cwslyclgh's page

There are quite a few solid items this year, in fact I am finding voting to be less of a chore than it was last year.

please... please... if you name your item one thing, do not refer to it by another name later in the statblock...

if your item can only be destroyed in one highly specific way... it is an artifact and doesn't belong in the competition.

simply flipping sides and giving me the same two items is not going to change my vote.

I on the other hand was not bothered by the shorter time frame... my long, considered, tinkered with, play tested, tinkered with some more, polished, submissions from previous years never amounted to much... so this year I decided before hand that I was going to think on my feet... Therefore, I pulled my submission out of my ass over the course of about 20 minutes yesterday afternoon. Let's see if spontaneity gets me further than forethought in this case.

For the rod of rulership it looks like they added half the base price of the apparent worth of the rod(see first sentence of the description) to the cost.

got this years rejection in.

Christopher Anthony wrote:

Just dropping by to confirm that 551 is NOT the number of remaining entries. ;)

What about 551 minus the number of items I have submitted for DQ after the cull?

so there are what...5 left?

heck, there are items that I've made fun of on the other thread that I consistently vote for... don;t take the ramble thread too seriously.

Dove vs. Dove... and the Dove takes it...

I read and comment on this (and the ramble thread) more to pass the time between vote than to look for mention of my object, in all honesty.

Sean McGowan wrote:

Eric Morton wrote:

Unfortunately, I suspect that the 1.8-million-gp item may have been culled, so I may never get to see it in all its overpriced glory.

I feel your pain. Rainbow poo never crossed my path pre-cull and I fear it's gone forever now...

Don't lose hope.

Aint this the truth, I've seen several items post cull that I was sure would have been cut.

anything stupid... oh damn it.

There are some gloves that I really like, despite some rather severe pricing problems.

I kinda-liked the beardforge last year... although instead of random I thought perhaps the other effects might have been better tiered and tied to profession (hairstyling) check results.

OK, Durations, a lot of items have said things like, "You have a pool of time length A, which must be spent in increments of B, which do not need to be spent consecutively" - that's a lot of words.

I think that's because some items in the rule books work this way (boots of speed, and the greater cloak of displacement from the core rules both use incremental not necessarily consecutive durations).

and a couple of them are even consumable (in the non-game sense).

I must say that I am getting tired of wondrous items that appear ragged, worn, beat up, tattered, or otherwise ill-maintained...

Unless Paizo does superstar winning modules very differently than other companies do such assignments, if you win your module will be given a word count that you are expected to come as close as possible too (too short is just as bad, or even worse that too long in these sorts of situations normally) so that although you might technically be being paid by the word they already know how much they are going to be paying you in advance.

especially not from this thread....

And there it is... well into dedicated, but finally saw my entry.

Sean, there is a marked difference in the public voting for wondrous items than there was in previous years when it was not public... in that the judges, when they saw an item that they knew for one reason or another would not make it to the top 32, could dismiss it and never have to look at it again, let alone reread it carefully dozens of times as it is shoved onto their screen vs. other items that they have already read dozens of times (Dozens might be an exaggeration for some voters, but my list shows that there are 4 items that I have seen more than 12 times each and this is only day 3 of voting).

I know that you don't have the time, but I think if you were to spend a few hours down here with us rabble voting like we do, you too would come to resent the timer, at least when certain pairings popped up on your screen.

We hates it, my precious, we hates it forever!

The gardening- and undead-themed items make me wonder why no one has created a magic item that grows a plant effective against undead.

Thanks... now I am sure we'll have like six of them next year..

I'm actually seeing more viable items this year than last, but maybe I'm just lucky.

Me too, unfortunately 'viable' doesn't necessarily mean 'good'

canned spells are not always DOA... if they are pulled off with enough panache they have made the top 32 before.

I just love it when I read and item and think "I'm voting for the other item no matter what"... then I read the other one and reconsider...

yeah, took me two years to figure that one out...

1. report both items to Sean and hit the equally bad option is what I would do.

2. report the DQ to Sean and vote for the legal, although distasteful item.

3. vote for the least distasteful item.

one trend I am seeing, which is not good, is the tendency to overwrite the item... to create a very good or great item and then spoil it by adding one last paragraph that goes too far, or adds an extra arbitrary and unrelated ability, turning a great items into a 'meh' item.

I have finished voting, but have decided not to reveal my picks until the final day of voting this year, in an attempt to stave off swaying the voting process... people thinking stuff like "Joseph Kellog seems to have enough votes already that he should make it through with out my help, so I am going to vote for Adman Blanchard instead because even though I hated his archetype I loved his item and would like to see what he can do in the next round"... (note that I just used those names as examples, it is not indicative of what I thought of their archetypes).

I recorded the Fellhound Collar, Irrisen Sacrificial Athame, Paint of Discerning Demise, Battle Standard of Perilous Defiance and the Helm of Hive in my list post cull.

Yes but grappled on top of dazed doesnt give you anything. Also the CMB check vs something big like a golem or a giant is not very high %.

Well it means that the creature is going to stay grappled and take the damage each round for a minimum of 4 rounds if it fails its initial will save... and like all spell combinations it is going to be situational... don't cast it on golems or giants then (although assuming that a rod is not used, the min caster level for a dazing black tentacles means that the tentacles CMB is +20, easily affecting hill giants, flesh, wood, and ice golems, and having a better than 50% chance of working on stone, fire and frost giants and clay golems.

If cast on a group of 6 Hill giants (a CR 13 encounter), each tentacle would need to roll above a 3 on d20 to successfully grapple a giant, inflicting 1d6+4 damage and requiring the giant to make a will save (with its whopping +3 to will saves) or be dazed for 4 rounds, each of those rounds it cannot attempt to escape from the grapple, so it automatically takes the 1d6+4 damage and must will save again or reset the daze to 4 rounds from that save...basically any hill giant from the group that is grappled (80% chance) and that fails its initial will save (chance will vary by caster, but likely at at least gonna happen 80% of the time) is very unlikely to ever get free taking the full 15d6+60 (112.5 average over the course of 15 rounds, enough to kill a hill giant)...

The winners of round one are still chosen by the judges, all of our feverish voting was just to determine the order in which the judges look at the items.

since cover is a named bonus (based upon the various places in the rules grick cites) improved cover and soft cover shouldn't stack.

I'd say that the snake could move through such an area at normal speed, but would still take the combat penalties for being squeezed (because it can't coil to defend itself or strike as effectively)... there is something to be said about GM common sense playing a part in interacting with the letter of the rules sometimes.

Possibly the only time it is the right button to use.

I like the elemental native outsiders (oread, ifrit, sylph, undine) and tengu (although they are not really a 'new' race)... and I agree with BBT, this is not a rules question... and should probably be in the general discussion forum.

Plus I have been a marathon voter since before they gave us the titles (It is the only voting title I have ever had), and I have only seen my item 4 times... so I doubt that I am unduly influencing its placement.

5. Should we consider it a problem if we notice the marathon voters' items are particularly well represented in the top 32? Is that mathematically likely to happen given the way the voting is going, and assuming those people are upvoting their items whenever they see them?

Remember that the Judges still pick the top 32, all our votes do is decide what order the judges look at the items in.... I would be shocked if all the items that make the top 32 are simply the 32 items that get the most votes from the public voting period. Even if John Doe rigged the system somehow to get 1 million up votes against each other item for his misformated Astounding Codpiece of Stupendousness (a Camping Spell in a Can that also makes one immune to a personal range spell when cast by others and has a market price of $4.95), putting it firmly in first place in the voting.. the judges are simply going to reject it and move on.

It depends... if that item's "unique way of activation" requires a character to slit his own wrists or eat a baby or something like that I am not really interested.

Shadowborn...NOOOOOOOOO :::waving arms in slow motion:::

Now we will see a ton of items using that kind of crappy back-story next year because it is "active and there for good" :::sighs:::

It might also be pertinent to note that in the past the judges have said that the vast many to most of the items in the core rule book are not "superstar" enough to make the top 32 if they were entered into the contest.

They don't waste time on unimportant stuff like who made the first one (or only one... I have seen a few items that seemed to be unique) or how this item is made in x city from y material.

They know what rule system that they were designed for, and don't include elements that have been changed (listen, spot, tumble checks) or dropped altogether (I have seen items that reference spells that either do not exist in Pathfinder or have had the names changed).

They have a cool effect (or small, logical suite there of), that is (are) unique, with out trying to do too much and bogging it down with extraneous BS and tacked on powers that make no sense.

...no it doesn't.

maul of the titans? gauntlets of anything (gauntlets are listed on the weapon table in the equipment chapter)... etc.

This morning between about 5 and 8 am pacific time, I voted 100 times (so saw 200 items), and this time I created an excel spread sheet to keep track of which items appeared (and in which column) and which items I voted for… here are some numbers that I pulled out of the data, I thought I would post them for those who might be interested in such things.

Total number of unique items: 175

21 items appeared twice, 2 items appeared 3 times

One of the items that appeared twice did so in back-to-back votes (on opposite sides), it did not get my vote either time.

2 items were items I had not seen previously, 4 were items that I had seen previously but not recently (since the cut down).

I did not see my own item.

I voted for the item on the left 53 times and the item on the right 47 times.

Later this today, probably starting around 1 pm pacific time, I plan on doing it again and comparing the results (to see if time of day really matters). Over the course of this week I plan on doing this at least 9 more times (at various times of day) giving me record of 1000 votes.

I invite others to attempt similar experiments and post them to this thread. comparing the data derived could prove to be interesting.

I had voted well over 500 times before I saw my item the first time.

probably the item that "does nothing other than potentially kill its user". :P

I just had the first new item in a couple of days pop up... and better yet it was a good item that I actually liked.

That is correct, unless the creator asks for a critique once voting is over, keep your thoughts about any given item to yourself.

I would be surprised if a 'critique my item thread' does not pop up this year after the top 32 are announced, just like it has in all previous years... giving people who want feedback the chance to get it from fellow posters (and occasionally from judges as well).