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Inyssius Tor
2009-01-05, 12:47 AM
Deep within the Elemental Chaos, a third chain breaks.

Deep below Faerûn, the Blazing Fury snaps awake. “Brother?”

Amidst the great treasures of her palace, the Dragon Queen hears. Never one to turn down more power, she calls forth her strongest consorts and prepares to fly.

…and a fourth.

Amidst the ruined shards of his fortress, Yeenoghu… kneels. The dark king Graz’zt smiles, flush with new power, and turns his mind outward--why stop at three, after all? And then he senses a larger opportunity.

As the final stage of his plan draws closer, the Whispered One waits …

…and with a final scream of tearing metal, the Thunder Serpent at last breaks free.
__________________

An ENworld man once pitted two great dragons against one another, for his own sadistic amusement. Unfortunately, it did not satisfy him; as the titanic struggle drew on, and the combatants' power depleted, he grew bored. He concluded that watching the Great Ones beat the hell out of each other just wasn't fun.

Poppycock! You just need more titans! And I, as always, aim to please. It is my opinion that, with Open Grave's addition of the Undying King to the list of Things You Can Beat The Hell Out Of, there are now more than enough colossi to hold one's attention. I intend to carry out a four-sided, roughly symmetrical Battle of the Powers. But to do that, I need your help!

Probably not to actually run any of the Powers, though. Sucks to be you, huh. Anyway. I've got two questions, before I start. First, does anyone know of a suitable arena map? It's got to be big, since a lot of said titans are Gargantuan.

Second, should I reduce the Solos' HP? I know the totals grow awfully large at these levels, and I don't want this to drag on for years.

KKL
2009-01-05, 01:43 AM
Undying King?

STATS WHERE.

Inyssius Tor
2009-01-05, 01:45 AM
Er, by that I mean Vecna (turns out Undying King isn't exactly an uncommon honorific). He'll be in Open Grave, or so say the lucky barstuds at RPGnet.

KKL
2009-01-05, 01:49 AM
Er, by that I mean Vecna (turns out Undying King isn't exactly an uncommon honorific). He'll be in Open Grave, or so say the lucky barstuds at RPGnet.

Oh. I've never heard Vecna called Undying King before :P

Also, This is a Grazzt vs Tiamat vs Blazing Rorn vs Vecna fight?

I'm placing my chips on Tiamat or Vecna.

Inyssius Tor
2009-01-05, 02:00 AM
I was thinking, to make it more interesting,

Tiamat, and two Ancient Red consorts (Ashardalon, and a Grayish-Red with all the Draconomicon variants);
Blazing Rorn the Fury (from the FRCG), and a slightly advanced Mual-Tar (the Thunder Serpent of Dragon 370);
Graz'zt (MoP), and his new slaves--Yeenoghu (Dragon 364), Baphomet (MoP), and Orcus;
Vecna (OG), and his skeletal retinue (Sorrowsworn? Atropals?).

That might be too complicated, but 4E really likes having large numbers of enemies.

(more epic is better, right?)

JaxGaret
2009-01-05, 02:22 AM
That sounds like an awesome free-for-all.

How are you going to handle team-ups? Is everyone going to "play by the rules" and be out just for themselves?

Inyssius Tor
2009-01-05, 02:31 AM
Nah, they'll face off in those four teams--more or less. I'm not sure what would happen to Team Abyss if Graz'zt dies an untimely but probably inevitable death. Team Dead will hide in the shadows until I actually have Open Grave, but I don't feel too bad about that since I bet the other solos will eat his retinue like popcorn after the big reveal.

JaxGaret
2009-01-05, 02:37 AM
No, I mean, when you have more than 2 groups fighting at the same time, it's pretty common that 2 or more groups will gang up on the others, to give themselves a better chance of winning. How are you going to handle that?

Inyssius Tor
2009-01-05, 02:47 AM
No, I mean, when you have more than 2 groups fighting at the same time, it's pretty common that 2 or more groups will gang up on the others, to give themselves a better chance of winning. How are you going to handle that?

Ah! As they would in character, I think. Mostly that'd mean free-for-all, but not always. Team Kaos is just in it for blood, but has a special hatred for gods; Team Abyss is headed by Graz'zt, who is legendarily silver-tongued but who may rely on his dominate ability a little too much; Team Dragon is headed by Tiamat, whose pride is so big an infinite demiplane can't hold it all; and Team Dead is controlled by Vecna, who's enigmatic but rational.

EDIT: Anyway, all you speed-readers out there, don't forget--I actually do have questions that I need answered before I can do this.

KKL
2009-01-05, 02:56 AM
No suitable arena map. Just a wide open plane. Also, don't reduce their HP, that's no fun :P

Willfor
2009-01-05, 03:16 AM
A demiplane with alternating patches of open plains, and magma pits.

Mando Knight
2009-01-05, 11:56 AM
A demiplane with alternating patches of open plains, and magma pits.

You realize that at least half the combatants are resistant to Fire, and many of them fly and/or teleport? It wouldn't do you much good to have magma.

Willfor
2009-01-05, 01:20 PM
You realize that at least half the combatants are resistant to Fire, and many of them fly and/or teleport? It wouldn't do you much good to have magma.

Practicality is negated by the ability for awesome descriptions of the fight moving in and out of magma pits. At least it is in my opinion, and I believe opinions were what he wanted.

Mercenary Pen
2009-01-05, 02:27 PM
But still, why bother with pits full of magma.

Why not instead have pools of boiling acid (mostly acid damage, but with a little bit of fire damage due to the heat), and roving cyclones (normal or thunder damage to whatever they hit as well as some forced movement)?

That'll be far more epic than pits with magma in the bottom- because those are done by almost everyone.

Lapak
2009-01-05, 03:43 PM
A demiplane with alternating patches of open plains, and magma pits.
While this is interesting, and in tune with the 4e theme of dangerous terrain, it's not dangerous ENOUGH. These are gods and primordial beings we're talking about!

Have it on a demiplane, a cube 500' or more on a side, that is starting to disintegrate. Starting on the third turn, rifts of utter nothingness will start to tear through the demiplane. It's being disrupted by the close presence of so many ultra-powerful beings. Escape is impossible and the destruction will spread until three of the four major-god-like beings are destroyed.

That'll give them a reason to tear into each other with maximum ferocity, limit teamups, and provide growing obstacles dangerous enough for even Tiamat to fear.

EDIT: It will also help with the HP issue, as being forced to come into contact with a rift should be one of the most significant threats on the map and cause major damage to the affected entity. Being forced completely into a rift should count as an instant kill.

Willfor
2009-01-05, 04:35 PM
I will admit to these being more awesome suggestions.

Artanis
2009-01-05, 04:44 PM
But still, why bother with pits full of magma.

Why not instead have pools of boiling acid (mostly acid damage, but with a little bit of fire damage due to the heat), and roving cyclones (normal or thunder damage to whatever they hit as well as some forced movement)?

That'll be far more epic than pits with magma in the bottom- because those are done by almost everyone.

No no no, still not epic enough.

Instead of boiling acid, make the pools out of poison that induces massive hallucinations as it rapidly necrotizes the brain cell by cell. And instead of pansy "normal" cyclones, have the whirlwinds carry flaming acid that acts as a massive capacitor which discharges with blinding flashes of lightning formed from the essence of a thousand souls.



Also, the battlefield should also be the site of a war where caffiene elemental pirates/commandos are trying to liberate a Spelljammer from a massive, sapient snowstorm*.


*The first person to guess the reference wins fifteen million brownies and one internet.

chiasaur11
2009-01-05, 05:04 PM
Also there:

One ninja.

Inyssius Tor
2009-01-05, 06:30 PM
and roving cyclones (normal or thunder damage to whatever they hit as well as some forced movement)?

I'll already be rolling for twenty or thirty characters, and I really don't want to increase that any more even if a quarter of them are Tiamat. A little less complexity would be good.

Also good: walls. Corridors. Pillars to hide behind.

Seriously, does no one know of a pre-made map or anything?

MammonAzrael
2009-01-05, 06:39 PM
My money is on Mr. Rodgers.

Inyssius Tor
2009-01-05, 07:00 PM
My money is on Mr. Rodgers.

That'll be a "no", then?

MammonAzrael
2009-01-05, 07:15 PM
Lol. Sorry. I don't know of any premade maps to fit the epic-ness of this battle. Or the scale, since most of these guys will need a fair amount of space (especially the ones that can fly).

I think the best bet is a mostly open field, and then just toss in some obstacles/hazards in randomly (or make it symmetrical if you're worried about that tipping the scales).

RTGoodman
2009-01-05, 07:33 PM
Have it on a demiplane, a cube 500' or more on a side, that is starting to disintegrate. Starting on the third turn, rifts of utter nothingness will start to tear through the demiplane. It's being disrupted by the close presence of so many ultra-powerful beings. Escape is impossible and the destruction will spread until three of the four major-god-like beings are destroyed.

That'll give them a reason to tear into each other with maximum ferocity, limit teamups, and provide growing obstacles dangerous enough for even Tiamat to fear.

I REALLY like that idea, and I think I have a premade map you could at least shoehorn into working - the "Sinking Island" map from the 3.x Arena Tournament:


http://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q76/NamelessOne_album/SinkingIsland.jpg

You'd just have to say the squares are 10x10 instead of 5x5, and instead of water and sharks you just have, you know, a god-killing void. :smalltongue:

Oracle_Hunter
2009-01-06, 12:54 AM
I'd say the Primordial Chaos is the only place you can have this fight. That means Mountains of Fire, Lakes of Acid, and Floating Islands hovering all about. This provides a wide variety of elemental damages, improbable terrain, and is even fluff-sensible!

Start with a basic area - a big cube with several floating islands suspended above a lake of acid and magma - and then have a Chaos Table you roll on every turn. It could include events like a wave of lightning running through the arena, spontaneous generation/disintergration of islands, and rimefire clouds.

Sure, it'd be hard to depict, but with gods you really need to use that third dimension :smallbiggrin:

Inyssius Tor
2009-01-06, 04:40 PM
RTG, thank you very much, but I'm looking for something with walls and I have no idea how long the fight will take.

Last opportunity for submissions before I throw together something really terrible in Excel.

"ATTENTION TEAMS: YOU HAVE ONE HOUR REMAINING."

EDIT: Seven hundred of you! Seven hundred! And one person with a map of any kind! :frown:

Inyssius Tor
2009-01-06, 08:03 PM
You have failed me for the last time, Playground.

http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g280/Inyssius/map.png
■: a pillar of fire. Grants partial concealment to things behind it; deals fire damage if you enter its square.
■: a big wall of black ice. Like a wall, except you can blast holes in it. Vulnerable to fire damage.
■: a blob of water floating on through the elemental chaos. Drowning rules apply here. There's more ice below it, so be careful with your aura of fire or you'll plummet to your death. (Unless you have wings. And you do.)
■: a wall. Duh.
■: a floor. Duh.
■: a pool of voidstuff. Don't stand in or adjacent to it.
Δ: Difficult terrain. Doesn't grant cover or concealment or anything, though.

The arena is surrounded by a spherical bubble of stability, but beyond (that's about fifteen squares below and above it--spheres are cubic now) is a roiling storm of chaos.

There'll be hellish elemental storms every two rounds, so stand behind a wall or something unless you want to get perforated.

EDIT: Hey, that's pretty small actually. Should I make it bigger?