How to run a „minigame“ arenas / fight club in a city?

[DeriusA]

Hi :)

I’d like to incorporate the following into my current campaign: a location where (legal, non-lethal) arena fights take place. The campaign is set (mostly) in a single city, so the characters can visit the arena again and again. There should be a ranking system for the strongest fighters there and a sort of challenge system. After successfully completing a few introductory fights, players can challenge the next-highest-ranked fighter on the list, and so on. This is primarily intended as a gimmick or a kind of side quest. I definitely have one player who would absolutely love to fight his way to the top over the course of the campaign. (You could also incorporate a few social aspects relevant to the main story, but that’s not so important for my request here.) I’m currently considering the following and would really appreciate any tips or advice: How do you design the fights so they’re interesting? Is it enough to simply create Level 1 to 20 fighter NPCs who then make up the ranking list? Or should the fights be handled differently? To simplify things, I’ve considered having the fights follow normal rules, but then describing them in the story as non-lethal. Having only fist-fighters might be too boring? And as a player, you want to use your skills and all that. Is there any material available for something like this? Or would a completely different approach be better?

(I imagine it's similar to the bar fights in The Witcher 3, even though those are always fistfights.)

Thanks for all the replies!

[Azothath]

what you want has been done. It varies from a form of entertainment to 'dirty' boxing/fighting.
Consider venue and duration of the business, business ownership and legality of the sport/entertainment, and lastly betting. A biz has to make money. With betting organized crime can get involved.
There are many historical examples.

While PF1 has performance weapons, I think the style of your event will dictate the details. Again, it is mostly about the theme of the event and swaying crowd opinion rather than martial prowess.

An establihed hierarchy is going to put up barriers to newcomers. Sure there willl be some dirty tricks.
One big consideration is spell casting; how much, to what spell level, and targets.

I find for an established entertainment setup you need martials with social and performance skills. This means a dip into bard or similar class. Some will focus on non-lethal damage, others acting. Self buffing never hurts but buffing your party is better.

[Azothath]

an established entertainment venue is going to have a stash of 'safer' weapons, dulled swords and rapiers etc. I'd convert all S & P weapons to (-1 B)dmg and alch silver some so they're shiny. Paint will help to create 'black swords'.
It is highly likely each group will need a handler/manager/sponser, someone the venue trusts and is invested in its success.

PCs could employ noisemakers for a humming magical effect or some shadow or illusion magics.

[TxSam88]

Go ahead and make it lethal combat and have healers on hand who can revie potential killed individuals - the costs are covered by ticket sales.

[Claxon]

There are lots of things to consider, but I want to specifically touch on the context of "lethal vs non-lethal" and "fist fights only?" questions.

If you have a relatively high level (of availability of) magical setting, and default PF1 is decently high level magic, then it becomes reasonable to say "Oh, there is a magical ritual that prevents fighters from being killed inside the ring".

So combatants can use all sorts of attack methods.

Make it so that the ritual causes any injuries sustained to at worst reduce people to unconscious but never dead, and any afflictions suffered during the fight are removed by the magic when the person leaves the arena.

Now you have "safe" fights where lethal force is allowed.

But some combatants might try to find ways around the safe guards.

It also opens the grounds for magical fighters to compete, like magus.