4e Battle of Good & Evil - Rules and OOC Discussion

Gansk

Explorer
Welcome to the 4e Battle of Good & Evil! The purpose of this forum is to determine whether Good or Evil reigns supreme in the 4e universe by having all the known 4e monsters engage each other in gladiatorial combat. This is a test of the 4e tactical rules, not an attempt at a 4e PbP RPG. You can participate by conducting each monster’s strategy. I will do all the rolling and let you know the results.

Sources: I will be using all the monsters from the following sources -

Follow this link for monster stats.

Follow this link for sample PC stats.

Battle Rules:

Almost all of the unaligned monsters will be helping Good to defeat the numerous Evil monsters. There are an equal number of monster types on each side.

The battle will start with the following participants:

Good: Eladrin Ranger + Halfling Paladin + Half-Elf Warlock

Evil: Tiefling Wizard + 4 Kobold Minions + Kobold Skirmisher

If at any time all monsters on one side are dead (not just unconscious), then that side loses the Battle of Good & Evil.


Gladiatorial Combat:

A monster is defeated in the arena under the following circumstances:
It dies or is destroyed
It is unconscious
It leaves the arena for any reason
It is convinced or forced to fight for the opposing side

Any dead or destroyed monsters (and their equipment) still in the arena will be teleported out of the arena to avoid a pile of dead bodies from becoming a terrain obstacle. If a monster is defeated but is only unconscious, it stays in the arena. Once a monster is defeated, a player may opt to have a new monster or monsters enter into the arena to take its place. I will give options to each player for how they can replace their losses. The replacements will be more powerful if the player takes the risk and waits for multiple monsters on his or her side to be defeated.

Any powers or effects caused by the defeated monster will continue until the duration expires. The new monster can choose to use a move action to teleport into the arena, or it can move normally into the arena from its designated side, but it must do one or the other before doing anything else. It may ready its equipment outside of the arena in preparation for combat, but it cannot use equipment, cast spells, use abilities, or do any other standard action outside of the arena to prepare for combat inside the arena.

Each player secretly designates one of the monsters on its side as a "main opponent". If a main opponent is defeated, a player must enter replacements immediately and must designate a new main opponent from one of the new replacements. If at any time during the combat there are five consecutive rounds where neither main opponent has received damage (damage to other monsters is irrelevant), the combat is considered a draw. The two main opponents are teleported away and both players must enter replacements as described above. All monsters that are not main opponents remain in the arena and continue to fight.

Arena Terrain:

An excel file is attached below that you can use to represent the arena.

The arena is a 120 foot square area (24 squares long, 24 squares wide) with a ceiling 120 feet high. It is bounded by walls except on the east and west sides, where there are two walls of force. Most of the arena is solid stone going 120 feet down, with the exception of semi-loose soil in a 20 foot strip along the southern wall of the arena and a 120 pit filled to the top with water in a 20 foot strip along the northern wall. The light is sufficient for sight throughout the arena, but it is not natural sunlight and is not bright enough to affect creatures who are sensitive to light. Of course spells cast during combat can change these conditions. The walls are superior masonry (Climb DC 25).

For purposes of identifying the positions of each combatant, we will need a coordinate system. The southwest corner of each arena will be considered zero feet North and zero feet East, or 0N0E. The southwest corner of each monster’s position will be used as a reference, so any size monster in the southwest corner of the arena will have its position noted as 0N0E, but if the monster is in the northeast corner of the arena, its position would be 115N115E if its size is medium or smaller, but 110N110E if the monster is large, 105N105E if it is huge, etc.

Good will be watching the combat from the west side or between 0N0E and 115N0E, while Evil will be watching from the east side or between 0N120E and 115N120E. Monsters can teleport into the arena anywhere between the north and south walls, but they must teleport into an empty space at zero elevation (0Z) where they are not initially squeezing to fit into the space.

Other terrain features of the arena:

1) The southern 20 foot strip of semi-loose soil runs 120 feet deep. On the surface of the soil is enough grass to use for entangle and plant growth-type spells.

2) The SW and SE corners of the arena have two trees growing from the soil. The trees are 10 feet in diameter and have a climb DC of 15. The tree trunks are 100 feet tall, but smaller branches covered with leaves extend from the top of the trunk, forming a 20 foot cube on the two corners of the arena. These branches can support creatures of large size or smaller and the leaves provide concealment.

3) Running down the center of the arena is a 20 foot strip of adamantine at a 20 foot elevation (1 foot thick), supported by 1 foot diameter adamantime pillars at 100N50E, 100N70E, 60N50E, 60N70E, 20N50E and 20N70E. The floor underneath this roof, also made of adamantine that is 10 feet thick, is the victory zone. If one main opponent remains (at least partially) in the victory zone at 0Z for 4 rounds without the other main opponent staying (at least partially) in the victory zone at 0Z for one full round, the first main opponent wins and other main opponent is teleported away. If a draw condition and a victory condition occur at the same time, the victory condition takes precedence. If a draw condition occurs after a main opponent has been in the victory zone at 0 elevation for 3 rounds, the player for that main opponent can choose to accept or negate the draw.

4) Each side can watch the battle behind their respective walls of force and make decisions based on what they observe inside the arena. To leave the arena, a combatant must tap on the wall of force where his side is watching the battle three times in succession as a free action. Frightened and panicked opponents will remember to tap, but they may pick the wrong side of the arena (they will not run past an enemy they fear to get to the right side). Confused opponents will not remember that they need to tap.

5) If monsters inside the arena are invisible, monsters outside the arena can track their locations on a radar screen. Thus monsters entering the arena know an invisible enemy's location, at least for one round.


House Rules:

We will be using what we know of 4e D&D rules (including all updates) to conduct the arena combats.

Use this link for a list of 4e conditions.

The following house rules are in effect:

An encounter is defined as 10 rounds.
Every monster except minions gets a second wind once per 10 rounds.
Every monster (including minions) starts with 1 AP and can gain another one if they survive 20 rounds.
Every monster can use an untrained Wis check to heal unconscious allies if that ally has not used its second wind.
The dazed condition is amended to allow only one action in a round.


Participation:

You can participate in the 4e Battle of Good & Evil by posting on the 4e Sign Up Thread. Simply state which alignment you would like to play and wait for my acknowledgement.

Thanks for reading and I hope you join in the fun!
 

Attachments

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Gansk

Explorer
There has been some discussion on the 4e forum that the definition of concealment and invisibility no longer require extra rolls for "miss chance" and are just flat modifiers to AC (+2 and +5 respectively).

Based on that information, I am changing the rules for the concealment, invisiblilty, and blind conditions.

Concealment: You get +2 to AC. You can use Stealth as a minor action to hide, thus becoming invisible to those who cannot beat the Stealth roll with their Perception roll. Passive perception is a free action where the creature takes 10 on the roll. Active perception is a minor action where the creature rolls d20. Each 2 squares of distance subtracts 1 from the Perception roll. You cannot hide against adjacent creatures. Once you attack, you become visible but still have concealment.

Invisible: You cannot be targeted by ranged or opportunity attacks. You get +5 AC vs. melee attacks. You have combat advantage on all of your attacks.

Blind: You cannot make ranged or opportunity attacks. -5 to hit on all melee attacks. All attacks against you have combat advantage.
 
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Gansk

Explorer
Some tidbits have been released about the delay and ready actions.

Readied actions that use an action as the trigger are immediate reactions - they do not interrupt the triggered action. After the readied action occurs, your initiative is changed to one before the creature that used the triggered action.

Readied actions can still interrupt movement - a creature can appear in a doorway, get blasted by a magic missile, and continue moving.

Delay actions cannot extend benefits - the benefit still expires at the original initiative. They also cannot delay when a harmful effect takes place - that also occurs at the original initiative.
 


Gansk

Explorer
Really, is the module good? I know a lot of spoilers, so you can give me all the details. Are the first two encounters almost identical (at least thematically)?
 

Infiniti2000

First Post
Yes, they're very similar, on the same map even. No minions the second time, however. The first encounter has 5 minions, two dragonshields, and a slinger. The second one has 3 dragonshields, a wyrmpriest, and a skirmisher. I quite honestly see no problem in the similarity of the encounters. It makes sense from a plot perspective and the creatures are different enough with different tactics to make the encounter interesting. I doubt the PCs would even remark along the lines of the module designer trying to gain a second encounter for "free", which is what I see the complaint alluding to. It's not, it's well designed within the plot.

Major Spoiler I haven't seen posted elsewhere:
[sblock] There's a spy within the town. The first ambush is a set of kobold brigands. The second ambush is clearly targeting the PCs. They are, according to the module "very disciplined" and have specific tactics to maximize their advantage and the terrain. From a DM's perspective, I can see the PC's overhearing the kobolds during the battle talking about "These are the ones! Get the wizard first!" Assuming they understand draconic, which the kobolds might not realize. [/sblock]

I haven't read all the way through, but my first impressions are good. The paper is somewhat thin, it's like a Dragon magazine, but the fact that it's all full color offsets that complete. The cover is also thin, however, and I'm not happy about that part. The maps are awesome, though, and so far I love the design of the adventure.

There's extra space devoted to rules, which I understand given the fact that the module comes out before the rules. :)

All in all, I'm sold. I want to switch to 4E yesterday. I won't playing 3.5, but I'm certainly not wanting to DM it anymore. With kids and a full time job, I just don't have the time to waste creating bad guys for 3 rounds of combat in 3.5 (my main 3.5 gripe).
 

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