Villainous Competition XX​I: Yarr!

[Venger]

This is kinda an awkward question, but what is the proper method (if there is one) for me to point out an apparent rules problem that a judge appears to have missed?

The normal dispute process is you PM Thurbane and he'll post it anonymously in the thread for the judge to react to.

[Korahir]

Right. I took what you mentioned into consider now



Well actually the rule say he not allowed to say anything at all. But Im OK if he thinks it is important so I told him to pm me. He not the competitor of the build you see

The rule in the OP stems from a round where disputes from the sidelines caused issues. This is why every dispute should be run through the chairman.

[Korahir]

Thats why I told him pm since only builder can dispute

Which you shouldn't have done. Instead tell him to pm the chairman and Thurbane can decide whether the dispute is necessary and forward it to you anonymiously or deem it not relevant. Every dispute is filtered by the chairman to guarantee a civilized dispute process which shouldn't mean that anything happened this round that is a major problem but it is just a safety measure.

[zergling.exe]

Thats why I told him pm since only builder can dispute

I believe the reasoning behind curbing sideline rules corrections on the judges was so that judges wouldn't have to defend their judging from a million people who view something differently and to put any defense of the build in the builder's hands. That way judges are under less flak from people who don't really have any cards in the competition.

[Thurbane]

This is kinda an awkward question, but what is the proper method (if there is one) for me to point out an apparent rules problem that a judge appears to have missed?

The correct method, as per the OP, is to wait until AFTER the final reveal.

The normal dispute process is you PM Thurbane and he'll post it anonymously in the thread for the judge to react to.

That's actually not correct either.

It's not for any spectators to comment on the legality or any other issues with an entry.

If someone feels strongly enough that they simply MUST comment on it, then commit to full judging and post the issue there.

I believe the reasoning behind curbing sideline rules corrections on the judges was so that judges wouldn't have to defend their judging from a million people who view something differently and to put any defense of the build in the builder's hands. That way judges are under less flak from people who don't really have any cards in the competition.

And that is exactly the point, thank you.

Similar instances have seriously derailed previous competitions.

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In the op it say not to mention it but if you think it really important Im OK if you pm me

And knowing full well it was the wrong thing, you asked to be PMd anyway.

I'm getting close to enacting another ban here. Please consider this a first and final warning.

In fact, I'm getting close to quitting this thing all together. Although I suspect that's what some people want, so part of me wants to stubbornly stick with it.

IF YOU DON'T KNOW HOW SOMETHING WORKS, PM ME (AND ONLY ME) AND WAIT FOR AN ANSWER! THIS GOES FOR EVERYBODY! NO VIGILANTE JUDGING OR TRYING TO CIRCUMVENT ESTABLISHED COMPETITION RULES!

I'm getting really sick of people trying to pre-empt me or question how I do things.

[Thurbane]

Here are the disputes so far. In case I need to spell it out, please reply to these publically, in this thread:

Thanks for judging Yklikt! One dispute:

Elegance: 4 One problem, Corpsecrafter feat line. It is useless for you. Other than that I see no problems with the build.

Ulgaal creates hordes of undead with his SLA Create Undead and Animate Dead and all of those gain the buffs of the corpsecrafter feat line. Can you go into more detail why that is useless? Do you think that the Corpsecrafter feat line doesn't work with Spell like abilities because I am almost 100% sure they do. Spell like abilities are spells cast but cannot be changed by metamagic feats. The Corpsecrafter line of feats are not metamagic feats, they simply apply to all necromancy spells casted to create undead, no matter if it is an SLA or not.

There may be another to follow.

PS are the forums acting really glitchy for anyone else recently? In the last couple of days, some threads won;t load, or won't load a reply screen properly?

[Thurbane]

Sorry If I made you mad Thurbane, But the guy who wanted to pm is not a builder of the thing. Because Im not sure you got that.

Yes, I amended my post after I realised.

I value your judging, we are always grateful for someone to take the time to judge.

If you ever have any questions about how things are done here, please ask me and wait for a reply. Do not make your own call on how things should be handled.

Judges have freedom on their judging criteria; this does not mean they get to selectively ignore established rules or procedures.

[Inevitability]

Wow Thurbane, if you are this stressed maybe you should let someone take over, give you a break.

Taking over for some time would be no problem for me. Just tell me if you'd like me to.

[Thurbane]

Taking over for some time would be no problem for me. Just tell me if you'd like me to.

I'm not stressed as such, just getting frustrated with a couple of forum users.

I'll be fine, but thanks for the offer.

[Gellhorn]

We seem a bit short on judges, so I'll throw my name into the ring. Might not be able to complete them until Thursday though, today and tomorrow are going to be busy.

First time judge too, so I'll have to recheck how people judged in the past few competitions and make a framework for myself

[InvisibleBison]

I'm sorry for sparking such a controversy, everyone. I'll make sure to comply with the competition rules in the future.

[Florian]

I'm not stressed as such, just getting frustrated with a couple of forum users.

Don´t fret. Cool competition so far, amusing, educating and a good read. Job Well done. (Now get over your PF bias :D)

[Baby Gary]

PS are the forums acting really glitchy for anyone else recently? In the last couple of days, some threads won;t load, or won't load a reply screen properly?

yep! I have had that happening to me in the last couple days, it is soooo annoying

[Deadline]

Don´t fret. Cool competition so far, amusing, educating and a good read. Job Well done. (Now get over your PF bias :D)

You know, you could always step up and be the Chairman of your very own Pathfinder Optimization contest!

Not sure what you'd call it. Iron Chef Optimization - Pathfinder edition? Who knows? But there's plenty of room to explore. For reference, here are the various optimization contest that run or have run here in the past:

• Iron Chef Optimization - Take the ingredient (a crummy Prestige Class) and make a good build out of it.
• Zinc Saucier - Try to make a build that functions identically to the ingredient without actually using the ingredient.
• Junkyard Wars - Use Ingredient A & B, but you cannot use Ingredient C. (For an example, use Conjuration (Healing) spells + Ruby Knight Vindicator, but you can't use Cleric).
• Scrap Iron Chef - I think this one involved a required ingredient and ... a theme?
• Villainous Competition - Build a Villain that fits the theme and has the required elements. Runs on CR.

I feel like I'm missing one more, but can't recall at the moment.

I don't know Pathfinder well, but I'm sure there's an option that could work.

[Deadline]

But then he cannot compete

Hmm, good point.

Florian, if you are interested in an Optimization Comp that features Pathfinder, I'll make you a deal. Help me set it up, and I'll chair it. Given my lack of Pathfinder knowledge, I'd make a terrible contestant or judge, but I could probably manage the Chairman seat. Spin off a separate thread to discuss it (and let folks chip in) if you are interested.

[Thurbane]

Disputes part two:

Hey, so someone apparently started PMing judges that my admission doesn't work by the rules. I don't want to post anything directly in the thread because I don't want to mess up the blind judging, so I thought maybe I would PM you? As stated in my entry, The Sea Dirge was created by an epic spell. I didn't go into the specifics of the spell or the caster as I thought that was outside the bounds of the competition, but as you can see here:

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Life_(Epic_Spell_Seed)

according to the second and third paragraphs it works just fine. I don't know the rules here that well but if you passing that along to the thread is allowed, I'd appreciate it, since someone already broke the rules (I think that is against the rules?) by talking to judges about rules issues with my entry.

Just confirm in the thread that my monster (The Sea Dirge) has a legitimate way of working by the rules, and that the person who claimed otherwise was both mistaken and that it was against the rules for them to PM judges about it. I'm hoping that's all that is necessary, as the only person who has judged thus far lowered my score after getting a PM from someone claiming my entry was no good.

...a note to entrants, if you want me to post disputes, please post verbatim what you want me to post. Thanks.

[Thurbane]

Don´t fret. Cool competition so far, amusing, educating and a good read. Job Well done. (Now get over your PF bias :D)

Thanks.

I hear your pain about PF, but as others have suggested, maybe start up a comp for a PF equivalent.

[Thurbane]

The two disputes/posts is due to a reply to me, so don't hold it against the entry.

It's up to individual judges, but generally speaking if the info wasn't present at time of posting, the judge will base judgement only on what was in the reveal post.

[Gellhorn]

Apologies- I'd hoped to get all of the judging done today, but due to travel difficulties (turns out when the bus company say one stop, they really mean another), I'll be doing it piece by piece on mobile. So yeah, if I miss something, which I probably will since first time and mobile is a fun combo, definitely do call it out in a dispute.

As for my judging criteria, I'm shamelessly cribbing them from Inevitability and Greydeath.

Spoiler: Originality

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-Start at 1.
-If the race is something I've never really seen before? Up to +1.
- Would I expect the classes in a normal game? Another +1 is up for grabs here.
- Are the classes, race or fluff something I'd expect given the competition criteria? Differs from the first two points in that something can be uncommon in regular games, but still be expected given the theme. I'll give up to 0.75 for each of the three for a maximum total of 1.5.
- Does it do a trick that's not something you'd normally see? Room for another 0.5 here.

Spoiler: Elegance

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Starting at 3 here.

Up to +2.0 for "Single Class+Prestige Class Build, fully legal, no cheese. Note that taking multiple prestige classes is fine so long as you take them fully.
Up to +1.0 for "not overly complicated, fully legal, no cheese)

Up to -1 for excessive Dipping (more than 2, and for obvious, always done things) Taking large amounts of multiple classes is better than taking small amounts of lots of classes.
Up to -1.5 for Illegalities of any colour that are not explicitly forbidden in the rules if it was theoretically possible for the build to work without them.
-0.1 for each flaw, with a maximum penalty of -0.25 in this area.

Auto 1.0 if there is an Illegality that is explicitly forbidden in the rules and the build does not work without it.

(Yup, pretty much copy and pasted from Greydeath. Hope he doesn't mind, but I feel like this is the criteria that makes the most sense - for me I'll be focusing on it mechanically in this section. Note that while you might get penalised for dipping, if you do it in an original way (so, for example, not a 2 level dip in Barbarian) I'll probably end up giving points back with the originality section)

Spoiler: Power

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First off, a disclaimer. Power is one of those things that both varies from table to table, and concept to concept. I'm predominantly going to judge this off of how well you achieve what you set out to do. In other words, mundanes typically have a lower bar here.

Starting score is 3, minimum score of 1.

-Requiring specific magic items is up to -1 unless you can either craft said items yourself. If it's a magic weapon, so long as the weapon is fairly interchangable (eg your entire strategy isn't centered around specific enchantments), that's fine and will not incur a penalty.
-Glaring weaknesses that aren't intentional as part of the concept are up to -1. If you're the wicked witch of the west, melting when a girl throws a bucket of water at you won't be penalised here, if you catch my drift.
- Can't do what you set out to do? Up to another -1 here. If you're a fighter I expect you to be able to hold your own in a fight. Casters are expected to be able to cast, and so on.
-Did you aim too low? While it's fine to have intentional weaknesses due to your concept, and I'm not expecting you to be Pun Pun, you do need to be a threat in some way. Up to -1 for this.


- Able to be a threat in multiple ways? Up to +1.5 here. Being threatening both in combat and outside of combat will score highly here.
-Able to do what you set out to do? Up to another 0.5 available here, depending on how high you set that bar for yourself.

Spoiler: Memorability

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Largely based off of how likely it is I'd remember your villain a while from now if I were to play in a campaign against them. Starts at 1 here, as always a minimum of 1 point.
- Got an interesting trick to prevent it from just being another fight? Up to +1 here.
- Got interesting fluff? Up to 2 points here.
- Am I going to remember why I fought them, or will it just be because they were there? Up to + or - 1 point, depending on the answer.

[Gellhorn]

Whelp, don't know how I did that. Fixed!

[Deadline]

So, how soon to expect first judging?

I was just about to ask you how your judging is coming along, as it looks like you still have about 6 to go.

[daremetoidareyo]

Judges so slow and unreliable now

Don't discourage new judges.

[Buufreak]

Judges so slow and unreliable now

Obviously it is because we no longer have your greatness and guidance to help all of us see the way.

[Venger]

Oh wow, novolin deleted a post before I could report it, what a shock! Thanks for quoting, people.

[daremetoidareyo]

Oh wow, novolin deleted a post before I could report it, what a shock! Thanks for quoting, people.

I reported it

[GrayDeath]

I do not mind Gellhorn, rather the opposite.

Also I.will have.time.to.judge tomorrow and.sunday, all.should be up then unless.i run into something.really strange...;)

[Buufreak]

I hope I can finish then also.

Gray death, why so many period

Because some of us post from a phone, and at times it is hard to differentiate between the space and period button, and once it is typed it is hardly worth the effort to fix it when no meaning is lost.

[Buufreak]

That makes sense

What I surprised actually is that not more disputes.

Now allow me to counter with my own question. Instead of using the edit button, like it is designed for, why do you delete your post, then repost it mildly changed?

[danielxcutter]

I dont really know what is counter meaning in this, but because if I have something new to say it look more ugly to have two post next to each other from same person.

If someone already has post after then it looks okay to just post

Just use the edit button. That's what it's for.

[Tiri]

So, I was thinking that maybe we should have a few rounds with more restrictions, in the manner of some of the earlier Villainous Competitions.

The last few rounds have had rather loose requirements for villains and as good as that is for variety I find myself somewhat missing the challenge of fulfilling more challenging requirements.