How to really do a D&D-meets-tournament fighter game?

[JPL]

So it occurred to me that WotC should really develop a D&D tournament fighter-style video game. Get some classic archetypes in there --- the dwarf fighter, the eladrin wizard, the half-orc barbarian --- and let them wail on each other.

In the meantime . . . how would you stat the characters if you were going to run this as an RPG session? It seems to me that it would be essential to give each character decent, yet not overwhelming, defense and offense.

Pure controllers and pure leaders would both be iffy . . . certain forms of defender stickiness would be of limited use, since the whole idea is that the other guy is going to only attack YOU. Warlords and ranged combatants in general would be tough, too.

Any thoughts?

 

[JPL]

Come to think of it, this might be a good situation for hybrid classes. You can look at each combo and decide what's going to be the most useful for a character who specializes in single combat against a single foe.

 

[Dykstrav]

Back in the mid-90's, there was a Ravenloft-based fighting game when head-to-head fighting games were still hot. There was a "good" party and an "evil" party and you could play a campaign mode where you got xp and magic items as you defeated enemies.

It's called Iron & Blood: Warriors of Ravenloft. I don't remember all the details (since I haven't played it since 1998 or so), but it's been done. If anyone else remembers more about the game, please feel free to chime in.

The "good" party contains an archetypical assortment of D&D characters from the Forgotten Realms setting. There was a human paladin, an elf wizard, a few human fighters, a dwarf fighter, a halfling rouge, and a human cleric.

The "evil" party contains a few assorted character types, albeit with a horror bent (such as human fighters that are executioners, serial killers, et cetera). You can also play a goblin warrior, a few undead (a skeletal warrior and a death knight), and a gargoyle.

The story is that the groups are sucked into Ravenloft. The good party wants to escape, and for some reason, they think that destroying Strahd von Zarovich will do that for them. The evil party agrees to serve Lord Soth and kill Strahd von Zarovich for him--Lord Soth promises to show them how to escape Ravenloft when they kill him.

There was some sort of code or cheat to let you play as Strahd.

The music was pretty strange. Some of it was sweeping orchestral stuff, some of it was generic metal/industrial stuff. Some of the pieces were good, some weren't. None of it really said "horror" to me, but it was average as compared to other beat-em-ups at the time.