I would assume they'd walk in with you. Are you wondering if you can start mounted?
Hmmm... Jehova? Care to weigh in?
Dotting this thread. I'm interested in the idea - I'd been considering running a level-up arena myself (although I wouldn't really have the time to actually do it).
Will read the full rules when I get home tonight.
Animal companions or familiars may start adjacent to the player on either side, or in their square (if tiny). Animal companions, bonded mounts, familiars, eidolons, and other permanent companions (last for more than 24 hours at time) are all fine, and if you are capable of riding the creature you have with you, you may begin mounted. Any other potential companions (hirelings, purchased animals) are not allowed in the arena, as they do not count as either gear or a class/race feature.
Now if only we could kick-start this first match. :/
I gotta dwarf just wastin for a fight! >:D
Eben, (and Choon), here you are.
Also, Choon, good question, that will go into the final rules. If anyone has any questions at all, anything that's been vague, especially on in-combat rules, please ask. I'd like to create a more comprehensive ruleset for this, which is the reason it's not a finished campaign yet. Many of the PvP attempts I have seen have suffered from a lack of clarity and too much out of character knowledge, and I want to see what we can do about that.
We can go ahead and take our surprise round, right? (cause i did) :D
Yeah, but it would be best if they were done in initiative order within the post, so that it's more clear whose turn it is (see pm). I probably should have been more clear with the horn not actually having been blown yet, but the idea was Post 1: Initiatives, make sure both people are here and establish turn order, Post 2: Visible surprise round actions, in initiative order, Post 3 and on: continue in turns with the fight. This is good though, we are smoothing out wrinkles :P
oh, excellent. My bad, then. Should i just leave it as-is? Or remove that from the post,and drop a "Surprise round post" now?
i'm good either way.
And yah, i would have PM'd it to you, but it's fairly obvious what's happening,so I simply put it on the post.
Woop, wait, no, that message was meant for Choon (I didn't send you a PM, you're fine on your surprise round action).
Lol. cool.
So I should leave my post (even with its surprise round action) as-is?
Yes, it's fine. Since you had the higher initiative, you weren't acting out of turn or anything. We are currently waiting on Bruno's surprise action, although he did specify that the spitting and yelling happened after the horn was blown, so if he confirms that to be his surprise round action, we will continue with your first full turn.
"Meanwhile, I seem to have lost my first bout. Dearie me..."
Kyrian walks by the gnome. "Sorry about, um... killing you... and all," he says, awkwardly, scratching his head, before walking on.
I am still making my Champion... Unfortunately, I keep falling into this Building a Gladiator rut. I keep building him using my knowledge of Gladiators and it just gets ridiculous on the design.
Why they made all the Gladiator Flavored Weapons Exotic Weapons I don't know...
Yah, i feel like I'm playing Initiative Roullette.
So... what's next? :)
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Well, my first suggestion, based on how these first two fights went, is perhaps moving the entrances to the more distant sides of the arena. That way fewer classes will have enough movement to charge right off the horn, thus reducing the likelihood of "CHAARGE-Splat" and "Initiative roulette".
Perhaps separate the east and west pillars by a square and put the doors directly behind? That would almost certainly produce at least some maneuvering for charge position.
Who ever has the Highest Initiative Wins eh.
Guess if you are a Weapon Adept Monk and make it high enough to be Level 17 you probably will never lose initiative.
Regarding the battlefield layout: I kind of thought the same thing, when I realized the entrances were, for most speeds, pretty much charge distance. I might actually like seeing a larger arena altogether, so that archers can actually get some distance, or if/when flight ever gets around to being a thing.
Cover, of course, still being a big deal in such cases. That way an archer isn't at a huge advantage or disadvantage (in theory, anyway).
I have a nice arena map I am working on in Roll20.
Here's my suggestion... a little arena homework, if you will. We could take a day and everyone find a map. Submit it here tomorrow, and we'll pick a few that are good options for our purposes here.
Then, Jehova (or whomever is running any specific matchup) can either specifically choose the arena for the combat, or – at the onset (when choosing the two combatants) – roll a die to randomly determine which arena map the matchup will take place.
I'll give it a look anyway... not everyone HAS to do it, i guess.
Mine is literally 25 5-foot Hexes Across.
That seems like it could be a neat idea, though I'd be hesitant to make a surplus of choices. I'll see if I can find anything though (truth be told I'm not sure where you go to look for them, but hey, that's what Google's for, eh?).
And, I am curious how movement/effects work on hexes. It seems like a cool layout, but I've never used 'em before, so I really don't understand how everything works with them.
Believe it or not a lot of things work out better on a Hex Map.
Straight movement is a bit odd but doesn't end up any different than Square Grids.
I'm more curious on how targeting would generally go with spells or other AoE type things. Placing radius effects on a grid intersection works well enough with squares, but seems like it gets wonky on hexes.
You choose a Hex instead.
3.5 Hex Grid Reference. Old but still good.
Hmm. That does look very straightforward.
My assumption on moving is that it's basically just 5 feet per hex moved, always yes? Seems like the easiest way to handle that (like I said, effects are the things I was generally more confused about).
Edit: Nevermind, I see that's actually noted on it. Thanks for the reference.
No Problem.
I prefer:
Hex Maps for Circular or Natural Areas.
Squares for Buildings and such.
@GM: I don't suppose I could e-mail you the .htm file of my character...
I'm expecting these will probably need a lot more GM adjudication if/when we get in some sneaky types, or casters with invisibility, and things like that.
Readied actions are another thing that can be a bit more complicated, though it was easy enough to work with in my fight with Nomfiddle (funny enough, if I were fighting a Martial, I was planning on doing something similar).
So far though, yeah, combat's been pretty straightforward.
Can I email or not?
Or can I trust you guys not to look at a GM Only Spoiler in my Alias.
This sounds cool, I'm in if you'll have me.
I am totally fine with changing up the map, this is still very much testing. I will say that I specifically added the pillars and the surprise round action to help prevent charging problems, allowing characters to use their surprise round action to take cover. This makes preventing charges a choice by a character, and not an inbuilt part of the arena; charges aren't automatically nerfed the way they would be if there was a block right in front of the entrance. Initiative is certainly going to be a big part of an arena like this, and I encourage people not to underestimate how important a good modifier is. I created a character when first testing out this idea, with an initiative of +15 at first level. There is a lot of dice roulette, as there is in normal Pathfinder, but with the right stuff you can swing the odds very heavily in your favor.
I'd like trying out a few more fights on the current map, but definitely send me ideas you have. I'm planning on creating my own map for the finalized arena, so anything to get a better idea of how to make that is a good thing :D
I should also point out that the charging party in each of these two fights didn't mess up their rolls, either attack or damage, which can totally happen, the dice be fickle. If Kyrian hadn't made his will save (and rolled a critical), the fight would also have gone quite differently. I'd hesitate to say the fights are imbalanced in favor of charging characters after only two bouts, but I do understand the concern.
@Azaelas, if you can PM me any sort of link, I'm sure I can manage, I don't currently have a non-private email address.
Anyways, if you're all okay trying once more in this arena (it shouldn't take long... :P), the next matches would be Rolg vs. Kyrian, and Doc vs. Bruno. Let me know if you're up for those, and I'll put up the threads- I encourage us all to have more points of data!
@ Darkwolf, yes, when players have more unseen capabilities, I will need to be online during combat, no away around that. The time frame in which these fights happened is totally fine, I was catching up on sleep tonight, but will generally be online quite a bit in the evenings. I have a very open winter-spring, which is why I wanted to get this rolling. In any case where there's something I need to be there for, I should be checking in fairly frequently, so waiting is probably the best idea, over trying to somehow communicate things to your opponent they shouldn't know.
I can't send a Link... But I can PM you a Copy or Set up a Mythweaver Sheet...
Please PM me a copy, then.
@Jiraiya, certainly. Create a stat block and send it to me privately, then make an alias as other people have, with description of your character. Once you and Azaelas send them, you two will try to kill each other :D
I'd hesitate to say the fights are imbalanced in favor of charging characters after only two bouts, but I do understand the concern.
I agree it's definitely too early to say one way or the other, and I did notice moving behind pillars with a player's surprise round would serve pretty well.
I'm totally up for another match, I'd say. One question I have would be, do we know who our opponent is beforehand, at least by appearance? In other words, can we make some decisions about the fight based on that?
PM has been launched.
Hmm... Dark, good question. I'd like to say yes, you'll know your opponent 24 hours before your bout starts. I think this is the way to go, since the players will certainly know their opponent, but it does weight things even more heavily against those who have fought before, in favor of a newcomer nobody has seen in action yet. This may be a good thing, though. Remember, at any point you want you may switch up gear, with no half-price sellback cost, you may simply swap out items for others as desired, up to a maximum value of your Budget.
Speaking of Budget, I suppose we might as well see how this advancement type stuff works, so Kyrian and Rolg, you each gain 1 VP and 300 gp for items. Hmm... I just had the thought of potentially delaying wealth gain until level-up. This would mean people are automatically stuck at 200 gp until second level, but it also might be less unbalanced between someone who has won twice and someone who hasn't at all... Perhaps I'll take Azaelas's advice from another thread, and change the starting first level gold to 500 or so, thoughts? I do want to make sure that when someone advances a level they have more money than their minimum for that level, so they actually do lose something if they lose their battles, while at the same time not penalizing first level characters much, since they should have nowhere to go but up.
I would say 500 Starting GP and then delaying the Gold Gain til level up.
Might I recommend us trying out a 2 on 2 match?
Say Dark & Me versus another 2?
Hmm. I'm not really sure about how to handle the wealth levels. One thing that I had thought of earlier though, which might be worth bringing up is, what exactly happens after you funnel money into your items? Say someone upgrades their weapon, leaving them with only 10 gold left, but then loses a battle where they should lose 200 gold? Assuming the money spent on the upgrade was more than their minimum, is that subtracted from the gear they have bought?
That is why I recommended making the VP removed but not the Wealth.
@Azaelas, I think when the arena launches I will use 500gp starting gold and delaying, but for now we'll continue as originally planned. I wasn't going to have team battles be a thing until 3rd level in the arena, but it may not be a bad idea to test it out now. Team battles will always be optional, never assigned, since an arena fighting character should primarily be based on being able to defeat the greatest number and variety of foes in a one on one context. If a character can advance through the arena constantly on a team, this defeats some of the 'you need to be able to work your way up to get to that cool broken build' idea. I don't want any piggybacking.
@Darkwolf, the idea is that the wealth level is your maximum value of items, so if you lose Budget you need to look at your gear list and make some cuts. Since there is no penalty for selling back and rearranging gear, you can simply sell whatever you need to get your wealth under limit. Important: Thinking again about your 'knowing thy enemy' question, I'm going to say that you actually need to have your gear list and any class feature options set in stone before the match-up. As soon as the battle is done, at any point until your next fight is announced, you can swap up anything you like. This is better for both promoting versatility within characters, but not overly rewarding those with many swap-out features over those who have little opportunity to change tactics.
Alrighty, I'll keep my loadout the same as last time then, though I'll probably be switching it after the next fight.
Woops, shoulda caught that, I'm just too used to DDing Magi. Very glad it didn't matter.
Yeah. Honestly it seems weird that it gives you the same effect and more, on something that couldn't use the original. Ah well. *shrug*
Alright, in the interest of moving forward, the next fight has been swapped to Amarkys vs. Kyrian. As other people confirm they're on for more fights, they'll be matched up. Gentlemen, start your engines.
The discussion thread is also up for any in-character, but out of combat, stuff the contestants will do (if you're hanging out waiting for a battle, etc). There are links to each of the fights thus far in the campaign description.
I'm now off to sleep, so if things occur in the battle that require my attention, hopefully they can wait until morning.
After looking up the surprise round rules (and some less clear ones), it appears to be the case that a swift (or immediate) action may be used in a surprise round in addition to any free actions, and a single standard or move action. This is the official ruling as best I can tell, so we'll be using it. I apologize to anyone it may have mattered to in the last two fights, but that's why we're doing testing, yaaaay!