at the very least decent.

I generally read the descriptions of both items first and may make my decision based on those alone. If both are equally good or bad, then I take the format and other technical aspects into consideration. If I still don't have a clear winner, then I look at the pricing and other mechanic details to see if that can break the tie.

So most of the time, I am not even looking at the pricing. I guess I feel that is the easiest thing to get wrong, but also the easiest thing to correct, especially with the help of an editor.

When it comes to the template, it definitely plays a part. But given how odd it is to submit an item by message board, I am more lenient about that than many seem to be. At my second stage of review, I'm more worried with grammar, spelling, and more traditional errors rather than the message board coding. I do realize it's pretty easy to use the template that was provided, but I just feel that it would be an easy correction to make after the fact.

Just got mine in. Feel pretty good about it. I'm sure that will change, though hah

I must get 3 or 4 emails a week from Paizo....weird that of them all, only the one announcing this year's contest went into my spam folder. Luckily, I checked in to see if the announcement was up yet.

I for one am glad of the change in round 1 and the limited time. I submitted an item last year that made the top 100, and it was the entry I spent the least amount of time on than any previous year, so I think that the less I tinker with an entry, and the less ideas I come up with overall, the better off I am. We'll see if that holds true this year.

Good luck to everyone! I'm looking forward to seeing the items and voting.

Hey all- I know I'm doing this pretty late, but any feedback would be appreciated. I made it into the top 100, so I feel decent about that. I had a few concerns about this item, so I'll be interested to see if they match up with what others thought. Thanks in advance for any feedback.

Boulder Thrower’s Kit
Aura moderate transmutation; CL 7th
Slot hands; Price 69,500 gp; Weight 5 lbs.
Description
This kit consists of a belt pouch and a matching, oversized glove, both sewn from the skin of a hill giant. Without both items, the magic of the kit is useless. Up to 10 small rocks can be placed into the belt pouch. Thereafter, when a rock is drawn from the bag using the glove, it can then be thrown as a ranged attack with a range increment of 20 feet. After being released from the glove, the rock rapidly grows to the size of a boulder, such as those thrown by giants. If it strikes its target, it inflicts 1d8+10 damage.
Alternatively, if the bearer of the kit is targeted by a thrown rock attack, the bearer can attempt to catch the boulder, shrinking it down to a small rock, which can then be placed into the pouch for later use. Doing so requires a DC 15 Reflex save. A failed attempt to catch a boulder grants the attack a +4 bonus to hit the bearer.
Rocks altered by the magic of the pouch are permanently changed. The magic has no affect on stone that has been crafted, such as brickwork. Other items placed into the pouch are unaffected. At the start of any day, if there are rocks available, the amount in the pouch can be replenished up to the maximum of 10. The glove is unwieldy, so any weapon attacks or skill checks made with the gloved hand suffer a -4 penalty. Removing the glove is a move action.
Construction
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, bull’s strength, stone shape, creator must have 5 ranks in the Craft (leather) skill; Cost 34,750 gp