Everyone is missing out on my adventure where you would have learned that Aroden is not actually dead, but has been throwing a century+ long rager in the abendego gulf. It was epic.
Maybe it's all the Harry Potter my wife and I have been watching, but I'm getting a serious Triwizard Tournament vibe being in the Top 4. Oh dear, I hope it ends better for you than Cedric and Harry.
Then I remembered there's this contest going on. So now I'm over here wasting time. Welcome back! I'm sure you're in good company with approximately 8 other people who refresh this page approximately every 10-15 minutes, or at least that's what I do.
Anyone else have the feeling that somewhere, someone out there is judging you?I'm strangely free of that sensation. But I thought you were married Neil?
Well now that I've finally finished my encounter, I can do a write up on my monster. I don't expect many people will read it, but it's more about catharsis for me than anything else. I'll try to answer the questions that I saw crop up more than once. Attack and damage to low/high Because most creatures will be flatfooted to a tatterghoul's attacks, it will get to Sneak Attack almost always (unless it's fighting something undead, something with blindsight, someone with true seeing, or someone with uncanny dodge). That is by design because Sneak Attack is what brings it's damage up to the appropriate level. I also left it's attack modifier a little low because it would be getting a variable bump to its attack rating based on its enemies Dex modifier. It will be better at hitting some kinds of PCs than others. I thought that was neat actually, that being dexterous was a hindrance in this case. I was generally happy with this, but someone did point out it could use higher strength to be dragging bodies around, and that's a good point. Violence against children Not much to say here, too each their own I suppose. As a parent, when I see a monster or NPC hurting children, I get extra motivated to stop them. Another person might be made uncomfortable. I will say that I did write the tatterghoul in such a way that everyone can be miraculously saved in the end, because they let people die slowly. Addition of class levels I love adding class levels to things that don't generally have class levels. That's just a personal preference of mine, but maybe this wasn't the right place to do it. Not actually a ghoul The original name for this monster was the Gutter Wraith, but someone mentioned to me that this was misleading because it's not incorporeal like you would expect. It was hard for me to come up with a name that invoked the feeling of undead without actually containing a word that was itself already a kind of undead creature. Ghoul seemed like the lesser of two evils, and I thought it sounded pretty sweet. And now on to the big stuff.
If you are not undead, use sight to locate things, and don't have true seeing, the tatterghoul always has concealment against you. Your eyes basically refuse to focus on it, but you can see it in your peripheral vision. The tatterghoul may hide in plain sight if they are in an urban environment, and they may also hide in plain sight in any area of dim light regardless of environment. That is how is it supposed to work, but why? True seeing negates it because it seems like the kind of thing True Seeing is good for. A lot of people said that doesn't seem fair because PCs won't have true seeing at this level. That is by design, you aren't supposed to be able to get around Naturally Ignored, if you could then it would be a pushover. You can still see it of course, but only barely, and only if you can beat it's stealth check (it will be trying to hide most of the time). Should this get a will save? Maybe? I'm not sure if there is a precedent for a mind affecting effect that doesn't allow one. As I said before, the challenge of this monster revolves around not being able to see it. Much like an invisible stalker, if you can always see this thing, there isn't much point to it. That is why I called it Naturally Ignored, by the way. I was trying to hint towards the similar ability Naturally Invisible used by things like Invisible Stalkers and Will-o-wisps. So why is the penalty so much worse than the penalty for avoiding Gaze Attacks? I did that on purpose, since to avoid gaze attacks you can simply look at a creatures torso, or see it in a reflection. Naturally ignored is much worse than that. Try holding something up in your peripheral vision, how well can you see it? I made the penalties worse because the effect seems worse to me. All of these questions add up though, and it points to a clunky implementation of the idea I wanted. Hopefully that's the kind of thing that wouldn't be hard to fix in development.
Oh man. This one. I added Isolate to the tatterghoul extremely late in development. I wanted something to make combat with it more unique that was also in line with its theme, and Isolate fit the bill. The day after I submitted it I was thinking about an cool encounter with the tatterghoul casting Isolate on an NPC who was imminent danger from a deadly trap. At this point I realized that the rules for Isolate were WAAAAAAAAAAAY too vague, and I immediately began imaging the judges tearing my apart and being drummed out of the competition. Fortunately that didn't happen, but Isolate remains my biggest regret with the tatterghoul. If I could do it again I would be very clear: "Living creatures may not target the isolated creature with the aid another action or affect the creature with any targeted beneficial spells. Blah blah antilife shell." I'd probably also throw in that teamwork feats don't work as well, since someone pointed that out. Everyone can still see the isolated creature, they can still attack the tatterghoul as long as they don't enter the antilife shell, area affects work just fine, and any harmful actions are allowed as well. The antilife shell should work just like the spell, with one difference. Usually if someone with a shell moves within 10 feet of a living creature, the shell is dispelled. In this case, the shell is not dispelled, the creature just can't move any closer. That's because this spell is used as a debuff against the target instead of a buff. If the target could dispel the debuff with a simple move action, there would be no point to it. Is antilife shell to good at this level? I don't think so, but again that's because it's a debuff and not a buff. Used defensively antilife shell may be too good at this level, but offensively I think it's okay. The affected creature and the party have lots of options to mitigate how effective it is (including ranged attacks, area affects like channel energy, the targeted creature and run away from the tatterghoul), it just require the PCs to try new tactics. Anyway, that was long and ramble-y, but I feel better. The tatterghoul was not without flaws, but I'm pretty proud of it. Thanks to everyone who shared their opinion, and everyone who voted for me.
The PCs enter Chillblight posing as foreign merchants in order to find Olesya Boykova, an important member of the Heralds of Summer’s Return they were hired to smuggle out of the province. They discover that two weeks ago, Olesya’s husband was arrested and imprisoned at the Trident Coliseum. Panicked, Olesya borrowed money to bribe the jailers to free her husband before he was killed in the games. Unfortunately, the only thing of value she had as collateral was her soul, and she has since defaulted on her payments to Essence Exchange. Olesya is now a captive at the Exchange, and the PCs must rescue her before Varvara sells her soul to settle the debt.
The top of the map points north and each square is 5 feet. The buildings are all 8 feet tall and made of wood, and all doors are unlocked, simple wooden doors. The western building is a well-appointed waiting area reserved for buyers. The northern building is Varvara’s office where she receives prospective borrowers. The small room is tidy and businesslike with a desk, tables and chairs; the large room is a nightmare of hacked-up bodies. The large room of the southern building is used as storage. It is filled with valueless junk except a helm of underwater action Varvara misplaced that can be found with a DC 20 Perception check. The small room is stacked with the frozen corpses of a dozen former borrowers. The sturdy wooden docks stand 10 feet above the 20-foot deep icy water, each with a ladder reaching down to the surface. A metal cage hangs beneath the last square of each dock. Above each cage is a trapdoor and an oversized winch that can lift the cage above the dock. A character standing adjacent to the winch can, as a full round action, raise the cage 10 feet, or, as a swift action, release the winch causing the cage to plummet into the water. All the cages are locked and made of iron (hardness 10, hp 30, break DC 24, Disable Device DC 25). The center dock’s cage is a Drowning Cage Trap containing a very life-like mannequin covered in furs. Succeeding at a DC 25 Perception check while inspecting the mannequin reveals the ruse. The water is very cold and deals 1d6 points of nonlethal damage from hypothermia per minute of exposure. Creatures: A night hag (Bestiary 1 215) named Nadezhda currently occupies the waiting room under the guise of a beautiful, white-haired Irriseni woman. She is here to buy, but Varvara recently doubled her prices to meet a new quota set by Bazza and Nadezhda is weighing her options. She is not interested in fighting on Bazza’s turf and simply turns ethereal and leaves if attacked. She is currently unfriendly to the PCs; if she is made indifferent, with a DC 23 Diplomacy check, she is annoyed enough at Varvara that she will divulge information about the Exchange if asked. She knows where the prisoners are held and what guards them but nothing about the trap. She can tell the PCs which cage is Olesya’s if they can describe her. The forlarren Varvara resides in her office when the PCs arrive. She fawns over anyone entering, assuming they are customers, but is suspicious of visible weapons or questions about her captives. She quickly calls for the redcap guard if she thinks there is danger; when threatened, she makes a Sleight of Hand check to hide a small ledger on her person. A redcap guard named Sevimbum waits in the backroom of the office. He half-heartedly hacks up corpses of old borrowers between fits of manic giggling, but he always comes if called or if he hears a fight break out in the office or at the docks. Varvara hired the twin fossegrims, Black Harp and Last Kiss, to guard the docks. One brother always invisibly patrols the water beneath the cages while the other rests nearby at the bottom of the river. They attack anyone on the docks they don’t recognize. Currently two human female captives hang below the docks waiting to have their souls collected, with Olesya in the southern cage. Both women are gagged, covered in furs, suffering from hypothermia and nearly impossible to tell apart without opening the cages. Forlarren CR 2
Redcap CR 6
Arctic Fossegrim (2) CR 4
Human Captive (2) CR —
Trap:
Development: If Varvara survives the encounter, she covers up the robbery out of fear of reprisal from Bazza; if Varvara dies then Bazza begins searching for thieves. Nadezhda does not forget the insult if attacked and begins plotting to steal the PC’s souls. If the PCs stole the ledger, they now have a list of people in debt to Essence Exchange to do with what they wish. Olesya is grateful if she survives, and has knowledge of a plot by the Cold Sisters to demoralize the Heralds in Irrisen. She implores the PCs to take her and her husband to Whitethrone to help warn the other resistance leaders. If Olesya dies, the Heralds will be caught unawares by a brutal series of executions of its members.
Can't....stop....editing....
Rules for Round 4 I disagree with the restrictions being tight here. I could locate those maps nearly anywhere and fill them with literally anything. This round is almost terrifying in its openness, more so than the monster round for me.
Only 6 posts to transition from The Ring to Dune. Nice, guys.
If at some point my tv turns to static and Neil crawls out of it, I'm quitting Superstar for good.
My heart goes out to you, whoever you are. Every time I previewed my item using the submission tool and saw that my word count was over 600, I had a series of small heart attacks until I closed the window. What if I accidentally had clicked submit instead of preview? For some reason I keep thinking of this quote: You should have let me see her, Captain. We should have done this as men - not with fire.
Two thin, gray arms slither out of a pile of filthy rags, ending in ruinous claws. A roughly humanoid form coalesces noiselessly from the refuse.
Naturally Ignored (Su) Living creatures are incapable of looking directly at a tatterghoul. Against the living, a tatterghoul has the hide in plain sight ranger class feature for urban terrain and any area of dim light, as well as concealment (20% miss chance). Living creatures are also considered flat-footed against a tatterghoul's attacks. True seeing negates this ability. This is a mind-affecting effect. Tatterghouls are spawned as a result of slow, preventable deaths witnessed by multiple indifferent onlookers. Given these circumstances, tatterghouls are most often found in large cities, especially in nations like Cheliax, Katapesh or Nidal. In these places the urban poor often succumb to starvation or exposure on the street while passersby pretend not to notice. As they were ignored and invisible in life, so are they in death. The eyes of living creatures subconsciously refuse to linger on a tatterghoul, making direct observation almost impossible. This is not true invisibility, however, and they can be seen in peripheral vision. Shrouded in dirty rags, the tatterghoul's ashen torso and limbs are unnaturally slender, but their claws are oversized and razor-sharp. Its head is featureless except for a gaping mouth and all-white eyes. Filled with rage at their unnecessary deaths and the callousness of the living, tatterghouls stalk the areas where they died looking for lone victims at night. They rarely kill in combat, preferring to stabilize unconscious enemies and keep them somewhere to watch them starve or succumb to the elements. When faced with multiple dangerous opponents, tatterghouls prefer to use isolate on physically weak enemies before employing hit-and-run tactics. Most disturbing of all are the unexpected relationships formed when tatterghouls encounter attic whisperers. Seeing attic whisperers as kindred spirits, tatterghouls form profane families with them, lairing together in abandoned buildings or sewers. A tatterghoul’s mournful brood multiplies through the abduction of children. The tatterghoul transforms them into attic whisperers to assuage its unending loneliness, often causing mass hysteria in cities as children go missing. Tatterghouls heading larger families sometimes advance by taking class levels in rogue, becoming devastating combatants.
OMG, number of times favorited?!? I never even thought of that, now I have something new to obsess over in round 3.
I just want to take a moment to thank every person who took a look at my map, and a special thanks to everyone who took time to comment. Whether you liked my map or not, I genuinely appreciated all of your feedback, and I hope to incorporate that into my future rounds if I get the chance. I'd also like to apologize for the giant wall of text I'm about to throw down onto this page. I'm going to try and talk about some decisions I made and address some of the comments, starting with the simplest and working my way up. Spelling Errors
Why Absalom
Bad Sewer
The Horsemen Are Rivals
The Four do not openly wage war upon one another,
While there is much infighting among the lower ranks, the 4 more or less coexist because each has there own interests, but a common goal: the end of all things. Because power is the means to an end and not the end itself, they're much more likely to work with those who can bring their end goal to fruition. The Horseman of War has no interest in taking over the portfolio of Pestilence, but still appreciates that mortals die of disease. They have rivals, of course, but they are generally their servants who seek to supplant them. Even if you do consider them rivals, it doesn't matter. Daemons are the ultimate pragmatists, willing to work with Urgathoa, Zyphus, Rovagug, Ghlaunder and others. If they can coexist with non-daemons (and they do, Urgathoa and Zyphus were gifted domains within Abaddon!), surely they can work with each other if a worlds worth of souls are at stake. There are even examples of them working together, such as the binding of the Olethrodaemon and forays into the maelstrom to murder various protean lords. These are all just my opinions of course, but I did not come to this decision lightly or without research. Overreaching
I want to thank everyone one more time, especially anyone who took the time to read this ridiculous post. Even if I don't move on to the next round, I learned a lot that will improve my designs in the future.
The Raven Black would be my guess. The name of the person who asked the question.
Just wanted to say here that the contestants as a whole have really upped their map game. I am certainly going to have trouble picking only 8 maps to vote for.
Does anybody know if the judges will post Round 3 rules early like they did for Round 2? Or do they make the reveal when the winners are announced? They will probably post the rules before the winners are announced, but exactly when I couldn't say. It's almost certainly going to be a monster, but the rules will provide a twist on the kind of monster they'd like. They may say the monster has to be found in a certain terrain type, they may specify a number of monster types that are off limits, they will almost certainly give us a CR range. Either way, start looking at the rules for monster creation now, and spit-balling a varied bunch of ideas in hopes that one of them will fit the criteria.
I have finally submitted my entry, and so I would like to go to bed now. First I guess it is customary that I introduce myself. I live in Philadelphia with my wife and infant son, and I work as a software developer for a mid-sized company you've never heard of. While I've played video game RPGs for probably more than 20 years, I only started playing tabletop RPGs in the last 3-4 years. Fortunately I love to read rulebooks and campaign books so in a short time I've managed to absorb a lot of pathfinder knowledge. I also play or DM in 2-3 games at a time, including pathfinder, 5E and Dungeon World. On top of that I have an absurd board game collection and am fortunate enough to work at a place with board game lunch club. No writing credits to speak of, but I'm always working on something. A book, a game, a dungeon, I love projects of all kinds. Anyway, I'm starting to ramble, which means it's time to rest this tired brain. Good luck everyone!
A small portal to the River Styx in Abbadon grows larger in the sewers beneath Absalom. While not yet large enough for a Daemon, the portal spews filth and evil souls, mutating this area into a twisted hellscape. Four strange clerics of the Horsemen, transformed by soul-stuff, protect the portal.
Wow. Thanks everyone who voted for me. Now I have rather a lot of work to do.
Ebon Fury
Once per day, as a standard action, the wielder may drive the spike into the ground, converting a thin layer of the ground to magically slick volcanic glass in a 20-foot radius. Everyone but the wielder treats the area as if affected by grease (as the spell, save DC 16). The wielder may use a standard action to strike the volcanic glass with the hammer, expending the magic and creating an explosion that showers the 20-foot radius with obsidian shards. The razor-sharp stones deal 5d6 magical slashing damage and 1d6 bleed damage to all creatures in the area but the wielder. Any creature within the area who makes a successful DC 16 Reflex save takes half as much slashing damage and no bleed damage. The ground, now littered with obsidian shards, is treated as non-magical difficult terrain. After 24 hours, any obsidian created by the hammer crumbles into harmless black sand. Construction
I already really liked this map and voted for it, but now that I can read the text I like it even more. There were a lot of details I missed in the map text to make this an even more dynamic encounter than it was previously. I highly recommend everyone (especially those who didn't vote for it) to take a second look.
I think the Dinosaur graveyard is more jungle/dino themed than undead. The Ghoul Pit is the only map I'd considered strictly undead themed, but I did not like it. Patrick, if you make it to round 4 and you get free choice of where your encounter takes place, please consider having it at the Corpse Wall. Then I'll be less bummed.
Top 100, top 110, whichever, doesn't matter. I'd just like to see the list so I could learn from them.
Hey RPGSS runners, Are there any plans on releasing the top 100 items this year? I know last year finding out what kind of items made the top and comparing myself against them really helped me figure out what to do differently this year (and hopefully perform better). I would like the opportunity to do that again if possible.
I would love some feedback on my item Alchemist's Retort
The shield's hollow back can be loaded with alchemical splash weapons. Once per round–when the wielder of a loaded shield is hit in melee combat–the front of the shield bursts violently outward, and a single use of a stored splash weapon is spewed on the attacker. The enemy takes a direct hit, and any splash effects are dealt in a 15-foot cone of the wielder’s choice that emanates from the shield’s space and contains the attacker. The wielder may also choose to activate the shield after a successful shield bash or shield throw once per round. After the explosion the shield re-forms instantly with one more scar on the front. Loading a splash weapon into the shield is a standard action that provokes attacks of opportunity. The alchemist’s retort can hold up to three uses of one conventional splash weapon, or a single alchemist’s bomb. Any weapons stored in the shield last until used, but a bomb stored in the shield counts against the alchemist’s total bombs every day. A loaded shield always has a minor cosmetic change related to the weapon stored within it, such as smoking lightly, stinking of sulfur or making bubbling noises. Construction
Looking at the map of Thistletop, it's about the size I need, and it's not too cluttered. So perhaps 5 foot squares isn't so bad.
Anything written by Michael Kortes. I just read the Slave Trenches of Hakotep and that guy is just the best. I believe he also wrote The Haunting of Harrowstone (great), A History of Ashes (also great), and What Lies in Dust (never read it, but now I'm going to). You'd have to change the ultimate reason PCs came to the Slave Trenches to make it a standalone, but that isn't too hard and the encounters are just the best.
I'm curious what her shaman spirit is. Lore (since she's so interested by history and tradition)? I imagine her spirit is stone, since she spends an awful lot of time hearing whispers from things made of stone. Also her spirit animal looks like it's made of earth and stone, as per that spirit's description.
I wonder if this is Paizo's attempt to make a more rules light version, kind of like Dungeon World (but obviously not quite that light)? I just recently read through the basic rules for DnD Next, and it seems like they decided to go in a more rules light direction. Seems to be all the rage these days. I love me some pathfinder and complex systems, but it's so much easier to get my friends and family to come back to the table with a game like Dungeon World, so I'm all for this.
Geb for sure, why aren't more people saying Geb?
They made a point of mentioning that two Runelords, Xanderghul and Sorshen, were mythic in the most recent Wrath of the Righteous module (Herald of the Ivory Labryinth). It was incidentally dropped information, but perhaps they mention it for a reason.
Taint liquor is just a poorly chosen ability name. I can no longer pronounce it without hearing it the bad way.
... Even more powerful variants exist" |
