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Rod-chaku of the Youthful Aberration Rogue Tortoise
Aura moderate conjuration; CL 7th
Slot Weapon; Price 8,000 gp
Description
This exotic rod consists of a pair of cherrywood batons, adorned with leather filigree for gripping, joined by a thin steel chain. If used as a primary weapon while taking a total defense action, the weilder gains an additional +1 deflection bonus to AC. If used as a dual weapon while taking a total defense action, the weilder gains a +2 deflection bonus to AC.

Once per day, as a standard action, the weilder may activate the rod-chaku of the youthful aberration rogue tortoise, causing it to spin rapidly and create a magical vortex. The vortex functions as a dimension door of CL7 and is not canon.
Construction
Requirements Craft Magic Arms and Armor, Deflect Arrows, dimension door; Cost 4,302 gp

Some data mining from the Feros Array:

Armors: The top 3 armor types account for over half of submissions. Each armor tier is represented in the top 3. Heavy only occurs once in the top 10. Almost all the Mediums are in the Top 10. Probably Heavy armors were less appealing dur to their restricted nature.

Shields: A single type accounts for over half of submissions. However, the remainder of types are evenly spread. I find those two points VERY interesting and don't know what to make of them.

Weapons: 13 weapon types account for over half of submissions. 7 are Martial, 4 are Simple, 2 are Exotic. It has the same kind of 'sweet spot' spread as the Armors which favours midrange. Speaking of pareidolia, Starknives were called out earlier in the thread as unusually common, but are tied for 21st with only 4 entries of 327 weapons.

Daaaang Feros! Five star post! Thanks! As they say, Data is Beautiful.

In 2008 or 2007 or whenever the first RPGSS was, I submitted an item. I forget what base item it was, but I remember it conferred Swallow Whole. I thought it was such an awesome idea. What player had ever used Swallow Whole? It could be a totally new thing! You'd be like Tarrasque! Aw yeah, I'm gonna win all the rounds!

My item and dozens (hundreds?) like it got brushed off as "MIAC". Monster In A Can. In my mind's eye I can recall seeing judge comments on items (mine?) where it was just four quick "MIAC" posts and then gone again. I'm not sure how much of that is recollection and how much is imagined.

Negativity can be discouraging. But being brushed off can be even more discouraging. I went seven or eight years without trying again.

A negative post which implies how to solve the problem at least offers a glimmer of hope to the optimists. If we must go negative, please don't stop at "Oh gross, you X'd a Y!". Tack on a "You should have A'd the B!" People will come back and A their Bs next year if they at least know it's a thing they can do.

Problem with the idea pool having a lot of duplication? Okay, how did it happen, and how do we prevent it from happening? If it's an easy thing to solve, it should get mentioned here at the same time the problem is identified.

If any weapon type was to be used to create a dimension door, it's obvious that rifles are the ideal candidate. If anything I'm more disappointed in the designers for missing that opportunity than anything else.

Judging from Nazard's description of Snapleaf, I think I may be able to provide a perspective on what Superstar could be. It doesn't come from a place of experience (as can be seen by my tags), but from a degree in game design.

It could be argued that one of the most important things in game design are player choices. If the choices are too obvious and easy, or too limited and repetitive, the games stops being fun. They become a grind.

As a result, I suspect the Superstar items will probably ones that give the player an option they didn't have before, without replacing or deprecating other choices.

The challenge and nuance that will separate Top 32 from Top 100 will be in how they handle the nuance of 'don't replace or deprecate other choices'. Like, if an item enhances a specific combat maneuver beyond a certain point, there's a chance the player would be foolish to do anything but that combat maneuver. Then, the designer has actually reduced player choice and made the game less fun as a result. I see a lot of items that figuratively double up what a character can do in a round if they select a specific action. Those items will make encounters repetitive and un-interesting. I have doubts we'll see any in the Top 32.

But, player choice isn't the only perspective to take when considering choice. The DM has choices to make, and they need to have fun too. If an item simply negates the DMs actions and throws them back in their face, it's reducing the DM's choices. If they know there's no feasible way to (for example) melee attack your character, then they have to pull all the melee beasts and traps from their design roster. Encounters become less diverse and more repetitive feeling. That hits both the DM's and Player's total level of fun.

TL;DR - The Superstar items are probably going to open up new spaces to play in or new sights to see rather than let players and DMs run existing paths more quickly or safely. Game Expanders > Game Enhancers.

I can't recall one... At least, nothing at the same degree as the bard-hating item. That one has so much pure hate emanating from it, the items around it begin to shift their own stats to focus on killing bards.

Speaking of gunblades, are there no sword-chuck submissions? I haven't seen any sword-chucks and I'm beginning to worry.

[Edit: *gasp* Marathon!]

And, as Headkase pointed out, most of the evil items I've seen so far seem to be the sort of thing created by a teenager who still thinks that being an assassin would be the COOLEST THING and oh man DEATH AND MURDER IS AWESOME and also blood and evil and demons and pain and stuff.

To be fair, murderhobos are an appealing demographic in today's marketplace given their relatively high disposable income and goods consumption rate. A designer seeking a greater revenue share of upvotes would be well-rewarded by considering the needs of this niche.

I strongly encourage everyone else to consider creating items such as those next year.

I don't know where this feeling came from, I partly blame the Christmas season, but...

I'm sitting here tired and kinda grumpy, voting for a lack of better things to do, staring at middling items that don't actually get me excited, and...

I felt grateful. I felt glad these people had taken the time to write and try, and left the item there for others to look at. My internal reaction was like as if someone had showed up with gingerbread cookies for everyone, or if a pet had sidled up against me. Like, a comforting emotional warming.

So, to everyone, even the ones who wrote in essay form without any template; thank you. I appreciate that you shared.

When does it get squared?

At the very beginning; "Bonus squared × 100 gp".

stop voting for a couple of hours.

What heresy is this?

Whoa... There it is. This must be the item everyone is surprised isn't already in Pathfinder. It's so obvious in hindsight. I can't believe I never thought of it...

This reputedly epic gun needs to hurry up and show in my pairings. I haven't seen a save-worthy one yet.

"All necessary spells" is not acceptable and yet there are several again this year.

It's come up so often I've been wondering if it was actually a standard I didn't know about. Like, it gives me cause for self-doubt because of how widespread it is.

51. To be fair, the new jungle is rough if you don't get a good leash.

Next year someone should make a divorce-themed item and get all the exasperation upvotes.

49. Negotiate with your DM to acquire the item you're voting on.

NICE! Another item to suggest to a party member. I'm not sure the party would approve the expense. It's a bit outside our price range, but the price strikes me as fair. I think my DM would let us quest for it, and the party would tolerate a pretty rough dungeon for it. God, this item would just -complete- his character without overshadowing anyone and change the tide of encounters without breaking them.

A second item for my Top 32 Or Riot list.

I'm sorry, Item... It's just... I really like you but I'm not sure we should be putting you in the hands of level 4 characters. I feel like you should be priced for level 10 and up. It's... it's not you, it's me.

Just saved my first staff. Now have something saved from every category. Took a while to encounter a good staff, but I like it enough to run it by my DM for use in our campaign, which I had only been planning for a weapon so far, assuming another player wanted a weapon like it. I'm 100% certain he's going to make edits to pull the power on it way back, but it's a really cool intent and set-up.

Finally encountered something so good I want to show it to a party member and expect he would want it despite having an already extensive loadout of that item type, that I could run it by the party to fund and expect them to approve it despite it eating a notable chunk of our available budget, and that I could run by the DM and expect him to approve its purchase or creation despite being homebrew because it won't break any encounters.

If it doesn't get into the top 32 I will start a riot.

Yaaay! Finally saw my own item! The formatting applied properly! And it was against an item with no formatting! Time for bed and to wake up again in four hours for work!

pH unbalanced wrote:

I mark down for making assumptions about the gender of the user.

Gender-neutral language in the singular is difficult to pull off if you end up having to use a pronoun.

If you're willing to spend word count, it should be enough to swap he/she/him/her/his/hers with the wielder/the wearer/the wielder's/the wearer's.

I've been ignoring pronouns under the 'minor edits that can be fixed in post' voting logic that allows formatting flaws. But I think it's a fair value to apply to voting. It's an inclusiveness thing, so you want designers to have an instinct for it.

I'm already getting pairs of items I've both seen; is this just randomness, or does the overall pool seem small-ish?

I think it does this intentionally. There's been at least four times where I would go from "Item of A versus Item of B" into "Item of B versus Item of A". I think it does that just to make sure I'm not just going B, B, B, B, B and that I am actually checking the items. Like, if it sneaks a repeat vote in, it's probably checking that your votes match and you're consistent.

Whoa, I haven't seen an item that causes that kind of effect since 2nd Edition. Nice.

Terrible Formatting vs. Terrible Design

.....FIGHT!

I've been forgiving terrible formatting on good design. If the item is unplayable, I'm gonna punt it no matter how structured it is.

So far I've seen...
... about 40 different items, of which...
... I threw 8 into notepad to keep to use, of which...
... 2 got me excited about the idea of using them, of which...
... 1 actually prompted me to say "Oh, hell yeah!" out loud.

When gauging my own reaction to my own item, it's in the 8/40 tier. So I'm pretty certain I won't make final 32, but I feel pretty accomplished and can't wait for the critique threads.

It stands for Miniscule Atlas Projection and refers to a visual representation of an area in two dimensions, often used for navigation of local regions by noting positions of key points relative to each other.

Just wanted to highlight a few comments that struck me as too important to skim over:

Not everyone who enters RPG Superstar does so with the intention of becoming a freelancer. Some do it for fun and to feel a part of the Pathfinder/Paizo community.

As an example, I'm one of those cases. If for some reason I do manage to end up advancing, if I get as far as the Adventure round I'll feel guilty for eating up a spot because I've never played a pre-fab module. My lack of familiarity with them pretty much insures a failure when on a deadline.

I'm mainly just here to see if I can succeed at Item, Map, and Monster then stick around for the spectacle, like going to a bar to watch a championship rather than at watch it home. A lot of ridicule of some of the more 'uncapped' aspects of my submission would send me home. I don't think I'm abnormal in those regards.

there will be people out there who will endure a tremendous amount of stress wondering if your negative feedback applies to them or their item.

This already affected me just off the Cliché Predictions thread despite no one having a way to know my item.