3.5e Arena Manager

Each player starts with a 1st level FIGHTER or 1st level COMBATANT ?

Item availability?

Starting money?

PHB classes/races....what about feats/spells/etc?

I'm sure I'll have more questions.

Whenever I say "fighter" I am refering to one who fights in the arena... could be any class..

Starting money is 1000 gp. The manager pays for everything.

I thought I mentioned what items were available.. items from the PHB, and potions and scrolls from the DMG.

Everything else is done out of the PHB (feats, spells, etc)

-expresses interest in-

But there better be more =O. I'll comment more later.

Hmmm, this sounds interesting. Sort of like D&D Tycoon. I'm in!

So your 100g is a naked 1st level character and your 1k gold must be used to supply him? That's what I was asking. =)

No magic armor/weapons....MW allowed?

oh, and I'm interested...just trying to figure out how to utilize my money =)

[quote="Muddy"][i]Two men stand but twenty feet from one another. A crowd of 20,000+ people cheer them on. "Dalpheus! Dalpheus! Dalpheus!" they shout as the larger of the two men draws a large axe and a broad warhammer. Raising both into the air he lets out a bellowing war cry and bashes his sholder with the fist holding the warhammer. Dalpheus is a crowd favorite in the arena, having defeated every opponant he has faced with barbaric strength. The crowd's cheers slowly die down as the king stands from his throne-like seat, all eyes are upon him. He raises his left arm and stands there, observing the two combatants. Dalpheus, breathing heavily, stands a good foot taller than the other man. His opponant, a new blood in the arena stands perfectly still, perfectly calm. It is hard to feel anything but pity for the man, as he apparently does not realize the fate that is about to greet him. The king throws his arm down and the battle begins. The crowd cheers once again "Dalpheus! Dalpheus!" Dalpheus's opponant draws a short sword and a dagger and stands still eyeing the hulking barbarian before him. Dalpheus releases another war cry and charges towards his tiny opponant. He swings his warhammer first, followed by his large axe, but his opponant steps to the side with great ease. Dalpheus responds by spinning around and swinging his warhammer at his opponant's head, who mearly leans back, allowing the solid block of metal to whiz by, inches infront of his face. Dalpheus then raises his battle axe and swings down at his opponant, but his opponant is too quick and dodges forward under Dalpheuses arm. In one fluid motion his opponant thrusts his short sword up into Dalpheus's chest. Dalpheus stumbles forward, surprised by his opponants strike, and falls forward, motionless. The crowd remains silent for a few moments, then begin shouting the name of their new champion.[/i]

[b][u]The Managers[/u]-[/b] Each player assumes the roll of an Arena Manager and runs his own team of arena combatants.
[u]Budget[/u]- Each Manager starts off with a budget of 1000 GP
[u]Contracts[/u]- Each manager starts with one first level fighter, and must have at least one contracted fighter at all times. Managers may purchase new contracts (first level fighter) for 100 GP a piece. Managers may also sell their contracts to other managers at whatever price they agree upon.
[u]Schedueling[/u]- Managers may set up matches with other managers at anytime during the week, with whatever special conditions they agree upon. Furthermore, each fighter must fight atleast once a month.

[b][u]The Fighters[/u]-[/b] Each player controls a team of fighters.
[u]Creation[/u]- Each fighter is created at first level. Attributes are determined using point-buy (32 points) and only PHB races and classes are allowed.
[u]Upkeep[/u]- Each fighter requires a place to live, and food to eat. Each fighter requires a weekly upkeep of 3 GP a piece. If the manager cannot afford to pay this upkeep, then his fighters will leave him within 3 weeks.
[u]Equipment[/u]- Each fighter must be equipped with their own selection of equipment. They may be equipped with any items out of the PHB. Since magical items are somewhat rare, most arena fighters do not use them, with the exception of potions and scrolls.
[u]Healing[/u]- After each fight, all wounds may be healed for 1gp.
[u]Experience[/u]- Fighters gaine XP from fighting like normal, and level up just like normal.

If anybody is interested in playing, just make a post. If this generates interest I will make a separate thread to be used as a scoreboard with each player's statistics.

If you are interested and make a character, please use http://3ep.rpgprofiler.net to make your character sheets (and don't forget to make them available to the public)

-Muds

Clarification: I know I said I am currently pinched for time, however since this will be schedueled as people are ready to play and sessions most likely won't last more than an hour at a time, I should not have a problem running this.

EDIT: Okay, there is a lot more I wanted to write about right now, such as betting and popularity, but I am so very tired at the moment. I will go back through there and edit/add things later.[/quote]

Two questions
A -
100 GP for a new character, does that include their equipment? Or is that the comission to sign them on. If so, do they buy their own equipment [starting money] or do you furnish them? Perhaps recyling equipment, or hand me-downs.

B - A contenders wage should increase [expontentially] with level, due to pride & arrogance. Ex, a 5rd level fighter undoublty feels more important then a 1st level fighter. Under current rules, they make the same amount of money.

[W = Wage, or 'Y']
[L = Level, or 'X']
So Far:
W=3

Possible
W=L*3

So, 5th level = 15 GP, and the 1sty gets 3. Makes sense, But the power of a combatant does not scale linearaly, so I'd go with something like, W=((L*.5)^2)+3

Lets look at a graph shall we?

[img]http://www.opnpw.com/images/misc/wagegraph.gif[/img]

So, as you can see, the [W=((L*.5)^2)+3] Much more heavily favors the hgiher level characters, and makes hording a vast supply of hgiher level characters harder.

Just my thoughts.

I agree with Tux's B statement wholeheartedly. (I was going to post about that as soon as I got home, but eh, he beat me to it) However, the price (3 GP per gladiator) is a bit ... tiny. Unless you're feeding them peasent's food, not feeding yourself, not paying for anything such as accomodations or training, and ignoring any external costs, the actual weekly cost of One Person rounds more out to about 5 GP per person (+ an additional 5 GP as a base upkeep no matter what, for _your_ food and 'rent')

In addition, as the gladiator gains levels, they need more training, food, and perhaps even wages. I wouldn't base the upkeep on level alone, include reputation and charisma (and maybe even their class/race).

[quote]100 GP for a new character, does that include their equipment?[/quote]

I'm pretty sure they start out naked. Which begs the question: Who is the arena manager paying? Recycling equipment was my thought, unless there were 'special condictions' like "The loser is cremated along with his equipment"

---

The two things I can think of at the moment that need 'more information' are how to gain money and how to lose money. If there's anything antiquity has taught us... it's that being an arena manager can be a very lucrative business... both in terms of money and in terms of power.

Oh, and how freeform can the battles be? Just an ol' sand-filled arena? Can we fight in a pit? Can we fight in the air (on a cloud or perhaps very large pillar)? Can we fight in a volcano? Can we fight with extravagant creatures in the mix (Like bears)? How about in a reverse gravity zone, or a "Thieves Challenge" style arena?

Dielzen, Yes, you can buy MW items. They are in the PHB after all :p For now I am going to restrict magic items. I might decide magic items whose price is no greater than 2000gp or something...

Tux, the 100 GP is for the contract, you must then spend additional money on their equipment. I am beginning to think the budget should be increased to lets say... 3000 gp.. I kind of agree with you about the wages, because undoutable, higher level characters will bring in better money. I will change it so the upkeep represents their level as well. Prehaps even their reputation could be taken into account.. if a combattant has like a 12/1 win/loss ratio, they are definitely going to think themselves better than their fellow fighters..

I will write up a document of all the rules I come up with and things people come up with, and when I feel its done I will edit my first post. Until then,
everybody interested, work on a first level character. Your budget is now 3000 gp.

Sorry Acid, missed your post (must have been posting at the same time)

My thoughts are-
-Winning Money: Each fight, win or loss, will bring in some sort of revenue. The money made on a loss will be insignificant, so that no profit can be made on losses alone. The other idea was for betting. Just for the sake of sakiness, you wont be allowed to bet against your fighter, ever (for obvious reasons).
-Losing Money: Well.. this one is easy. You spend money on your fighters (buying them, equipping them, paying their upkeeps..) and of course betting.

As far as the battles themselves.. I will make a host of different arena settings you can use. Hell.. this arena is so pimp its got a gigantic scry globe in the middle so patrons can even veiw those wacky battles (such as the ones in the sky). All stipulations are agreed upon by the manager pre match. I would recomend that the majority of battles be fought in the arena because I cannot imagine fighting in the sky being anything but expensive.

And something I forgot to adress in my previous post.. Equipment.. hmm.. So long as the combattant is alive and under your employment, the equipment is his.. (that way you cant move the +1 keen scimitar, +2 small steel sheild, and +2 full plate armour to different fighters between matches...) Other than that, the equipment is yours, so once you get rid of a fighter, you can give it to somebody else..

EDIT: This is harder than I thought it would be.. hehe..

Betting shouldn't be too hard to implement, unless you plan to figure out odds other than 1:2 for bets.

Will players go thru Dispell Magic screens or something prior to starting? I could get my Mage to cast Mage Armor on my Rogue, before he starts, improving his AC by anywhere from 1 to 4 points, depending on what kind of armor he wears.

Will there be "prep" time prior to entering the Arena for casters to gain the ability to do a few buffs (such as the aforementioned Mage Armor) ?

Will contestants be able to use skills to "play the crowd" providing minor benefits to their combat? (Think bluff/intimidate pumping up the crowd and providing the player a +1 to hit, or maybe a -1 penalty to the opponent's to hit rolls or something) -- Dragon 303 had some excellent arena/gladiator feats/skill uses/flavor for this style of campaign.

Will Prestige Classes be from any source other than the DMG? (Handy when building a character to prep him for access to various pre-requisites)

Will evil alignments be allowed amongst the characters?

OH, and is this PC vs. PC or PC vs. Monster?
EDIT - punctuation is your friend~

There will be no prep period prior to the match.. I suppose each fighter will be screened pre matches (to prevent something like that)

As far as playing the crowd, I was thinking of some way to work out a popularity rating.. certain things will raise this, certain things will lower this.. how it benefeits you, I have not quite worked that out yet..

PrCs will be DMG only.

You can be any allignment you want.. sometimes the crowd likes a badboy...

It will be anyyhing.. PC vs PC, PC vs PC vs PC, PC vs Arena vs PC, PC vs Monsters.... whatever you, the managers, come up with...

VERY interesting idea.

There's a Gladiator PrC that gives some interesting ideas on the crowd's attitude, as well as some new uses for skills. A way to handle the crowd is outlined in Complete Warrior, it's rather good IMO.

[quote]There will be no prep period prior to the match.. I suppose each fighter will be screened pre matches (to prevent something like that)
[/quote]

On the contrary, there _HAS_ to be a period where the duelist is 'in the locker room preparing'... and they could sneak in a buff spell. Of course, the time between the window of buffing and the actual battle would deter such spells, but it should still be 'possible'.

Personally, I think 'sneaky', 'dishonorable' things such as this should be allowed... (Such as a rogue hiding a dagger on themselves in a fist-fight battle, if they can get past the arena manager, that is.) If there is a 'dispel magic screen', it should only be there by agreement of managers (and shouldn't be absolute either).

Besides, sneaking Mage Armor onto a rogue isn't very 'sneaky'. You could just buy a chain shirt... You probably could even hide the chain shirt, if you wanted to. I somehow doubt Muddy would let me hire an incorporeal warrior anyway. I prefer my armor not to have a duration. Wizards have upkeep, chain shirt doesn't. But eh.

All I'm going to say is... Make use of the charisma stat somehow. Please. Even int and wis play a tiny role in combat. Cha needs a place too.

As for the cash part, the revenue brought in by 'spectators' or 'the pot' should be dependant on the fighter's reputations... and should be split based on agreement by managers... (winner gets 80%, winner take all... etc) Granted, it doesn't have to be much...

I was actually going to say "be as downright deceitful as you want" but that could get unfair.. then again.. hmm.. yes.. the crowd might not like a deceitful fighter (then again they might love it..), so doing something deceitful could jeapordize your popularity.. Today in school I was working out a d% chart for crowd personality. Fighters who play to the crowds personality will become popular quick.. fighters who do something contradictory to the crowds personality lose popularity.. The only question left is.. what does popularity do! I am in an uncreative mood at the moment (as the only thing I can think off at the moment is curling up into a nice warm ball in my bed and going to sleep for 6 hours.....) The only think I can think off (without major reconstruction of the rules) is monitary differences... the crowd might bet on the fighter they like best, thus making a lil' more cash for the manager.. but could popularity have any affects in battle?

As far as everything being set up by the participating managers... sounds fun.. could spawn some very.. interesting (to say the least) games.

Popularity could have morale effects. If everyone is behind you, you feel better and have a tendancy to do better, however if the crowd is pissed at you, they will be jeering and hating you, thus penalizing your general morale (or vice versa, depending on how the gladiator likes it)

Or, you could actually get an attack bonus if the crowd's behind you. +1 if Friendly and +2 if Helpful? Conversely, a penalty if everyone's jeering at you. This would make the crowd a much more important part of the round, make it more of a focus for actions.

The reason I don't want to get into bonuses is because it could get very unfair if somebody hae a -2 penalty and is fighting someone with a +2 bonus. But I will leave this one up to the community. Emphasis on style with slight disregard for balance, or balance with no emphasis on style?

Popularity, Reputation, Charisma. All theoretical, feel free to use.

Three separate things plzkthx.

---
Popularity determines... gasp... how popular a fighter is. A high popularity can be exploited to generate more gold from spectators... among other things. A fighter's popularity rating is based solely on the opinion of the crowd, and as such, it fluctuates as much as HP.

Popularity will drain away over time. A high charisma makes it easier to gain popularity and harder to lose popularity. A low charisma makes it difficult to become popular, and incredibly easy to become the crowd pariah.

In addition, popularity could prove to be a morale boost in battle, as well as be a source of information and resources. (To balance it out, having these things would cost popularity, albeit it would probably be a net gain in the long run)

---

Reputation is different from popularity in the fact that it is relatively eternal. Think of reputation as an experience bonus to charisma, as it does add to some charisma-based skills and such. Reputation is added to the charisma bonus in order to calculate popularity change.

Reputation is used to generate gold, just like popularity. Unlike popularity, the gold generated by being reputable is always given to the fighter and his manager, regardless of how the 'pot' is split. Also, the gold generated by reputation is relatively small. (Measurable in silver pieces, or even copper pieces)

... More to come ...

EDIT: Damnit, I had a huge list of stuff, then IE crashed... too lazy to reconstruct it, so I'll summarize.

Popularity is based on the crowd. It is limited by cha score. There are some guaranteed modifiers to popularity.

Winning = +1
Losing = -1
Each Week = -1 if pop is positive, +1 if pop is negative.

Being inactive for a week = -10 + cha mod. (That's right, having a +12 to cha mod means you'll gain popularity >:O. Handle that later)

A negative popularity results in the crowd being unfair against you. Things like stray arrows, tanglefoot bags, rain of litter, wild animals, and just general booing result. Being popular has no positive impact. (No morale boost, no favors, nope). Being popular _AND_ reputable will net you some favors. (Like a replacement sword tossed from the crowd)

Popularity = The gold a fighter adds to the pot. Having a negative popularity will drain the pot. When more than half of the pot is drained from popularity, all of it is drained instead. (Which is pretty hard to accomplish). Just because your fighter is popular doesn't mean _YOU'LL_ get the gold.

Reputation: Add it to your Charisma modifier.

Reputation can never go negative. Never.

Things that affect reputation:

Winning: +1
Losing: -4 (Losing can tarnish your rep very easily)
Cheater Win: -1 (Not as bad as losing, you'll note)

Reputation: The net cash a fighter earns just for fighting. This goes direct to the fighter, not to the pot. 1 Rep = 1 gold. Note that having a reputation score (Should) increase the upkeep of a fighter, so unless you have a fighter battle more than once a week, the gold generated by rep won't do anything.

I'll post more later.

The Dragon Magazine article I mentioned earlier had two uses of the skills, one provided a +1 to init, another -1 to opponents Init (could only use one)

Your Sense Motive, opposed by opponent's Bluff -- allows you to anticipate your opponent's first move, granting a +1 insight bonus to Init

Your Perform (DC 10 + opponent's level) allows you to put on a showy display of your skill (think weapon flourishes) -- opposed by Sense Motive. If you succeed your opponent suffers a -2 init penalty. Gladiators immune to fear effects are immune to this penalty.

The other major aspect of the article deals with Fame Points, which are used to enhance certain aspects of the character during combat.

I'd be happy to put the entire article into a Word / HTML / TXT doc for you, wouldn't take long.

I've got it.. Eberron has an Action Point system.. I could just tone that down and include it in here. Even include more feats for a show off style fighter. Pretty much you expend an action point to gain another partial action, gain a bonus to skill checks, so forth. You would gain these by showing off to the crowd and such... they wont be easy to gain though...

EDIT: The additional partial action was a feat.. action surge.. just plain old action points add +1d6 to your d20 rolls. Does this seem acceptable?

Oh man, this sounds awesome.

I'm so in... teehee~

Why won't you allow like, all the other books rather than just the core?

[quote="Mekesss"]Oh man, this sounds awesome.

I'm so in... teehee~

Why won't you allow like, all the other books rather than just the core?[/quote]

Balance most likely, the splat books are rarely play-tested as deeply.

It also prevents the issue of someone being upset that they don't have X book with Y feat that Z opponent has.