Lionheart Gorget
Lionheart Gorget
Aura moderate enchantment; CL 10th
Slot neck; Price 15,000 gp; Weight —
Description
This thin brass crescent sports a large sunstone which rests against the wearer’s vocal cords when the Lionheart Gorget is fastened. Energy from the sunstone amplifies the wearer’s voice with a resonant quality which rings clear despite distance or distractions.
The Perception DC for any check to hear the wearer’s voice begins at -10 and increases by 1 per 100 feet of distance, rather than the usual 10 feet, and ignores situational penalties such as a raging storm or pitched battle. The wearer may suppress this effect as a free action.
The supernatural strength of the wearer’s voice inspires confidence in allies and fear in enemies, providing a +2 competence bonus on Diplomacy and Intimidate checks involving the wearer’s voice.
As a move action, or a swift action used in conjunction with a charge or demoralize attempt, the wearer releases a fierce battle cry, providing a +2 morale bonus on attack and damage rolls made by allies within 30 feet. This effect lasts for one round, and may be extended an additional round by the first successful attack or demoralize attempt since the beginning of the each of the wearer’s turns. The total duration of this effect cannot exceed 10 rounds per day.
Construction
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, heroism, shout; Cost 7,500 gp
COMMENTS FROM THE JUDGES:JACOB: First of all, congratulations; welcome to the Top 16 of the very first DesignFinder! This was a fun item, with some nice visuals and strongly themed effects. I was impressed by the designer’s playing with the range of Perception checks, which is a slight potential drawback of this item, but one that I think forces a player to have to decide whether he/she wants to risk being heard for the item’s benefits. Normally playing with actions is a bit risky, but I think it works here, as it could be done like a bardic performance or other similar abilities, and in this case, I like that the activation becomes a swift action when paired with a couple offensive options (demoralize in this case works really well). My biggest complaint mechanically is I’m a little confused by the extending ability -- each ally can extend it by succeeding on his/her first attack? And if so, all the duration counts together (so a 5-person party could potentially get two rounds out of it a day)? Could someone choose to not benefit from it so as to not use up that duration? I think that extension may be a little more trouble than it’s worth; I might have just limited it to 3 uses/day with each use lasting 1 round or something along those lines (as is you have to track both extension and total round usage)…
A quick quibble: It says energy from the sunstone amplifies the voice, but I think it’d be better to simply say the gorget itself amplifies the voice; the whole thing is the magic item, after all.
Template-wise, this looks good; when you use the full name of the item in the description, though, it should be lowercase and italicized. Couple small grammar things (sorry, my day job as an editor sometimes bleeds into my other work!): You want to use “that” not “which” in the first sentence and in the second sentence, you want a comma before the “which,” because it’s a nonrestrictive clause (https://www.grammarly.com/blog/comma-before-which/).
KATE: I feel like there aren’t enough gorgets in the world, so thanks for this. I love the visual description of the item itself, and the item and its abilities are really thematic, It’s nice to have items that allow martial characters to help buff their allies, and I like the detail of letting the wearer’s voice be heard at much longer distances. It makes this feel like something a general or king or queen would use. I think the wording in the last paragraph could be a lot more streamlined, probably simplifying the actual mechanics described. Nice work!
MIKE: This is a great item for a cavalier, paladin, or other morale-boosting character. The gorget has a lot of thematically linked effects, and I appreciate the consideration for its effects on opposed Perception checks. It makes a lot of sense that the wearer’s booming voice would inspire confidence in allies and cause fright for enemies. The last paragraph could have been tweaked as Kate suggested. Also, (a minor quibble) I would have thought a thunderstone would be more appropriate to power the gorget.
Congratulations and welcome to the top 16!
REP: Congratulations! This is tightly themed, well written, clean copy, and sounds like it would be fun to play with as a player or GM--a lot of what I am looking for. While I often complain about “too many abilities” in items, everything this does works in conjunction with its theme -- if you’re going to have an item do several things, tying it closely to theme like this is the way to do it.
Comments
Lots of great advice and observations from the judges. For my own observation, I found the arrangement of the abilities a bit jarring, in my opinion. The second paragraph, about the distance at which the wearer's voice could be detected and the clause about suppression seemed like it should have come at the end, placing the more pertinent factors of the item foremost. (And just for perspective, the wearer can be heard with no trouble by a person with no bonuses Taking 10 from 2,000 feet away, just talking if not suppressed.)
The way it's written, placed, and separated, makes it seem like a completely unrelated power and ability (which might be the intent), rather than that the item's enhanced and more distinctive and audible effect is what makes the other effects possible (which their wording implies strongly). For instance, if the wearer suppresses the gorget's enhanced vocals, does this prevent the benefits from having the enhanced vocals or is that just a situational ability, for calling out to people, like passing ships in the fog or something?
Other than that, I probably would put a clause about the allies of the wearer being able to hear the battle cry to be affected by the morale bonus (or wording similar to bardic performance).