Cloudwrangler's Gloves

[james knowles]

Congrats.

I voted these down a couple of times because they just sounded ridiculous at the time. After stewing over them for awhile, however, I'm beginning to see the mojo inherent in them. I'm glad enough other people voted them to the top.

[Jon Haire]

I voted for this item a lot. I don't know if you have ever read The Last Stormlord by Glenda Larke but it immmediately came to mind when I read your entry. I can certainly visualize this item in use and that gives it mojo.

[Paul Brown]

Thinking more about this great item, I'd like to see a character reach into a cloud and throw the noxious gas like a foul snowball at an enemy.

[Chris Shaeffer]

Well, it's the day before all of us have to shut ourselves up for a while.
Comments have slowed down, so I'm going to take this time to respond directly to your comments and maybe even post an updated version!

Thanks!:

I just want to thank you all again for your support. I've been genuinely surprised! I want you all to know that I read and appreciated all of your comments, and that the best compliment I could possibly have is "Oh, I would use it to do THIS!", or "I have a character that could use this." It means a lot to us when you say things like that! If any of you actually do use any of my stuff in play, please, PLEASE let me know how it went.

Limited Utility:

This is true. Depending on the players and the campaign, these might be mostly useless, even. But if you are a caster who specializes in cloud effects, an alchemist, someone with a vampire problem, or someone wanting to impress some stone-age folk by playing with their campfire smoke, this item is for you!

GM_SOlspiral: Limits on use? This made me laugh, because so many people have said they're limited already. :p
The DC for moving them around is what I considered the "limitation" to be. I think if I added that same DC to the initial "grabbing" of the cloud it would act as an effective limitation too. What do you think? Also, it can only be used on already existant effects. They are useless on their own, and I believe that is another limitation.
You mentioned that it would be cool if it interacted with wind effects too. While I agree with you, I believe that would have opened up a can of worms that I didn't have the time or wordcount to deal with. I think it also might have muddled the spirit of the item a bit. On the other hand, I could see that as being a great sister item to these.

Mechanical Concerns:

Steve Miller: First off, I totally agree with the "within reach" comment. I thought about it for a while when writing it and figured it might be nice to somehow head off any possible abuses by stating a specific distance, but when it comes down to it, "within reach" is a lot more elegant and useful. Same with the "neither instant nor permanent duration" bit. I wasn't aware of any spells that would cause issues, but I wanted to be sure.
Now, for gaseous form, I intended the wording to indicate that for the purposes of direct contact (touching, unarmed attacks & maneuvers, etc), the creature would be treated as not being in gaseous form. This wouldn't prevent any of gaseous form's other effects in relation to other creatures or the environment though. I could reword it to reflect this intention better.

Mr. Template Fu: Yes, I realized I had some pronoun ambiguity in the second sentence of the description (the subject changed between sentences). Luckily it was minor and most people haven't seemed to mind.
Yup, you do have to use a standard action to grasp the cloud and put it under your control. I like stating "standard action" when I have the word count, or else people start to point it out. Best to be explicit.
I figured few other items state their susceptibility to such effects, so it wouldn't make sense to point it out in this case. Also, it's not entirely accurate that the gloves don't protect the user. You might say that since the user isn't affected when grabbing a cloud from an adjacent space, it might actually be protecting his hands, at least.
I never said that clouds were considered solid, only creatures with gaseous form. The clouds are described as being treated as a "cohesive physical object". (You might be thinking about one of my rewrites that I showed you after I submitted, I think I tried to combine some sentences and it said "solid" for both.)
The cloud's still a cloud. I did mention that you can move it "around" yourself. You are luckily *not* encased in a prison of mist when you grab a cloud from the inside. One thing that is a little ambiguous though: "If you have to grab the cloud with both hands, how can you release it with one hand in order to grab another part of the cloud when moving it around you?" To this I say: "You're still using both hands on it. The point was so that you couldn't use a weapon at the same time, or grab two adjacent clouds and be a cloud-hauling BEAST."
Rotation. Well, once again, I was trying to nip off any little corner-cases at the bud. Allowing this would add a lot of play time figuring out in just what manner the thing is rotating, and someone might try to run around really fast while grabbing it in an attempt to create a vortex and then throw it at things, which would be... well, actually kind of cool. But I wanted it to stay simple. Rules as written, attempting to walk around the cloud while holding it would cause the cloud to move with you while maintaining the same absolute orientation in relation to you (as in, if you are on its north side and try to walk around it, you will remain on its north side).

Cost:

Haha okay, okay! I get it! At least it wasn't as bad as last year. I think in the future I'll make it as low as I think it could possibly be, and then cut that price in half. 20,000 sound more reasonable? :p

Kent T.: I'd hope that a GM would only present an item like this to someone who had a real use for it other than as a form of capital to be liquidated. I like to think that people would want something unique and fun instead of thinking "I can add +5 to X stat with that much gold!" In any case, yes. Too expensive! Maybe I should give that book a read through.

Just Use Wind Scrolls (Coridan, Kent T.):

I guess you could, but wind doesn't blow clouds around—it only disperses them. If you want real control of a cloud, either defensively or offensively, that's when these would be handy. But yeah, lowering the price would help make this more of an option.

DC (theheadkase):

I think I did cover this in my other post, but to address your idea about spell level: This thought did cross my mind! But it was a bit complicated and I decided that since a caster has no direct control over a cloud effect once cast, it would make more sense for size to be the determining factor for how easily it could be moved. Saved on word count, like you said.
Also, you flatter me. Thank you!! :)

Wait, Whoa (Orthos):

Haha, I think this is a great compliment! I had a lot of little uses in mind for the things. I'd be curious to know what uses you came up with.

AM BARBARIAN:

Where is that guy anyway? For that matter, where's AskaRPGSuccubus? They always brightened my day.

Neil:

*¡¡RUNAS EXPLOSIVAS!!*

Pecos Bill (James Olchak):

Pecos Bill actually crossed my mind several times! I thought about making a lasso, but that sadly would have been a weapon and thus disqualified. Gloves are more rugged anyway. :)

Oceanshieldwolf:

Yeah, just having a sort of "mission statement" for your design can help a lot to weed out the parts of it you really don't need.

agirlnamedbob:

Aww, thanks! I like seeing you around here, by the way. You're the sort of person I had in mind when I made this! :D

Jon Haire:

Nope, I've never heard of it! I'll look into it though. Thanks!

Isaac Duplechain:

That would be cool! Not technically within the abilities of the item, but if I were GM, I would totally allow it. :D

Well, it's late now. I'll post an updated version... someday. ;)
I'll also be trying to comment on the rest of everyone's round one entries, but don't expect me to be around much other than that while voting is going on. :p

[R Pickard]

I'm a little late, but I also wanted to chime in and say that these were definitely one of my favorite items I saw when voting.

What's interesting is I think when it showed up for me, it was up against an inherently simpler item, which I usually prefer (I'm definitely in the "make things as easy as possible for the GM" camp). But the other item was not well balanced, and the creativity of the gloves struck me more and more as I read it. The item is well balanced and creates a striking visual image.

I'm imagining some players doing weird stuff like flying and grabbing clouds to use as concealment during aerial combat, which sometimes may be hard to adjudicate, but it's described well enough that at least it's pretty clear how about what it does and doesn't do (can move a cloud, cannot grab and throw it at something).

[Shawn Kowalke]

I looked at items for creative uses first and foremost, and that made this one of my favorites. It was definitely the one that I figured would knock me out of the running if a finite number of gloves had been allowed :P

[Daniel Rust]

Welcome back to the Top 32 Chris!

It's great to see you back here.

These are brilliant. One of, if not the best item this year.

The name is lovely, the writing is evocative and the uses of the item are clear and thought provoking. There are some many things you can do with these gloves. Alright, they're not the most useful item you could acquire but the most useful ones are often the most boring.

This is just fun, fun, fun.

Great job!