Probably a few weeks or a month out from opening an actual recruitment for this, but wanting to see if there would be enough interest to make it happen.
Have you ever had a build that you wanted to test, but it doesn't get accepted or isn't right for the games you are seeing? Then this is your opportunity to play test it's mechanics.
This will be a heavy combat, low RP PvP battle tournament. Characters will be stated out as 1st level, randomly paired against each other, and made to fight to the death. The winner will get a point.
After all fights (in seperate threads to keep things somewhat organized) are completed characters will have 48 hours to level and stat up to level 2...they will then be randomly paired and fight to the death again. This time the winner will get 2 points.
Lather, rinse, repeat. Each round you gain a level and WBL for that level...probably have some rule about only a specific amount of that being consumeables...not sure yet. Each level winners will get points equal to their current character level...in the unlikely event of a simultaneous KO both contestants would get 1/2 that number of points rounded down.
Also interested in doing larger groups at certain keystone levels...maybe 2v2 at level 2, or 1v1v1v1 at level 5...something like that.
Each level will have a battle map with different environmental conditions. Maybe there is a pit in the middle with a 60' drop...or the entire map is in a negative energy plane so you take 1d6 points of negative energy damage per round...stuff like that.
In the end there will be trophies (digital) and bragging rights.
That's what I've got.
Are you interested? Have thoughts on how to make it work? Know that it's doomed to failure from the start? Let's talk about it, and if there is enough interest maybe this will happen some time in February or early March.
PvP is quite difficult if one can read what the other is doing.
It requires everyone to play fair and make a concious effort to seperate player knowledge from character knowledge.
As the GM I can adjudicate secret actions through private messages or we could set up a discord if it is necessary.
I have done pvp in home games, and seen it done very successfully in streamed games...I don't see why pbp is any different.
many of the 'crazy builds' i'd want to try don't click until level 3 or 5 (or even higher). Most would either get creamed at level 1. Maybe have a level 1 tournament for best level 1 build. then another for level 5 and so on.
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I’ve done pvp tournament like this before. It turned out well.
Only hiccup was one player who vanished at the start of a battle. He asked the GM if he could spend some of his starting wealth on a half dozen goats. No hints as to why, he was really cryptic, like he had some kind of super clever plan. GM said ok. First round of battle, he positions the goats around the arena. Second round, the player stopped posting. Never found out what the goats were for. No clues in his character sheet either.
Anyway, count me interested
When you say fight to the death, do you mean eliminated from the game? Or death is just the end of the match, and you move forward regardless with the only consequence being that you didn't win any points?
I have questions/comments to answer.
many of the 'crazy builds' i'd want to try don't click until level 3 or 5 (or even higher). Most would either get creamed at level 1. Maybe have a level 1 tournament for best level 1 build. then another for level 5 and so on.
I had thought about that too. That is actually the reason behind the sliding scale of points. 1 for level 1, 2 for level 2, and so on...
If you are the first player to “turn on” a build that consistently win through mid and high levels then the fact that you got smacked around at early levels stops mattering as much.
I would however be open to the idea of power leveling and skipping some of the intermediaries. For fun’s maybe a primes tournament. 1,2,3,5,7,11,13,17,19. I don’t know. Just spitballing.
When you say fight to the death, do you mean eliminated from the game? Or death is just the end of the match, and you move forward regardless with the only consequence being that you didn't win any points?
Yes, you always advance, just with or without points. Also been thinking about looting/trophies. Maybe if you are the winner then you get to select 1 trophy from your opponent’s gear that does not count towards your WBL going forward. Obviously still thinking through a lot of this.
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I have questions/comments to answer.
many of the 'crazy builds' i'd want to try don't click until level 3 or 5 (or even higher). Most would either get creamed at level 1. Maybe have a level 1 tournament for best level 1 build. then another for level 5 and so on.I had thought about that too. That is actually the reason behind the sliding scale of points. 1 for level 1, 2 for level 2, and so on...
If you are the first player to “turn on” a build that consistently win through mid and high levels then the fact that you got smacked around at early levels stops mattering as much.
I would however be open to the idea of power leveling and skipping some of the intermediaries. For fun’s maybe a primes tournament. 1,2,3,5,7,11,13,17,19. I don’t know. Just spitballing.
When you say fight to the death, do you mean eliminated from the game? Or death is just the end of the match, and you move forward regardless with the only consequence being that you didn't win any points?Yes, you always advance, just with or without points. Also been thinking about looting/trophies. Maybe if you are the winner then you get to select 1 trophy from your opponent’s gear that does not count towards your WBL going forward. Obviously still thinking through a lot of this.
Ahhh...ok. I missed the part where you advance whether you win the match or not. I thought if you lost, then you were done. In that case, I'm down with starting at 1st level. It would be interesting to see where certain build "come online" in practice vs theory.
You know, in fairness reading over my op again I didn’t really make the idea of insignificant death as clear in writing as it was in my head. So I own that.
Does anyone have thoughts on how to balance battle consumables? Prefer to avoid a build that is just walk-in in with scrolls and sands and nuke the place. Is there a WBL percentage cap that makes sense, or having the consumable still count towards at WBL even though you have used it? Not sure if there is a good solution, or if it is possible to solve to.
I mean if somebody wants to blow all their wealth on a scroll to have one easy fight, that's fine. They'll start falling off pretty quickly. It wouldn't even be an issue until you're at least a few levels in, and they'd just powerspike for one fight and then fall behind everybody else (which is why it's important not to reward winners with extra gear, it makes snowballing a threat). Just make consumables still count against WBL.
Alright, I've been watching this thread for a bit. Color me interested.
I agree with what's been said about consumables and WBL, except I might add one thing: I think we should not have all consumables count against WBL, just consumables spent above the recommended 15% of Wealth.
WBL assumes that a character at that level, has that much wealth, and doesn't include all the consumables spent before that level. So if there's a build that runs off of that assumption, that someone wants to try out, they're automatically punished, even if their gear collection is more like what they might find while in a full campaign.
I know a calculation like this might be more difficult than what's wanted, but I think this would be the most fair calculation:
Let C=Current Recommended WBL, N=Next Recommended WBL, P=Cost of Consumables Purchased this round, L=Cost of consumables used this round.
If .15C-P>=0 and L<P, then the PC gains N-C+L
If .15C-P>=0 and L>=P, then the PC gains N-C+P
If .15C-P<0 and .15C-L>=0, then the PC gains N-C+L
If .15C-P<0 and .15C-L<0, then the PC gains N-.85C
Or for those who are not math nerds, if a PC spends and uses more than 15% of their WBL, they gain back that 15%, then the difference between WBLs. If a PC buys more than 15% of their WBL, but uses less than 15% of their WBL, then they gain back the cost of what they used, and then the difference between WBLs. If a PC spends and uses less than 15%, then they gain back the cost of whichever is less (the amount they spent that round, or the amount they used), then the difference between WBLs.
That way, it discourages a scroll-nuke, or someone just building up to a scroll nuke, but also doesn't punish a regular use of WBL on consumables.
If that's too complicated, the next best thing is probably just to either have all consumables count against WBL as the posters above said, or give a free percentage to everyone (maybe somewhere in the middle of 15% and 0%).
Edit: I can't believe I didn't think of this till after I posted, but alternatively, you could give back 15% of the Current levels WBL or the cost of consumables purchased, whichever is less, and count all consumables as used in the round which they were purchased, so they don't carry on to the next round. That might simplify things enough to be usable.
Alright, I've been watching this thread for a bit. Color me interested.
I agree with what's been said about consumables and WBL, except I might add one thing: I think we should not have all consumables count against WBL, just consumables spent above the recommended 15% of Wealth.
WBL assumes that a character at that level, has that much wealth, and doesn't include all the consumables spent before that level. So if there's a build that runs off of that assumption, that someone wants to try out, they're automatically punished, even if their gear collection is more like what they might find while in a full campaign.
I know a calculation like this might be more difficult than what's wanted, but I think this would be the most fair calculation:
Let C=Current Recommended WBL, N=Next Recommended WBL, P=Cost of Consumables Purchased this round, L=Cost of consumables used this round.
If .15C-P>=0 and L<P, then the PC gains N-C+L
If .15C-P>=0 and L>=P, then the PC gains N-C+P
If .15C-P<0 and .15C-L>=0, then the PC gains N-C+L
If .15C-P<0 and .15C-L<0, then the PC gains N-.85COr for those who are not math nerds, if a PC spends and uses more than 15% of their WBL, they gain back that 15%, then the difference between WBLs. If a PC buys more than 15% of their WBL, but uses less than 15% of their WBL, then they gain back the cost of what they used, and then the difference between WBLs. If a PC spends and uses less than 15%, then they gain back the cost of whichever is less (the amount they spent that round, or the amount they used), then the difference between WBLs.
That way, it discourages a scroll-nuke, or someone just building up to a scroll nuke, but also doesn't punish a regular use of WBL on consumables.
If that's too complicated, the next best thing is probably just to either have all consumables count against WBL as the posters above said, or give a free percentage to everyone (maybe somewhere in the middle of 15% and 0%).
Edit: I can't believe I didn't think of this till after I...
I need to put this into words for it to make sense to me...
If .15C-P>=0 and L<P, then the PC gains N-C+L...
::If your consumable allowance is more than what you spent and you did not use more value than you spent then you get back the value that you used.
If .15C-P>=0 and L>=P, then the PC gains N-C+P...
::If your consumable allowance is more than what you spent and you did use more value than you spent then you get back the value that you spent, not the value that you used.
If .15C-P<0 and .15C-L>=0, then the PC gains N-C+L...
::If you spent more than your consumable allowance, but used less than your consumable allowance, then you get back the value that you used.
If .15C-P<0 and .15C-L<0, then the PC gains N-.85C...[ooc]convert last arguement to be same syntax as rest for clarity, ...PC gains N-C+.15C
::If you spent more than your consumable allowance, and used more than your consumable allowance, then you only get back the value of your consumable allowance.
Mathematically this all makes sense...but it feels like too complicated of a decision tree to make leveling easy. It is much easier to execute if you can just tell everyone you are going from level 6 to level 7, once you level up your character you have an additional 7,500 gp to spend on upgrades and new equipment.
Hmm...Need to think on this more.
I do feel like we have enough interest for recruiting though, so once I make a decision on this for myself I will open up a recruitment thread. Probably later this week or early next week.
Goal will be actual tournament to start after about a 2 week recruiting period...around beginning of March.
For the benefit of people that are already theorycrafting (I know I would be) the WBL for level 1 will be the top average result for class so that everyone is on the same page and it will be easier to go from level 1 to level 2 since everyone started at the same wealth.
This means every character will have 175 gp to spend at level 1.
I'm interested, what about pre-combat buffs and how many pets can we bring?
For pre-combat buffs I am thinking to handle that on an arena by arena basis. For example, some arenas might be so large that traversing them gives you some time for 1 or 2 rounds of buffing...or maybe both combatants start with a sanctuary spell cast on them, or an invis spell. Other arenas might be tight quarters with no time to buff, and you are just in it. Kind of thinking I will keep that as a wild card.
For pets, I figure if you can afford them you can bring them. Heck, it might be amusing at higher levels to see what leadership with cohorts and followers does to the fight. Any gear or cost for your additional helpers would come out of your WBL though. I feel like that will be the one constant sort of balancing factor.
For those curious about the status of this...I have the first 5 rounds of battle maps built, wanted to have a bit of a buffer before I open up recruitment.
I will be working on the text for the recruitment thread tonight. Most likely a recruitment will go up tonight or tomorrow.
There will be a post in this thread linking to the recruitment when it goes up.
Recruitment is Officially Open. I look forward to seeing all of you there.