Battle Royale character ideas

[Mista Collins]

Our roleplaying group's DM will soon be leaving for the Navy and the next few sessions will be doing a battle royale with different level characters. Last week he did it with 10th level characters, next week he is doing it with 13th level characters. I was curious on what type of characters you would try to use. Here are some of the guidlines.

-13th level characters (or ECL 13)
- Stats are done with 80 point distribution. You get 80 points to distribute anyway you want. An 18 costs 18 points.. a 6 costs 6 points. etc. No stat can be lower than 6 after racial mods, and no stat can be above 18 before racial mods.
- Character must be sentinent (no skeletons, zombies, oozes, etc.)
- Character must be corporeal
- Character cannot be natural invisible
- Undead are alright as long as they follow other guidelines
- Books allowed DMG, PHB, MM, Savage Species, 5 Splat Books (sword and fist, etc), Complete Warrior, Book of Vile Darkness, Book of Exalted Deeds
- Normal Starting Wealth for appropriate level. You can spend up to 3/4 of that on one item.
- Terrain will vary. Last week it was at a river crossing with a bunch of bridges, trees, etc.
- Time of day (in game) will be done randomly, but would be somewhere between 8am-9pm

These were the guidelines given to me. Any other questions you may I have, I will have to redirect to the DM. But I was just curious on what character tpyes you would go with. Now go children and play with the Play-Dough I just gave you

 

[James McMurray]

IME, if you want to win a large group battle, defense is key. Having good saves and tons of hit points will be your friend. The ability to heal yourself will also be very useful.

Dust of Disappearance is great, as its incredibly hard to pierce unless you're prepared for it.

Clerics are quite possibly the most self-sufficient character class out there. Be sure to have a remove curse and a consecrate handy, in case someone uses Cursed Blade or Violate spell to counteract your healing capabilities.

Something that would help to know: what won the last Battle Royale. Frequently people in these things focus on beating the last contender. If you can figure out what will beat that person and then make sure you can beat that you might find yourself with a leg up on the competition.

 

[mikebr99]

Clerics are quite possibly the most self-sufficient character class out there. Be sure to have a remove curse and a consecrate handy, in case someone uses Cursed Blade or Violate spell to counteract your healing capabilities.

Or a Druid... who would even pay attention to that bird who landed in the trees nearby.. until to late.




Mike

 

[James McMurray]

The guy with True Seeing cast?

Druids arealso great, but they don't get near as many castings of Heal. They do kind of make up for it with Flame Strike as a 4th level spell. :O

 

[mikebr99]

The guy with True Seeing cast?

True... no pun intended.

but then you just fly away... come back later at height, change into the walrus, and coo-coo-ka-chew... SPLAT.

Mike

 

[drunkmoogle]

I'm assuming that this is in reference to the Japanese Cult movie of the same moniker, right ? I'm doing something like this, but for d20 Modern.

My goal in these games is not to survive (though that MAY be an unfortunate side effect ) but to cause as much damage as possible . Sorcerer, all the way. Invisibility/Fly for your great escape. Buy a crapload of scrolls for versitility. Pick some good WMD spells and you'll have enough firepower to put you on Bush's "Axis of Evil" list. Make sure your spells are effective against each of the different saves. Read later forum posts for spell choices; I don't feel like listing all my tricks here .

Be a halfling. Get a high INT, cross class into Hide/Move Silently/Listen/Spot. Get a high WIS; surprise rounds suck. Nuke those that are threats. Use bodies and loot as bait. And most of all, if they notice you then it's probably too late.

You WILL want Improved Initiative. You don't act first, you're dead. You don't need concentration; if they're in your face you're already dead. Play proactive, rather than reactive.

Metagame wise, if a wizard is about to kill you, burn your scrolls out of spite . If you encounter a cleric, stall until his buffs run out; then he's merely an aristocrat to you.

Kick them when they're down. Hit their bad saves. Die happy.

If you follow these steps, you WILL die. But you die knowing that you killed so many others .

Yes, I think I may be in need of help.

 

[Dwarmaj]

I'm currently running a group of PCs through something similar. They had arena type combats against them selves and against some NPCs that I control. The battles were at different levels (5th, 10th, 15th, and now 20th). using the same character, they have to advance the character they started with and get gold appropriate to level. They had two one on ones, PCs vs NPCs, and Free for all at each level.

For the higher level battles, winning initiative seems to be key. The most usefull item I've seen is the metamagic rod of Quicken. Getting an extra buff helps a lot.

The PCs are:
Halfling Cleric/Misstress of Shrouds
Half/Ogre Cleric
Gaele
Elven Ranger/Rogue/Fighter

The NPCs are:
Human Sorcerer/Shadow Adept
Human Bard/Shadow Dancer/Tempest
Dwarven Druid (mounted combat specialist)
Drow Ranger/Peerless Archer

In the low level (5th & 10th) matches the PCs dominated. In the higher level matches, the Sorcerer and the Druid owned the PCs. Though the Elven ranger did take out the Sorcerer once when she lost initiative and there were no delay/prep rounds.

The players seemed to have a blast.

 

[DM with a vengence]

I've played in 2 Games of Death, have participated in 3 online D&D arenas totalling about 100 fights over 10 characters, and currently GM my own arena, D&D 3.5: The Proving Grounds. Now that I'm done tooting my own horn, here's my advice.

In general, a Cleric will be the last one standing. Get Travel and Luck, and every round hit yourself with a buffing spell. Righteous Might, Spell Resistance, Shield of Faith, Protection from Evil, Protection from Elements etc. Then face the last surivior when he is weak and has used all his abilities.

Wizards have the most versetile offensive capabilities. Metamagic Rods are your friends, as well as Craft Item if you get extra gp. I'd suggest at minimun a lesser Quicken or two. Free low level buffs or a Fireball every round for a measly 37k gp. Go divination specialist, and drop necromancy. If you can get items with a higher CL, get a scroll of Shapechange. It's possibly the most powerful spell in the game. Try Celestials or Ghost Chokers for some scary power.

For fighters the best ones are chargers. Go with a Pal/Cavalier multiclass mounted on a Griffon with a Cleric cohort and you have some scary firepower and versaitility. If that isn't your style, then you can go try a Minotaur or Ogre Fighter/Barbarian for the massive 2-Handed power attack combo.

Sorcerers sound cool, but you won't run out of spells, especially if you are packing a lot of scroll and use them. The loss of Quicken Spell and the Cloak slot really hurt sorcs, but you can counter somewhat with a cohort.

Another bad idea is a high AC fighter, such as duelist. You'll lack offensive power, and spellcasters will blow you apart.

 

[BAW]

Try to find something with good all-round saves, fast-healing, the ability to hide (invisibility or greater invisibility are pretty handy) and the capacity to dish out a load of damage in one round.

Sounds pretty tough to do.

Just remember 2 things:

1) Act first

2) KILL or Incapacitate the spellcasters first.

If you can use Complete Warrior and never want to die, go the frenzied berserker route

 

[James McMurray]

If you want to hide and deal massive melee damage, a dual-wielding Invisible Blade is the route you should take (with the XPH feat that allos you to reroll ones on sneak attack damage dice). Note that fortifciation will ruin your day, so a scroll of antimagic field and use magic device might be helpful.