Ideas for Eberron flavoured Tournament Games

[Mottokrosh]

Hi all,

I'm starting a new Eberron campaign in the new year, and it will start with special celebrations on the anniversary of the Treaty of Thronehold.

What I'm looking for are ideas for interesting games/challenges that ideally involve all of the PCs and are particularly Eberron flavoured. Complete Warrior lists a few classic ones with suggested rule mechanics, like jousting and archery, which are great, but I'd like some more. Especially ones suited to 1st level characters.

If you have any ideas, including mechanics, I'd like to hear them!

Frank.

 

[Nightfall]

Uhm how about spell competitions? IE most creative use of a spell? Spell battles (using the non-lethal approach to spellcasting) or crafting stuff?

 

[Glyfair]

Sharn has a number of suggestions on "sporting events" in Eberron. Sky jousting is one. There is a shifter full-contact team sport listed.

 

[Nightfall]

Or perhaps a tournament of dragonchess?

 

[blargney the second]

I ran an archery contest with animated targets. It was pretty fun! Also, look into the Challenge of Champions series from Dungeon magazine. I picked 4 of them and ran them in conjunction with the archery tourney.

-blarg

 

[Nightfall]

Good call. Challenge has some nice ideas AND it can work with any level.

 

[Mottokrosh]

Challenge of Champions sounds interesting. What issues were those in?

A shifter full-on isn't a good option because I want to involve the whole party ideally. Similarly, spell battles are quite limited with only one caster in the party. Plus, remember that we're talking a 1st level party here.

Sky-jousting is fun, but I ran that in my last campaign, as well as a swimming contest from the Lhazaar Principailities.

I'm going to spill some of the beans here (fingers crossed that my players aren't reading ) but it's set in Stormhome, a tropical paradise inmidst raging, icy seas. I was hoping to be able to use that somehow.

Things I'm most likely including so far:

- Jousting (with a selecting of interesting mounts)
- Archery contest (perhaps with a couple of twists)
- Hunt for the animated object in the forest
- Gladiatorial battle vs ogre or somesuch (non-lethal only) in an interesting arena

I just need a couple more.

 

[Nightfall]

Dungeon has them I forget which issues.

 

[blargney the second]

I neglected to mention that I also ran a non lethal grand melee. It used padded clubs enchanted with a paint-splattering prestidigitation. Each team had its own colour of club. (I stole from Reservoir Dogs - the PCs got saddled with being Mr. Pink! )

I ran it with 13 teams of four plus the three-PC team with one NPC. Each player controlled his own character and 3 other teams, while I had the other five teams. They would earn an extra 100 XP if the PC team or a team they controlled won the game. I set the teams up using D&D Miniatures and the associated stat cards. They had one tough, medium, and easy team each.

We used the regular D&D stats for AC, as well as attack & Str bonus to calculate damage. In combat, you would score one point for each solid hit on another team. A given character was out once he was clubbed three times. If someone fell unconscious due to nonlethal damage, it was scored as all the hits they had left. All spells, (Sp), (Su), (Ps), etc abilities were not allowed before or during combat. I kept a cross-tally sheet of which teams scored against whom, and awarded an additional 20 points per character left standing on the winning team.

The PCs were in it right up until the end, and went down to the party of four PC-classed minotaurs. *grin* We all had a blast playing that session!
-blarg