The Murkeye Games

The Premise
It’s the year 525 GD. Murkeye has declared independence from the trouble-laden Gwideo Empire, and the Merchant Lords have decided to put on a grand show for the fledgling city-state’s citizens.

Flyers were plastered across the city for the past year, announcing the planned inaugural event of the newly constructed Winder Arena. It is to be a grand contest amongst champions, a spectacle to rival the Manrig Games of Whiteport, 25 years previous. Various individuals and crews have been assembled for the grand combat. The Merchant Lord Games now draw close.

The games are being managed by Murkeye’s privatized police force, the Silver Crows (formerly the Blood Hawks), under the direct eye of Captain Allen Specter. Rumor has it that the Crows will be entering their own team and champion to fight in the games.

Entry
All contestants must pay a flat entry fee of 10,000 standard issue gold pieces. This can be paid personally or via a Patron or Sponsor, which the contestant is responsible for recruiting.

The Events
Round 1 – Man Versus Monster
The Crusades have been over for a quarter century, but there is no shortage of dangerous creatures roaming the continent of Otep. The Crows have captured and purchased a variety of deadly foes to be fought by lone Champions or teams of two to four. Foes may be presented alone or in groups. Fights are to the death or to the yield of the contestants. Each contestant receives 1 Victory Point per kill (or more, in the case of more formidable foes) and 1 Victory Point for being part of a successful team. Members of the team who aid others in scoring a kill will be awarded Victory Points at the discretion of Captain Specter. Teams, when present, will be assembled by willing contestants.
Round 2 – Team Battles
Teams of contestants will battle one another in groups of four. The last team with a member who remains on the field and in fighting shape is the winner. Special circumstances of victory will be determined by Captain Specter. Fights are to the yield, with unconsciousness for more than 30 seconds resulting in an automatic yield. Each contestant receives 1 Victory Point per knockout and 1 Victory Point for being part of a successful team. Members of the team who aid others in scoring a knockout will be awarded Victory Points at the discretion of Captain Specter. Teams will be constructed by willing contestants.
Round 3 – Siege
Two teams of four battle to raise their flag above the base of the enemy. Once a flag has flown for 20 seconds, that team is the winner. As an added element of strategy, Conjurers and Healers will be standing by and revive fallen contestants within their own base every 18 seconds. Fights last until one base is captured or until three out of four members of a team yield. Contestants of the winning team will receive 5 Victory Points. Knockouts do not award Victory Points. Teams will be constructed by willing contestants.

The Prize
• All contestants who finish with at least 1 Victory Point will be offered positions among the Silver Crows, with special positions available to those who score 6 or more Victory Points.
• At the end of the tournament, each contestant will be awarded 5,000 standard issue gold pieces for each Victory Point he or she has earned.
• The contestant with the greatest total number of Victory Points will be crowned Grand Champion, granting him or her a full estate with an estimated worth of 500,000 standard issue gold pieces. In addition, the Grand Champion shall receive a title of nobility and be able to petition for Merchant Lord status.

Note: I realize that in this point in the continuity, Otep would have reached a state where going beyond level 10 is possible. However, after running this much of the Serpent War, I consider myself pretty well versed on balancing fights for level 10 characters. I feel that Epic Level 10 is easier to build for than level 15 (and have learned from the past, when Sam’s Level 15 Arena yielded 1 finished character by deadline) and allows more variation (i.e. things other than Wizards ridiculous multiclassers are viable).

Rules

Character Creation:
• Epic Level 10. That means characters have an ECL of 10 (see below) and magic items with a caster level of 11 or higher aren’t allowed.
• 3 bonus feats, gained at level 10
• 3.75 rules
• All Characters have 62,000 gold pieces to spend as they like. You do not actually have to pay the 10,000 gold entry free (see below).
• Stats will be arrived at via 4d6. Reroll up to 1 one per set of 4d6. (I know we usually do 32 point buy for PvP, but frankly I haven’t seen this as a positive. It tends to create characters that still have a 16 and up in their relevant stats and an 8 in the irrelevant ones. I find the notion of a bunch of truly exceptional individuals fighting each other more likely than a bunch of warriors with Down Syndrome and casters who need both hands to carry their spellbooks. When it all comes down to it, there is a +/- 5 difference between an 18 and an 8, so I’m not overly concerned about Warriors who have a +6 to their will save instead of a +1, considering anyone who’s forcing will saves will have the DC above 25.)
• Players with a Level Adjustment of +1 may reduce it to +0 by either paying 15000 gold or sacrificing all three of their bonus feats.
• Players with a Level Adjustment of +2 or higher are stuck with their Adjustment.
• Players wishing to use the Necropolitan template from Libris Mortis must sacrifice 2 bonus feats and pay the gold cost for the ritual.
• The Leadership feat is allowed, but cohorts and followers can only enter the Arena if counted as a team member.
All Players Should Have:
• A finished character at the start of the first event. You cannot join a fight until you have finished statting your character and purchasing items. New items cannot be bought later.
• A physical character sheet. Digital sheets are all well and good, but due to the nature of this game, waiting 10 minutes for a laptop to boot up will often be more trouble than it’s worth.
• A reasonable backstory. This need not be epic, but should explain where your character comes from, how he/she paid for entrance, and what he/she hopes to achieve in or as a result of being in the tournament.
• Any dice you’ll need to play your character. If you use a lot of a given die (For example, you have 7d6 of sneak attack or a 10d6 Fireball), I’d prefer if you bring a lot of them. ARGO can supply what is needed, so this shouldn’t be a big issue, but I’d like if you’d have the dice you need ready to go when we’re ready to start.
• A general idea of how your character plays. I realize that some people will have substantial help with their characters or may have someone else build them entirely, but Captain Specter will throw out anyone who is clearly suffering from agoraphobia (i.e., someone who’s gained enough prestige to make it into this tournament but then suddenly forgets how they fight once in the Arena). I reserve the right to disqualify any player who I feel is holding up the game by a lack of understanding of their character.

Material Allowed:
• Anything published by Wizards of the Coast, online or bound, except as noted below.
• Any class variants or feats on the Blog of Otep. Homebrew classes posted there haven’t been balanced for PvP and are not available. (http://worldofotep.blogspot.com/).
Material Banned:
• Magic of Incarnum. I have simply given up trying to understand this book.
• Expanded Psionics Handbook and Complete Psionic. There has been a long-running debate about Psionics in Otep, and the argument that has finally swayed me is that Psionics tend to only be used in ARGO when it can be exploited for powergaming. It’s a complicated system that many newer players don’t understand and is a social barrier if not a balance problem. Players may use non-Psionic rules from these books (example: the feat Greater Manyshot), but all characters will be considered to have 0 available power points at all times.
• Dungeon or Dragon magazine. If you really want something from one of these, ask me and I’ll handle them on a case-by-case basis because a lot of it is overpowered but some is reasonable.
• Third-party material that’s from a source other than the Blog of Otep.

NPCing:
• I’ll have Silver Crow Non-Player Characters statted up. If you don’t want to play a full-on character but would still like to play in the game, tell me and I’ll give you one of them. Be warned that if you want to be an NPC you may have to keep secrets from other players and situations may arise where I’ll tell you something your character needs to do.
• You can also build your own NPC if you want. This character will automatically be a Silver Crow, unless you’re dead set on them being something else. This is a good option if you’re only interested in one or two events.

Event Details:

Universal rules:
• All events are optional, but Victory Point accumulation is carried out across all events.
• Some classes are more effective as support characters than in an offensive role. In order to keep these classes viable, the tournament has been constructed so that no one need fight alone if they don’t want to. When I feel a support character has made a significant contribution to an action that awards a Victory Point, I will grant that character a Victory Point as well (in game, Points will be awarded by Captain Specter). Likewise, if characters clearly defeated a foe by working together, all involved will be awarded Points. For example, if a Cleric uses Hold Person to render a foe helpless, then a Bard throws out substantial damage buffs on a Rogue, who then kills the immobilized foe, all three would gain a Victory Point.
• Players do not actually need to pay their entrance fee. This is purely a storyline device. All players are either sponsored or have sufficient means to finance themselves (player’s choice, it’s part of your backstory). As a result, your sponsor/fortune can replenish items you use during the tournament, as well as covering the costs of dealing with any injuries you receive. You must pay for all your equipment the first time, and your sponsor will only pay for items that have been consumed. Essentially, whatever you have on your person when you walk into the Arena for the first fight is what you will start each fight with. Having your sponsor/fortune replenish your supplies at the time between the start of a fight and the end of that fight is a violation of the rules and is considered a match forfeiture. In addition, your sponsor/fortune will only provide you with items that have a permanent use counter (i.e. potions, wands) not one that resets after a given time period (i.e. Displacement Armor). Permanent use counters may be replaced even if they are only down one charge, but the item being replaced is returned to the sponsor (i.e., you can’t buy a Wand of Enervate, fire it once in a fight, get a new one for free and sell the old one for cash).
• Because of the sponsor/fortune system, you do not receive prize money until the end of the tournament and cannot buy new items during the games. This is meant to prevent the very effective but somewhat ludicrous item purchases that went on during the Manrig Games.

• Man Versus Monster
A fairly self-explanatory event. Players can choose to fight against a monster rated for one to four opponents. If fighting against a foe meant for two or more opponents, players can form teams. Anyone who cannot find a team will be assigned one. If there are not enough players to fill out a team, the Silver Crows will provide up to 2 NPCs to fill the team. Some foes will be a single monster, other will be teams. Players may choose to fight a foe meant for a larger team if they desire. A victory in such a case will award additional Victory Points, but will also be extremely difficult.
• Team Battles
Another mostly self-explanatory event. Players will assemble into teams of four before the battle begins, choosing their own teammates. Teams will then be assembled out of the remaining, willing contestants. Any open slots left will be filled by Silver Crow NPCs. Once all four members of a team are either unconscious, helpless, or have yielded (or any combination thereof), the other team is declared the winner. If I feel a technical victory was cheap (i.e., a character min/maxed around Hold Person, keeping the other team technically helpless for a matter of seconds) or exploitative of the rules, Specter will allow the fight to continue and may even step in.
• Siege
Siege is based off Assault Capture the Flag, as seen in a fair number of video games. Each team has a Flag and a Flagpole. Carrying the Flag requires one hand. Picking up a Flag is a move action. However, players with Quick Draw may pick up a flag as a Swift action. Attaching a Flag to a Flagpole is a move action that does not provoke attacks of opportunity. Flagpoles have three notches; raising a Flag one notch is a standard action, raising two notches is a full-round action. Raising a Flag provokes attacks of opportunity. Simply damaging a character raising a Flag will not stop the Flag from being raised, but interfering bodily with the character will (for example, successfully tripping, grappling, or rendering a character unconscious or helpless). Once a flag has been at the top notch for three complete rounds total, the team whose Flag has been raised will be declared the victor. Flags can be lowered by the same actions (and with the same restrictions) as raising them. Flags do not need to be raised for three consecutive rounds, only three round total.
As an additional twist, professional healers and Conjurers will teleport any unconscious, helpless, or otherwise totally compromised characters off the field, cure them of their afflictions, and teleport them back into their own base every three rounds, regardless of how long each individual character has been downed. I.e., characters will be “respawned” every third round, whether they dropped on the first, second, or third round since the last respawn. At the same interval, Flags not being carried or attached to a Flagpole will be teleported back to their team’s base.
Each team’s Flag is magically warded and can only be carried by a member of its own team. Attempts to disrupt the magic around the Flag so that an enemy can carry the Flag will be considered by a forfeiture of the match by the tamperer’s team. Enemies can be forced to drop their flag with a successful Disarm attempt. A Flag is treated as a one-handed weapon in this case, unless the Flag Carrier has made clear that he or she is using both hands to carry the Flag.
As always, any team slots left open will be filled by Silver Crow NPCs.