Need ideas for setting up a PvP tournament

[The Rot Grub]

I figure this is the right forum to post this question...

I run a middle-school Pathfinder club, and the students have been REALLY wanting to have some PvP battles. I've put it off, in order to establish that the club is mostly about adventuring, but I want to have a PvP tournament as a minor part of the club.

These are the parameters I've worked out so far:
- Knock-out tournament... exact structure to be determined by the number of participants
- Every player creates a single character (gladiator) with a 20-point buy, with one of the 11 core classes and 7 core races, and wealth using the Wealth-By-Level chart
- If they advance to the next round, their gladiator also advances in level and gets to advance their gear according to the WBL chart
- I'm hoping that at the final round (there will probably be about 4 rounds), the gladiators will be at 6th level. (We haven't gone higher than 4th level in the club so I don't want it to get too advanced.)

These are my questions:
1. Have people found there are serious balance issues doing PvP at the lowest levels?
2. What would you guys suggest for an arena/battlemat? It's possible we could place them in the same dungeon with a GM going back-and-forth where they can't see each other. But I don't want the battles to last longer than 45 minutes and the kids can be easily distracted. I think it would be interesting to allow skill classes and spellcasters the chance to find creative ways to use their skills and equipment. Or should I just have a simple circular arena?

Thanks in advance.

[hogarth]

I have a fair amount of arena fight experience from 3.5 (the Core Coliseum forum on the WotC boards).

My two cents:

If you let spellcasters prepare and cast a full load of spells for each fight, that's a big advantage since they can "go nova". The way the Core Coliseum handled it was that one day's spells had to last you for 3 fights, but you might find that too restrictive.

You should be careful with how many pets a PC can bring in (e.g. Can I buy 30 riding dogs and order them to attack my enemy? Can I take Leadership? What about Animate Dead?). You should also be careful with consumable items like scrolls (e.g. Can I purchase a scroll of Summon Monster IX and use it in my fight?). Pathfinder Society has some reasonable restrictions with regards to those things, for instance (only one pet is allowed, no Leadership, no really high-level scrolls allowed, etc.).

You need to consider how much pre-buffing is allowed. For instance, you might restrict pre-buffs to effects that last at least 1 hour, or 24 hours, or whatever.

As far as the arena goes, it should be reasonably big (otherwise you might get superfast PCs pouncing on their enemies in Round 1) and it should have some places to hide (otherwise you're penalizing stealthy characters). Likewise, you should have some places to take cover and some interesting terrain features. You might get some inspiration from the Core Coliseum battle map program ("Arena", "Sewer" and "Temple" are not bad, in my experience).

If I think of anything else, I'll let you know. But those are the big ones that come to mind.

[Blueluck]

I wouldn't start PVP below 4th level, just to make sure that the spellcasters all have 2nd level spells and the fighting types all have a couple of extra feats and the basic gear they're build to use.

[gamer-printer]

There's a 3PP book called Conflict RPG that's a PF product built for player versus player. I did the initial map for it, but I don't much about the game.

[The Rot Grub]

@Blueluck, yeah I just did a "playtest" with a 3rd level sorcerer versus a fighter because I was concerned about arcane classes at low levels. I think 4th level is where we'll start.

@Hogarth and @gamer-printer, Thanks for these suggestions. All duly noted!

[Chaos_Scion]

1. dispel magic on them when they enter the arena(no prior magic)
2. allow one or two rounds to pre buff or your hamstringing casters(or you could make the arena big enough to prevent the melee chars from closing to quickly)-make buffing known in advance.
3. the size of the arena or dungeon is huge. A small area or one with lots of cover favors melee chars. Wide open spaces favor casters and archers. will their be difficult terrain that prevents easy movement, 5 foot steps and charging. (I suggest not telling them in advance so they don't build to your arena. You could even vary it fight to fight to give more balance).
4. check all their chars in advance to make sure everyone's on the up and up. Their new and might make mistakes or not understand the rules.
5. Don't let them know what others are building.
6. make it clear what gear they can bring in. This includes animals/cohorts ect. Any chars/pets not granted by a class ability should be left out.

[hogarth]

The Core Coliseum started characters off at level 3. Yes, that meant that sorcerers were at a bit of a disadvantage, but not as much as you might think if they're allowed to buy scrolls. If you want to pity a level 3 PC in a 1-on-1 battle, pity the poor rogue.

I thought of another couple of issues:

Delay of game penalties. Sometimes you get into a situation where both sides want to wait for the other side to do act. E.g. an archer vs. a character with a tower shield -- the tower shield guy wants the archer to engage in melee, and the archer wants the tower shield guy to move out from behind his shield. In the Core Coliseum, you would be warned after 10 consecutive rounds of "not engaging the enemy" (GM's discretion), but for a tabletop game you might want to cut that down a bit.

Crafting. Can wizards scribe scrolls to save money? Can fighters use Craft (weaponsmith) to save money on weapons? I'd suggest against it, but some people consider that unfair.

Leaving the arena. This probably won't be a problem for low level PCs, but sometimes people want to teleport away or hide in a Rope Trick, etc. I'd suggest that counts as disqualification.

Of course, by forbidding certain things you run the risk of giving your players bad ideas! It's like the old, old story of a priest asking a stable owner whether he would grease the horses' teeth: "I've never heard of that trick, but I'll start doing it now!" :-)

[CrazyGnomeLady]

I've been doing some amount of battles against my sweetheart, sometimes 1-on-1 with same-level characters, once I built an "NPC" CR+3 to challenge our old gaming group (which he played completely--and won ;)--and yesterday we did some battles between monsters straight out of the bestiaries (only restrictions a set CR for each side, and the terrain).

Battlemaps for these kinds of encounters should make Stealth possible, as well as finding cover. Difficult terrain can be an interesting option IF your players know the rules for moving in/out/through DT. Same goes for height differences.

Best,
your crazy gnome lady from next door

[hogarth]

For reference, here's a link to the Core Coliseum rules, which are way, WAY more than you'll need:

Core Coliseum rules

In particular, the Battles of Gladius II section might be useful.

[The Rot Grub]

hogarth wrote:

For reference, here's a link to the Core Coliseum rules, which are way, WAY more than you'll need:

Core Coliseum rules

In particular, the Battles of Gladius II section might be useful.

Interesting stuff. You're right - way more than I need, but I'm thinking of using some of the rules such as limits on potions/scrolls. I'm not sure about the 1/3 spellcasting rule though - I'm thinking of keeping it a strategic option to go for an arcane caster that can be very powerful at higher levels if one can survive the lower levels.

[The Rot Grub]

Chaos_Scion wrote:

1. dispel magic on them when they enter the arena(no prior magic)

2. allow one or two rounds to pre buff or your hamstringing casters(or you could make the arena big enough to prevent the melee chars from closing to quickly)-make buffing known in advance.
3. the size of the arena or dungeon is huge. A small area or one with lots of cover favors melee chars. Wide open spaces favor casters and archers. will their be difficult terrain that prevents easy movement, 5 foot steps and charging. (I suggest not telling them in advance so they don't build to your arena. You could even vary it fight to fight to give more balance).
4. check all their chars in advance to make sure everyone's on the up and up. Their new and might make mistakes or not understand the rules.
5. Don't let them know what others are building.
6. make it clear what gear they can bring in. This includes animals/cohorts ect. Any chars/pets not granted by a class ability should be left out.

Hmm, I'm thinking of having a few arenas drawn out ahead of time that they'll alternate between.

@Hogarth, on second thought I'm thinking of not allowing scrolls, only allowing healing potions, and allowing a full day of casting...

[hogarth]

The Rot Grub wrote:

I'm not sure about the 1/3 spellcasting rule though - I'm thinking of keeping it a strategic option to go for an arcane caster that can be very powerful at higher levels if one can survive the lower levels.

Without a restriction on the amount of spells a wizard can cast, a cleverly played spellcaster can probably rung rings around a non-spellcaster. (I suspect that your middle school kids might have fewer tricks up their sleeves, though.)

In the Core Coliseum, popular wizard tactics include:

Invisibility + Summon Monster or Summon Swarm

Blindness + plinking away with a crossbow

Improved Familiar or Spectral Hand + touch spells (e.g. Ghoul Touch, Shocking Grasp, etc.)

But I would be less worried about wizards than I would about clerics. Pathfinder clerics have a collossal amount of potential healing! Any class with a pet (like a druid or a summoner) would definitely be a good choice, too.

What's your policy on healing between combats? I'd recommend letting people get healed for free of anything short of death, and free equipment repair too, in case something got sundered.

[The Rot Grub]

Very good to know: your experience is very helpful. I'll think about it more and very well may go with the 1/3 rule.

Another consideration is that I'll be presuming an indefinite amount of time to heal, shop, prepare spells in between rounds of the tournament. So everyone will be healed up at the start of every battle.

I would also like to find 2 or 3 go-to arenas that everyone will be familiar with, that will include a variety of challenges (such as a room with a balance beam over a pit, a room in magical darkness, a room with a different trap each time) and some time for players who want to buff to do so. I'm half-inclined to design 3 arenas myself, and then have every matchup be a best-of-three.

[gamer-printer]

You might also consider Rite Publishing's Coleseum Morpheuon setting, which is designed for 15th - 20th level game play, as opposed to most APs that stop before 15th level. It's the dreamscape, with an arena coleseum as it's heart hosted by the Khan of Nightmares. It's designed specifically for high level, high powered arena fights - though not necessarily PvP. It's probably the ideal setting for when your game gets to high enough level. Worth checking out at least.