<let it be noted that I do not have my copy of the pertinent adventure handy at the moment, so I cannot verify that there is no real description of the size of the free city arena>
Just how big would said arena be. The reason I ask is that I am considering - [i]considering[\i] - purchasing the Arenaworks set from Worldworks Games (http://worldworksgames.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPat h=2_4&products_id=19) and building an actual arena to set off the spectacle of the whole event.
The question is, would this be practical in a real-world sense? Would the entire gaming table be taken over by this wonder?
Figures gleaned from www.the-colosseum.net/idx-en.htm indicate that the actual roman arena measured 249' x 144', or in D&D minis scale, about 50" x 30", or roughly 4' x 2'. Too big for a gaming table?
Or am I just insane and is this a ridiculous idea?
Shidara
Dungeon #128 (just happen to be reviewing it) page 43 (middle column) says:
"At standard miniatures scale, a map of the arena would have to be over 3 feet wide and 6 feet long. If your gaming table is big enough, you could theoretically present the entire arena as a battlefield. Fortunately for the rest of us, a standard battlemat is probably enough."
As written the Free City Arena is about 2-3 times as big as the Roman Colosseum, yet only seats a fraction of the number of people (the Roman Colosseum seated 50,000). So something's not quite right, at least for my sensibilities. I'd suggest you make the arena smaller than the Roman Colosseum - how much smaller is probably best decided by how much space you have. I made it a bit bigger than one battle mat, by "extending the edges" of a single battle mat to something roughly oval. That way you can see where the crowd is, and make sure no-one kills off the crowd with a stray fireball or suchlike (my group's team almost hit the crowd with Evard's Tentacles - woops!)
I ran the arena battles on an RPGA battlemap, 22x25. We didn't have any real problems.
As an aside, I attribute the seating issue to the fact that much more of the Free City Arena is devoted to arena space than seating relative to the Roman Colisseum.
Dang, I wish I had seen this two years ago.
One of the great things about ArenaWorks is that you can create a series of masterboards (probably four full foamcore sheets would cover the entire arena), and then create each of the stand sections as a modular piece. You can build a subsection of the arena first, then keep adding on to it as time, materials, and motivation permits.
You can get a closer look by downloading the demo pack at the bottom of the page.
Each of those 3"x4" sections of arena seating can be hooked to another by a box full of paperclips to build a wide variety of formations.
I'm not sure what you mean by a PDF "with the plans". ArenaWorks wasn't designed with any specific single location in mind...it's intended that you could use it for a variety of different locations, so there is no specifics on how in particular to use it.
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The zip file I downloaded has a number of PDF files with instructions on how to build various structures (instructions on how to cut, fold, paste, and put together).
But there doesn't appear to be any PDFs included that have the actual "blueprints" of the various structures themselves that are to printed out onto cardstock, and cut, folded, and pasted together.
It sounds like you may be having an issue with the download file itself. Could you please contact our customer service email account (custserv@worldworksgames.com) and we'll see if we can get this straightened out for you right away.
I talked with some of the Paizo folks, and it sounds like the issue at hand isn't a problem with the file itself, but with how Windows (I'm assuming here) handles unzipping files. It's an issue they've seen before.
If possible, could you try downloading a trial version of WinZIP or WinRAR (google either) and using that to unpack the download? From the sound of things, you'll find everything that's supposed to be there is there.
Again, sorry for the glitch, and I hope you can get into the rest of your set and enjoy soon.