DBS Tournament of power in 3.5

[flappeercraft]

Do not read if you're part of my current campaign as this will contain spoilers. I have only 1 campaign I'm running so that filters out on itself of who you are. You have been warned.









So right now I've been watching the series DBS (Dragon Ball Super) a lot lately and wanted to use an aspect of it in a game im running. I wanted to make some kind of torunament similar to that of the Tournament of power that there is on DBS or the Universe survival arc to be more specific. So the thing here is that instead of going into it for the sake of not having a universe deleted you go with a team of 5 and winning team gains an artifact as a reward. Definitely one rule i would change is that killing is allowed and so are weapons.

So I need help designing it for my campaign. I'm thinking of making it 6 teams of 5 creatures each (Meaning Summons, leadership and planar binding are limited use) so how would I set it up and what teams should I use? The players team consists of the following characters. Keep in mind this campaign is supposed to be highly optimized but we have one player who is relatively new to the game and wanted to join. We are using a spell point custom variant.


Suiaerl (https://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=1119704)
Urmortal (https://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=1073172)
Brumix (https://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=1165361)
There is another player who is a Human sorcerer but he is not using an online character sheet. Also the character sheet for Brumix is unfinished. All characters are 10th level except Urmortal which is 12th level for unrelated reasons although the other don't know he is that level but think he is 10th.Since Brumix is a druid Im also conflicted to whether if I should count his Animal companion as the 5th team member or as a class feature and allow them to Bind something/give an NPC to join

[Deeds]

From my understanding, isn't the tournament of power a giant free for all? If that's true, consider that having 30+ allies/enemies rolling an initiative count will bog down combat. Also, a few AoE spells threaten to TPK all parties including the players.

Where will the tourney be? A martial arts arena, a lush jungle, a tropical island, a ghost town, inside a giant ant hill full of hostile ants, and a dying planet are wildly different locations that require different tactics.

[Wartex1]

Deeds has a very important point in the matter of location and speed.

I'd recommend making it a giant free-for-all, but instead of the arena style suggested by DBS so far (since the battlefield itself hasn't really been shown), try going for a giant labyrinth of sorts with an open ceiling (so contestants can still watch) that's either covered by an invisible wall of force or antimagic fields. Put in traps and environmental hazards to keep things exciting even when combats are smaller, and focus on using multiple small encounters rather than one big one so that combat runs more smoothly.

As for team ideas, here's a few:

- Team X relies on one power-hitter with four lackeys who are dedicated to boosting the power-hitter's prowess
- Team Y is a highly coordinated group of skirmishers who use lots of teamwork feats and similar abilities
- Team Z is just a pack of very, very strong Barbarians or whatnot who just try and win through physical might
- Team W focuses on long-term preparation (such as walling themselves in to create artificial chokepoints and shelters), so lots of magic-users, maybe an artificer or someone to make traps as well
- Team Q is a rule-bending team which uses singular creatures with multiple bodies (like Dvati, I think) to give them a numbers advantage

[flappeercraft]

That is why I'm asking, I don't know what the location should be but I want it to be something exclusive. Possibly a demiplane. Also yes doing this would make the combat last forever but this is made to last a good session or 2. The idea on having it be some kind of maze where combatants find each other could be interesting and could actually be fun if set up correctly.

[Wartex1]

Long combats aren't a problem because they're long, but usually because they can get uninteresting, since it takes a long time to get a small amount of progress done. With a maze structure, you can benefit from faster, more engaging combat as well as exploratory progress.

[Prime32]

I'd recommend making it a giant free-for-all, but instead of the arena style suggested by DBS so far (since the battlefield itself hasn't really been shown), try going for a giant labyrinth of sorts with an open ceiling (so contestants can still watch) that's either covered by an invisible wall of force or antimagic fields. Put in traps and environmental hazards to keep things exciting even when combats are smaller, and focus on using multiple small encounters rather than one big one so that combat runs more smoothly.
The manhwa Yureka had a tournament with a setup kind of like this. The maze was divided into rooms, and IIRC whenever members of two teams entered the same room all the doors became locked until one side was defeated. There may have also been a capture the flag element there, with each team having to steal orbs from enemy bases while protecting their own.

That could make things easier to manage, but it also prevents some interesting scenarios (unless one team has a not-technically-cheating ability that lets them bypass the locked doors, like turning into water/shadows and flowing under them).