Cinder Form Mantle

edited June 2018 in DesignFinder Chat

Cinder Form Mantle

Aura strong transmutation; CL 13th

Slot body; Price 65,500 gp; Weight 3 lb.

Description

The hundred of porcelain tiles making up this garment are connected with tiny brass links, letting it bend and shift like heavy cloth. The mantle allows the wearer to combine the versatility of wild beasts with the power of primal flame. The combined form's flesh swirls with ash and glows dully with an inner heat. Twice per day the wearer can activate the mantle as part of using another polymorph spell or effect to assume the form of an animal, magical beast, or vermin. This change lasts for the duration of the original spell or effect, although the wearer can end it prematurely as a free action. While in this form, the wearer gains special abilities based on both the original spell or effect and the fire elemental of elemental body IV, but use the size bonuses to ability scores and natural armor of the appropriately sized elemental form. Additionally, if the original form grants a swim or burrow speed, the wearer gains immunity to fire damage when swimming in lava or magma, can breathe normally, and can see through the substance as clearly as if it were water. If the wearer enters water, she is surrounded by a 5-foot radius of steam and bubbles that grant her concealment (50% miss chance) but she takes 2d6 points of damage each round she remains in water.

Construction

Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, elemental body IV, protection from energy; Cost 32,750 gp

COMMENTS FROM THE JUDGES:

JACOB: First of all, congratulations; welcome to the Top 16 of the very first DesignFinder! I love the visuals of this item, which I think the designer really captured with his writing, especially in the third sentence (though also “primal flame” adds a nice feel to it). This is a great example of just slightly tweaking the rules to make something that’s not all that different than the base spell feel cool and different and I could imagine almost any shapeshifting character wanting this item (or a fire-based caster wanting to get some shapeshifting abilities to use with this). Template use looks mostly good; it should be “lbs.” as it’s more than 1 lb.

I think the first sentence could be rewritten slightly to avoid using the verb “to be” but that’s quibbling.

KATE: This is an interesting concept for an item, combining animal shapeshifting with elemental shapeshifting. There’s a lot of thoughtfulness for what bonuses you get from which side of things, which is important with effects that modify polymorph abilities, which can already be pretty confusing. I really love that this item would let you swim through lava, as I now have a great mental image of a PC shifted into a shark swimming happily in an active volcano. I think that the drawback (damage taken while in water) is thematic and appropriate, rather than feeling tacked on. There are a couple of minor grammatical issues but nothing too egregious. I would have liked a little something to tie the themes together a bit more. How does the fire elemental aspect tie in to the animal shapeshifting aspect? That’s pretty minor, though, and I think this is a great item!

MIKE: This merges two types of shapeshifting together in a nice way, and the visuals are great. You did an excellent job of making sure all the use and corner cases for this item were covered (it would have been easy to overlook how a swim or burrow speed would apply to lava). I also like the interaction with immersion into water. I had a difficult time figuring out how animal shapeshifting and fire elemental shapeshifting tied together, and I think a little clause would have helped tie the themes together. I could reason that a druidic character with ties to the natural world and the elements would create this item, so it wasn’t a dealbreaker.
Congratulations and welcome to the top 16!


REP: Congratulations! I enjoy the imagery of the cloak itself and the effect it creates. However, as a player, I’d get too frustrated trying to figure out which abilities I get based on how to combine the shapeshifting effect with elemental body IV, and/or as a GM adjudicating what a player may try to accomplish with it. I think the concept could have been applied more.simply with similar effect, e.g., elemental.body + a small range of natural attacks. Good clean copy and template.

Comments

  • Congratulations Rudy!
    This is one of my favorite of those items presented. I like elementals and I like shapechanging aspects of the game.  This blends the two well together and I really like the options it gives to the wearer. It may be a little heavy on bookkeeping during play, but I think players will have their favorite combinations and get to learn them quickly. 

    The description is particularly gripping. After reading that first line I heard/felt  fingernails on chalkboards as I imagined all the various plates sliding along each other. *shiver* 

    Good luck. 
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