Running a Tournament

[Minimuggs]

I am currently running a campaign where the party are part of an Adventurer's Guild founded to help bring stability to the realm, drive plot and generally be an adventuring setting. The setting is based on Raymond Feist's Riftwar books so the Guild is based in Krondor on Midkemia.

We are 4 sessions into campaign now but I hadn't really fleshed out the other adventuring parties so was doing so when I came upon the idea of creating a tournament between the different teams in the Guild. This should be a bit of fun but also a good way of introducing the other parties. The other teams are based off other books or series I like and this idea came to me when I was basing a team on RWBY.

So my party is made up of the following:

Peter - Half-Elf Cleric 1/Bard 5 - Very experienced player with a comprehensive knowledge of the rules. Is playing a support focussed bard with item creation feats and is a very strong party face.
Despard - Rogue 1/ Wizard 5 - Experienced player again. Initially planning on going down arcane trickster but now likely to focus on Wizard. Was caught stealing magical tomes when young so was forced to work for the Thieves' Guild for ~10 years.
Sarge - Ranger 1/ Warblade 5 - Country boy in the City. Ex-watchman, had to offer his resignation after threatening a nobleman who used connections to get away with murder. Focused on TWF crit fishing with Stormguard Warrior, occasionally uses a Guisarme. New player but very enthusiastic.

The above were the party for the first 3 weekends and have now been joined by:

Scraps - Unarmed Swordsage 1/ Rogue 3 wererat (normal rat, not direrat as in MM) - is a child but knows Despard from their Thieves' Guild days so he has helped her escaped that life. Has terrifying full attack but is a bit squishy. New player so newer to the rules.
Bran Igan - Crusader 6 - Crusading for his own fame. Classic Tank and spank, played many years ago but getting back involved. Uses Guisarme and a shorter melee weapon as well (can't remember what...)Based on Zap Brannigan from Futurama (but actually useful too) so quite an amusing character.

I have built teams based on characters from the Redwall series by Brian Jacques, RWBY web-series, the Raven books by James Barclay and the First Law trilogy by Joe Abercrombie. Happy to share my notes on these if people are interested but the builds will not be exact replicas as I am using the characters as template ideas and fitting them into my campaign. I find it much easier to DM taking characters I know and letting them grow in my new setting as I know how they will react better than someone who is only really created as a plot device. I like NPCs to have a bit of agency and their own agenda.

The Tournament

As mentioned the idea was taken from RWBY but adapted. In RWBY the format is 4 person teams and has 3 rounds. Round 1 is 4v4, Round 2 is 2v2 with the team picking their best 2 and the final round is a 1v1. Given that I don't want to have players sitting watching for too long I have adapted it
My tournament will comprise of 3 Rounds as follows:

Round 1 - 5v5 straight up teamfight. Representative of how the team normally functions in the wild.

Round 2 - 2v3 and 3v2. Arena split in half and the two fights run at the same initiative count. When one of the fights finishes, they are allowed to join the rest of the team in the other fight. Gives an interesting tactical question as to how to split the party and what tactics to use in the respective fights.

Round 3 - Current plan is for the team to select 2 characters to go forwards for 1v1 fights. The winners of these fights would then join the remaining 3 party members (but on the HP they left their duel) and then have a final team fight. This is the bit I am least satisfied with but think it will work.

The temples support the Guild so all participants will have contingent Revivify and Heal cast on them before each bout to ensure they don't die but can go all out. The party are likely going to be level 7 when the tournament takes place with the other teams being an average of level 8. The party are aware that they are not the highest levels in the Guild but have proven to be very effective. There have been a lot of deaths on missions but this party has consistently defeated encounters well above their CR due to strong team work and intelligent play.

Any advice or opinions would be appreciated and if anyone can come up with any other ideas for Round 3 then I would appreciate it. Happy to answer any questions :)

[daremetoidareyo]

You're taxing hp and combat prowess, but not other aspects that are of some importance to an adventuring guild.

Round 3 should be an obstacle course/race. One participant must run the gauntlet, but all of the other team members can give instructions and aid another for certain non physical skill checks via a set of magic headphones.

1. A gauntlet of 3-5 traps that need to be gotten through, at least one of which is not able to be triggered by spammed summons. One obstacle should include needing to be able to jump/fly/levitate/climb up a 35 foot wall. Another could be a tripline flamethrower, a magically hidden and mundanely hidden pit trap, a falling scorpion trap, etc.
2. Ride a wild phantasmal bronco to another area. (spellcraft or handle animal or ride skill challenge) ;the excess by which the PCs beat the DC is how many feet towards the final area they get the phantasmal bronco to move.
3. A set of six doors, each with a heraldic crest above. Choosing the door that represents some archaic bit of knowledge (knowledge nobility,local, or history check leads to a slide that the pc can use to slide to the finish. A wrong answer leads to a time consuming obstacle before the finish; a hallway of webs, a hallway full of caltrops or marbles, a hallway with a low level kobold monk who won't let you pass, a hallway full of toxic gas, you get the idea.

Each obstacle should be about 60' apart, (1 round of running at 2x movement speed) and success is measured by the team member who gets through in the shortest number of rounds.

[Minimuggs]

The point of the tournament is meant to be quite combat focused. Essentially the Guildmaster is trying to use the players as an example of how to function effectively as a group as my players are very good at this. They invest a lot of time in game to focus on training and different tactics for different scenarios so it is more about showing the rest of the Guild what can be achieved through teamwork despite the fact they are lower levels.

The setting is also a bit lower powered than the scenario you describe but I do like the idea of incorporating some skill based challenges. Given that there is only one PC party in the tournament though they will essentially be competing against the clock. I am going to be homebrewing a setting for a different campaign and was tempted by a Chunin exam type scenario which I think the longer skill test you describe would work well in.