Technomancer Press Open Duel 2007

Tony Hellmann · June 2007

Technomancer Press is currently considering the 2007 PAX Duel ruleset. Last year was 12th level characters.

This year we will take your suggestions.

Some design considerations you may want to bear in mind:

Higher level = more complex
Highly complex = only hardcore gamers will enter, and it will be difficult to enter at the show (2 hours rolling up a character and selecting gear)

Any other suggestions you have besides level will also be considered. Let me know what you want to see, and what you don't want to see.

--Tony

Officer · June 2007

Tony Hellmann wrote: »

Technomancer Press is currently considering the 2007 PAX Duel ruleset. Last year was 12th level characters.

This year we will take your suggestions.

Some design considerations you may want to bear in mind:

Higher level = more complex
Highly complex = only hardcore gamers will enter, and it will be difficult to enter at the show (2 hours rolling up a character and selecting gear)

Any other suggestions you have besides level will also be considered. Let me know what you want to see, and what you don't want to see.

--Tony

I have no problems with the way things were run last year. I didn't get to roll into the tournament myself, I made my character for it, though, and was happy with how he came out.

I am just curious about how it will go down this year though. I was sad when I realized (after the fact) that I had missed the tournament, but I want to show up this year and try my hand.

GodOfCheese · June 2007

Tony Hellmann wrote: »

Technomancer Press is currently considering the 2007 PAX Duel ruleset. Last year was 12th level characters.

This year we will take your suggestions.

Some design considerations you may want to bear in mind:

Higher level = more complex
Highly complex = only hardcore gamers will enter, and it will be difficult to enter at the show (2 hours rolling up a character and selecting gear)

Any other suggestions you have besides level will also be considered. Let me know what you want to see, and what you don't want to see.

--Tony

please ban my horrible dancing blade+sizing weapon exploit (essentially, require that Dancing Blade only work if you could physically wield the weapon).
Consider banning the cleric class entirely or eliminate clerical turning (to avoid abuse of Divine feats). The cleric is balanced to protect/support parties on the assumption it's going to be wasting spells healing. Remove the party and the cleric gets too much of an edge (note that '06's winner was a cleric as was the '05 Spellcaster duel's winner).
you might consider requiring character pre-vetting. I know lots of people worked on their characters at the duel, but those guys are going to lose anyway (not trash talking-- I just don't think it's possible to win the tournament without some kind of well-considered strategy).
I'd love to be able to loot the dead. It would increase the uncertainty of a battle. Assume all items can be identified by the next bout but you cannot sell them to buy new equipment. When that guy dies, he gives the victor his sheet (or a copy of it) and all the sheets from corpses he has looted going back. This provides auditability and might encourage the use of alignment-restricted items.
make timebased damage Vile and unhealable OR find another hurry-along method. When we were taking damage every round, this actually made the rounds last LONGER because each round had to count that much more.
I think level 12 was a good level to run at. Round-by-round combat did not take as long as it did in '05.
I would like to have seen more dynamic landscapes similar to the last combat round, with the liquid motes and such. That was a lot of fun.
in fact, it would be nice to enter as pairs and have a team competition. This might slow things down a bit though, with strategic talk.
if you have LY's rankings, consider handicaps, like if you were in the top 3 from last year, you automatically lose initiative this year?
consider changing the ECL restrictions. What we really care about is CR, not EL anyway.
consider spreading the game over multiple day-rounds since PAX is multiday. For a good time, have the characters level up between days (if you pre-vet, vet the levelled-up version as well).

HotSake · June 2007

Spellcasters are balanced around 4 encounters per day. It's easy to build a character who dominates by blowing his load in one fight.

staplersareshiny · June 2007

While you are correct, there are so many things wrong with that statement...

TheProphetElijah · June 2007

I say limit the builds to the Players handbook only. This would stop a huge amount of possible abuse, create more balanced encounters, and allow people who just stumbled in and created a character that day to compete with some competence.

I also think that PC's should not get full spells and health between combat. This could balance the spellcasters a bit more as they would not want to just blow their major spells in the first round.

GodOfCheese · June 2007

TheProphetElijah wrote: »

I say limit the builds to the Players handbook only. This would stop a huge amount of possible abuse, create more balanced encounters, and allow people who just stumbled in and created a character that day to compete with some competence.

I don't think people who stumbled in that day should be expected to compete with any competence. Sorry, but creating a 12th level character is not a one-day task. Limiting all builds to PHB-only also makes combat highly predictable (seriously-- the number of weapons, spells, and negative effects you can possibly face is actually CALCULABLE). This means the powergamers will settle on one of a SMALL number of buildtypes (fighter, wizard, cleric, possibly Monk) and there will be very little distinction between them.

With the enhanced source materials, it foils much of the combat calculus or at least makes it harder. It gets harder still if you add other core materials, such as the MM. I submit though that this might be a bit fragile since very few people seem able to advance monsters properly, let alone add class levels to them (my Stone Element Half-Fiend Basilisk attacks your Frost Giant!).

TheProphetElijah wrote: »

I also think that PC's should not get full spells and health between combat. This could balance the spellcasters a bit more as they would not want to just blow their major spells in the first round.

Good idea, but then there's no point in playing a spellcaster at all unless the number of combatants is expected to be small. I believe this skews combat completely towards combatants without use-per-day restrictions (Of whom Fighters are king once they survive a few rounds). Last year there were lots of bouts (like maybe ten ladder-rungs). The tournament is just too big for that kind of restriction.

Plus, there's no way to audit this. If a wizard honestly holds onto his highest spell slot throughout the game, what contestant is not going to cry foul when he uses it in the final battle?

TheProphetElijah · June 2007

Sorry God of Cheese I would have to disagree with you here. in my experience A 12th level PC made using only the PHB should take an even slightly experienced player no more than 2 hours to make.

Also having seen a million and one Dervish's in open duels, I don't think increasing the number of sources available actually increases the variety of PC's encountered that much.

So I was thinking originally that the tournament would have each person playing maybe 4 rounds at most. If it is more than that then maybe after say 3 or 4 combats you get to refresh your spells and HP. Or more tactical yet, you get a limited number of refreshes to use between matches, and half the tactical decision becomes when to use them. Just a thought.

GodOfCheese · June 2007

TheProphetElijah wrote: »

Sorry God of Cheese I would have to disagree with you here. in my experience A 12th level PC made using only the PHB should take an even slightly experienced player no more than 2 hours to make.

"Make", yes, but the build won't be competitive.

TheProphetElijah wrote: »

Also having seen a million and one Dervish's in open duels, I don't think increasing the number of sources available actually increases the variety of PC's encountered that much.

I certainly saw numerous Dervishes in 05. That PrC needs a closer inspection-- I'd consider banning it in any situation where it might actually be useful (e.g. a melee fight).
But in 06 I don't think I saw a single one, probably because they compete poorly at range. Hell, given how range oriented my character was, I might have seen them and pulped them without realizing it.

TheProphetElijah wrote: »

So I was thinking originally that the tournament would have each person playing maybe 4 rounds at most. If it is more than that then maybe after say 3 or 4 combats you get to refresh your spells and HP. Or more tactical yet, you get a limited number of refreshes to use between matches, and half the tactical decision becomes when to use them. Just a thought.

Interesting. Again, I'm concerned about auditability (I was impressed that TP attempted to address this last year-- kudos, Tony), but it sounds very interesting.

Officer · June 2007

Alls I know is that I needs me some rules, cause I need to create characters for this and pick the one I want. Knowing myself, I am going to make over 2 dozen characters by PAX, and most of the time I'll need is to just PICK the one I'll be playing.

GodOfCheese · June 2007

Recruit wrote: »

Alls I know is that I needs me some rules, cause I need to create characters for this and pick the one I want. Knowing myself, I am going to make over 2 dozen characters by PAX, and most of the time I'll need is to just PICK the one I'll be playing.

Both past two years I thought and thought in the weeks leading up and then abandoned everything to build a completely unrelated character the night before, arriving at the duels with no sleep and buoyed by caffiene. Later when the adrenaline wore off I would collapse in a heap at Azteca or some other inappropriate place, only to be roused by my unamused comrades. "Go home, Dave," they would say.

Sleep is for sissies.

Officer · June 2007

GodOfCheese wrote: »

Recruit wrote: »

Alls I know is that I needs me some rules, cause I need to create characters for this and pick the one I want. Knowing myself, I am going to make over 2 dozen characters by PAX, and most of the time I'll need is to just PICK the one I'll be playing.

Both past two years I thought and thought in the weeks leading up and then abandoned everything to build a completely unrelated character the night before, arriving at the duels with no sleep and buoyed by caffiene. Later when the adrenaline wore off I would collapse in a heap at Azteca or some other inappropriate place, only to be roused by my unamused comrades. "Go home, Dave," they would say.

Sleep is for sissies.

Probably something like that will happen to me, I am just an obsessive character builder. If someone tells me to create a character for their game, I generally make between 10-30 characters, depending on the level and creative flow I feel when I hear about the story.

TheProphetElijah · July 2007

So I was thinking, about what makes D&D combat really interesting and realised that a large part of it was the group dynamics. Yet I have never seen a party based tournament. So what I would really like to have is a 4 on 4 tournament. And I don't mean everyone playing 4 different characters, but actually 4 people to a team each with one character. What do you guys think, would that be possible?

Officer · July 2007

TheProphetElijah wrote: »

So I was thinking, about what makes D&D combat really interesting and realised that a large part of it was the group dynamics. Yet I have never seen a party based tournament. So what I would really like to have is a 4 on 4 tournament. And I don't mean everyone playing 4 different characters, but actually 4 people to a team each with one character. What do you guys think, would that be possible?

The problem I see here would be EXTREMELY long battles. I mean, I remember playing D&D with friends and when a major battle occured, it could take hours to conclude. Now imagine it is a 4v4 of PCs. The tournament would need to be a 3 day event and would require a limited number of entries otherwise it would take way too much time.

GodOfCheese · July 2007

Recruit wrote: »

TheProphetElijah wrote: »

So I was thinking, about what makes D&D combat really interesting and realised that a large part of it was the group dynamics. Yet I have never seen a party based tournament. So what I would really like to have is a 4 on 4 tournament. And I don't mean everyone playing 4 different characters, but actually 4 people to a team each with one character. What do you guys think, would that be possible?

The problem I see here would be EXTREMELY long battles. I mean, I remember playing D&D with friends and when a major battle occured, it could take hours to conclude. Now imagine it is a 4v4 of PCs. The tournament would need to be a 3 day event and would require a limited number of entries otherwise it would take way too much time.

On the other hand, more people would be eliminated faster and fewer would most likely register (you'd need to party up before the match to powergame effectively). With well-optimized cooperative builds, you could blast the crap out of each other MUCH FASTER.

Also, if we had chess-timers or something similar, we could prevent people from slowing everything down.

I would LOVE to do this. One thing I have disliked in the last two duels is fighting my friends.

Officer · July 2007

GodOfCheese wrote: »

Recruit wrote: »

TheProphetElijah wrote: »

So I was thinking, about what makes D&D combat really interesting and realised that a large part of it was the group dynamics. Yet I have never seen a party based tournament. So what I would really like to have is a 4 on 4 tournament. And I don't mean everyone playing 4 different characters, but actually 4 people to a team each with one character. What do you guys think, would that be possible?

The problem I see here would be EXTREMELY long battles. I mean, I remember playing D&D with friends and when a major battle occured, it could take hours to conclude. Now imagine it is a 4v4 of PCs. The tournament would need to be a 3 day event and would require a limited number of entries otherwise it would take way too much time.

On the other hand, more people would be eliminated faster and fewer would most likely register (you'd need to party up before the match to powergame effectively). With well-optimized cooperative builds, you could blast the crap out of each other MUCH FASTER.

Also, if we had chess-timers or something similar, we could prevent people from slowing everything down.

I would LOVE to do this. One thing I have disliked in the last two duels is fighting my friends.

Yeah, but put two well runs teams together and you have a battle that may not be contained in a single day. Imagine having a 2 - 3 day long epic battle...

Okay... I'm liking this idea more and more. A multiday battle would make my heart swell like the Mighty Grinch lord.

TheProphetElijah · July 2007

Ok the more I think about 4on 4 battles the more I really want this. I think multi-day battles would be too much however. But I think you could easily make the matches timed, with which ever team has the most members still alive at the end of the time coming out on top.

Or even more creatively add an actually goal of collecting some treasures, so it isn't just pure combat. I mean if it was low level enough a simple goal like reaching 3 treasures located on high pillars could be a huge challenge, and even more reason too bring a non-uber fighter character. Just more brainstorming.

GodOfCheese · July 2007

TheProphetElijah wrote: »

Ok the more I think about 4on 4 battles the more I really want this. I think multi-day battles would be too much however. But I think you could easily make the matches timed, with which ever team has the most members still alive at the end of the time coming out on top.

Or even more creatively add an actually goal of collecting some treasures, so it isn't just pure combat. I mean if it was low level enough a simple goal like reaching 3 treasures located on high pillars could be a huge challenge, and even more reason too bring a non-uber fighter character. Just more brainstorming.

Sort of like the "Find the box containing the item" challenge in the middle of last year's duels. I thought this was cool, though I am not sure if anyone actually did it.

I'd love to see combat set in less traditional (but easily adjudicated) zones, such as:

on slippery planks with a well-known Balance DC above a weak acid that isn't too deep (favoring lightly-armored combatants but not to the point that falling in kills you)
under constant barrage by invisible projectile weapons on the ceiling (favoring combatants with higher Flat-Footed AC or with the ability to See Invisible). At the beginning of each person's turn, he oversees the attack on his opponent.
on tiles that get hotter the longer you stay in one place (discouraging camping)
amid pillars that are powerful magnets, harming your attack rolls with ferrous weapons and AC with ferrous armor.
foggy (harming ranged attacks)
in glass boxes, arguing your case before a crowd (your Diplomacy or Perform vs mine!).
on opposing towers with partially-covered plank-bridges between them which provide cover, but not total cover. This advantages a ranged fighter because he is guaranteed several shots, but a melee combatant is not completely exposed until he gets to the other side.
in a cage surrounded by Spiritual Weapons. Whenever anyone attacks and misses, he is attacked by one instantly.
in a room filling with water. It gets progressively slipperier, and eventually the two of you will be fighting while swimming.

If this is an option, I'd be willing to help come up with such environments, but because I don't want to opt out of the tournament, they'd have to be publicized in advance (more fun that way anyway, IMHO

).

Tony Hellmann · July 2007

Tell you what...come up with as many scenarios as you like, post them on here, and I'll use ones I like as a springboard to come up with my own ideas. That way nobody knows exactly what scenarios will look like. I may post a list of possibilities, but if I do that, it sort of screws the walk-up registrants, because they haven't had a month to come up with all the possibilities.

I'm also thinking of reducing choices to the Player's Handbook, Player's Handbook II, Dungeon Master's Guide, and the Player's Companion.

Whatever we decide, I plan to have the rules up this week.

--Tony

Tony Hellmann · July 2007

Matrissa The Enchantress wrote: »

Truth be told, I agree with my pal GodOfCheese (aka Smaknar) - pre-registered participants with pre-vetted characters is the way to go here. One option, perhaps, would be to plan for two parallel tournaments - one for the "heavy hitters" - those that pre-register - and one "drop in" where everyone who signs up at the time is handed a pre-printed character sheet, a pencil, an eraser, some full scap paper, given two hours from "start" to whip up a fresh 12th level character. Have everyone who signed up and finished a character hand them in, take two hours to vet them all (noting any necessary corrections on the pages) and then start the tourney.

That's not a bad idea.

Matrissa The Enchantress wrote: »

Tony Hellmann wrote: »

I'm also thinking of reducing choices to the Player's Handbook, Player's Handbook II, Dungeon Master's Guide, and the Player's Companion.

Well, for the "drop in" version I just mentioned, I think restricting it further to just the two core rulebooks and your Player's Companion would be wise. Less decisions available to the players and much easier to vet the completed character sheets. I'd consider adding the Monster Manual but only to make some of the reasonable player character races avaialble (Drow anyone?)

Well, one could argue that the walk-up registrants will be even more screwed if they are given more race/class limitations than preregistrants...

Matrissa The Enchantress wrote: »

For the full bore tourney - whether single player or team player (Which, by the way, I do think is an awesome idea, but would *absolutely* needs pre-registered teams to work) - I do think you should include the original four "Complete" books - "Complete Adventurer", "Complete Warrior", "Complete Arcane" and "Complete Divine" - as well. They are "almost core" in a way, being the first set of 3e5 books to come out and being based on the "X & X" 3e0 predecesors ("Tome & Blood", "Song & Silence", &c.), and with that selection of books you can pretty much be sure that anyone who registers will own (or have access to) at least one of the six "non-core" books on the list.

Okay.

Matrissa The Enchantress wrote: »

Tony Hellmann wrote: »

Whatever we decide, I plan to have the rules up this week.

Sound great. I'll try to come up with some good suggestions myself. By the way - if you did do the "drop in" method I suggested above, you can give the list of possible scenarios out at the start of the two hour "creation" period, so they'll have a good idea of what might hit them.

Also a good idea.

Matrissa The Enchantress wrote: »

Oh, and I suppose that, to really do all this, you should set up to have duels on more than one day, perhaps in a dedicated room close by the tabletop free play area. One nicety to doing that might be that you could allow individual sessions to take a bit longer. And with pre-registered participants You could arrange for a proper tournament tree, and then the second set of players could actually enjoy being observers while the first set play and vice versa.

That's a great idea, but PAX has a lot of events going and space is limited, so duels on more than one day aren't an option, unfortunately.

--Tony

TheProphetElijah · July 2007

Hey Tony, what about the idea of a team vs team tournament? Any chance we could see this? It certainly would allow for much more interesting character builds. Plus it is the way D&D is normally played and so would be much more like a real game then the one on one combats are.

Tony Hellmann · July 2007

The rules for the Technomancer Press Open Duel 2007 are now online.

The questions may begin.

--Tony

Tony Hellmann · July 2007

TheProphetElijah wrote: »

Hey Tony, what about the idea of a team vs team tournament? Any chance we could see this? It certainly would allow for much more interesting character builds. Plus it is the way D&D is normally played and so would be much more like a real game then the one on one combats are.

We'd need chess clocks or something to keep everything from slowing down too much. We have to run up to 64 people through the duel in about 3 hours. Those are the temporal constraints of the event.

Separately from that, I'd have to see a lot more interest from a lot more people before I could consider it. Like ten people, all going to sign up, all interested. Then maybe I could consider a doubles tournament.

Maybe.

--Tony

TheProphetElijah · July 2007

Doubles, blah, that's not D&D. D&D is about the party working together to over come adversity. D&D is about working together as a team. Only in a 4 on 4 combat will you see people bringing healers and buffers. Ugh, oh well looks like another dervish vs dervish game, yawn. Hmm interesting terrain too bad with a one on one game their isn't really any reason for tactical movement. blah.

Oh well I guess my dreams of seeing something new and interesting D&D related at PAX this year were only mere dreams.

Tony Hellmann · July 2007

TheProphetElijah wrote: »

Doubles, blah, that's not D&D. D&D is about the party working together to over come adversity. D&D is about working together as a team. Only in a 4 on 4 combat will you see people bringing healers and buffers. Ugh, oh well looks like another dervish vs dervish game, yawn. Hmm interesting terrain too bad with a one on one game their isn't really any reason for tactical movement. blah.

Oh well I guess my dreams of seeing something new and interesting D&D related at PAX this year were only mere dreams.

Okay...lets look at this from a logistics POV:

If we have 64 players, that's 16 teams. That means we need 4 rounds. We have 3 hours. That's 40 minutes a round, if we have 5 minutes between.

So, in 40 minutes, if we only allow each player TWO MINUTES to figure out what he is going to do and do it, it will take 16 minutes to get through the first round of combat (8 players). Anyone who knows D&D combat knows that the players won't get done in two minutes each.

So how is a 4 on 4 tourney going to work? If you've got the answer, I'd love to know what it is.

--Tony

TheProphetElijah · July 2007

Well to be honest I have never seen a 1 on 1 tourney with even less people run in that short amount of time. I really don't understand why in a 3 day event you guys only have 3 hours to run this. And I honestly doubt you'll actually get it done in this amount of time as is. Your right it would definately take at least 6 hours to do to do a 4 on 4 tourney. So why so little time?

GodOfCheese · July 2007

TheProphetElijah wrote: »

Ugh, oh well looks like another dervish vs dervish game, yawn. Hmm interesting terrain too bad with a one on one game their isn't really any reason for tactical movement. blah.

Oh well I guess my dreams of seeing something new and interesting D&D related at PAX this year were only mere dreams.

If so, I look forward to annihilating more Dervish this year. Let their deaths be a crimson whirlwind of screaming and horror :twisted:

GodOfCheese · July 2007

TheProphetElijah wrote: »

Well to be honest I have never seen a 1 on 1 tourney with even less people run in that short amount of time. I really don't understand why in a 3 day event you guys only have 3 hours to run this. And I honestly doubt you'll actually get it done in this amount of time as is. Your right it would definately take at least 6 hours to do to do a 4 on 4 tourney. So why so little time?

I can't speak for Tony, but I'd guess because the would-be tournament judges want to attend PAX too, not just work it. Even if you go solely for the tabletop action, you still want to do other things than just judge the D&D Duels.

Chess clocks look to run about $20 each. At 64 participants the first round would need 32 such clocks ($640). And those are the cheapest clocks I could find. $640 is a lot to shell out for a game other people will be playing. I wonder if an entry fee to at least partially cover the equipment would be appropriate?

Much as I love the idea of a 4x4 tournament, I don't know if four-man clocks exist and we'd definitely need them for that one.

Tony Hellmann · July 2007

TheProphetElijah wrote: »

Well to be honest I have never seen a 1 on 1 tourney with even less people run in that short amount of time.

We'll run 64 people through 6 rounds in 3 hours, no problem. We were prepared to do that last year, but only had around 40 registrants. We got through it in our allotted time, no problem.

TheProphetElijah wrote: »

I really don't understand why in a 3 day event you guys only have 3 hours to run this. And I honestly doubt you'll actually get it done in this amount of time as is. Your right it would definately take at least 6 hours to do to do a 4 on 4 tourney. So why so little time?

Because we aren't the only show in town. There are Settlers tournaments, RPGA events, lots of other things going on. The calendar for tabletop is booked solid.

--Tony

Officer · July 2007

Question is says you are allowed 3 Misc. magic items, and has no potions entry, does the Misc. limit apply to potions?

Tony Hellmann · July 2007

Recruit wrote: »

Question is says you are allowed 3 Misc. magic items, and has no potions entry, does the Misc. limit apply to potions?

No. If a limit isn't stated, there is no limit. You can have as many potions as you want.

--Tony

Officer · July 2007

Me again. Sorry. Um... the gold limit for the characters is 150,000, but is there a maximum spend limit per item? I remember it has been 25% of the max gold in the past, does that hold true today?

Tony Hellmann · July 2007

Recruit wrote: »

Me again. Sorry. Um... the gold limit for the characters is 150,000, but is there a maximum spend limit per item? I remember it has been 25% of the max gold in the past, does that hold true today?

There was no spend limit per item last year. If one wants to blow one's whole paycheck on a single UberWeapon, one should go for it. Maybe being naked will distract one's opponent.

--Tony

GodOfCheese · July 2007

Rehash of last year's questions that are not answered by the current RAW:

Are contingent spell items allowed (items bought from NPC spellcasters using the Craft Contingent Item feat in the Complete Arcane)? They were allowed last year but the limitation (one such item per hit die or somesuch) was relatively large.
Are partially-charged items allowed (a wand with 39 charges, for example)? IIRC these were disallowed last year.
Is there a maximum caster level on items?
Is there a maximum spell level? Example: could I bring a scroll of Meteor Swarm?
I assume use of the Leadership feat is banned (e.g. I cannot bring a horde of followers)?
Are class-feature minions, such as Animal Companions and Familiars, allowed? If so, is a dead minion resurrected between duels?

Tony Hellmann · July 2007

GodOfCheese wrote: »

Rehash of last year's questions that are not answered by the current RAW:
Are contingent spell items allowed (items bought from NPC spellcasters using the Craft Contingent Item feat in the Complete Arcane)? They were allowed last year but the limitation (one such item per hit die or somesuch) was relatively large.

Are partially-charged items allowed (a wand with 39 charges, for example)? IIRC these were disallowed last year.

Is there a maximum caster level on items?

Is there a maximum spell level? Example: could I bring a scroll of Meteor Swarm?

I assume use of the Leadership feat is banned (e.g. I cannot bring a horde of followers)?

Are class-feature minions, such as Animal Companions and Familiars, allowed? If so, is a dead minion resurrected between duels?

1. No contingent items.
2. Items must be bought at list price, so a half-charged wand would still be full price.
3. Leadership is not technically banned, but you can't bring another person in with you, so effectively it is. We'll just make it explicit this year so there is no confusion.
4. All magic items are created as if by a 12th level caster. This includes scrolls. Looks like we forgot to add that update. I'll take care of it.
5. Class-feature minions are allowed. Dead minions are resurrected between duels, although if your minion is killed and you lose enough experience to drop a level, you indeed drop a level until the end of the match. When your dead minion is resurrected, you get the XP back.

--Tony

Tony Hellmann · July 2007

The changes are up, including a new "Event Philosophy" page (scroll to the bottom).

--Tony

Indigo the Unassailable · July 2007

I observe that by these rules it means you cannot have metamagic rods (CL 17), nor buy items that give inherent increases to stat points e.g. no Manual of Gainful Exercise, and the highest magic weapon attack/damage bonus is +4. And, sadly, no scroll of Timestop for me.

This probably makes the duel more playable for late entrants.

However, to avoid those folks' accidental disqualification, I suggest the fine print noted above be very clearly spelt out in the rules especially for the walk-ups. Specifically note that not every item in the tourney-permitted books is actually allowed, since that may not be immediately obvious. A Rod of Quickening (for example) might be both compelling and affordable, but not permitted.

Tony Hellmann · July 2007

Indigo the Unassailable wrote: »

I observe that by these rules it means you cannot have metamagic rods (CL 17), nor buy items that give inherent increases to stat points e.g. no Manual of Gainful Exercise, and the highest magic weapon attack/damage bonus is +4. And, sadly, no scroll of Timestop for me.

This probably makes the duel more playable for late entrants.

However, to avoid those folks' accidental disqualification, I suggest the fine print noted above be very clearly spelt out in the rules especially for the walk-ups. Specifically note that not every item in the tourney-permitted books is actually allowed, since that may not be immediately obvious. A Rod of Quickening (for example) might be both compelling and affordable, but not permitted.

Good idea. I've updated the page.

--Tony

Applejohn · July 2007

hey , in the rules it states under feats that you are not alloud leadership, cool, but it doesn't state what books we are aloud to choose feats from. im going under the impression we are aloud feats from all the books aloud unless told otherwise.

Tony Hellmann · July 2007

Applejohn wrote: »

hey , in the rules it states under feats that you are not alloud leadership, cool, but it doesn't state what books we are aloud to choose feats from. im going under the impression we are aloud feats from all the books aloud unless told otherwise.

Good point. You are correct. I've updated the rules accordingly.

--Tony

PeasantDave · July 2007

Do characters receive the extra 3 ability points from achieving levels 4, 8, and 12?

Penny Arcade

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