Pathfinder Grab Bag Competition Chat Thread II: New Thread smell included!

[Phillammon]

The 36 strategems. (First half is wikipedia, second half is tvtropes, which explains it more clearly but is tvtropes, you have been warned)

Player activity looks like it may be a problem on that one, unfortunately.

[Tanuki Tales]

Proposed name	Theme
Sorcerous Specialties, Wizardly Ways	Specialized Casters
Cthubrew F'tagn	Lovecraft Mythos
A Pyrrhic Procedure	Victory and Success at great costs
Go Big or Go Gnome	Gnomes
That Deviant Smile	Entries inspired by art from deviantArt
Not your Grandad's Elements	Chemical elements from the periodical table
A Stranger to Myself	Having a soul or spirit not natural to your species
Because I Love You	Love in all its forms, not just romance
Saving People, Hunting Things	Supernatural (the TV show), hunters, monsters, angels, and demons.
I Love the Monster	Appreciation for unloved/unpopular monsters.
I, Construct	Constructs
Now Gish is More Like It!	Gishes
Where Giants Tread	Comic strips and webcomics
Tactical Genius	The 36 Stratagems
A Day in the Life II	Race-only contest

So, I've thrown another in, so we need just one more.

[Stake A Vamp]

Princesses & Palaces:Royalty.

[gr8artist]

Proposed name	Theme	Votes
Sorcerous Specialties, Wizardly Ways	Specialized Casters	1
Cthubrew F'tagn	Lovecraft Mythos	1
A Pyrrhic Procedure	Victory and Success at great costs	1
Go Big or Go Gnome	Gnomes
That Deviant Smile	Entries inspired by art from deviantArt
Not your Grandad's Elements	Chemical elements from the periodical table
A Stranger to Myself	Having a soul or spirit not natural to your species	1
Because I Love You	Love in all its forms, not just romance
Saving People, Hunting Things	Supernatural (the TV show), hunters, monsters, angels, and demons.	1
I Love the Monster	Appreciation for unloved/unpopular monsters.
I, Construct	Constructs	1
Now Gish is More Like It!	Gishes
Where Giants Tread	Comic strips and webcomics	1
Tactical Genius	The 36 Stratagems	1
A Day in the Life II	Race-only contest
Palaces and Princesses	Royalty

Assuming the normal rules (vote for 8/16 in the first round), I'll cast my votes for...

1. Sorcerous Specialties, Wizardly Ways
2. Cthubrew F'tagn
3. A Pyrrhic Procedure
4. A Stranger to Myself
5. Saving People, Hunting Things
6. I, Construct
7. Where Giants Tread
8. Tactical Genius

Also, I'd like to take this opportunity to plug my new homebrew, the Mercenary.
I'm trying something new, basing his power on ranks in the profession skill, and I like it so much I might use a similar mechanic in my next entry, if allowed. It will definitely be the base for my first character in the playtest campaign.

[Adam1949]

Cthubrew F'tagn
Go Big or Go Gnome
That Deviant Smile
Not your Grandad's Elements
Because I Love You
Now Gish is More Like It!
A Day in the Life II
Palaces and Princesses

[Stake A Vamp]

Cthubrew F'tagn
Go Big or Go Gnome
I, Construct
Not your Grandad's Elements
Stranger to myself
Now Gish is More Like It!
Tactical Genius
Palaces and Princesses

[Tanuki Tales]

Proposed name	Theme	Votes
Sorcerous Specialties, Wizardly Ways	Specialized Casters	1
Cthubrew F'tagn	Lovecraft Mythos	3
A Pyrrhic Procedure	Victory and Success at great costs	1
Go Big or Go Gnome	Gnomes	2
That Deviant Smile	Entries inspired by art from deviantArt	1
Not your Grandad's Elements	Chemical elements from the periodical table	2
A Stranger to Myself	Having a soul or spirit not natural to your species	1
Because I Love You	Love in all its forms, not just romance	1
Saving People, Hunting Things	Supernatural (the TV show), hunters, monsters, angels, and demons.	1
I Love the Monster	Appreciation for unloved/unpopular monsters.
I, Construct	Constructs	2
Now Gish is More Like It!	Gishes	2
Where Giants Tread	Comic strips and webcomics	1
Tactical Genius	The 36 Stratagems	2
A Day in the Life II	Race-only contest	1
Palaces and Princesses	Royalty	2

Tallied to here.

[Phillammon]

Cthubrew F'tagn
Go Big or Go Gnome
Not your Grandad's Elements
Because I Love You
I, Construct
Where Giants Tread
Tactical Genius
A Day in the Life II

[Tanuki Tales]

Proposed name	Theme	Votes
Sorcerous Specialties, Wizardly Ways	Specialized Casters	1
Cthubrew F'tagn	Lovecraft Mythos	4
A Pyrrhic Procedure	Victory and Success at great costs	1
Go Big or Go Gnome	Gnomes	3
That Deviant Smile	Entries inspired by art from deviantArt	1
Not your Grandad's Elements	Chemical elements from the periodical table	3
A Stranger to Myself	Having a soul or spirit not natural to your species	1
Because I Love You	Love in all its forms, not just romance	2
Saving People, Hunting Things	Supernatural (the TV show), hunters, monsters, angels, and demons.	1
I Love the Monster	Appreciation for unloved/unpopular monsters.
I, Construct	Constructs	3
Now Gish is More Like It!	Gishes	2
Where Giants Tread	Comic strips and webcomics	2
Tactical Genius	The 36 Stratagems	3
A Day in the Life II	Race-only contest	2
Palaces and Princesses	Royalty	2

Tallied to here.

And I really miss the old table functions.

[gr8artist]

Why so? Other than using more characters and taking a little longer to code yourself, the new tables seem superior.

Also, check the campaign thread.

[Tanuki Tales]

Why so? Other than using more characters and taking a little longer to code yourself, the new tables seem superior.

You can't click columns and change the ordering anymore. So I can't click "Votes" and get it in numeric order.

[Phillammon]

You can, however, add the sortable tag, which allows you to sort it by votecount once it's posted.

[Tanuki Tales]

I seriously hate how I never know when my inbox is full now.

[gr8artist]

Don't mind me, just testing the sortable tag.

Proposed name	Theme	Votes
Sorcerous Specialties, Wizardly Ways	Specialized Casters	1
Cthubrew F'tagn	Lovecraft Mythos	4
A Pyrrhic Procedure	Victory and Success at great costs	1
Go Big or Go Gnome	Gnomes	3
That Deviant Smile	Entries inspired by art from deviantArt	1
Not your Grandad's Elements	Chemical elements from the periodical table	3
A Stranger to Myself	Having a soul or spirit not natural to your species	1
Because I Love You	Love in all its forms, not just romance	2
Saving People, Hunting Things	Supernatural (the TV show), hunters, monsters, angels, and demons.	2
I Love the Monster	Appreciation for unloved/unpopular monsters.
I, Construct	Constructs	3
Now Gish is More Like It!	Gishes	2
Where Giants Tread	Comic strips and webcomics	2
Tactical Genius	The 36 Stratagems	3
A Day in the Life II	Race-only contest	2
Palaces and Princesses	Royalty	2

EDIT: Tanta had mis-placed your vote for AStM when he did his last tally (He has only the 1, but you and I had each voted for it). After three people voting 8 times, there were 23 votes tallied.
I have updated this table to include your change in vote, Stake

[Stake A Vamp]

Cthubrew F'tagn
Go Big or Go Gnome
I, Construct
Not your Grandad's Elements
Stranger to myself
Now Gish is More Like It!
Tactical Genius
Palaces and Princesses

I am changing my vote for

Stranger to myself

to a vote for

SAving people, hunting things

[3WhiteFox3]

Where Giants Tread
Sorcerous Specialties, Wizardly Ways
That Deviant Smile
Because I Love You
Palaces and Princesses
Tactical Genius
I, Construct
A Day in the Life II

[gr8artist]

Proposed name	Theme	Votes
Sorcerous Specialties, Wizardly Ways	Specialized Casters	2
Cthubrew F'tagn	Lovecraft Mythos	4
A Pyrrhic Procedure	Victory and Success at great costs	1
Go Big or Go Gnome	Gnomes	3
That Deviant Smile	Entries inspired by art from deviantArt	2
Not your Grandad's Elements	Chemical elements from the periodical table	3
A Stranger to Myself	Having a soul or spirit not natural to your species	1
Because I Love You	Love in all its forms, not just romance	3
Saving People, Hunting Things	Supernatural (the TV show), hunters, monsters, angels, and demons.	2
I Love the Monster	Appreciation for unloved/unpopular monsters.	0
I, Construct	Constructs	4
Now Gish is More Like It!	Gishes	2
Where Giants Tread	Comic strips and webcomics	3
Tactical Genius	The 36 Stratagems	4
A Day in the Life II	Race-only contest	3
Palaces and Princesses	Royalty	3

Updated, 40 votes total from 5 people.
Tanta, let me know if you want me to leave this alone, but I figured I'd pitch in what help I can.

[Tanuki Tales]

Nah, I appreciate the help Gr8.

One more vote and we'll move on to the next round.

[dragonjek]

Hi. I've only just entered the contest, but I hope my votes are still valid.

Sorcerous Specialties, Wizardly Ways
Cthubrew F'tagn
Go Big or Go Gnome
Not Your Grandad's Elements
A Stranger to Myself
I Love the Monster
Palaces and Princesses
Because I Love You

[Adam1949]

@dragonjek: You don't even have to enter the contest in order to vote. Since you have, however, I'm gonna give your entry a PEACH.

Fluff: This... this is really, really cool. A living spiritual manifestation of a weapon... I didn't know how badly I wanted this until now. I especially like the physical description, as well as all of the 'potential name' ideas.
Racial Traits: I like that all four potential forms are balanced well; while the Piercing form might have a better stat lineup than, say, Slashing, the latter has a much better "A Sword Surpassing Swords" effects.
Extant/Manifest Self is really impressive, and well thought-out.
Body of Battle is useful, indeed.
Living Weapon might be a little much; for instance, a Bludgeoning Haz-Adul gets less out of it than any other kind of weapon. It's also unclear in certain points: what type of damage does a multiform weapon deal? And when you say that they are 'proficient in weapons of the same type', do you mean weapon group or damage type?
Alternate Racial Traits: Mere Shade of Glory seems like an outright trap decision. For how much it trades away, the character doesn't get much back.
Onslaught Gigas is a bit iffy; the balance seems off.
Spellborn Body is unclear in regards to the unlimited Cantrip/Orison; is this one of the three that you chose from, or is it a completely different Level-0 spell?
Tally of Ages gives a free feat, putting it on-par with humans and even surpassing them.
Favored Classes: Nothing major here, although I do like some of the more unique traits (the alchemist, for instance, is really awesome in flavor despite any problems with poison).
Racial Feats: I'm not at liberty to rate these, but they all look good to me.


Overall, this is an amazing entry; my best wishes to you, and good luck in the contest.

[Tanuki Tales]

Proposed name	Theme	Votes
Sorcerous Specialties, Wizardly Ways	Specialized Casters	3
Cthubrew F'tagn	Lovecraft Mythos	5
A Pyrrhic Procedure	Victory and Success at great costs	1
Go Big or Go Gnome	Gnomes	4
That Deviant Smile	Entries inspired by art from deviantArt	2
Not your Grandad's Elements	Chemical elements from the periodical table	4
A Stranger to Myself	Having a soul or spirit not natural to your species	2
Because I Love You	Love in all its forms, not just romance	4
Saving People, Hunting Things	Supernatural (the TV show), hunters, monsters, angels, and demons.	2
I Love the Monster	Appreciation for unloved/unpopular monsters.	1
I, Construct	Constructs	4
Now Gish is More Like It!	Gishes	2
Where Giants Tread	Comic strips and webcomics	3
Tactical Genius	The 36 Stratagems	4
A Day in the Life II	Race-only contest	3
Palaces and Princesses	Royalty	4

Tallied to here.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~

Proposed name	Theme	Votes
Cthubrew F'tagn	Lovecraft Mythos	0
Go Big or Go Gnome	Gnomes	0
Not your Grandad's Elements	Chemical elements from the periodical table	0
Because I Love You	Love in all its forms, not just romance	0
I, Construct	Constructs	0
Tactical Genius	The 36 Stratagems	0
A Day in the Life II	Race-only contest	0
Palaces and Princesses	Royalty	0

Now we're moving on; this time around you get 4 votes instead of 8.

[Adam1949]

I can only assume you meant we get 4 instead of 8 votes.

Cthubrew F'tagn
Go Big or Go Gnome
Because I Love You
Palaces and Princesses

[Phillammon]

I, Construct
Tactical Genius
Go Big or Go Gnome
A Day in the Life II

[Tanuki Tales]

I can only assume you meant we get 4 instead of 8 votes.

I have no idea what you're talking about. >o>;;

[Stake A Vamp]

Cthubrew F'tagn
Go Big or Go Gnome
Not your Grandad's Elements
Princesses and palaces

yay two of my suggestions (and one I named) got to round 2!

[Adam1949]

Proposed name	Theme	Votes
Cthubrew F'tagn	Lovecraft Mythos	2
Go Big or Go Gnome	Gnomes	3
Not your Grandad's Elements	Chemical elements from the periodical table	1
Because I Love You	Love in all its forms, not just romance	1
I, Construct	Constructs	1
Tactical Genius	The 36 Stratagems	1
A Day in the Life II	Race-only contest	1
Palaces and Princesses	Royalty	2

[dragonjek]

Cthubrew F'tagn
Go Big or Go Gnome
Not Your Grandad's Elements
Palaces and Princesses

@dragonjek: You don't even have to enter the contest in order to vote. Since you have, however, I'm gonna give your entry a PEACH.

Fluff: This... this is really, really cool. A living spiritual manifestation of a weapon... I didn't know how badly I wanted this until now. I especially like the physical description, as well as all of the 'potential name' ideas.
Racial Traits: I like that all four potential forms are balanced well; while the Piercing form might have a better stat lineup than, say, Slashing, the latter has a much better "A Sword Surpassing Swords" effects.
Extant/Manifest Self is really impressive, and well thought-out.
Body of Battle is useful, indeed.
Living Weapon might be a little much; for instance, a Bludgeoning Haz-Adul gets less out of it than any other kind of weapon. It's also unclear in certain points: what type of damage does a multiform weapon deal? And when you say that they are 'proficient in weapons of the same type', do you mean weapon group or damage type?
Alternate Racial Traits: Mere Shade of Glory seems like an outright trap decision. For how much it trades away, the character doesn't get much back.
Onslaught Gigas is a bit iffy; the balance seems off.
Spellborn Body is unclear in regards to the unlimited Cantrip/Orison; is this one of the three that you chose from, or is it a completely different Level-0 spell?
Tally of Ages gives a free feat, putting it on-par with humans and even surpassing them.
Favored Classes: Nothing major here, although I do like some of the more unique traits (the alchemist, for instance, is really awesome in flavor despite any problems with poison).
Racial Feats: I'm not at liberty to rate these, but they all look good to me.

Thank you! Your review was very helpful, and I have acted on it.

I've clarified Living Weapon, and removed the different types of unarmed strike damage (while it may come in handy to crush something, always dealing slashing damage does seem more useful than always bludgeoning). That's been moved to a feat.

I also added a defense buff to the Mere Shade of Glory trait, switched out Tally of Ages's free feat for another ability I thought suited someone ancient, and cleared up that bit on Spellborn Body (they select of the cantrips theyalready know).

I admit, I'm also not certain about Onslaught Gigas; I greatly weakened each siege engine (at low levels, at least), but since they can't make full attacks with their weapon I thought I would make it scale with level to make up for it. The four categories of damage progression end up, at level 20, with 10d4 (canons, bombards, average 25), 7d6 +5 (catapults, ballistae, average 29.5), 13d4 (trebuchet, springals, firedrakes, average 32.5), and 7d8 (rams, average 31.5). Guns bypass armor/natural armor bonuses at close range so I cut their damage, and the 13d4, while having a higher damage cap and average damage than catapults and ballistae, that many dice makes her a lot less likely to roll highly. Rams have the highest damage cap, but they are also the only ones putting her into melee range. I did remove the Siege Mage's superior damage progression, and replaced it with the damage-bonus-from-Profession ability I had previously given to the Merged Haz-Adul as a whole; I also made their ability damage reject healing until 24 hours have passed.

[ShiningStarling]

Cthubrew F'tagn
Not your Grandad's Elements
I, Construct
Tactical Genius

[gr8artist]

My own votes:

• Cthubrew F'tagn
• I, Construct
• Tactical Genius
• A Day in the Life II

Proposed name	Theme	Votes
Cthubrew F'tagn	Lovecraft Mythos	5
Go Big or Go Gnome	Gnomes	4
Not your Grandad's Elements	Chemical elements from the periodical table	3
Because I Love You	Love in all its forms, not just romance	1
I, Construct	Constructs	3
Tactical Genius	The 36 Stratagems	3
A Day in the Life II	Race-only contest	2
Palaces and Princesses	Royalty	3

[malonkey1]

1. Because I Love You
2. I, Construct
3. Not Your Granddad's Elements
4. Tactical Genius