Voting thread for the PGBC round XXVII - I, Construct

[gr8artist]

Entry	Author	1st Place	2nd Place	3rd Place	Total	MLTSP Votes	MUE Votes
Mandjet	Milo V3	7	3	0	10	2	0
Candy Witch Additional Materials	MrNobody	14	3	0	17	2	4
Clockwork Guardian	Prehysterical	0	6	1	7	1	0
Necromite Golem	gr8artist	7	0	2	9	1	0
Anbroid	caledscratcher	0	0	0	0	0	0
The Crucible	grimgrin	14	3	2	19	0	3
The Risen Men	Almarck	0	3	1	4	1	0

Welcome one and all to the Voting thread for the twenty-seventh Pathfinder Grab Bag Competition! We have several wonderful entries for you to peruse over, but only one will end up taking home the gold!

Now, the way the voting for this competition works is as follows:

• You receive five votes to cast.
• The first three votes are to be given to the entries that you believe should come in first, second and third place respectively. First place votes are worth seven points, second place three points and third place one point each. Keep in mind that such choices should go to the entries that you believe fit most closely to the given concept of the contest and not just the entries you like the most.
• The fourth vote is to be given to the entry that you believe is "Most Likely to See Play". This vote is cast for the entry that you could see yourself allowing as a DM or you could see yourself wanting to and being allowed to play at an actual game session by your DM.
• The fifth vote is to be given to the entry that you believe is the "Most Unique". This vote is cast for the entry that you least expected to see made for this competition and that stands out the most compared to it's peers.
• You may apply all types of votes to the same entry (but you of course cannot select the same entry for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place), but doing this does not better the chances of that entry winning anymore than if you selected three separate entries.
• Once you make your vote, that's final. You can not take it back or change it. The first vote I see and tally on the scoreboard is how it will be until the end of the voting period.
• Entrants are not allowed to place any votes for their own entries.
• Please give reasoning for why you selected an entry as the recipient of any of your votes.
• Please Bold your choice for each vote.
• In the case of any ties Tanuki Tales will cast the tiebreaker vote.

The voting will remain open through October 31st, and the winners will be declared on November 1st.

[caledscratcher]

1st: The candy witch. Definitely unique and unexpected, I absolutely adore it.
2nd: The mandjet. This thing combines akasha and transformers, both of which I love. Not quite as awesomely unique as the candy witch, but still great.
3rd: The clockwork guardian. It's just cool.
Most Likely To See Play: The mandjet. I'm planning on running some akashic campaigns a little bit down the road, so the more awesome material I can present to my players the better.
Most Unique: The candy witch! I don't think I need to say anything else!

[Almarck]

Okay, I'm surprised only one other person voted thus far. I was actually quite intimidated by the process of voting, mostly because I was scared of voting against myself.

But seeing as there's only one person who voted so far, I figured there was no harm to be done there, especialyl if there's other people who decide to jump in after I vote.

Writing this was actually quite difficult, not only because of my own feelings on the subject, but also to attempt to rationalize how these entries fit when actually put up against the standard for accuracy. How exactly are we supposed to define construct, for the purposes of this vote?

I suppose the best I can do is to be impartial on the subject and instead judge based on quality of the work given.

[B]Third place goes to Clockwork Crucible[B]This is as far as I know is the only entry in the contest, any Pathfinder Grab Bag contest, to revolve around an artifact. While this in of itself makes it worthy to note, I feel the entry would have won a higher vote if simply more information was provided, such as if the Clockwork creature template is the same one in one of the monster manuals.
I actually thought of making a "machine plague" for making my entry in the contest, so I am quite surprised to see someone else use that. Overall, I can't say it's a bad entry, barring that it needs more important. I can at least say it's something workable and able to be used as an antagonist in a game.

Second place and most unique goes to the Candy Witch. I'll admit that this is probably the entry that stretches the spirit of the contest's theme of "construct" farther than any other and wins the contest of uniqueness because of that. The class as is stands doesn't really feel like it "focuses" on creating minions, at least from the read through I did on it. On the other hand, it's certainly the most unique entry with a very identifiable basis from folklore. I can't really say much against it, other than what I already have. If the theme was "fairy tales" this would deserve my first vote as it stands, I'll give it my second.

First place goes to Necromite golem. While the entry is for a moster, I do like the fact that it is quite unique despite that. The monster is composed of two parts, an animate swarm and the chasis that the swarm resides in. It reminds me quite a bit of the nanite infestation commonly seen in grey goo scenarios, though obviously given a more magic flair. I think though that the entry could be improved with the addition of more traits to reflect the fact it's technically "undead" since its fluff says its made by the caged soul of an outsider as well as a recipie for making one, but otherwise, it stands first.

Most likely to see play is Clockwork Guardian. I don't really see custom classes being played at any of the games I am in since we go for published material unless it's something like a "fix" to a percieved underwhelming class. Because of this alone, monsters immediately jump up in the priority list and of the monsters presented, Clockwork guardian does seem like the most likely to see play because of its relative simplicity.

Honorable mentions:
Mandjet is noteworthy. While I like Transformers and have always wanted to use MoI and AM sytesms, I cannot rate this higher because of how incomplete the entry feels. Other than the blurb given up top over the very basic history, there isn't much information really put forward to give GMs or the player about the process of becoming a transformer, why you start out with human form, and of course the lack of explanation on vehicle modes and how they fit (or are useful in a lower tech setting more Pathfinder falls into), since it feels tacked on without the explanation. Also, an explanation of the name might b

Clockwork Guardian is simply too bland. While I think the entry is a solid monster, I find myself unable to give a vote to it simply because the concept has been done a little too much in my experience. Its simple and easy to imagine, yes, making it a shoe in to easily be used in most games, but because of that, it doesn't feel like it stands out enough to warrant a vote in any other category. On a certain note, I think musket should have been called a "cannon" instead, since we're talking about a large killing machine and well, at those sizes its hard to call anything small arms and the fact that I can't see how a machine that big would possibly reload it like a standard rifle.

[MrNobody]

Sorry for being late: here i cast my votes!

First place and Most unique entry goes to the Crucible: an impressive, deadly, disease spreading and intelligent artifact. Perfectly built, unexpected... i don't think i've more to say: it's awsome!

Second place goes to Risen men: really nice background concept, neat mechanics for a doomsday survivor! I like how you made this construct half alive and half machine (Shadow of life). The additional options are expecially good: ceramic body made me think about making a porcelain-like risen man bard, like a puppet master... really cool!

Third place and Most likely to see game goes to The necromite golem: beautiful monster, i'm trying to figure out how to use it inside a campaign i'm running (with a lot of constructs and warforgeds but also with a necromancer involved). It somehow reminds me the replicators from Stargate SG-1, but probably only because of those tiny bits of metal...
Anyway, it's really good, even if somehow it looks like being only a beginning: i'm not saying it's unfinished , but that it looks like a small seed from which a beautiful plant is ready to sprout.
Second place and MLSG, and the hope you'll continue working on it in the future.

[gr8artist]

My own votes will be as follows.

First Place - The Crucible
Obviously turning creatures into constructs makes you a shoe-in for adherence to the theme, but it was the excellent use of the artifact entry type, and the really overwhelming power that earned it the most recognition.

Second Place - Clockwork Guardian
We have living constructs, gingerbread constructs, undead constructs, biological constructs, and humorous constructs. Your entry perhaps adhered to the theme more than any other, but it needed a little more flair and pizazz.

Third Place - Risen Men
I really like the concept and the work you put into this. While it might still have some issues, I think it was an excellent job of making Alphonse Elric apocalypse survivors.

Most Unique - Candy Witch
Well executed, humorous and interesting, and with a fun spin on the concept. You're a little off the rails, but I definitely wasn't expecting it.

Most Likely to See Play - Risen Men
While the CW G is probably the most usable from a DM perspective, I think players will really enjoy this race and flock to it.

[Prehysterical]

I don't trust myself to vote objectively on which entries are better than others, but I will say the Most Unique and Most Likely to See Play is the Candy Witch archetype. I had to do a double-take and examine the entry in-depth when I first saw it, but it is the most creative spin on the "Construct" theme that I've seen. It also seems to be fairly faithful to the spirit of a Witch class archetype, which makes it far more attractive and likely to be allowed by DMs.

[GuyFawkes]

1st - Candy Witch
I like the flavor of this one, no pun intended. I can see some fun potential for this one.

2nd - Clockwork Guardian
Because I like clockwork.

3rd - The Crucible
Aka the All-Spark. I like it.

Most Likely To See Play - Candy Witch
Most Unique - The Crucible

[gr8artist]

Tallied to here.

[Warpwolf16]

1st - Mandjet
I like the flavor of this class as well as the Incarnum/Akasha system.

2nd - The Crucible
This reminds me of the machine cyst from a old dragon magazine, I have plans for this beauty.

3rd - Necromite Golem
The idea of a golem made of more or less necrotic nanomachines is awesome

Most Likely To See Play - Mandjet
Most Unique - The Crucible

[gr8artist]

Tallied, and welcome back to the competition, apparently. Interested in joining us for the next round?

[gr8artist]

I got a tiebreaker vote from Tanta, so here are the results.

First place: The Crucible
Second place: Candy Witch
Third place: Mandjet
Most Likely to See Play: Candy Witch
Most Unique Entry: Candy Witch