Arena ideas.

[bjoern]

I'm working on building a few arena type maps.
I've got one done that consists of a large stone chamber with 5 wooden 20' towers in it that are connected by rope bridges. It also has a tunnel/corridor that encircles the area with an opening from the tunnel on each end.

I'm looking for some ideas for other battle arenas.

[FocusWolf413]

One that has greased/oiled marbles covering the floor would be hilarious.

[KingSmitty]

ive been pondering arena ideas too. One I was coming up with included an outer ring of sand for chariot racing with the middle portion being divided into tiles of platforms on pistons. One tile drops down one turn, next turn it comes back up with more enemies!

[bjoern]

A large round or octangular room, let's say 200' diameter. In the center is a massive 20' diameter column that is the height of the room.

All throughout the room will be floor levers. As floor levers are engaged it
will cause the column to start rotating at a rate of 10rpm (once per round)
Stored vertically in the column are blades, basically colossal falchions that fall and lock Into place on one side. One blade for each 5' square of height.
As more and more triggering devices are set off, more blades fall and lock into place on another face of the column.
After all the blades have been deployed (either 4 or 8) the triggers will make it spin faster.

I plan on the blades affecting a diameter of 150' (20' for the column, 65' long blades)
With a 25' safe zone around the perimeter of the room.

Eventually, the walls will begin to close in.

Once the last lever is pulled, the column stops and the walls stop closing in and the challenge is defeated.

Should the blades make attack rolls against creatures or should the creatures make reflex saves? What attack bonus should it be? What reflex save DC should it be? As it gets faster, how should these numbers change?

Since the blades are 5' apart , I'm thinking about having large size and up creatures be affected by one additional blade per size above medium.

[Almarck]

I've had this idea for an arena before, but it was specifically for a "Death Match" situation involving spectators cheering on the combatants

Map is pretty big. Most of the map is low sandy or otherwise level ground.

Meanwhile at the 4 corners there's "islands" or raised platforms that are high up enough that you need to climb or use stairs Stepping onto these platforms activates defenses that raise walls on the platforms, granting then "cover" or maybe deploying force shields.

Center of the arena is an obelisk that while not taller than the raised platforms and it provies magical effects to whoever controls it. Maybe acts as a heal bot, causes weather conditions that only impede the other team, the works.

[bjoern]

What would be a good monster to force the party into the blade trap? A cloud giant has awesome blow, but his CR is a little high for the group. I'd rather have 4-6 lower CR monsters that try to throw them into the blades.
I'd prefer a monster of some kind over something with class levels and feats.

[M Placeholder]

The second edition "The Complete Gladiators handbook" has details on the arenas of the Dark Sun setting, and how they work and the people that run them.

An NPC that you might be interested in is the Arena Necromancer. Make sure the crowd gets their moneys worth - by reanimating the corpses of fallen competitors.

[bjoern]

Actually, for throwing guys into the blade trap, a simple wand of Slide or Greater Slide would do the trick.

[daremetoidareyo]

Four combatants enter the arena. 2 vs. 2. One from each pair is walked by the guards up a spiral staircase to a dais. The dais shoots a cylindrical beam of light up to the clouds in the sky. You can faintly make out a magic circle on the clouds. The person walked to the top of the dais is forced into a beam of light. As they enter the beam, you see glistening rainbow enchantment overtake their partner down below. For the rest of the combat, the gladiator below is entirely controlled by the character above. The feats available and decisions to be made are all entirely the responsibility of the person on the dais. The person below uses their own hitpoints, str, con, and dex for the battle, but does not have access to any of their feats. Then, a super wide selection of weapons are tossed into arena by golems.

Make appropriate save DCs for the dais power.

Additionally, you can have one out of 4 or 6 rounds be break rounds for the dais to recharge, during which the gladiator below has total autonomy.

This is great for PCs because the life of one of them is literally in the hands of the other. Does the psychic warrior take the helm for the barbarian? Does the wizard take control of the rogue or Vice versa? No spells can make it through the barrier, except any telepathic type power that would allow communication between the teammates. No spells, even if the two share spells, can go through the barrier except maybethough a quickened motionless, silent spell with no spell components, or quickened spell like power of the gladiator may be cast (if they don't need to control their body in anyway to cast the spell). Use your logic, but a rogue acting as puppeteer should be able to use the doll wizard to sneak attack. A raging barbarian puppeteer gives his rage bonuses to the base stats of the puppet. But you may end up with questions like, can my druid puppeteer's perform 6 (drumming) activate the doll bard's music powers? And you as DM have to decide whether or not it works on your own terms. I'm just making suggestions.


At the beginning of the battle, you can have the PCs be given the choice of who is in charge, and some info on the team that they are fighting.

The arena is a 100' by 100' runed up cobblestoned square, with each 5'x5' rune covered cobblestone being made of a single rock material. The opponents are introduced on either corner. Each round, 1d6 of the cobblestones is affected by a 5'x5' rectangular prism shaped reverse gravity burst that lasts for one round. (it can be pushed out of the reverse gravity field to make fall naturally). Below the cobblestone is a noxious substance whose liquid surface level is just below the effects of the shaped reverse gravity effects. Choose your liquid: Lava, acid, pure absinthe, LSD, gnashing pirahna filled lake. Maybe it isn't a liquid, maybe it's a 100'by100' portal to the gears of mechanus, which would act as a meat grinder of anyone who fell through to it, or the cobblestone removal allows starving pseudonatural templated tauric dire tiger/thrikreen (add class levels if you need to add danger) to jump out, fly up into the air struggle and fall with a nasty wounding splat, now half alive, they need to eat.

The reverse gravity effect is in the runes and they can be dispelled at DC (choose DC). The effect lasts exactly 6 seconds, which means, at the end of round 2 (last in initiative), anything that was in the reverse gravity field falls for 10d6 damage, if they make a ref save (DC choose your poison) to land on the ground. If they don't, they fall into the nasty liquid, and are likely capped in by the plate. Lay out a map with 20 five foot squares by 20 five foot squares. (roll 1d20 for x coordinate and 1d20 for y.) First in initiative for round one, 1d6 squares fly up. First in initiative in round 2 1d6 squares fly up and the reverse gravity from round one is over. Last in initiative in round 2 the squares from round 1 crash down. etc.

The arena has huge glass columns. Inside the glass is a swirly green liquid that is slightly translucent. In the middle of that liquid ooze are aware beings whose legs are chained in there, which a scaly disgusting creature covering their mouths that is apparently making them able to breathe as they exhale the air bubble around their face. The beings look like naked, exact replicas of each of the gladiatorial opponents. Let's call them clones. The clones can help their allies with any effects that they can manifest while chained up underwater, but they can only see out in a 10' radius from the column. Alternatively, maybe they aren't clones but are the actual other combatants, which is good if you need to widdle down some spell resources from the group. Although, if this group is freed, see below, they will need to find out where their gear is stored.

This arena type penalizes nonmagical nonpsychics (straight fighters rogues and monks), so this arena is best for a magic heavy party, unless the break DCs for the columned folk are low enough for enemy combatants to release the clones. Or maybe the clones themselves can smash out from the inside, but it should be super difficult, I mean, this is an ARENA, only the most spectacular specimens should be doing this sort of thing so that the spectacle is rare.


This one works best for PCS and enemies who are very light on the magic. Two combatants stand on a small stage. They have an array of weapons behind each of them on a rack. Magitechnical ankle and wrist bracelets are attached to each combatant. Coin flip for who goes first. Two magical portals open up, Like flatscreen ovals, each facing each other. The person who goes first gets to choose a weapon to use for a single strike at the opponent, which has to be launched through their portal. Meanwhile, The magictech bracelets force the opponent into a standing position directly in front of the receiving side of the portal. They are treated as flatfooted. Each Player has 1 minute to choose a weapon, and crafty players can set up weapons/weapon wracks around them as ad hoc armor on their off turn.

[bjoern]

2 more ideas.

1. A map with a 20' wide hole in the middle, let's say bottomless. Flowing into the hole isa 20' stream of lava. Also flowing into the hole are 3 x 15' streams of water.
Over each of the 4 streams is a stone bridge 10' high at center.
The mixing of the lava and water creates huge volumes of steam and fog in a 30' radius centered on the hole. Likewise, anything above 15' in the room is fog (this will help keep the flyers in check).
The lava, steam/fog, and the closed space will put temperature about 170°f. Which will subject all creatures to heat dangers.

2. A 100'x100'x100' cube arena.white Marble walls, ceiling and floor. The marble emits soft white light. Each of the arenas 6 sides has an 5' onyx mound indicating which side it is 1-6.
Each round, there is a cumulative 10% chance of a gravity change.
If it changes, roll 1d6 to determine the new "down". Depending on which side is "down" now, will determine falling damage.
A 180° change would be 10d6. But more interestingly, the majority of the changes will be 90° shifts. Thus causing everything on the current "down" to slide/fall to whichever edge of the map that shares a side with the new "down" . This could cause some hilarious recovery rounds as PCs, enemies, dead bodies, donkeys, etc. all get piled on top of each other and have to throw each other out of the way to get back on their feet.

One question about #2, flying creatures.

How would gravity changes effect flying creatures? Good and perfect are unaffected but lower maneuverability must make a reflex save?

[bjoern]

How about a warehouse setting.
What would be some cool stuff for in there?
Maybe an overhead gantry crane systems controlled by ropes and pullies.

Not sure how the characters would make meaningful interactions with it but it makes sense for it to be there.

What kind of containers and such should be there? Maybe stack of empty barrels that could be set off steam roll an area.

Maybe large vats of wine, beer, ale, that could be broken to flood certain portions of the map.

Large containers of grain that can be pushed over. And when they spill their contents, makes hindering terrain.


What else would make sense or be cool to have in a warehouse battlefield?