10th level tournament challenge

[Hannibal Barca]

I DM a quarterly tournament in our group that takes place on Saturdays before the equinoxes and the solstices of each year. Any advice/input on the following points would be appreciated.
1) I'm looking for any loopholes or omissions in the tournament rules that a player may be able to exploit grossly enabling one character archetype to dominate.
2) Any character archetypes that you feel would succeed should I choose to include an npc this go around.
3) Should initiative be rolled once for the combat as normal, or should I reroll the initiative each turn ? Whoever goes last on the first round via the standard initiative rules is usually a dead duck by the end of the second round as characters via spell or items tend to haste themselves the first round, then unleash a torrent of spells or attacks on the sloth who went last in the first round.

The rules of the tournament are as follows:

THE ARENA

The circular arena is 120 feet across with the arena stone walls twenty feet high. The floor of the arena is a layer of dirt 1 foot thick over a layer of stone slabs. In the center of the arena are three 100 LB stone balls colored either blue, yellow, or red. The starting point for each contestant has a steel basket 3 feet high bolted to the arena wall. The basket is a heavy steel mesh design so the color of the balls in a given basket are visible to contestants in the arena.

THE RULES

1) Each contestant starts at a point along the arena wall in front of a steel basket. The distance a contestant starts apart from his adjoining fellow contestants depends on the starting number of contestants.

2) No preexisting spells effects are allowed to contestants prior to the start of the contest unless they are permanent or the result of a continuous magical effect from a magic item.

3) No cohorts or improved familiars allowed. Standard familiars acceptable.

4) Each player starts with 45,000 experience. Any experience that a player has lost in item creation is deducted from the initial 45,000 xp. Ability score generation follows the 76 point method.

5) Starting wealth is for a 10th level character as per DM guide. Magic items are purchased with the proviso that no single item cost more than 10,000 xp. Exception: Item creation feats may allow a character to supersede these limits.

6) Initiative is rolled by the DM secretly. Character placement in the arena is conducted randomly by the DM.

ROADS TO VICTORY

1) Kill all your opponents. You win.

2) Persuade your opponents to elect you winner. You win.

3) Place the three balls in the center of the arena into your basket in the color sequence blue, red, then yellow. You win.

4) If all players die and the last player to die is you. You win.


Last tournament a fiendish kobold sorcerer (various energy resistances) won the tournament (!), by flying above the arena with heavy buff spells for AC and casting acid arrows, magic missiles and lightning bolts at some of the contestants. A typical tournament has five to seven contestants.

Thanks for any input.

 

[Artoomis]

The balls and baskets need to be indestructable. It would be grossly unfair to allow them to be destroyed. A flying mage should be defeatable by the clever (boots of speed)) fighter by him running around and placing the balls in the basket before he dies.

With the current rules, a clever spell-caster would destroy one ball or basket, then proceed from there at his leisure.

I suggest no item creation allowed - only standard items which may be purchased.

 

[Number47]

It is very simple for a Bard to dominate in these conditions. Close second would be rogue or rogue/bard. If you really want to know how, e-mail me.

 

[Hannibal Barca]

Good point on the balls and basket. I've toyed with making them both out of adamantine and imbuing them with say, SR 30. As for the item creation feats, this has not proved unbalancing as of yet as I find players loathe to sacrifice the level that creating even one item will cost (remember 45,000 is minimum for 10 th level.) Still, perhaps an enterprising player will prove otherwise.
As for the fighter with boots of speed, fighters have not traditionally fared well. The spellcasters also have haste, and the fighter's low saves do not bode well for many high DC spells. On top of this, summoned monsters seem to inevitably be a force in the arena, making the fighter's odds longer still. It seem the fighter would have to multiclass to overcome some of these difficulties, but perhaps my players have not maximized the fighter's potential.

 

[Artoomis]

Hmmm.... I wonder how well a monk would do?

Boots of speed and a monk's belt, along with +2 items for each save. (Well, as much as you can afford, anyway) Probably also take the save bonus feats.

Very fast, very defensive. Would concentrate on getting the balls in the basket.

Some item to help them be hard to target would help, also.

It's pretty hard to survive a magical onslaught, the monk should be near the best for that part, anyway.

76 points? That's straight points, I assume, plus extras for 4th and 8th level?

So you could have a monk, say, with:

S: 10 (You need enough str to pick up a 100 lb ball)
D: 20
Co: 18
I: 6 (Who needs skill points? - You get 2 for being human anyway)
W: 18
Ch: 6 (Who cares if they don't like you?)

Would that be legal? Actually I assume only one stat can be above 20 due to stat increases for 4th and 8th level, so I think it violates your rule. Anyway, that might have a chance in the arena.

At least it should - you may want to look at limiting a few other things to preserve such a character having at least a chance:

1. Access to the balls and the net cannot be denied by walls of stone and the like (stopping a person in his tracks with hold person or something is okay, of course). Even surrounding a person with a circular wall of force or something might be allowed - providing:

a. Nothing is left behind in the arena when you are done (that's a "modification" - see #2, below)

b. Access to the balls and net are not denied - rather, the person cannot move to get to them, a different thing all together.
2. The arena may not be deformed or destroyed in whole or in part (the organizers will get very upset).

That should pretty much do it. I just like the idea of being able to win without combat.

 

[reapersaurus]

have you had to deal with the spellcasters who just up the DC of their spells?
Like Charm?

 

[Hannibal Barca]

The monk has not been tried yet, although I feel like you that one would do well with careful selection of items. The monk's speed would be it's strongest asset. The problem is spells like Evard's Black Tentacles, the various walls, and vision impairment ala obscuring mist and darkness prolong the process of grabbing the balls. Prolonged combat in general should favor the spellcaster. (Mind you the last combat with five players lasted only six rounds and all but one person died.) Also my players have never really explored the monk class as much as they should have. (Approximately 40 characters have been played in our group since third edition came out with only two pure monks played, and both of these died fairly quickly.)

As for charm, I have always felt this would be a STRONG way to go, but as of yet this has not been even contemplated by anyone yet.

Any successful melee approach would appear to have to hinge on one of three approaches

1) Kill everyone with lightning speed. This suggests either a high base movement to reach everyone, or missile weapons. This method would suggest sneak atttacks, stunning, poison, assassination, smackdown rhino armor charges and the like.
2) Strong saving throws ala a paladin/monk, paladin/priest, monk/prestige class, etc that would greatly enhance the prospects of surviving several rounds while you target the most serious threats.
3) Avoidance via invisibilty, rope trick etc. Avoidance works well because if someone attempts to overcome a method of avoidance via dispel, true seeing, detect invisibility etc, they are surrendering initiative to other contestants. After several contestants have been eliminated the melee combatant has a more viable survival chance. Of course this means the melee combatant needs access to these avoidance methods which suggests multiclassing into cleric, sorcerer, bard etc, and the surviving member may be to buffed up by spells by that point.

Someone has emailed me with a very impressive character that he appears to wish remain undisclosed, but it has prompted me to restrict spell acquisition by items (such as scrolls), to no higher than 5th level.

 

[Victim]

You might want to look at the EN world Game of Death in the Fight Club board, which is a battle between several level 10 characters. There should also be a rules thread in somewhere in general discussion.

A melee type could have a means of flight, via cloak, winged boots, potion, ring, etc, and thereby boost his move and be able to reach flying spellcasters. He could use Boots of Speed (duh). Use haste, then fly and move above ground. Then drink a potion of see invis (if needed, lots of casters like invis), and do a flying charge at a spellcaster. Use the attack to grapple and thus block any spells with somatic components.

One trick that I've seen uses Deeper Darkness and then True Seeing to see through it. Follow up with Spring attack and reach weapon and even readied attacks will be largely ineffective.

 

[Number47]

It seems fair to restrict creator level of magic items to a single cap of 11th level, 13th level or whatever. Just capping scroll creator level, however, is probably unfair.

 

[Iku Rex]

3) Should initiative be rolled once for the combat as normal, or should I reroll the initiative each turn ?

Once. High initiative is an advantage, but so what?

If you re-roll every turn you risk (in addition to the many odd rule situations that may come up) that characters with high initiative are penalized because winning in the first round and loosing in the next gives everyone else a "free" round to attack you.

Whoever goes last on the first round via the standard initiative rules is usually a dead duck by the end of the second round as characters via spell or items tend to haste themselves the first round, then unleash a torrent of spells or attacks on the sloth who went last in the first round.

That's just bad tactics. Why do they attack the least dangerous opponent first?

2) No preexisting spells effects are allowed to contestants prior to the start of the contest unless they are permanent or the result of a continuous magical effect from a magic item.

Whoa! Enter the Polymorphed Mages.
Remove the words "permanent or" from this rule.

Ability score generation follows the 76 point method.

With 3rd ed point buy this maxes out almost every stat. Is that the intent?

If this is actually the total value of all stats, is there a maximum starting value (18)?