Help Designing a Gladiatorial arena encounter


Advice


Basically my players are going to be swept up into the ranks of slavery and thrown in a fighting pit with other slaves. I envision different waves of gladiators and beasts (normal and magical) being thrown at them while the other slaves are killed off culminating in a final battle with the party and the arena "boss". I have always been a fan of gladiators but don't have the most knowledge on this particular subject. I just don't want the battle to become stale and predictable. I'm looking for ideas for the different waves of enemies as well as difficult terrain and traps to throw at them as well as what the arena boss could be. Also possibly some sort of fan interaction because this was, after all, a spectacle for the fans.

Silver Crusade

EmperorStizz wrote:
Basically my players are going to be swept up into the ranks of slavery and thrown in a fighting pit with other slaves. I envision different waves of gladiators and beasts (normal and magical) being thrown at them while the other slaves are killed off culminating in a final battle with the party and the arena "boss". I have always been a fan of gladiators but don't have the most knowledge on this particular subject. I just don't want the battle to become stale and predictable. I'm looking for ideas for the different waves of enemies as well as difficult terrain and traps to throw at them as well as what the arena boss could be. Also possibly some sort of fan interaction because this was, after all, a spectacle for the fans.

One of the most fun encounters I've played in D20 systems in general was an arena style fight from d&d 4e. Basically, the players start somewhere at the center, and every 1 or 2 rounds another gate opened which added an effective new encounter to the survivors. There were firewalls lining the arena which protected the crowd and can give some interaction abilities to pc's by forcing enemies into them. If you want to spice it up further, designate a few area's of the terrain as hidden trapdoors and/or elevators, the latter of which can bring a single enemy in at unpredictable times or location.

Apart form this, you can have the pc's optionally use skills or spells as actions to entertain the crowd and gain their favor, which would boost their stats (or the ones of their enemies, if they infuence the crowd more than the pc's).


There are lots of options with an arena.

Have them start with nothing. No armor, no weapons. Forcing them to scavenge weapons and use combat maneuvers to fight back against weak, yet armed, slaves.

An arena champion with a few Heroic levels would make a fantastic show. As a crowd favorite, have a few surprises in store throughout the arena to help him out. He would obviously know where these traps/hazards are and try to use them to his advantage. Maybe include Performance rules.

A pretty fun challenge could be a Light/Heavy Chariot with archers going circles around the party, pin cushioning them to death with arrows. If they get too close, they get ran over for some significant damage and possibly trampled by the horse as well.

Any Dire animal would be pretty brutal in an arena. I once made a "KONG" as an arena boss. He was a Giant, Advanced Dire Ape. There is a new one that literally is KONG in one of the newer bestiaries. Megaprimatus or something but he is much more powerful.


Ultimate Combat has an entire system devoted to the performance element of arena-type fighting. Might be a good addition.


King of the hill with new combatants constantly added to the battlefield is one way to break up "two sides led in and kill each other" and encourages different tactics. Some think the arena in Rome was designed to be floodable to stage naval battles.

I warn you that making all fights to the death is impossible via basic statistics. You literally lose half your entertainers a fight.

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