User talk:Luigifan18/Fläsräpper (3.5e Equipment)

Ratings

Ganteka Future opposes this article and rated it 0 of 4.

Somehow, an article this long is still missing information. Important information. What does being Nightmare actually entail? A transformation is mentioned but no stats and effects are given for this. How do we combat/destroy it? If you expect a story built around this thing, too bad, nothing here for you to be able to do that with. "Just make up it's opposite" is not satisfactory. This just ends up being stats, confusing, long, gotta-sift-through-and-read stats. Stats that aren't even interesting or let you do cool fun, unique things. For hilarity, hand it over to a mindless skeleton minion. I guess if you really just want to slow your game down and have it come to a crashing, dissatisfying end, you could introduce this.

	Fluffykittens opposes this article and rated it 0 of 4.
	Far too long and poorly written. Get it down to at most five paragraphs.

	Spanambula opposes this article and rated it 0 of 4.
	I'm unblocking my Oppose. Instead of my snarky comment, I'll merely point to my comment below about ridiculous save DCs, and agree with the majority of the opinions here regarding excessive length and a poor port of an item from another game universe which hasn't been made to fit well within the framework of D&D mechanics.

	Leziad opposes this article and rated it 0 of 4.
	It too fucking long, also has obnoxious abilities.

	Undead Knave opposes this article and rated it 0 of 4.
	It has a bunch of abilities that don't really make sense with either the fluff or the base material, it has a few abilities that are just stupid (such as being able to kill Immortalists and Elder Evils), and it's way longer than anyone would ever read ever. Got the fluff wrong, too. I could go on, but I really don't care to. Also, why is it an axe?

Rating Comments

While I agree with tl;dr here, that's an extremely weak reason to argue for removing an article from nav instead of just disliking it on preference. Particularly for an artifact writeup, a category that has historically had a big pile of fluff and abilities and whatever else bolted on to it. You guys want to put actual reasons in your ratings perhaps? Leziad at least suggests that there are crap abilities here, but doesn't actually say what they are. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 07:05, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

What's wrong with the abilities? Fläsräpper is the reincarnation of Soul Edge; therefore, it has the same abilities as Soul Edge. (Is nobody here familiar with the Soul Calibur series? Soul Edge f***ing eats souls.) Also, Fläsräpper is an axe because that's what it was back when it was an ordinary weapon, as the original Soul Edge (which was a sword) got destroyed a long time ago. --Luigifan18 (talk) 11:11, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Also, to address Undead Knave's complaint, the fluff is considered to take place after the end of the entire Soul Calibur series, which is why Soul Edge has been destroyed once and for all and Soul Calibur has sealed itself away. It leaves room for Namco to make as many more games in the series as they wish without being contradicted, as it can be assumed to happen long after whichever entry is chronologically the latest. The only way this can be contradicted by canon is if Soul Edge somehow manages to permanently defeat Soul Calibur (unlikely, considering that this would completely **** humanity over) or if both spirit swords are permanently destroyed at the same time (considerably more likely, considering Talim's motivations in the more recent games). Neither of these have happened as of Soul Calibur V. --Luigifan18 (talk) 11:19, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

I think the issue at hand here is do the abilities granted allow it to be used effectively in-game and still be balanced to a certain degree. Given that it has a base enhancement bonus of +5 which then continues to scale with level, this flies in the face of the RNG by giving you a simply massive bonus to attack and damage. I get that it's an artifact, but adding in a crapton of extra numbers is less cool (to me) and potentially less appealing to a DM looking for nice items to give his group than something that grants extra abilities. This means the stuff like the essentia binding and soul-eating should be made the focus of the article at the expense of the dealing damage as a way bigger axe and having a bunch of additional numbers. Even if those things fit fluff-wise (I am not familiar with the Soul Caliber series and am not qualified to comment), it's about how it translates over to the D&D setting as well. It also has the added benefit of making it shorter.

Secondly, I am of the opinion that the general rules for intelligent weapons in the game are poorly executed. Giving the wielder gobs of SLA's with the justification that the weapon is evil and takes you over is not a great strategy to me. The SLA's also encourage taking away from actually using this as a weapon and instead becoming a spellcaster with a giant axe. Maybe if it applied those things on-hit you could synergize the two, but as is me no like (pardon the butchering of grammar). I don't feel so strongly either way that I am going to rate it, but that may cover some of the things alluded to in the ratings that exist. - TG Cid (talk) 14:45, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Fläsräpper is meant to be overpowered - that's part of the temptation - but wielders pay for this by losing themselves to its corrupting influence. Just like Soul Edge. --Luigifan18 (talk) 13:10, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

OK, but adapting source materials to a D&D setting can't always be that direct. D&D is predicated on balance, and deliberately creating an item that disrupts that premise is just asking for something to not be used at all, ever. - TG Cid (talk) 20:42, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

I really hated to do it, but I toned the abilities down. (Though I might or might not revert that later - I'm kinda playing around with it at this point.) I'd like to change some of the spell abilities to go off on hit rather than at will, but that would require recalculating the Ego score and I'm not quite sure how to do that. --Luigifan18 (talk) 03:13, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Get it down to no more than three paragraphs. Seriously, TLDR. --Fluffykittens (talk) 06:07, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

I'm currently laughing at your "nerfs." Ooooh, you only need to make a DC 59 Will save now instead of a DC 60 will save if you touch the blade. Oh hey, and it's only a DC 69 caster level check to undo the memory loss instead of 70. Wow, let me go reverse my Oppose rating now. Look, I know you're going for an epic-level artifact, and I know your goal is to have the sword be so powerful no one can control it (seriously, there are gods who couldn't make that Will save), but COME ON. Reducing a few stats by 1 and reducing the crit multiplier from 5 to 4 isn't toning down the weapon's ridiculous abilities. Spanambula (talk) 08:08, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

(RESET INDENT) The fact that it's entirely too powerful to be useful aside (after a while the McGuffian just becomes straight DM fiat, Span is right here as the numbers are too high too matter to anyone not playing with the Immortal's Handbook), I do think the article's greatest issue is it's length. Summarize, condense, say more with less words. With the length as is, it's trying to be a campaign setting instead of being a weapon. If you need help, may I suggest making a bullet list. What is it? What does it look like? What does it do? Before any amount of other information, see if you can summarize those three questions in three sentences if you can. If you can, that's where you should begin.

I'll give an example; let's take my recent Apparatus of the Lobster article. What is it? It's a vehicle. What does it look like? A giant robot lobster made of bronze. What does it do? It lets you move in aquatic areas for exploration, collect things as per modern submersibles, and defend it with claws. By doing that, I think you might have an easier time of minimizing how much text you need to transmit those basic bits of information. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 11:49, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

The mechanical bits could certainly be thinned out without substantial loss, and I think it would be a good thing in general. But the fluff on this thing, and on artifacts in general, can be as long as a campaign setting for all I care... so long as they are clearly separated. I don't want to read a history lecture to understand the mechanical benefit of adding this to a game, particularly if I'm just looking for an evil artifact axe sword and am not planning on actually using the associated fluff. Separating them out makes it much easier for me to do that.

I'm not saying there aren't other problems with things here, like DC 59 anything, but I have a hard time caring about overly long fluff when it's presented in a way that I can simply ignore. Particularly on an artifact, which could well be a mini campaign setting anyway. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 04:37, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

I agree with you here, yes, technically the fluff can be infinitely long provided the right formatting. I would say he hasn't achieved that though; when I was compressing things below, I realized a lot of the extra "fluff" was just waxing excitedly over a mechanical thing in entirely too many words. Like "It eats SOULS! Like a thing with a mouth, and the soul is a burger! And it hits you! And the soul comes out! And om nom nom! Nothing can stop it! It's so cool when it's eating SOULS! Did I mention SOULS? SOULS!" They say a picture is worth 1000 words, and I'm pretty sure he was trying to encode a picture in with the amount of times he stretches out one topic into 3 paragraphs.

That said, yes, Tarkis is correct, my critique is not about the length of fluff by its own. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 04:44, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

A Helping Hand, A Slap Awake

Mercyplush deployed, sending supplies.

Since you seem to have issues with summarizing this particular article, I've decided to take a crack at doing so. Mind you, there are still mechanical issues people will probably object to, and in the following I have not fixed these. Keep that in mind; this is a gross pile of abilities that really over-state what is essentially the adventures of a single mid-high level demon in a fairly mundane world.

For this, I'm leaving the first paragraph alone. It's a fine fluff paragraph and though on the long side, it is a single solid paragraph. From "Abilities of Flasrapper" onward, it should be mechanics, and it isn't, and that is by and large one of the reasons this is so long. Consider this a re-write of Abilities of Flasrapper onward.

And no, I won't be doing the fancy umlat things. Not enough time for that detail, this is really more of a guideline to help. Let's begin.

...

Flasrapper is a +4 bodyfeeder enervating unholy orgacraft greataxe that deals damage as a weapon three size larger (typically 6d6 for Medium) and a 19-20/x4 critical multiplier. All damage it deals is vile damage, and any creature slain by the weapon has their soul destroyed, preventing revival by anything short of divine intervention. Slain creatures heal the wielder and the weapon 4 points per HD of the slain creature. It has an +1 enhancement bonus, plus an additional +1 for every 5 HD of its wielder. Wielders with 15 HD or more replace the enervating property with the soulbreaker property, while wielders of 20 HD or more replace the unholy property with the unholy surge property.

Wielders capable of using essentia can invest essentia into Flasrapper, granting a stacking +1 enhancement bonus for each point of essentia used.

Flasrapper is also an intelligent weapon (CE, Int 16, Wis 20, Cha 24, Ego 59) with 10 ranks in Diplomacy, Knowledge History, Knowledge Religion, and Search, and 20 ranks in Bluff, Intimidate, Listen, Martial Lore, Sense Motive, and Spot. It also has the following spell-like abilities:

Continuous- deathwatch; At will- cause fear; 3/day-daze monster, flame strike, haste (wielder only), hold person, locate creature, shard storm.

It has a special purpose to defeat and slay all (????you never specified????), allowing it to use mass harm at will. It also possesses telepathy out to (????not specified????) and can read all languages.

Those possessed by the evil weapon often end up adopting more and more traits and behaviors of the demon within the weapon, adopting the moniker of "Nightmare", a fiendish knight clad in azure armor. While a creature can be freed of the weapon by removing the weapon from their person, after 1 year of use or possession the wielder is driven hopelessly insane, and is compelled to seek out the weapon and re-join with it by any means.

...

Alright, this was pretty rough, there is a lot to go through and I'm sure I missed things because it's just that long. Anyway, things I removed or couldn't do:

• All the fluff, out. That's what the header and footer were for.

• The thing about evil or chaotic incarnates. I don't understand incarnates well, and I couldn't quite understand the meaning well enough to compress it. That said, it seemed pretty pointless, so I dropped it.

• Everything about special exceptions about souls or soulless creatures and stuff. There are rules for these things already. Also, speak with dead has nothing to do with souls, it's a biological thing. Even if it did involve soul imprints there's no reason for the weapon to erase something unconnected.

• Soul Caliber. You went out of your way to make a Soul Edge expy, but retain Soul Caliber as is?

• Killing Elder Evils. Just kill the Lady of Pain while you're at it, see how that turns out.

• The 40 volume novels of what happens if you are less than 4 but greater than 3.14 years when the moon is full on a Wednesday if penguins are farting on a flower nonsense. Compressed to "if you have it more than a year, you're insane" because damn.

There, I hope this gives you a head start. I'm surprised I haven't opposed this yet. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 02:18, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Eiji's Soul Edge?

Hey, Eiji, didn't you make your own Soul Edge counterpart? Where is it? --Luigifan18 (talk) 07:24, 12 November 2017 (MST)

Heroes of Horror

I've been reading Heroes of Horror lately, and holy crap, this would fit right in there. I may rework Fläsräpper to use the taint mechanics in that book. --Luigifan18 (talk) 21:34, 9 December 2017 (MST)