And so, the captain weighs in on RPGSS Season 9's Top 32 (+4). Exciting.
I'll try to be as brief as possible, since this is going to be a giant wall of text no matter how I slice it. I'll also be cutting this into two, using the columns on the Superstar page. A cautionary note to any of the designers who may be reading this: not only am I an asshole by trade, I am also a nobody-of-import. My critique is pretty much intended to be taken with a helping of salt. And a margarita or three.
Horseshoes of the Storm Rider
Starting strong, I thought these were neat. There's a few problems with mechanics--I have no idea how long it lasts, and the whole elevation-concealment thing seems like an unnecessary complication (though, admittedly, a cool one). They're also kind of expensive and a real pain in the butt to activate. Your average horse can't even use them unless trained to perform? After you shell out 70k gp to buy the damned thing? Still, coolness in name and coolness in function goes really far. The captain would consider these, if he allowed smelly horses onto his ship.
Fate-Woven Braid of the Norns
Great name with an evocative description. Norns and fate and luck and all that jazz are awesome; it's why Desna's my homegirl. It's really strong and really cheap, which can obviously cause some problems, but that's a minor problem. The weakness here is also great. It's not technically unlimited, since there's always a chance--however minor--that you'll muck up the braid. I'm not sure how often colons are actually used in magical item formatting (or anything mechanically?), but I frickin' love colons. I ain't never gonna dock an item on colon use.
Crow Brother's Cloak
Very Fiddlesticks, but not everyone's played that game. I don't even play anymore, though Lulu will always live on in my heart. And on my desk.
Tangent over: This item irritates me with its use of weird timing and mechanics. Why only 13 rounds? Just round it off to a minute, I can't be bothered to track that! Do the rounds spent as part of the swarm count double? It seems to imply that, but it can easily be read either way. This also seems pretty cheap for an on-demand swarm of flying death. Still, murders of crows always gain coolness points, and there's a lot to be said for coolness points.
Storm's Wrath
The effect of this one just doesn't excite me. So it's a +1 thundering shock composite longbow (+2 Str) of wind-gusts and lighting-calls. They're combined in a nice little package, and there's some neat crossover between the magic on the bow as the cone of lightning procs the thundering effect, but overall... it just doesn't scream awesome. It's really solid mechanically, though, and there's a lot to be said for that. The effects play nicely with each other in a logical and thematic way. And every captain knows to fear a storm's wrath.
Starsling Buckler
I loved this one right up until the stars were really just sling bullets. I felt... I don't know, cheated? Perhaps I'm just biased, since a character straight out of my fiction has a thing with stars and magic and whatever... and having this not really be little blasts of searing starlight struck a chord. Yet, it makes the item's title really come together and adds some neat utility to having a 5-shot sling glued to your arm. If I had a slinger aboard my ship, I'd have the bastard buy this in a heartbeat.
Choker of the Queen Bee
Ugh. A bee stings my neck when I put this on, then makes me sound like one of those annoying cartoon bee characters? And that's intimidating, somehow? Except for when I don't want to be, because then I'm diplomatic. Or when you vomit bees all over your enemies, because then the magic is used up for the day. I mean, shit, it's solid. It's priced about right, and written well, and it's a fine item. But why. Why. I'd throw the idiot that brought this onto my ship overboard.
Ebon Fury
Lucerne hammers? I love those things! Really, the weakest thing here is the name. The first effect is cool. The interaction with the second effect is frickin' awesome. It's got a great visual, it's got some obvious applications, and it does what it sets out to do in a concise and mechanically sound manner. Maybe it's too limited in daily-use for the price, considering it has a pretty easy save? I've... I've really got no snarky comments to make. I'm not sure how to feel about this.
Brooch of the Monarch
To those in the know, it is no secret I wuv Desna, so these easily win love from me. Not having the fly effect being a swarm of butterflies carrying the user or an ally around is a missed opportunity for sure. It also feels a little weak for the price? It looks like the majority of the gold you're spending here is for the 5 minute flight, but that's once a day when the really cool effect here is the protective swarm of butterflies to muck with your enemies. But that's only on crits, with a really weak nauseate DC, and a really short duration and minor AC buff... I'd really rather have the first effect take center stage and let the fly just be a kind of neat add-on. Maybe if you were reduced below X hp by a crit, the swarm could carry you to safety...
Quill of Leng
Swarms, but creepy swarms! I'm not a huge fan of Leng or its spiders, so this sat poorly with me from the get-go. It's a cool effect, but it really strikes me more of a villain type item, who brings his library to bear against the PCs as they rush to get the Quill away from him and smash the blasted thing before they're overwhelmed with living deathwords. (As a professional wordman, I do love the idea of deathwords, though.) Which means, obviously, it's a solid item. But it fits more into the plot-item category of things than the 'stuff I want to have on my ship' group. As a matter of fact, this would be going into the water right after that choker of allergic to bees--possibly even before.
Purging Lotus Bell
I don't like the idea of having a bell floating over my head all the time. You just know some annoying kid would run up and ring the damned thing. That said, it's a bard item doing bard things. I love bards doing bard things. I don't really like the idea of giving away the super cool bard spell of saving finale to smelly non-bards who totally don't deserve it. And really, that's all this is doing... with the extra addition of +4 from timely inspiration (which is +4 when the item's only a CL 3, for some reason) and, shit, let's just not play it with any hands either because bards are obviously being punished for using instruments in their hands. Admittedly, it does irk the shit out of me that bards do get punished for holding instruments and so every minmaximus takes Perform (nohands,bitches) instead. But I don't think this is the way to go about fixing the problem.
Bottled Cloud
Whoomp! I'm not sure this is the place for onomatopoeia. As a wordman that alone made me cringe. I'd rather not be told what it sounds like when I pop the cork on this thing. I know, I know, it's going to sound like whoooomp. We both know that. But somehow it feels wrong here. It goes on to be a spell in a bottle... until the awesome interaction with electricity. That right there redeemed the whoomp. It's obvious (and totally Divinity: Original Sin)! And you know what? It's awesome in that game, and now there's a mechanical means for doing the same shit in Pathfinder. I'm sold.
Spiraled Madu
I have a personal vendetta against "for X rounds that need not be consecutive" effects. I'm not sure these actually need not be consecutive, but that feels like a cop-out way of making an item go for longer so that people minmax their use round by round. It's like using Lingering Performance to only really use bardic performance once every 3 rounds, just 'cuz. That said, this is a cool item. It's got a super cool visual on a super underutilized item that does something really neat. Gotta rev up my chainshield so I can beat some people with my chainsword.
Banshee's Tongue
I'm not digging the bonuses and penalties to saves here. Why should it work that way? Is the sound of the rapier really that loud and annoying? I guess it's very Banshee-like, but I'd keelhaul the sailor with a blade that irritating. The second and third effects? Now we're talking. That's cool stuff. Even the weakness of being useless-ish in silence is thematic and appropriate, without killing the item's usefulness entirely. I'm also not entirely sure why bards are the only people that can craft these properly, but I'll take it. Bard for lyfe.
Hide of the Hagfish
At last, an item to combat those pesky merfolk that keep poking at my ship's hull. I'll just have to put it on my least favorite sailor, because it's gross. It's also damned niche, but it's a good niche. Underwater difficult terrain is unheard of, I think? It sure shouldn't be! I don't know how I feel about the slime being suffocating... as I've learned in fiddling about with something I wrote for something else, suffocation is really, really strong. I think I'd rather just have a slimy sailor who can go down there and chop up some merfolk on their turf while they're all stuck in a cloud of goo and unable to swim away.
Glaive of the Lion-Hearted
The description here feels off, somehow. Also really, really heavy. It also strikes me as strange that the wielder is the one doing the roaring. I know fighters and barbarians are always making crazy noises in combat, but c'mon. And once per day on a critical that only really matters if there just happens to be silence nearby. That's really, really specific. 95% of the time you proc the lion's roar, it's not going to do jack shit. The other 5% of the time it's really frickin' good, because it dispels that silence real quick. And penalties for retreating, for some reason. What warrants running from a fight? A withdraw action? A tactical withdraw? Full-out-scream-for-you-life running? I want to love this item, but it just doesn't sit well with me.
Figurine of Wondrous Power, Ruby Butterfly
This, I hated. It's derivative and sort of boring and not really all that fun to look at. And that's all saying a lot, since it's rocking the Desna-butterfly theme (perhaps unintentionally, since it only works with arcane casters?). Also, why are we giving arcane casters nice things? Like, ever. Have we all seen the wizard? Why would we give him anything nice? He can just wish for it. So the item itself is fine, I guess. It does butterfly things and watches you while you sleep, or something, protecting you from nightmares. I'm not really sure how it can protect you while you're sleeping? It's a butterfly. The damn thing can't even wake you up, because it's a butterfly. I'd much rather it have clearly defined dream-based powers for 8 hours at a time than have this strange protective butterfly-bat-touch-spell power glued on.
Brass Helmsman
At last! Crewmen I don't have to pay! I loved this item, despite my issues with its mechanical strangeness. This one feels like a Figurine of Wondrous Power done right. The ghost-pirate crewmen seem a little strange and off-theme to me, but the whole aesthetic is cool and the niche is just right. Mechanically, it just seems clunky. Reducing things by a quarter, but not below one, but only for nonmagical boats, or something. I'd rather just have the brass helmsmen take the wheel while a trio of ghostly sailors supplement my crew. On a rowboat or launch or whatever, that would cover the crew needed for the most part, while on my ship they'd be flying around doing ghost-pirate things far faster than the scurvy landlubbers that I call a crew.
Iounic Pipes
Another bardic type item! And this one interacts with stuff that already exists in a cool way. On the surface, I really dig this item. But... I don't really get it. So they float around my head, like ioun stones, but I have to hold it to use it anyway, so what's the point there? It makes ioun stones dance, which is cool, but I'm not sure why the benefit of +1x deflection only applies to the owner's stones, when it's clearly making everyone's stones dance. Also, wow, there's a sentence that should not be taken out of context. I also don't really care for item's that are do the whole 'hey you can do this, or this, or even this' bullet point thing. I'd rather just have it do X or Y in A or B situation. Then there's no real set duration for the abilities, or clear indication of whose ioun stones are harassing who, or something or other. They're also really, really expensive for just doing one thing really well: fucking with someone's ioun stones.
Aaaaand on that note, so end the first set of the Captain's critiques.
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