3.X Ancillary Contest IV Voting Thread

[Zaydos]

Welcome one and all to the voting thread for the fourth 3.X Ancillary Contest: City Slickers. Voting will consist of each voter giving a first, a second, and a third place vote, as well as a vote for the categories of Most Original, Most Likely to See Play, and Best Use of Theme. Anyone can vote, and in fact, entrants must vote to qualify for victory.

A first place vote is worth three points, a second place vote is worth two points, and a third place vote is worth one point. Votes for the three other categories are each worth 1 point in their category. You may not vote for your own entry.

You are encouraged to include reason with your votes, though this is not absolutely required.

The class that ends up with the most points wins the contest overall, and each category goes to the class with the most votes in it. Voting starts now and will continue until 23:59 (Eastern Standard Time USA/Canada; GMT-5) on August 8 15th.

Entry	Creator	1st	2nd	3rd	Total Points	Most Original	Most Likely to See Play	Best Use of Theme
Endless Tower Discipline	Jurai	1	1	0	5	2	0	0
Bar Fighting Feats	sengmeng	0	0	3	3	0	0	1
Gang Feats	somebody27else	0	0	2	2	0	0	2
Cities as Gods	dspeyer	0	4	0	8	1	1	1
New Uses for Skills	Jormengand	1	0	1	4	0	5	0
Tricks of the Trade	ObliviMancer	2	1	0	8	1	0	0
Psionic Citycrystal	Network	3	1	1	10	1	0	1

And much of the formatting of this post was copied from Temotei's Base Class Challenge voting thread.

[Jurai]

1st Place: Psionic Citycrystal, because I can't vote for my own entry. Psionic Citycrystal also has Best Use of Theme.
2nd Place: Tricks of the Trade, because I'm not a fan of how Skill Tricks work in 3.5. I'll also give it Most Original.
3rd Place: New Skill Uses for Cities, because this is something that Wizards should have published, but didn't. This doesn't catch my attention the way the other two (or my entry) do. I'll give it Most Likely to See Play.

[Zaydos]

Votes tallied.

[ShiningStarling]

1st - Endless Tower Discipline - Novel idea, and it takes effort to make a cohesive whole of a martial discipline, well done all around ( and I don't begrudge you not liking skill tricks )

2nd - Cities as Gods - interested me the most out of any of the entries, great for cult ideas, enjoyed

3rd - Psionic Citycrystal - Not 1st because it does like... psionic stuff... that I didn't 100% get, plus the hivemind was scary, but otherwise might have been a better version of 'Cities as Gods' in my opinion.

Most Original - Endless Tower Discipline - because... I think it is, so there

Most Likely to see Play - New Skill Uses For Cities - clearly spelled out use adaptable to in-progress games even, clean enough to easily get in play

Best Use of Theme - Cities as Gods - the very theme says life and adventuring in the city, and I think this did the best job of neatly encompassing that description, and if I tried to construe the meaning further I would debate on what got this vote all day, so here it is

[Zaydos]

Votes tallied.

[Jurai]

1st - Endless Tower Discipline - Novel idea, and it takes effort to make a cohesive whole of a martial discipline, well done all around ( and I don't begrudge you not liking skill tricks )

Lol, effort. I put it together a few nights after submission for the last contest ended. I'm concerned about the discipline's subsytem being easily exploited, though.

Also, methinks thar be a typo in yer vote counter, Zaydos, matey, since I only got one vote for most original, not ten, yarr.

[Network]

1st place: Tricks of the Trade. Just a Headcold I Swear strongly reminds me of a skill trick I saw somewhere (I don't remember if it was in Complete Scoundrel or a dragon article), but I think most of them will be very useful to a city-dwelling character. I also think they are very balanced with other skill tricks; neither too good nor too bad.

2nd place: Cities as Gods. Complete Divine gives suggestions on making non-deity worshipping clerics, but I don't think I've seen it done as concretely as it is here. I think this is what the deity Urbanus (from Races of Destiny) should have been. It also helps designing local deities for almost any setting, whether that deity is really the spirit of the city (as suggested) or just resides in a small town for other reasons.

3rd place: Bar Fighting Feats. I can see a couple flaws with them (they aren't fighter bonus feats and some of the maneuvers are slightly too good, IMHO), but they are mostly good and it's a great way to make a bar brawler NPC that is a credible threat for the player characters. A drunken master with these feats would be great.

Most original: Cities as Gods. New mechanics that aren't part of an established subsystem (or move away from their subsystem) are more original than those that are, with exceptions. This is one thing that makes this entry great. Originality isn't the only good thing this homebrew has, but it is one.

Most likely to see play: New Uses for Skills. This makes a good reference for skill DC, but I find that a game master could have come up with very similar things as improvization if a player asked to do them. Of course, having them as a list for reference is always nice.

Best use of theme: Bar Fighting Feats. Because all good city inns need a bar brawler or two.

On the Endless Tower Discipline: I applaud on you being able to make a whole discipline in time for the contest (or maybe you had it in reserve, which is also good), but it doesn't have a particularly original backstory and I find homebrew disciplines too popular to really appreciate them. Also, the ability to deal 40d6 points of damage at high levels is a bit much (maybe not worse than some spells, but it does exceed the damage potential of most disciplines by a fair margin). Maybe that's just me, but while I don't see anything bad about it per see, it does feel like Generic Discipline Number 18432532 that happens to be more powerful in larger cities. An elaborate backstory and slightly toned-down abilities would probably help solve much of the issues I have with this discipline, and I would have ranked it somewhere if these changes had been done.

[Jurai]

Fluff is one of my weak points, so I apologize with regards to that.

[Debihuman]

1st Place: New Uses for Skills. This is the over all best entry. Mechanics are solid and descriptions are clear. It's lacking some bling however.

2nd Place: Cities As Gods. This was a close second but failed to describe an Urbanal and so missed the mark for that.

3rd Place:Bar Fighting Feats. Near and dear to my heart. The feats are overpowered and would need alteration to see play, but I'm a sucker for bar fights.

Most Original: Endless Tower Disciple. I like the "urban modifier" to a degree, but how does it stack with other modifiers? It looks like it could be replaced with a Circumstance modifier without any change at all. Thanks for referencing Cityscape and "city" damage. No need to rename "city" damage as "urban" damage however.

Most Likely to See Play: New Uses for Skills. Easy to incorporate without any fiddly bits.

Best Use of Theme:Gang Feats. Gangsta ' Rap just nailed it for theme. Very tight. Also, now I have a reason to create a Mob of Gangsters (as in the Mob Template), which I find rather amusing.

Help for the Psionic City Crystal: There are some things that would have helped (more time probably was the most important one).

Ow that wall of text. Nothing makes people glaze over like a wall of text. Break up your paragraphs, use lists, and bold the important text. It shows that you were rushed since it needs editing and proofreading to tighten it up and fix some awkward phrasing. Elegance is never a requirement, but it never hurts.

The name is too long and not catchy; City Psicrystal rolls off the tongue so much better.

For a Feat it simply does far too much. This probably should have been statted as a Construct.

Skill Tricks was pretty solid but a rather niche entry. I haven't used them. Also, there is no accounting for personal taste in these contests so don't take the lack of votes as any indication that your work was not up to snuff.

Debby

[1pwny]

Welp, I never got around to finishing Gang Leader and a few other feats I had planned out. It's... actually annoying. Oh well.

1st: Psionic Citycrystal. Fairly original, plenty of game mechanics, and pretty easy to understand.

2nd: Endless Tower Discipline. Probably has the largest amount of content, word-wise, and tries to be balanced.

3rd: Bar Fighting feats. They were funny. That's about it.

Most Likely to See Play: Cities as gods. I can totally see my DM just saying "Oh yeah, that city you guys are in? It's a god, and it's not happy with you.

[Jurai]

Urban Damage was a shorthand I came up with at 11 PM, and it sort of stuck after a while, hence the whole 'All Urban Damage is considered City damage (As the City Magic feat (Cityscape pp. 59-60)) for the purpose of Damage Reduction or Energy Resistance and is not affected by size increases unless the maneuver says otherwise.' It was better than saying '40d6 City Damage', especially since that's an uncommon occurrence, and typically results in the destruction of entire blocks or districts of cities.

[Zaydos]

Votes tallied.

[Zaydos]

So had the comp week from Baator last week so I forgot to pm contestants to vote so I am extending voting till the 15th while I do that and other people should feel free to vote.

[Jormengand]

Crystals, gods and gangs, in that order.

[dspeyer]

First place: Tricks of the trade

Second place and most original: city heart psi crystals

Third place and best use of theme: gang feats

Most likely to see play: new uses for skills

[Zaydos]

Votes tallied with extension less than 24 hours left to vote.

[Zaydos]

Voting is closed

1st Place: City-Psicrystals by Network. With 12 votes.

2nd Place: Tricks of the Trade by Oblivimancer. With 8 Votes + a Tie breaker. I want to use some of these tricks.

3rd Place: Cities as Gods by dspeyer. With 8 votes.

Most Original: Endless Tower Discipline by Jurai.

Most Likely to See Play: New Uses for Skills by Jormengand

Best Use of Theme: Gang Feats by Somebodyelse27.

I find it interesting that none of the top 3 placed in the subcategories.