Thrashling's page

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2qkn9?2014-Critique-my-Wondrous-Item-thread#2
Manservant Mannequin
The idea of swapping places with a body double isn't bad, but the second power seems unnecessary. Also, as-written, by tricking someone into saying the mannequin's command word, you can teleport them away 250 ft (possibly into a deadly situation) with no save, and get all their stuff. That's a huge problem.

Indeed, but you have to trick them in to saying the command word, and in range. I admit that this may make the pricing of item off, but i sure as heck cant figure out how to price an item. It seems to be something along the lines of "would people pay for this? Ok, add a bit and call it good."

I think that my item has suffered from the length of time people have to consider all the implications of such an item, both immediate, like donning armor, and not-so-obvious like being able to kidnap someone without any of their gear. I tried to make the down powerful sides take effort and planning, with the measurements setup bit. But, i think people said "that is dumb" before they understood that I have a very specific reason for it all to be there.

It could have used another pass over or two, but I still think the item is a lot more sound both for PCs and GMs than a lot of the other stuff I have seen.

The long and the short of it is this. Next year I will not be writing an item that actually take consideration to fully understand. It will be straightforward and easy to get what I am trying to do.

I could have left eh Alarm out, but the idea was that the mannequin serves in large parts as a squire for the lone road-weary warrior.

If i were to re-write i would include a mention armor being considered donned instantly or some such. I am getting a lot of "I just dont know what this is for."

Thrashling wrote:

Manservant Mannequin

Aura moderate conjuration; CL 7th
Slot none; Price 21,000 gp; Weight 12 lb.
DESCRIPTION

This fitting mannequin is an amalgamation of shaped wood, leather and metal gears. By manipulating the gears and leather straps almost any humanoid shape can be replicated precisely and equipped with any assortment of clothing, armor, and trinkets. When unequipped this mannequin can collapse down neatly for easy storage and transportation. Properly adjusting the mannequin to match an individuals measurements takes one person at least 5 minutes.
By speaking a command word within 250 feet of the mannequin, the speaker and the mannequin, but not the equipment either is wearing or holding, trade places simultaneously as if by dimension door. Once swapped the user is unable to act for the rest of the round. If the mannequin was not appropriately adjusted to the user or the equipment on the mannequin is improperly sized for the user he takes a -2 penalty to all rolls which require movement until adjustments are made.

By erecting the mannequin in a standing position and speaking another command word the mannequin acts as a guardian with an alarm radius of 20 feet for up to 12 hours per day, though they need not be contiguous. At the time of activation the user sets whether the alert will be audible or mental as alarm. Additionally, the user may have the mannequin automatically trade places with the user when the alert happens but doing so renders the user disoriented and unable to act for one additional round.
CONSTRUCTION
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, dimension door, alarm; Cost 10,500 gp

Since I'm not competing in the competition this year, I will do my best to provide feedback on wondrous items in this thread. I'm going to try to go more or less in order, and reserve the right to make exceptions or just pass over items. Gotta make some time for the day job, after all.

With this item, I am reminded in part of that little button-nose droid in Star Wars I....

Real quickly, I submitted with proper bolding and italics. I copied it over from my source document that didn't have the bb code tags, which I have edited back in. I can assure you that the item submitted had all the bb code correct.

Aside from that, are there other formatting errors?

Provocateur’s Pamphlet

Aura faint enchantment; CL 3rd
Slot none; Price 2,000 gp; Weight —
Description
This delicate, folded vellum broadsheet bears a supernatural sense of gravitas, though it is blank and unadorned.  

Inscribing a provocateur’s pamphlet with a call for action, political treatise, or other such agenda-driven propaganda awakens the enchantment within the parchment.    

When inscribed in such a manner, any intelligent humanoid that reads and comprehends a provocateur’s pamphlet must make a Will save (DC 14), or be immediately compelled to act in reasonable accordance with the intent of its message.  Additionally, that reader will be compelled to immediately share the provocateur’s pamphlet with his nearest family member, friend, or acquaintance, and urge them to spread the word. Finally, any reader that fails the Will save will be compelled to treat the author of the provocateur’s pamphlet as a trusted friend and ally, unless this conflicts with the original intent of the author’s message.    

These effects persist until the reader feels as if the original intent of the message has been fulfilled, or the enchantment upon the provocateur’s pamphlet wears off, whichever occurs first.  

Once inscribed, a provocateur’s pamphlet remains enchanted for up to seven days, or until the end state set forth within its message is achieved.  At that point the enchantment wears off, and it becomes nothing more than mundane literature, albeit still bearing the author’s original message.  

As long as it remains enchanted, a provocateur’s pamphlet can affect any number of readers, though a reader can only be affected by a particular provocateur’s pamphlet once.  

Careful consideration must be given when inscribing a provocateur’s pamphlet, thus doing so takes at least one hour.
Construction

Requirements Craft Wondrous Item,...

This was by far my favorite item that I voted on. I am astonished that it isn't top 32. It is something that I will use in games for years to come. By far the best item I read during this competition and it was an easy automatic win every time I saw it. I have no idea how it could be improved.

Manservant Mannequin
Aura moderate conjuration; CL 7th
Slot none; Price 21,000 gp; Weight 12 lb.
DESCRIPTION

This fitting mannequin is an amalgamation of shaped wood, leather and metal gears. By manipulating the gears and leather straps almost any humanoid shape can be replicated precisely and equipped with any assortment of clothing, armor, and trinkets. When unequipped this mannequin can collapse down neatly for easy storage and transportation. Properly adjusting the mannequin to match an individuals measurements takes one person at least 5 minutes.

By speaking a command word within 250 feet of the mannequin, the speaker and the mannequin, but not the equipment either is wearing or holding, trade places simultaneously as if by dimension door. Once swapped the user is unable to act for the rest of the round. If the mannequin was not appropriately adjusted to the user or the equipment on the mannequin is improperly sized for the user he takes a -2 penalty to all rolls which require movement until adjustments are made.

By erecting the mannequin in a standing position and speaking another command word the mannequin acts as a guardian with an alarm radius of 20 feet for up to 12 hours per day, though they need not be contiguous. At the time of activation the user sets whether the alert will be audible or mental as alarm. Additionally, the user may have the mannequin automatically trade places with the user when the alert happens but doing so renders the user disoriented and unable to act for one additional round.
CONSTRUCTION
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, dimension door, alarm; Cost 10,500 gp

Indeed, yes, good practice. However, money.

I am working on something at work that will make me several thousand dollars. The faster it gets done, the more money I make. Thus, I ask if there is a possible "hey, give this a bit more time, there is a chance you are top 32" because it would increase the level of any entry I make and wouldn't make me regret the time spent on a hypothetical entry which would cause me to lose money.

Again, no real worries. Merely a request.

Out of curiosity, is there a way that the entries being voted on by judges can be notified so that they can spend the little extra time on their monster entries?

I am a busy man and if I am in the top 32 I definitely want to put forth a good entry, but I am just slammed at work right now and could use the time designing and writing if I am not in the top 32 making money instead.

Anywho, just a thought.

I'll make one last set of assertions and a conclusion in favor of having a form to aid formatting in the contest, then I will be done.

Voting in the contest is something that can, and should be, fun.
Reading and understanding that core of the item is more fun than checking formatting.
I find it, and suspect a great many other do as well, easier to judge items that are properly formatted allowing me to focus on the core idea of the item.
If too many entries are not properly formatted voting becomes a chore, boring, and makes me less likely to spend time voting.
Voting contributes to the success of the competition.
The goal of the competition is to identify someone capable of writing a publish worthy module.
Having multiple rounds identifies the best designers more effectively than having a single round.

Now for the grand conclusion:
By having a formatting tool for the first round of entries, the voting during the first round will be less tedious and more fun thereby making one of the goals of the competition, participating and voting in the competition itself be fun, more easily attainable without significantly impacting the other goal, to identify someone capable of writing a publish worthy module, of the competition.

Okay, I have some further thoughts, but they are a little less rigorous in my thinking. I'm tired.

I think the best thing to do would be to have the first round, the open call, have a formatting tool to make the judging process more fun and less tedious. It would increase participation in the voting process thereby increasing the efficacy of the competition. Generating a database from the submitted items is only a benefit to Paizo as the statistical analyses that can be done with such a database are astonishing.

I might consider cutting to the top 64 during the first round and having a new round in the competition cutting to the top 32 with no formatting tool (or an entirely different "design a XXX") to give the people who can both come up with creative ideas and follow proper formatting an easier chance to shine after facing an initial round cut of over 90% (given at least 1000 entries). I think a Design an NPC round would be perfectly fitting as a way to test a potential designers skills in designing a module.

Round 1 - open call - Design a wondrous item - Use a form to submit entry
Round 2 - top 64 - Design an NPC
Round 3 - top 32 - Design a Bestiary entry
Round 4 - top 16 - Design an encouter
Round 5 - top 4 - Module pitch

Thrashling wrote:

Jeff Lee wrote:

1. The board's code isn't that hard to figure out and implement.

2. The rules provide a template you can cut, paste, and fill in if you need to do so.

3. There's a preview button that allows you to see just how your item will look to everyone once it's submitted, allowing you to review for mistakes and correct as necessary, as many times as necessary.

Surely, but how many entries this year have failed to do that?

At least some of the ideas behind those entries are not horrible, and with some enforced template work could become legitimate entries. This makes it easier to identify innovative authors who can be taught to write in the template format and makes the voting experience better, faster, and more enjoyable.

See, there's no 'can be taught to write in the template format' for me. I don't really care how innovate an idea is; if someone can't, during the weeks they have leading up to the deadline, follow the basic instructions provided, then I don't want to vote for them. I'll upvote the perfectly formatted spell-in-a-can that once per day can be commanded to reveal its true power of shaving your face for you that's sitting right next to the innovate and incredibly sloppy item. Not because I really want to see that shaving SIAC in the top 32, but because I'm confident that there will be plenty of other well-formatted and innovative items that will win out in the end.

Every year it seems there's a call for more and more handholding on the part of Paizo for the preliminary rounds, and it bugs me. Making an entry better isn't Paizo's job; it's the job of the contestant.

Let me ask a question then.

Assume you are a game developer seeking new talent and you have two applicants.

One can easily turn interesting, compelling ideas in to blocks of text that match the format of needed to be used in an RPG handbook but does not have the ability to think up interesting, compelling ideas at all.

The other can create interesting, compelling ideas with abundance which would make for good game material, but can not write a block of text in proper rules format to save his life.

Which do you think is easier to find so you can find so you can employ them? Which skill set is more important to creating game books which people will want to buy? Could you train either to do what the other can do?

Thrashling wrote:

Surely, but how many entries this year have failed to do that?

Yup. So that's really on them, not on the developers at Paizo.

It's a submission requirement. It doesn't auto negate your item from consideration, but it will certainly weigh on you in the end.

Again, it's right there in front of them. Not so difficult to make use of. If you need to be spoon-fed the format any more than that, then maybe you're not ready for prime time?

With that logic poorly formatted items could simply be auto-DQed and we wouldn't have to worry about. The reason that isn't the case is because the template format can be taught to someone with good ideas.

The more valuable part of this competition is finding creative talent, not adhere-to-template talent.

Ohh, one more thought on having a form entry method - the creation of a searchable database of all entries in a year. Want to index items by CL or by price? With a form entry you can do that which could be valuable information to study for actual designers to see what trends people have in submitted items. That kind of information could be used in the creation of published content to meet formerly unseen needs/desires.

1. The board's code isn't that hard to figure out and implement.

2. The rules provide a template you can cut, paste, and fill in if you need to do so.

3. There's a preview button that allows you to see just how your item will look to everyone once it's submitted, allowing you to review for mistakes and correct as necessary, as many times as necessary.

Surely, but how many entries this year have failed to do that?

At least some of the ideas behind those entries are not horrible, and with some enforced template work could become legitimate entries. This makes it easier to identify innovative authors who can be taught to write in the template format and makes the voting experience better, faster, and more enjoyable.

Ok, so there are known guidelines for designing an item, like price is double the cost, and only certain places a wondrous item can be worn. These known facts would either have a way of limiting what can be input in those places or flag an inconsistency for the designer to review it. By doing this new designers are prevented from pitfalls that some minor tutelage would prevent and the people reading the items have a certain amount of focus removed from the formulaic aspects of the entry and can place their focus on the actual contents of the entry.

Personally, I think the "it is part of the context and shows how well you follow rules" argument is bunk. I have a few reasons:

1) BB code - Mentioned above, a large part of the formatting for this competition is getting the bbcode right. This is not something that an author of a module would have to worry about. Having a form that takes care of proper formatting when appropriate information is input solves this non-issue.

2) Using a form to do sanity checking to ensure items meet design requirements will increase the quality of items to be judged.

If, for example, you have a piece of code that automatically identifies possible conflicts with say CL and Aura level new designers will most likely fix the problem. Not only is this instructive, but the items that fail to make adjustments can be more easily dismissed as the problem isn't ignorance, it is disobedience. Ignorance can be cured in a good writer, disobedience is much harder to work with. That is information much more valuable to Paizo when considering to whom a contact offer is made.

3) Well formatted entries are easier to judge. This will make the voting process more effective in identifying creative ideas instead of just adherence to a template.

4) Well formatted entries will lead to more voting. Right now, voting can be somewhat of a chore because identifying the innovative idea of an item takes more time with poorly formatted entries. This leads to fewer votes being cast as it turns in to a chore instead of an enjoyable way to contribute to an activity we all enjoy.

5) Spending time to write a formatting tool for the contest can still be used by authors to create well designed and checked items for published work. This can help ensure a more consistent item design process. Thus, the money spent creating the form for the contest, if done properly, wouldn't be a pure money sink. Additionally, im sure someone on the boards could handle the programming reducing cost by them already being familiar with the needs of the contest and the requirement for item sanity checking.

Thoughts?

brilliantly executed joke item beats h.u.d.

id like to purchase my multiclassing please.

One of the things that I think makes a good item is something that solves a problem that the players in a group have accepted, found work arounds for, but now it is simply time to focus on other things.

In fact, I think most of RPG games are based on this method of increasing power. Find something that many people want to be able to do, create a something that meets that need and add a flaw. The flaw is what allows players to continue to use strategy, planning and cunning to overcome situations where the flaw comes in to play. Some time later in the game, provide a stopgap to cover up most of the flaw because a good game will have had it come up and overcome a few times. This becomes routine, so making a mechanic to say "we skip over this 10 minutes of stuff we have done 5 times before" is where I think most clever magic items/some spells fit. Plus, because it is a new way of doing something, that thing which had become tedious before is now fun.

Think of finding food in a low level party. It is important, it provides reasonable challenges to the party and gives plenty of time for character development and party development. However, a level 15 group with a wizard isn't going to waste time (real people time) RPing out the finding of water or food in most instances - a spell will be cast and the 10 minutes that was great at level 1 and boring at level 15 becomes a 5 second near formality.

This is all so that that the trend I am noticing is that the items I enjoy voting for and truly want to see do well are the ones that make me say one of two things to myself.

1) "Man, I wish I had that at such and such a point in my game, it would have saved the group hours of play time."

2)"Ohh, shiny, think of all the hijinx I could get in to with that"

The second one takes a clever idea, but the first one is a reliable path to creating a good item many people will want to use and it requires a good knowledge of the game and how it works and plays. The first one is very rarely a SIAC or SAK, the second can be.

Anywho, just some thoughts I have had during the voting process.

Thrashling wrote:

I think the module pitch I would make is for a form that forces proper formatting and sanity checks general guidelines.

Does your price exceed 300k? Popup saying you item is too expensive.
Do your cost and price follow the rules?
It would allow you enter all this information, or use drop down menus when possible, and then it would spit out a properly formatted and bbcoded entry.

Hell i might just make it a project to brush on my webdesign and coding skills.

Part of the point of this contest though is to find new content creators that can create material following some simple guidelines. Seems like they would want to find the people that required the least hand holding.

Then lets start with a few days of voting on just whether or not an item meets the guidelines well enough to be compared to other items. Or at the very least to a culling of items after a sufficient number of votes are cast to have a statistically sound understand of the worst X% of items in circulation, because it wastes less time to not have to vote on obvious non-winners.

I imagine doing several smaller cullings at critical vote number totals would expedite the process of finding the best submissions and make the process more enjoyable. I think people would like to see well done, well thought out, and reasonable items to vote on over days of sorting through rubbish.

But, point taken on part of the contest to be identify people who have the ability to conform to a format. It is, however, something that can be taught to innovative thinkers.

GM, im bored and want to play something, but just for today.

I think the module pitch I would make is for a form that forces proper formatting and sanity checks general guidelines.

Does your price exceed 300k? Popup saying you item is too expensive.
Do your cost and price follow the rules?
It would allow you enter all this information, or use drop down menus when possible, and then it would spit out a properly formatted and bbcoded entry.

Hell i might just make it a project to brush on my webdesign and coding skills.

GAH.. BLUETOOTH

random item vs price above 1 million! MILLION!

so out of curiosity, is there going to be a point in the voting when the obviously not top 32, ( leaving like 128 or so items) to be voted on so that the top ones get to be seen and voted on by most people, or is there no such "culling of the weak"?

I am starting to think that a lot of the items I am seeing are a response to jerk GMs abusing something against their players and the item is a response to such abuse.

So many things to make entire methods of doing something completely impossible AND very harmful.

e.g., No teleporting of any kind, and if you try it you go crazy and die!

I wonder how many times the big bad in the campaign just ported out when the PCs found a way to beat him for that item to be made.

do we have any idea on the total number of items being voted on?

I cant tell you how many items ive seen that would have benefited so tremendously from a few paragraph breaks.

700,000 gp... ughh

Ok, this has helped me understand. Thanks for all the insight.

Not that I have seen, which is why I asked. The item I have in mind could benefit from being able to somewhat change what it is made of and looks like; being able to benefit from that should be taken in to account when determining the cost of the item.

Just because something has not been done yet doesn't mean it can't be done. In general, I thought that this kind of innovation is in part what the competition is about.

If not, I'll ditch it and just play it safe.

I have an idea for an item that would allow for it to look differently if they purchaser wanted to spend extra money to make it pretty. Is this something that is allowed or should I refrain from doing so?

a quick example - not my actual item, but would demonstrate the idea well enough.

A sailor pipe ...

Most frequently take the form a briar wood pipe with a relief of a galleon carved in to the wood but can also contain inlays of gold and other precious metals. (rest of the description)

and in the requirements have something like "A wooden pipe worth at least 50gp"

thanks for any advice.