Jason Kimble's page

Jacob W. Michaels wrote:

Jason Kimble wrote:

GM_Solspiral wrote:

48) Skewer Shield

<snip>
this is also riddled with format errors and logistic issues.

Thanks much for the feedback! If you're so inclined: other than capitalizing the item name in the description (which I realized was wrong after I saw the comment in a lot of Liz Courts' top 32 feedback), could you point me at the other format errors? The formatting was one of the few things I felt pretty solid on, so I'd like to figure out what I'm missing.

Thanks again!

I'm not GM_solspiral, but the templating portions look correct (though I didn't look at price/cost at all, just formatting). However, magic items should be lowercase and in italics in the description, so it should be +1 shield and skewer shield. Returning and anchoring should also be lowercase and italicized.

Not sure if Frank has some other things he noticed.

I could be wrong but capitalizing your item name I believe is incorrect. It's the same issue repeated about 5-6 times, if I'm incorrect (possible I am writing these on the fly) amend that to don't hammer the name of your item so much it's jarring to read.

Logistic's issues- many one handed melee weapons would make terrible shield spikes (sickle, mace.) If it creates a slot does the magical bonus transfer... I could see a lot of questions needing arbitration.

Thanks much to both of you. Much appreciated. :)

I just want to applaud the adjectivized Gulliver's Travels reference. :)

48) Skewer Shield

<snip>

this is also riddled with format errors and logistic issues.

Thanks much for the feedback! If you're so inclined: other than capitalizing the item name in the description (which I realized was wrong after I saw the comment in a lot of Liz Courts' top 32 feedback), could you point me at the other format errors? The formatting was one of the few things I felt pretty solid on, so I'd like to figure out what I'm missing.

Thanks again!

*It seems like one could load a pair of these with colossal falcatas and go to town for 6d6 damage 17-20/x3 crit and whatever other extras you put on the falcatas. Even with medium falcatas, it's still a way to TWF essentially two one-handed weapons while getting shield bonuses and taking no penalties for TWFing (Shield Master).

I had to puzzle this one out for a bit, but then I realized: this looks like my efforts at tightening word count just wound up confusing things. At least, I think that what happened here is "damage type and critical values" (two things) read as "damage, type, and critical values" (three things).

I was concerned that just saying "type" would wind up confusing folks on its own, and I didn't want someone thinking that inserting a longsword, for example, actually turned the shield into a sword, when it really just made attacks count as slashing.

Looking closer at the PRD, while the phrase "damage type" does occur in the rules for type ("In a situation where the damage type is significant..."), almost every other occurance in that entry uses "type of damage," instead.

Which is all to say thank you, because it's exactly these little kinds of style elements and specific phrase preferences that I'm trying to pin down. :)

The expanded crit via an exotic keen weapon and the TWF reduction options were by design, since I was really looking for a way that shield-sympathetic folks might be more effective. The "make your light shield into two-fisted monstrous damage" was definitely not. :)

Skewer Shield - Just didn't like this one. Allows wielder to insert any magic weapon they would not be proficient in and still get the bonuses from it. Hey buddy, lets load that huge two-handed sword in your shield and fire it! Levitate missing from requirements. Price/cost incorrect. +1 light steel shield.

While I'm kind of excited that more than one person thought my item was overpowered when I worried about the opposite, the description explicitly limits loaded weapons to "a single light or one-handed melee weapon with which she is proficient." It does, by design, make those items throw-able even if they normally aren't, but I believe as written, you either couldn't load or couldn't gain the benefit from loading anything with which your character wasn't already proficient (and you could never load a two-handed weapon).

Gah. This sounds like I'm arguing, which isn't my intent. I think your read is a great indicator to me of the kind of thing I need to be better at highlighting. It sounds like the restrictions got lost in the rest of the entry, and I should have done a better job of pointing the reader to them before rushing into the rest of the elements.

Question: why levitate?

SKEWER SHIELD: It's a +1 light steel shield that can mount a weapon in it for shield-bashing, or shoot it at an enemy, to which it applies either returning (+1) or anchoring (+2). Overall it feels messy and overspecialized in something that people generally don't do much of, or can probably do as well by simply throwing a throwing weapon with their other hand, or using a spiked shield. The pricing is also weird.

Okay, this is closer to what I thought / worried people might have to say. I was, probably unsurprisingly, inspired by the Shield Champion Brawler. Heck, the first draft of this only gave the spike benefits on thrown shield attacks.

The launching aspect was in part an attempt at expanding it out of its niche, but it sounds like any mild expansion of usability came at the cost of a less cohesive theme.

And yes, pricing gave me fits, but the pricing charts just felt completely wrong. Stacking its effects wound up making this exceedingly cost-prohibitive for what I think it does. I tried to bring it closer in line with a +1 Merging shield, since I thought it was a slightly better version of that ability with a few other bells and whistles.

As with all the other commenters, thank you!

And thanks to anyone else who wants to chime in. I really do appreciate all of it. :)

Skewer Shield
Aura moderate transmutation; CL 10th
Slot shield; Price 13,669 gp; Weight 6 lbs.
Description

This +1 light steel shield has a raised band of metal arching over its center, creating a slot on the shield's front.

As a move action, a Skewer Shield's wielder may load it with a single light or one-handed melee weapon with which she is proficient. A Skewer Shield loaded in this way retains its normal armor bonus. The loaded weapon may not be used to make its normal attacks while it is loaded. Removing the loaded weapon is a move action.

So long as it is loaded with a weapon, treat a Skewer Shield as having shield spikes. The damage type and critical values for attacks made with a loaded Skewer Shield correspond to those of the loaded weapon. Any special abilities which would modify the loaded weapon's damage modify the Skewer Shield, instead. Attack bonuses from the loaded weapon have no effect on a Skewer Shield.

As a standard action, the wielder may launch the shield's loaded weapon to make a single ranged attack. For this attack, treat any loaded weapon as if it were designed to be thrown. The range increment of this attack is 20 ft. Feats and effects which apply to thrown weapon attacks apply to this attack.

A weapon launched from a Skewer Shield gains either the Returning or Anchoring special ability for 1 round. The choice is made before the attack roll. A returning weapon still requires a move action if its wielder wishes to reload the shield.

After launching a loaded melee weapon, a Skewer Shield provides no armor bonus until the wielder's next turn.

Construction
Requirements Craft Magic Arms and Armor, telekinesis, versatile weapon; Cost 6,919 gp

Because twisted tales of love and betrayal and running down hobgoblins deserve traffic:

I don't know if it's just me, but the link to the author's site doesn't resolve correctly when I click it. I wind up on a GoDaddy page. It looks like it's spelled correctly, but doesn't resolve even when I type it directly in my browser unless I pre-pend "www."

Possible copy/paste error: In table 5-1 (pg. 25), the Special listing for level 13 on Brawler has "knockout 1/day." That's granted at level 4, and scales at levels 10 and 16 according to the text, so I believe that entry should only list the AC bump.

Reading over the exploit, I'm unclear on what actions the arcanist needs to use when maintaining control on a redirected spell. Taking control requires a standard action to make an opposed CL check, then grants a free action for exerting control.

Subsequent rounds, however, don't require any further CL checks, just another pool expenditure. Is that expenditure a standard action, as well, with another free action for any decisions? Is it a free action to maintain, with decisions returning to the normal actions in-spell (e.g., the named target spells in the entry are both spells where decisions are move actions)? Or is it some other combination of actions altogether?

I apologize if someone else has already answered this, or if I just missed it in the Alpha rules, but with Use Rope gone, how does a grappling hook work? Previously, it required a Use Rope check vs. a DC. Is it simply a straight Dex check now?