Show-fighting - How would you do it?

[Jon_Dahl]

In my campaign, it's possible to fight gladiatorial combat, but it's all show, a bit like WWF. My players have never been interested in the whole thing and I have never designed any of it. The idea is to fight non-leathal combat where there's no permanent damage to the gladiators. This means that you can inflict actual damage, but you may not kill your opponent. However, death and permanent damage are allowed if it's clearly a fluke. Any attack and spell you cast may have a very small chance of killing the opponent is permitted. The background of the fights is simple: good-aligned gladiatorial combat. For historical and cultural reasons the general populace wants gladiatorial combat, but the government is good.

The winners get relatively small rewards. The real rewards come from being entertaining. Fighting for winning is worthless, but being entertaining brings handsome profits.

With your current characters, how would go about this? Any opponents you encounter at the arena would be suitable for your character.

[Cerefel]

A lot of martial characters have the option of using showy tumble checks to both entertain the crowd and improve their movement. For more Strength-oriented characters, grappling would probably be best, because it's nonlethal damage and it probably won't end after just 2 hits. Most spellcasters can just fall back on their flashiest (but not super high damage) blasting spells.

[PaucaTerrorem]

Take ranks in Perform(combat? gladitor? b.s.?). Spill blood until you can tell your opponent has taken heavy damage then move to non-leathal. Or have all gladitors wear blood packs and each battle is choreographed and the winner is predetermined based on fan love.

I do have to ask, if your players have never expressed interest why are you creating this scenario?

[Ashtagon]

1) I think Complete Warrior has rules for this. I'd be astonished if Paizo hasn't yet made its own rules for this.

2) Use the non-lethal combat rules.

3) Untested idea:

All attacks default to "submission damage". Any time submission damage equals your base hp total, you must submit to your opponent.

For attack rolls, swap out Charisma for Strength in any attack and damage rolls.

Characters may swap out their Acrobatics/Tumble skill modifier for their BAB if higher.

For every damage roll, make a second damage roll. If this second roll is higher, the first roll is treated as submission damage, and the second roll is treated as real damage. If the second roll is equal/lower, no real damage is inflicted.

[Zanos]

Most spellcasters can just fall back on their flashiest (but not super high damage) blasting spells.
There is a nonlethal substitution feat so you can make a flashy fireworks show without killing anyone.

[ekarney]

Play a character with regeneration, take the rip off limbs feat, finish my opponents by tearing off my arm and throwing it at them. If the crowds not impressed by that I don't know what will impress them.

[Emperor Tippy]

Make it lethal with Craft Contingent Revivify to bring the looser back to life.

Or enchant the arena as Wondrous Architecture that casts Revivify on anyone who dies inside of it.

Cheaper, but more likely to piss off DM's is using Planar Bubble or Planar Pocket to make the entire area effectively part of the Heroic Domains of Ysgard so that anyone who dies in the arena is resurrected via True Resurrection for free the next morning.

Otherwise I would just use the various rules for nonlethal combat.

Spellcasters can take the Feat Nonlethal Substitution and not use Save-or-Die effects.

Martial characters can use Merciful (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/magicWeapons.htm#merciful) weapons.

[Jon_Dahl]

I do have to ask, if your players have never expressed interest why are you creating this scenario?

They might change their minds. It's not unprecedented.

[Necroticplague]

1) I think Complete Warrior has rules for this. I'd be astonished if Paizo hasn't yet made its own rules for this.

They definitely have. (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/ultimateCombat/combat/performanceCombat.html)

[Strigon]

Personally, I'd use a perform check, plus the BAB bonus to represent more skilled fighters being able to perform more complex maneuvers.
Here's what I'd do differently, though. Every round, the player declares his intention; what stunt he's trying to pull. This sets the DC for the round; a success leads to a success, obviously, a failure leads to a botched attempt, but a failure by a certain margin (5, maybe) leads to a botched attempt where someone got seriously hurt. I'd treat every attack here as a critical threat, since they were trying something deliberately dangerous - if they fail by 5+, they automatically hit with an attack and roll to confirm a crit.

Of course, the more difficult the maneuvers, the more pleased the crowd will be. Personally, I think this nicely balances risk-taking and reward.

[DarkSoul]

Check out the rules for Sporting Combat in Chapter 4 of Complete Warrior.

The Perform (weapon drill) skill is in the same book, which sounds like the pro-wrestling style you're going for.

[AlanBruce]

If you are trying to emulate the WWF matches, then you need Show Boating.

The crowds love it when a fighter knocks down the other and walks away, raising his arms,, basking in the praise of the attendees...

And then he gets knocked out by the guy he beat a few seconds ago, causing the crowd to uproar.

Since it's non lethal (mostly), you could have the PCs (if they are fighting each other), to have a gentleman's agreement to act dazed for a round or two while the one who hit first kicks him on the ground and runs a few laps around the arena, going Maximus on them:

"Are you not entertained?!?""

Weapon needs to be raised for bonus points.

Someone mention blood packs. Those are great if you can have some sort of tiny hose that can spray long distances, making it that more dramatic.

Use tumble to simulate a blow from, say a great hammer, send you back a lot further than what it usually would.

Crowds like to see gladiators "dance" around the arena.

A pair of armored guys doing full attacks round after round is boring. You see that in dungeon crawls.

Have the arena have weapon racks with nets, tridents and other weapons fit for a fight like that. Have the gladiators begin unarmed as each races to their own rack to pick their weapon of choice.

If casters are involved, it's a must that they need to go flashy- illusions will do the trick. Flight is fun for showboating, as the mage rises above his opponent, but the crowd wants to see something almost evenly matched before a dramatic final finish, so don't abuse that.

All the above recommendations are solid, depending on how mundane or powerful this arena and their fighters are.

[Arc_knight25]

Piazo does have the combat performance rules. Different types of combat and the likes.

Gives modifiers for a wide variety of things.

Here is the link.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/other-rules/performance-combat