Hethas' Gambit continued [top of rnd 8]

[Jeremy]

*the In-Spectres wave to Hel, glad to have attracted the notice of a patron*

 

[seasong]

Jeremy: 36 points
Osirdar killed Antony (companion -> companion) 6 points
BONUS: Hel, for an evil, evil assault. (bonus) 10 points
Osirdar killed Duder (companion -> PC) 20 points
Team kill on Omigawd (special) 10 points

Yup, I mis-added. Jeremy should have 46 points. I'll fix that in the posts, and let that be a lesson to the rest of you - double check my math. You, too, could be missing points you earned with your blood.

For Izad, he had 4 Diddled (-40) and 1 bonus (+10) for a net of -30 points. So that one was correct.

Bonuses mean two things:
1. You get 10 points. Yay, you!
2. The praise of a god is good for a LOT of beer.

 

[Jeremy]

Great! Thanks! Only about 100 points behind XF. Durn his prismatic badness.

 

[seasong]

Here's a quick summary for the gentle reader:
Clockworkjoe (Marius): 30 points, and every one of them earned for taking a beating.

Cool hand luke (Mortem, Antony, Unth): 17 points, all for beating up an elephant, less -10 for diddling. Unth was the real powerhouse in this group, and Blaster got him, too.

DM with a vengence (Hagbard, Thoramus, Emeldra and a whole lotta animals): 12 points, earned by killing Xiao Fung's whole family. That's why Xiao Fung hadda kill 'em all.

duder (Duder, Omigawd, Mang): -67 points, they diddled most of the game away, and then got used by Tairnandon's crew as an object lesson in terror.

JDragon (Izad): -30 points, mostly for diddling. It would be lower, but he did something clever that Wee Jas liked.

Jeremy (Tairnandon, Usasmir, Osirdar): 46 points for a kill list of Antony, Duder and Omigawd, and a very nasty long-term plan. Hel has finally picked her Favored, and it is this one.

Number47 (Xiao Fung, Lung, and Hu): 158 points, mostly for wiping out Hagbard's entire flock. A three.. er, two... er, one man army, who demonstrated the power of area effect attacks on a bunched up enemy.

reapersaurus (Blaster, Master): 71 points, for killing Marius, Mortem, Unth, and Mang. The only person so far to kill two PCs, and he's looking to add you to that list.

Saepiroth (Cholestus): -40 points, mostly for taking time to heal up from the beating he's taken. Almost killed one of the Xiao family, but had his kill stolen by the now-deceased Hagbard. Considering what happened to Hagbard, maybe that was a good thing. At any rate, he's on cloud nine, now, and planning a return to active duty any second now.

Sollir Furryfoot (Rillos): -30 points, for demonstrating that archers don't like heavy wind.

 

[reapersaurus]

Points questions:

for me, the point tallies I have are:
10 points Round1 + 45 points Round2 (killed Marius for 30 points + survived attack by 3 people for 15 points) - 13 points Round3 diddling + 30 points Round4 (Mortem kill) -3 points Round5 - 3 points Round6 + 16 points Round7 (cohort killed cohort and PC killed cohort)
Total of 82 to here

Do I have those point awards right?
For the life of me, I can't find the master list of what each action is worth - the Rules page is outdated, and I can't find the final post on here that detailed them.
seasong- could you put the Action Point Awards table somewhere easy to find?
Could you also detail exactly what a "diddle" is? What actions will make it so that a character isn't diddling? Obviously attacking an opponent, or causing an effect which attacks (the Elephant Master used), but what about a cohort healing a PC, or casting a spell on the PC, etc?

Also, in looking at the point totals so far, I think that it's clear that the point value you have for companion kills is skewing this competition.
Number47 has twice the score of the next competitor, and he got it in only 4 rounds' actions.
I don't believe that DMWaV's horde should be worth the same as 4 PC's.
Individually, the points award the same amount when killing a brute like Unth Dirn as they do Fluffles.

 

[seasong]

reapersaurus, I'll get to your questions more thoroughly in a moment. The point values master list I'm working from:

Kills
Straight up kill:
- PC kills PC: 30 points
- PC kills Companion: 10 points
- Companion kills PC: 20 points
- Companion kills Companion: 6 points

Kill-THIEF:
- PC kills PC: 10 points
- PC kills Companion: 3 points
- Companion kills PC: 6 points
- Companion kills Companion: 2 points

Coup de Grace:
- PC kills PC: 20 points
- PC kills Companion: 6 points
- Companion kills PC: 12 points
- Companion kills Companion: 3 points

Kill-THIEF + Coup de Grace:
- PC kills PC: 6 points
- PC kills Companion: 2 points
- Companion kills PC: 4 points
- Companion kills Companion: 1 points

SUICIDE:
- PC: -30 points
- Companion: -10 points

Kill-THIEF + SUICIDE:
- PC: -60 points
- Companion: -20 points

Other Stuff

Bad Odds:
- 2:1 odds: +10 points per round
- 3:1 odds: +15 points per round
- 4:1 odds: +20 points per round
- 5:1 odds: +30 points per round

Performance:
- Gets you 10 points, +1 pt per 1 you exceed DC 20 by on a Perform check.

Diddling:
- PC: -10 points per round
- Companion: -3 points per round

Championship:
- Last PC Standing: +100 points
- Win Champion Fight: +100 points
- Lose Champion Fight: -50 points

 

[seasong]

for me, the point tallies I have are:
...snip...
Total of 82 to here

Rnd 1: bonus 10 pts
Rnd 2: kill Marius 30 pts, bad odds (3) 15 pts
Rnd 3: diddled -13 pts
Rnd 4: kill Mortem 30 pts
Rnd 5: diddled -3 pts
Rnd 6: diddled -3 pts
Rnd 7: kill Unth (PC v Coh) 10 pts, kill Mang (Coh v Coh) 6 pts

82 points. <-- this is correct

Looks like I forgot your bad odds in Rnd 2 AND I can't add

seasong- could you put the Action Point Awards table somewhere easy to find?

I'm thinking the first post of this thread, and any further threads hereafter.

Could you also detail exactly what a "diddle" is? What actions will make it so that a character isn't diddling? Obviously attacking an opponent, or causing an effect which attacks (the Elephant Master used), but what about a cohort healing a PC, or casting a spell on the PC, etc?

Generally, bringing about some effect or action which you hope will damage an opponent is not diddling. Master's elephant and lion both did not count as diddling, for example, although attacks they make after the first round they were brought in would not count for Master.

Healing, whether it's healing yourself or a comrade, if not accompanied by beatdown, is diddling.

As a general rule, however, I have to go with common sense (MY common sense), because detailing it down to every possible action in D&D, or even just every grey-ish action in D&D, would be impossible. Generally, if Hethas thinks you're diddling, you're diddling.

With that said, I am always open to counterarguments for a particular action, and I try to be as fair and even-handed as possible.

Also, in looking at the point totals so far, I think that it's clear that the point value you have for companion kills is skewing this competition.
Number47 has twice the score of the next competitor, and he got it in only 4 rounds' actions.

I don't believe that DMWaV's horde should be worth the same as 4 PC's.
Individually, the points award the same amount when killing a brute like Unth Dirn as they do Fluffles.

On one level, I agree with you. Just any old summoned lantern archon or similar shouldn't be worth 10 points. However, DMwav's horde was a much harder kill than you are painting - just because Xiao Fung made it look easy (by dint of a cunning spell to keep ALL of DMwav's cohorts away from him, animals and non-animals, and 4-9 area attacks PER ROUND) does not mean it was easy. For that matter, he still didn't manage to kill a huge chunk of the horde, and look at all the spells he spent just getting that far.

If those kills were so easy... well, there's a bunch of animals still milling around! Go mop them up! Mr and Mrs Stampy, in particular, would probably be delighted to go a few rounds with you. And just think, Xiao Fung softened them up for you .

Something I considered, but ultimately did not use, was a HD/ECL system for kills. That way, if someone summoned up a 2 HD summon monster II critter of some sort, killing it would be worth a fraction of 10 points (probably around 2 points, actually).

With that in mind, however, count up the polar bears Xiao Fung killed. Each of those was a 16 HD critter when he killed 'em.

 

[reapersaurus]

Thanks for the responses.

There's a simple problem with your examples which discussed how the scoring of animal companions might not be a bad idea:

The companions did not have that many HP's on their own - that was an effect of the PC (Animal Growth), was it not?

More importantly though, is that HP's are not nearly the most indicative factor of the threat of a creature.
The fact that ONE SPELL made Number47 immune to the entirety of the apparently-massive threat the Animals represented is proof that HD is not close to the real story. The Animals don't really threaten anyone in this arena (except perhaps Blaster), since the animals can't see invisible and they can't reach anyone if the PC or cohort doesn't want them to.

 

[seasong]

1. That ONE SPELL made Number47 immune to half the cohorts in the arena, not just Animals. This is an argument against cohorts being worth points, but not against the animals being worth points as cohorts.

2. Most animals can see invisible. It's called Scent, and it's a lovely, lovely thing.

3. Xiao Fung earned all those points because his enemy was bunched up, not because they were this or that type of creature. Many of the cohorts in the arena would have died sooner (and cost fewer spells) than the animals did.

One last point: I count 480 points left in the arena (440 that isn't Master & Blaster), not counting bonuses from the Gods. I don't think Xiao Fung has anything even remotely approaching an insurmountable lead, especially considering all the spells he expended early on when earning those points.

 

[reapersaurus]

Well, if you believe that animals can do as much as cohorts, or they are as dangerous as cohorts, or can do much against cohort/PC defenses, than I doubt if what I say will sway your decision, but...

I count 270 total points on a quick count, not counting Champion opportunities (which are invalid to count in this comparison).
In other words, most people would need to gain more than half of the remaining points and Number47 not gain one more point to be able to catch up to #47.

For a look at the effect of valuing companions as 10 points, let's look at the point totals at the end of Round 4:
#47: 168 points
Avg of all other players: 1.2 points
(that's including my 57 points)

So the average player would have to make up 167 point handicap.