Gladiator Arena In Balic - designing a moving battlefield?

[megamania]

Glad. Arena In Balic

I am running a campaign where the heroes will be forced to compete in the arenas of Balic. The arena is described in the 2nd ed Gladiators handbook. I was wondering what/how people have run it in a game.

This is the trick of the arena.

The entire field is made of what appears to be hexagonal tiles. However, once the match begins, these tiles move randomly up and down and in varying speeds. The arenas main danger in the arena itself. Combatants can be thrown by the columns or at times a column could act as a protective wall or barrier.

Any thoughts?

I was considering something as complicated as grabbing every color of dice I have for 6 sided and ten sided die.

A central location would be given with colors given. A 6 sided would translate as 1=+5 2=+10 3 and 4 nothing 5-5 6=-10 feet
and the ten sided would determine speed or quality of the movement.

Just looking for thoughts to keep the game moving with few delays.

 

[Piratecat]

I'll slide this into General Discussion, and adjust the title slightly to catch peoples' attention.

This is a cool idea, and here's what I would do. It'll take a little prep work, but hopefully it'll be worth it. I'm sure this could be improved; I'm just brainstorming.

- A couple of programs online let you print out graph paper. Print out big hex tiles on cardstock. Mount 'em on cardboard to make them stiffer, and cut out the edges so that hexes overlap.

- Effectively make a few strips on hexes. Then put them next to one another. During the fight, separate them, slide them up or down, then move them closer together.

- Use some random number to decide which way it slides, and how many hexes move past.

Does this make any sense? I'm seeing it clearly in my mind, but I have a cold and I'm a little muddled.

 

[shilsen]

I've done a similar thing with a chessboard-type area, with all the black squares either going up or down at the same time, and the same for the white squares. They would move at the end of each round and go up/down 5 ft. It was a room with a ceiling 15 ft above, so sometimes they would slam against the ceiling. What I did was roll it up randomly and write down the situation ebforehand, like so:

Rd 1: All squares at ground level (15 ft from ceiling)
Rd 2: Whites go down (20 ft), blacks go up (10 ft)
Rd 3: Whites go up (15 ft), blacks go up (5 ft)
Rd 4: Whites go up (10 ft), blacks go down (10 ft)
Rd 5: Whites go down (15 ft), blacks go up (5 ft)
Rd 6: Whites go down (20 ft), blacks go up (slam against ceiling)
...

I had the PCs roll a bunch of balance checks each at the start of the session, and used them, which saved time and I knew immediately what happened (it was DC 5 to stay upright if your square moved up and DC 10 if it moved down, IIRC, or maybe 10/15).

I had them fight four hell-hounds. Worked out to be a fun fight, with people readying actions to jump out of the way, trying to take advantage of being at a height, etc.

Hope that helps, and I strongly recommend rolling out the results of the movements beforehand.

 

[Spatula]

You can have random movements and still generate the numbers ahead of time. Make a "script" of how the tiles are going to move each round, like shilsen suggested.

 

[megamania]

Thankyou for the advice Shilsen. At first I was uncertain about how to simplify the field beyond prerolling movements but your idea of color / number placement should work well enough.

I'll find out when I run it for my Darksun Storyhour tale.

Yo- P-cat. Hope you feel better. I have it to and lost my einternet during the time. Kinda sucked but I'm better now. Hope your gaming getaway went well.