Whispering Gloves

[Shawn Kowalke]

Whispering Gloves
Aura faint illusion and transmutation; CL 5th
Slot hands; Price 10,000 gp; Weight -
Description
These items are highly sought by scouts, thieves, and assassins. They make the wearers fingers more nimble, and also completely silent. The wearer gains a +5 competence bonus to Disable Device checks. The gloves also project a very short range silence spell, so that anything touched by the wearer or held in their hands makes no sound, even if smashed or broken. Thus picking a locked door will not make a telltale clicking noise audible to those on the other side, holding a hand over a victims mouth will cause them to scream in complete silence, and breaking a window will make no sound at all, though pieces of glass clattering to the floor will still be audible. The range of the silence is only a few inches, so knocking on a door will produce no sound but hammering it down still will because of the jarring in the frame.
If the wearer presses a finger to his lips and speaks, no sound will come out, but the words will be audible to anyone he chooses in his line of sight identical to a message spell.
Construction
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, silence, message, creator must have 1 level in rogue class; Cost 5000 gp

[Clark Peterson]

Another of the "everyone will want one" items. I always look sideways at these. But a good item. Sure I think it is middle of the pack, but that is still middle of the pack of top 32 so that is nothing to be ashamed of. Welcome to the contest and bring it up a notch and you should be fine.

[Wolfgang Baur]

Heck yeah, everyone wants one. But Disable Device is a fairly particular skill, and GMs who enforce some noise effects in a stealth game are also rare.

The reusable message seems abusable, but really, this is a good item.

More power to the rogues. I like this item. Keep.

[Sean K Reynolds]

I like it!

Despite the fact that it tells you it's "highly sought by" certain kinds of people. :p :)

[Steve Miller]

I agree that these items would be highly sought by scouts, thieves, and assassins - a little too much perhaps. Especially if the GM doesn't let them make a stealth checks along with their disable device checks. Alchemists, ninja, prestige class assassins, and certain ranger archetypes may take offense to the rogue class in the requirements.

[Mike Welham]

Welcome to the Top 32, Albanus!

We have another "prized by" item that Sean cautioned against, but that doesn't matter when you've done something very straightforward in an elegant way. I think the requirements should include a number of ranks in Disable Device and/or Stealth, rather than a level of rogue, but that's a minor quibble (Another quibble is "wearers" instead of "wearer's"—just make sure you proofread your future entries). I do have a halfling rogue who would love to have the gloves...

Congratulations and best of luck to you in the contest!

[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!

Aside from some minor language ("wearer's fingers") and template goofs (requirement spells should be in alphabetical order, cost of "5,000"), this is a solid item. I really like the image of a character using them to hold a hand over a target's mouth to silence them. That's very cinematic. I'd probably limit the message ability to 3/day, but other than that this item is certainly Superstar-worthy. Well done! Best of luck in the archetype round!

[Chris Shaeffer]

Oh yeah, I remember seeing these and thinking, "They're eyerollingly useful for certain characters, but oh how I'd want them." It's one of those things you're surprised doesn't exist.

I'm seldom a fan of the +5 to X skill aspect of items. I think it stands well enough on its own without that.

Glove-bro love, man. :D

[Garrett Guillotte]

This item made my keep list and earned multiple votes; it's a rare item that complicates the GM's life in a good way by encouraging more creative obstacles without breaking balance.

The provided examples are great--it earned my vote by explicitly muffling screams--and I want to see that sort of thing more often in wondrous items. PCs and GMs should go wild with emergent applications.

The walkie-talkie effect would get line-item vetoed in my game. The Disable Device bonus is unnecessary; thematically, I'd prefer a Sleight of Hand bonus or a specialized Stealth bonus, say to stealthy climbing or silencing the wearer's breathing while hiding.

[Orthos]

I have to admit I was not particularly impressed by this one. I recall seeing it several times and voting against it most if not all of them. The silence tricks did not interest me and the message ability seemed too much "magic phone/walkie-talkie".

Then again, if there's one niche in the game I never play, it's stealthy characters. I love casters (especially spont-casters) and good ol' heavy-swinging meleers and the occasional archer, but rogues and other sneaky types just aren't my thing. The potential uses of a stealth-focused item are likely to fly right over my head due to lack of interest or experience.

Regardless, seems I'm in the minority. Congratulations. =)

[Drejk]

Another vote up and down depending upon opposite item quality. Despite being favored by... I found it to be decent and I think it will fulfill its role properly.

[R D Ramsey]

From the title I thought this was going to be a walkie-talkie, but it turned out to have a very useful mechanic on top of that. Was a regular upvote for me and on my 28 item keep list!

[Kiel Howell]

Sean said exactly what I was thinking. I like the item, I like that it is more power to the Rogue, but please avoid those types of phrases and writing in general!

Well done and Congrats!

[James Olchak]

Thematically very strong, and mechanically stout, almost utilitarian. Recommended.

[Thomas LeBlanc]

Besides the first ("highly sought") and last (no usage limit) sentence of the description, I enjoyed this item as it tinkers in a fun space to play in. My only concern is these are abusable by a smart player. For example, if I hold my hand over the caster's mouth, no one can hear him casting. Or the soundless strike when hitting an enemy. I think the cost is much too low for this item.

[Garrett Guillotte]

Thomas LeBlanc wrote:

For example, if I hold my hand over the caster's mouth, no one can hear him casting.

Since the item specifically says the effects are like silence, I'd expect "spells with verbal components cannot be cast" in that scenario.

Likewise, I'd have to think long and hard about what happens when a character with whispering gloves puts his hands over his ears and is hit by a sonic attack.

[Shawn Kowalke]

Thanks very much for the feedback everyone! It is a tremendous honor to have advanced to the next round!

I completely agree with the criticism from a lot of people that this item has the potential to be abused by a smart player. While I see the inherent risks in that, it wasn't by accident. I'm a huge fan of my players thinking outside the box, and there's very little that I am likely to reward them more for. Most of the fellas in my gaming group are fairly new players, and I'm proudest poppa in the world when they outsmart me or think of something I didn't rather than use their swords to solve every problem. I like giving them utilitarian items just to see what they'll come up with. I must admit that I hadn't considered the potential for defense against sonic attacks, and I'm not sure how I'd rule on that either.

And yes: completely guilty of the "highly sought." I did read all of the suggestions and guidelines, but it just seemed to fit. I had no idea I'd be seeing it so often :P

Once again, thank you all! I'm working hard on the spit and polish for next round!

[Nicholas Herold]

The image of sending a message to somebody by holding a finger over your lips and not saying anything is a really good one.

Congratulations on making the Top 32, and I'll see you in the archetype round!

[judas 147]

jummy!!

[Matt Blackie]

First of all, congratulations on making Top 32! Good luck in round two.

These are great items that I love and want for all of my rogue-like characters (and I do love rogues). They're super useful, the effect is specific and unique, and they offer a lot of room for creative use by smart players.

That is kind of the problem with them. They are very good, especially given the gloves slot (there isn't a lot of competition in that category) and relatively inexpensive price. And in addition to the silence effect, they also give +5 to Disable Device and unlimited message at will? This is treading close to the line of an item that is just doing too much for too little cost.

I'd have cut out the skill bonus--rogues already have tons of boosts to Disable Device at their disposal, and the gloves stand on their own without that crutch.

That said, this is one of those items that I wish I had come up with first. They would definitely make a solid addition to any rogue's toolbox, particularly with some tweaks to powers and limitations.

[frank gori]

The Good: Neat effects, help the underpowered rogue out, and I love the extra touch of a message effect.

The Bad: Let your audience decide who the item is "prized by" I think I downvoted you once on a close call based on this alone.

The Ugly: If anything not hearing the way your picks are interacting with a lock would penalize your disable device rolls in my opinion. Sure the BBE on the other side can't hear the "tell tale click" but you also cannot hear your pick catch the tumbler.

I had you just outside the top 32 but that still means your gloves were better than hundreds of others I viewed. Congrats on making the top 32!

[agirlnamedbob]

Congrats on making it to the Top 32!

I was excited to see a rogue item I found pretty neat. I haven't played in many games where a GM has nailed me for a lock making noise, but I can think of tons of situations where something like this could be useful. Like you, I'm all about useful and coming up with new and interesting or unexpected ways to use an item. I don't know why, but the example tripped me up a bit. It felt a little clunky, but that's really a minor gripe.

Again, congrats on making it to the Top 32 and I can't wait to see what you bring to the next round!

[TwoDee]

Grats on making the top 32, dude!

"Prized by rogues..." Pshaw! This is practically a disservice to just how useful this item is, although I think everyone tackled that topic before I did so I won't dwell on it.

I absolutely loved this item during the voting and consistently voted it up, and that was because, completely separate from its utility to the rogue, it helped out multiple other classes when you thought about it, be it the humble dwarf fighter taking apart a set of hinges with an adamantine chisel, the ranger setting up a bear trap in absolute silence, or anyone attempting to climb a tree without rustling the branches. However, all of these paled in comparison to my first instinct of who to give this item to:

What cinched the item for me was when I thought about what a pistolero gunslinger could do with it.

[Sean McGowan]

This was a keeper for me, solely based on the mini-silence effect. That was really neat, and I wouldn't have minded more space paid to that to spell out effective uses for it. Or maybe not; as it is, it's practically one of those neat 'find your own use for it' items, like the immovable rod and the ilk.
Given the coolness of the 'main' power, though, you're really gilding the lily with the rest. The message tick is neat, though, and I'd have ranked it higher if it had stopped there.
The +5 bonus, though... well, it was another in a long line of +5 competence bonus items that really didn't need that extra level of padding. (I think the otherwise excellent Ultimate Equipment is to blame for making those bonuses so ubiquitous among the entries this year.) So it took it down a few notches in my eyes. Still quite happy to see it make the top 32; it never stopped being an item I liked.

[illuminar]

Really this is 3 items in 1.

The gloves stand on their own with just the message ability.

The gloves stand on their own with the silence ability.

The gloves stand on their own with the +5 disable divice bonus (plus its the most off theme benefit)

I would prefer it to drop the disable device bonus and then either limit the message ability or up the price. With that said the superstar aspect, in my mind, is the silence ability and this would be just as good if that were the only ability it had.

[RonarsCorruption]

Shawn, congratulations on making it in!

Your gloves are really cool, and I love how they have good application to outside-the-box thinking. That's great design.

You just have to watch that opening, ouch! It's awful, unfortuantely being an exception to the "don't do this!" rules on how to start your item. Way to be an awesome example that will inspire hundreds of terrible copies. ;)

[Richard Moore]

I wasn't thrilled by this one the first time I saw it during voting, but it did begin to grow on me after awhile. Most of my editorial nitpicks have already been noted by other posters, other than dash usage and alphabetization of spells in the construction requirements. A solid entry.

[Curaigh]

Congratulations Shawn,

You caught me by surprise and this a good thing. The gloves started out with a simple silence, but then you opened some new avenues for uses (such as the scream muffler). You paid attention to some limits (glass breaking, but not glass falling door knocking but not door rattling). Ripe for abuse but you get points for being out the box.

Suggestion for R2 (& I realize this is coming late): continue to be outside the expected. If all our games were expected they would not be much fun to play.

Congratulations and good luck.

[James Conder]

My next-door neighbour is currently drilling holes in the wall through my nap time. I'd like some whispering gloves to hold over my ears. Plus I could send him an anonymous "give it a rest" message on the wind.

I guess this means I'm a fan!

[AdamantVallation]

The one piece of constructive criticism I have though is, consistency, this item has a severe lack of it. Describing the effect as having a range of, "only a few inches" at one point, but also saying its effect spans any item held. Saying a few inches is ambiguous enough on its own, but then another statement seems to defy, or at best further muddle the issue.

The fact that a broken window or bottle will make noise because the glass after it has shattered will still make sound, seems to run contrary to the fact that when picking a lock you are holding the lock picks, not the lock itself, so shouldn't the lock still make noise, or the door/chest the lock is attached to?

The message ability of the gloves seems a bit inconsistent as well, the message spell allows for a check to overhear anything whispered, but the silence effect negates that chance, but that just seems an arbitrary ability, and is counter intuitive to the theme of item’s other effects.

These inconsistencies and ambiguities lead me to dismiss this item immediately, so for me to see it in the top 32 is surprising, but congratulations in that, as it is no small feat!

[RonarsCorruption]

You know, AdamantVallation, I hadn't even noticed that bit about a few inches versus 'any item held'. You even reference banging on a door - the only noise made is by the doorframe.

I suppose this is one of those items that requires a lot of houseruling - which is okay sometimes, but I don't think I've seen it in the top 32 before.

[Sam Harris]

Congrats on making the Top 32! This is a really cool idea, and I like items that, besides their obvious utility, give creative players a chance to come up with a new way of using them. Good luck in Round 2!

[Joseph Kellogg]

James Conder wrote:

My next-door neighbour is currently drilling holes in the wall through my nap time. I'd like some whispering gloves to hold over my ears. Plus I could send him an anonymous "give it a rest" message on the wind.

That happened to me back in my freshman year of college, the one and only time I decided to sleep through a class. Six in the morning, my neighbor decided to start hammering something. The whispering gloves would have helped, but there are really a lot of items in the contest that would have solved that problem, one way or another... >:-|

[Pedro Coelho]

Shawn,

The whispering gloves came up early while I was voting, and I think it was in my personal "voting batch" because I saw it a lot of times later on. And that was a good thing, because this item really grew on me. At first I was thrown off by the message effect, mostly because of seeing a ton of communication devices in a row, but the imagery slowly got to me. Plus, I really like rogues, and this is a neat rogue item. In the end, I was voting for it every time, and it went into my own Top 32. Congratulations for creating this great, fun item!

[GreySector]

I didn't see this come up in my voting (but then I was only a dedicated voter, not one of those marathon types). I agree with a lot of the sentiments expressed here. I love the core silence ability and would keep it the same price and drop the Disable Device bonus. I am fine with having message at-will, as it is only a zero level spell. Congratulations and good luck in the next round!

[Jon Haire]

I voted for this item a few times. I think the 2nd ability is what gives this item its mojo. Short range silence of a held item is definitely thinking outside the box.

[Joel Flank]

I guess I'm not in line with the voting public or judges on this item. Maybe that means I just dont get it, but I couldn't see wanting this item at all, other than for the +5 to disable device, and that's not a skill that I think should really have an item to enhance it that much - it makes locks and traps completely trivial for appropriate level characters.

Aside from that, while the message spell is sorta handy, in many types of games, it's not even something that comes up, and it's also a unlimited use cantrip for most spellcasters, and not very hard to have access to, certainly not by the time you can afford a 10K gp item.

As for the short range silence effect, while visually that might be cool I guess, I'm not really sure what game effect it has. The stealth skill is a whole body effect, so not making noise when you're holding something doesn't prevent you needing to make a stealth skill check in addition to what you're doing, and without rules for specifically grabbing someone's mouth with your gloved hands, I'm not sure how you'd really prevent them from screaming if you knifed them. Furthermore, as described, while it might silence their scream, it wouldn't silence them thumping to the ground, dropping what they held, knocking stuff over, etc. As much as I re-read this item, and squint at it to see how/if it would be useful, I'm just not seeing it. It almost seems like a cool special effect with no actual game impact.

[Aram bin Kaleel, Pathfinder]

Hey Shawn, congrats on making the Top 32 from your fellow Pathfinders in Winnipeg! Come out to a game day and say hi!

[Andrew Judd]

Does a rogue who walks on his hands gain a bonus to Stealth? For those who think it's too good for the price, the only way I can see that happening is if the tiny-range silence is worth more than 5k on its own.

[Shawn Kowalke]

I've only been to 1 games day so far. Thanks Aram, I'm doing my best but who has the time? :P

[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: 4/5
Almost perfect template use! Template Fu ran in and snatched a point for forgetting the comma on the very last number in the whole entry and for not alphabetizing (sorting) the spells in the construction – message should have been listed before silence. He is such a meanie.

Spelling: 5/5
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 continues with his marathon watch of Heroes in his den, he’s just starting Series 2 now so let’s not disturb him…

Readability: 5/5
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 14% (very good)
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 66.1 (nice and easy to understand)
(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 10.6 (a little high, but not terribly so)
(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, first bit short and sweet – wall of words, not easy to scan mid game play, my pet peeve, it’s one of the big contributors to your first point loss, this being coupled with... pet peeve number two, put the best power first – we should not be seeing the yawns-worthy gives bonus X to something Y as the first power. I think this may be the only point you lose though.

I really liked the small zone around the hands, playing with areas of effect catch my interest and my imagination, and I can see many uses for this beyond the examples you list. This should have been the lead in power.

Your writing could use a little tightening, for example the second sentence, the phrase “and also”. Also is just another way of saying and, so you don’t need it.

Everything else in the entry makes perfect sense to me, it’s a elegant item in it’s simplicity. You stuck with the core effect pretty well, in fact, losing the yawns-worthy bonus completely would, in my mind, make the item even stronger and not weaker.

Yes, I like this item and that’s a winner for me – so as I thought, you only lost the one point here.

Overall Impression: 4/5
Despite the template issues, which cost again here on the polish side of things, the simplicity of the item really was so good and clean. I just like it. Not more to be said really. You only lost the point here as an encouragement to double and triple check and preview a lot on your submissions.

You have set a high bar in the level of my expectation for your archetype.

Final Score: 22/25
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!

[lorimcgee]

Joel Flank wrote:

I guess I'm not in line with the voting public or judges on this item. Maybe that means I just dont get it, but I couldn't see wanting this item at all, other than for the +5 to disable device, and that's not a skill that I think should really have an item to enhance it that much - it makes locks and traps completely trivial for appropriate level characters.

Aside from that, while the message spell is sorta handy, in many types of games, it's not even something that comes up, and it's also a unlimited use cantrip for most spellcasters, and not very hard to have access to, certainly not by the time you can afford a 10K gp item.

As for the short range silence effect, google street view while visually that might be cool I guess, I'm not really sure what game effect it has. The stealth skill is a whole body effect, so not making noise when you're holding something doesn't prevent you needing to make a stealth skill check in addition to what you're doing, and without rules for specifically grabbing someone's mouth with your gloved hands, I'm not sure how you'd really prevent them from screaming if you knifed them. Furthermore, as described, while it might silence their scream, it wouldn't silence them thumping to the ground, dropping what they held, knocking stuff over, etc. As much as I re-read this item, and squint at it to see how/if it would be useful, I'm just not seeing it. It almost seems like a cool special effect with no actual game impact.

This item made my keep list and earned multiple votes; it's a rare item that complicates the GM's life in a good way by encouraging more creative obstacles without breaking balance.