Cliches Old and New

[Kalervo Oikarinen]

Beard rings that can turn your beard braids into attacking snakes.

That's technically a ring, right?

Edit: Beardusa's Wrath! Sorry.

[Jacob W. Michaels]

Katie Holmes...

What, you're telling me she wasn't a beard?

[Eric Morton]

Just completed my first 100 votes. Time to check some items off my Superstar Bingo card.

So far, I've seen one or more instances of...

The +11 Weapon
The Blasty Weapon (plus bonus points)
The Infinite Ammo Item
The Inspiration Item
The Iron Maiden (plus bonus points)
The Metamagic Rod
The Two-Weapon Weapon
The Vanilla Staff (plus bonus points)
The Wondrous Ring

[Jacob Trier]

GM_Solspiral wrote:

Treant in a can going with staff for that one.

Bing!

[Anthony Adam]

Oh?

:P

[Lightminder]

Several yuvong Armor items from Star Wars, oh and a light energy lightning sword of retractable jediness.

[Lightminder]

Oh and someone just read the bone graphic novels. Just waiting on a redshirt item and I have bingo!

[Snorter]

Lightminder wrote:

Oh and someone just read the bone graphic novels.

I'll have to look out for that one.

It's not an amateurishly-fashioned cow-disguise (seats one Medium creature, one Small), for rigging races vs old, retired, badass, female NPCs, is it?

[Joseph Kellogg]

Another cliche: Transferring conditions

[Tripp Elliott]

It is "mithral" only Tolkein spells it "mithril" and nobody spells it "mitheral." I had two items against one another each who spelled it wrong a different way.

I too have seen a +11 weapon.

Items that cost more than 200k?

Items where it's just a big text description of how they want they item to work, and no attempt to template and format it.

Items that just quote a stack of rules from another source.

[Tripp Elliott]

Shadow Conjuration seems to be a theme this year.

[Joseph Kellogg]

Sure are a lot of weapons that heal people.

[Tripp Elliott]

Names pulled from Classical (Greco-Roman) mythology and applied to Golarion magic items.

[frank gori]

GM_Solspiral wrote:

Ok I'm gonna play

** spoiler omitted **

For the record, I'm having a little fun but any of these can be done in a way...

I'm missing maybe 5 items

[Feros]

Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes?

[Jeff Lee]

Fiery stuff, things made of bone, Storm/wind items, items that transport things in interesting ways, chakrams, earthbreakers...

[Eric Morton]

I can now check three more items off my Superstar Bingo card:

The Bumper Shield
The Panache Item
The Rod of Innuendo

It's been 200 votes and I've now found 12 of the 25 items on my Bingo card.

[The black raven]

Several weapons obviously designed by players of martials that REALLY hate the casters. None done well enough yet though.

[Jeff Lee]

Blades so sharp they can cut the fabric of space-time. When did this become a thing? Is there some anime, video game, or cartoon that I missed which has this as a thing?

[JJ Jordan]

Jeff Lee wrote:

Blades so sharp they can cut the fabric of space-time. When did this become a thing? Is there some anime, video game, or cartoon that I missed which has this as a thing?

Not sure. I think the concept is cool though.

[Jeff Lee]

It's a great concept. I'm just a little surprised it showed up in so many items at once.

[JJ Jordan]

Someone, who I don't believe entered the contest, pitched a similar idea. There's certainly something out there in the zeitgeist/hive mind.

[Jensen Toperzer]

Well, there is the Probability Sword from the Bas-Lag books, but I don't think that's the same thing. The sword's effects as written is that it strikes every place you could have possibly struck, so the lazier/wider you are with your strike, the more times you hit. Ergo, were I to stat it up, it'd do something like an automatic 20 -d20 damage. Which is dumb, and while something I might use in a home campaign, certainly not something I'd submit to any contest, ever.

There's also the Subtle Knife from His Dark Materials, which alternately can cut anything, but also holes in reality.

[Covent]

Razor Eddy from the nightside books.

[Eric Morton]

If I'm not mistaken, there's a sword in the 3.5 Oriental Adventures sourcebook that cuts through the fabric of reality.

[pH unbalanced]

The black raven wrote:

Several weapons obviously designed by players of martials that REALLY hate the casters. None done well enough yet though.

Yes, but I've seen just as many for casters that really want to be martials.

[Matt Morris]

Jeff Lee wrote:

Blades so sharp they can cut the fabric of space-time. When did this become a thing? Is there some anime, video game, or cartoon that I missed which has this as a thing?

The Subtle Knife, by Philip Pullman. (Second book in His Dark Materials Trilogy.) The titular knife basically did that.

[Papasteve08]

Is it just me or does there seem to be a secret competition to make an item with as few words as possible? I have seen multiple items in the 50s for word count. FIFTY!

FIFTY! There are 20 to 30 words just to make a proper stat block, not even counting the description!

[Jeff Lee]

Papasteve08 wrote:

Is it just me or does there seem to be a secret competition to make an item with as few words as possible? I have seen multiple items in the 50s for word count. FIFTY!

FIFTY! There are 20 to 30 words just to make a proper stat block, not even counting the description!

I don't call those items. I refer to them as summaries.

[Papasteve08]

Jeff Lee wrote:

Papasteve08 wrote:

Is it just me or does there seem to be a secret competition to make an item with as few words as possible? I have seen multiple items in the 50s for word count. FIFTY!

FIFTY! There are 20 to 30 words just to make a proper stat block, not even counting the description!

I don't call those items. I refer to them as summaries.

Ha! Well said.

[Azouth]

Eric Morton wrote:

If I'm not mistaken, there's a sword in the 3.5 Oriental Adventures sourcebook that cuts through the fabric of reality.

Yes, it was Passage.

once per day, a passage weapon can slice open a portal into the spirit world. This works like as he plane shift spell, but creates a portal that remains open for 1d4 minutes and then closes.

price +32,400 gp

[Clockstomper]

JJ Jordan wrote:

Jeff Lee wrote:

Blades so sharp they can cut the fabric of space-time. When did this become a thing? Is there some anime, video game, or cartoon that I missed which has this as a thing?

Not sure. I think the concept is cool though.

As said by someone above, Pullman's "The Subtle Knife" does this, but so far two items I've seen in the voting made me think of this hockey stick in Dogma*, which an evil-i-tized kid uses in exactly this way.

(*Kevin Smith movie)

(edit: in other news, one of these items just came up again as I voted. Should I now worry about Google ads trying to sell me on pan-dimensional camping gear?)

(another edit: just saw a third weapon that did this. Triple-take!)

[FireHawk]

Papasteve08 wrote:

Is it just me or does there seem to be a secret competition to make an item with as few words as possible? I have seen multiple items in the 50s for word count. FIFTY!

FIFTY! There are 20 to 30 words just to make a proper stat block, not even counting the description!

From the ones I saw I would guess that those were done by somebody's kid.

[Wren Brown]

Jeff Lee wrote:

Blades so sharp they can cut the fabric of space-time. When did this become a thing? Is there some anime, video game, or cartoon that I missed which has this as a thing?

Warehouse 13 had also had a katana sharp enough to "cut light" and make you invisible.

[Snorter]

I've just spent a minute trying to rub a piece of dirt off my screen, just to find it's a mole on Chester's head.

[Ambrosia Slaad]

Snorter wrote:

I've just spent a minute trying to rub a piece of dirt off my screen, just to find it's a mole on Chester's head.

Hah! I did that before too when I first saw that avatar (dunno if it was Chester or not). Well done trolling, Cosmo, well done.

[Taylor Hubler]

Goblin related items and wind items are turning into cliches for me. I have voted for some of them though.

[Matt Morris]

Snorter wrote:

I've just spent a minute trying to rub a piece of dirt off my screen, just to find it's a mole on Chester's head.

I should really get that looked at.

[mplindustries]

I can't believe how many shields I've seen that disarm attackers. There have been at least three for sure, and I suspect four or five, but it's hard to tell because at least two of them have similar names and I've seen them repeated several times each.

[Eric Morton]

I just hit Dedicated Voter, and can now check the following additional items off my Superstar Bingo card:

The Captain America Shield
The Energy Ammo Item (with bonus points)
The Figurine of Rodly Power
The Iron Man Suit
The Lightsaber
The Mech
The Real-World Ammo Item
The Staff of New Spells

I've also picked up bonus points for the Inifinite Ammo Item and the Two-Weapon Weapon.

Superstar Bingo items I haven't yet seen:

• The Full Gonzo: This item is similar to the +11 Weapon, but it isn't a weapon. It is, however, decidedly mythic. So mythic that its market price is somewhere north of 200,000 gp. Bonus points if its market price is 1,000,000 gp or more.
  
• The Metamythic Rod: This item (which could, theoretically, be something other than a rod) converts normal spells into mythic spells, probably three times per day. Bonus points if "metamythic rod" is this item's actual name.
  
• The Nose Ring: This ring might be designed to go on your nose. It might be designed to go on your ear or some other location. Wherever it goes, it isn't worn on your finger. If it is specifically worn on your nose, bonus points if its description mentions minotaurs.
  
• The One Ring: Invisibility: check. Runes that glow when exposed to fire: check. Grave danger to the wearer when worn too long: check. Bonus points if this item mentions halflings and/or wraiths. Double word score if it has a lengthy backstory involving a Big Bad Evil Guy.
  
• The Sonic Screwdriver: This rod uses sonic energy to do all sorts of cool and useful things: unlock doors, detect things, repel Daleks ... er, I mean, generic monsters. I hear it can also be used to install cabinets, but we never actually see it do that on screen.

[frank gori]

I yelled bingo like 2 days ago with the last one being "walkie talkie effect"

[KalEl el Vigilante]

"Adamantium" items surely are in the cliché list.

[Jeff Lee]

Shields with eyes.

[Joseph Kellogg]

Jeff Lee wrote:

Shields with eyes.

In Soviet RPG Superstar, eyes shield you!

[Jeff Lee]

And apparently people are still rolling with the Cayden Cailean tankards...

[Snorter]

Eric Morton wrote:

The Figurine of Rodly Power

Hmm, that'll be one of those satyr statues everyone's Mum brings home from Greece, right?

[R D Ramsey]

It's a very positive sign there hasn't been a One Ring. That seemed like a certainty.

[Tripp Elliott]

Clouds Without Water wrote:

It's a very positive sign there hasn't been a One Ring. That seemed like a certainty.

And yet there's a Tolkein-esque ring in the mix.

[Azouth]

Clouds Without Water wrote:

It's a very positive sign there hasn't been a One Ring. That seemed like a certainty.

I know someone told me they were going to submit one, but when they finished the write up they were discourage that paizo would own it. They said that the item was to precious to them to lose it.