The Sinister Chris's page

So... when do we get to know what brutaris entails? I'm asking for a friend.

I can't find where they posted this gameplay on the Glass Canon site. Was it there and I just didn't see it?

Still sad the iconic antipaladin never got a backstory.

And you can't tell me he isn't the iconic with the amount of pictures he's been in at this point.

Where is the justice for the antipaladin!

Just tell them that when they "sell" it that goes towards "upgrading their own ship." If they have a problem with it, point out that the rules let you upgrade the ship for free, and that you could always revoke that and make them pay for upgrades out of pocket. Which would be SUPER difficult considering that everything sells for 10% of market value.

I don't think any of my items would be in this book. That's still awesome though!

I can't be the only one that's MEGA salty about suddenly having the deadline dropped in our laps months early like this.
I have NOTHING ready. I haven't even started spitballing ideas yet. To have the deadline in two weeks rather than four months is a nightmare!
I mean, I'll do it, but it's going to affect the quality of my item.

I've participated the last 5 years, and honestly I look forward to it every year now. It feels great to participate in a competition in the field I'm trying to claw my way in to. On top of that, it's great practice. Every year I look at what I need to improve on, and each year my submission is better than the last.
The first item I submitted was a hot mess, and subsequently got eaten alive by SKR. It was brutal, but it forced me to improve for the next year. Hell, I haven't even gotten past round one yet, but I'm going to keep submitting until I do. Especially since I know my item last year made it past the initial culling for round one.
You can do it. We ALL can do it! I look forward to seeing your submissions in the next competition. :)

*scrolls through the list*

*does a happy dance*

Exciting! I haven't been culled! I honestly thought my submission this year was a little weak, but apparently people actually like it. That makes me happy. :)

Thank you Paizo community. You have made my day.

Huh. Well there must be a way to come up with a rough estimate. I know there are items that do this, but the only one coming to mind is Restorative Ointment from the core book (page 526). The problem is I'm drawing a blank (thanks sleep deprivation!).

I'm usually decent at figuring out the pricing formula for magic items, including the ones not listed. However, I've been having trouble figuring out what the formula would be for charges per day if you had multiple options to use the charges on.

For example: a mask that has three uses per day of either see invisibility or blindness (per blindness/deafness) that you can choose how many of the three charges are used on each of the two spells.

This also comes with the question of whether there would be a price reduction for only being able to do blindness, but not deafness?

I'd like to know if there's an actual formula for calculating this that I might have missed.

Thank you in advance to anyone with answers.

Not seeing it yet, but i did notice something I found humorous.

Why do people try so hard to twist the RaR to their whim rather than altering the rules for a custom game.

Things like Harry Potter you can't use the rules as written. The characters would be all over the place class wise. Maybe try making a custom class with features pulled from alchemist, sorcerer, wizard, and summoner? Just don't harp on the developers when the rules designed for their world setting don't perfectly fit your favorite setting. That's what rule zero is for. :)

Huh. I wasn't expecting this many posts. Oh well!

I'm going to try to find the answer myself looking through the posts, but maybe someone else will have an answer for me.

In the kingdom building section it mentions building armies in one of the kingdom phases, mentioning details for it in the mass combat section. However, I can't seem to find the rules for making/starting an army in there, let alone using something like build points to do so.

I'm currently running Kingmaker and figured the group would like the ability to build armies.

i personally broke a 3.5 bard using words of creation. i'd have to check what else i used, but in the end the party might as well have been 10 levels higher the moment my bard started playing. I was rather proud of how i took an underpowered class and gave it a chance to show that you don't need to do damage to power game :)

So i had a player that wanted to do this.

What we did was design his eidolon as a "converted" evil outsider working for him.

I then analyzed the summon monster list for the CRs of the monsters you summon, restricted him to only summoning evil outsiders and added a number of evil outsiders to his summons list. If you're interested i can dig up my CR analysis for quick reference.

The rules should always be looked at as a guideline that you can sculpt to fit your own game. Just don't go crazy.

...Grow a pair...

...excuse me?

Oh! That link that Broken Zenith posted is also super awesome! Thanks!

Firstly, I know that none of you KNOW me personally, but to assume that I am a player trolling for 'good builds' is incredibly insulting.

I'm currently running three games (Kingmaker, Carrion Crown, and one of my own design) and playing in none, so it's also a bit of a slap in the face.

I would like to also reiterate that I don't need DMing advice. I've been playing D&D and it's variants for 18 years and DMing for 11 of those years.

The Zen Archer and Synthesist Summoner combos are the kind of 'cheese' that I'm trying to be aware of. So thank you for that.

I run games where I allow any of the Paizo published Pathfinder materials. I do this because I can handle it, because I'm past the point of fearing rules.

I even allow homebrew and splat rules, depending on the player and the rule set.

For a clarification of what I'm looking for, any of you that are familiar with the concept of 'Pun-Pun', that's what I'm wanting to avoid. Any of you that aren't familiar with it should look it up. It's an eye opener to how broken 3.0 and 3.5 were capable of being before Pathfinder happened.

I'm not going to make the player aware of these designs. I'm going to go over his character, and if any red flags go up reading it I'm going to make him retool his character so that it's an acceptable design.

Does my question make more sense now?

So I have a player joining one of my pathfinder games who I've played with and is known for making game breaking characters. I have plenty of experience as a DM, so this isn't a DMing tips and tricks question. What I'd like to do is preemptively ban hammer any game breaking design concepts. So my questions is this:

Are there any threads discussing game breaking character combinations?

This is something that will help in this instance and in the future for if I allow any other well informed power gamers in to my games. Because I've known more than one player that lurks forums looking for game breaking designs. So if they're out there for Pathfinder, I'd prefer to know BEFORE they're used against me.

I have to say that the Porcine Pendant was definitely one of my favorites. Even if it was basically a fascinate effect, it was a fascinate effect with STYLE! I'm not entirely sure why it wasn't in the top 32.

I'm going to have to come back and comb through these submissions. I just never seem to have the time to do the critique ritual each year. :(

Motley Gum
Aura faint evocation; CL 5th
Slot none; Price 500 gp, Weight –
Description
Originally designed by goblins, and later perfected by gnomes, this lumpy, white ball of tree sap and beeswax is the size of a large marble and speckled with every color of the rainbow. When placed in the mouth as a move action and chewed as a free action this gum bombards the taste buds of the chewer with a torrent of flavors, changing roughly every six seconds. The chewer can then, once a round as a standard action, spit a glob of elemental energy at any creature or object within 30 feet as a ranged touch attack, dealing 2d6 points of damage. The type of damage is determined by the current flavor of the gum, which is rolled randomly at the start of the chewer’s turn.
d6 Flavor Damage Type
1 Sour Apple Acid
2 Mint Cold
3 Citrus Electricity
4 Cinnamon Fire
5 Cane Sugar Sonic
6 Licorice Negative Energy
A savvy user of Motley Gum can usually gauge what type of elemental damage a flavor is going to cause, based on past experience. After one minute the gum finally settles on one flavor, which remains for one hour and no longer allows the chewer to spit elemental globs. There is a substantial variety of different flavors Motley Gum can come in, some of which are only fit for goblin consumption, but this variety is one of the most common.
Construction
Requirements Craft Wondrous Items, fire sneeze, acid splash; Cost 250 gp

Make absolutely certain you put all of the requirements and required words in your submission as well. I made the mistake of forgetting to put in "Craft Wondrous Items" as a requirement, and including it would have put me over. It was an honest mistake that cost me even having a chance. Be warned!

If you wanted to theoretically include a table in a submission how would you go about doing that so that it still looks clean.

I tested one of my possible submissions and the table looked all crunched together. Apparently using tab isn't effective. Any suggestions?

Again this is only a possible submission, and I figured this is information that could be useful for anyone.

I just read this entry in the book, and i agree, they should at least flesh out Ouphineil and the salvation machine.

Awesome! I'll try to do that right now. (we'll see if my cell phone decides to play nice...)

it really does. But then again, that is basically what her unholy symbol looks like.

lol! Any specific design in mind?

I did a Lamashtu pumpkin this year. I was wondering if anyone else did Pathfinder/Golarion pumpkins this year.

Here's the pics:

http://thesinisterchris.deviantart.com/#/d5ikdfs

http://thesinisterchris.deviantart.com/#/d5ikdbn

If this is the wrong place for this PLEASE give me a heads up and I'll post it where it belongs :)

That's kind of what i was thinking, McPants. either way I'm mostly using the system as a guideline anyway.

on a lighter note it's made my old 3 and 3.5 books relevant again!

I do agree that explaination and expansion wouldn't be necessary, i mean it hasn't stopped me so far. I'm now up to 30+ conversions and designs. I just was primarily wondering about the internal logic behind some of the numbers. After all, there has to be a reason why +2 to a skill is more expensive than two free class skills. I just would like to know what that reason is.

I have yet to be disappointed by a Paizo product, and I must say this is one of the most useful books in the series for DMs. I do have a few questions that I don't remember seeing answered in this thread.
The first is whether there are any plans to expand the race maker? I've built around 20ish races already, and intend to convert more, but I'd like to see more options and how much they'd cost.
The second question is a balance issue I'm curious about. Why does getting a +2 in a skill cost 2 points? It seems to me that it would balance out as a 1 point ability when you compare it to other 1 point abilities, like getting two class skills versus getting a specific bonus feat (like skill focus) being two points. I'm sure there's a reason, I was just curious what it was.
Either way, amazing book! Keep up the amazing work.

Hey, it's all good Neil. :) I'm just glad you're giving as much input as you are. I'm going to be reading the critiques that you gave in this thread either way as soon as I get the time.

So, side note: Have you discussed what working with Paizo was like? If not I know I'd like to hear your two cents on that.

So is it cool to post a request as an example item? I intend to read the input on the other items this weekend (got a game to go to:) ) but other than getting bumped on a technicality (Yeah, I definitely feel like an idiot making a rookie mistake like that...) I would like to see a review of my Profane Larva of Sarkoran Corruption. If it doesn't end up getting a detailed review that's fine, I just really want to know if I had fixed some of the technical issues if this was Superstar material.

The Sinister Chris wrote:

Profane Larva of Sarkoran Corruption

*I'm not a fan of this item.

*Firstly, the submission itself would be over word count if the designer had correctly included the Craft Wondrous Item feat in the construction requirements like he should have. Plus, he left out the Cost tag and bolded his gp value in order to make it in at exactly 300 words. It's basically a DQ.

*Secondly, it's "Worldwound"...not "World Wound." If you're going to quote Golarion canon, get it right. I also don't see why you'd name an item as something involving the corruption of Sarkoris, seeing as how that region isn't referred to as that any longer. That's why it's called the Worldwound. In addition, why would demonologists even try to create this item from the amniotic fluid of such maggots in the first place? Just about anyone in the Worldwound who isn't already a demon is a crusader trying to beat them back. And the crusaders wouldn't include demonologists trying to make an evil-aligned magic item out of demonic maggots.

*Thirdly, I didn't care for the inventiveness in having demonic maggots attached to a crystal anyway...or, that they can leap off and entangle something 40 feet away (I mean, how big are these things? Is something maggot-sized really going to entangle anyone?)...or that the maggot has an entirely different effect (i.e., fiendish spider swarm) if it backfires on the wielder when he rolls a natural 1. Why not just have it affect him the same way as the intended target?

*Lastly, like many other misguided designers who become highly enamored with the creativity of their wondrous item imaginings, they just had to include a material component in the construction requirements. Wondrous items don't have those things. That's because they aren't necessary. They're assumed as part of the underlying cost of the item. Otherwise, there's an implied black market where you can buy or acquire amniotic fluids from demonic polyps and demon blood to craft such items. The game doesn't need...

Sad! I thought I had included everything!

On a side note, a little explanation:

I thought 'Sarkoran Corruption' sounded cooler than just outright saying 'Worldwound' in the description.

My bad on calling the 'Worldwound' the 'World Wound'. Little nit picky, but this is a competition.

The demonologists part: Why wouldn't there be demonologist? The place is crawling with demons!

The material requirement: My bad again, I wouldn't have listed it if I thought I'd get dinged for it.

The maggot thing: The maggot turns into a big nasty tumor when it hits the person. That's why it entangles (which may not have been perfect rules for the thing, but seemed like a reasonable effect).

The difference in effects: It's unstable and demonic, so I thought it would be interesting if the potential backlash was different.

I suppose though, in the end what I'd like to know is this: If I hadn't missed the item creation stuff that would have put me over word count (still keeping under word count of course), had called it the 'Worldwound' and had kept out the material component, would I have been at least considered for the keep pile?

Any of the judges that are willing to put in input I would GREATLY appreciate. I'm trying to become a published designer (possibly working for/with Paizo...) and I will gladly take any and all input given to me.

Either way, all of the judges rock for even considering my item :)

Well, here it is. Hopefully this one didn't get shredded by SKR as bad as my last one. And well, if it was, I'll use it as a learning experience for next year and for my game designs.

Either way, I'd like to thank all of the judges for being awesome :)

Profane Larva of Sarkoran Corruption
Aura Moderate Conjuration [Evil]; CL 7th
Slot -; Price 13,500 gp, Weight 1 lb.
Description
This fist-sized jagged crystal appears to contain a small abyssal maggot, writhing in impotent rage.
Demonologists recently discovered polyps containing demonic maggots growing along the edge of the World Wound in what was formerly Sarkoris. This item was originally crafted using the amniotic fluid from these pulsating growths.
Once per day as a standard action the wielder makes a ranged touch attack against a creature within 40 ft., causing the maggot to leap from the crystal and latch onto the target. The target then takes 4d6 damage and becomes entangled as the maggot burrows into their skin, transforming into a large growth covered in scales, claws, fangs and hair. On a successful save (Fortitude DC 16) the target only takes 1d6 damage, and doesn’t become entangled, and takes no further damage as the maggot doesn’t take root. Each round, for the next seven rounds, the target makes a save (Fortitude DC 16) or takes 1d6 damage as the growth tears at their flesh. After the duration runs out the growth withers and falls off of the target. The secondary effects can be ended prematurely by casting dismissal, or a similar effect, on the target.
If the wielder rolls a natural 1 on its ranged touch attack the maggot leaps from the crystal and instead burrows into the wielder’s flesh. Painful boils appear on the wielder of the crystal, causing 1d6 damage as they erupt into an uncontrolled fiendish spider swarm (Bestiary pages 258 and 294) attacking the closest living creature each round for seven rounds or until destroyed.
Construction
Requirements Fleshworm Infestation (Ultimate Magic), Summon Swarm, a vial of amniotic fluid from a Demonic Polyp or Demon Blood; 6,750 gp

I'll toast to that!

I'm sorry to hear that Neil. You rock!

In the end it probably is for the best leaving the DMs to deal with the more sensitive (or darker in some cases) situations.

I think the conversation has veered away from having specifically to do with RPG Superstar. Obviously you wouldn't want to put something with what is considered questionable content in the competition, just in case it got you disqualified. I think the conversation has more to do with Pathfinder as a whole and it's generally agreed upon maturity level.

I could see that, but playing with a number of female gamers I know that it can be looked at as an interesting opportunity for roleplaying (this is according to them. Well, and myself admittedly) both from the DMs seat and the player's perspective. Especially if it's something where the character's have no choice due to time constraints or the character carrying something along the lines of a godling or prophesied child.

At the same time I can see where you wouldn't necessarily want to promote it as the design company. Just like any of a number of other interesting roleplaying situations that could come up in a game that would have to be handled carefully by the DM and players.

Okay, I realize it was back in December, but I kinda want to know something.

SKR mentioned that in most cases items that affect a pregnancy in some way would be a PR nightmare, whether it's beneficial or negative. I was just wondering, then what kind of discussion happened before creating the Attic Whisperer (see: Bestiary 2).

This is in no way meant to be a gotcha question. I'm just wondering if their is an inconsistency here, or a reason behind this. Like you don't want to see things like the Attic Whisperer in RPG Superstars, or their was a lot of discussion before it was included in the book, or what? Either way I'm curious.

EDIT: If it is just an accidental inconsistency I don't care. It happens to all of us. :)

And I'd still want to read that, just for the lulz.

I sooooo want to see that submission. Hearing about submissions like that boosts my confidence in at least making it to round 2.

I could be entirely wrong though. Only one way to find out...

For that matter can we just underscore everything and have a one word submission? ;)

This makes more sense! Yeah, I wanted to do something that fit the world setting, so there needed to be some fluff.

This puts my mind at rest.

Even if I get DQed for too much fluff I'll just know for next year. I will continue to let this competition hammer me until I come out the other side reforged as a legitimate game designer!

As for the sucker punch thing, the thread came at me out of left field a couple days ago. So I freaked out a little. I'm calmer now.

I guess I get a little nervous about sweeping generalizations in the forum from the judges. I spent months honing my item, as I'm sure many of you did as well, and I don't like the idea of being auto rejected because it had a minor flaw.

I know about #27, it doesn't stop me getting angry or nervous.

I guess part of it is that they wanted us to bring our A game, and while it was implied that the format should be similar to items in the Core Book, it was also stated that most of the Core items wouldn't make it in this competition. So do we make Core items or not? It's all very confusing. Especially considering some of the cooler items have back story when you start to digging deeper into the other books.

It is opening my eyes to the fickle nature of the game design world. Which is nice practice considering I'm actively working towards being a professional game designer, as I'm sure quite a few of us are.

The long and short of it is that while I don't want to be handled with kids glove I also don't like feeling like I was just sucker punched.

Oh wait, okay. A little fluff is acceptable. Or is it? According the the SKR post a little fluff is fine. I'm so confused!?!?! Because if a little fluff isn't okay then we were basically lied to. Not intentionally of course, but the phrasing here is "NO FLUFF, RAWR!" and the SKR thread stats "NO EXCESSIVE FLUFF, RAWR!" which are two entirely different things.

I think I'm okay, because the fluff helps explain some of the mechanics.

Either that or I just seriously messed up again and will have to wait another year because I was unaware of a mystery 'rule' (practically a rule if we're gonna get auto-rejected for it...) that wasn't in the Auto-Reject list.

Hard to jump through invisible hoops is all.

It bummed me out at first, but I knew that all of the critiques were valid, and that I could use that information as ammo for this round. I already have a fairly solid idea that I feel will get me at least in the running for the top 32.

I'm trying to be confident without being cocky.

Agreed! The more the merrier!

On a side note, do you have any advice for someone who's item was thoroughly trounced last year?

I'm ready with my A game this time. When do the festivities start?

I really like the idea of above colossal creatures working less like creatures and more like massive hazards. Where you can climb on them and have to avoid their feet, etc. Kind of like Shadow of the Colossus.