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Quicksilver Gloves
Aura faint transmutation; CL 5th
Slot hands; Price 7,000 gp; Weight 1 lb.
Description
These thin, tight fitting gloves have silver tips at the end of each finger. When worn, the silver spreads to cover the entire glove so the wearer’s hands appear covered in liquid metal.
As a swift action, the wearer can command the gloves to coat a held weapon with silver. The affected weapon is treated as silver for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction. The effect can only be applied to light or one-handed weapons made primarily of metal and lasts up to 10 rounds each day. The duration need not be consecutive rounds.
Once per day, the wearer can make an extra attack as if using a speed weapon. (This benefit is not cumulative with similar effects, such as a haste spell.)
Construction
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, haste, versatile weapon; Cost 3,500 gp
Neat description. Neat item name. Somewhat overpriced. Overall still kinda neat.
weak keep
Clearly and cleanly written—but it's two disparate functions bound together by a pun, which rubs me the wrong way.
Weak keep for now.
Holy cow! I really did not expect to get picked. I appreciate your feedback. Hopefully, my monster will be more gripping.
Thanks again.
Dedicated Voter Season 6, Star Voter Season 7
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I didn't get to vote as much as I did last year, and so I only saw about 4 of the Top 32, that said; I loved these gloves, so simple, so smart.
And the name was what really sold it for me. Quicksilver being the alchemical name for Mercury, the First Metal and connected to Mercury the God of Speed, it just telegraphed in a good way what this item was going to be about.
Could you have made it a bit flashier? Yeah, but I still liked it.
Good luck.
These were cool and got some upvotes from me for sure. Congrats and good luck.
Star Voter Season 6
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Pretty cool. The effects combined with the pun are the flavour. And trust me, someone definitely would want to be the T-1000.
Something definitely went wrong with the price though; that's a dealbreaker for a character to buy unless they really, really, really like the flavour. Fix that and you fix the item though.
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2012
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Star Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 9
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This item intrigued me, and the pun didn't bother me nearly as much as it did with other items. I do hope you open up the throttle on your monster.
Congratulations and good luck!
Saw this plenty of times, often upvoted, usually as it was pitted against something subpar - I see the simple and clever design, but the power doesn't excite me at all. Still, the judges liked it.
Congratulations and hope to see a more exciting monster...
I voted for this item several times, and I quite like it. keep up the good work in future rounds, er, devilfluff. (might want to put your real name in your profile, eh?)
These were hohum for me. I voted them up and down about the same...I wasn't thrilled with the pun holding the abilities together. You're R2 is going to need to be super shiny to advance!
This is an item I voted for multiple times. Clean, useful, simple, flashy but not ostentatious.
Congratulations, and good luck in Round 2!
I like to think of myself as a connoisseur of puns, the highest form of humor, but I do agree that stapling together an item's abilities with one is a slippery slope. Keep that straightforward and concise writing for your monster, though, and I'm sure you'll do great!!
I do not regard this item as having a pun in the name at all.
Honestly, I never even thought of it as a pun... It is, but I never thought of it as one. I'll have to be more careful about that.
Congratulations Jesse,
This is short and sweet. It feels a little meta-gamey to me (all my weapons are silver) but there is a niche for that.
Swing for the fences in R2 and good luck!
Not a super-fave of mine during voting, but not one I disliked either; kind of right in the middle. I tend to be turned off by items that alter or bestow weapon properties or, in this case, materials. It generally just feels like too easy a way to ensure you have the right weapon at all times. Here, the limited rounds per day definitely helps my issues with that, although not a fan of activating it as a swift action (although I suppose that ties to the 'speedy' item theme.) I don't have a problem with the speed power; adding a weapon quality that's useable only once a day doesn't violate any issues I have. I don't really feel it's punnish at all, and is consistent with the established speed theme of the gloves, so that's all good. All in all, it's a nice lower-level item; good work. Congrats on making it into the contest.
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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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Overall, I thought this was a fairly boring SIAC type item. There's already ways to make your weapon silver, from silversheen to alchemical weapon blanche, and a 1 round a day or speed weapon on top of that didn't add a lot.
I agree that it's way too pricey for what it does, when compared to things like silversheen though.
What didn't bother me was the name - I thought it was appropriate and not a pun at all. In this case, the quicksilver phrase is really a related set of interconnected meanings and the item addresses both.
Good luck in the monster round.
For those who don't get the (clearly not intended) pun:
quicksilver -> quick, silver -> gloves that give you an extra attack and make your weapon silver.
If you'd rather nitpick, complain that quicksilver is actually a name for mercury, which is a metal that is liquid at room temperature - it has nothing to do with real silver at all, other than being silvery in color.
Template Fu Review 2014 - Jesse Southwick - Quicksilver Gloves
Template Fu boilerplate: I have yet to make Top 32, therefore much of what follows is from someone learning from your item and may include suggestions you might agree with or not. Please consider anything suggested with your critical designer mind and know that nothing here is personal, it is about your item not you. I try to be thorough every year, taking an hour or more per item, so I hope you find something of value in the review that follows.
Name: A simple name that easily encompasses the core effects of the item, I personally didn't find it very inspiring, but that said, it is very functional, so it is clean, direct, and effective. My only real problem with it is that quicksilver isn't silver, it's mercury and so shouldn't affect creatures needing silver weapons to be hit. However, due to transformation magic being used, it can be read that the mercury, when flowing onto the weapon, is transformed into silver as part of the magical effect. So, in a world of magic, you get a pass on that ;)
Template Fu scores you 8/10 on this.
Template Usage: Another perfect template use - everyone should take note, if you want votes from the public, get that template right. I have noticed this year, the second year of public voting, how very important this is now. The biggest problem I have with this is the price, for me, adding silver to a weapon is way too expensive. Why would I pay 7,000 for this and a 1/day extra attack? I can give a blacksmith a few silver coins as material and a few more for his time, just to have him smelt the coins to coat my weapon which then lasts a lot longer than 10 rounds. The only real benefit of your item over this cheap alternative is the extra attack once per day. Even that is not worth 7,000. Because it's once per day, the calculated cost of the haste spell is divided by at least 5 for the limited uses and limited duration aspects of the effect, so even the calculated price will come out in the region of 1-2,000 at most for all effects. If you look at the existing items to find items of comparable power...for me, this is definitely in the 1-2,000 range, as this is where +1 items start to appear.
Template Fu scores you 6/10 on this.
Game Balance: Right, so this item basically saves me a trip to a blacksmith. That is the core theme, that I can transfer the effect to different weapons I use as needed. The benefit provided is a benefit against specific creature defenses. So, it doesn't break the game in any major way, I just wish it were more exciting.
I don't think you need to add that it doesn't stack with haste as the same spell is used in the construction - players and gm's would already know that two haste spells don't stack. It isn't a big issue, but is starting to go into that hazy area of repeating the rules in the item.
Template Fu scores you 7/10 on this.
Cinematics:
Sight - check, good but obvious imagery - it could be more sexy with a bit more work, but on the whole, good enough.
Sound - missed opportunity - the first area that could have made the effect so much more sexy - imagine a creeping, slurping, sizzling sound as the liquid runs the weapon, smothering it's surface in its silvery embrace.
Smell - missed opportunity - an acrid ozone like smell (think fairground bumper car smell) is given off when the weapon is being coated maybe?
Taste - missed opportunity - could I strike someone in the mouth and force the poisonous quicksilver into their mouth, coating their throat, lungs etc and do some serious damage to them in that way? The quicksilver then becomes a versatile weapon in it's own right.
Touch - missed opportunity - What does it feel like when my hand is encased before the silver flows to the weapon?
Cinematic Summary There is enough cinematic to adequately describe what happens it just doesn't excite me enough. I, like many players I assume, have very vivid imaginations - one of the reasons I have played this game for the past 30 odd something years. So I need to be excited by new writers and new items, my imagination needs to be en-flamed. So write with vivid details, inspire using all the senses.
Template Fu scores you 15/20 on this.
Musings, Meme, and One Step Further:
"can only be applied... made primarily of metal" - why? Why can't I coat the end of my wooden staff in a cap end of quicksilver? It doesn't burn like molten metal would. Hmmm, it doesn't burn, we will look at that aspect again, as part of versatility...
Your choice of spell that is versatile weapon should have been a big clue that you can go wild with what you can coat, to increase the versatility. Why can't I coat the tip of large two handed weapons, or the edges of great axes, or the pointy end of a wooden lance when charging at the black knight? What about making unarmed strikes? Could we not get the gloves to coat themselves as described before coating a weapon and then allow unarmed strikes with the gloved and covered hands to be treated as silvered too?
These items are wondrous, fill them with wonder, make them do more than the normal blacksmith can do - I certainly wont pour hot metal on my hands for one!
Template Fu scores you 15/20 on this.
Your final score for this item is 51/70, or 73% - solid, concise, just needs more oomph!