RPG Superstar 9 Season Marathon Voter. Organized Play Member. 277 posts (281 including aliases). 1 review. No lists. No wishlists. 1 Organized Play character. 2 aliases.
The way I've imagined the automatic success/failure working using the 2d10 system is treating the 20 and 2 as 20 and 1 respectively, but expanding critical range to keep the odds about the same (as Dasrak did). Point is reducing the luck factor without breaking the mechanics after all.
Taking 10 should probably be boosted to taking 11 using this, since the average roll is now 11 rather than 10.5. Taking 20 I feel would be fine to still take the same length of time to do.
You might want to consider increasing basic DCs of everything by 1 for the same reason that you should take 11. That is, base AC is 11, save DCs are 11 + level + modifier. It's kind of an awkward toss up between making things slightly easier by having a higher average and making things harder by effectively reducing the highest value you can get.
Probably the biggest and most obvious change is power gaps, which become much more pronounced. Say you hit on a 4+. That's a 6% chance of missing. A +1 bonus drops that by 3%, while a -1 penalty raises it by 4%. If you need an 11, +1 bonuses and -1 penalties change it by 9% or 10% respectively.
Basically, if you're behind, it takes a lot to catch up, and if you're about even, it takes very little to shift the balance in your favour. You'll probably find boss fights become much harder and see more tactical play. Taking that move action to jump on the table for the +1 high ground bonus is more worthwhile when it boosts your 10 to an 11, changing hit odds from 45% to 55%, compared to the standard 45% to 50%. Dropping prone to avoid arrows could reduce that 45% chance of hitting you to 15%, an effective +6 to AC using the d20.
Aid another becomes fairly valuable, since even a lightly trained character will be able to succeed easily and a +2 bonus can be up to a +19% chance of success.
Think that's about all the things I've considered when I looked at it myself. Haven't actually tried it though, so how valid any of this is in practice is debatable.
Looking through my assortment of characters, looks like I favour non-human, small sized characters with a bias towards melee. Despite my dislike of prepared casters I've played more of them than spontaneous casters. Same deal for full casters vs all other casters (Call me odd, but I like to have actual class features and spells only doesn't really cut it). Done more psychic casters than arcane, and somehow never done a plain divine caster at all. Several monk/kineticist/natural attack type characters.
Usually go for more unconventional builds or ones that could be considered downright terrible, notably a kobold Champion of Irori on a 15 point buy. Tend to come up with a personality or background and pick what feels appropriate for them from that which tends to be the reason.
Haven't done the full alignment spectrum, but hit a lot of it. Let the game go a few sessions to let the character settle before I pencil in an alignment, and have in the past finished campaigns without ever formally putting in an alignment at all. I prefer law/chaos conflicts to good/evil ones since the moral grayness conflicts like that tend to involve interest me more, so that tends to be a focus in my alignment.
I dump wisdom and higher charisma characters more than I should, largely because I find characters who make dumb decisions are more fun to play, particularly when they can be convinced they're right. A trend I may have passed on to the rest of my group...
Mostly otherwise I try to avoid a dump stat at all.
Finally, a very even split between characters whose background could be summarised by "Just fine, thanks!" and "I am doomed and horribly unlucky."
Hasn't been mentioned yet, but the Torc of Innocuous Gems from the Spymaster's Handbook also keeps Ioun Stones out of the way, albeit at the cost of the neck slot.
It still surprises me when I realise that a 10 ft. by 10 ft. room is 3m by 3m, and it's actually pretty large. I suppose it's just what you're used to, but it's difficult to care about getting used to the bizarre conversions just within the imperial system. I mean, the number of feet in a mile? Who even came up with that?
Ultimately though, when everything's basically just in units of "Squares" on your battle map, you can call it whatever you like. I admit to just crushing distance a little and using 1m squares instead of 5ft. ones, and calling a mile a kilometre. Everything's (approximately) 2/3s the size in actual distance, but it's still the same number of spaces between things, and that's mostly what matters. Also makes it incidentally more practical in normal use.
Hmm, the way you are describing it it would make sense for it to be a universal effect based on remaining HP, rather than a fighter only mechanic (not like the pain is much less when you are being blindsided by an assassin or mauled by an owlbear). Unchained had rules about debuffs tied to HP thresholds, but I do not remember if casting was affected. I would say that it should, so perhaps build on that.
It does indeed hit caster levels, and casters who have taken damage can lose access to higher spell levels. I haven't tried it yet, but I like the idea. I sort of like the gritty one where the penalties double, so every time you lose 25% of your hp you lose a level of spells.
Called shots came to mind when you said some of those things. You can do a lot by readying an action to make a called shot to a caster's arm as they try to cast a spell. Combine with spellbreaker and they're going to have to deal with a pretty nasty concentration check (19 + damage taken + spell level). Neck shots can crumple casters too, if you're a crit fisher, although they're hard to pull off.
That said, it's very much like counterspelling, even if it's more likely to work. You need some kind of way to be able to do that as an immediate action for it to ever be practical. Some kind of mechanic/feat that would let you exchange Attacks of Opportunity for Readied Actions would be just the thing (a 2 for 1 trade? Start at 1 but increase costs per readied action?). The spell contingent action is sort of okay for that, but it's impractical.
The other big thing that hasn't come up yet is that sometimes monsters can qualify for prestige classes without needing to take any (or far fewer at any rate) levels in a base class, and that's a niche that's worth filling. When you haven't got a base class to be committed to in the first place, prestige classes are usually a better choice. I'm actually sort of disappointed that there haven't been more prestige classes designed with monsters in mind.
Ring of endless feather fall
This gives the wearer a constant effect feather fall and earth glide effect. However, the feather fall effect is broken and does not recognise the ground at all, causing the wearer to sink into the earth uncontrollably as soon as they put it on.
Multi-purpose banana
The swiss army knife of fruit! You can use it to speak at will to any other banana on the same plane, peel it to make a hat that grants a +1 banana bonus on saves against mind-affecting effects or fire it as a ranged touch attack that does 1 banana damage on a successful hit. Also, it functions as a banana.
Self-carrying box
A creature standing in this box can pick up the box and manipulate it as if it were not in the box.
Plate of Eating
As a standard action, a creature can attune itself to the plate. Once attuned to a creature, anything put on the plate is magically transferred into the attuned creature's stomach.
Needle locator
This small compass points to the location of the nearest needle. If the nearest needle is in a haystack, the needle locator groans loudly as if in pain, then vanishes in a puff of black smoke.
Paint bucket of interior design
Throw the entire contents of the bucket into a room and it will redecorate the room completely, including furnishings worth up to 1,000 gp in total. Popular colours include 'prison cell grey', 'Bar room brown' and 'arcane laboratory of eldritch secrets octarine'.
I realised the other day when I asked some questions here, for a high magic game, Pathfinder doesn't actually do a particularly good job of explaining how magic works. There do seem to be some things that seem relatively basic that have been missed. Take, for example, lingering magical auras. These are literally only mentioned in detect magic, where they get 6 half-page lines and a small table.
So, I wrote stuff to try to round it out a little more. This is extremely long, informal and train-of-thought post, but I'm hoping it is both logical (as far as that's possible) and doesn't upset existing rules that much. I waffle around for a while at the start getting in some basics, but there's a summary in about the middle, followed by some highly experimental rules to utilise what I've discussed.
I am, of course, open to feedback, so if anything seems unclear or nonsensical, please let me know and I'll clarify things or rethink.
Locations and sizes of magical auras:
When you cast a spell, you leave some residual magic behind. Detect magic inexplicably doesn't say where. It could be where it was cast, or where it took effect, and there is a significant difference between these two.
If you cast a fireball, there's a pretty big difference between where it takes effect and where you cast it. In part because the two are (probably) mutually exclusive, but also in shape. A fireball's a 20 ft. radius sphere, while most casters are sort of 5 ft. cube blobs (approximately).
It makes most sense to me that both the caster and the area of effect should have the magical auras. As a caster you have to actually manipulate the magic, and the effect of course is magic. The effect should leave a trace of approximately its size, and the caster would presumably leave a caster shaped blob behind. Maybe in a weird pattern to match the hand gestures and sound waves.
Wait, it's blurred?
While the shape of the aura is all very well for instantaneous spells, what happens if you have a more mobile effect? Take for example, a flaming sphere. Usually, you're going to be moving a flaming sphere around a lot for maximum utility. So, the question is, where's the aura lingering?
The obvious solution in this case is the ongoing spell has full aura since the magic's still all there and in effect. Once you've moved it the aura fades because the effect is no longer there. Consequentially, the flaming sphere must be leaving a magical trail behind everywhere it goes. This at least can be properly simulated with detect magic, once you've thought about it.
Returning to the thought that the caster also needs an aura, if you're concentrating on a spell and move, you must also leave a magic trail since you're still actively controlling the magic. From this, we can also reason that any spell that allows you to continuously alter aspects of a spell, such as changing the orders you're giving to someone via dominate person, must also stick around for some time afterwards, probably in the same way that the aura of the spell lingers on a dominated person. Importantly, this means that an ongoing spell that can be controlled can be dispelled by targeting either the caster or the effect.
One question this leaves is whether all spells, regardless of duration, will leave auras around the caster after the initial casting, even if you don't control it (such as mage armour on another creature). In this case, it's reasonable to assume that the aura doesn't linger around you for the entire duration of the spell, since you no longer need magic to maintain it or alter it; it's purely self-contained.
Finally, what happens when you cast an instantaneous spell and then move? Or equivalently, what happens to the aura of an expired spell that hangs around you when you move? While it would be nice for a tracking point of view to give an indication, since there's no more magic being used there's no reason for an aura to spread.
Residual stacks
For some reason, even if you have 100 casters all dumping a fireball in exactly the same spot at the same time, the aura only lingers for its normal duration. That is, 1d6 rounds. Frankly, this seems dumb, because that's an awful lot of magic being used there for very little residual. At the very least, you'd expect the aura to last somewhat proportionally to the number used.
Given how improved counterspell works and that you can identify different auras even a long time after they were left, it's probably reasonable to assume that auras of the same school can merge and interact in some way, while other types cannot. That is, it's easier to detect two scorching ray castings than one acid arrow and one scorching ray.
It would seem reasonable to assume effects like this should stack in some way. If we keep our 100 fireball example, a reasonable approximation would be that the aura should last 100d6 rounds: roughly the same as a strong aura of 1d6 x 10 minutes. However, 100 fireballs detonating simultaneously would be much more dangerous than any normal equivalent (9th level spells don't even compare to that), so it's unlikely to be simple addition of aura to determine the duration.
Keeping it sort of arbitrary by using spell levels, a more realistic approach would be to add spell levels together in some way to determine duration rather than just their durations. Maybe it should work on a system similar to CR: You need 1.5 1st level spells to make a 2nd, 2 for a 3rd, 4 for a 4th, 8 for a 5th, 16 for a 6th, 32 for a 7th, &c. That sort of exponential scale seems roughly right, since the actual time durations for higher level spells scale at approximately the same rate. 8 times as much magic for an aura that lasts 10 times longer; not perfect, but close enough. This makes extended caster battles leave as big a magic dump as you might expect for all the magic floating around.
Difficulties start appearing when you've got multiple schools. Since it seems logical that different auras can't merge, does it make sense if in the 100 fireball example, 5 people also cast summon monster in the same area that the additional conjuration aura lasts just as long? There's certainly an argument for it sticking around for a while longer than it should do, but it would probably be overwhelmed by the massive evocation aura from the fireballs.
How auras fade
All detect magic says about residual auras is that they fade. How helpful. There are two ways I can think of that might explain this behaviour: either magic decays like radioactive nuclei, or it just dissipates in a manner similar to coloured water in regular water.
The decay model works well in combination with the exponential model of the auras stacking; one basically explains the other in that it's sort of a half-life model. It allows auras to keep their shape much more with time, since there's no physical drift of the aura, and can explain how you can even detect ongoing effects (there's always going to be some decay because it's a half-life, and you just detect the decay).
On the other hand, this model doesn't deal so well with permanent effects so well, or longer lasting effects. If the effect lasts a long time, that's indicating it's not decaying, but my reasoning for how detect magic works in this model indicates you need some decay to detect it. The only way I can think of to allow this to work would be some sort of linear rather than exponential decay of a magical effect. Regardless, this only works for spells with finite duration. Permanent spells have to either be just really long lived or undetectable, which is its main flaw.
Dissipation has the same issue with permanent spells, but again, works in a similar manner to the decay model with its decay; it should be a half-life like decay. It has one advantage over the other model in that it can better explain how auras are left as the effect moves, but has the disadvantage of making sure auras don't keep their shape.
This section has been rather train of thought, but I'm thinking that the dissipation model works best. It's better to use the model where the auras are left behind as an effect moves than use the one where they keep their shapes better.
A consequence of this is that if you do have multiple strong auras in place that don't mix well, as it seems likely the auras of various schools of magic do, there'll be some artificially enhanced auras. If we take the example of 100 fireballs and 5 summon monsters all in the same place from above, the conjuration aura isn't able to properly disperse until the evocation aura is gone, so its duration will be lengthened despite its low intensity. It's possible it would be condensed by the force of the evocation aura attempting to push into its space as well.
If magic's just dispersing as a fading mechanism, even if it blurs and fades a lot, the magical aura will actually remain for much longer than detect magic indicates. It'll be quite weak, but in principle the auras should still be in slightly higher concentrations around the original location of a spell. If you were skilled enough, you should be able to piece together what spell was present based on what little remained of an aura, even once it had largely faded.
Learning things about spells
We already reasoned that when you cast a spell it leaves residual magic at both the location the effect took place and where you cast it. Since these both come from the same spell, it seems reasonable that if you have access to one, you can find out some things about the other. Sort of like a receiving an email, there's a way of tracing where it came from, although it's probably harder than just reading the "from" section. It seems reasonable that if you knew how to, you could also use that connection to learn everything there would be to know about a spell.
Similarly, since it makes sense for moving magical effects to leave auras behind, it also makes sense that you can tell some of the things that a spell has done from its residual aura. It would be easy to track where a flaming sphere has travelled for example. In what I hope is the first big assumption of this discussion, presumably you can also tell things about other parameters of a spell based on what the actual aura looks like. This could be things like what monster was summoned, what a suggestion was, what there was an illusion of, &c. Possibly even the caster level of the spell and DC. If you can tell where a mobile effect has been, it isn't a huge logical leap to assume that there are other obvious signs that give you more information about what a spell has done.
At last, increasing our reference material to beyond the detect magic spell, identifying the caster. Wizards need time to interpret a spell on a scroll or from another's spellbook; each wizard apparently has their own way of interpreting things so that they make sense. This means that even casting the same spell, each wizard likely has their own subtlety different way of casting. Basically, all wizards have a unique magical fingerprint. It's a fairly safe bet that the same thing holds for all magic users in the universe, not just wizards. Ergo, if you know what to look for, you can identify a caster based on the residual magic aura their spells leave.
What about magic items?
According to detect magic, you only get a residual aura when you destroy a magic item. This I'm going to call out as one of the bigger holes in the spell; it's got an aura, so it's going to leave some trace of that behind when it moves.
These should behave in more or less the same way as other magical effects, save that they are entirely self-contained: there is no place where the effect originated. They can also be considered casters, since many items cause new magical effects.
Spell completion items like scrolls have the interesting characteristic that since they're spells almost completed by someone else, requiring you to just perform the last few actions, the magical fingerprint will be a combination of both the item's creator's and your own. This doesn't hold for spell trigger and command word items, that are effectively entirely cast by someone else; these have a magical fingerprint that is entirely the creator's.
It's debatable whether such items might have an aura relating to their form anyway. Since there are feats for making a variety of different items, it's not unreasonable to assume that there's a certain, unique way for each item type to have its magic put into it, in which case you can tell if an item or effect comes from a scroll, potion, magic weapon, &c..
Since magic items tend not to have spell levels, but instead have caster levels, the method I proposed for stacking auras isn't going to work here, but you can get something functionally identical if you convert caster level to spell level: just divide the caster level by 2 (minimum 1) and you get its equivalent spell level.
Appropriately, this means that what is commonly known as the Christmas Tree effect ends up being suitably blinding, even quite some time after the tree has left.
Summary
Spells leave auras in distinct halves: one at the casting site and one at the effect site
Ongoing magical effects leave auras behind as they move
Spells that require continuous control are detectable on both the caster and effect, and as such can be dispelled by targeting either the caster or the effect
Multiple auras of the same school stack to create longer lasting residual auras
Different school auras don't mix, but can cause each other to last longer
You can learn things about a spell from the aura where it took effect or where it was cast
Details of a spell can be learnt by examining their auras
Each caster has a unique magical fingerprint
Magic items function like spells for the purposes of auras
You can identify the type of magic item by its aura
Expanded Rules
To finish off, because I can't resist a good bit of homebrew, here are some highly experimental rules to properly round off this post.
Aura strengths and durations
This is intended to expand upon the table in detect magic. These will be necessary to properly account for increased aura strengths, and also allow for the fact that you can get higher than 9th level spells through metamagic rods and gems. The ordering is in the format strength: Functioning spell (spell level). Magic item (caster level). Duration of lingering aura.
Weak: 3rd level or lower spells. Caster level 5th or lower. Aura lasts 1d6 rounds.
Moderate: 4th to 6th level spells. Caster level 6th to 11th. Aura lasts 1d6 minutes.
Strong: 7th to 9th level spells. Caster level 12th to 17th. Aura lasts for 1d6 x 10 minutes
Overwhelming: 10th and 11th level spells. Caster level 18th to 21st. Aura lasts for 1d6 days
Crushing: 12th and 13th level spells. Caster level 22nd to 25th. Aura lasts for 1d6 weeks
Deific: 14th + level spells. Caster level 26th +. Aura lasts for 1d6 months
When multiple lingering auras are present in the same square, all auras linger for as long as the strongest aura. When multiple auras of the same school are in the same square (so long as they don't result from the same casting of a spell), the strength of the aura increases. The aura strength is determined by adding the spell levels of the individual auras together in the same way that CRs add, treating the spell's level as its CR. For the purposes of this, magic items are considered magical effects with a spell level equal to half their caster level (minimum 1).
Knowledge(Arcana):
You can use your knowledge of magic to better learn about the history of a spell.
Learn how long ago a spell was cast This is a DC 20 check that takes a full-round action to perform, or a standard action if you do not need to maintain concentration on detect magic. This is only accurate to the units of measurement used to determine the lifetime of the aura (i.e. a weak aura gives a time in rounds, a moderate aura gives a time in minutes &c.)
Increase the effective strength of an aura by one step This is a DC 30 check, plus 10 for each additional strength category advanced and takes a minute per strength category advanced. This duration is halved if you do not need to concentrate on detect magic. This does not actually increase the strength of an aura, but it allows you to detect more than you might otherwise be able to.
Physically track a magical effect by residual auras You can tell where the bright spots in a magical aura are to tell which direction it travelled. This check is DC 20 and takes a full round action to perform or a standard action if you do not need to concentrate on detect magic. You can travel up to half the range of your means of magical detection while attempting to track an effect with no penalty. You can move faster up to the range of your magic detection by increasing the DC by 5.
Identify a magical fingerprint You can identify a caster's unique magical fingerprint in a residual aura with a check of DC 20 + the caster level of the effect. If the spell originated from a spell completion item, the DC increases by 5, but you identify both the item's creator and the creature that activated the item.
Determine if an aura is from an effect or the caster This is a DC 15 check, performed as part of the check to identify the school of an aura.
Determine if an aura comes from an item or caster This is a DC 20 check. If successful, you identify the type of item the aura comes from (such as from a scroll, potion, wondrous item, magic weapon &c.)
Spellcraft
You can identify various properties of a spell based on its residual aura.
Determine caster level This is a DC 20 + spell level check that is performed as part of the check to identify the spell.
Identify spell parameters You can identify what choices were made or being made in the casting of a spell with a DC 25 + spell level check. This includes the type of monster summoned with summon monster or the words to a suggestion. If the spell has a duration of concentration, can be dismissed or allows additional input once cast (like dominate person, the DC is instead 35 + spell level.
Track aura halves If you can see an aura where a spell was cast, you can determine where the effect initially took place and vice versa. You can determine the current location of the caster from an ongoing effect for any spell with a duration of concentration, can be dismissed or allows additional input once cast (like dominate person) and vice versa. Both uses require a DC 20 + spell level check, subject to modifiers outlined below:
Other half is out of range of detection method: +5*
Other half is more than 1 mile away: +5
Other half is on another plane: +10
*This stacks with other penalties that may apply (because sometimes you have very long range detection mechanisms)
Identify Summons School Divination; Level Sorcerer/Wizard 5, Psychic 5, Summoner 5, Inquisitor 4
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S, F (residual aura of a spell of the calling or summoning subschools)
Range Personal
Target creatures summoned with a spell of the calling or summoning subschool
Duration instantaneous
Saving throw Will negates, see text; Spell resistance no
This spell draws upon residual aura of a spell of the calling or summoning subschools and gathers the information required to resummon the same creature(s) summoned using that spell. The creature(s) is entitled to a will save to negate this effect.
Replay Illusion School Illusion [figment]; Level Sorcerer/Wizard 3, Psychic 3, Occultist 3, Mesmerist 3, Bard 3, Inquisitor 2
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S, F (residual aura of a spell of the figment or glamer subschools)
Range medium (100 ft. + 10 ft./level)
Duration concentration
Saving throw none; Spell resistance no
This spell utilises the residual magic of a figment or glamer to replicate its effects, but the effects are clearly illusions. The effect plays chronologically in real time from the earliest point within range, but can be fast forwarded or rewound at up to 10x speed and stopped at will. The effect only extends as far as this spell, but you can move to change how much is visible.
Lesser Strengthen Auras School Universal; Level Everything but alchemist 1
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S
Range 30 ft. radius burst, centred on yourself
Target residual magic auras
Duration 1 minute/level
Saving throw no; Spell resistance no
This spell temporarily focuses residual magical auras, increasing their strength by one step, to a maximum of strong.
Strengthen Auras School Universal; Level Everything but alchemist 4
This functions as lesser strengthen auras, but it instead increases the strength of magical auras by two steps, to a maximum of overwhelming.
Greater Strengthen Auras School Universal; Level Everything that gets 7th level spells 7
This functions as lesser strengthen auras, but it instead increases the strength of magical auras by three steps, to a maximum of crushing.
Lesser Aura Disperse School Universal; Level Everything but alchemist 1
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S
Range 30 ft. radius burst, centred on yourself
Target residual magic auras
Duration instantaneous
Saving throw no; Spell resistance no
This spell disperses magical auras, making them harder to detect. All spells in the area are treated as if 1 minute had passed. This spell does not leave an aura.
Aura Disperse School Universal; Level Everything but alchemist 4
This functions as lesser aura disperse, but it instead treats all auras as if 10 minutes had passed.
Greater Aura Disperse School Universal; Level Everything that gets 7th level spells 7
This functions as lesser aura disperse, but it instead treats all auras as if a day had passed.
Mark, is there any current plan for the harrowed medium book coming out at any time soon?
Also, still going with my playtest medium. We've hit level 11 now, and I'm using the Empty Throne as Tertiary spirit. Seems to be working okay; seance bonus varies between the Beating's and the Winged Serpent's, depending on party composition (we have a high character turnover rate), although the Desert got some use when a deadly disease came up. All up the extra flexibility from this spirit is quite handy.
Of course, one issue is the lack of spells given for the Empty Throne, so I've got my own (hopefully fairly close to the intended) list that I've replicated here:
Empty Throne Experimental Spell List:
1st - Sanctify Corpse, Discern next of kin
2nd - Share memory, Gentle Repose
3rd - Speak with Dead, Call Spirit
4th - Deathward, Spiritual Ally
I'm guessing that the at will spell-like in the lesser spirit power was going to be something like Grave Words, and was redacted because it hadn't come out yet.
Hope that helps anyone taking a look at using that spirit (although I acknowledge that those 3rd level spells aren't that great because of overlap with each other and the Great spirit power)
Despite the simple appearance, you've shown that descriptive text can work very well. It leaves a lot to the imagination, which I find I quite enjoy. I thought that was something of a flaw of some of the maps, that they spent too much effort on looking pretty and not enough on being an actually good map.
I'd call out some things that I'd consider flaws:
1 - Lava really, really hurts. Bull Rushes and repositions are now more or less immediately lethal. It doesn't suit the low level thing where no one or very few people are flying.
2 - Geometrically the boss is going to have difficulty seeing and targeting the PCs until they reach the top.
3 - Again a low level issue, close range spells probably aren't going to reach PCs until they head to the north side.
4 - Map becomes a little more bland at higher levels, but that could easily be rectified with clouds of ash and smoke in the sky preventing vision/causing damage to flying creatures.
And some cool things:
1 - With good placement and the odd table, it's easy for the Boss to make himself untouchable in melee. Is there a low level spell that pulls opponents towards you? 'Cause that would be amazing here.
2 - The elevation is good; a few larger drops that are subtle because of the colour scheme but can make things more interesting.
Some suggestions:
1 - A few more natural hazards such as geysers, gas clouds or partially cooled lava (with deceptive crusty coating!) could add to the volcano feel.
2 - An extra feature or two such as a shrine to the Lava Gods at the base (which you've hinted at) and or previous iterations of the same shrine partially buried on the slope would provide a little more texture.
3 - Make it clearer how far down the lava is. Falling down there is going to kill you anyway, but just in case people *are* flying...
Instead of using healing as an orison, it's probably easier to say "Combat over, everyone heal up to full", since that's effectively what this would be. It would definitely take a lot of utility out of the other healing spells, and if you went ahead with this orison you'd need to do a large rework on the other healing spells to keep them viable.
That said, I think this would probably work better with the wounds and vigour system, if the orison only heals vigour points. A healing orison makes more sense with that form of health abstraction; it's not healing actual damage, it's just re-energising you. It's still a very powerful orison, but it's less powerful than using conventional HP.
If you did use the orison, you'd likely need to compensate by throwing harder encounters out more frequently. Or just not give them the time to heal up between encounters and just throw wave after wave at them.
I definitely thought that of the several bane weapons that changed what their bane was, this was easily the best done. The concept isn't that original, but it's a thing that maybe deserves a place in the game. And I don't think they could do it much better than you have.
Mechanically I thought I worked well, wasn't horrendously overpriced for what it did and had appealing visuals. Using a different weapon like the khopesh was a fun design choice, and that immediately stood out to me.
In practice I was still voting for this sometimes right up to the end, but because its concept wasn't original at all, if it came up against anything more creative it almost invariably lost.
Just being told that my self-critique was sufficient is good feedback as well. Glad you posted that, because I had been wondering about that :P
I'm interested to see where you would have stopped voting though (I stopped voting for myself at cull 5 and just skipped when I came up)
I was going to post something a little earlier about being a little harsh with your gradings about when you'd stop voting for something. Almost everything that's in the CMI thread I feel should have survived at least to the second cull. There were a lot of things before then that were terrible.
That said, I really liked having that bit in the critique, and it's a good grading system. I think more reviews should have something similar.
Thanks for finishing that up, Trekkie90909! (I realised I accidentally left some things out, but let's have this done)
And almost perfectly in time for round 3, behold...
The Badly Formatted Madlibs Monster!
As it niggardly trolls forward, this verbose skunk tolls its patella and smells its spleen galore.
Sulfuric CensorshipCR 17
---------------------------
XP 102,400
Lawful Stupid fine humanoid(dodofolk) Init -5; Senses True Sight 14000 Li; Perception +29
---------------------------
DEFENSE
---------------------------
AC -∞, touch -∞, flat-footed -∞ (6.02x10^23 Awesomeness, -∞ profane, 8 size, -5 Dex)
HP 29,263,277 (32/6d8 + 29,263,253)
Fort +5,486,864, Ref -4, Will +30
Immune Sickened, STD Damage Special Fetid Troll
---------------------------
OFFENSE
---------------------------
Spd 1 Parsec Melee 299,792,458 slams +195 (183/x2)
Space 1/2 ft.; Reach 0 ft.
Special Attacks Vibrating Dowsing Rod Spell-like Abilities (CL 32/6th)
At Will - create water 6.673*10^-11/day - marionette possession
---------------------------
STATISTICS
---------------------------
Str 376.73, Dex 2.0678*10^-15, Con 10 973 731, Int 22.7, Wis 69, Cha 42 Base Atk +4; CMB +191; CMD 186
Feats Let them Come, Run, Extra Revelation Skills Wilderness Lore +12, Perform(Dance) +21, Profession(Drunk) +38, Craft(Money) +15
Languages Common, Dodofolk
SQ Classified Soup
---------------------------
SPECIAL ABILITIES
---------------------------
Fetid Troll (Sp) Thanks to the droll mint of dirty priests, a Sulfuric Censorship gains DR 1/Viridium
Vibrating Dowsing Rod (Ex) While REDACTED, a Sulfuric Censorship can hugely Rickroll any Oozes within 99 ft. (DC 28 Will negates). The saving throw is charisma based.
Classified Soup (Su) A Sulfuric Censorship is always under the effects of Black Tentacles
All the bonuses and stuff I hopefully got right based on the numbers put in.
Yep, that was me. It might not have made the even the top 100, but I'm glad that so many people seemed to enjoy it, and enough to comment that they did. That's much more satisfying and rewarding to me than the actual official prestige.
You can see an 'original' here or the redo that I did to rectify my many, many mistakes here.
Since I'm here and posting, I'll also call out to the designers of the Coin of Chance, Trollhide Shield, Plush Guardian of Cuddles and Fray's Fabulous Fireworks. While only FFF made a placed position, I thought all of you were fun and creative items.
And of course the top 36 that for some reason I haven't praised yet
Nyaw, Security Blanket and Plush Guardian of Cuddles didn't make it to the top 100? Okay, I wasn't expecting my blanket to make it with all those errors, but the PGoC I'm a little surprised.
Mostly everything in that list I really like, so well done to everyone who made it in!
The big thing you're up against here is the good ol' Belt of Giant's Strength +4. The belt is a little cheaper and gives a flat +2 on attack and damage rolls, or +3 if you're going two-handed. Also on Strength Checks, CMD, Strength based skill checks, carrying capacity &c..
By comparison, your item takes a minimum of 3 rounds to 'charge up' to give the same bonus (Round one gives no bonus, +1 on round 2 and +2 on round 3). If for whatever reason you miss with your attacks (say something turns invisible, or gets mirror image up, or you just get a bad roll), more than just losing your hard-earned bonuses, you're also staggered. Not fun.
The thing where you can move and attack in a ki hurricane like style is cool though - Very strong. You needed to limit the number of attacks in it rather than allowing "any number" of attacks, but I knew what you meant. Definitely wanted a limited number of uses a day as well.
Personally, I would have ignored the first effect completely - It's much weaker than its obvious competition and I skimmed over its much more fun secondary ability a number of times since it was comparatively short.
Presumably English isn't your first language, which I'm not going to hold against you for the purposes of this critique. It's pretty well done if you're not a native speaker. However, it's a huge turn off during the actual voting, and that was probably a big source of down-votes. I'd recommend that you get the language checked if you submit again to avoid that sort of problem.
Armour of Burden
This I thought had promise. It's a fairly simple concept, but one that is well described flavourwise. Nice and easy to picture it.
Mechanically I feel it works very well. Clear and concise. It's an interesting anti-arcane caster ability - make them suffer that hefty 40% spell failure chance! I think you probably did a good job of not making it hugely exploitable by arcane casters dumping it on their familiars or what have you, but it does make the ability slightly underwhelming for other purposes.
You got upvotes from me fairly regularly up until the final cull.
And then the dragon appeared and roared ferociously, breathing huge jets of flame! The townsfolk dropped their pitchforks and torches, and ran away screaming. But Saint George wasn't afraid. No, not at all. He reached into his backpack and boldly drew out his worn and trusty security blanket.
"Ha, you can't hurt me now!" He cried. "I'm under the covers! See!?"
Descriptions Made of soft, blue wool, this child's blanket looks warm and comfortable. Just touching it causes feelings of security and reassurance to wash over you. Sleeping with this blanket provides a +4 circumstance bonus on Fortitude saving throws against exposure to cold weather.
A creature wrapped in a security blanket gains the effects of sanctuary and remove fear until they remove it. Whenever you are under the influence of a fear effect, you can spend a full-round action that provokes attacks of opportunity to wrap yourself in the security blanket, even if the effect would not normally let you take any other actions. This is in addition to any actions that may be required to retrieve it from your belongings. Extracting yourself from the blanket is a swift action.
Breaking the sanctuary effect by attacking also destroys the security blanket.
Construction Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, sanctuary, remove fear, joyful rapture; Cost 6,250 gp
I'll critique myself to start off with, since I learnt a lot from doing this and I'm aware of my own mistakes, mostly. If there's anything I missed though, feel free to add that.
My own critique:
I've only been playing this style of game for about a year, and this is one of my first items, but I'm pretty happy with how it went. I'm actually pretty glad I didn't get through since I have 0 experience with maps. Got pretty worried for a while when it kept coming up in the Items Seen chat and people seemed to like it.
*ahem* well...
First up, I had some formatting errors, mostly because I kept my copy in notepad and it stuffed up the spacing and I got carried away with deleting the extra lines. Dumb, but easy to fix.
Links to the d20PFSRD? That was dumb of me. A last second addition where I grabbed the first link I had stored in my browser instead of a prd one.
Messed up the aura. Joyful rapture was another last-second addition that I shouldn't have put in. Should have been an Enchantment aura in there. In hindsight, making it rainbow coloured and putting in prismatic wall would have been fun just to keep the Strong Abjuration aura.
The big one: 2nd person? Whyyyyyy... I can't believe I didn't pick this one up. Worse, an item I workshopped had the same error and I didn't notice it there, either.
That drawback was dumb. Having seen a bunch of terrible drawbacks, this one isn't so bad, but it's still pretty bad. I think the idea fits in with the item fairly well though, so I'd probably change it to just losing its magic for 24 hours.
The peanuts reference I hadn't even thought about until someone mentioned it. That thieving subconscious of mine. That said, influences aren't necessarily a bad thing.
Jokey? Yeah, it was a little. Mostly in the text though. I mean, I could have called it a Talisman of Reassurance and had it do the same thing, but that would make it boring, which is a much bigger sin in my eyes.
I guess it was sort of a spell in a can-ish, but I thought that was still fine. It was the being able to put it on while frightened that took it away from plain SiaC though.
I'll post a redo that addresses most of these at some point, probably.
Thinking about it, you can destroy a rope with a hammer, and even relatively easily: it just needs to be relatively tight. That's more consequence of its circumstances rather than the item itself. I'll agree with you that those rules are insufficient and they need a proper mechanical effect though.
It's tough to try to imagine how a material that hard actually works, since it's not something that most of us regularly experience. Primarily, the complicated bit is the ignoring hardness bit. Nothing I'm aware of actually has that property, and it does mean that what normally holds, like the compression issue, doesn't. The adamantine knife really does, in theory, cut through steel or stone just as easily as paper, or butter, or bread or what have you. I'd say the difficulty in doing so is compensated for by the Hit Points.
Of course, cutting through the wall is just a line, rather than the wide area effect that a bludgeoning weapon does. No arguments from me in that regard. Pick or hammer is definitely the way to go for speed. I think it's possible with a dagger though.
Heading back to the original topic: You could probably adapt a dagger or two to make some impromptu pitons or something. A character with good balance could probably climb up a cliff face using just the daggers.
Description
Admired by Mwangi ninjas for its adroit talons, this +200 slick cold iron armored kilt is tongue-stickingly cold, but only reveals its true power when moods are within sight of the wearer.
8,675,309 times per instance of constipation, Flumphs with the Mounted Archer class feature can cause π Earthbreakers to fall from the sky, causing humanoids with the giant subtype to sexily prostrate themselves.
Additionally, when the wearer is defenestrating a butt, they gain a +1 alchemical bonus to craft(sandwich) checks involving invasive mouthwash, as haste.
Construction Requirements Craft Magic Arms and Armour, haste, creator must have 1 rank in craft(sandwich), Mounted Archer class feature; Cost 333 gp
Sorry to the people who sent in suggestions that weren't needed; if I do the next one I'll use yours as priority.
This item x appears to be an ordinary item x, is covered in filigree and runes and when attuned may transform into any of the many kinds of item x, bypass any of the many kinds of DR, or take on any of the various elemental properties. It can also affect incorporeal and haunts but only if you cut yourself and drip your blood on said filigree and runes . And it can also cast magic missile but only at complete darkness.
Fixed
"Where're the Cheetos?!"
Oh I forgot that if you and your buddy both have this item you can share your skills and feats.
And if you die, it raises you as a ghost, and then the weapon becomes dancing and starts hacking away at all your ectoplasms.
And it lets you speak with dead days after the fact, like that other item that does the same thing. No, the other item that does the same thing. No, the other one. No, the other one. No, the one from last year. No, the other one from last year. No... wait, maybe it was one of the four from two years ago, instead.
That's only if the runes inscribed along its hilt are currently glowing a soft blue, which of course only occurs if the bearer is sad.
I thought the blue glow meant you are attuned but the red glow meant you can see the colored auras of other people and then control them.
No silly the red glow means it can copy somethings face.
Um, just wondering: If people keep quoting quotes that quote quote quote, will the original quote be swallowed by darkness?
The graytoned flag up above is getting darker and darker with each new sub-quote. Is there a limit to the number of
Thank you, designers of +1 weapons and armour that are less than 18,000 gp. I like my weapons and armour to be weapons and armour and not wondrous items in disguise. If you cost more than a +3 weapon or +4 armour, you'd better have an ability that's competitive.
They're errors. Easily fixed errors, but errors nonetheless. I think it would be cruel to disqualify items outright for something like that, when it's not as big an issue as, say, using the wrong sources, or using a pre-existing item. I'm not even sure it's as big a sin as improper formatting.
A very quick look over tells me you need to clarify Expanded Talent, but I don't see anything else immediately wrong.
How many times per day do you get the spell-like ability?
The spell you pick needs a level limitation.
Sorry if that comes off a little harsh, I've spent way too long on the RPG Superstar Snark Thread.
EDIT: I'm assuming probably like Psychic Talent, but you still need to clarify it.
I'd forgotten about you, item that replicates that dumb thing. I don't know whether to admire its ingenuity in turning it into a proper weapon or despise it for being a copy of it. You're up against a shield though, so you're going down this time.
Description
This creepy clown mask is locked in a perpetual grin, and its sinister, glowing red eyes gleam with malevolence and blood. Runes and filigree mark its rear surface.
The mask permanently binds to the wearer's skin once equipped. It grants the wearer a gaze attack that functions as fear.
Construction Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, fear; Cost 112,000gp
I always find myself wondering about masks (and this doesn't specifically apply to anything in RPG superstar, but also things found in the variousrulebooks): does anyone actually have their characters going around wearing these things?
The weird thing is the number of masks I've seen that get sucked into your face. I mean, it's two, and one of them was culled, but it's odd. And also sort of creepy.
Still seeing some items I haven't seen before after >1000 votes.
STOP describing yourselves as ordinary and mundane, but with secrethidden powers. A nicer visual might be enough to get you some upvotes instead of just being yet another blah item.
Shield designers, you are cool people. Other than a couple of pre-cull shields, they've all been easy favourites. I would be disappointed if most of you didn't make the top 32, even if that does make the top 32 shield heavy.
The number of characters I've got lined up... Here are a couple that I think are especially good. Some have been done, some haven't:
Munchy Scribbleface:
Goblin Barbarian (Feral Gnasher Archetype) / Oracle w. Deaf Curse / Rage Prophet.
Partially because this is a horrible race/class combo and partially because I want a rage prophet.
Munchy was once a great hero in his local goblin tribe. So great that he started getting arrogant. And so Lamashtu punished him in the most horrible way possible for a goblin: She made him deaf. Now he can only communicate by reading things. It makes him very angry.
Combat-wise, he can bite and hold onto things and also cast spells at them, thanks to the Deaf Oracle Curse.
My Harrowed Medium (You can just ignore the playtest report and look at the character fluff)
Paladin who supports slavery. They find hopeless people and give them a decent sum of money, then turn them over to a kind master who's fairly certain to treat them well and give them training. Or otherwise give them food, shelter, education and money via slavery. Probably even just short term slavery. Character sprang up mostly because it seems like a counterintuitive combo, and to illustrate to my gaming group that slavery is technically only lawful, and when done in some ways it can even be good. It's just most of the time it tends not to be.
The rogue who *really* wants to be a wizard, and pretends that they actually are to everyone. They put on a big show, and do really flashy things with magic all the time. But they can't actually do magic, they just spam use magic device, take advantage of the Bookish Rogue feat and Quicken and Empower Spell-like ability feats. Eldritch Raider archetype helps a lot with this. They're sort of bitter about the fact that they're not actually magical and they're just faking it if anyone finds out.
That sounds like a cool idea! It sounds like it's different enough to be a potentially tough job, but I'm up for using my limited experience to help out in whatever way I can to try and combine the two.
I'll probably be using my playtest Medium in a campaign for a while yet, so I'll be able to give some input on how the adaptations are going if it goes ahead.
I think I'm imagining Harrowed Medium becoming something along the lines of an Alternate Class like Ninja or Samurai. There will probably be enough things to tinker with that the one-to-one conversion of an archetype won't be easy.
Lost: If the murder spree of self defence thing is too good for the lesser spirit power, I'd think that putting it in with the intermediate would be suitable. Not thematically with that name, but it does gives you a reason to trance Lost at lower levels and makes it slightly more satisfying than being slightly hard to find with Divination magic.
I do feel that that's something that needs to make it in though, even if it's not right away.
Most of the medium bonuses are untyped, so presumably they stack, even if you do strange things. For example, using The Empty Throne to give the same seance boon as one of your other spirits. Or if you've got 10 mediums who all pick the same spirit to give a huge bonus to something. I'm aware you're aware of Empty Throne being very good for seance boons, but I can really see large numbers of mediums quickly making things get really out of hand.
In the same vein, heading back to The Lost, if for some reason you have 10 level 4 mediums all using the Lost, are they a horrendous force for confusion? If they stack, you can potentially have +30% on confusion rolls! (or +60% if Lost is being improved as Mark suggests it is) Unlikely to catch something in the aura of that many of them, but that's still scary enough that it would make a good encounter at some stage.
I checked up on the confusion spell because it came up in my last session, and something cool I noticed is that once you're confused, if something attacks you, you automatically attack it on your next turn if you're still confused. If this applies to The Lost, and doing this counts as rolling "Attack nearest creature", then suddenly the Lost actually looks... pretty good. It starts being a good, if risky option instead of being awkward. If that's how it's intended, I'd definitely highlight that when the final comes out.
Bladed Dash could be a fun spell to couple with Cyclone. It does require at least 4 levels in Magus/Bard to pull off, but I guess if you were going to do that anyway...
Getting into the realms of really strange: if you've got a level 18 Medium, what happens if you give another Medium a spirit with Astral Conduit? I guess rules as written there's no special interaction, but it feels like there should be something. Since technically you can get someone to 4 influence like this (though why they'd let you is another matter) at the very least having them count towards alignment/abilities as well would be nice.
Basic summary of all this: Medium's untyped bonuses might be a problem if you have lots of Mediums.
EDIT: Checking up on those first two, shared seance and Mad World are both supernatural effects, so I don't think multiple instances of either stack. Sort of like how other spells don't stack if it's doing the same thing. Sorry about that. Confusion thing might still work though.
You'd want to hope so, or that would be horrendous.
Even so, you can still do some crazy things if you fiddle around a little with that. An Awakened Cheetah Medium could be pretty horrendous. Not quite so bad on a Dragon Medium, but enough to make some of those flyby attacks pretty painful.
Which I suppose raises another question: As it is, Cricket just says 'movement speed' is increased, leaving open the question of which type of movement speed. Is it all of them? Since it mentions difficult terrain it's probably intended to be just land, but as it's written it could be considered all speeds.
Thanks for clarifying that, Mark. That would make sense. Sorry, that was probably just me being thick and not picking that up. The same probably holds for The Big Sky's Supreme spirit power.
It'd be very definitely late game, but combining Owl or Twin's supreme spirit powers would probably be what I'd be tempted to use. Presumably you could use Dual Identity to paralyse just one of your selves and use the other to do all that moving nonsense.
Oh, and the other thing is: Can you combine it with Demon Lantern's Wisp Walker ability to still 'move'?
You can probably tell I'm trying to spot some sort of weakness in the paralysis description now. The double spirit bonus is useful and having some sort of bypass of the paralysis, even if it's as cumbersome as this.
I'd love to see a combo where you paralyse yourself with Waxworks and another character picks you up and uses you as a weapon. I have no idea how any of your spirit powers would interact with someone doing that, but it'd be hilarious if you could apply all of your spirit powers on the attacks they made with you.
...Is it okay for me to keep posting here about harrowed medium even though playtest is well and truly over? Is it still maybe helpful for when the full harrowed medium does come out?
I'm sorry if any of this has come up before; it's a big thread and I haven't read the whole lot of it yet.
Medium was always going to be my new favourite class; I was almost disheartened when I saw the spirits were going to be reduced, but it looks maybe even better than it did at the start! Really excited for the book!
I like hearing about those archetypes. Cool to see two archetypes with similar flavour to the playtest character I had; I'll have difficulty picking which to pick when/if I adapt it to the new medium.
