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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tolamaker" data-source="post: 8572169" data-attributes="member: 7031495">Session 24This week's session was a battle royale in the Royale in the ruins. I had had the idea for a PvP session in mind, and the rest of the group was up for it. Aripos, Gruz, and Mishka kept their characters, while both Orwin and Eluriah figured their characters wouldn't be interested in such a contest. They made Norwell (Oath of the Open Seas Paladin) and Soju (Way of the Drunken Master Monk) respectively.I won't go into the details of the fight necessarily, I'll just outline how I planned the session. I wanted to have a couple of things, and compromised as I had a busier than expected week. I wanted a battlefield that was not an open field, and could change during the fight. I also wanted the fight to not necessarily be just everyone for themselves and potentially gang up one by one on whoever was strongest. I wanted there to be prizes of gold and items, but didn't want it to be a simple loot grab for the party with everything being shared by the winner.The Prizes: Every entrant (3 main PCs, 2 replacement PCs, and 3 DMPCs) earned 25 gold for participating, and 50 gold for every knockout. The winner would gain a Spellwrought Tattoo from Tasha's at Tattoomancy, as I had Tenga sponsor the match. The only change to the Spellwrought tattoo is that it would be once per day, rather than one use only. It would cost an attunement slot, and only go up to 2nd level. That way, whoever won wouldn't find a sword they're not proficient with, or some +1 wand for a martial character.The Fight: Lots were randomly drawn to determine four teams of two. If any one person was knocked out, the remainig person became immune to all damage from the other contestants, and couldn't deal any damage to them either. They could move and grapple, and prepare actions. Once there were two people who had lost a teammate, they joined the same team, and rejoined the fight. Once it reached three contestants, it became a free for all.The Field: I used a mostly empty field because I ran out of time. However, I still wanted something that would make people make more interesting choices than who to attack. So I came up with the Frankenstein Beholder.I liked the idea of beholder eyestalks that were firing wildly as electricity coursed through them. I picked the antimagic eye, the fear eye, the charm eye, and the paralyzing eye. However, I didn't want anyone to lose their turn because of random chance, just add some strategy, so the paralyze became a slow (half speed and only action or bonus action), and the charm became a confusing ray, forcing the player to attack someone at random, including their teammate (which would deal no damage), and even the Beholder. It never happened, but I would have had them roll to hit and damage, and at 20 damage dealt would have destroyed the eyestalk, and thus the ray. All rays would fire at initiative turn 0.[ATTACH]153312[/ATTACH](Each tiny token represents a stalk. Beholder for antimagic, dragon for fear, pixie for charm/confusion, and ghoul for paralyze/slow)Each ray would shoot into one quarter of the arena, so players picked where to be based on what eye was pointing where. But the Beholder was on a pole with gears and cranks, and anyone could use their object interaction to rotate the beholder and stalks to different quadrants. The antimagic eye was simply on and filled the quadrant, while the other eyes rolled to see which player they targeted, with the lowest die roll being a d4 if there were fewer people in the quadrant.Finally, to ensure that any full casters didn't get to just go completely nova, everyone had a single adrenaline shot ability to take a short rest as an action. That way Gruz got to recharge, and everyone could heal.Team Hearts, the Orcs: Mishka and Caius Bolt (Orc Tempest Cleric)Team Spades, the Captains: Gruz and NorwellTeam Clubs, the Killers: Aripos and Vong Tru (VHuman Samurai from Ostalin)Team Diamonds, the Halflings: Soju and Robinia (Hunter Ranger)These teams were completely random, so it was very fun to see the coincidences line up.How Did It Go?Really well for the most part! It was very fun, and I tried to make my DMPCs big damage dealers to make them get targeted first, which did happen. My VHuman Samurai didn't last to the end of round 1, my Tempest Cleric was outmaneuvered by people positioning the antimagic field, and my Hunter Ranger didn't hit enough of her shots until late in the game.The rankings of the fight, by KOs wentNorwell: 4 KOs (and eventual winner)Mishka: 2 KOsAripos: 1 KO (Second Place)My plan for teams was interesting, and good for organization, but it didn't really solve my focus fire problem. Once anyone began doing a lot of damage, most teams went for them. Mishka was the first PC victim of this. I also really wish that I had added some terrain or brush for cover, so that Aripos' player could have had more chances for stealth. Thankfully, this was all for fun, and everyone really enjoyed it. The highlight was definitely the Beholder head, and rotating the body. While the other stalks did play a small part, the antimagic cone was the real game changer. It casters wanted nothing to do with it, but the martial characters were stuck deciding between getting heals or staying safe. It really added a lot to the fight.In the end, Norwell one in a straight up knock down fight with Aripos, and won with 13 hit points and no spell slots left. Everyone made some money, everyone's asking how much one of these Spellwrought Tattoos costs, and next week, we get to have the War Council I almost started on accident (checks calendar) three months ago!</blockquote>

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