Tweaking the Champion´s Belt (Spoilers)

[Andreas Hempel]

Hi all,

for some time now I am thinking of tweaking the Champion´s Belt gladiatorial fights.

After my players left on kind of good terms with Filge and Smenk in WC (after hitting him hard, they negotiated with Filge for the skeletons and let him live), I had them hear the rumor in the Free City, that Smenk got hold of a manager licence. They just entered the Sodden Hold but are hoping that they can convince Smenk to let them fight for him.

Of course that will not happen...
My first thought was to pump Filge, Kullen and "the Gang" up a bit and pitch them against my players in the first arena fight. Change filge to a Dread Necromancer, make Kullen even stronger and dumber and so on.
I just discovered the Corpsecrafter feat-chain from Libris Mortis, which would make the undead mooks of Filge even scarier.

First question: what would the audience, the Champion´s Games and the city administration say to undead in the fights? Only take "uncivilized" base creatures (Gnolls, Animals, Magical Beasts, Troglodytes...)? Say that those are the remains of condemned criminals? Let the authorities grudgingly accept their existence and the crowd boo the "bad, evil mage"?

Then I thought "What the heck, let´s exchange Filge´s Gang with Pitch Blade." Raknian is taking no chances with the PCs and wants to get them out of the picture as soon as possible. He bought some rounds of truce from the other groups of gladiators so that his battle-dwarfs can concentrate on the PCs.
In exchange I wanted to put a cleric in Filges team, which would hit the front lines of battle and support the undeads with the Necromantic Presence and Necromantic Might feats from Libris Mortis. That should help to toughen the fight.

Next question: what do you think of the idea to introduce Darl Quethos (from LoLR) here already? I do not plan on letting him occur any more until the PC´s see him in LoLR but having them fight him already in the arena (without the Hand of Vecna and stuff) they will hopefully enjoy meeting him again even more.
Smenk would simply have asked around for some cleric that could help his team and Darl is needing money for his next quests.

Last question: I still have to learn about my PC´s tactics, but they will probably have at least some fireball-ish at the ready, when they face a "horde" of undead mooks. What can I do to toughen them against the wizards most favorite tool, area blasting? Any mean DM tricks I can pull out of the box?

Thanks for reading and your suggestions,
Andreas

[wampuscat43]

As far as undead go, Auric and co. are using flesh golems - not exactly undead (constructs), but close.

Personally, I'm going to play it as is. They'll see Pitch Blade in the 2nd round. What you're suggesting is just too blatant, and would be noticed by the players and the crowd.

We'll see - we're kicking it off this week.

[Rakshaka]

Personally, I'm going to play it as is. They'll see Pitch Blade in the 2nd round. What you're suggesting is just too blatant, and would be noticed by the players and the crowd.

I think bringing back the Diamond Lake cast is brilliant. I agree with Wampuscat43 that introducing Pitch Blade too early will make the PCs think the fights are fixed and that they will die if they participate (I think there's another thread describing this very scenario happening). Be careful with Darl.. Vecna is after all the god of secrets, and thus tends to be..well, secretive.(not sure that's a word) I ended up having the half-dragon son of Brazzemal from KoR competing as well as a Sanctified Troll Paladin (sounds crazy, but it worked) for variety. As long as you keep the gladiator cast interesting, it will be hard for them to second-guess which gladiators they will have to fight.

[Hastur]

As far as tweaking tactics go, remember that the PC's opponents should know how the PC's won their prior fights, and prepare appropriately. I figure the managers watch all the fights and then pass on the details. Same goes for the PC's - they should have c ahnce to know something about how their next opponents won.

For example in my game the first round they uses Evard's Tentacles, so the next rounds pretty much everyone was flying (mostly via potions their managers got for them). Overall, my group tried to mix up their tactics every round, only pulling out their best tricks later on (like dominate person on Auric - took him out first round!)

So if you party is known for flinging fireballs, say hello to potions of fire resistance or similar...