Can the Challenge of Champions be run in Eberron?

[reveal]

This may seem like a "no-brainer" but it's not to me. I was looking over Challeneg of Champions V from Dungeon 108. In "The Rules" the first line states: "All team members must show up in non-magic clothing; no armor is permitted."

What if some of the team members are warforged? It's not like they can just take off their armor/skin. What would you do to get around this beyond "That doesn't apply to warforged?"

 

[Henry]

I'd say that Warforged just wouldn't be permitted to participate, the same way athletes taking steroids would not be allowed to participate in a modern sporting event. (No jokes about current events, please. )

For the player of the WF who wanted to participate, I'd allow him to use another character of equivalent level as a participant, in the way decribed in the Challenge of Champions series of adventures. There are always willing participants ready to team up to round out a party, according to the adventure.

 

[Torm]

Or, maybe change the rule so that anyone that wants to bring armor can, but they can't be wearing it, and allow Warforged to enter the arena a round late and under the effect of a Daze for a round? (Or some similar penalty)

Doesn't seem fair that the fighters can't at least BRING their armor, when Mages could "armor up" pretty thoroughly in two rounds.

(Bear in mind that I've never actually READ the challenge of which you speak.)

 

[reveal]

Or, maybe change the rule so that anyone that wants to bring armor can, but they can't be wearing it, and allow Warforged to enter the arena a round late and under the effect of a Daze for a round? (Or some similar penalty)

Doesn't seem fair that the fighters can't at least BRING their armor, when Mages could "armor up" pretty thoroughly in two rounds.

(Bear in mind that I've never actually READ the challenge of which you speak.)

For others who haven't seen them either, magic users can't have any spells prepared nor can they cast spells inside the Challenge. The only spells that can be used are in Rings of Spell Storing that are given to participants before each scenario.

So mages can't "armor up" inside.

 

[Saeviomagy]

This may seem like a "no-brainer" but it's not to me. I was looking over Challeneg of Champions V from Dungeon 108. In "The Rules" the first line states: "All team members must show up in non-magic clothing; no armor is permitted."

What if some of the team members are warforged? It's not like they can just take off their armor/skin. What would you do to get around this beyond "That doesn't apply to warforged?"

Just let them go in regardless. It's not like it helps.

As for other magical effects imbued into them - they use them, they lose. Full stop.

 

[Richards]

Actually, that's a very interesting question, and obviously one that was never taken into consideration when the author *ahem* wrote up the various Challenges of Champions (for the simple reason that all of the adventures were written before Eberron was released).

That said, I see no reason why warforged would have to be banned from participating in a Challenge of Champions adventure. However, as Saeviomagy pointed out, the proctors would be watching to ensure that a warforged did not use any special magical properties imbued in his body armor, for the same reason that fighters cannot wear magic armor (or any armor, for that matter), and contestants cannot bring in their magic items, thieves kits, animal companions, familiars, or whatnot. The intention of the Adventurers Guild is for each team of four contestants to be playing on as level of a playing field as is possible. A warforged contestant would be warned not to use any of the special properties of his body armor, and if he was caught doing so anyway, he would be immediately declared "dead" for the remainder of that scenario.

Actually, it's getting more and more difficult to come up with "level playing field" scenarios, now that people can play PCs of so many races - with Savage Species allowing things like troll PCs, there are quite a few races whose inherent special qualities can make some of the scenarios somewhat of a cakewalk.

Johnathan