Kansaschaser
2010-12-13, 05:34 PM
This is my idea for a level 20 D&D Battle Royal. If you guys/gals have any thoughts, suggestions, wording, and/or concerns, please let me know. I'm trying to make this as balanced as possible.
And yes, this can also be used for lower level characters (level 10, level 15, etc...) or higher level characters (level 25, level 30, etc...). You may even have a ghestalt version.
It's not entirely finished. I still have to determine the rest of the fields of battle and the time of day/night for the battle. These things can be an important factor to some characters.
D&D Battle Royal
Character Creation
This battle royal is to test who can make the best level 20 character. You may use any official D&D 3.5 material, including any Dragon Magazine, Dungeon Magazine, and Web Enhancements from the Wizards of the Coast website. You must have a copy of the source material available to show the moderator. You must always use the most current version and errata if there is one. You have the gold of a level 20 character to purchase equipment and magic items. You cannot have artifacts of any kind and you cannot have magic items that have no gold value listed. You can use items from any official D&D 3.5 material. You may also create magic items by using the rules out of the Dungeon Masters Guide. You must pay full market price for items created with the Dungeon Masters Guide. You cannot expend experience points to create magic items.
If you have the appropriate craft feat and spells to create an item, you must pay 70% of the market price of the item to purchase the item. If you craft constructs or contingent spells, you must pay 5 gold per point of xp it would have cost to create the construct or contingent spell instead of spending xp.
You get 18, 17, 16, 15, 14, and 13 for your starting attributes at level 1.
If you use a race that has a level adjustment, you will not be level 20. Adjust your level so that you are the equivalent of level 20. If you take the leadership feat, you must follow all the normal rules for having a cohort. The only modifiers that you can apply to your leadership reputation score is Great renown and Has a stronghold, base of operations, guildhouse, or the like if you purchase at least a great house or larger. Your cohort has the normal items, statistics, and equipment for an NPC of it’s level.
If you hire mercenaries or other hirelings, you must purchase them for a minimum of 24 hours (1 day) as described in the Dungeon Master’s Guide. You must also equip them as normal. If your match lasts for more than 24 hours, your hirelings will vanish from the board unless you have some spell or effect that makes them work for you for free (such as charm, geas, or diplomacy).
You may have any alignment. You may be any age from the minimum starting age for your race up to venerable. You may have any height and weight within the normal parameters for your race. You can be a male or a female.
You cannot have any divine rank. This is a fight between mortals, not deities.
After you have created your character, it must be approved by a moderator.
Wining Condition for a Duel
You must kill your opponent. If your opponent has a contingency and/or magic item that returns them to life if they are slain, you must defeat them a second time. If your opponent has any followers, cohorts, and/or hirelings, you must defeat all of the ones that were placed on the board by your opponent.
The player with the last standing character, follower, cohort, or hireling wins the duel.
Number of Duels
Each match will consist of three duels. You must beat your opponent in two of the three duels. The duels will take place as follows.
Duel 1 – You will have an unlimited amount of time to prepare for the first duel, within reason (no more than 1,000 years). Nothing you do during this preparation time can give you more experience, gold, magic items, or equipment other than what you have purchased yourself. You can cast spells, use magic items, or train during this time. You will not have any encounters during this time. You are considered to be on the material plane for spellcasting purposes. Each day that you spend preparing, you must rest and eat as normal unless you have some effect that allows you to ignore sleep and eating. If you are required to eat, you must spend 1 gold per day for food for a medium creature (5 silver for a small creature and 2 gold for a large creature). If you have followers, cohorts, and/or hirelings, you must feed them also during this time.
Once you have declared that you are prepared for battle, you and all your followers, cohorts, and hirelings will be placed in a stasis field. That is when you will place your figures on the battlefield as described below in “Deciding the Field of Battle”.
Duel 2 – You will have 10 minutes (100 combat rounds) to prepare for battle once you have finished resting and preparing spells, meditating, praying, and/or practicing. You cannot have any spell effects on your character that were “cast the previous day”. Any buffs you apply to your character must be cast after you have prepared spells, meditated, prayed, and/or practiced for the day. The only exception is in the case of the permanency spell. If you can cast the spell to be made permanent, you can then pay 5 gold per 1 experience to have a spell made permanent as per the permanency spell. If you cannot cast the permanency spell or the spell to be made permanent, you must pay for a scroll of permanency and a scroll of the spell to be made permanent in addition to the gold cost. If you have a spell that must be cast on an area, such as the Consecrate spell, the effect of the spell will not move with your character onto the field of battle. Spells that you cast on yourself, one of your followers, or object that you own can be taken with you into the battlefield.
At the end of the 10 minutes (100 combat rounds), you and all your followers, cohorts, and hirelings will be placed in a stasis field. That is when you will place your figures on the battlefield as described below in “Deciding the Field of Battle”.
Duel 3 – You will have no time to prepare for this last duel. You will have just finished resting and preparing spells, praying, meditating, and/or practicing. Again, you will not have any spells cast on your character or your followers. The only exception is the rules concerning permanency as described above.
After you have finished resting and preparing spells, praying, meditating, and/or practicing, you and all your followers, cohorts, and hirelings will be placed in a stasis field. That is when you will place your figures on the battlefield as described below in “Deciding the Field of Battle”.
Deciding the Field of Battle
You and your opponent will both roll 1d6. Add both numbers together and consult table 1 to determine your field of play for the first battle. Each terrain type uses the normal Stealth and Detection rules as described in chapter 3 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide.
Table 1 - Terrain
2 – Aquatic
3 – Forest
4 – Desert
5 – Hills
6 – Mountain
7 – Plains
8 – Urban
9 – Marsh
10 – Underdark
11 – Transitive Plane
12 – Inner Plane
After the field of battle is chosen, both players will roll 1d6 again and add their results to determine the number of terrain details. Each terrain type will have different features. Consult table 2 for each kind of terrain detail that may be used.
You will flip a coin to determine what player places the first terrain feature. The player that won the coin flip will place his or her choice of one terrain feature to place on the battlefield. The other player then chooses a terrain feature to place on the board. It continues in that order until there are a number of terrain features on the battlefield equal to what both players rolled.
After all the features have been placed on the board, both players roll a d20. The player that rolled the highest gets to choose the side of the board they start on. Both players must place their character within 20 squares of the middle of the board. If they have any followers or companions, the players will take turns placing their followers. The player that won the roll to determine their side of the board places one of their followers first. The other player then places one of their followers. It continues in that order until all the followers are placed on the board. Each player must place their followers and/or companions on their side of the board within 40 squares of the middle of the board. You may choose not to place some of your followers on the board. If you do so, they cannot come into battle at all during the fight.
No weather effects will be in play except those summoned or created by one of the characters. Otherwise, you are considered to have no wind and completely clear skies.
If a player has purchased a house, castle, stronghold, or fortification of any kind, they can then place that on their side of the battlefield. The structure must be supported on a solid surface. For instance, if this was an aquatic battlefield, the structure must be place on land, or it will be supported on the ocean floor (possibly covering the building entirely). They may place their character inside their structure, so long as the character is still within 20 squares of the middle of the board.
Table 2 – Terrain Details
Marsh
-Shallow Bog. 10ft by 10ft square.
-Deep Bog. 10ft by 10ft square with 5ft of Shallow Bog on all sides.
-Undergrowth. Four 5ft squares. These squares do not have to touch.
-Quicksand. 20ft by 20ft square.
-Hedgerows. Four 5ft squares. These squares do not have to touch.
-Small Tree. 5ft square at base. 15ft tall.
-Path. Six 5ft squares. These squares have to touch.
Hills
-Gradual Slope Hill. 10ft by 10ft square at the peak. 5ft tall.
-Steep Slope Hill. 10ft by 10ft square at the peak. 10ft tall.
- Cliff. 20ft wide and 20ft tall with a gradual slope leading down.
- Undergrowth. Four 5ft squares. These squares do not have to touch.
- Small Tree. 5ft square at base. 15ft tall.
- Small Stream. 10ft wide, 5ft deep, 20ft long.
- Dry Streambed. 10ft wide, 5ft deep, 20ft long. Acts as a trench
Mountain
-Gradual Slope Hill. 10ft by 10ft square at the peak. 5ft tall.
-Steep Slope Hill. 10ft by 10ft square at the peak. 10ft tall.
- Cliff. 20ft wide and 80ft tall with a steep slope leading down.
- Undergrowth. Four 5ft squares. These squares do not have to touch.
- Scree. Four 5ft squares. These squares do not have to touch.
- Dense Rubble. Four 5ft Squares. These squares do not have to touch.
- Rock Wall. 50ft tall, 50ft wide, 25ft thick.
- Cave Entrance. Can only be added if there is already a Slope, Cliff, or Wall. Can encompass up to 72 five foot squares of hewn stone.
- Small Tree. 5ft square at base. 15ft tall.
- Small Stream. 10ft wide, 5ft deep, 20ft long.
- Dry Streambed. 10ft wide, 5ft deep, 20ft long. Acts as a trench
Desert
- Ice Sheet. Four 5ft squares. These squares have to touch. If it’s noon, these squares are mud.
- Light Rubble. Four 5ft squares. These squares do not have to touch.
- Dense Rubble. Four 5ft squares. These squares do not have to touch.
- Sand Dune. 20ft across at peak, 15ft tall, with a steep slope on one side and gradual slope on the other.
- Undergrowth. Four 5ft squares. These squares do not have to touch.
And yes, this can also be used for lower level characters (level 10, level 15, etc...) or higher level characters (level 25, level 30, etc...). You may even have a ghestalt version.
It's not entirely finished. I still have to determine the rest of the fields of battle and the time of day/night for the battle. These things can be an important factor to some characters.
D&D Battle Royal
Character Creation
This battle royal is to test who can make the best level 20 character. You may use any official D&D 3.5 material, including any Dragon Magazine, Dungeon Magazine, and Web Enhancements from the Wizards of the Coast website. You must have a copy of the source material available to show the moderator. You must always use the most current version and errata if there is one. You have the gold of a level 20 character to purchase equipment and magic items. You cannot have artifacts of any kind and you cannot have magic items that have no gold value listed. You can use items from any official D&D 3.5 material. You may also create magic items by using the rules out of the Dungeon Masters Guide. You must pay full market price for items created with the Dungeon Masters Guide. You cannot expend experience points to create magic items.
If you have the appropriate craft feat and spells to create an item, you must pay 70% of the market price of the item to purchase the item. If you craft constructs or contingent spells, you must pay 5 gold per point of xp it would have cost to create the construct or contingent spell instead of spending xp.
You get 18, 17, 16, 15, 14, and 13 for your starting attributes at level 1.
If you use a race that has a level adjustment, you will not be level 20. Adjust your level so that you are the equivalent of level 20. If you take the leadership feat, you must follow all the normal rules for having a cohort. The only modifiers that you can apply to your leadership reputation score is Great renown and Has a stronghold, base of operations, guildhouse, or the like if you purchase at least a great house or larger. Your cohort has the normal items, statistics, and equipment for an NPC of it’s level.
If you hire mercenaries or other hirelings, you must purchase them for a minimum of 24 hours (1 day) as described in the Dungeon Master’s Guide. You must also equip them as normal. If your match lasts for more than 24 hours, your hirelings will vanish from the board unless you have some spell or effect that makes them work for you for free (such as charm, geas, or diplomacy).
You may have any alignment. You may be any age from the minimum starting age for your race up to venerable. You may have any height and weight within the normal parameters for your race. You can be a male or a female.
You cannot have any divine rank. This is a fight between mortals, not deities.
After you have created your character, it must be approved by a moderator.
Wining Condition for a Duel
You must kill your opponent. If your opponent has a contingency and/or magic item that returns them to life if they are slain, you must defeat them a second time. If your opponent has any followers, cohorts, and/or hirelings, you must defeat all of the ones that were placed on the board by your opponent.
The player with the last standing character, follower, cohort, or hireling wins the duel.
Number of Duels
Each match will consist of three duels. You must beat your opponent in two of the three duels. The duels will take place as follows.
Duel 1 – You will have an unlimited amount of time to prepare for the first duel, within reason (no more than 1,000 years). Nothing you do during this preparation time can give you more experience, gold, magic items, or equipment other than what you have purchased yourself. You can cast spells, use magic items, or train during this time. You will not have any encounters during this time. You are considered to be on the material plane for spellcasting purposes. Each day that you spend preparing, you must rest and eat as normal unless you have some effect that allows you to ignore sleep and eating. If you are required to eat, you must spend 1 gold per day for food for a medium creature (5 silver for a small creature and 2 gold for a large creature). If you have followers, cohorts, and/or hirelings, you must feed them also during this time.
Once you have declared that you are prepared for battle, you and all your followers, cohorts, and hirelings will be placed in a stasis field. That is when you will place your figures on the battlefield as described below in “Deciding the Field of Battle”.
Duel 2 – You will have 10 minutes (100 combat rounds) to prepare for battle once you have finished resting and preparing spells, meditating, praying, and/or practicing. You cannot have any spell effects on your character that were “cast the previous day”. Any buffs you apply to your character must be cast after you have prepared spells, meditated, prayed, and/or practiced for the day. The only exception is in the case of the permanency spell. If you can cast the spell to be made permanent, you can then pay 5 gold per 1 experience to have a spell made permanent as per the permanency spell. If you cannot cast the permanency spell or the spell to be made permanent, you must pay for a scroll of permanency and a scroll of the spell to be made permanent in addition to the gold cost. If you have a spell that must be cast on an area, such as the Consecrate spell, the effect of the spell will not move with your character onto the field of battle. Spells that you cast on yourself, one of your followers, or object that you own can be taken with you into the battlefield.
At the end of the 10 minutes (100 combat rounds), you and all your followers, cohorts, and hirelings will be placed in a stasis field. That is when you will place your figures on the battlefield as described below in “Deciding the Field of Battle”.
Duel 3 – You will have no time to prepare for this last duel. You will have just finished resting and preparing spells, praying, meditating, and/or practicing. Again, you will not have any spells cast on your character or your followers. The only exception is the rules concerning permanency as described above.
After you have finished resting and preparing spells, praying, meditating, and/or practicing, you and all your followers, cohorts, and hirelings will be placed in a stasis field. That is when you will place your figures on the battlefield as described below in “Deciding the Field of Battle”.
Deciding the Field of Battle
You and your opponent will both roll 1d6. Add both numbers together and consult table 1 to determine your field of play for the first battle. Each terrain type uses the normal Stealth and Detection rules as described in chapter 3 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide.
Table 1 - Terrain
2 – Aquatic
3 – Forest
4 – Desert
5 – Hills
6 – Mountain
7 – Plains
8 – Urban
9 – Marsh
10 – Underdark
11 – Transitive Plane
12 – Inner Plane
After the field of battle is chosen, both players will roll 1d6 again and add their results to determine the number of terrain details. Each terrain type will have different features. Consult table 2 for each kind of terrain detail that may be used.
You will flip a coin to determine what player places the first terrain feature. The player that won the coin flip will place his or her choice of one terrain feature to place on the battlefield. The other player then chooses a terrain feature to place on the board. It continues in that order until there are a number of terrain features on the battlefield equal to what both players rolled.
After all the features have been placed on the board, both players roll a d20. The player that rolled the highest gets to choose the side of the board they start on. Both players must place their character within 20 squares of the middle of the board. If they have any followers or companions, the players will take turns placing their followers. The player that won the roll to determine their side of the board places one of their followers first. The other player then places one of their followers. It continues in that order until all the followers are placed on the board. Each player must place their followers and/or companions on their side of the board within 40 squares of the middle of the board. You may choose not to place some of your followers on the board. If you do so, they cannot come into battle at all during the fight.
No weather effects will be in play except those summoned or created by one of the characters. Otherwise, you are considered to have no wind and completely clear skies.
If a player has purchased a house, castle, stronghold, or fortification of any kind, they can then place that on their side of the battlefield. The structure must be supported on a solid surface. For instance, if this was an aquatic battlefield, the structure must be place on land, or it will be supported on the ocean floor (possibly covering the building entirely). They may place their character inside their structure, so long as the character is still within 20 squares of the middle of the board.
Table 2 – Terrain Details
Marsh
-Shallow Bog. 10ft by 10ft square.
-Deep Bog. 10ft by 10ft square with 5ft of Shallow Bog on all sides.
-Undergrowth. Four 5ft squares. These squares do not have to touch.
-Quicksand. 20ft by 20ft square.
-Hedgerows. Four 5ft squares. These squares do not have to touch.
-Small Tree. 5ft square at base. 15ft tall.
-Path. Six 5ft squares. These squares have to touch.
Hills
-Gradual Slope Hill. 10ft by 10ft square at the peak. 5ft tall.
-Steep Slope Hill. 10ft by 10ft square at the peak. 10ft tall.
- Cliff. 20ft wide and 20ft tall with a gradual slope leading down.
- Undergrowth. Four 5ft squares. These squares do not have to touch.
- Small Tree. 5ft square at base. 15ft tall.
- Small Stream. 10ft wide, 5ft deep, 20ft long.
- Dry Streambed. 10ft wide, 5ft deep, 20ft long. Acts as a trench
Mountain
-Gradual Slope Hill. 10ft by 10ft square at the peak. 5ft tall.
-Steep Slope Hill. 10ft by 10ft square at the peak. 10ft tall.
- Cliff. 20ft wide and 80ft tall with a steep slope leading down.
- Undergrowth. Four 5ft squares. These squares do not have to touch.
- Scree. Four 5ft squares. These squares do not have to touch.
- Dense Rubble. Four 5ft Squares. These squares do not have to touch.
- Rock Wall. 50ft tall, 50ft wide, 25ft thick.
- Cave Entrance. Can only be added if there is already a Slope, Cliff, or Wall. Can encompass up to 72 five foot squares of hewn stone.
- Small Tree. 5ft square at base. 15ft tall.
- Small Stream. 10ft wide, 5ft deep, 20ft long.
- Dry Streambed. 10ft wide, 5ft deep, 20ft long. Acts as a trench
Desert
- Ice Sheet. Four 5ft squares. These squares have to touch. If it’s noon, these squares are mud.
- Light Rubble. Four 5ft squares. These squares do not have to touch.
- Dense Rubble. Four 5ft squares. These squares do not have to touch.
- Sand Dune. 20ft across at peak, 15ft tall, with a steep slope on one side and gradual slope on the other.
- Undergrowth. Four 5ft squares. These squares do not have to touch.