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I should start off by saying that I wrote up these rules for a Pathfinder Arena last year, before taking a long break from the forums, and I don't know how many ideas of this sort have come and gone since then. I saw the Arena of the Gods post, and it looks quite badass, but also a much more expansive (and likely more complex) sort of game. This one starts at level 1, with rules for progression through the levels, and a focus on preventing cries of foul when the spells and arrows start a-flyin'. I don't want to step on anyone's toes if there is some PvP of this type currently up and running, but if there's interest in this one I'll gladly see what I can do.
Anyways, the rules are by and large usable, if not always tidy, but original scope of the idea, which involved numerous fights and threads going on all the time, with just me to moderate them, would probably be too crazy if I ended up getting a lot of interest. To find out whether or not that interest is even something to worry about, I thought I'd post everything here, so you all can take a look at the ideas, tell me what's dumb, remind me that I've yet to actually draw out a map for the arena, and potentially mock up some characters to give it a test run.
The current rules for actual combat are a bit rough, as I'm still looking for a way to make awesome PvP happen without needing to rely too much on player/character seperation (since it's totally possible to get into the competitive spirit, even when you're not a jerk). I'd love any feedback and new ideas on how to run two players against one another without the DM (Arbiter in this case) having to post all of the necessary info to each from the other.
Below are the rules as they currently stand, please take them with a grain of salt, I am aware that some things need more work, especially the specifics on how the threads, matchmaking, and PbP combat will work. Also notably absent are the physical rules of the battles, including distance of combatants, terrain, visibility, and the particulars of the combat's start (entering through doors vs. standing in the middle of the arena waiting on someone to yell 'FIGHT'). I'm still working on coming up with fairly balanced ideas for these particulars, and I think there are other problems that need to be figured out first.
Generally speaking, everything on http://www.d20pfsrd.com that is not made by a third party and isn't a fan-creation/fan-conversion is legal. The exceptions are listed below. If it isn't mentioned here, it's legal, but if there is something you feel is truly questionable don't hesitate to ask. It's likely that there is something somewhere that really shouldn't be included, although I'm loath to straight up ban anything from core or the SRD without a very good reason. Characters must start at level 1.
Abilities:
Characters must be created using 25 point buy, with the standard ability score costs as detailed in the SRD. No scores may be reduced below 7 or raised above 18 prior to racial ability modifiers. Characters may be of any age, but this has no effect on ability scores.
Races:
All core Pathfinder races are allowed in Arena play, including additional race options, provided they are detailed in the SRD. Dragon Empire races are also allowed, as are the following monstrous races: Catfolk, Changeling, Dhampir, Goblin, Grippli, Kobold, Ratfolk, Vanara, and Vishkanya.
Classes:
All classes and archetypes on the SRD, including prestige classes, are allowed in Arena play. Multiple archetypes are fine so long as they do not overlap in any way. Certain classes have been altered due to item creation feats being disallowed. The class alterations are the same in Arena as they are in PFS with two exceptions: Antipaladins are allowed, and Wizards do not gain Spell Focus. If a Wizard is of an archetype that gives them Scribe Scroll (all besides Siege Mage and Spell Slinger, they simply lose the feat, with no compensation.
Feats:
All feats on the SRD that are not Item Creation, Performance, or Achievement feats and do not have Item Creation, Performance, or Achievement feats as prerequisites are legal for the time being, if anyone has specific concerns let me know. Performance feats are disallowed because in this arena the crowd has very little interaction with the combatants. This arena is a brutal place for brutal people to fight one another brutally, there is no place here for flashy showmanship; if you wish to impress the crowd, win.
Traits:
Be careful with traits, as a good number of them on the SRD are fan-creations/conversions. It's fine to take region specific traits, as long as they don't conflict with any other trait or feat prerequisites. Campaign specific traits and traits that increase player wealth are disallowed.
Skills:
There are no special provisions for skills in the arena, but keep in mind that many skills will be less useful in pit fighting than they would be in a dungeon crawl. It's quite unlikely that Swim or Forgery will be helpful for an arena character, although since there will be opportunity to speak with other characters outside of battle, skills such as Sense Motive and Bluff may find use. Keep in mind that in non-combat situations player characters are not treated the same as NPCs; you cannot use Diplomacy or Intimidate to force their attitude toward you to change, although the other character's player would likely work the skill check into their reaction. Intimidate can still be used in battle.
Gear:
Characters begin with 200gp in gear. There is no cap on individual item value.
Arena Freeze:
For reasons unknown, possibly due to the pressure of the situation, an arena combatant will occasionally become unresponsive and simply stop fighting in the middle of a bout. Anyone who does so is in danger of forfeiting the match. If 24 hours have elapsed since a character's player last posted, that character misses his or her turn due to mild arena freeze. The character acts as though they were stunned for one round (they do not actually gain the stunned condition). If a further 24 hours go by and the player still has not posted, the character automatically forfeits the match due to severe arena freeze. Arena freeze is intended to discourage drawn-out matches, not to penalize those who have lives. At the beginning of a match, if both players agree, they can choose to set the frequency with which they must post to avoid arena freeze (they can change it to whatever they agree on, higher or lower), or may also choose to eliminate it entirely. If there is disagreement between players, the default rule (24 hours) applies. If a player knows in advance they will be unable to post for more than 24 hours, they can let the Arbiter know with a least three days warning, in which case they will not suffer arena freeze. This may only happen once each match, although it really should only come up if a match goes on for much longer than expected. If you're planning on being away from the internet for an extended time, you should either be in a match with no arena freeze, or put your character in suspension until you get back.
Suspension:
If you don't want to be in the drawing for random matches, you need to put your character in suspension. A suspended character may not part of the Pairing, cannot challenge or be challenged by other characters, and may not have any other contact with active characters. In-game they are assumed to be on leave, medical or otherwise.
Active and Suspended Characters:
One player can have multiple characters, but no more than one of each character level may be active at any given time. If a character advances to a level that is the same as that of an active character controlled by the same player, the character is automatically suspended . More than one character of the same player may not be involved in a Team Battle, regardless of their levels or which side they are on. It's totally fine to activate and deactivate characters so you can try different combatants, there is no restriction on the total number of characters per player, only active ones. If you're among the first to gain a particular character level there may not be enough other characters at your level to fight, so go ahead and roll up a new guy while you wait for everyone else to catch up. You can also brag about it.
Team Battles:
Team battles are never randomly generated, they may only occur if combatants form teams of their own volition and challenge one another. There are more restrictions on team battles than normal fights: No combatant can take part in a team battle until 3rd level, and the teams must be equal in both team level and number of team members. Team level is decided by the highest level participant on the team, so a 3rd level, 4th level and 8th level combatant on one team would be an 8th level team with three team members, and would only be allowed to fight other 8/3 teams. Obviously the most effective teams will be all at the same character level, but having different levels on one team allows for flexibility in team building. The teams are in no way permanent, and since characters joining a team must be currently active, they will each be in the pool of combatants and will likely be pitted against one another in random battles anyways.
Vetoes:
Arena characters are meant to be high powered. This is a setting in which characters have trained specifically for arena fighting, likely for their entire lives, using whatever means necessary to be better than their opponents. There is therefore much more allowance for cramming cool combinations of abilities together with little role-playing explanation. Despite this high power level and encouragement of power-gaming, it is possible that a character could be created using the Arena rules that is so hopelessly broken compared to the competition that the Arbiter has no choice but to veto it. If this occurs, the player will receive an online high five for breaking the game, and the character will be put into suspension until the rules are revised to fix the problem. They will not be disqualified and the match will not be counted as a loss, they'll simply be withdrawn from the arena until stuff has been worked out, and their opponent will return to the Pairing. This veto power should only ever be invoked when the character is sincerely, completely, impossible to beat, even for a higher level character. Having 10 bastard sword attacks, +15 to all saves at level 8, or the ability to one-hit an equal leveled opponent are not grounds for vetoes. Those are the sorts of things that are expected in the arena. If the Arbiter needs to ask themselves if it's really necessary to veto a character, the answer is no, it's just to stop pun-pun levels of silliness. Players, for your part, keep the cosmically game-breaking silliness in theoretical optimization discussion, but feel free to break out the fairly large guns.
Victory Points:
After each battle, the winner receives Victory Points (VP). These are a measure of the progress in the arena that a character has made, and take the place of experience points for character advancement. When you accumulate enough VP to advance a level (see table below) you immediately advance, and you lose the amount of VP required to gain the level.
VP Gain by Opponent Level
Level VP to Level
1st 3
2nd 6
3rd 9
4th 12
5th 15
6th 18
7th 21
8th 24
9th 27
10th 30
11th 33
12th 36
13th 39
14th 42
15th 45
16th 48
17th 51
18th 54
19th 57
20th 60
The amount of VP required to advance to the next level is equal to your current character level x 3. Each time you win a battle you receive VP equal to the character level of your defeated opponent, so three victories against an equal level opponent will gain you a level. If you lose a battle, you lose victory points equal to what the opponent gained. A character can never have negative VP or lose a level due to loss of VP.
Budget:
Wealth works somewhat differently in the arena than in an adventure campaign. Each character begins with 200 gp worth of items, and gains wealth only when he or she defeats an opponent. Traits that influence starting gold are not legal for Arena characters. A character's wealth is the upper limit on the value of items he or she may have. There are no restrictions on which items are purchased, and items can be traded back for their full price at any time. In the case of items with charges, they are resalable at a percentage of price equal to the percentage of charges left. The amount of wealth gained from each arena battle is based on the character level of the opponent, as shown below (your character level doesn't matter when determining winnings, only your opponent's). After each match, the victorious combatant receives an amount of gold based on their opponent's character level, as detailed below.
Budget Gain by Opponent Level
Level GP
1st 300
2nd 700
3rd 1,000
4th 1,500
5th 2,000
6th 2,500
7th 3,200
8th 4,400
9th 5,400
10th 6,700
11th 8,700
12th 11,000
13th 15,000
14th 18,400
15th 25,000
16th 31,700
17th 40,000
18th 51,700
19th 65,000
20th 80,000
When a character loses a match, they lose wealth equal to the amount their opponent gains, to a minimum of 200 gp at first level, and to a minimum of the amount shown for each level on the Wealth by Level chart for higher level characters. If the character's wealth would be reduced below this amount, it simply stops there. The exception to this rule is when a player has spent money on an item that has lost value since he or she purchased it, such as a used scroll, a sundered sword, or a wand with half of its charges missing. In this case, the difference between amount payed and current value for that item is permanently subtracted from that player's minimum wealth. For example, if a character bought a scroll for 750 gp, and used it in a fight, the minimum gold he could have from then on would be the WBL for a character of his level, minus 750 gp. Gear can have a big influence on the outcome of a match, so it's important to keep track of each character's wealth. It would be a good idea to keep a running list of everything your character has bought and consumed, so nothing gets forgotten.
The Pairing:
All active characters not currently in a battle are randomly assigned an opponent of their level in a process known as The Pairing. The Pairing will only occur after three conditions are met: 24 hours have elapsed, there are at least six characters in the current pool of possible combatants, and of course the Arbiter has actually posted the Pairing.
Challenges:
As long as the last match a character was in was randomly assigned, that character may challenge or be challenged by another. Challenges work in the same way as paired matches, although in a Challenge it is possible for the level of the combatants to be unequal. Budget and VP gain and loss are based only on the character level of the loser, so a 1st level character gets no more reward for defeating a 3rd level opponent than a 4th level character would, although the 1st level character would benefit more from 1,500 gp and 4 VP. There is no difference in rules or rewards between paired battles and challenges.
The Actual Fighting:
Because a big part of the arena is keeping your opponent in the dark, and everyone posting in the same place loses some of this (what's the point of Spellcraft if you can just read their post and see what spell it is?), arena battles work differently from a normal PbP. In the gameplay threads the players will post actions for their characters as though they were a GM describing the actions of an NPC. The player should describe exactly what their opponent sees due to their actions, for example, instead of saying exactly what spell you just cast you would say "Rowan the White pulls something from a pouch on his belt, and shouts something unintelligible. There is no visible effect if it is a spell. He then runs forwards, drawing the sword at his side." The explicit mechanical actions for the round should be PMed to the Arbiter. For the above action you might send the following: "Standard Action: Cast True Strike on self; Move Action: Move 30 ft. forward to square E12; Free Action: Draw melee weapon during movement." Having both a mechanical explanation and a descriptive one allows the arbiter to have a very good idea of what the battle is looking like, and having opponents not see what their enemy is (mechanically) doing adds a level of fun that I've felt is missing when I've done PvP before. Because I don't want the Arbiter to be rolling the dice for the players, any dice that must be rolled in the battle should be rolled within your post and put in a spoiler tag labelled "Arbiter Information". Hopefully the opponent wont peek at this too much, but seeing your opponent's attack rolls or saves is less of a big deal, since this can be explained by observing how easily they shrug off a poison or shoot a bow. In instances when a roll absolutely needs to be made without a character's knowledge the Arbiter will simply roll for the player then proceed with those results.
Recruitment:
This should always be open, the more players the merrier! If we get over a certain number of players I'll likely need one or more other Arbiters, but if this takes off I plan to run and maintain it as best I can throughout the whole year, and potentially beyond. So… If you enjoy the arena, don't hesitate to invite your friends and your PbP party members. Remember, the more competition there is the more satisfying it is to crush their bones to powder!
Discussion:
General discussion on everything to do with the arena. Here you can share your awesome arena stories out of character (without giving too much away, if possible), ask the Arbiter any questions you have (although if it's to do with your personal arena tactics you might want to send a PM instead), or just talk about whatever you please.
Gameplay:
The gameplay thread will be used for any and all non-combat interaction between characters. Since each of the characters lives at the arena, there are plenty of opportunities to have a conversation or intelligence-gathering meeting with another combatant. This is the place to form teams or friendships, taunt rivals, exchange information about enemy combatants, and generally enjoy what little role-playing the arena has to offer.
Other Threads:
So where do the actual fights happen? The players and Arbiter for any battle will be in a separate gameplay thread from the original post, where the fight can happen away from prying eyes.
Whew! If you read all of that, once you've voiced your polite complaints and constructive criticism, I think it would be fun to try out a mock game or two, for no permanent gain of VP or Budget. If you feel so inclined, PM me a 1st level character, and I'll set you up with someone to fight. This would be greatly helpful for seeing the problems with the current ideas and rules for the arena.
I guess that should just about answer my interest check question, but just in case, bump.
I would be interested but I am planning my own and am kinda wanting to run a Sandbox Campaign.
I've considered tossing interest in a few times since i saw the original post here. I'm generally down for lower to mid- tier arena games.
If this actually gets rolling, I'll toss in a gladiator of some form.
I wonder if the somewhat complex post/pm system is making people hesitate.
That's certainly possible, which is why I was hoping some other folk could give input on another way of making it work. I've used a similar method to run in-person PvP before, with the players giving one another a description of their actions as though they were NPC attackers the DM was describing, and the DM just there to make sure the math/rules behind everything is legitimate. Since there is a third party validating each action, the players can trust one another when one says 'okay, you take 20 damage', without having to see what the attack roll was, the different bonuses (possibly hidden) that are affecting the damage, so that the combatants can build up a (possibly cool and mysterious) reputation based only on what others have seen of them, and the gameplay is based on what your character perceives, not what you happen to know from reading posts or looking at profiles. Maybe this forum isn't the right place for such a thing, like I said, if anyone is interested, I'd run a few 1st level matches, so people can see how it works/if they'd like it.
If anyone would like to give that a shot, I'll draw up an arena space in the morning.
I will build a character and join in.
I'll be your second guinea pig. :)
So you want them submitted to you by PM? Azaelas, when you want to have our gladiators built out?
Whenever. I am struggling to think of a Good Concept that isn't MAD.
I'd also be interested in doing this. I was working on a character for the Gods of the Arena game, and he was incredibly odd and strong.... It'll be neat to try and come up with something at 1st-level.
I'll PM you when I've got a solid character, Jehova.
I have our arena map (credit to RiTz21 of www.cartographersguild.com for the original grid, found here), which I've edited for our purposes, and you can find here.
The arena itself is a box made of impenetrable force, 60 ft. long, 95 ft. wide, and 50 ft. high, with the bottom half entirely filled with hard-packed dirt. There are (for now) four pillars, rising the full 50 ft. height of the arena, and protected by the same force. Combatants begin within the arena, at squares A10 and L10, and roll initiative as usual. The first round of combat is considered a surprise round, though both combatants are aware of one another, and combat then progresses as usual. There is no opportunity for pre-combat buffs unless they have a duration of more than 24 hours.
Remember, the only information you will receive is that which your character does. You will know the name of your opponent, and will be able to see what they are visibly wearing, everything else is for you to figure out. Stat blocks for each character should be submitted by PM, and an alias should be made that gives your character's name and physical description. If your race is obviously noticeable, you should also include that, but feel free to be mysterious if you've got good reason for it.
We can start as soon as we have the characters.
Does anyone have any questions?
Ha, I really like the Arena Freeze mechanic :P
But yeah, this sounds pretty cool. It feels weird joining so many arenas lately, but I think this sounds like it could be pretty fun to play.
If you want more practice fights than just Azaelas and Eben, I'll see about coming up with something.
I might give this a whirl.
to save on alias duplications would it be possible to use an alias I already have but just ignore the stats in the profile?
Oh, hi Dark. (there's a bad word in this link!)
Edward, that's fine, although it might be good if you made it clear which parts aren't involved in the arena.
But aye, anyone who wants to, go ahead and PM me a character/make an alias, first level doesn't take too long. I'm interested to see how this style of combat works on PbP, I'm hoping the PM system isn't too clunky for it to work. It's also possible, since only two players would need to be online at once, and arena combat tends to be fairly quick and brutal, that whole fights could happen in a fairly short time period.
well since there should be no character stats in the profile then anything that is a character stat would be void and only description (possibly spoilered with a clear description) would be the valid character.
Maybe we should look into a chat program. This way we can do it rapidly.
@Edward, it would be nice if there wasn't any false information displaying on the forum itself when the alias posts, other than that go crazy.
@Azaelas, that might be possible for some games, but it will require more planning. It will probably depend on who is involved, and the timing. I'm looking into RPGTable Online right now, which was apparently originally made by Wizards before it got scrapped, and is now being kept up by one of the devs. I'm trying it out, I haven't found a private chat option yet, though.
What is your RPGTable Online Username?
If you want I can probably be a Co-GM. Running the NPC Combatants, the Lions, The Tigers, The Bears, , etc. Building Maps and what not.
Username is Jehova, I have a session up trying to test things. If you have an account, I'll add you to it so I can see if this thing actually works. Right now I can't find a way to dice-roll privately to someone.
JTMC93.
So, here's a two-part question.
I see that when a player loses, they lose some of the 'VP' that is being used for leveling. I assume this means that there won't be much level advancement unless you can manage to beat opponents fairly regularly?
Part 2: Is there a means to retire a character, such as if the build is turning out to be pretty ineffective? I see that you aren't really limited in number of characters, so I'm just a bit curious if there will be a means for getting rid of them if you want to.
Actually, here's an addendum to the second part: 'Respeccing,' if you will. If we aren't liking how the character is performing in battle, but don't want to give up on them entirely, would there be any option to tweak stats without just bringing in a new character from level 1?
This is all mostly just curiosity, but seems worth clarifying.
Is RPGTabletop 4E only?
@Darkwolf, yup, you won't level unless you can beat people, which means with very few people playing it will be hard to advance. Right now I was planning on just testing out the way it works though, not worrying to much about the advancement, but good questions.
If you don't want to use a character anymore, you can just deactivate them, and roll up a new one, or you can just delete them entirely, I suppose, which means no option later on of continuing to use them, though I don't think Paizo lets you delete aliases past 10 posts or so.
Respeccing, hmm... it's a more complicated problem, especially since one of the reasons I wanted to start this arena at level 1 is that it cuts back on players building for a certain level. I'm inclined to just say no respeccing for any reason, although obviously spontaneous spellcasters can still swap spells at certain levels, and fighters can retrain some feats. Remember also that there is no 'sell for half price' issue with swapping out your gear, so that is always entirely mix-uppable.
@Azaelas, it's either 4E or 'generic', which we would be using. If we used it, it would mostly just be for communication and dice rolling, the same as the forum.
Right now I was planning on just testing out the way it works though, not worrying to much about the advancement, but good questions.
Yeah, I know that's irrelevant for the practice matches. It was curiosity on how it would play out for real matches.
Respeccing, hmm...
No prob. I was thinking it would be nice to be able to fine tune builds as we go with them in a situation where we might make a choice that later on proved to be less effective than expected. I was thinking along the lines of small increments, like after every X battles you can change ____ on your character if you want to.
Of course, I understand that does open up the possibility for building to the greatest effect at certain levels, so no respeccing works for me.
Also, you might be seeing a highly generic character build for my practice entry (which, if this goes forward, might turn into a real entry as well. I haven't played the class before, and it seems like it could be cool).
... I haven't played the class before...
Great now I am curious on what class this could be.
I am probably going generic build as well.
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I have a crazy build idea bouncing around in my head that I think I'll throw into the mix here. Not sure how long it'll last though.
I guess we'll see.
I will note that I'm relatively new to PbP and new to PbP arenas so I will probably need some things explained to me as I go.
Also, it's late here so I probably won't have the new character ready before tomorrow or Tuesday, if that's alright.
For right now I'm simply taking any stat blocks as they come, and once I have two full stat blocks and matching aliases, I'll pop up a gameplay thread for those two and see how it goes. The next two, same thing. This is still just trying out the system, so if you have some super-crazy-awesome build you want to use, and want to keep it a secret until the official arena, don't use that yet (although nobody is getting any more information about you than the abilities you display). Any builds you enter for the practice rounds will of course be usable when the actual battles begin, but for now they won't be accruing VP or Wealth (I may award them some if/when I make the official thread).
I am willing to say I will be throwing out a transmission lost he might not be optimized for the arena but he will be nice if he makes it through.
I couldn't resist.
I should have a Hobgoblin Fighter up soon.
Alright, I've now received stat blocks from Loup Blanc and Darkwofl117, so once they post their aliases, one of them will be the first to wet the arena's sand with their blood (unless they sit and hold hands and refuse to fight, in which case one of them will starve to death and little blood will be spilled, but the point is that one of them is going to die).
Also, because it seems I never mentioned it, each and every fight is completely to the death. Knocking out your opponent is great, but if he never dies, you never win. If you use your 0 hp standard action to knock an opponent to negative hp, we play the "who bleeds out first" game. An exception to this rule is any instantaneous effect that permanently defeats a combatant, such as a flesh to stone spell, which counts as victory. After each combat, all wounds (including death, even to the point of disintegration) are fully healed; there is never any permanent harm done to a character from a battle. Any broken gear is fully restored after combat as well, though completely destroyed items are not replaced, and are considered a consumed item for purposes of minimum wealth (see Budget).
Happy bloodshed, and may it not matter whether or not the odds are in your favor, because you're just so badass.
Well, speak of the devil (or demon), here I am.
I didn't put much info on the alias, just the basic race and appearance (which is mostly flavor).
Darkwofl
Darkwaffle? :<
I didn't put much info on the alias
What you have is perfect, we basically just need aliases so there's someone to post in the combat thread, and so people have a basic idea of who they're looking at when combat starts.
Finishing up a test build. nothing flashy.. just a bit o fun. :D
"Here and ready to fight!" comes the slightly squeaky voice of the gnome.
"Jeg er her allerede. når kjempe jeg?"
That sounds rather smart P:
Not my first arena rodeo. :D
Though in hind-sight, I wish I would have named the profile "gladiator OF Eben"... that would have been more clear. oh well.. live and learn, right?
Now i'm just waiting on respnse from Jehova, and maybe a match-up.
My Alias. Still working on Preliminary Stat Block.
Choon's Alias, finalizing and proof-reading stats.
Awesome, things look good so far... with the exception that I somehow have absolutely no idea how to actually stick people in the first gameplay thread...
;__________;, embarrassing, what was I supposed to do?
Who are the combatants? They can just hop in, i would think.
Give a brief intro, let the two combatants have a post to give their bad-ass appearances, get some Initiative rolls up, and lets all enjoy some blood-sport. :)
Sounds good to me.
Stat block sent. Please let me know if you notice any errors and I'll correct them.
Alright guys, I'm back, sorry for the lack of posting today, and the continued lack tonight. I had the busiest day I have had in several months, with no exaggeration, an including an unexpected job offer (Which I now have!) Tomorrow I have to be at an important place early on, so I won't but up much longer.
Anyways, I'll post an intro in the gameplay thread tonight, for Doc and Kyrian, the first round combatants. I'll set one up tomorrow for the next two (Eben and Choon, I believe), sorry for the delay, things have been great but unexpected!
Agreed.
And congrats on the job move. :)
Yes, the discussion thread is for a tavern sort of area, where you can gain information about your fellow combatants through swapping stories and such. For now it is also assumed that the bouts are open for spectating, though this may change.