Heroic bartender's page

Thank you all for reviving a contest I really loved back in the days!
Can't wait to see the top 16 (and if I happen to be among them)!

Italian here, from Milan, reporting for duty!

In Italy we don't have much of a "organised" RPG scene, but I guess that roleplaying people are a huge lot.
We have some contests when conventions occurs, though, and I know of some groups upholding regular meetings in some cities, but unfortunately we don't have any play-in-the-shop culture.

I think that Pathfinder and D&D 3.5 are the most played systems here, followed closely by the Vampire RPG, which I don't know much about. Also I know of many people still playing AD&D and some playing 4th/5th edition, but to a minor extent.

I wonder if there is any other Italian contestant XD

Wow, I was coming to say almost the same thing. I am concerned that my item is too subtle, that voters won't see what niche it's filling, what inferior fighting style it makes viable. I tried too hard to be concise and it seems like people prefer it when you use as many of the 300 allowed words as possible.

Glad to see I'm not alone (hoped so :D), and I bid you good luck!

Probably the "critique my item thread" will be the pit in which we'll be able see if our worries were right or if our items also had some fatal flaw, despite the good mechanics twist.

I'm very happy about my item, although I doubt it will make it to top 32.

Why? Because it's non-standard and not that flashy.
With it, a very cool but totally inferior (bordering "useless") kind of fighting character suddenly becomes viable.

I like my item right for that and I did submit it as an experiment hoping to be proven wrong in my pessimism: what I think is that more standard-awesome items, with flashy although less disruptive mechanics are going to win the contest.

p.s. I like flashy and standard-awesome too, don't get me wrong. I just think that I'm usually happy about things that don't reflect what most people are happy about. E.g. I care nothing about formatting, whilst someone is almost obsessed by that trivial thing, and I care more about mechanics - applied to some combat/rp/adventuring scenarios - than about descriptions.
Thus I think that most items I'd deem worth the top-32 (including mine) won't make it up there :P

uahah, just found a modern software in the make of an item... pretty cool though ^^

I'm looking at some pretty decent items, even cool ones... and then an added effect (even two or three) with no explanation/meaning/sense to the item.
Leaving that out would make cooler items out of 70-80% of multi-effect items... really, I mean it!

Uahah, just saw an Item which has to be intentionally troll.
I mean internet troll, not the cool green things hitting you with clubs.

My first item (submitted last year, so not a long time ago :P) was a SAK with some addictional spark to it... still a SAK though... I didn't read any advice (even if I ignored some this year too... Not expecting to make it to top 32, but I had to submit an Item I used in my campaign and which was plain good to see in the hands of my party).

As for the first item, behold the... Boots of the Elements Strider
Aura Moderate Transmutation; CL 8th
Slot Feet; Price 30,000 gp; Weight 1 lb.
Description
These boots were first devised by Tundar, a legendary mystic theurge. They appear as a black pair of leather boots, each one with a single rune on the shaft, which changes its appearance accordingly to the boots attunement.
The boots can be attuned to any element as a standard action, provided that a source of that element is available, e.g. the wearer could stomp them on rocky ground for attuning them to earth, burn them with a torch or tindertwig for attuning them to fire, blow on them for air or wet them for water.
The boots always grant +6 ft. base land speed and they grant the wearer an additional power depending on their current attunement. Such powers are activated as a swift action and all of them can be used up to a total of three times per day.
Fire: The wearer leaves a 15ft high trail of fire after him for up to 8 rounds (Interruptible). Creatures crossing the trail receive 3d6+8 fire damage (no saving throw). If a creature is overrun by the caster, it also receives the damage, as it falls prone inside the trail.
Air: The wearer can walk through the air as per the air walk spell for 80 minutes.
Water: The wearer is granted a 30 ft. swim speed and he can breathe underwater for 80 minutes as per the Ride the Waves spell.
Earth: The wearer ignores difficult terrain, even if it’s due to a spell, and he can climb on any surface as per the Spider Climb spell for 8 minutes.
Construction
Requirements Craft Wondrous Items, Air walk, Expeditious Retreat, Freedom of Movement, Spider Climb, Wall of fire, Ride The Waves; Cost 15,000 gp

I always try to imagine my party finding an Item.

There is a kind of magic-ordinary Items that are not to interfere with the mechanics as they provide plain bonuses, abilities or such. Even a great description or some little twist cannot add much to those items because the party'd be always like "ok, we loot them".

The second kind are the items changing some adventuring mechanics or - as I did read before - expanding options.

And among them, the ones I like the most are those adding use to things that would be trivial (saw one making use of corpses part ^^) and those presenting pros and cons to be analysed and which could even create role-playing moments between characters. The party would say totally: "cool, how can we use this Item? We must remember we got this!"

I had very few of these items in the handful I voted for, hope to find more!

Ofc I'm a submitter too, so I'd also like to thank everyone for the useful feedback you're already providing! :D

I guess this post is long dead, but as a House-rules lover I'd like to add something to this discussion.

In his goblin rudeness, Asthyril is right as for the RAW interpretation. The text is clear and cannot be misunderstood: just the BAB and the weapon enchantment are applied. Even aethura's interpretation plays with words, as the description clearly refers to effects, spells and abilities targeting the dancing weapon, not the other way around.

This is pretty clear, but I think that Ainvar has a BIG point in his noticing that the cost (and the +4 enchantment bonus) is totally not worth it. At this condition, a +2 enchantment is already more than every sane (or insane enough) character would wish to pay... and we're talking about a +4.

I'm also looking at the expense of the dancing property and wondering whether it would ever be worth purchasing based on the restrictive reading of RAW.

On the other hand, if the character could use and apply each and every bonus she has, that would be totally a must-have as soon as you can afford it: «doubling the attacks, maybe adding a COLOSSAL DANCING GREATSWORD? You mad bro?»

So the solution has to be in the middle ground. In my campaigns the house-rule for a dancing weapon is:
- The character can concentrate his will on the weapon (thus spending his own actions) in order to make it work actually as if wielded, with feats and so on. Yes: this allows him to use a Colossal weapon or such as if actually wielding it, but it's a +4 enchantment afterall...
- When the weapon acts on its own, however, it only counts in the BAB, the strength modifier at the moment when the character let it fly and eventually the warrior Weapon Training. No feats counts, no special maneuvers or such can be performed when the weapon is on its own.

This way it should be worth the enchantment without being too much overpowered.

As a sidenote: I also developed a Magic Domain based cleric archetype specialized in using Telekinesis and Dancing Weapons: starting with its domain power for telekinetically throwing his weapon, he then renounces the channel ability in exchange for empowering his telekinetic powers and using all weapons as dancing from a certain level on, even adding his Wis modifier instead of the Strength one when doing so. It was pretty fun =)

hope this helps!