As the rest of the RPGSS world talks maps, I finish talking Top 32 (+4). It comes as no secret I live my life on island time; getting things done when they should be done simply doesn't come as a priority. So grab a bottle of rum and head back in time a week (or so) with my favorite captain.
Lava Lash
This one has great cinematic value. Flame whips are cool. Lava whips are cooler. Hotter? Whatever. The only problems I have with this come from strangeness with the mechanics. It's a whip, but it's not called out as having an enhancement bonus or anything. So... does it actually function like a whip, or is it just a reach-flame-blade? It says it grapples, so I guess it's a real whip, but then it says it has charges. If it's out of charges, it stops glowing. Does that mean you can't whip with it anymore? It seems unlikely that my 15-foot long whip of lava would shed no light at all. And more importantly, this is the sort of thing that would set my ship on fire.
Gown of Many Graves
The fact that this is only usable during half of the day is a big turn off for me. That said, it takes a tried and true concept in tree stride and says 'how can I make this cool?' Seriously, has anyone ever thought tree stride was cool? (You did? Stop reading this blog, you're fired.) This is way more evocative and cinematic than tree stride ever was. The problem, though, is that it feels like a villain item. If your vampire BBEG isn't wearing this, you're surely missing out. "Oops, sun's rising. I'm out bitches, see you 900 miles away at my place."
Swindler’s Grasp
As a swindler of sorts myself, I can appreciate these gloves. They're relatively simple mechanically, but they work. I think maybe the biggest problem with these gloves is they make having improved disarm or steal sort of irrelevant. Not only does it no longer matter if you're attempting to disarm a dude's sword with your bare hands, but you also don't have to be trained at all to do so. I mean, sure, I guess that's the whole point of magic... but as someone who loves making CMB-based characters, I'd feel a little cheated if the wizard ran up and stole a dude's sword. The secondary effect, though... now that's what makes this item shine. Its an effect that isn't found elsewhere, isn't derivative in any way, and fits into the territory of 'why wasn't this a thing already?'
Daylight Diadem
So you need to spend 24 hours in natural sunlight to recharge the diadem. Good luck racing the sun to keep that up. I guess you could go into orbit and stay on the sunlight side of the planet. Nitpickery aside, the basic use of the diadem seems a little weak. A move action to prepare for a standard action channel that's only benefit is it goes further? A lot of the time this would just make it harder to avoid healing baddies. The supernova effect is cool, but doesn't really super-wow me. I dig sun-based powers and like the idea of bringing natural sunlight to bear against dead things plus the added holy-flame damage! The cool part of this item only works for 4 round a day regardless of the charges used, and then you need to sit outside forever to charge it back up. If you're in the middle of a serious dungeon dive or something... you might not have that option, and then you just have a really pretty brick. Then factor in that all metal surfaces within the light gain this damage--including your enemies--but it only works against evil guys, so it's okay. Must suck to be the NE rogue your party keeps around for his witty humor and masterful knife skills. I know I've got at least three of those guys on my crew. Used to be four, but we don't talk about Jimbo anymore.
Caber Twig
Caber toss: the item? I'm already sold. This is a brilliant little item for so many reasons. It's cheap and expendable. Cheap and expendable items are perfect for inspiring player creativity. They find them in random drops, or grab them from a mad alchemist's shop on their second trip to town, or something that gets them cool stuff real quick. And then crazy shit happens. Crazy shit is why we play tabletop games instead of computer games. Think of what you can do with 4 5-foot long, 300 pound logs. The item is very obviously built with the intention of throwing them at people, but can you imagine the damage this would cause if I chucked it at my neighbor's ship? Hell, what if I used all four charges at once? In reality, I think this actually suffers from too much mechanical skill. It's really rules heavy for a small item that is probably too cheap for how awesome it is. On a certain level, I'd prefer if this was like the tree feather token: "You grow a 40-foot tall oak tree instantly. Let the player innovation commence."
Thornweave
A throwing shield that actually gives a compelling reason to throw it? Excellent. As you may or may not have realized, I dig throwing weapons. They're underutilized and underpowered compared to how overwhelmingly bows dominate the ranged weapon department. Throwing your shield is especially annoying, since you are, you know, throwing away your shield. Here, though, there's a damn good reason to throw that shield--it's the perfect set up to a beatdown. It lasts just long enough for it to be a good fight, so that you don't have to drag your ass over there and pick it up (or worse, have it thrown back!) I'm not so sure about the interaction with plant growth. On one hand, cool; on the other, what happens when you're the target of diminish plants? Does the shield stop working? Can diminish plants dispel the entangle effect? Why even bother mentioning spell storing, why not just say 'it does stuff when affected by spells that do stuff to plants.' Also, only dryads make these, for some reason?
Shark Toothed Maw
The cloak of infinite throwing daggers. Conceptually, I want to love this thing. It's got sharks and sharks are cool and throwing knives because throwing knives are cool and hey we've just glued them together and yeah. Visually, it doesn't even work for me: it's got interlocked silver and ivory with diamonds on it, but it looks good on a harlequin, but they're totally shark teeth. And what does any of this have to do with a maw? Throw all the daggers you want, they're +1 and they're infinite. You don't even have to worry about them being thrown back! The secondary power is getting somewhere, since I'm not sure there's a blade-cloak equivalent in Pathfinder yet--but I can't imagine why I'd use this over just throwing daggers. Sure, it's a 15-foot burst... but then you can't chuck infinite daggers for an hour. And it's a fairly simple save to completely negate the effect. Do you know what else can hit someone with 1d6 +1 daggers? Someone full attacking with a cloak of infinite daggers.
Boots of Ethereal Wake
Another beautifully cinematic item. Leaping through reality as you charge a creature, only to charge through him and suck him into another dimension? It's great. If there's any problems here, I think its in the interaction with a creature once they're sucked through the wake. Creatures pulled into the ethereal apparently can't move or do anything, which seems a little unfair to creatures that might even be okay with being ethereal for a bit. Any wizard that's every used blink would probably not be too fussed about the whole affair, though I could see the everyday barbarian flipping out. And then there's when an ethereal creature's pulled to the material world. Do they reappear back on the ethereal where they were subjected to the charge? They might, it seems? Still, I love these boots and my assessment strives only for perfection.
Blade of The Ice Stalker
Ice blades, represent! There's some formatting errors here that catch my editor's eye immediately, but the item itself seems solid. (Dohoho, it's an ice joke!) I like the visual of an icy blade chunking off into a foe's flesh, but I'm not a huge fan of the whole blade-regrowing thing. Why can't it just chunk off and be perfectly fine. Why even mention regrowing a round later, when that's going to cause massive rules issues with how it grows and when and what about extra attacks and blahblahblah. The thermal vision seems tacked on for coolness factor (it is admittedly cool) and while it fits the whole ice-stalker thing, the first effect really doesn't. The first effect sort of boils down to 'crit fishing for +10 damage over 5 rounds and stagger the enemy' If we're crit fishing for staggers... why don't we just use Staggering Critical?
Phantom Corsair Boots
Ghost pirate boots! Aw yis. Except... there's really nothing interesting going on here. "This boots smell like pirate." Okay. "You get a flat bonus to stuff." Okay. "Also you have blurred movement all the time now." Okay. "Except when you don't, because then you have a CL1 vanish." Okay. And I mean, that's fine. It's a solid item. It works. It does what it does well. It's not shit. It's just not exciting, and doesn't really give me a ghost pirate vibe at all. As a wannabe pirate who would not mind being a ghost pirate (or better yet, a space ghost pirate!), this just feels like a missed opportunity to do something cool.
Cloak of the High Plains Wind
So the damage multiplier doesn't stack with some things, but does it stack with a lance? There's a whole mounted charge theme going on here, but then there's also wind theme going on. I think I get the idea of highland mounted warriors, but the two elements don't feel well connected in this item. I also have absolutely no idea what that bit about resolving the gust of wind is saying. So there's a wind that pushes you... but it's resolved as you move out of a square, but after you hit the charge target, and it's a radius instead of a line, and doesn't even go very far, and what the fuck. I do like how it lays down the law against Pounce, though. Pounce doesn't need to be any stronger.
Scattertracks
Oh baby, I'll show you a handsome walking sti- okay, I'll stop. Please excuse my juvenile humor. This will not be the last time. Again, the editor's eye spots obvious problems in the template. Minor errors slide by easily... but if you catch attention for mistakes before anyone even reads a word, there's a problem. Mechanically, it's a simple but elegant idea. It does what it says on the box--it scatters your tracks. And damn well, too. I think for something so cheap there should probably be a means to negate its effects--a proper Survival check to discern fake tracks from real ones, especially since unseen servants can't possibly make the same imprint with 20 lbs a non-halfling would make as they were trucking around. What about breaking twigs and other signs of a trail? It says convincing. I say how convincing? Ironically, if you have a means of actually hiding your tracks already you need to not use it to hide your tracks, since it would be painfully obvious which way you went. That said, it's a great idea to have for everyone else (which is most everyone at the price point of this item) and works in such a cool manner.
Wolflord’s Fang
This one hits its theme perfectly. For the lone wolf, this is an okay +2 huntsman bastard sword. For a team, though, this really shines. Tying the wolf's trip attack to a weapon in a way that requires the wolf-man to have a pack of his own is brilliant. Howling like a wolf is a little off-putting and isn't really something I'd want my characters doing, exactly, but again it hits perfectly on theme with a pack howl to improve the effects. I'm not a huge fan of offering free 5-footers on the howl, either, but I can see exactly why it's here and why it works. And it works damned well, even if free 5-footers all around is crazy strong.
Banshee’s Wrath
Another charging item, though this one doesn't immediately scream awesome to me. (It's a banshee joke! I'm on a roll!) Becoming semi-corporeal for the charge is fine and dandy, but its the Intimidate power that I'm not really loving. So it affects all targets on the line of your charge... where? Between you and the charge target? So if you manage to line up two or three dudes in a 60 foot line, you can get a free Intimidate against them. And while you can pass through people just fine, you still get choked up by difficult terrain, for some reason. It's hard enough to get two dudes in a line when the enemies are even semi-competent and aware of the stuff you might throw at them. If all it takes is a handful of caltrops to stop this item from working, then is it really working? And even then, who cares? So they're demoralized for a bit. When I think banshee, I'm not thinking demoralized. I'm thinking pants-wetting terror.
Shattered Blade
Another breaking blade. And a swarm item? I'm sensing a common trend in the voting. What I like about this one, though, is that it isn't just 'dude you totally get to control a swarm of stuff!' It's a cloud of gnashing metal death. It looks a lot cooler, and fits exactly what a swarm-weapon should do. It also doesn't make the weapon useless while it's active. You can still stab a dude with your jagged half-broken sword. It differentiates itself from normal swarms, and that's a huge deal in a world filled with bee-vomit-necklaces. This isn't without problems, though. There's no... duration? It just lasts until you decide to stop, apparently. So if you hurt, I don't know, a dragon with this thing and proc the sharpnel-swarm and then just run... what happens? Does the swarm peck the dragon to death? Also, how far can you run? Does it just work forever? I'd almost rather the swarm be centered on the weapon itself. Then, when it's a dagger, you could chuck it at someone to direct the swarm. Probably a terrible idea, since they could pick it up and throw it back, but it would be pretty cool regardless.
Defender’s Door
This is simplicity done right. It's a door. You prop it up to use it as a door. Doors are pretty big and durable. Big and durable things work as shields. My question here, though, is how literal the door is. Does it work like Portal or does it work like a regular open door? Can it go both ways? Does non-creature matter move through the door? Can I plant this on the deck of a ship, open a door to the bottom of the ship, and start sinking the bastard? I like the idea of the shield's owner being stuck with the door, though. He's the defender and he's got the door. He can hold it open all chivalrous for you, but he's stuck outside. It's a nice little balancing mechanism on the strength of teleportation.
Scallywag’s Tooth
Bleh. Why would you put your mouth on that? So it's a magical item you wear in your mouth and doesn't look magical. Who would find it? Whose character is digging into dead guys' mouths and pulling out their gold teeth? Who then puts that same tooth in their mouth? I consider myself a bit of a scallywag. I would not touch this, and that's not even talking about how bland the item is. It fits in the category of 'cheap ass items,' but unlike the bottled cloud or caber twig, it's boring. "You get a bonus to charisma stuff." Okay. "Also if you screw up you can totally get a do-over." Okay. Again, it works fine. It does what it does well. It just doesn't sound fun or interesting or even particularly evocative, since a Cha 18 bard with perfectly mundane gold teeth basically does this already. I will give this man props for them em dashes, though. Bitches love em dashes. I'm just not sure em dashes belong in item descriptions? I could be wrong and am too lazy to look for examples.
Leviathan’s Terror
A solid CMB item, making them less of a pain in the ass to use past the 5th-6th level mark. Anyone who's tried to make a CMB-focused character has learned the pain of dealing with enemies bigger than you. Yeah, it makes sense they get size bonuses and its hard to trip a giant or whatever. But it sucks. I think the problem I have with this one, though, is that it doesn't really feel like a weapon. On activation, it gives a bunch of passive bonuses. It gives a bunch of passive bonuses even before that. Some of the things it effects--or all of them, even--you wouldn't even use the harpoon to do. Hell, even the activated howl has nothing to do with the weapon. It's a great idea on a great theme with even a great weapon type choice to go with said theme. But nothing about it says 'stab a (huge) dude with this spear.'
And with that giant wall of text, so ends the captain's assessment of the Top 32 (+4) for this season's RPGSS. With the rest of the world talking maps and myself still hiding my head in shame from my own mediocre map, I'll get to talking maps eventually.
Eventually, as translated from island time, is roughly sometime this century.
Check back soon! -ish!
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