Ghost Ship Binnacle

[Landon Cole]

Ghost Ship Binnacle
Aura moderate necromancy, illusion and evocation; CL 9th
Slot none; Price 20,000 gp; Weight 25 lb

Description
This three foot tall, ironwood pillar has a slot at the top to hold a compass or wayfinder (Inner Sea World Guide p299) and is usually fixed to a ship's deck near the steering device, ready for a ship's navigator or helmswoman to read. It is covered in carvings of ghostly figures attacking sinking ships.

Upon a command word being spoken, the binnacle causes the the entire crew to be affected as if by ghostly disguise and the ship appears to be a rotting hulk. This effect lasts for 9 hours each day; this duration does not need to be consecutive, but it must be spent in 1-hour increments.

If a wayfinder is placed in the binnacle, its light effect is replaced with a corpse lantern (Pathfinder Society Field Guide p57) appearing every ten feet around the edge of the ship's rail. This effect lasts for 9 minutes each day; this duration does not need to be consecutive, but it must be spent in 1-minute increments. If an ioun stone is set in the wayfinder, any AC, spell absorption, or regeneration effects apply to the ship; any other effects are lost while the wayfinder is in the binnacle.

Once per day as a swift action, the binnacle can be made, with a command word, to generate a gust of wind behind a ship's sails as a standard action, giving the ship a +10 bonus on its next upper hand check.

Construction
Requirements Craft wondrous item, corpse lanterns, ghostly disguise, gust of wind, widen spell, extend spell; Cost 10,000gp

[Clark Peterson]

I'll admit, I am not feeling this one that much as some of the other items. It is one of our weaker top items. It feels a tad derivative and as you all know I am not a big fan of the ioun stone bit, since you are really just borrowing design. That said, items I've ranked lower in the first round have produced authors that have gone really far so we will see...

[Wolfgang Baur]

I like it, but then I like seafaring adventures and I think that this fits neatly into things like the Skull & Shackles AP or the Journeys to the West seafaring adventure collection.

Magic items for ships are very much a part of these kinds of adventures, even if this one leans pretty hard on Pirates of the Caribbean for flavor.

I dunno, I think it is wondrous and it is entertaining to have shipboard magic, though I've seen better nautical items. The main problem for me that is this isn't that original: it is "Pirates of the Caribbean in a can."

[Sean K Reynolds]

Not bad, useful for sea campaigns.

It's unclear if the ioun stone effect affects the ship and crew, or just the ship itself. If it's the former, the 20k price may be too good, because giving a stone to everyone on board would be incredibly expensive.

[Mike Welham]

Welcome to the Top 32, DLandonCole!

I like the flavor for the ghost ship binnacle, and I think items benefitting ships are a wide open design space. Other than the lack of capitalization with your feat names, you did a great job following the template. The only other issue I have is the "spell in a can" and slight "swiss army knife" feel to this item, so I will caution you to stretch yourself in future rounds. Your description of the ghostly figures attacking sinking ships gives me hope that you will be able to do so.

Best of luck to you in future rounds!

[Tom Phillips]

First of all, congratulations on making the Top 32! That in itself is a major accomplishment and it’s something you should take great pride in. You rock!

Your item is well-written and designed to a tight theme. Like the other nautical items in this year's Top 32, it ties in well with Paizo's recent Skull and Shackles AP and Frog God's upcoming Razor Coast campaign. That shows you're a smart cookie and you realize how important self-promotion is in this contest. It's important to note that your design-foo allowed you to slip in to the Top 32 even with your item's obvious spell(s)-in-a-can and swiss-army-knife leanings. Hats off to you for overcoming two of Sean's don't-dos. Best of luck to you in the archetype round!

[Steve Miller]

Nice flavorful item. I appreciate the interaction with the wayfinder and ioun stones.

[Landon Cole]

I'm genuintely blown away - thank you very much to all the voters and judges!

There are some notes I put down somewhere that are calling me to turn them into my round two entry, so I'd better go...

[Kiel Howell]

I up voted this quite a few times. Congrats!

I have to say, I find myself in Clark's camp, I am not a big fan of ioun stone things.

I like the use of the wayfinder, but dislike the command word mechanic.

Maybe I haven't run or played enough of them, but I don't really find much in the nautical theme.

Congrats!

[Jeff Lee]

Landon,

Congratulations on your spot on the Top 32. (Congratulations also on being one of the few items that had me checking the dictionary...I'm a bit deficient in nautical terminology.) I really enjoyed your item. There were enough "items that work with other items" in the voting process that I think I might have been a bit biased toward yours when it first showed up. However, of those types of items, I think yours has the best design. It definitely grew on me. Didn't make my personal Top 32 (but you made the one that counts, so who cares?), but it was a keeper. Good show, and good luck.

[Orthos]

To sea! To sea! I would have loved having this around - possibly looted off a derelict, opponent's pirate ship, or in some captain's hoard - in my prior Savage Tide campaign. Perhaps it shall make an appearance in my upcoming second attempt? =D

[James Olchak]

Like I told Steve last year, I'm the worst possible audience for aquatic items. And this one does ring of recent pop-culture elements. That said, I actually like this one. The ability to disguise a ship as a derelict, by itself, is a very useful trick. Disguising the crew as undead, and the other added features, might be just gilding the lily. Recommended.

[Nicholas Herold]

I like the idea of disguising a ship as a derelict. It's a neat trick for sneaky nautical players, which is not a niche that gets much love.

Congratulations on making it into the top 32! I'll see you in the archetype round.

[James Conder]

Nice work Landon. I actually like the inclusion of the wayfinder and ioun stone (perhaps it could orbit the crow's nest, and it's nice to see an entry which uses words I need to look up!

[Joseph Kellogg]

I think this item has great flavor, but I also think it's doing a bit too much. Still quite nice, and if I were a pirate king, I'd want one ASAP!

[RonarsCorruption]

Congratulations Landon, on making it this far!

Unfortunately, while I do like the flavor of your item, I don't like it's mechanics. It feels like a grab-bag of effects, and while it's a neat tie-in to use the wayfinder, having effects from the wayfinder itself, and possible effects for things slotted into it... it gets really complex, really fast.

And, I'm also really not a fan of referencing effects from specific supplements, even Paizo ones, because the effect is useless unless the reader owns that specific book. You kinda mitigated it with a link to the d20pfsrd, but that would be useless if it were printed.

All in all, it's okay, with neat flavor, but I wouldn't have voted for it. Sorry!

[Matt Blackie]

First of all, congratulations on your success, and good luck in round two!

Now, having never seen most of the Pirates of the Caribbean films, I didn't get the same "movie-in-a-can" vibe as some of the judges, so I really liked the flavor of this item. I recall seeing and voting for it during the contest, as I thought it would be something that players would have a lot of fun playing around with in any kind of seafaring campaign.

The mechanics are a bit rocky, as some have said; it's got a lot of things going on at once, which is a lot of recordkeeping, and requires a fair deal of GM fiat when determining how or whether certain ioun stone abilities apply to the ship (since those abilities are designed for PCs, not ships, which follow different rules). I generally prefer items with zero recordkeeping requirements.

The other thing that stood out to me are the prodigious number of construction requirements; now, take this with a grain of salt, since my own item was criticized frequently for having too few construction requirements, but I tend to see three (not counting the Craft Wondrous Item feat) as the upper ceiling, and this item has five. Moreover, all of those various requirements tend to emphasize to the reader just how much the item simply duplicates the spell effects, rather than applying some sort of unique twist that can't be reproduced by casting a simple spell.

[Sean McGowan]

This didn't make my Keep folder during voting, but I feel like that was a mistake. I only saw it twice, and the second time around I found myself liking it a lot more and considered moving it. I'm almost certain a third viewing would have resulted in a change.

I think part of my initial bias may have been due to the whole 'snap in a wayfinder' aspect of it. While that's not bad in itself, it felt like a lot of items I saw were aping the 'snap in an ioun stone' part of a wayfinder, which made them feel a bit derivative. So i think that incorporating a whole wayfinder into the design (even though, really, it makes sense) just cost it a few points in my head, enough to give it an initial downvote.

Because really, there is a lot to like here; I love the notion of disguising yourself as a ghost ship. I think you should have clung to that instead of also allowing this to be a 'move your ship' item, but that's minor. Overall, it's good; much better than I thought at first sight. Apologies for my one downvote, but clearly that didn't hurt you in the long run. :-)

[agirlnamedbob]

Congrats on making it to the Top 32! I think this item does have a lot of good things going for it, but I will admit it wasn't my immediate favorite. It grew on me more after I saw it multiple times in voting, but the similarity to Pirates of the Caribbean did immediately strike me. That said, it has some differences. I'm also not usually a fan of the "item that uses other items" thing, but I liked your take on it better than most of the others I saw.

I do have a soft spot for sea-faring adventures, so I might work a modified version of this into a future game.

I can't wait to see what you bring to the next round. Good luck!

[Jason S]

This was one of my favorite items and made my keep pile. I'm glad you made it into the top 32.

I'm not sure why some reviewers got confused, but I think it's pretty obvious that ioun stones in the wayfinder affect the SHIP only. I guess if this item were revised you should be specific about it.

[Steven Helt]

I have mixed feelings about this item. I think you're gonna want to knock the archetype out of the park with an original idea in round two. However, I have said for years that cinematics comes first for me - you can fix anything but boring. And a derelict hulk that turns out to be a fully functioning pirate ship screams action sequence to me. I'd populate it with ghost touch cannons and go hunting the lost treasure of tortured undead pirates!

Aw...now I want to build a pirate character and put this on my ship. Who'll be running that pbp. Shiver me timber!

[frank gori]

The Good: I think the design here is nifty, love the changing and escallating effects.

The Bad: Had to look up the term Binnicle, if the design wasn't so cool I'd downvote based on that alone, general public can get lazy.

The Ugly: You missed an opportunity to hit a wider audience me thinks. What if you replaced the word binnicle with a stand of soem sort and instead of specifying ships you used the word craft. Now I can use your item (though it might look weird) with the caravan rules for Jade Regent. You wrote yourself into a design corner.

Just food for thought, Congrats and bask in the Glory of making the top 32 its a feather in your hat "prized by" game designer hopefulls across the land.

[Correlon]

This had my vote every time. Perhaps I am colored by currently playing the skulls and shackles ap, but the ship themed stuff really grabbed me. I loved the tricorne too.

I definitely want one of these for my ship!! That said, I couldn't decide whether the ion stone thing was cool or not. Yes it is an interesting way to use them. But it feels slightly "done already".

[Landon Cole]

OK, a bit more time to think now :)

I think it's fair to say that the ioun stones - sorry, ioun stones - are the least popular part. I just saw it as an option given that wayfinders can have ioun stones set in them. I think, in retrospect, I should have just left that out.

Beyond that, I take the point about 'Pirates of the Caribbean in a can', although I was thinking of ghost ships more generally. Given the way I wrote it up, though, I completely see where that's coming from!

I'm glad that people generally liked the flavour of the item. It's probably no surprise that I'm running Skull and Shackles at the moment.

I'm going to try to respond to everyone individually, but it's going to have to wait as work is busy and I'm working on the archetype until Friday. I would like to thank everyone for commenting; I played around with variations on the binnacle and seeing how other people have reacted are making be look again at some of the choices.

[Joel Flank]

I liked this one quite a bit while voting. Not only are magic items for ships rare (as opposed to magic items that ARE ships, which are useful, but boring), but I appreciated the sloting in an ioun stone to give the benefits to the ship. I didn't see that as derrivative at all, since slotting an ioun stone into a wayfinder just stops if orbiting your head, and gives a resonant power. Your binacle transforms the ioun stone to target something else entirely, which to me is pretty new, and gives the item a lot more versatility.

Looking forward to more of your work.

[Giorgios Abate]

I've been itching to play a female pirate rogue who goes on adventure with a very focus goal, gather and form her own crew!. Yeah, She'd like that for her boat!.

Congratulations Landon!, I eagerly await your archetype as well, good luck!.

[Richard Moore]

I like this item for the wow-factor it inspires, but I think the gust of wind effect is just a bit too much - it's an extra added bonus that pushes the item just over the line into SAK territory for me. I'll also admit to a bias here, because I am burned out on the whole ioun stone/wayfinder thing; I don't particularly like that interaction of effects to begin with, and this doesn't make me like it any more. However, it was definitely a smart move to choose a nautical item, since this contest is on the heels of Skull & Shackles and the cusp of Razor Coast. I look forward to seeing your work in round two!

Editing nitpicks: Capitalize names of feats. Also, look up proper formatting for page citations in other works.

[Jeremy Clements]

As a current Free Captin playing in the Skull and Shackles adventure path, I can say this would come in handy for ANY ship captain or crew.
Especially the undead disguise for the ship.

Other than that...it's a little cheap for what it does. I like the Wayfinder part (good flavor), but the Ioun stone part is a little much. Giving a ship that has thousands of hit points the ability to regenerate is extremely powerful: As anybody that has had to repair their ship properly with a Craft (Wood) skill check knows.

[Sam Harris]

Congrats on making the Top 32! I really like the main "ghost ship" effect and the optics - I can see players really being wowed by this item when they first come across it. And if I were a pirate, I'd want one. Looking forward to seeing your archetype!

[Wolfboy]

I didn't like this item, in all honesty.

Too much Pirates of the Caribbean.

The writing was also underwhelming. "Upon a command word being spoken..." really bugged me.

Add in the wayfinder and ioun stone bits, the item didn't stand well enough on its own for me to vote for it very often.

[RonarsCorruption]

I'd like to bring up one more thing;

There has been an absolute surge of nautical-themed items and spells and supplements and so on with the release of Skull and Shackles. That's okay. However, items like this are targeting a book that is already out more than a full adventure path ago. This would have been a stellar item last RPG Superstar, but this year... not as much. If it had been a baba-yaga theme with the same level of flavor and polish, I think it;d be better than it is now.

[Curaigh]

Congratulations Landon,

Pirates are always a good choice probably because they can be so many classes. I liked the PFS tie-ins since the top four will be doing that I am glad you are familiar with OP. I like the add a wayfinder add an ioun stone bit, but it seems risky to me from a design point, as Clark pointed out. Still this was in my Keep Pile, so thank you.

Suggestions for future rounds: bring out the guns. The mimicry of Pirates and the dependence on other items (in the eyes of many readers at least) needs to be countered by raw creativity.

Good luck and nice job. :)

[Template Fu]

As prior entries will tell you, Template Fu is one mean point eating machine, but will also praise where praise is due.

These reviews being this in depth usually take me a while to do and they get fitted in around other demands on my time, so please bear with me if I haven’t gotten to your item yet. I will get there in the end.

Review Caveat: I try to keep things totally dispassionate and all comments herein are my own. Having not made the illustrious levels that you have achieved this year, I can only caveat that anything I propose in feedback may not be totally in line with what Paizo thinks or needs of its freelance game designers, so do consider carefully any and all feedback I make under this light.

I start your review with…

Congratulations on being selected by the public at large and then the stalwart judges!

Review Breakdown:

Template: 3/5
Hungry! Yes, Template Fu points to your weight, singular lb. rather than lbs. and the period is missing too on the abbreviation.

The capitalization is also incorrect on the Requirements and all feats should come before the spells list, and be capitalized in the same as the Craft Wondrous Item feat is.

Template Fu walks away, with a point in each claw, trying to decide which to chew on first, muttering that he was glad to see you hadn’t italicized the commas (well done, that is a common mis-step with multiple spells).

Spelling: 4/5
This bit IS boilerplate to avoid confusion. Everyone should know to use US English, so you just know that I am going to eat points for stray ‘u’ letters and similar.

Template Fu runs in for another point helping – second paragraph, the word “the” is repeated (not exactly spelling, but neither is it template, so here seems the best fit for this). This indicates one of two things, a rush on the entry or insufficient reviews, don’t let it happen going forwards, it will hurt you bad in later rounds.

Readability: 3/5
These are readings you can get from most spelling and grammar check options in word processors, for this, I am pasting everyone’s description into Word for consistency. My grading’s are purely my own personal feelings for target scores but it should be noted these are very helpful during development to spot problems in your writing, especially passivity.

Passive Sentences 75% (-2 pts., work hard on this, or Sean will pounce!)
There are whole threads on this and it is possible to get 0%, which is wicked, but I would expect scores of less than 20% to be around the ideal mark for item descriptions (sometimes, you need the passive, but only rarely).

Flesch Reading Ease 62.8 (good score, spoilt by the passive style)
(0-30 best understood by university graduates, 60-70 easily understood by 13-15 year olds, 90-100 easily understood by 11 year olds)

Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level 9.9 (another acceptable score here)
(This equates to the grades found in the US schooling system, e,g. 8.2 means it should be understandable by the average 8th grade student)

Me as a Designer Review: 4/5
Ok, passiveness was flagged, big style, one of the highest percentages recorded in the first half of my reviews. This style is something I worked on big time this year and it is not easy to break those habits, but work on this you must (ohh, bit yoda). You will find word counts hit you less hard and what you write will be stronger and cleaner. You may never eliminate it completely from your style, but 75% is way, way, too much. I thought I would have a go at re-arranging your first paragraph to try and illustrate the difference it can make – you get to spot words and phrases that are just bloat (points at “usually”) … and here is where I fluff it myself, here goes…

“This three foot tall pillar, carved with the images of ghostly figures attacking sinking ships, is fixed by a ship’s wheel within sight of the incumbent pilot. A slot in its top holds either the ships compass or a wayfinder (Inner Sea World Guide, page 299).”

– Get in, 0% passive, that same paragraph in your original was 100% passive – yours 55 words, mine 46. I hope that sample helps, you may have written slightly differently, but I think (hope) you would agree that the example re-write is stronger.

The next power I would say is probably the weaker power in terms of mojo, it is the third paragraph that for me is the cool factor paragraph – always stand back and examine your powers – are you cool ones buried after yawns-worthy powers. Guess what comes now. Yup. Put the COOL first, the bonus x to y, hum drum powers last.

Any item saying, here is x something’s spend them as you see fit, introduces something bad, that something is “more book-keeping”. Your item falls into this trap – it is especially bad between sessions if they are weekly or less frequent and you have to stop right in the middle of something in game. GM and player will have to track the current available duration remaining for the day – always try to design to keep the game flowing and the book-keeping as low as possible. Due to the nature of this item, you could have said, once per day for up to 9 hours duration and simply left it at that.

Finally, be very wary of +10 bonuses or greater. They run the risk of creating auto succeed situations, these remove tension and excitement from game encounters.

Generally, I think you covered the bases pretty well, but I will dock a point for the ordering of the powers in my view.

Overall Impression: 3/5
The amount of passive writing muddied an otherwise cool item, so you lose again here. But the core ideas in the item show a good creativity, you just need to work on your writing style.

With the creativity shown, I certainly look forward to your archetype with great expectations!

Final Score: 17/25
I won’t give a final score comment as I haven’t for anyone else as I work through the items.

If this interests for personal reasons, please feel free to check out everyone else’s scores and at the same time check out your competition and their feedback too!

Closing, as I started…

Congratulations on being selected!

[Landon Cole]

Very interesting - thankyou!

I've often been criticised for having a somewhat Victorian writing style and I suppose that accounts for the over-use of the passive.

I must have looked at the piece a hundred times before I submitted and I did not catch the second the. D'oh!

I wanted it to be a big bonus for the check at the beginning of shipborne combat. I am still not sure when it's appropriate to give bonuses and penalties of different amounts. It seems that it's done by the seat of the pants, unless I'm missing something.

I hope you don't mind a little pushback; isn't "This three foot tall pillar, [...], is fixed by a ship’s wheel" in the passive voice? Sorry, couldn't resist :P

More seriously, I could easily have just said 'stands by a ship's wheel', saving a word, as you rightly pointed out. I was bloody close on the word limit which, having seen a lot of the other entries, I don't like.

Anyway, thanks again for your thoughts, both here and on the other entries. It's been genuninely useful for me. Are you going to be doing similar criticism to this for the round two entries?

[Anthony Adam]

Of course, I will finish each round before moving on to the next. So yeah, the timescales hurt in reviewing too, so it's all good practice!

[Christopher Dudley]

I definitely voted for this. As a fan of the Aubrey/Maturin series, I have to appreciate any item for a ship, and admire anyone who knows what a binnacle is and can make one awesome.

[Daniel Rust]

Congratulations Landon on making the Top 32!

It's good to see a representative for the Brits make it through.

Firstly, excellent use of the word binnacle. It's not used enough!

There's some good atmosphere going on here. I love a good ghost ship. Ship of Horrors is one of my all time favourite modules, so this works well for me. I'm not sure about the Wayfinder as a driving force. I can see the attraction of using an iconic Pathfinder navigation tool, but the atmosphere of the PFS doesn't sit neatly with the ghost ship. I would have preferred something that had more of a horror feel to it, rather than high adventure.

Still, I like the combination of powers and I can see it making a dramatic appearance in a game.

Well done!

[Jon Haire]

This item only came up for me a few times but it did earn my votes. I really enjoyed the idea of making the ship and crew ghostly. It brought back memories of the haunted ship from the old desert modules on the glass desert. I could easily visualize the effect and that gives this item mojo.

[Lurlinerife]

Curaigh wrote:

Congratulations Landon, slope game 3D online

Pirates are always a good choice probably because they can be so many classes. I liked the PFS tie-ins since the top four will be doing that I am glad you are familiar with OP. I like the add a wayfinder add an ioun stone bit, but it seems risky to me from a design point, as Clark pointed out. Still this was in my Keep Pile, so thank you.

Suggestions for future rounds: bring out the guns. The mimicry of Pirates and the dependence on other items (in the eyes of many readers at least) needs to be countered by raw creativity.

Good luck and nice job. :)

It's unclear if the ioun stone effect affects the ship and crew, or just the ship itself. If it's the former, the 20k price may be too good, because giving a stone to everyone on board would be incredibly expensive.

[namdosan1409]

Anthony Adam wrote:

Of course, I will finish each round before moving on to the next. So yeah, the timescales hurt in reviewing too, so car games it's all good practice!

Here we have a vintage brass ship compass with a oil lamp attached to the side.