Many-Layered Veil


Open Call: Design a wondrous item

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RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32 , Marathon Voter Season 6 aka Breelo Babblebock

This item came up a lot for me and I voted for it almost every time. I am playing an illusionist in one campaign and I would love to have this item. The description of the fading veils is one reason this has mojo.

Liberty's Edge RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16 , Star Voter Season 6, Star Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9 aka JoelF847

Very neat item, and it's great that you gave illusionists something to help them, since it's VERY hard in the game to use illusion/figments well without being a pushover. This helps even the playing field.

With the heightened DC, the pricing seems in line...but, if you're going to have 7 charges on the item, then please, please, PLEASE, make the price evenly divisible by 7. That makes it a lot easier to price partially charged items. I'd change the price to 14,000, instead of 16,000 therefore.

RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32 , Dedicated Voter Season 6, Star Voter Season 7 aka Standback

Joel Flank wrote:
...but, if you're going to have 7 charges on the item, then please, please, PLEASE, make the price evenly divisible by 7. That makes it a lot easier to price partially charged items.

Hah! Beautiful point. Never occurred to me, but that's marvelous attention to detail.

Spoiler:
So, 15,995 gp, then? :P

Star Voter Season 6, Star Voter Season 9

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Nonsense, spending 2,281gp 7sp and 1.4 copper per charge is perfectly fine! ;)


As prior entries will tell you, Template Fu is one mean point eating machine, but will also praise where praise is due.

These reviews being this in depth usually take me a while to do and they get fitted in around other demands on my time, so please bear with me if I haven’t gotten to your item yet. I will get there in the end.

Review Caveat: I try to keep things totally dispassionate and all comments herein are my own. Having not made the illustrious levels that you have achieved this year, I can only caveat that anything I propose in feedback may not be totally in line with what Paizo thinks or needs of its freelance game designers, so do consider carefully any and all feedback I make under this light.

I start your review with…

Congratulations on being selected by the public at large and then the stalwart judges!

Review Breakdown:

Template: 5/5
Template Fu throws a huff, perfect template execution. Well done.

Spelling: 5/5
This bit IS boilerplate to avoid confusion. Everyone should know to use US English, so you just know that I am going to eat points for stray ‘u’ letters and similar.

Template Fu takes his huff to his happy place, another full marks!

Readability: 3/5
These are readings you can get from most spelling and grammar check options in word processors, for this, I am pasting everyone’s description into Word for consistency. My grading’s are purely my own personal feelings for target scores but it should be noted these are very helpful during development to spot problems in your writing, especially passivity.

Passive Sentences 0% (Wicked)
There are whole threads on this and it is possible to get 0%, which is wicked, but I would expect scores of less than 20% to be around the ideal mark for item descriptions (sometimes, you need the passive, but only rarely).

Flesch Reading Ease 39.7 (-1pt, needs to flow a little easier)
(0-30 best understood by university graduates, 60-70 easily understood by 13-15 year olds, 90-100 easily understood by 11 year olds)

Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level 11.8 (-1pt, ever so slightly higher than I like)
(This equates to the grades found in the US schooling system, e,g. 8.2 means it should be understandable by the average 8th grade student)

Me as a Designer Review: 5/5
Wow, the Arabian influence is strong with this one – I have images of the forty thieves, Scheherazade, Aladdin, a very evocative opening phrase, my only concern as a designer would be to look at the number seven. We all know the dance of the seven veils, so does this bring it too “real worldy” – it’s close but I think you can get away with it. I think it would have been avoided completely with something like, when acquiring the item, it will have 1d4+3 veils remaining (you could still get all seven but would need prices for 4,5,6, and 7 veils).

Clever use of the illusion rules, and the interaction and suspension of belief in the illusion is fully covered. This is very tight with the rules leaving me no room for misinterpretations. Well done.

Do watch for the same issue I have, that of the extraneous phraseology – e.g. whenever you see the words “also” or in this case “additionally”, it is an indication that you can probably rewrite that sentence of phrase to remove the word.

Now all that being said, how could you have avoided this criticism? There are two possibilities.

Ok, I don’t think, even with everything together, I can deduct any points, this is a really well put together item.

Overall Impression: 5/5
I really liked the Arabian vibes, the clever illusion interplay. A nice neat and clever item.

Wow, have you set the bar high on my expectations for your archetype!

Final Score: 23/25
I won’t give a final score comment as I haven’t for anyone else as I work through the items.

If this interests for personal reasons, please feel free to check out everyone else’s scores and at the same time check out your competition and their feedback too!

Closing, as I started…

Congratulations on being selected!

Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Dedicated Voter Season 9

Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Ziv Wities wrote:
Joel Flank wrote:
...but, if you're going to have 7 charges on the item, then please, please, PLEASE, make the price evenly divisible by 7. That makes it a lot easier to price partially charged items.

Hah! Beautiful point. Never occurred to me, but that's marvelous attention to detail.

** spoiler omitted **

And on the mystic art of pricing, it wouldn't really be divisible by seven. It you buy a packet of Malteasers or Starburst, the cost of the packaging is a one time cost even though the content is multiple sweets.

So for this, the time for the creator would likely be pro rata and multiples of the same spell might be cheaper when purchased in bulk (maybe each inidvidual veil needs to be enchanted). Conversely, lets say you enchant a flower - is that a spell per petal, or once for the whole thing? In this case, is it a spell per veil or once for the whole garment? This I think now illustrates why pricing is not an exact art.

All of this needs to be considered, so I actually personally think that because the price doesn't divide equally by seven means some or all of the above might have been considered, and for me, makes the item that bit more "right" than "wrong" on pricing.

This is why, in my Template Fu review, I suggest pricing per veil to be listed.

It could also be argued that prices for a partially charged item are set by the seller, normally you buy the item fully charged as new, when found on a dead boss, then the price doesnt come in to anything, as you looted the body - its only an on sell consideration at that point, so you the player set the price and the GM (npc) will either buy or not at the price you set.

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