I really don't like the wording on the power to ignore dodge bonuses as well as the general idea of a power that negates certain bonuses but only if they are a certain size (if I have a +2 it negates it, but not a +3, so that last +1 becomes worth triple as much, unexpectedly). Given that dodge bonuses stack, if I have 4 stacking +1 dodge bonuses, does this crossbow negate them? Being tied to a specific weapon's enhancement bonus leads to potential for weirdness involving greater magic weapon, which we really need to FAQ one of these days; the author seemed to want that style of weirdness to work or else it wasn't worth stating "the weapon's enhancement bonus" as if that could change.
That said, I really like how the author thought about how each piece of the whole tied into the crossbow's single thematic central power (the power to shoot a batlike swarm of darts instead of one bolt), and formatting seems pretty tight to me, so I'm balancing between Weak Reject on this one and Weak Keep. It's a love/hate relationship. I think I'll go with Weak Keep in the end.
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Hi there! I'll be one of the judges for this round, and I'll be looking at a couple of key points for your item: flavor, usability, and how the item is presented. For some background, I helped found the Wayfinder fanzine before I started working for Paizo, and I oversee every third-party Pathfinder Roleplaying Game product that makes its way onto Paizo.com.
Flavor
The name could be stronger.
Usability
Somebody has had issues with swarms, I see. This kind of falls into "making adventuring easy" in dealing with swarms. The second set of abilities feels tacked on, and I'm not sure how it ties into the first so much—and why are dodge bonuses and mirror image called out? That's...very specific, and almost smacks of a pet peeve that somebody wanted to deal with.
Presentation
Uses formatting mostly correctly (missing a line break between "Construction" and "Requirements"), style is correct (though "light crossbow" should be italicized as well in the first paragraph). Use of "weak" language ("seems to hum and vibrate almost imperceptibly when held") should be improved: be bold. End that sentence with "hums and vibrates when held." You'll save word count and it makes your writing stronger.
Final Thoughts
It has issues, and it would have been stronger sticking to either the swarm effect or the mirror image-killer. I do not recommend this item for advancement.
Kept.
Modules Overlord
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My approach to judging these items is "How would I approach this as a developer?" If I would be pleased by the turnover and not see any reason to give negative feedback to the writer, that's great! If I'd keep it but it would take a lot of work or I'd want to let the writer know what needed improvement, that's fine but not perfect. If I'd scrap the item because it would be faster to write new material myself, that's bad.
This has a strong core concept, and a weak nearly everything else. The name needs to be stronger, the mechanics have all sorts of implications, and Liz's list of problems are spot-on.
However, none of those are too hard to overcome. It could be written as a weapon that attacks against flat-footed AC (but does not allow sneak attacks), or as a weapon that functions as a small splash weapon. This is a rare case where if I had time, I'd send it back to the writer with notes and suggestions on how to make it stronger. Since that's not an option here, I have to be honest and admit I like it enough to weak keep, despite the problems.
Some of the mechanics of this item could use some refining as the judges pointed out. But the idea behind the weapon is awesome and a character who wielded this weapon as his main weapon would probably be a really memorable character.
I agree with Browman. Some mechanics need work but the overall concept of a crossbow that shoots a swarm of darts makes sense for me. Superstar seems to almost always have some sort of swarm item, and I think this is a worthy addition to those ranks.
Congrats, Patrick, and good luck moving forward!
Patrick, you certainly can comment on feedback. (Just as a head's up, in later rounds, you can NOT say anything about your design until after voting is finished. Doing so is grounds for immediate disqualification.)
Huh, nice. Congratulations, man!
Huh, my magus is probably the person getting shot with this if it's introduced as an enemy's item.
I'd suggest that perhaps the item's attacks are opposed by a reflex save while it's in "carpet bombing" mode. Not thinking of much else to say at the moment.
Again, congratulations!
Haven't seen that one.
Oh, I didn't see this one. However I like the potential it shows. Good luck on your future rounds.
As someone who likes swarm-gun mechanics, and PC's using them I hoped for a lot more from this.
It seems like an anti-swarm weapon much more than its extremely weak swarm-casting ability.
I do like that mirror image was thought of, but the execution feels poor.
This was one of the items on my keep list. Good luck on the next round!
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Modules Overlord
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@Owen: regarding the flat-footed bit, it actually was the intent that this item be very attractive to characters with sneak attack.
I think a clean set of mechanics to cover the idea you are sending a wave of flechettes that allow you to damage swarms and easily target foes with low armor values has strong value as an item. As I said, I might have looked as splash rules. But I don't think an item that allows sneak attack on nearly every foe is nearly as cool a concept, especially since a swarm of darts is the opposite of "precision" to my mind, and sneak attacks are described as "precision damage."
Congrats, I saw this come up in the polls 3 times but I have to confess that I voted it down each time. I think the idea is better as a bludgeoning weapon ability in need of some cleaned up mechanics. The idea of a crossbow striking a swarm with finite pointed tip of ammo just does not work for me. Felt it was very overpowered but and interesting concept that got you thru because anyone that has faced a swarm would like something along these lines. Good luck in your next round.
Congratulations on making it to the Top 32!
Very cool concept, the second ability especially feels like a magical equivalent of a shotgun, which is appealing. And sure, it kind of feels just the slightest bit niche or grudgy, but not enough to put me off the item.
I kind of wish that you would have focused more on the second ability. Have every arrow split into a dart storm and then spell out what that means in terms of combat mechanics. Ignoring concealment, more damage to swarms, ignores local illusions, etc. I get the feeling that the focus on swarms holds this movie from achieving its full potential.
Nevertheless, a good item and it more than earned its advancement. The best of luck onwards!
I liked this item and usually voted for it. But the off-putting name made me look for reasons to vote for the other item. Turning a crossbow into a dart shotgun is clever, and I like the way you covered the implications of this in several ways, even if there were some mechanical problems.
Congratulations!
Congratulations Patrick. I liked the concept of your item, and am interested to see what you come up with in the next round. I agree with some of Mark's (dodge bonus) and Liz's (name/usability) points. Definitely a 'keep' though—it was on my list.
I have to admit, with the amount of swarm-themed/related items the last few years, I thought I'd become a bit jaded where they were concerned. However, your swarm-strike caster not only captured my interest, but it made it onto my personal Top 32. Glad to see the judges agree.
Congratulations, and good luck in the next round!
So I've been of two thoughts about this item: on the one hand, the tactical player in me is like "meh, why would I buy this for 40K when a swarmbane clasp is 3K and I can just put it on when I need to; is seeking +2, and the mirror-image dispel, enough to make any character I would play spend another 37,000 gold?".
Then there's the other half of the gamer in me, who is like "aw, man, but it's NICE to have another item that is useful against swarms and makes the swarmbane clasp less of an boringly-obligatory checklist item, and the visual is really neat, and hey, that anti-mirror image thing is cool and handy...."
I'm not sure how I feel about this being a crossbow. Crossbows are arguably underdesigned for, but, well, there's reasons for that. I can't remember the last time I played with anyone who bothered buying a more than +1 crossbow, if that; ranged people gravitate towards bow-bows for all the obvious mechanical advantages they grant over crossbows. So on the one hand, I feel that you've set your item apart by making it a crossbow, but that that's a double-edged sword, because it drastically cuts down on the number of PCs I can imagine who want this item. A dedicated crossbow archetype fighter, I guess? A ranged rogue, depending on how that sneak-attack potential gets either cheesed or nerfed?
For about 22K, a longbow archer can afford a +2 seeking longbow, and a swarmbane clasp, which means they've duplicated everything but the anti-mirror-image effect, essentially. But they'll get enough attacks a round that full-attacking a mirror-imaged caster might easily pop those images.... in one round. So.... this item requires almost twice as much gold to bring the crossbow fighter up to what the longbow archer can do.... which sort of seems to sum up crossbow fighters in a nutshell, for me: always having to take more feats and invest more resources in trying to just catch up with the longbow archer.
The reasons crossbows were viable weapons compared to longbows, historically, was not that they were great weapons: it's that they were simple weapons that you could get your town guard or militia proficient with, a lot easier then you could train them to use longbows well. They were a 'mass production' weapon in a sense, usable by just about anyone. That useability is transferred in PF terms to being 'simple' weapons that wizards and so forth can use... but for 99% of casters in the game, their crossbow is a back-up weapon for when they're out of spells, no? So... a dedicated martial ranged character will use a longbow unless they just REALLY WANT to masochistically play a crossbow character, and a dedicated caster won't spent 40,000 GP on a back-up weapon.
Sorry, I teal-deered hard right there. I boil down to this:
-I love the concept and the visual (a lot!) and I think you have a great thematic power here, BUT
-I can't imagine any PCs actually buying it or using it, or at least, very very few, and I think if it were not a crossbow but a different ranged weapon instead, that might have been vastly mitigated.
-Also not thrilled by the name.
Congratulations, Patrick! I really enjoyed this one in the polls, since swarms are such a popular sticky wicket in PFS, and I think your basic item concept was sound. Good luck next round!
Congratulations on making the Top 32! Well done!
I liked this crossbow, but the imagery was just OK with me. Pretty solid in mechanics with powers that made sense. A magic item that should be in a collection of magic items, but that's about it. It needed some extra awesome in the description to really bring it home.
Ah yes, this was another one of those quirky crossbows that I liked...and was much better than the other quirky crossbows.
I'm not a fan of the name. I'd go with something like Swarming Caster.
Pretty good opening description.
Reminds me of Sergeant Detritus' (Discworld) giant crossbow without the giant part. Bonus points from me for that.
Great dodge bonus effect...fits thematically with the multiple tiny shards of projectiles.
Magical bolt thought....good.
Also a cool and thematically linked secondary power...although I would probably scale it to once a day.
Overall, I really liked this. Work on reigning in some of your quirkiness (size based ignorance of dodge) but continue to swing hard.
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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Star Voter Season 6, Star Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9
aka JoelF847
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Congrats on making the top 32. And good job designing a weapon who's powers are tied to using it as a weapon, most didn't, which is an issue for superstar design.
Overall, I liked your item, and voted for it several times. On the other hand, I know I've seen weapons that turn into a swarm of attacks, I think a dart somewhere, and as pointed out, anti-swarm items aren't novel either. Therefore, good decision to do more than just anti-swarm, and include ignoring the Dodge bonus. I agree with Mark that the limit of the enhancement bonus is clunky, confusion, and has loopholes though. Instead, simply let it ignore up to +2 Dodge bonus and you're set.
Congrats Patrick!
This one just missed out on my personal top-32. but I voted for it just about every time.
I don't like when items "seem" to do something, either it hums&vibrates or it doesn't. But that is a minor nitpick of mine.
Best of luck next round
Why am I critiquing every item? Well, frankly, I love this sort of thing. I sincerely enjoy editing and the art of the critique. I have long considered starting a blog to that end, and maybe this will be the kickstart I need. Speaking of which, if you want to hire an editor, I'd be happy to help ;)
Regardless, the point of my criticism is always to help. Nothing is perfect, so everything can potentially be made better. My comments will often be less than flattering, but they will never come from a place of malice. The point here is to make your item better, not to make you feel bad.
So, what am I looking for, here, when I judge these items? My primary focus is on rules knowledge, clarity/simplicity, and usability. You can come up with the most creative item on the planet, but if nobody is going to actually use it in a real game, who cares? And it doesn't matter if nobody uses it because it's obviously too strong, too weak for its price, too confusing/complicated to actually adjudicate at the table, or just too niche to have an actual target audience.
Finally, know that I did not read any critiques of your item yet. These are all my first thoughts based only on the item itself, so, I apologize if I repeat things others have said already.
Now, let's get to the critique!
As always, congratulations on making the top 32. No matter what I thought of your item, you won, and you should feel awesome!
I liked this item, and I considered it very close to a keeper. It ended up in my "maybe" pile, though, because of a few minor issues.
First, the praise: I like the image of a shotgun like effect, and I like that it works that way all the time. I like that it does more damage to swarms (but I wish it just did full damage to all kinds of swarms, for simplicity's sake). Swarms suck, so, anti-swarm weapons are always welcome. I like the way you used the seeking quality to further the shotgun effect. The ability to blow throw mirror image and catch someone without their Dex on are nice touches.
Now, the problems. First, it's a crossbow. Crossbows in Pathfinder suck. Bolt Ace helps but it really needs some errata before it's really fixed (though, once it works correctly, I will be very interested). Second, the whole "ignoring dodge bonuses" thing is a really sticky issue. It's really awkward, for one. It also isn't clear whether it cancels individual dodge bonuses that are its bonus or less, or if it just cancels a total amount of dodge bonuses equal to its bonus (say, if I had three different +1 dodge bonuses, would I get no AC benefit, or +1 AC from them?). It's also such a small and weirdly specific bonus, I just don't think it was worth even putting in there. The line about destroying magical ammo seems like wasted words, too.
On the second effect, you have some awkward wording: "shears through all of the target's space" makes little sense. I like that it ignores Dex, but you don't need to add that it ignores Dodge bonuses because Dodge bonuses are already connected to your Dex bonus to AC. Finally, I don't see why you have to choose between bypassing or destroying-but-dealing-no-damage mirror images--you're hitting the entire space at once. Shouldn't it destroy all the images AND deal damage? In fact shouldn't it attack every creature in the space? Say, if the wizard's familiar were on his shoulder? Or some ratfolk were sharing a space?
If my party found this item, we might keep it around for any ranged specialists we had to use against swarms (or sell it if we lacked a ranged weapon user). I don't think we'd have one made, though. It's a little bit too expensive for what it does, though not so expensive that we'd want to sell it automatically.
Again, I like it and the idea, but the awkward dodge bonus thing and the lack of internal consistency on the second effect bugged me enough that I didn't think it was going to win. Nonetheless, it deserves to be here--just be more careful with that nitpicky stuff in the future.
Swarm-strike Caster
Congratulations Patrick!
This was one of my keepers and a constant upvote for me. I think the 'dodge bonuses to AC equal to or less than the weapon’s enhancement bonus' line could have been simplified with the +2 or less since the number is static. A couple of other lines could have been smoothed as well, but that is such a minor drawback to the rest of the item. I like the 'shred-apart' of bolts both in flavor and mechanics. Good call clarifying the magic still works even though you have descriptively already shattered the ammo. The item avoids overpowered by not simply calling its attack 'a cone of bolts AE.' The mirror image clause shows you are well aware of how others might use the item, a good step from player to designer.
Well done,
Good luck!
Swarm-strike Caster
Aura moderate conjuration; CL 12th
Slot none; Price 39,335 gp; Weight 10 lbs.Description
This +2 seeking light crossbow, made of polished bronze and black oak, seems to hum and vibrate almost imperceptibly when held. Bolts fired from it shred apart in flight into compact swarms of miniscule black, buzzing darts that seek out their prey. Attacks made with this weapon do full damage to swarms of tiny creatures, half damage to swarms of smaller creatures, and ignore dodge bonuses to AC equal to or less than the weapon’s enhancement bonus. In all other ways, these attacks are still treated as a single projectile for purposes of feats, spells, and special abilities possessed by the attacker or defender. Magical bolts fired from this weapon are destroyed if the attack misses but still convey their full effects on a hit.As a standard action three times per day, this weapon can be used to make a single ranged attack against one visible target within the weapon’s first range increment. The bolt launched by this attack expands into a dart storm that shears through all of the target's space, ignoring its Dexterity and dodge bonuses to AC. If the target is under the effect of mirror image or a similar spell or spell-like ability, a successful such attack can either bypass the effect entirely or automatically dispel it at the cost of inflicting no damage or other harm to the target.
Construction Requirements
Craft Magic Arms and Armor, summon swarm, true seeing, true strike; Cost 19,835 gp
Is the Item Decorative?
Weapons aren't generally that decorative, unless and until one hits the point where melee weapons start being made out of shining mithral and studded with jewels - but, for a crossbow, polished bronze and black oak is fairly easy on the eye.
Decorative score? 4 out of 7.
Does the Item have Any Obvious non-Decorative Use Around the Home?
Yes. The item is very useful for getting rid of unwanted wasp nests. A highly situational use for the item, but very useful when such an annoyance should turn up under the gables or in an out-building or the garden.
non-Decorative Domestic Use score? 2 out of 7.
Does the Item seem Likely to be Helpful in the Fantasy Setting of an Imaginary World where 'Operation Sealion' is taking Place?
So the (for simplicity's sake) Nasties are lining up with all their little boats to launch an invasion-attempt across a strait upon a nation of perfectly (socially) harmless tea-drinkers. And then there's this item.
So what impact is this item likely to have on proceedings?
None really. The fantasy world in which 'Operation Sealion' takes place has moved somewhat beyond the point where crossbows with swarm-related abilities - such as this one's - are applicable in any but the most marginal of corner-cases.
'Sealion' score? 0 out of 7.
Total: 6 out of 21.
Congratulations for having made it to the Top 32, sorry you didn't move on.
Sorry I'm late to the party, I hadn't realized how big a task commenting on everyone else's items was going to be in the Official Critique Thread!
Seeing as how many other people have commented above me, and you've moved well on from this point... I'm going to keep my comments brief. To understand my rating system, see my larger post on my critique thread.
As an overall comment, each and every one of you that made it to the Top 32 must have had a "Publishable" item in my opinion because you appealed to not only the voters but also the judges -- so if I say "Rewrite" it's more to be "rewriteable to be SUPERSTAR!"
Publishable -- Forget swarms, man! (insert a different F word there) Fighting swarms is hard, thanks for making easier!