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Hi!

(just rolling for fun, don't mind this)

Ability scores: 18 8 13 15 10 11

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Turn your phone sideways

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Yo Phalse, I'm assuming your character is speaking in a Russian accent?

Quote from Blibbers >>

Yo Phalse, I'm assuming your character is speaking in a Russian accent?

 That would be cool.

Now I can't imagine Phalse not speaking in a deep Russian accent. Further character development needed. Thanks Blibbers!

So I'm quite enjoying the gladiatorium, the format is a great idea, combining PVP and dungeon crawling in one match. But reading through the Chimera thread now that our team is out, I kinda have a problem with the fact that they managed a 10 minute ritual, a fight, another 10 minute ritual, 2 more fights, ANOTHER 10 minute ritual, a short rest, and 3 more fights, then show up in time to interrupt us in the middle of our third fight.

So they spent an hour and a half in the dungeon (three 10 minute rituals and an hour long short rest), not even counting time spent fighting 6 times and exploring the dungeon between everything else. Meanwhile, we fought two battles and were in the middle of the third. Looks like a lot of their battles were shorter than our first couple, but given that a round is only 6 seconds, that doesn't add up to more than a couple minutes of fighting on our end. Not having counted the exact number of rounds in any of the combats, could probably assume our 2-2.5 battles took around the same amount of time as their 6.

The timing doesn't work, out, and the fight between our two teams could possibly have gone significantly differently without the extra time on their end. The 3 detect magic rituals don't really affect anything (other than them sitting around for half an hour that other teams could potentially be using to explore and find useful stuff. Or possibly fighting and ending up worse off than they started), but the short rest let 2 of them heal, gave Kic his 2 wild shapes back (and he'd already used and dropped the 2 he started with, so without the short rest he'd have been stuck in caster form for our fight), and gave humphry back a second level spell slot (that knocked out one of our team and did 16 damage to another).

I feel like when doing PVP like this, it should either limit/not allow things that take a long time like rituals or short/long rests, or else give time lenghts it takes for whatever people might be doing, and track time for each team to line up encounters when they've spent the same amount of time in the gladiatorium (combat is easy at 6 seconds per round, could use the same 6 seconds per walking speed for time simply spent walking, decide on a length of time required to search a door for traps, or explore a room, etc), and maybe if you do something like a ritual or a short rest, you get put on hold until the other teams catch up in time (so you don't have 2 teams simulatneously getting to the same room in their respective threads, but offset by a large amount of time, or have a team that ends up behind where another one is get to a room where that team USED to be at the same time the toher team would have been there given relative timeframes, but that other team's thread is already 5 pages past the time they got there.

Easier would probably be just not allowing things like rests, though even then some time tracking is probably needed for things like effects that last 1-10 minutes, things like that. Possibly even hour long effects, depending how long matches go.

I hadn't even realized we COULD take a short rest in here until I saw they did.  I'd have totally recommended one before going into the room where we ended up fighting the wight/zombies/other team.  I was down 10 health from the trap, and could have recovered 2 first level slots (either of which would have kept me alive longer in this fight, much less both together), plus anyone else could have used some hit dice to heal as needed or recover short rest abilities.  And I'd have been less stingy with short rest cooldowns like bladesinging.

Ya, it's tricky managing four teams at once with short rest times people wanting to cast ritual spells and everything. Like unless you're playing super conservatively, being able take short rests in a dungeon scenario when you could be attacked at any time is pretty important. Even if you take short rests and ritual casting out, some teams will just be able to do more things in less time if the players are particularly active. It's weird.

 Yah, even just with combat and exploration relative time could shift over the course of a match depending how active a given team is.  At least that'll generally only be by a matter of minutes most likely, not hours like rests can do.  In this one though, for example, they probably shouldn't even have STARTED their long rest yet when we were in the fight with the zombies and wight, possibly not even gotten to the second 10 minute ritual depending how long exploration takes.  So if we'd explored in their direction, we may well have run into them before they even GOT to the rest, or at worst, we shoul dhave interrupted them in the middle of the rest if we'd gone that direction, not been interrupted by them after it, or else not run into each other at all until later if we went a different way.

For what it's worth, as we began to get an idea for how the dungeons were laid out, we realized that there were many possibilities that you could apply to strategy. The different group's experiences aren't run on rails, and one party could have an entirely different experience in an entirely different time frame depending on the choices that they make. Since the objective is, for lack of a better definition, hunt and kill the others, whats to stop you from hunkering down in a room for example and just waiting for people to stumble upon you and into your ambush? Would it make for a painfully dull and boring experience? Certainly. But is it a viable strategy? Sure, if you don't mind sacrificing your fun.

Chimera wasn't moving in a hurry and, as returning gladiators, would be very cognizant of the dangers that the dungeon might have in store. Thus, taking the time to cast a few ritual spells didn't ruin our momentum, nor did it seem out of step with the cautious nature of our exploration style (we investigate/perceive everything). In addition to that, you have seen how many times we stumbled into fights, so why not take a short rest after the majority of us have expended many of our resources? We had to make a calculated risk and RP out attempting to secure the room that we chose to rest in, and there were no guarantees of any kind that dungeon denizens would have left us alone (we were, in fact, surrounded by possible encounters on 3 sides and had to make multiple stealth checks to avoid alerting them), and there was no guarantee that another player group wouldn't stumble on us and catch us unawares. It was a calculated risk, but one that we all agreed was worth while.

I'm genuinely sorry if you didn't have as much fun as you were expecting with the adventure, but I don't think either the DM nor Chimera did anything untoward that contributed to your displeasure. The chance of a party stumbling into yours while you are not expecting it or even worse while you are engaged in another fight is what adds to the thrill of this sort of dungeon experience (at least for me).

I considered many possible methods for combining real-time and game-time for fair and fast-paced gameplay. During the beginning of the campaign I posted twice a day, no more no less, on each thread. I ultimately discarded this method because it felt unnatural and restrictive to both the players and myself. In the end I decided, 'to heck with counting the minutes, let's just have fun.' Cutting the game short for a few irl days just because the players wanted to take a short rest did not sit well with me and I believe if I continued to use such a restrictive method that I, personally, would lose sight of what D&D is all about; and that is having a good time and closing the rulebook when it is interfering too much. You may have noticed this policy reflected in my combat sequences, which are loose and exclusively theatre of the mind. In my mind, roleplaying comes before game mechanics. This is not so say that I do not adhere to the rules like glue in many cases, but if the rogue wants to roleplay himself out of a tricky situation rather than roll, in my world that is worth 10 Persuasion checks.

There are some instances in which a group with more opportunity to post might have an advantage, but in the grand scheme of the game I consider these advantages minor and do not have too much influence on gameplay. 

I am sincerely sorry if this philosophy infringed on anyone's idea of D&D or prevented them from having a good time. All I can say is, what applies to one team applies to every other team, and I have done everything in my power to prevent any one group from having an unfair advantage over the other three.

Quote from Traveler85>>

For what it's worth, as we began to get an idea for how the dungeons were laid out, we realized that there were many possibilities that you could apply to strategy. The different group's experiences aren't run on rails, and one party could have an entirely different experience in an entirely different time frame depending on the choices that they make. Since the objective is, for lack of a better definition, hunt and kill the others, whats to stop you from hunkering down in a room for example and just waiting for people to stumble upon you and into your ambush? Would it make for a painfully dull and boring experience? Certainly. But is it a viable strategy? Sure, if you don't mind sacrificing your fun.

Sure, that's a valid strategy if someone wants to do it, if, as you say, they don't mind a really boring game.  It's also not ht esame thing as exploring, doing fights, and getting free rests.

Chimera wasn't moving in a hurry and, as returning gladiators, would be very cognizant of the dangers that the dungeon might have in store. Thus, taking the time to cast a few ritual spells didn't ruin our momentum, nor did it seem out of step with the cautious nature of our exploration style (we investigate/perceive everything). In addition to that, you have seen how many times we stumbled into fights, so why not take a short rest after the majority of us have expended many of our resources? We had to make a calculated risk and RP out attempting to secure the room that we chose to rest in, and there were no guarantees of any kind that dungeon denizens would have left us alone (we were, in fact, surrounded by possible encounters on 3 sides and had to make multiple stealth checks to avoid alerting them),

There's plenty of other returning gladiators as well.  We were also exploring rooms, investigating doors before opening, etc.  I don't have a problem with the choice to take a short rest.  I have a problem with the fact that there was no actual risk in doing so, because it basically happened instantly instead of taking an hour.

and there was no guarantee that another player group wouldn't stumble on us and catch us unawares. It was a calculated risk, but one that we all agreed was worth while.

Except you WERE guaranteed no player group would stumble on you because the rest happened instantly.  It didn't take an hour in game for you to rest. 

I'm genuinely sorry if you didn't have as much fun as you were expecting with the adventure, but I don't think either the DM nor Chimera did anything untoward that contributed to your displeasure. The chance of a party stumbling into yours while you are not expecting it or even worse while you are engaged in another fight is what adds to the thrill of this sort of dungeon experience (at least for me).

 I'm having plenty of fun with it, and I'll probably sign up for the next round again if the DM does another once this one is done, I just think something needs to be settled for doing things that take a significant amount of time in a PVP match like this.  Like I said, our team was on our third fight without having done anything else but explore.  Even if every fight had taken 10 rounds (which they didn't), that's 2 whole minutes of fighting for the first two, plus the round or two int he one where you interrupted us.  Plus time spent exploring.  I don't know how long it takes to explore a room or check a door for traps, but either way, we'd been through a lot less rooms than your team since our thread was less active, so it's not like we spent an hour and a half longer exploring than your team did to make up the time for rituals and resting.  We probably hadn't even been IN the dungeon for more than 20 or 30 minutes (probably less, again depending how long the out of combat stuff takes).  If we'd spent an extra hour and a half exploring/fighting/whatever else without taking a rest ourselves, or had taken a rest ourselves, and you ran into us in the middle of a fight, it wouldn't bother me at all.  If you guys hadn't spent an hour and a half doing rituals and resting and ran into us in the middle of a fight, it wouldn't bother me either.  My problem is that you'd basically been in the dungeon for an hour and a half longer than us and we didn't even get the chance to be ABLE to stumble in on you while you were resting.   If your rest can get interrupted, it makes a big difference on how things can go.  You could spend 55 minutes resting, then have another team show up and interrupt you, leaving you no benefit from the rest and basically having wasted almost an hour in the dungeon.  That's a big difference versus saying you want a short rest and it just happening with no chance of being interrupted by other players, giving you basically free and instant healing and refreshing of short rest cooldowns.

A team that's more active posting already has the potential to gain an advantage simply i the fact that they'll be able to do more in the same amount of time as another team.  Though that also has the potential to put you in a worse spot if you use a bunch of abilities for NPC fights then run into another team when you're injured and don't have all your abilities because they were used up elsewhere.  That's pretty much negated if you can do short rests for free.  Like I said, that fight might have gone far differently without a bear, the extra second level spell slot from the wizard, and the healing.  We might well have lost anyway, it's not like I'm saying we ONLY lost because you guys got a short rest, but it probably would have been a closer fight.

Quote from JJWattaker99 >>

I considered many possible methods for combining real-time and game-time for fair and fast-paced gameplay. During the beginning of the campaign I posted twice a day, no more no less, on each thread. I ultimately discarded this method because it felt unnatural and restrictive to both the players and myself. In the end I decided, 'to heck with counting the minutes, let's just have fun.' Cutting the game short for a few irl days just because the players wanted to take a short rest did not sit well with me and I believe if I continued to use such a restrictive method that I, personally, would lose sight of what D&D is all about; and that is having a good time and closing the rulebook when it is interfering too much. You may have noticed this policy reflected in my combat sequences, which are loose and exclusively theatre of the mind. In my mind, roleplaying comes before game mechanics. This is not so say that I do not adhere to the rules like glue in many cases, but if the rogue wants to roleplay himself out of a tricky situation rather than roll, in my world that is worth 10 Persuasion checks.

There are some instances in which a group with more opportunity to post might have an advantage, but in the grand scheme of the game I consider these advantages minor and do not have too much influence on gameplay. 

I am sincerely sorry if this philosophy infringed on anyone's idea of D&D or prevented them from having a good time. All I can say is, what applies to one team applies to every other team, and I have done everything in my power to prevent any one group from having an unfair advantage over the other three.

I'm all for not counting minutes for exploring and fighting, etc.  It might cause a few minutes of offset in relative times for differnet teams, but not enough that it should make a significant difference, given how short combats usually actually are in real time in D&D.  And would be a lot of extra work to try to track it and keep teams in sync, and would mean everyone is basically limited by the posting speed of the slowest team if you wanted to keep everyone perfectly in sync.  Even the rituals I don't really care about, partly cause Humphry was generally doing them while the rest of the team was searching rooms/securing the room before their rest, etc.  And the Detect magic ritual he was using doesn't really give any advantage over other teams for eventual combat.

The short rest though DOES give a significant potential advantage over a team that hasn't had one.  Which if both teams have spent the same amount of time and one chose to keep exploring and fighting for an extra hour while the other team chose to rest, is just a matter of choices.  But when the rests happens instantly without the chance to stumble across them while resting...

And what's to stop a team from just resting after every combat as long as it'll net them something (hti dice, or refreshing abilities like wild shape/bladesong, etc) if they dont have to actually spend any time to do so?

Well, if you felt that your group was approaching the point that a short rest would have been useful to maintain your righting readiness but weren't sure that it would be allowed, why not just simply ask the DM if it would be okay? There is nothing wrong with asking for clarification about anything, or asking if something is allowed or not.

And as for short resting after every combat, I can think of several things that could hamper that. NPC mobs could start breaking down doors and ambushing the party, interrupting the rest to negate all benefits and even incurring a surprise round in favor of the enemy, just to name the first thing that comes to mind. Of course, I'm sure the DM would have his own ideas for regulating such things, but why force the issue by trying to take a mile if you've been given an inch?