This item was very well written and evocative, but pretty clearly a cursed item. It was up against an item I've tended to downvote because it is very bland. In the end, I went with the bland item, but in retrospect I wonder if I should have gone with the cursed one instead; voted for the writer, rather than the item. :/
RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Champion Voter Season 6, Champion Voter Season 7, Champion Voter Season 8, Champion Voter Season 9
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This item was very well written and evocative, but pretty clearly a cursed item. It was up against an item I've tended to downvote because it is very bland. In the end, I went with the bland item, but in retrospect I wonder if I should have gone with the cursed one instead; voted for the writer, rather than the item. :/
The contest is looking for Superstar designers. How Superstar is it when the designer fails to read the contest instructions? How well would they follow guidelines set forth for a product?
The contest is looking for Superstar designers. How Superstar is it when the designer fails to read the contest instructions? How well would they follow guidelines set forth for a product?
True, and ultimately the criteria that I went with, but at the same time- there was such a clear difference in creativity and ability between the two items that I find myself questioning the choice now all the same.
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Difficulty (Easy): Find six different chakrams.
Difficulty (Medium): Find four different items with filigree.
Difficulty (Hard): Find sixteen different items that are prized by someone.Are you counting the chackram that begins life as another item and then transforms into a chakram? Or items that could possibly contain or transform into a chakram? If so, the number is higher.
EDIT: "Much beloved by" so close...
I'm not counting items that can turn into anything, but I'm counting any item that actually contains the word chakram somewhere in the item (so if it has a random chart with chakram on it, that counts). I am fairly confident that there are not more than six. You may be thinking of a starknife or something for one of them?
Here's a new one--
Difficulty (Medium): Find seven different items that have a random chart that you might roll when using the item.
@edit: Highly prized and greatly prized and the like count, but you're right that much beloved doesn't.
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And another set--
Difficulty (Easy): Four three wedding rings and a wedding sword set too.
Difficulty (Medium): Find seven weapons and armors involving Profession skills (this doesn't count the Profession ring).
Difficulty (Hard): Find the dimensional eleven, seven slashing weapons that slash a dimensional rift allowing you to dimension door and four items (one isn't a weapon) that let you dimensionally travel to the destination of your ranged attack.
What about favored by ?
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What about favored by ?
That doesn't count but deserves to be its own challenge--
Difficulty (Hard): Find the favored eleven. These are items that are "favored by" someone or "favored due to..." or in any way passively favored, but not items that do things like transform into a favored weapon.
Also another challenge--
Difficult (Hard): Find the Headless King's sixteen. Sixteen items with snakes or serpents (not counting items that use "snake" as a verb and the like). Three of the sixteen have been explicitly blessed by the Primal Coil himself, so they count for the most!
what about the nets are you going to do one for them?
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what about the nets are you going to do one for them?
Sure--
Difficulty (Easy): Find all seven nets! (This includes the dagger that is actually a net)
Arbitrarily high DC vs Arbitrarily high DC.
One of them however, breaks the game for any DM who wants to use a spellcaster. The other is moderately useful.
Oooh, Mark!
Add that in there..
The Spellhating Sever: Find seven items that disrupt casting, steal spells, or otherwise impedes spell casters specifically.
Dont know it thats in the easy, medium, or hard though.
So far..
Difficulty (Easy): Find six different chakrams.
Difficulty (Easy): Find all seven nets! (This includes the dagger that is actually a net)
Difficulty (Medium): Find four different items with filigree.
Difficulty (Medium): Find seven different items that have a random chart that you might roll when using the item.
Difficulty (Hard): Find sixteen different items that are prized by someone
Difficulty (Hard): Find the favored eleven. These are items that are "favored by" someone or "favored due to..." or in any way passively favored, but not items that do things like transform into a favored weapon.
Difficult (Hard): Find the Headless King's sixteen. Sixteen items with snakes or serpents (not counting items that use "snake" as a verb and the like). Three of the sixteen have been explicitly blessed by the Primal Coil himself, so they count for the most!
and
The Spellhating Sever: Find seven items that disrupt casting, steal spells, or otherwise impedes spell casters specifically.
DONE - Difficulty (Easy): Find six different chakrams.
DONE - Difficulty (Easy): Find all seven nets! (This includes the dagger that is actually a net)
DONE - Difficulty (Medium): Find four different items with filigree.
GOT SIX - Difficulty (Medium): Find seven different items that have a random chart that you might roll when using the item.
Difficulty (Hard): Find sixteen different items that are prized by someone
GOT NINE - Difficulty (Hard): Find the favored eleven. These are items that are "favored by" someone or "favored due to..." or in any way passively favored, but not items that do things like transform into a favored weapon.
GOT EIGHT - Difficult (Hard): Find the Headless King's sixteen. Sixteen items with snakes or serpents (not counting items that use "snake" as a verb and the like). Three of the sixteen have been explicitly blessed by the Primal Coil himself, so they count for the most!
Not that I'm holding this against anything that this qualifies for:
Please do your research on historical size before describing something. I can't tell you how many [redacted] are only [redacted] [redacted] long.
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16
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Marathon Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8
aka Jrcmarine
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Not that I'm holding this against anything that this qualifies for:
Please do your research on historical size before describing something. I can't tell you how many [redacted] are only [redacted] [redacted] long.
That's what she said...
A certain Final Fantasy Female is going to be maaaaad you took her item (and power) away from her.
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weeding item that does not require a wish to undo!
DONE - Difficulty (Easy): Find six different chakrams.
DONE - Difficulty (Easy): Find all seven nets! (This includes the dagger that is actually a net)
DONE - Difficulty (Medium): Find four different items with filigree.GOT SIX - Difficulty (Medium): Find seven different items that have a random chart that you might roll when using the item.
Difficulty (Hard): Find sixteen different items that are prized by someoneGOT NINE - Difficulty (Hard): Find the favored eleven. These are items that are "favored by" someone or "favored due to..." or in any way passively favored, but not items that do things like transform into a favored weapon.
GOT EIGHT - Difficult (Hard): Find the Headless King's sixteen. Sixteen items with snakes or serpents (not counting items that use "snake" as a verb and the like). Three of the sixteen have been explicitly blessed by the Primal Coil himself, so they count for the most!
For the random items, one of the charts is inline with the rest of the text, so perhaps you have all seven, which would mean that you completed all the easy and medium challenges!
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Here's a particularly hard one--
Difficulty (Hard): Thunder and Lightning. Find twenty-four items that explicitly involve thunder or lightning (including items with lightning bolt as a prerequisite but not all those storm or wind items that don't have any lightning or thunder).
Finally saw the fart item.
Star Voter Season 8
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Why do so many items lack a description of how they look?
I'm one of the people that made that mistake. I'm a first-timer, I was so worried about the formatting, and pricing and the mechanics I forgot the description, and then got excited about submitting on time, I submitted without letting it sit for a day and coming back to it.
Guilty as charged :/
Why do so many items lack a description of how they look?I'm one of the people that made that mistake. I'm a first-timer, I was so worried about the formatting, and pricing and the mechanics I forgot the description, and then got excited about submitting on time, I submitted without letting it sit for a day and coming back to it.
Guilty as charged :/
My first year I was guilty of the opposite, the Intellectual's Clay Pipe spent much of its small wordcount describing it and boiled down to a +5 bonus on any (trained or untrained) knowledge check. I learned hard from that year to sit on an idea for a day or two after drafting.
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Star Voter Season 8
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My first year I was guilty of the opposite, the Intellectual's Clay Pipe spent much of its small wordcount describing it and boiled down to a +5 bonus on any (trained or untrained) knowledge check. I learned hard from that year to sit on an idea for a day or two after drafting.Why do so many items lack a description of how they look?I'm one of the people that made that mistake. I'm a first-timer, I was so worried about the formatting, and pricing and the mechanics I forgot the description, and then got excited about submitting on time, I submitted without letting it sit for a day and coming back to it.
Guilty as charged :/
I'm used to writing and editing and sitting on, but I guess I just got carried away by the first-timer excitement :)
A Superstar learning experience :) And I've been learning a lot by reading the messageboards.
I see you item that my fighter with cook as profession would just love to have. Up vote.
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I have to admit, I love when a staff can function as a weapon that is not a quarterstaff. I feel like there is a lot of opportunity to play around in that design space that we have yet to take advantage of. I've seen three or four of these so far, and every one of these has made me smile.
I've still not seen my own item, though I just saw an item that shares some similarities, including item type, with the item I almost submitted (and wish I had). My alternate item did more and had greater versatility and mojo which made me wish even more that I had submitted my alternate instead of what I did submit. I really hope that this item I just saw does not make the top 32 or alternates so my reserve item is still an option next year. I won't submit it if it would seem like I stole the idea from the top 32 of the previous year.
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RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16
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Marathon Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8
aka Jrcmarine
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Am I the odd man out in having a negative bias against evil items? I mean out and out evil items that have evil somewhere in their construction requirements or in their description?
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Champion Voter Season 6, Champion Voter Season 7, Champion Voter Season 8, Champion Voter Season 9
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Am I the odd man out in having a negative bias against evil items? I mean out and out evil items that have evil somewhere in their construction requirements or in their description?
Probably not. I do have 2 evil items on my keep list though.
I doubt you are the odd man out, I know I give a closer scrutiny to evil items. So far, generally speaking, they've fallen into categories of:
->Ick just because it wants to be icky and evil
->Story item
->METAL AND SPANDEX AND FLAMES
->This is Superstar
The This Is Superstar evil item can happen but it's really hard, in my opinion, to not fall into the other categories.
Am I the odd man out in having a negative bias against evil items? I mean out and out evil items that have evil somewhere in their construction requirements or in their description?
I think evil items can have a very limited use. Most evil items I've seen are for GM use only (more commonly evil NPCs) or are cursed items for non-evil players. That doesn't mean they can't be superstar, in my opinion, but they really have to stand out compared to an item that can be utilized by all players and GMs alike.
"Uses a number of charges equal to half of [static value]."
Well, why don't you just give me that number?
Re: Evil items-
Yeah, I definitely judge them more harshly than 'regular' items, because to me, they're of more limited use. Good PCs probably won't use them, and certainly can't craft them; some neutral PCs might still shy away... and while it's not explicitly a part of the rules that your Superstar item should be usable by as many people as possible, I consider that the more narrow applicability your item has, the less you're showing me that you can design an item useful to as many players as possible. Whether that's making an item that is only really good for ONE CLASS, or making an item that is only really good for ONE CAMPAIGN, or only good for NPCs, etc... none of those mean an automatic downvote from me, and neither do 'evil' items, but it is a strike against you that I take into account while voting. It just means your item has to be that much better for me to vote for it.
And, as Headkase pointed out, most of the evil items I've seen so far seem to be the sort of thing created by a teenager who still thinks that being an assassin would be the COOLEST THING and oh man DEATH AND MURDER IS AWESOME and also blood and evil and demons and pain and stuff.
Of course, some of those teenagers may never actually stop thinking that, regardless of their chronological age...
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And, as Headkase pointed out, most of the evil items I've seen so far seem to be the sort of thing created by a teenager who still thinks that being an assassin would be the COOLEST THING and oh man DEATH AND MURDER IS AWESOME and also blood and evil and demons and pain and stuff.
To be fair, murderhobos are an appealing demographic in today's marketplace given their relatively high disposable income and goods consumption rate. A designer seeking a greater revenue share of upvotes would be well-rewarded by considering the needs of this niche.
I strongly encourage everyone else to consider creating items such as those next year.
If your item is going to institute a major change in how my character will function, then you'd better step up and provide the mechanics for that change in the item's description if the existing rules don't cover that eventuality.
To be fair, murderhobos are an appealing demographic in today's marketplace given their relatively high disposable income and goods consumption rate. A designer seeking a greater revenue share of upvotes would be well-rewarded by considering the needs of this niche.I strongly encourage everyone else to consider creating items such as those next year.
Message received. Next year I'm submitting a +5 wounding keen omnibane bindle, with an extradimensional space to store the loot (and, if necessitated by settlement alignment, the corpses).
Message received. Next year I'm submitting a +5 wounding keen omnibane bindle, with an extradimensional space to store the loot (and, if necessitated by settlement alignment, the corpses).
To be fair, murderhobos are an appealing demographic in today's marketplace given their relatively high disposable income and goods consumption rate. A designer seeking a greater revenue share of upvotes would be well-rewarded by considering the needs of this niche.I strongly encourage everyone else to consider creating items such as those next year.
Nah, don't worry about the corpses. Just add a power that any creatures killed by the bindle slowly fade into the ethereal plane, leaving behind a small sack with all of their marketable valuables.
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Nah, don't worry about the corpses. Just add a power that any creatures killed by the bindle slowly fade into the ethereal plane, leaving behind a small sack with all of their marketable valuables.Message received. Next year I'm submitting a +5 wounding keen omnibane bindle, with an extradimensional space to store the loot (and, if necessitated by settlement alignment, the corpses).
To be fair, murderhobos are an appealing demographic in today's marketplace given their relatively high disposable income and goods consumption rate. A designer seeking a greater revenue share of upvotes would be well-rewarded by considering the needs of this niche.I strongly encourage everyone else to consider creating items such as those next year.
What? Why waste perfectly good corpses when you could have the item animate them into your own personal army of undead?
leaving behind a small sack with all of their marketable valuables.
I almost jumped out of my chair at the genius of that like "OOOOH DUUUUUDE DO YOU REALIZE!?"
What? Why waste perfectly good corpses when you could have the item animate them into your own personal army of undead?Nah, don't worry about the corpses. Just add a power that any creatures killed by the bindle slowly fade into the ethereal plane, leaving behind a small sack with all of their marketable valuables.Message received. Next year I'm submitting a +5 wounding keen omnibane bindle, with an extradimensional space to store the loot (and, if necessitated by settlement alignment, the corpses).
To be fair, murderhobos are an appealing demographic in today's marketplace given their relatively high disposable income and goods consumption rate. A designer seeking a greater revenue share of upvotes would be well-rewarded by considering the needs of this niche.I strongly encourage everyone else to consider creating items such as those next year.
Not to mention the possibility for organ harvesting. Lots of creatures' corpses can easily be monetized, with comparatively little effort. Use every part of the aboleth and all that.
Nah, don't worry about the corpses. Just add a power that any creatures killed by the bindle slowly fade into the ethereal plane, leaving behind a small sack with all of their marketable valuables.Message received. Next year I'm submitting a +5 wounding keen omnibane bindle, with an extradimensional space to store the loot (and, if necessitated by settlement alignment, the corpses).
To be fair, murderhobos are an appealing demographic in today's marketplace given their relatively high disposable income and goods consumption rate. A designer seeking a greater revenue share of upvotes would be well-rewarded by considering the needs of this niche.I strongly encourage everyone else to consider creating items such as those next year.
Also: I'm not dealing with the Ethereal Board of Health over corpse littering fines. Not unless I can get that bindle in ghostbane too.
Also: I'm not dealing with the Ethereal Board of Health over corpse littering fines. Not unless I can get that bindle in ghostbane too.Nah, don't worry about the corpses. Just add a power that any creatures killed by the bindle slowly fade into the ethereal plane, leaving behind a small sack with all of their marketable valuables.Message received. Next year I'm submitting a +5 wounding keen omnibane bindle, with an extradimensional space to store the loot (and, if necessitated by settlement alignment, the corpses).
To be fair, murderhobos are an appealing demographic in today's marketplace given their relatively high disposable income and goods consumption rate. A designer seeking a greater revenue share of upvotes would be well-rewarded by considering the needs of this niche.I strongly encourage everyone else to consider creating items such as those next year.
Well then I think we're developing this nicely. Add in ghostbane and make the corpse disposal system optional with organ and/or animatable corpse retention for the parts harvesters and necromancers in the group.
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Well then I think we're developing this nicely. Add in ghostbane and make the corpse disposal system optional with organ and/or animatable corpse retention for the parts harvesters and necromancers in the group.
And lo, the murderhobo's bindle was born...
You ever wonder if, like, the whole universe is, like, a murderhobo's bindle, man? And we're all just the leftover bits of loot?