Did you see Dungeonmastering’s Top 50 RPG sites yet? It’s a good roundup of many of the great RPG-related sites out there. Of course the fact that I’m in 4th place has absolutely nothing to do with me pimping it right now. No Siree. Absolutely not! It never crossed my mind!
As mentioned before, I was one of the 858 participants of Paizo’s RPG Superstar contest. More precisely, I was one of the 826 participants who didn’t make the final cut.
For those who didn’t follow that contest too closely, the 1st challenge was to design a SRD-compliant, 200 words or less d20 Magic Item of the Wondrous Item type. The word count includes fluff, mechanics, creation pre-requisites and pricing.
The contest ultimately choses one contestant and grants her/him a paid commission to write an adventure (which I’m very curious how much that amounts to).
While all entries automatically became the property of Paizo, I asked them if I could post my item here for discussions with the readers. So please note that the item is Copyright 2007 Paizo Publishing and used with permission (Thanks Erik!). The Blog’s OGL can be found here.
I’ll post the item as submitted, including the typo/mistake I made:
The Brooch of Hunting:
This highly-detailed, leaf-shaped clasp can be used to fasten a cloak or cape. It was originally created by an elven militant organization in order to help its members hunt and fight a specific enemy and act as a subtle symbol of recognition between members of that organization. Other organizations, from various races, have since then adopted this very useful item and forged it into their own secret symbol.
This brooch grants any wearer the Ranger’s 1st level Favored Enemy ability for a specific creature type chosen during the item’s creation. The bonus does not increase with the wearer’s Hit Dice. Furthermore, once per day as a free action, the wearer can speak a command word to get a Smite attack, until the beginning of the character’s next turn, that grants a damage bonus equal to the wearer’s Hit Dice against the specific creature type on the next attack roll.
A Ranger wearing this brooch gets an additional favored enemy ability only if his chosen favorite enemy is different from the ones he already has. Otherwise only the Smite ability is granted.
Moderate conjuration; CL 8th; Craft Wondrous Items, Summon monster I, Locate Creature; Price 2000 gp.
Discussions:
According to judge Erik Mona, chances are my item was rejected because it grants a class ability to characters of other classes. Something that was frowned upon because they attributed this power to artifacts. As Dave:The Game mentions in Saturday’s post, this is something that was not defined as such in the contest’s rules).
Of course, I disagree with that… mostly because I submitted such an item. 🙂
Like Yan told me, while the item is cool and usable over a large range of levels, it would make a pretty sucky artifact! However, like in any contest, moping about losing is not all that constructive.
Regardless I’m happy and proud to have done this. Along with my cooperative tackling of a new Character Class, playing with D&D’s engine is a lot more fun than I thought.
So in order to further build on this experience, one thing I’d like to do with you is to ask you for feedback as to how I could have written that item better (and maybe even circumvent the Class Ability hate, he he) while still remaining in the 200 word count.
Right off the bat, let me correct my mistake:
“A Ranger wearing this brooch gets an additional favored enemy ability only if his chosen the item’s favorite enemy is different from the ones he already has. Otherwise only the Smite ability is granted.”
So there you have it. The item I created for the contest and for Math’s character, (he chose ‘Evil Outsiders’) which incidentall, will become very useful in the next campaign arc.
I’ll await your suggestions and post my/your best re-write below:
The Brooch of Hunting (V2.0):
Check here later! 🙂
Hm. I agree with their idea in theory, but it seems a bit late. Maybe concept it more like a bane weapon, either as an actual weapon (also giving bonuses to spot — that would be cool, a bit like sting) or just using that sort of language instead of “favored enemy” language?
I guess the question ought to have been, does this obsolete the ranger? I don’t think so, but I’m no judge. (It certainly wouldn’t in any campaign where no-one tried to, you would hope no fighters deliberately tried to out-do the ranger.)
Hey Jacky, thanks for commenting.
I carefully worded the item to show that it didn’t stack with Character Level… the 2 bonus stays a 2 bonus.
But you bring a good point, such an item is great in a no-Ranger party because it adds a new power, but makes a Ranger feel less ‘different’.
And since I personally dislike Prestige Classes very much and multiclassing to a certain extent (I’d prefer swapping class abilities) I believe it’s a good alternative.
I did actually use the Bane weapon as the model, mostly for creation requirements and price. Your suggestion to word Favorite enemy without actually refering to the class ability might have been a better idea… (I was worried it would make me bust the 200 words limit, but now I’m not so sure)
I think you also made the “mistake” that I did. Clark Peterson (one of the judges) said in several posts that fluff means description and not backstory, something that wouldn’t have occurred to me. So the first paragraph would have to be adjusted as well.
I think you could easily adjust the wording of your item to not be a class ability- just say when chosen, grants a +2 bonus to hit and damage a specific creature, and gain a smite. Like already mentioned, bring it in line with Bane.
My other problem with the contest rules is that they apparently expected you to link to appropriate SRD entries in the SRD, which may have been another reason my item that summons a Gelatinous Cube was rejected.
As an “open source” kinda guy, it’s a bit annoying that they own the entry. It’s one thing to get a liability waiver, it’s another to keep copyright over the submission.
Oh well, rant off!
Yeah… the idea was to also grant the 2 to all skill check pertaining with the chosen creature type… but I guess I can limit this to Spot, Listen and Survival (for tracking).
But that being said, some top 32 have back stories… and I thought mine was actually generic enough and indicative of it’s function in a fantasy setting.
So I’ll clearly re-write by removing the Favorite Enemy reference…
As for Copyright issues… it’s the same thing with D&D insider… whatever you give them or post in their Database becomes theirs…
I’m soooo staying on my own domain! 🙂
It’s funny that they will take intellectual property written on their forum.
I bet that they also have a disclaimer saying that what is posted in their forums represent the idea and conviction of its writer and are in no way endorsed by them (must forums have these disclaimer), which is a kind of paradox.. 😉
In order to avoid being sued for using something resembling a suggestion posted on their website, most organization have no other choice but to use this strategy. There’s just no easier way of managing this issue.
Unless we get rid of all those perpetual victims and their lawyers.
Exactly right, PM.
But for the item, and the use of a class ability, the is one other problem. This class ability in particular interacts with other abilities.
When you say a Ranger “gains an additional favoured enemy”, you grant him all the abilities that come with FE. A 2 to your defined FE target, and an additional 2 to whatever creature type they want.
Which I’d be willing to bet you didn’t quite consider.
As well, I dislike the fact that a Ranger specialised in hunting goblins, who gets a brooch designed to make people better at hunting goblins, gets no benefit. It seems arbitrary.
In any case, rewording it to give the 2 bonuses becomes less words.
27 words.
32 words.
Total: 59 words.
Alternately, using close to the word-for-word description in the SRD.
26 words. Much less than 59.
Though it’s a bit clumsily worded right there, so rewording it might alter that count by a couple.
I understand the legal concerns, but there is definitely another way to do it. When I do freelance submissions, I never have to sign over my intellectual property. I just have to sign something that says I won’t sue them if they happen to come out with something similar.
(Another way to do it is ask you to license your entry under a Creative Commons license that allows use by anyone.)
If hasbro keeps the intellectual property you could technically build upon their own close content on their site without making a copyright infringement.
Well I’m no lawyer and I could be wrong in this. If this is not the case then I agree wholeheartedly with you Dave, in that a creative common license would seem more appropriate.
We’re mixing apples and oranges here… All good points but a bit mixed up like some sort of fruit cocktail…
Submitting stuff on Paizo’s contest made it Paizo’s property.
Everything on D&D insider will apparently be owned by Hasbro.
On top of it all, Hasbro has a ‘we do not endorse the sayings of so and so’
A Creative Common licence is… well actually I have no idea what this is… some sort of IP sharing approach for writing on the net, right?
Let me just say here that we’re talking copyright (a copy or a derivative of something) and not patents (an idea). So I won’t feel bad about posting an item description to my website that describes the same idea. I just won’t reuse the text I submitted. The notes I used to produce the final work are not covered by their copyright. The idea is not covered by copyright. Thus: No problem at all.
This is not legal advice. 🙂