Whitman's page

I think if ever I had to face off against a Prison Gang, my choice would be to face off with the Roleplayers; they seem so much less capable than, say, Aryan Skinheads, OMCG's and Gangbangers... :p

Me too, although I'm not sure what an OMCG is. Old Mother Clubbin' Grandads? Ornery Mammary Crazy Geishas? (Actually, they might just be mucky websites...)

My point was that several posters have expressed concern about how D&D has been portrayed, but that if there actually was something to Muraski's concerns (and the court agreed that his concerns were reasonable), this would gift the media a far better anti-D&D story.

1) Jared: In answer to your question, other prisoners or prison wardens, most likely. You might argue 'who cares if some inmate gets hurt'. Muraski does, and he has banned D&D on the basis that a gaming group resembles the dynamics of a gang, the game encourages violent escapism, and gangs + violent escapism = bad times.

2) Also, those who are concerned that Muraski is saying nasty things about our hobby, how much worse does this story play out?

"Infamous D&D gang rule prison with iron dice. Common practice is booting in other prisoners' doors, killing them where they lay (coup de grace!) and then stealing their magic cigarettes."

OK, I'm being a little glib, but an attempt to prevent gang formation by banning D&D is better than D&D being associated with an actual prison gang.

1) Has nobody ever played a game where a PC got killed and the player threw dice all over the room? I have, and it was pretty funny. But if the same thing happened in a maximum security prison, and some of us had been convicted of serious violent crimes, perhaps it wouldn't have been so funny.

2) I work in the youth justice system in the UK and risk assessment is a nightmare. I'll give you an example. Teenage girl swings one punch at teenage boy. No injury is caused and she is convicted of Common Assault. Now, when I do my assessment, I have to accept that although no serious harm was caused (i.e. harm from which it is unlikely the victim will make a full recovery), nor was it the girl's intention to cause that degree of harm, it is possible that such harm could have been caused as a result of the girl's actions. So I have to do a risk assessment, and then I have to come up with a plan to manage that risk. If I don't, and teenage girl kills teenage boy two weeks later, I am considered negligent and I lose my job. This is the reality of working in that environment.

If I'm under that kind of pressure on the basis of a teenage girl who can't even give someone a black eye, imagine the pressure on this Muraski fella. You can bet he's going to play it safe every single day of his working life. The alternative, however unlikely it may seem superficially, is a dead inmate or a dead warden, plus his career down the toilet.

Azmahel: Thanks for your insight. How you're getting through all these I don't know, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who appreciates your efforts.

There was an item in Year 1 that enabled you to make an impression of your dead mate in a shroud which you could use to raise him up later, so I understand your feeling of deja vu. But the core of my item was enabling the player with the dead character to continue playing, albeit with the significant handicap of being a zombie, and I hoped this made my item different enough.

Maybe this was my undoing, maybe it was something else, but your comments suggest it was at least a strike against me.

Did you submit an item, by the way? I'd like to return the favour, if I can.

Hi Judging Folks

I made have made minor amendments to this when I posted...

Corpse Wraps
Aura moderate necromancy; CL 7th
Slot –; Price 4,000 gp; Weight 1 lb.
Description
This item consists of preservative balms and enough cloth to entirely wrap one medium size creature. A fresh corpse, treated with the balms and wrapped in the cloth, will animate until the cloth is removed or the corpse is slain. The corpse will also be preserved for up to a week. After this time, the corpse will putrify as usual, although it will remain animated.
Wrapping a corpse takes 10 minutes. For as long as the corpse is animated, apply the zombie template to the original creature. The animated corpse will obey simple commands given by the person who applied this item, but will otherwise behave like a zombie. Each set of wraps can be used only once.
Construction
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, animate dead, gentle repose; Cost 2,000 gp

I know you've got a ton of these to get through now (you snooze, you lose...), but I hope you get round to this one. Cheers!

More great advice from the Spicemeister. I'm looking forward to reading your voluminous item commentaries, whatever the outcome. Every day's a school day, right?

Nine nymphal ninjas...

On a Mac, the en-dash is Option+hyphen; the em-dash is Option+Shift+hyphen.

My hero!

-when someone submits a female villain/npc entry and spends half their word count talking about how hot she is.

God, yeah. That's a whole yard of ale.

Not that I am much of an advocate for drinking, but a Superstar drinking game is a funny concept. When would you drink?

- When someone writes in passive voice?

- When someone's villain is not a villain?

When someone writes back story?

When someone uses a lousy name?

I was pretty disappointed, I must say. I haven't watched every episode over the past few years, but the first part was perhaps the worst I've ever seen. The second was better, but that's like saying Star Wars: Episode 3 was better than Episode 1.

Although I accept that Davies has re-invigorated the show, bringing it to a whole new generation of fans, the last fifteen minutes seemed very self-indulgent to me. The moment when the Doctor figures out what's happened was very well played, as was his final moment, but the rest was just fifteen minutes of padding, that might have been better spent helping the plot seem less creaky.

Also, David Fryer, we Brits get more excited hearing a whoopie cushion go off than we do when our Prime Minister speaks, although it's easy to confuse the two.

Guys, I do understand word counts! (The font size line was a joke... ;P) I meant the increased word count is a conundrum.

Published material must fit within a page limit, hence we have word count. :)

Can't they just make the font smaller? ;P

I really can't see an editing challenge (they're looking for designers, not editors), so the word count thing is a conundrum, and no mistake. Perhaps a future round must incorporate one of the 32 items in some way, although I can't see what this has to do with word count...

Next round, I'm guessing will be some form of Golarion specific fluff (as Round 1 is traditionally crunchy). We've had countries and villain concepts at this stage in the past. Perhaps the Dirty Thirty-Two will have to design a town / locale (like Drillboss D says) or an organisation.

Of course, pure speculation, but I'm just as hooked as the rest of you now!

Judge bashing ever has been and ever shall be a part of competition. I'm sure Clark is just fine with it.

Three cheers for Clark.

Yeah, I suppose a demon-lord has worse things to worry about! But three cheers and a hearty huzzah anyway!

There has been a disquieting amount of judge-bashing (well, Clark-bashing) on one or two treads lately, which I haven't noticed in previous years. I think this is a massive shame, and I hope this thread reminds people of how awesome this contest and its judges actually are.

In my opinion, the fact that this contest is in its third year (with Clark as the most conspicuous judge for every single one of 'em) is fantastic for all concerned. New writers get the chance to earn a contract, and to learn what publishers are after in terms of quality and professional conduct. The publishers get to lay their hands on one (or more) new writers, with fresh ideas and greater proof of talent and commitment than they might otherwise get. They also get a finished product that their fan base are already interested in seeing / buying. The contest brings the community together and gives us something to salivate over for a couple of months each year. And Paizo get a whole bunch of new bodies coming to their forums, perhaps checking out the rest of the site while they're here. It really is a win-win-win-win.

Of course, the contest can only continue with the support of the judges who give up so much of their time and caffeine to making it happen. So here's to ya! (However cranky you might get over submissions which break clearly stated rules and ignore the volumes of advice on these boards...)

Mr Peterson also has the class to take these poster's comments seriously, and to post a conciliatory response (with 200+ items still to judge, no less). I wonder if either of the malcontents will return the gesture.

I envy you guys! Try as I might I can't get my wife interested in gaming. Here's hoping one of the three rug-rats catch the bug.

I did have to strap her into the chair first, which made my defeat all the more humiliating.

My fiance, who just started gaming with me a few months ago, has been listening to me talk about this contest, and actually came up with an item to submit.

I hang my head, 'cuz I think her item is better then mine. *sobs*

For shame! On the other hand, my fiancee beat me at Zombies!!! first time out of the box (and now she won't play me again!)...

Whitman wrote:

What do you call someone whose craft is making magic bikinis? A bra-smith? A bikini-wright? Ann Summers? Sadie the Bra Lady?

Someone who makes the world a better place!

So true...

What do you call someone whose craft is making magic bikinis? A bra-smith? A bikini-wright? Ann Summers? Sadie the Bra Lady?

Ellington: A frustrating situation, in which we've all been at some point. Nobody likes to be the fighter losing an arm-wrestle to some drippy wizard, no self-respecting wizard wants to lose a quiz to some illiterate barbarian, etc...

Dork Lord offers a simple solution, but I think it's under-developed. For parity's sake there should be such a skill for each ability (e.g. Education for Intelligence, Fitness for Constitution, Good-Looking for Charisma). Each class could consider their hot stat a class skill, and others cross-class. Of course, this gives classes with a lot of skill points an unfair advantage, as many skill checks default to ability checks (unless the check requires training in a particular skill). This could be resolved with six feats, one for each ability, giving a modest feat bonus to ability checks only. Less abusable, and each class could have access to selected feats (e.g. Fighter might have access to Might and Fitness, Cleric might have access to the Wisdom and Charisma feats, etc...).

KaeYoss offers another solution, which is obviously more fully developed. This would remove a lot of the freak random results, but would also make the game much more predictable. I suppose it depends what you want from your game. Do you want predictable 'realism' or unpredictable chaos?

For myself, I think sometimes you eat the bar, and sometimes, well, he eats you. If that means my cleric sometimes comes across as less wise than some shmuck of a fighter, so be it. One day, I'll take him at that arm-wrestle.

While folks are waiting, there's still an artifact design contest over at Wizards, plus the good old Expert DM and Hero Artisan contests on the Wizards forums. Less prestigious than RPG Superstar, but good for keeping the juices flowing while we're waiting.

Of course, the smart move is to be working on that adventure proposal...

PS: Good luck to all entrants, and those still pounding away at their anvils!

Evacuate? In our moment of triumph? I think you overestimate their chances.

I recognized your foul stench when I was brought on board. ;P

I did notice that many of the posted magic items in the SRD do not use this footnote rule from the item creation section...

Pricing is not a science, as many have already pointed out, and the formulae are just the first step. Comparing the formula price to existing items at that price, and to items that have a similar level of functionality to your item, is the next.

Looking at that lantern, its formula price should be doubled again, because it doesn't take up a body slot (you can put it down and it still functions), so it would actually cost 120,000 gp! That's as much as a robe of eyes, which can also see invisible stuff, but with much improved range and duration, and it does a load of other cool stuff too.

Balance that cost with the fact that the lantern has no utility whatsoever if there's nothing invisible to see, and that lower price tag is starting to look reasonable. Some items are always going to be useful; others are situational, and therefore less valuable. Plus, the lantern of revealing has all the limitations of a normal hooded lantern and it could probably be extinguished pretty easily by a crafty villain.

Pricing can be a long and winding road, and this is why the formula doesn't always tell the whole story.

Surely the cursed version 'malfunctions' every time you roll a natural 1...

I find that bathing is wonderfully conductive to brainstorming.

Notepads get sudsy pretty quick, though.

You should see what happened to my MacBook! When will they make the damn things water-proof?

I'm in! Weeks of craft, and then a eureka moment - idea to execution in less than hour. Let's hope it was worth jumping out of the bath!

Without getting too specific (i.e. becoming close to posting my item) would mentioning or referencing a Paizo/Pathfinder product be grounds for getting DQ'd? I'll provide an example sentence of how I might word such a reference...

For further details on "X" please see "Y". (Absent of course specifics that might tip my hat as to what I'm attempting to craft.)

I don't recall any existing Wondrous Items referencing other products like that. I think references to Golarion, such as countries or deities, would be ok. Sign-posting to other products, on the other hand, seems to stray over the line to me.

Anyone care to venture an opinion on when a wondrous item has become an artifact?

I mean, obviously the flavour distinction is that one can be created while the other can't, but in power terms it's a little vague.

My rule-of-thumb is that if it's significantly more expensive than anything on the list, absolutely has to be a unique item, or is significantly more powerful than the top rank of items, it's probably better as an artifact.

I think you've got most of it nailed right there. You might also consider whether or not you can imagine (or could cope with) your entire party having one of the item in question.

What can I say? Competition is hard, and (to use American school grade nomenclature) sometimes getting a B in both Math and English isn't as good as getting an A in English and a C in math. Your average grade is the same, but if someone reading it is impressed enough with the A, they may overlook the C. If your B in both areas doesn't rise up enough to grab them, you'll never get a second look.

I think you've hit the nail square on the head. The winner of this competition will be writing a module, from which the publishers will be hoping to make a profit. Now, when you buy that module, you take for granted that the mechanics are sound, but many DMs will be buy books even if the mechanics are not ideal. Heck, you'll even catch them buying modules from previous editions or completely different games, if what those mechanics help to portray is cool enough.

So, while mechanics are certainly important, presenting a really cool idea is what sells. This may go some way to explaining why judges will take a chance on cool ideas with ropey mechanics, but not so much the other way around. (I do recall a couple of examples where judges were impressed by mechanics, but the idea was also cool in those cases.)

Congratulations to those of you who have already submitted. I'd say you can rest easy now, but that would be an outrageous lie. No sleep til judgement day.

For the rest of us, there are a few reasons not to smack that submit button straight away:

1) You might have an even more awesome idea
2) You might suddenly realise that the item you submitted wasn't as awesome as you thought
3) You might suddenly realise that you made a devastating mistake
4) You might want to play-test your item(s), something mine could definitely have done with last year

Of course, if you've been sitting on a hunk of gold since last year, you might not want to wait (that's going to be uncomfortable)! Equally, you might have other things to be getting on with. But I think I'll wait before I bellow the magic words...

...by the power of mojo, I HAVE SUBMITTED!

Good luck one and all. Let the wonder-making begin!

For me, Haldon isn't a villain, he's a side quest. His motivation strains credibility and your second plot hook requires the PCs to stumble into his forest. Sorry...

Lots of posts already on this one, so you're looking like an early runner! This was probably the coolest entry. I mean, the guy grafts eyes onto himself! That's just plain awesome!

That said, I was a little disappointed with the plot hooks. The guy wants to reduce the world into a quivering lump of flesh, and he's hiring adventurers to capture monsters for him? Come on!

It'll be interesting to see how you translate this guy into a stat-block, too... Good luck!

I don't really care that Varrush is entirely typical of his kind. Other, more innovative, entries failed to present an interesting and memorable villain. Where those entries failed, I believe that you succeeded.

This was one of the better villains, in my book, for two reasons:

1) The villain has believable motivations, which inform clear goals.
2) The PCs must put a stop to his villainy.

Many of the villains presented lacked one or both of these ingredients, which I feel are essential for a long-term bad guy. Falconbridge also reminds me of MacBeth, which certainly doesn't hurt!

I'll take that. The more feedback the better...

OLD PROVIDENCE
Aura mild divination; CL 3rd; Slot –; Price 1,000 gp/pouch; Weight 1 lb
DESCRIPTION
Smokers of this magically prepared pipe-weed claim that it bestows glimpses of the future. Many wizards and druids swear by the stuff; others scorn it, calling it “blind man’s baccy”.
Once a day, a character can use Old Providence while preparing spells, making a DC 20 Spellcraft check. If successful, the character may reserve one of his spell slots. The character may then use this reserved spell slot to cast any spell he knows of that slot’s level (or lower) within the next 24 hours. If the Spellcraft check is unsuccessful, the character simply prepares spells as usual.
However, Old Providence can be harsh. Characters rolling a natural 1 on the Spellcraft check witness their own demise. Consequently, the DM may declare that the character is dazed for 1 round during an encounter that day, as the foreseen demise approaches.
A pouch of Old Providence contains enough pipe-weed for 50 uses.
CONSTRUCTION
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, augury, creator must have 5 ranks in the Knowledge (nature) skill; Cost 500 gp/pouch

Arbitrator's Lamp

Another cool idea. I played with a DM once who didn't know the Diplomacy rules. He hated diplomacy! "Parlay? Parlay???"

Crunch-wise, I'm curious about your pricing rationale. You can buy some pretty cool stuff with 80,000 gp. And I think it's a bit broken that all intelligent creatures within the radius of effect become at least indifferent to the PCs, if not friendly.

The other thing is, any PCs walking around with this thing turned on should surely become at least indifferent to the bad guys. If not friendly!

Overall, I think the auto-diplomacy needs to be significantly re-worked before this becomes usable. Perhaps a simple bonus to Diplomacy checks would be better (certainly less book-keeping).

Blood Leech Choker

The boards ate my post! Or was it your choker???

Visually, this is a cool item, but I'm a little confused by the mechanics. Here's how I think it works:

Step #1: Mr Barbarian puts on his choker, and siphons up to 3d12 of his hit points into it.
Step #2: Presumably, he gets healed.
Step #3: Some time later, Mr Barbarian takes a roundhouse kick from Chuck Norris, instantly reducing Mr Barbarian to -10 hit points.
Step #4: The hit points stored in the choker flow back into Mr Barbarian.
Step #5: Mr Barbarian apologises to Chuck Norris, and cleans his blood off Norris' boots.

Which raises a few questions. How long do the hit points stay in the choker? Can Mr Wizard wear the choker after Mr Barbarian, and gain the benefits of his friend's superior hit dice? If so, is there any chance of disease transmission?

Ultimately, I'm wondering why not just buy a nice wand of cure critical wounds? They're cheaper, don't take up a neck slot, don't look gross and don't hurt!

Trainer’s Manual

Lot of discussion about this item - bet you didn't think it'd be so controversial! For me, this item just doesn't show much imagination. It's almost a cut and paste of the manuals and tomes that give inherent bonuses to ability scores.

Mechanics-wise, this item seems to make it too easy to gain a permanent massive bonus to a particular skill check. Any 3rd level druid could make this, and then train every animal he comes across.

For me, this would have been better as a collar, that you put on the animal in question (requiring a Handle Animal check). The collar could then give you a bonus to any Handle Animal checks with that animal.

Orb of Possessions

This is a nicely written item, but I'm afraid I just can't imagine anyone wanting to pay 4,000 gp for it. Even merchants. They'd just get their minions to open the box, and it would only cost them 1 sp a day!

Also, why prestidigitation, and not identify? And why no weight? If the orb is big enough to show a list of the contents of a bag of holding, it's going to be pretty heavy.

What is impressive is the number of uses you have thought of for this item. Have you been play-testing this at home?

Bard’s Army Sack

Banjo lives! Love the idea, but the mechanics look very sloppy to me. Statting the puppets as animated objects would have been far simpler, leaving you words to describe what the puppets can actually do (in actual sentences). As presented, the rules for the puppets are just confusing, and would put me off using this item.

Requirements-wise, I'm not sure why haste is required - command seems a better fit - and you didn't specify a Craft.

Despite these problems, what I can't get out of my mind is the bag full of little puppets, wreaking havoc around the kingdom. These fellas should promote clever problem-solving, and memorable role-playing. A little polish, and these guys are ready to rock!

Actually, that does clarify things. I can see then why the "Lordly Pavilion" is a "Spell in a Can" (only somewhat modifying secure shelter), and that it only got past the judges because of panache. :(

Not just panache... a truckload of panache!

I think that Clark defined what a "Spell in a Can" was at some point, but I am having some trouble finding that thread.

So, just to follow up, what is the formal game design meaning of "Spell in a Can?"

My understanding is that it's an item that casts a spell more or less exactly as printed in the spell description. Like the Boots of Levitation, for instance.

NIGHT GUARD

Anyone else want to give me ideas on this? I now know it's a "camping" item and that's something disliked, but if you go beyond that ... whatcha think? Thanks for any constructive criticism :

I had a similar idea for an item, but then I read Clark's comments about camping gear and I scrapped it. (Not that it helped me!)

I like how your item is written - it's got flavour, and it's mechanics are clear. However, how often do your PCs sleep in beds or on sleeping pallets? You're being to soft on 'em! For this item to have any real utility, I think you should remove this requirement.

Otherwise, I'm in two minds... As a player, not bickering about sleeping order is nice, as is having an insta-buff to AC, for those sleeping in their night-clothes. As a DM, I don't like that it's permanent and it doesn't use a slot.

Hope that's helpful...

OLD PROVIDENCE
Aura mild divination; CL 3rd; Slot –; Price 1,000 gp/pouch; Weight 1 lb
DESCRIPTION
Smokers of this magically prepared pipe-weed claim that it bestows glimpses of the future. Many wizards and druids swear by the stuff; others scorn it, calling it “blind man’s baccy”.
Once a day, a character can use Old Providence while preparing spells, making a DC 20 Spellcraft check. If successful, the character may reserve one of his spell slots. The character may then use this reserved spell slot to cast any spell he knows of that slot’s level (or lower) within the next 24 hours. If the Spellcraft check is unsuccessful, the character simply prepares spells as usual.
However, Old Providence can be harsh. Characters rolling a natural 1 on the Spellcraft check witness their own demise. Consequently, the DM may declare that the character is dazed for 1 round during an encounter that day, as the foreseen demise approaches.
A pouch of Old Providence contains enough pipe-weed for 50 uses.
CONSTRUCTION
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, augury, creator must have 5 ranks in the Knowledge (nature) skill; Cost 500 gp/pouch

...Goodman Games have put out an open call for an upcoming 4th Edition Ritual Book. Details are here. Beats waiting to hear if your item made it on to the "things I'm seeing a lot of" list.

Good luck, everyone!

I'm having an operation tomorrow, under general anaesthetic, which ought to keep me out of action until the big reveal. Bit of an extreme way of killing time, I know, but we're eight hours ahead here in Blighty.

What about human hero-fodder? A low-level NPC, with one or two levels of commoner or warrior, is only going to last a few seconds. They aren't going to have ability modifiers, and perhaps only one skill or feat that might affect play. How do I stat these suckers?