Jehova's Arena (Test) (Inactive)

Game Master Jehova

^ Can always count on this guy to be on top of stuff.

I'd say with that post in mind, Elmer's taking the Multi-weapon feat is fine as long as he meets the pre-req's in Synth form.

Don Eidolon Suit, multi-class as titan mauler barbarian and equip yourself with 6 bastard swords.

All set! :p

^ Can always count on this guy to be on top of stuff.

I'd say with that post in mind, Elmer's taking the Multi-weapon feat is fine as long as he meets the pre-req's in Synth form.

Good point both of you. I stand corrected :-)

Hurray for acrobatics to make the fighting centipede make only 1 attack per round! :P

Hello there, I would like to join this arena ... I have looked at the creation rules and believe I have it down, how does legalization of the character go about?

PM the Stat Block to Jehova. I have a Stat Block Template if you need it.

I would love to see your template, Azaleas. If you don't mind. The one I made up is a bit of a mess.

That's It? PM him the character; effectvely? Alrighty... Level 1 correct?

level 3

OKAY OKAY, I KNOW I HAVE SAID SIMILAR THINGS BEFORE, BUT I AM GOING TO GET THE NEW RULES AND STUFF UP TONIGHT. I'M USING CAPS LOCK HERE TO SHOW YOU ALL JUST HOW SERIOUS I AM RIGHT NOW.

We're going to be starting at third level, which I hope is alright with everyone. I think it will be better for entertaining fights at entry level, and entry level is where a good number of fights will be taking place. I am also going to cut down the amount of consumables available with compensation for each level, since I think the current trend of everyone quaffing multiple potions and busting out scrolls devalues class abilities like mutagens and buffing spells.

Darkwolf, thanks for posting that. Since I'm not sure it's an official Pathfinder rule, I'm going to go ahead and add to my rules the following: Any aspect of a character that is capable of lasting indefinitely (like an Eidolon suit or Headband of Intellect) can be used to meet prerequisites for feats/abilities/prestige classes, though if the character loses access to it they also lose access to anything qualify for. If you go ahead and take a level of Master of Storms despite all of your Fly ranks sitting in a Headband of Intellect, and some gung-ho guy sunders it, BOOM there go all your spells. You would retain BAB, Saves, and hp from the class, but wouldn't be able to access any of its nonsense until you again qualify.

Well now I need to update Bruno again, but I'm not complaining. Bruno gets more interesting (and versatile) at lvl 3.

Level 3 now?

Man, Jehova will love me as this'll be yet another PM to his inbox!

We're 100% on level 3 not 2 now?

Edit: Yep, Jehova confirms!

Let the battles begin!.....Shortly...

ALRIGHT! I shall have Felmar the Swift up for this rendition of Arena greatness, May our fights be both entertaining for the audience and entertaining to the competitors..

Pathfinder Stat Block.

Well, guess this means I need to like actually get off my ass and update my characters (getting off ass not necessarily required, as I am at a computer).

Are you still accepting new applicants?

They are I believe, the glaring question I would ask is what amount of Wealth we start at level 3.. 2K? Also How does he handle Arcane Bond's when it comes to upgrading them?

Pathfinder Stat Block.

Another option could be Abellius' Form Fillable Character Sheets. I use them atm to upload characters, what do you prefer Jehova?

Another question since we start at level 3: How much do extra spells for the wizard cost? I need a new strategy since color spray is not a CDG option anymore :)

@Jehova: Maybe try 20%/10% or 30%/10% (consumable/replacable)? Another thing: Maybe it makes sense to reserve one forum column for rules clarifications so they don't sink in the general discussion thread.

@ Endoralis: Last I heard, the wealth for any given level was averaged between the level you are at, and the next.

So level 3 makes 4500, as seen on this table here, but with the note that Jehova seems to be planning differently on the consumable allowance, so it may not be entirely accurate.

And yes, dbauers, the arena is pretty much always accepting new gladiators as far as I know. On a related note @ Jehova: When the full arena goes up, it might be worth mentioning in the OP that anyone can join and there's no limit, so that people aren't discouraged if they see 1000+ posts in the recruitment thread :P

Yah, I'm going to wait to do gear purchases until Jehova is able to roll out the final decision.

As usual Darkwolf appears to be on top of things. The rules are coming along nicely, I stand by my declaration of it going up tonight (read: before I sleep), though I think I'll post it here before officially opening the new thread so y'all can have a look.

In terms of templates, I was planning on using one similar to Azaelas's that I'm currently making. It provides a bit more information for someone double checking where each of those pesky little +1s are coming from.

Okay that's good, though I wish I could get one practice fight in before we settle everything, But i guess thats my fault for not getting here sooner Eh?

Well the good news is that all fights can be practice fights :D

If you're not confident in your character's abilities, go ahead and join with a different one to test the waters. You lose nothing for restarting.

Cool, It's not that Im not confident I just want one game so that I get formatting and general things down. Also Just to be sure you can spend how much one one item?

As much as you want. Hopefully when I plop this fat bunch of rules down it will clear up some stuff.

This is Endoralis.. If anyone is up for it some time I would be glad to do a match with someone. This champion would like some Blood on his hands... Small note.. MUST you kill the opponent?

This is Endoralis.. If anyone is up for it some time I would be glad to do a match with someone. This champion would like some Blood on his hands... Small note.. MUST you kill the opponent?

I don't know if Jehova will allow it but if he will I will fight you.

Gin Kyomaru wrote:

This is Endoralis.. If anyone is up for it some time I would be glad to do a match with someone. This champion would like some Blood on his hands... Small note.. MUST you kill the opponent?

I don't know if Jehova will allow it but if he will I will fight you.

are you level 3?

I set him at level 3 yes, If we can fight I will gladly love to do so.. ESPECIALLY against you..

@Gin, yes you must fully kill your opponent, or at least incapacitate them to such an extent that they would be dead for all intents and purposes (such as permanent petrification).

Feel free to go create a thread and have at it, though you'll need to self-arbitrate in this case. Supposing you're each honest (and why shouldn't ye be, nothing's at stake) you can just pummel one another.

Also, people may want to hold off until I post full wealth rules, but here is the template for character submission. The template is set up for easy copy/pasting into a PM, and should be sent to Pit Administration when fully complete. The subject of the message should read [Player Name]'s Submission: [Character Name].

Got it... So before we beat the snot out of each other I have to send that particular template in correct? Or is that when the Final thing starts? I also would ask Elmer to start the Thread if this is the case, as I assume he is more experienced at this point. And Yes, i do not expect to Lie, that is unnecessary.

Elmer VS. Gin

So I am fully approved for now until the FULL arena opens in which case everyone has to do the template provided there. Is my opponent Elmer ready?

Indeed he is and has already rolled initiative.

Let our clash be one of epic proportion

Okay, okay, it's not totally done, but this should be a fairly finalized version of the character creation rules and introduction. Feedback appreciated. Will post more later.

THE PATHFINDER PITS

We've all seen the endless flame wars about the comparative power of different classes. We've seen the DPR Olympics and other optimization challenges, we've seen many broken builds and many people screeching their merits or detriments at one another all across the internet. It's time to put some of these theories to the test, and to have a bone-splinteringly good time doing so.

So welcome to the Pathfinder Pits!

WHAT IS THIS?

The Pathfinder Pits are a place for ongoing optimized play-by-post PvP. Everyone is welcome to create a character and jump on board, but only an elite few will ascend through the ranks, attaining much glory and bragging rights. The characters who join will be matched randomly against other characters of their level in single combat. Those who win gain reputation, advancing in wealth and level and generally being better than other people. Those who lose suffer a drop in reputation and are resurrected by the mysterious forces in control of the pits in order to redeem themselves or die (even more) trying.

I want to make it clear before you read any further that this is a hardcore sort of 'campaign'. You may have opportunities to role-play, and everyone should have some amount of backstory and flavor for their character, but if you're not also a powerful and versatile one-on-one combatant you may find yourself frustrated. That said, there's nothing to stop you from re-rolling as often as you'd like and jumping back into the pits with a better build, so go ahead and get creative!

The gameplay rules for the pits are as strict as I can make them, with the intent that nobody will have a victory taken from them by any sort of biased ruling or unnecessary house-rule. I want to keep all rules as close to the intended and accepted Pathfinder rules as possible, so that if someone else were to take over arbitration their rulings would be the same. This may mean you can't do some really cool thing because it's not technically in the rules, and for that I apologize, but when it comes to PvP the rules are quite important. As in Pathfinder Society, there is no crafting, teaching animals tricks, or leadership, but pretty much all other aspects of the game are left unchanged, giving players as much at their disposal as possible to create powerful characters.

If you plan on making a character and jumping in, I recommend at least scanning through the advancement and gameplay rules beforehand, to make sure everything will work as you expect it to once you're in the pits.

CREATING A PIT FIGHTER

Pit fighters begin at 3rd level. A player may only have a single character at each level at a given time, but feel free to retire a character and create a new one at any time. No matter your previous record in the arena, any new character starts at 3rd level. You may have multiple characters so long as none of them are the same level.

Only Paizo published material is allowed when creating a pit fighter. Anything used should be findable through The SRD, PRD, or Archives of Nethys (fills in some holes in the SRD). This is to allow an even playing field among those who own differing numbers of books. These regulations are in addition to any stricter restrictions on material below. If you have questions on something's legality, shoot me a PM. Please don't ask me about third party material, it's simply not allowed.

— Abilities

Pit fighters are created using 25 point buy. No score may be dropped lower than a 7 or boosted above an 18 before racial modifiers. A pit fighter may be of any (adult) age, but they take neither penalties nor gain bonuses for being old. Here is a nice place to fiddle with point buy.

— Races

Race can determine a great deal of what a pit fighter is capable of, especially at lower levels. I want for there to be as much room as possible to choose the perfect race for a given build, but some races are impractically unbalancing and are not allowed.

— Classes

All classes, be they core, base, alternate, or prestige, are allowed in the pits. All archetypes are legal, and multiple archetypes may be stacked together provided they do not conflict in any way. Alternate classes may take archetypes from the class on which they were based (and vice versa), so long as they have each of the replaced abilities at the relevant level (a Ninja may take the Scout archetype, for example). As in Pathfinder Society gameplay, some classes are altered as a result of crafting, animal training, and leadership being disallowed.

— Feats and Traits

Item Creation, Performance, and Achievement feats are not allowed in the Pits. All other feats from legal sources are fair game. Campaign Traits are not allowed in the arena. Any other traits from legal sources should be fine, but keep in mind that there may be prerequisites that an arena character is incapable of fulfilling (pit fighters may not be members of the Pathfinder Society). Any feats or traits that require a certain place of origin or religious affiliation must be consistent with other feats, traits, and classes.

— Skills

There are no restrictions on skills or their usage in the arena, though those such as forgery or swim will be pretty useless in most situations. Any out of combat interaction between characters will be minimally regulated, so there may be more room here to make use of skills. Otherwise, keep in mind any prestige class prerequisites you may need to meet down the road.

— Alignment

There are no alignment restrictions in the pits. Though the killing of intelligent humanoids for reputation and profit is a fairly evil past time, defeating an enemy in one on one combat is somewhat more honorable than many methods, and hey, nobody stays dead.

— Hit Points

Pit fighters follow the Pathfinder Society method of hit point determination. Each character receives full hit points for their first level, and for each following level they receive half of their hit die, rounded up. This means that at each level after first a Wizard would gain 4 hit points, a Cleric 5, Fighter 6, and Barbarian 7. An animal companion or other non-player combatant receives one half of their hit die each level (including first), rounded down. Recalculate this hp at each new level.

— Equipment

Pit fighters begin with 4,500 gp of gear. Living creatures are not legal for purchase in the pits, and no living creature besides a player character may enter the arena with the exception of those gained through class features. A pit fighter may spend no more than 10% of his or her current wealth on consumable items, but there are no further restrictions on the percentage of wealth that may be spent on a given type of item or items. Keep in mind that past a certain threshold, consumable items that are used up in combat will permanently subtract from a character's wealth. See the Wealth section for more information on consumables.

— Character Submission

Any character is welcome in the arena, so long as they are mechanically legal. No character will be turned away for poor flavor or an unoptimized build, and as soon as a character is properly submitted and confirmed to be legal they will be put into the pool for fights. Keep in mind that the player is responsible for their character's legality. The characters will be reviewed when they are received, and anything the reviewer notices will need to be fixed before the character is accepted, but if the reviewer misses something that later makes a difference, the player is responsible (possibly suffering a fight loss and/or reputation penalty if things are screwed up too badly). Just double check your sheets, and you should be fine. but if there's anything you have a rules question on, send me a message. Here is the template for sending in a character . This should be filled out in plaintext and messaged to Pit Administration. Feel free to personally keep track of your character data wherever and however you choose, but for character submission the above template must be used. Each character must be resubmitted when changed in any way (primarily when leveling up), so keep a copy of the filled-out template to edit and send in when necessary. Hopefully Bungles is a good enough example for showing where to put information, but if you have any questions on the template, send me (not Administration) a message. Animal companions, familiars, eidolons, etc. should have their own stat block sent with their master's.

ADVANCEMENT

—Reputation

Instead of gaining experience for defeating foes, pit fighters go up in Reputation with each successful bout, and down in reputation upon failure (death). When one character kills another, he or she gains an amount of Reputation equal to the defeated foe's level. The beaten character loses an equal amount of Reputation. The number of equal-leveled opponents one needs to defeat to level up is always three, though losing fights between victories will drop your Reputation back down and require more total victories for advancement. The following chart shows the total amount of Reputation needed to advance from the given level. Remember, the amount of Reputation gained is always the opponent's level. Unless your character is challenging or being challenged by characters of different levels, this will stay quite simple.

— Wealth

Wealth in the pits is based only off of a character's current level. There is no change in wealth between fights unless a character has gained a new level from acquiring Reputation, or has used up wealth in combat. Wealth for each level is the average wealth for a character midway through that level based on the Pathfinder Wealth by Level Chart.

As mentioned in character creation, a pit fighter may not spend more than 10% of his or her wealth on consumable items. If a character uses up consumables in a fight that do not exceed 5% of his or her total wealth, the expended wealth is reimbursed at the end of the fight. Anything used up over the 5% limit is forever subtracted from the gladiator's total wealth.

Awesome!

Gonna read this essay and sort my characters out now!

Thanks Jehova!

In case it's not mentioned on there, do you win money if you win a fight? I'm thinking you have to level up to get some more money instead. :p

Excellent! On initial read this looks really good, Jehova.

I had one initial idea rolling around my head about consumables, but let me get it thought through.

I'll also begin tweaking Rolg per these newest rules. :)

Actually, 1 other issue I'd like to get some thoughts on: the Diehard feat.

I had it on one of my test gladiators. In the fight, he took a handful of nonlethal damage, and that pretty much invalidated that he had Diehard at all... because nonlethal damage basically makes you go unconscious once our nonlethal + lethal damage ecipses your HP total.

That seems to completely invalidate the Diehard feat. Are we sticking to that, and we just know that in any fight that we suspect our opponent cold have it, we just find a way to deal them 1 nonlethal damage so they fall unconscious (and we do what we will with their unconscious body)?

Love to hear some thoughts.

Eeexcellent

Also, a question on Diehard and nonlethal damage. does 1 point of nonlethal damage invalidate the diehard feat?

Or, to put it another way, does the following make any logical sense?

Diehard Devan is squaring off against Bare- handed Buck. Devan has trained himself to be able to fight through physical punishment that would incapacitate lesser combatants. So he walks in against Buck, and its on! They're going to town on each other. Buck is able to dish out a few key (lethal) strikes on Devan and realizes that Devan seems to be able to fight on when he should have succumbed to his wounds ( we'll not get into how he knows... he's just an intuitive guy). So what does he do? He slaps Devan (Nonlethal damage) and Buck collapses... unconscious. Despite the fact that he could have withstood another strike or three had they been strikes by more dangerous weapons.

This make any sense to anyone else?

Let's all tweak Rolg, he says. It'll be fun he says....

Lol, my second character is an absolute b**** of a man. Half tempted to use him first, but I won't because I need to get Vironus some fights in.

Apollo will have to wait, though he's definitely an interesting guy. He's so diverse and one of my most optimised characters who can cover most areas of combat. Defense, offense, diversity. He's also a good laugh, but I've never used him before. Built him originally for a campaign. :)

First draft looks good to me, Jehova. Will submit Bruno when he's done. I didn't get the chance to finish him yesterday. He should be in your inbox this afternoon.

Not sure if I am going to bring Aurum back, I have a few other ideas that will be fun as well. Hmmm I'm going to have to think on this. Jehova, when do you think we'll go live with this?

Looks awesome. Some things I noticed:

• Companion health could perhaps do with more clarity. As is, I could read it as simply always being, say, 4 on d8. The mention of recalculating alludes to the way it is meant to be handled, but just in case it could cause confusion.

• It might be nice if the wealth guidelines were explained a bit more in depth, so people understand that using more than 5% of their wealth on consumables will permanently eat into their money. I see it is explained, but it's somewhat quick, and reading from start to finish only makes mention of the 10% limit at first. Some extra examples on the table as done before (consumable limit and refillable consumables) might help draw attention to that.

• I swear I had a third thing that warranted turning this into a list, but now I can't remember :/

Anyway, just some thoughts. Overall, looks great!

Seems cool so far.. And aww I wanted to fight Aurum too, He seemed a meaningful challenge

Just one comment on the draft. In the section on Reputation you don't specify if it's possible to drop down a level due to loss of reputation. Other then that it looks wonderful. I'll have an updated version of Vatale to you tomorrow.

Phew, took me a long time to upgrade and reformat, but Shigeharu is ready to go.

I have another character idea I'm kicking around too, but it'll take me awhile to get ready. Hopefully I can get it typed up by the time Shigeharu is level 4. ;-)

Tbh, if you lose as much as you gain from winning and losing a fight, I don't see myself levelling up. :p

Agh Im so excited, There hasn't been too many chances to have an arena style without people being upset or whatever.. it seems this group is alot more relaxed.. which is good.

Well that was a Blast.. save for the horrible rolling on my side , I mean like.. real bad...it was enjoyable.. anyone else possible for a match.. or if Elmer is up.. a rematch sometime?