The Arena [News and Offical Disucssion]

[beejazz]

Yeah... I thought there was a limit on pre-combat actions.

[Captain Obvious]

They have long enough durations that i cast them before we even enter the pre-combat time. I thought that this was allowed. Is it not?
I was told we got to know ahead of time, and i didn't notice anything saying we couldn't enter the arena with effects active. I set these things up while i head to the arena, then do a few last minute things just before the combat stops.

[beejazz]

To the best of my knowledge it hasn't been done so far... I thought you only got one or two (four?) rounds of prep. Otherwise, why would anyone buy any equipment that wasn't a weapon or a buffer potion?

I dunno. Just seems a bit much to me.

[mneme]

I assumpe people can just join in?

Ok, let's try this.
[spoiler]
[dice]4d6[/dice]
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[/spoiler]

Hmm.  Not spectacularly good, not spectacularly bad.  14 13 10 13 12 12

Beats the "Noble Array" by one point -- but with incredibly balanced stats.  Will need to think overnight about what to do with this.

[Captain Obvious]

If we want to change the rule, then by all means, lets discuss it. Where would we draw the line though. Since some stuff like mage armour, people just cast at the beginning of the day.

[beejazz]

This was discussed a little on pages one and two...

Xath, you worked out the kinks in the prep time yet?

[mneme]

It seems to me that certain PrCs (Like Abjurant Champion) lose a lot of facility if they can't have spells that are effectively always up for them, well, up. (AC level with a Cl of 12 or higher will -always- have Mage armor or Greater Mage Armor.  Not even all day -- always unless it's been dispelled!)  OTOH, arguablly one could build a mid/high level mage build that would outfight the fighters (not even talking blasting) that way, so perhaps the four round limit is right.

I think people have been rolling up multiple stat blocks before making up their mind, right?  Given that, here are two more for me to play with.
(edit: added one extra die block to each block, for obvious reasons.  Doh!)
(edited to write down the stats, mostly so I've got something to work with)

[spoiler]
[dice]4d6[/dice]
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(13, 12, 13, 11, 16, 13).  Pretty good stats!  32 on a point system!
[/spoiler]

[spoiler]
[dice]4d6[/dice]
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(15, 12, 12, 10, 11, 9).  22 on the point system -- IOW, they can't all be gems.
[/spoiler]

Ok, I've got three bare-bones sets -- will work on turning them into characters when I'm, you know, awake.

[Darkxarth]

You make a good point, mneme.  It's a very debatable issue.  That's part of the reason Xathan didn't decide in the beginning.  My best advice on the whole situation, would to let this be a practice run for the pre-combat buffing that The Poster Formerly Known as Supadupaman has used.  If it's balanced-ish, it'll probably stay.  If not, ditch it.

Looking forward to having you in the Arena, mneme.

[beejazz]

Welcome to teh CBG, and...

... mneme? You playing undead? 'cause you only gots five abilitiy scores in those blocks.

[mneme]

Doh!  Thanks, bejazz.  I added die blocks in the obvious place -- hopefully that will produce sane stat blocks.  

[beejazz]

Lookin' good now.


And tilde... whatcha got cast on yourself, then?

[Poseptune]

They have long enough durations that i cast them before we even enter the pre-combat time. I thought that this was allowed. Is it not?
I was told we got to know ahead of time, and i didn't notice anything saying we couldn't enter the arena with effects active. I set these things up while i head to the arena, then do a few last minute things just before the combat stops.

I dunno. If it is allowed then since some of my innvocations have 24 hour duration I could say I already have them active and that would definitely change my pre-combat actions.

Where are LC and Endless? Haven't they seen the thread? :(

[Xathan]

I've been thinking about Prep time, since there are clearly some problems.

Since no rules were established for this fight, then things will stand as is. I'll let you guys decide if it would be fair for people to change their existing pre-round actions to allow for the fact that they could cast them at the beginning of the day.

For future fights, I'm going to say this:

Non-Tournament: The combatants decide. It's totally up to them, since that seems the most fair.

Tournament: Combatants get a half miniute (5 rounds) of prep time prior to combat. No other magic may be cast before that, and they will check.

[Captain Obvious]

I dunno. If it is allowed then since some of my innvocations have 24 hour duration I could say I already have them active and that would definitely change my pre-combat actions.

This is the kind of stuff i was thinking about. Spells/effects with durations of 24 hrs, 1 hr/lvl, 10 min/lvl, and even 1 min/lvl at mid to high levels have durations easily long enough to activate long before the battle. I think that it would make sense that only pwers with durations of around 1 round/lvl or a few minutes should need to be used right before the fight. The others could be a part of you daily prep. Xathan did originally say that ourt fighters would know a while ahead of time when they would be fighting. If so, why wouldn'tthey use that time to prepare.

If anyone has opinions about this, or alternate ways to deal with pre-battle prep, let's hear about it.

[Poseptune]

Tournament: Combatants get a half miniute (5 rounds) of prep time prior to combat. No other magic may be cast before that, and they will check.

I like this and so far I think this is how battles have been run. Even Endless_Helix did his binding in our match, and bindings are 24 hour durations.