Great job making the top 32! I really like this item, but have a very differnt take on how it would get used. Sure, it could be used to thwart magical interrogation, but with the blurring of the description of charms and compulsions in what is affected, I was thinking that it would be particularly great to use in combat when you get targeted by an enchanter's dominate or similar effect. Turning the tables on the enchanter (and that could really be any number of foes, not just a wizard specialist) you can turn the tide of battle as dramatically as being dominated would have, but in your favor.
We're thinking alike Joel. It is an item for social encounters, however just as you indicated it has strong combat possibilities.
In my experience charm spells are used in combat more often than social situations. You'll touch upon that in a moment.
As an aside, I was aware those three effects were compulsions. Specifically they are compulsions that come very close to being charm like effects. If you make a list of all the compulsions, some of them have very little in common with a charm spell, i.e. prayer and power word kill. Providing a bonus against all compulsions would not have fit the theme at all. However, suggestion and hypnotize are on that borderline of almost being almost like a charm spell. Likewise I added fascinate because it seemed to fit, but it was the weakest of three compulsions I included. Those three compulsions are designed to get you to cooperate with the desires of the caster. So my intention was to offer the bonus against all charms and those three specific compulsions.
This is not an excuse. I failed to communicate that properly. If I confuse my editor, then I've made a mistake. As I did in this case. Please don't take this as arguing with the Judges. Please.
Actually, this isn't true, since the caster of a spell normally knows if the spell was sucessful or not, and without an item like this, no amount of bluff could work, since they would know their spell failed otherwise.
You got it Joel! What excited ME about writing Seducer's Bane wasn't being clever with thwarting charm spells, it was breaking the saving throw mechanic in half. Seducer's Bane is all about the saving throw.
Knowledge is passed back and forth every time you cast a spell and you make a saving throw. If you cast a spell, you know whether it worked or not. If you make a saving throw, you know you got hit by a spell from 'somewhere'. You may not know who did it or what the spell actually was, but you know you should be on the proverbial "red alert". Raise the shields, draw your sword, somebody is throwing spells at me!
That's why one might not cast charm spells in social encounters unless you're confident they're actually going to work. Because if they don't, you've tipped your hand.
Upon reflecting on the reaction to an anti-charm, I think this idea is still worthwhile. I think there's a cool new metamagic feat in being able to cast a 'subtle' spell where the target doesn't necessarily know they've had a spell cast at them should they make their saving throw. Handling it as a metamagic feat would limit potential abuse.
I think this is simply using the sense motive skill as written - it's DC 25 to detect that a subject is under the effect of a charm, so it seems natural that it would be the same DC to detect if the subject isn't under the effect of a charm when you start off with knowledge that they should be.
Once again, you have made my night. You've parsed my internal logical perfectly.
If I were GMing my own item, I would be perfectly content to just allow the situation to be played out through role-playing alone. (Steven Holt made a comment about this as well.) I put the Sense Motive check in there as a fall back. Not every GM / Player / Group is comfortable with a situation that relies solely on subjective interpretation. Likewise, not all people role-play to the same level of ability and the mechanics help bridge the gap. Otherwise people with less polished social skills would never have the opportunity to play higher charisma characters.
I simply mirrored the same mechanics that allow one to discern where someone is enchanted, to permit someone to ascertain if someone is only faking it.
Last but not least, regarding the three flowers and the Nature check. The intent there was to provide a means of determining if there was something 'off' about the bracelet, even though it lacked a magical aura. To make it more 'fair'. That might not have worked as well as I'd hoped.
Hope this helps folks! Hope I didn't make you mad! If the item was confusing, the blame is mine!
Neat item with a neat effect. I agree with Sean that I am unsure whether you meant all charms and compulsions, or just charms and the listed compulsions... but I don;t think that it detracts from the item too much.
Great Job making the top 32 Watcher! Good Luck in the future rounds!
I think this looks like a novel item with a lot of thought behind it, and I really like to see stuff that is designed for use outside of combat. The in-combat ramifications (ie. vs. Dominate) didn't occurr to me when I first read the description, but that's certainly an important perk. I'd like to see more stuff that emphasizes story development and role playing, and if it happens to enchance the hack-n-slash part, well that's just icing on the cake.
This is my favorite out of a very-impressive field. Well done.
That means a lot, Ki_Ryn and Cwslyclgh, I really appreciate it!
And if I haven't thanked some folks else personally by name, please know that I do appreciate your feedback and consideration. I want to thank everybody individually and by name shortly..
But for now, with my Round Two entry safely in, I think I'm gonna chill for a little while. :D
If I don't talk to you soon, have a great Friday!
Well done Jim. Congratulations on making it into Round 2.
This item comes across as much more wondrous than many of the standard items in the Pathfinder rulebook. [in-joke]It's certainly better than some broken and boring item I'd come up with if I were creating a new wondrous item. ;) [/in-joke]
It does seem like it belongs in the possession of an affluent NPC more than in the possession of a PC. This is an item a king makes sure his beautiful daughter wears to deflect the improper advances of lustful enchanters.
There's little I can say that hasn't been said already. The other posters are right that you need to trim down your prose. If you had not been at the limit of the word count you could have said "...against all charm spells and effect, as well as hypnotism, suggestion, and fascinate abilities." That would have spared you from a lot of flak.
You are spot on about the information passing between the spellcaster and the target making a saving throw. I think it's really neat the way you played with and opened up that bit of design space. However, a person has to read and understand that bit the Pathfinder rules very carefully to catch on to what you're doing. Before you explained it in your more recent post, several posters gave you some undeserved criticism because they didn't grasp the minutiae of the magic rules.
Now, I'm not saying that's bad design. I'm saying that in the context of a design competition, you started off with a disadvantage by choosing to play around with a fairly obscure bit of the rules. The fact that you overcame that initial disadvantage and made it into the top 32 proves you've got some serious design mojo going on.
I eagerly await your Round 2 entry. May you blow us all away with your creative talent.
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This is a great item that really fits a pretty non-standard type of game (the heavy talking game), which I could seee making a few players I've met very angry:
"What do you mean she attacked me!? I charmed her!"
Then find the gotcha and trying to use it as an excuse:
"Even though I attacked her, she must still think I'm charmed! I have the bracelet!"
Just a very tiny issue in my mind in a great item. Looking forward to more from you.
Hi Folks,
Round Two is being processed by the Judges and so I have a little down time to get back to people. I know I said I was going to wait till after the contest was closed, but many of my colleagues are discussing their items now and I’ve decided to risk joining them. Ha!
I say risk, because no one wants to be considered arguing with the judges or the folks generously offering their feedback. On the other hand, I’ve gotten so much great feedback that I wanted to demonstrate my appreciation by at least offering some sort of thoughtful and personal reply.
First, I wanted to thank the following people and let them know I read their kind words and encouragement. I don’t have a specific reply to them, but I think anybody who takes the time to write me something deserves to be thanked by name.
Eric Hindley, taig, Patrick Walsh, Jason Nelson, Adam Daigle, Benjamin Bruck, Nicolas Quimby, Curaigh, terraleon (aka Ben McFarland of Open Design), Gr4ys, Andrew Black, Lief Clennon, the esteemed Wolfgang Baur, Telhuine, Dennis Baker, Darkjoy, Matthew Morris,guest judges Neil Spicer and Kevin Carter and our official judges Sean K. Reynolds, Clark Peterson, and F. Wesley Schneider.
Secondly (but not secondary) I wanted to thank guest judge Eric Bailey, and Charles Evans 25, Demiurge 1138, Steven T. Helt, Minorelementx, Chris Mortika, Jared Goodwin, knowman, David Fryer, and Catmandrake. Furthermore, all of *you* fine folks have an individual reply from me underneath the spoiler tag. Otherwise this post would be a mile long. :D
If I didn’t mention someone by name (like Joel Flank or Ki-Ryn), it’s only because I think I replied to you directly already. But heck, thanks again!
Round Two may be underway, but I’d still love any feedback you have!
It's cool only if you as a DM provide ways for the PCs to get clued in, possibly with this item as a reward on the other side…
<snip> …a couple of if/thens that produce another type of bonus... I need this item to be tighter in its design to really make me excited about it.
Thank you Eric for your time and feedback! I tried to provide a clue with Nature check to identify the symbolism of the flowers. As a player I really like game design where I can hand out information to players who invest in skills, particularly Knowledge skills. However, I could have done a better job at that or cut it out completely.
Also, you and other posters have brought my attention that I’m trying too hard to help the GM adjudicate the overall game rules in my entry. That bonus to Bluff or Sense Motive comes about not because of what the item does, but what I felt the circumstances would dictate. That might be something I need to leave to GMs to sort out. Again, thank you for your time, I really appreciate it.
This entry is perhaps a little bit wordy with the description (and is it genuinely necessary that every single copy of this item made feature those three flowers? Or is this a new school of symbolic magic which you're inventing/hinting at here?)
Charles.. I was hoping you would have made it to the first round with me! Its tough to make yourself vulnerable but I’m glad you did.
You’re right. It’s too wordy. No argument.
No it’s not necessary to use those same three flowers. I was trying for some style that wouldn’t read like ‘background’ (which the esteemed Mr. Peterson doesn’t like). I also felt it was necessary to provide a balance to the lack of detectable magical aura.
That has somewhat backfired as many people interpret the item as an anti-interrogation device. That has surprised me honestly, because I didn’t have that application in mind when I created Seducer’s Bane.
Thank you for your comments and your warm words. I’m happy to be your number 5!
It's a racial ability of the jaebrin in MMV.
I like this item. You had me at flower symbolism, Watcher.
Thank you! The flower symbolism is a bit inspired by a strange and beautiful “hippie” independent RPG called Noblis, written by Jenna Katerin Moran, who used to write under the name R. Sean Borgstrom.
Hmm.. I should add Nobilis as a well liked game to my profile if I haven’t already.
If you're going to make the check to see if someone's really charmed opposed later, why not just leave it to the character to emulate the charm?
Actually I think you should leave it to the player to emulate. I agree with you Steven. The first year of RPG Superstar I made an item that could be too easily abused by munchkins and I think I was overcompensating by writing GM rules instead of focusing on the item itself.
If I were GMing this item I would just let the character role-play it out. I put a mechanic in there as a fall back because not everyone role-plays at the same level.
I appreciate the thoughtfulness of your feedback. Thanks for sharing it with me.
Pretty good item for certain situations. The detect magic part and the descriptions feel a bit forced and could honestly be cut. With regard to my previous statement, I'd cut those descriptions because the idea is to fool the other person. As a player, I would argue that my wizard, who possesses knowledge about magic items, should get appropriate Perception and/or Knowledge checks to recognize the bracelet (since the bracelet certainly has some defining characteristics). I think this item would have been better if you dropped those descriptive sentences and just said it was an innocuous silver bracelet.
Certainly most people agree with you, Minorelementx. I can’t deny that. The intention was to provide a way around the “paranoid” aspects of the lack of magical aura.
However, I never considered the entire capture/interrogate scenario that has come up in discussion. For me, Seducer’s Bane was intended either for social or combat situations, not a post-combat encounter. In hindsight I can see that perhaps I really didn’t need to make it to lack a magical aura. Detect magic would be a vulgar spell to cast on someone in a social situation; and in combat you just don’t have time to check the enemy’s magic items very closely. (Not until they’re dead anyway!)
Great feedback and thank you for your time in sharing it with me.
As an aside, one of the things I noticed about all the "truth / lies" items that made the cut is that they could all work in the same environment. I was expect some sort of "I can tell if anyone is lying to me!" "But I can tell completely undetectable lies!" conflict, but you all developed items of sufficient "niche-utility" that you avoided that.
Much appreciated Chris! You’re right, those immunity/undetectable items are bad design.
Just as a point of reference for anyone reading this for Superstar 2011, Sean K. Reynolds is no fan of the all encompassing ‘immunity to a power’ trick. Better design is to grant a good bonus, but steer clear of immunities.
Your praise means a lot Chris, and I wish you good luck in the Rounds to come!
This is way too much of a gotcha item for me, because it makes no worldbuilding sense. In a world where items like this can be made, captors will simply strip their captives nude before an interrogation if they know about this sort of thing, so it only works on uneducated or idiotic villains. That strains credulity.
It's hard to make "You have an extra trick when you're helpless" items work without playing the villains dumb without making lots of extra "Oh, and this trick doesn't work either" caveats. There's already a little bit of that with the "Detect Magic doesn't work" clause. There needs to be both a fair chance to identify this and a fair chance to get away with this and I don't think it strikes the right balance.Basically, it poses a puzzle to captors that can only be solved by knowing about the item ahead of time, but if the captors know about the item ahead of time it's useless. This feels a bit too much "Have you read the [book this item is in]?" metagame-y.
How would you change the item give the captive a fair chance to smuggle it in despite wary captors? How would you change the item to give unaware captors a fair chance to detect it?
Jared, this is really hard to reply to without seeming defensive, or making excuses, or not valuing your feedback. You gave it to me straight and without holding (anything) back. It's especially tough because you’re my competition. Thank you! :D
For a start, I really never envisioned Seducer’s Bane in the context that you have. That is something really valuable that you’re teaching me. From what I can tell you’re thinking of my item only in the context of a post-combat/interrogation scenario. I just don’t see it happening, because I agree with you. Most PCs would take an NPC’s gear away, especially if it was valuable. I take that as a given. For that reason, I’m caught a little short on how to answer your concerns. Likewise, I can’t exactly see how the item makes the spirit of the Pathfinder game any worse. I think PCs will continue to strip the loot from captives no matter what.
For me, the charm spells are valid combat spells. If PCs aren’t having charm used against them in combat, I can appreciate Seducer’s Bane not being an attractive item.
I also recognize that it is a social item as well. No doubt about it. However, the post-combat/interrogation situation I think is the least likely situation for it coming into play.
Jared, all that aside, I appreciate your feedback. I really wish you the best of luck in the rest of the contest.
I'm not crazy with the specific flowers you chose for the charm (given what they represent). It seems like an Easter Egg and an unnecessary one, as if the point was to give a PC a chance to figure out that the NPC they charmed might not be charmed. That kind of makes sense from a GMing standpoint in that your player's might be annoyed if there wasn't anything to tip them off, but it kind of doesn't because they really shouldn't expect it. Would they create such a bracelet with the same hints for their opponents? I don't think so.
That was the reason. Game balance. For me “undetectable” is like an all encompassing immunity. That is, ‘use with caution’ if at all. So I wanted to offer an alternative to knowing something was unusual. In retrospect, the item might have been stronger if I just hadn’t done that. That aside, thanks for starting with how much you actually did like it.
I'd be interested to know if there were specific reasons you picked those specific flowers if you care to share, maybe there is another angle I'm missing? I know you said didn't want to post clarifications, and I applaud your wisdom for doing so, but perhaps when the contest is over?
I suppose I’m not that wise! ;-) However I also hope I’m replying to people with a sense of good will and with the intent of sharing ideas rather than arguing with them.
I chose those flowers because they’re sneaky flowers that represent ideas that work with a theme of deceiving someone (that is, the would-be enchanter). Ashflower would be a good one for Protection.
By the way, those flowers really represent what I said they did! Google them!
This part, "...may ignore or disobey suggestions, and otherwise take advantage of the situation until the ruse is discovered.", seems unnecessary.
I agree, I think it was unnecessary in hindsight. Thanks again. I’m glad you didn’t think it was rubbish, that is really pleasing and gratifying to know.
I think the problem I have with this item is that it only works so long as you act in the manner that you would if you had been charmed anyway if I am reading it right. That could create a serious problem for the wearer in many situations.
You got it right David. However it doesn’t take long to angle yourself into a good position in a fight, especially with an enemy that doesn’t think you’re going to turn on them.
In a social situation, your objective could be finding out what they want and using that knowledge against them. In any case, the character has a limited window of opportunity to think on their feet and take whatever advantage they can, while they can. To me that’s exciting.
Thanks for your interest and I hope to see you check out my monster next Round!
There's little I can say that hasn't been said already. The other posters are right that you need to trim down your prose. If you had not been at the limit of the word count you could have said "...against all charm spells and effect, as well as hypnotism, suggestion, and fascinate abilities." That would have spared you from a lot of flak.
You’re absolutely right sir, but it is what it is. I know better for next time, and I promise you my writing for Round Two is a lot tighter!
You are spot on about the information passing between the spellcaster and the target making a saving throw. I think it's really neat the way you played with and opened up that bit of design space.
Kind words, much appreciated!
Hi Folks,
Round Two is being processed by the Judges and so I have a little down time to get back to people. I know I said I was going to wait till after the contest was closed, but many of my colleagues are discussing their items now and I’ve decided to risk joining them. Ha!
I say risk, because no one wants to be considered arguing with the judges or the folks generously offering their feedback. On the other hand, I’ve gotten so much great feedback that I wanted to demonstrate my appreciation by at least offering some sort of thoughtful and personal reply.
First, I wanted to thank the following people and let them know I read their kind words and encouragement. I don’t have a specific reply to them, but I think anybody who takes the time to write me something deserves to be thanked by name.
Eric Hindley, taig, Patrick Walsh, Jason Nelson, Adam Daigle, Benjamin Bruck, Nicolas Quimby, Curaigh, terraleon (aka Ben McFarland of Open Design), Gr4ys, Andrew Black, Lief Clennon, the esteemed Wolfgang Baur, Telhuine, Dennis Baker, Darkjoy, Matthew Morris,guest judges Neil Spicer and Kevin Carter and our official judges Sean K. Reynolds, Clark Peterson, and F. Wesley Schneider.
Secondly (but not secondary) I wanted to thank guest judge Eric Bailey, and Charles Evans 25, Demiurge 1138, Steven T. Helt, Minorelementx, Chris Mortika, Jared Goodwin, knowman, David Fryer, and Catmandrake. Furthermore, all of *you* fine folks have an individual reply from me underneath the spoiler tag. Otherwise this post would be a mile long. :D
If I didn’t mention someone by name (like Joel Flank or Ki-Ryn), it’s only because I think I replied to you directly already. But heck, thanks again!
Round Two may be underway, but I’d still love any feedback you have!
** spoiler omitted **
Hey, no problem dude. You're welcome. I hope my little nugget of advice pushes you into the Top 16 (though I doubt it has impacted your monster much).
Hey, no problem dude. You're welcome. I hope my little nugget of advice pushes you into the Top 16 (though I doubt it...
You should give yourself more credit Minorelementx! Some things about my first Round entry I can't do much about, other than to listen and do better. There's not necessarily a tangible way to demonstrate that I've listened and understood.
However the second biggest feedback I got was the wordy passive writing. That is an area I can try to demonstrate improvement on. I've attacked that like nobody's business, and I'm hoping the judges will be pleased that I really made an effort to work on that.
That was also *your* specific feedback too. :D I hope you'll come back and check out my Round Two monster to see if if I've progressed!
Edit: I'm going to try to find some time to do a revised version of my item, however, based on the feedback I've been given. I still think its a great little item.
Okay, so this is another one of my faves from this round, but as a caveat, I'll state up front I'm a fan of diplomatic/espionage/talky type games. Not everyone's style, i know, but therefore this would, in my dream game, be an almost must-have item. I don't think the anti-detection aura on the bracelet itself is entirely necessary, given that nobody is still going to know what exactly it does, plus it offers the question of how a party might ever manage to get one of their hands on these as loot if it just gets tossed in the nonmagic pile. But aside from that, i love it. All kinds of fun pictures get spawned in my head of supposedly charmed characters screwing over their 'master' at the last minute.
I approve of this item. It will be used the game I run. Thank you for creating it. It does look as though it shuts down mind control completely, and that's okay! Let's see what you do next round. Congrats!
I have been meaning to do this for some time now and this is a good time to play catch up!
Here is a streamlined version of seducer's bane. If you didn't care for the original item, I'm afraid it hasn't changed a lot. I have to stress that, because I don't think posting a radically different version would be at all appropriate or genuine. This is what I entered, and this is what got me to Round One; only now it is cleaned up a little.
What has been taken out is some of the unnecessary wordiness and 'assistance' on adjudicating the rules that seemed to really confuse people (i.e. extra skill rolls to cover a number of different possible contingencies).
I hope you enjoy it! I'll be doing some Q&A on the ardorwesp later today.
*****************************
Aura none; CL 9th
Slot wrist; Price 9,900 gp; Weight --
Also known as “Diplomat’s Aegis,” this slender silver bracelet is worked in an intertwined design of three flowers. The bracelet radiates no detectable magic aura (as per the magic aura spell).
Seducer’s Bane grants its wearer a +3 competence bonus to Sense Motive checks, and a +3 resistance bonus to Will saves against all charm spells and effects, including the compulsion effects hypnotism, suggestion, and fascinate.
Should the wearer make a successful Will save, the caster nevertheless senses the effect has succeeded. Conversely, the bracelet’s wearer not only can sense they’ve been targeted by a spell, but where it came from. Seducer’s Bane creates an aura on its wearer, visible to detect magic, matching the spell or effect, and lasting as long as the intended duration. The wearer is free to play along or take advantage of the situation in whatever way they can. However, if the wearer attacks the caster or their allies, or acts contradictory to the spell effect, the caster immediately realizes the effect has actually failed.
If the wearer fails the Will save against the effect, the bracelet’s secondary properties do not activate.
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item; detect magic, magic aura, resistance, creator must have 3 ranks in Sense Motive; Cost 4,950 gp