Step 4: Flesh out the details. (continued)
What happens if there is more than one type of swarm in range? What if there are two swarms of the same type in range?
I decided to allow the swarm slurper to only affect one type of swarm when activated. So if you were being attacked by wasps, ants, and amoebas then it would only slurp up one of the three types. It would, however, be able to slurp up more than one swarm of the same type subject to the hit point limit.
What happens to the swarm after 10 minutes?
The swarm is expelled from the extra-dimensional space ready to do whatever the swarm wants to do. I added a command word option so someone could toss it in a room and open it up on their enemies.
(In retrospect, it would have been better to describe the release process as the swarm slurper belching out the captured swarm.)
What is this thing going to cost?
Originally, the mouth would have stayed open for 13 rounds which is the duration of the grasping hand spell. I cut that down to 5 rounds to bring the cost down. Instead of calculating the cost of a 7th level at a caster level of 13, I calculated the cost of a 7th level spell at a caster level of 5. After some creative accounting, I came up with a value that was slightly more than 8,000gp, so I just rounded down to the nearest thousand.
If anyone wants the gory details, I'll oblige.
Should the swarm get a saving throw to avoid this effect? If so, then what should the save be?
I initially planned on putting in a standard Reflex save against the grasping hand spell but I changed my mind. In this case, I thought that even if an individual tongue happened to miss hitting an individual creature, then it would not be very long before another tongue hit the same creature. After six seconds, the tongues would overwhelm the creatures before they could escape the area.
This still bugs (sorry) me. It's a narrow interpretation of a Reflex save (swarms are mobile 10-foot blobs; once the capture starts, some are going to escape, especially if some are out of range), and it assumes a hit also guarantees capture.
Rather than getting in an arms race between tongues and Reflex saves, I'd use gust of wind to draw swarms in along with the tongues, and make it a Fort save to resist. The capture begins either way, but a Fort save would give the swarm an opportunity to move out of range before being completely consumed.
That maintains value (you still solve problem #4 by buying time to flee against the rare swarms that ought to be stronger than a CL 13th item) without being an auto-winning encounter breaker that sends the GM scrambling for something else to throw at the party.
The explanations are very helpful, thanks for posting them. I enjoyed the flavor (sorry, again) of this item, and I hope to see the research you do pay off in spades with the Archetype.
I like the analysis. Interesting idea which I agree would work well against any flying swarms (which are generally the most dangerous) but would not be as effective against aquatic or land-based swarms.
This is definitely not an easy design space to tackle. It would be MUCH easier if every 5 foot cube contained X hit points of swarm for EVERY swarm. But that is not the reality.
I think it would be okay to add the DC 20 (level 7 spell) Reflex save back into the design and limit the amount slurped to 20 hit points/round (10 hit points/round if the save is successful).
Is anyone interested in having me post a more expensive version of the swarm slurper that integrates the temporal stasis effect? I think I have the cost calculations around here somewhere....
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
Hungry! Yes, perfection – Template Fu stomps off in a huffy.
Spelling: 3/5
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.
I have deducted a point here purely to be consistent with earlier reviews (water lilies) which sparked debate. So for the purpose of spelling reviews, the dictionary in my 2010 word processor is calling the shots.
It didn’t like slurper, so for consistency, Office 2010 ate a point.
Also extra dimensional should have a space AND I think is an old 3.5 term, I believe the term in Pathfinder is nondimensional (no space, even though Office pings that word too) – see Bag of Holding in the PRD. So docking a point for this for either space / word choice I think is fair.
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 75% (-2 pt, owch – work hard here or risk the wrath of Sean!)
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 65.4 (nice)
(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 8.5 (very nice, passivity was your killer on this bit)
(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: 2/5
Ok, lets get my pet peeve out of the way – wall of words, difficult to scan read during a game in session, yada yada – I think everyone knows this one now.
Command words – try to avoid this if you can. For example you could have replaced
“When the command word is spoken, the eyes begin to glow and the mouth of the swarm slurper opens revealing thousands of translucent tongue-like tendrils of force.”
with something like
“Activating the swarm slurper causes its eyes to glow and its mouth to open, revealing thousands of translucent tongue-like tendrils of force.”
Mine isn’t perfect but hopefully illustrates a more active phrasing that you should be aiming for, and Word tells me mine isn’t passive – score :P
I think the grabbing attack of the item should utilize the grappling mechanism of the rules, but that’s just me.
Now one area you didn’t close off on, you have a daily reset – let’s assume you are up against an evil GM who wakes your party up near midnight (the usual daily reset point) by a swarm attack. You use your item at 1 minute to midnight. Let’s say it’s the mother of all swarms and you don’t kill it until after midnight. So what does your item do, allow a second capture, act as full, release the bit you’ve eaten already as a separate swarm and eat more of the old swarm?
Also, if you have a swarm attack you with more than 40 health. So you eat part of the swarm and kill the rest. Is the releasing at 10 minutes a lot of dead swarm bits or is it a 40-point second swarm?
These questions mean I have more work as a GM if my players have this item. Always try to think of implications and ways of abusing recharge times and apportioning.
So you lost a bit of bleed in this review - sorry. One point for the reset issues, one for the swarm creation questions and one point for my peeve wall of words.
That being said, your creativity is very cool, so if you just tighten up the writing and think a little more beyond the power and its game effects, you are going to do very well.
Overall Impression: 3/5
Wall of words hurt you as did the questions concerning whether it can create a separate swarm.
It was a very cool core idea, I think you probably would have found most of my comment yourself on a couple more re-visits, so do review a few extra times. I do hold out great hopes for creativity in your archetype tough following on from this item.
Final Score: 16/25
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!
RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32
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Star Voter Season 6, Dedicated Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9
aka burrahobbit
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Congratulations! I like your problem-focused approach to item design: this solves a problem characters of mine have certainly dealt with, and does it with flair. Nice work, and good luck next round!
Jon, I like your analysis, and it's warmed me to your item a little more. Personally, I feel the fact that the swarm always gets released after only a few minutes still gets me about it, though. I think I would like to see that temporal stasis one.
Jon, thank you for the breakdown of your proccess that was extremely enlightening. IT is about as far from my own as you get but it is interesting to see how the swarm slurper came to be. I will root for you in the next round!
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I apologize for the delay. Some new miniatures arrived today and distracted me. Here is a version which creates a temporal stasis effect in the extradimensional space. I added a saving throw to give the swarm a fighting chance. I also added a few spells to reduce that chance.
Super Swarm Slurper
Aura strong conjuration and evocation; CL 15th
Slot none; Price 25,000 gp; Weight 2 lbs.
Description
This small frog statue is forged from copper and set with two small rubies for eyes. When activated by a command word, the eyes begin to glow and the mouth of the super swarm slurper opens revealing 2,000 translucent tongue-like tendrils of force.
Each round, these tongues of force strike outward and grab up to 20 hit points worth of individual creatures from one type of Fine or Diminutive swarm within 10 feet (Reflex DC 21 half). The tongues deposit the individual creatures into an extradimensional space within the statue where they are held in stasis. The mouth closes after five rounds or when 40 hit points of a single type of swarm are contained inside.
The eyes of the super swarm slurper continue to glow until the swarm is released. Speaking the command word causes the super swarm slurper to expel the entire swarm into adjacent squares.
The super swarm slurper can be used once per day.
Construction
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, grasping hand, haste, secret chest, temporal stasis, true strike; Cost 12,500 gp
See, I like this version of the item a lot better - except that the name still feels a little silly, and now your 2,000 tongues feels less slick than your 'thousands of' from before.