The instructions for round one were to make a Magic Item. Not a Magic item and New spells.That sounds a little harsh. If an author can only use existing spells and not create original magical effects, how then is a magic item to avoid being a SiaC?That's the superstar bit. Take existing spells/rules and break them a bit in a conceivable way to make a mojo filled item that's cinematic.
If you HAVE to invent a new spell to do this, unless the rules specifically allow you too, then you probably aren't superstarring it.
That makes sense. If a sizable portion of your item is introducing a brand new spell, something's amiss. But I've seen plenty of items that do magical things no spell can. Haven't those authors effectively created new spells, in a manner of speaking?
Potentially, but if there is an existing spell that does something close to that effect...then that's the breaking the rules in a conceivable way bit.
Just broke a tie with a comma. Both mediocre items that need some work to be clearer. Both had good template use but one used commas for the thousands gp separator and the other used nothing.
Feels weird, as formatting at that level is the last thing I look at.
More: Magic Armor/Shield/Weapons that do not have a +1 enhancment bonus or greater. Downvote everytime (unless paired together T-T).
This is why formatting is lower on my list. I'll use it to determine who, among two comparatively equal concepts, is the better author. If perfect formatting were a requirement for writing, then there would be no need for editors.I hear you and I agree to a certain extent.
** spoiler omitted **...
Interesting list, and seems pretty accurate. I strive to move from a #4 to #6.
speak softly, carry a huge stick
There are plenty to choose from in the voting pool. In fact, I think there's one that does both!
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Hint: If your item cannot be removed without wish or miracle it is a cursed item, and not only will I down vote it but I will submit it for DQ.
RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16
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Star Voter Season 6, Dedicated Voter Season 7, Dedicated Voter Season 8
aka FaxCelestis
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Have we learned nothing from Spiderman? Great power should be balanced with responsibility, not a curse or drawback to use.
Over on the GiantITP forums, we have a little thing called "Grod's Law":
Grod's Law: You cannot and should not balance bad mechanics by making them annoying to use.
When you do:
- The disruptive munchkin ignores it, argues it, or forces the rest of the group to suffer through it. His power remains the same, and he gets more annoying to play with.
- The inappropriate powergamer figures out how to circumvent the restriction. His power remains the same.
- The reasonable player either figures out how to circumvent the restriction (rendering it moot), avoids the class (turning it into a ban) or suffers through it. His power remains the same and/or his enjoyment goes down.
- The new player avoids the class or suffers through it. His enjoyment goes down.
Notice how the problem players feel the least impact?And yeah, you can yell and fiat at your players all you want to stop them from "cheating" the system, but that only works if you have a reasonable group to start with-- ie, one that's not going to disrupt the game through munchkinry.
Aperture Science, one of your experiments has left the lab.
Thsi one fails the Bag of Kittens test: (this one's an Endzeitgeist bit) can I have infinite health and power ups but keeping a bag full of kittens to stab? See- every vampire touch weapon.
Thsi one fails the Bag of Kittens test: (this one's an Endzeitgeist bit) can I have infinite health and power ups but keeping a bag full of kittens to stab? See- every vampire touch weapon.
meeyOW
Sometimes, one power would do it. But your 2nd power...makes it overpowered.
and, just saw my item again. Beginning to think it is being down voted quite a bit. Ah well that is what critiques are for...
Thsi one fails the Bag of Kittens test: (this one's an Endzeitgeist bit) can I have infinite health and power ups but keeping a bag full of kittens to stab? See- every vampire touch weapon.
Well, that explains why some horrible monsters are paid in kittens.
and, just saw my item again. Beginning to think it is being down voted quite a bit. Ah well that is what critiques are for...
This is all of my fears in a sentence. I've seen my item six times since I started voting. I even voted against it at least once.
Yay! Dedicated.
Boo! I have not seen my item.......
Finally saw my item around 970th vote. That's probably a personal record on how long it took.
I am no longer reading items I have seen more than twice. If they haven't impressed me yet then... well, then they are not likely to. Only in very close ties do I reread things I've seen more than twice. As an aside, I get relatively few things, that I haven't seen twice, and most of those are all new and never to be seen again, apparently. With all the triple views I am starting to hope to see my own item again, if only to see what it comes up paired against. Haven't seen it since around vote 50 or so and that was much too early to judge anything by what things came up against.
Armors are either cursed or boring or pretty awesome.
Shields are either strange, boring or awesome.
Weapons come in everything from cursed to artifact to boring to mediocre to awesome.
Rods are typically decent, with a few falling into either slightly worse or slightly more awesome. And generally, I like rod that affect other things or do things with skills. Rods that try to be weapons, should just go be weapons.
Rings are... all over the place, much like weapons. Fewer of the cursed or artifact ones, but more of the vaguely boring.
Staves are... either kind of horrifying, kind of okay, but boring, or really awesome. No real middle ground.
I'm becoming immune to items that tell me that they usually or often something or appear like something but isn't. Yeah, yeah, heard it before, now what do you actually DO? However, I guess that means I down vote them less?
I neeeeeveeer get to sneak attack item. Blah. You're not trying hard enough. Declaring Sneak attack regardless... oh stop it. Oh well, I guess the rod that modifies walking when you hold it (in your HAND) wins.
Rods that are held shouldn't affect how you walk. If your really cool wondrous item (boots) did something with movement, couldn't you have put it in an armor? That annoys me less.
Have we learned nothing from Spiderman? Great power should be balanced with responsibility, not a curse or drawback to use.Over on the GiantITP forums, we have a little thing called "Grod's Law":
Grod's Law: You cannot and should not balance bad mechanics by making them annoying to use.
Spoiler:When you do:
- The disruptive munchkin ignores it, argues it, or forces the rest of the group to suffer through it. His power remains the same, and he gets more annoying to play with.
- The inappropriate powergamer figures out how to circumvent the restriction. His power remains the same.
- The reasonable player either figures out how to circumvent the restriction (rendering it moot), avoids the class (turning it into a ban) or suffers through it. His power remains the same and/or his enjoyment goes down.
- The new player avoids the class or suffers through it. His enjoyment goes down.
Notice how the problem players feel the least impact?And yeah, you can yell and fiat at your players all you want to stop them from "cheating" the system, but that only works if you have a reasonable group to start with-- ie, one that's not going to disrupt the game through munchkinry.
And this is why Firearms have so much controversy. Great power (hitting touch AC) was balanced by sucky drawbacks (misfire, expensive ammo, slow rate of fire) that everyone tries to circumvent (weapon cords, extra arms, gun twirling, endless free actions, etc.).
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Isn't "create carcass" an undocumented feature of all weapons?
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So many weapons that gather info or steal someone's face. Once you are engaged with someone in battle I suspect those are not things you will be thinking about.
So many weapons that gather info or steal someone's face. Once you are engaged with someone in battle I suspect those are not things you will be thinking about.
Perhaps the scenario of killing a lookout/scout then infiltrating their base is common in those games.
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You expect me to pay how many tens of thousands of gold for this disposable item?
Oh hey, it's one of the lances people have been talking about! Oh, that's a neat route to go with it, makes sense from the point of 'this is what a lancer would actually ask for'. Kinda feel it should have been built into the construction cost in some way though... Ah well, you're against a persistent peeve downvote anyways. Have an upvote.
RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32
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Dedicated Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9
aka mechaPoet
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Whew! Y'all can really post up a storm, huh?
I am glad that my item has been seen--it's on the Items Seen list--and I think it was commented on twice in this thread, for different reasons. The obvious responses were not exactly positive. :P
Random question: there's a good amount of adamantine going around in the weapons, and sometimes the armor and shields. What does adamantine look like? For some reason I always imagined it purple, for no real reason, but I think that may be incorrect...
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16
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Star Voter Season 6, Dedicated Voter Season 7, Dedicated Voter Season 8
aka FaxCelestis
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Whew! Y'all can really post up a storm, huh?
I am glad that my item has been seen--it's on the Items Seen list--and I think it was commented on twice in this thread, for different reasons. The obvious responses were not exactly positive. :P
Random question: there's a good amount of adamantine going around in the weapons, and sometimes the armor and shields. What does adamantine look like? For some reason I always imagined it purple, for no real reason, but I think that may be incorrect...
I've always seen adamantine as tungsten carbide and mithril as aluminum.
RPG Superstar 2015
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Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9
aka mamaursula
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Whew! Y'all can really post up a storm, huh?
I am glad that my item has been seen--it's on the Items Seen list--and I think it was commented on twice in this thread, for different reasons. The obvious responses were not exactly positive. :P
Random question: there's a good amount of adamantine going around in the weapons, and sometimes the armor and shields. What does adamantine look like? For some reason I always imagined it purple, for no real reason, but I think that may be incorrect...
They'll talk about anything on these forums, even the color of adamantine.
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Oh funny and ridiculous armor, you are getting my vote today! I feel like you belong on a hobbit.
If it's the one I'm thinking of only if the hobbit is in a fist fight with peter griffin
So, I try to read every Superstar thread, but I just can't keep up with this one. Which is my way of apologizing if someone else has already said this:
It's != Its (and vice-versa!)
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I love adding a new item to the community list. It always makes me feel so contributory.
So, I try to read every Superstar thread, but I just can't keep up with this one. Which is my way of apologizing if someone else has already said this:
It's != Its (and vice-versa!)
It's been done... come on man keep up it's nowhere near as rapid fire snarky as last year. Heck it's like 25% positive
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It's been done... come on man keep up it's nowhere near as rapid fire snarky as last year. Heck it's like 25% positiveSo, I try to read every Superstar thread, but I just can't keep up with this one. Which is my way of apologizing if someone else has already said this:
It's != Its (and vice-versa!)
Which tells you just what an improvement there has been in the overall quality.
An item occupying a design space in which it does not have the appropriate Craft/Forge feat...still has Craft Wondrous.
I'm classifying it as a Wondrous Item too.
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16
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Star Voter Season 6, Dedicated Voter Season 7, Dedicated Voter Season 8
aka FaxCelestis
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That may well be the case, but I'm still upset about the camping items. I was promised no camping items.
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Dear Items,
Please stop lining up in such a way that an item with a significant design flaw has to be voted for because the other is worse. Especially when I have sworn a blood oath NOT TO EVER vote for the afore mentioned item.
Thanks in Advance,
Geoff
Huh. Why not just make it a [redacted] instead of a [redacted] that alters a [redacted]?
Huh. Why not just make it a [redacted] instead of a [redacted] that alters a [redacted]?
That wouldn't make it Superstar in the designer's mind; it would only make [redacted] somewhat [redacted].
Or [redacted] already exists as [redacted] so by adding a little bit of [redacted] it is totally a new [redacted].
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Just out of curiosity, who else here, when they see an awesome item with perfect template format, silently thinks "Please be Anthony Adams' item" before hitting up-vote?
Me for one! :P
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Huh. Why not just make it a [redacted] instead of a [redacted] that alters a [redacted]?
Its like mad libs.
Huh. Why not just make it a/an [noun] instead of a/an [noun] that alters a/an [monster]?
Just out of curiosity, who else here, when they see an awesome item with perfect template format, silently thinks "Please be Anthony Adams' item" before hitting up-vote?Me for one! :P
I would hope you would know if it was your item or not. ;]
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RPG Superstar 2015
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Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9
aka mamaursula
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Huh. Why not just make it a [redacted] instead of a [redacted] that alters a [redacted]?Its like mad libs.
Huh. Why not just make it a/an [noun] instead of a/an [noun] that alters a/an [monster]?
OMG! Now I feel compelled to write up an RPG SS Mad Lib thread! Why do you do these things to me?!
Okay. This is a cool item. Toeing the line of joke-y, but not pushing it. I could see a couple of characters of mine that would enjoy this.
Ok, I think some people are as old as I am.
I have started watching them again to confirm my suspicions.
You know what I am on about - the Dungeons and Dragons Cartoon Series Complete DvD Set.
Episode 1... and...
Suspicions confirmed.
And yes, those items are pretty much all in this year's collection (although I haven't found the wizards hat of summoning yet :O -I fully expect that to be a full face helm of some sort).
And I still say Uni is funny!
Not only do we have people who deliberately do joke items but I suspect we have gaming groups who do theme joke items, I suspected last years infomercial items.
Two tethering items in a voting pair has me in knots!
Ba-dum Tish!