Next week I will be running my first ever battle royale for four of my players (Barbarian/monk, cleric, warlock, sorcerer). For this session I need to make a battlemap that is both interactive and prevents the fight from becoming dull. How do I do that? Do you have any tips for what I should do in the battlemap specifically?
If you have any other tips or things I should prepare for this kind of session I will GLADLY hear it. I have an idea but id love to hear what you all should do for a session like this.
I would consider thinking through some environmental effects that happen at random. Also, think through some ideas for players that have been taken out of the fight. Maybe they can still move around as ghosts and trigger things spread throughout the map.
5e is not really designed for PVP it is also balanced for about 8 encounters per day with 2 short rests.
A big issue is the warlock and monk have a short restvworth of resources while the sorcerer and cleric have pretty much a full day's worth of resources. I would limit the use of renew on a long rest resources by for example saying about 60% of the sorcerers and clerics spell slots are expended at the start of the session.
The best tactics are likely to be hide turn invisible while the rest of the party spend resources taking each others out. IF everyone does this it gets very boring so if you think anyone might you could say PCs will be DQed if they are not aggressive.
Dimension 20 handled a battle royale last man standing situation pretty well! The players had three goals - 1. Protect an NPC on the map, 2. Defeat waves of monsters and 3. Complete in game, on the battle map mini-games (in this instance - answering exam questions)
The monster wave would start on initiative 20 and 4 gates on each side of the arena opened up. Each monster that came out in the round posed a different challenge - eg high AC, a horde of little weaklings, elemental damage etc etc. The monsters were trying to take down the NPC. The players had to stop that. The players intention was to defeat each wave of monster before the end of the round so that they didn't end up overwhelmed by monsters on the battlefield. They also had to manage where the NPC was AND keep moving around the battlefield to complete the third goal of answering exam questions. Having the conflicting priorities and absolute chaos of some monsters being terrible match ups for where they spawned kept it super interesting and made the players really strategise!
Have them have to turn over their inventories and weapons before the match (if this is an organized competition) or have them taken (if it's not), so they will have to scavenge equipment from the battlegrounds.
Hide things like weapons, spell components, spellbooks (might need to fudge the preparation rules slightly for wizards), magic items, etc. throughout the map where they'll have to explore to discover them, so player choices have a tangible effect on how the game goes, and earlier challenges will be harder while they're still gathering their equipment.
Also have a nice mix of monsters and other npcs to fight against, with maybe mini-boss monsters guarding extra powerful items or weapons.
Then you throw in a dynamic battlefield maybe with several different biomes (for some reason the example I'm imagining is the Safari Zone from pokemon) and you've got a battle Royale.
Have them have to turn over their inventories and weapons before the match (if this is an organized competition) or have them taken (if it's not), so they will have to scavenge equipment from the battlegrounds.
This gives an advantage to the Barb/Monk
Without spell components or foci the casters are severely nerfed.
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"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
Have them have to turn over their inventories and weapons before the match (if this is an organized competition) or have them taken (if it's not), so they will have to scavenge equipment from the battlegrounds.
This gives an advantage to the Barb/Monk
Without spell components or foci the casters are severely nerfed.
Sometimes it's OK for someone to have an advantage and have them get to feel special and important. It's only really a concern for the first fight until the rest of the party finds equipment. Even then, as a caster, limitation can be really fun in a challenging way, seeing what you can do with whatever limited components you have access to. It can force you to think differently and take risks you normally wouldn't, and can make you feel really cool when your gamble works out.
The only time it's a problem is when it's always the same players that are getting to feel special all the time at the cost of other players. So yeah maybe the barbarian and the monk get to feel special for a little while in the battle royale challenge, so then you give the sorcerer and warlock a challenge down the road that highlights their abilities.
Sometimes it's OK for someone to have an advantage and have them get to feel special and important. It's only really a concern for the first fight until the rest of the party finds equipment. Even then, as a caster, limitation can be really fun in a challenging way, seeing what you can do with whatever limited components you have access to. It can force you to think differently and take risks you normally wouldn't, and can make you feel really cool when your gamble works out.
An advantage in the first fight means the Barb/Monk is going to eliminate another PC rapidly. How is that fun for that unfortunate individual? The Barb/Monk can probably cover more ground than the other PCs. His Passive Perception is probably high so doesn't need to take a lot of time looking for anything. What for anyway? They have built in armor and weapons.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
Sometimes it's OK for someone to have an advantage and have them get to feel special and important. It's only really a concern for the first fight until the rest of the party finds equipment. Even then, as a caster, limitation can be really fun in a challenging way, seeing what you can do with whatever limited components you have access to. It can force you to think differently and take risks you normally wouldn't, and can make you feel really cool when your gamble works out.
An advantage in the first fight means the Barb/Monk is going to eliminate another PC rapidly. How is that fun for that unfortunate individual? The Barb/Monk can probably cover more ground than the other PCs. His Passive Perception is probably high so doesn't need to take a lot of time looking for anything. What for anyway? They have built in armor and weapons.
I'm assuming this is a battle royale where the party is still working together as a party against other parties of NPC's. D&D isn't really a PVP game, so I'm not assuming PVP. The OP didn't specify.
Next week I will be running my first ever battle royale for four of my players (Barbarian/monk, cleric, warlock, sorcerer). For this session I need to make a battlemap that is both interactive and prevents the fight from becoming dull. How do I do that? Do you have any tips for what I should do in the battlemap specifically?
If you have any other tips or things I should prepare for this kind of session I will GLADLY hear it. I have an idea but id love to hear what you all should do for a session like this.
Thank you in advance!
Check out "NPC Grudge Match" on youtube for some ideas.
There were attempted balancing mechanics put into the environment (modular rooms, punishment if you stayed in one spot for too long, chests you could loot for items, etc.)
My suggestion would be to take a fortnite, apex legends ect map view map and convert that into a dnd map. Place markers around for weapons (only for DM to see) and add some form of damaging enclosed that gets smaller such as poison gas or fire. Make it so players can start where very on the map. I play a lot of Battle Royale games so yah you've probably thought of this but thought I'd say
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
If your eyes tell you what your seeing how do you know there not lying?
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Dear Dungeon Masters,
Next week I will be running my first ever battle royale for four of my players (Barbarian/monk, cleric, warlock, sorcerer). For this session I need to make a battlemap that is both interactive and prevents the fight from becoming dull. How do I do that? Do you have any tips for what I should do in the battlemap specifically?
If you have any other tips or things I should prepare for this kind of session I will GLADLY hear it. I have an idea but id love to hear what you all should do for a session like this.
Thank you in advance!
I would consider thinking through some environmental effects that happen at random. Also, think through some ideas for players that have been taken out of the fight. Maybe they can still move around as ghosts and trigger things spread throughout the map.
Hard to make a fair map when some classes can operate better if they are lacking resources than others.
How are they equipped at the beginning that makes this competition fair?
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
5e is not really designed for PVP it is also balanced for about 8 encounters per day with 2 short rests.
A big issue is the warlock and monk have a short restvworth of resources while the sorcerer and cleric have pretty much a full day's worth of resources. I would limit the use of renew on a long rest resources by for example saying about 60% of the sorcerers and clerics spell slots are expended at the start of the session.
The best tactics are likely to be hide turn invisible while the rest of the party spend resources taking each others out. IF everyone does this it gets very boring so if you think anyone might you could say PCs will be DQed if they are not aggressive.
Dimension 20 handled a battle royale last man standing situation pretty well! The players had three goals - 1. Protect an NPC on the map, 2. Defeat waves of monsters and 3. Complete in game, on the battle map mini-games (in this instance - answering exam questions)
The monster wave would start on initiative 20 and 4 gates on each side of the arena opened up. Each monster that came out in the round posed a different challenge - eg high AC, a horde of little weaklings, elemental damage etc etc. The monsters were trying to take down the NPC. The players had to stop that. The players intention was to defeat each wave of monster before the end of the round so that they didn't end up overwhelmed by monsters on the battlefield. They also had to manage where the NPC was AND keep moving around the battlefield to complete the third goal of answering exam questions. Having the conflicting priorities and absolute chaos of some monsters being terrible match ups for where they spawned kept it super interesting and made the players really strategise!
Have them have to turn over their inventories and weapons before the match (if this is an organized competition) or have them taken (if it's not), so they will have to scavenge equipment from the battlegrounds.
Hide things like weapons, spell components, spellbooks (might need to fudge the preparation rules slightly for wizards), magic items, etc. throughout the map where they'll have to explore to discover them, so player choices have a tangible effect on how the game goes, and earlier challenges will be harder while they're still gathering their equipment.
Also have a nice mix of monsters and other npcs to fight against, with maybe mini-boss monsters guarding extra powerful items or weapons.
Then you throw in a dynamic battlefield maybe with several different biomes (for some reason the example I'm imagining is the Safari Zone from pokemon) and you've got a battle Royale.
This gives an advantage to the Barb/Monk
Without spell components or foci the casters are severely nerfed.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
Sometimes it's OK for someone to have an advantage and have them get to feel special and important. It's only really a concern for the first fight until the rest of the party finds equipment. Even then, as a caster, limitation can be really fun in a challenging way, seeing what you can do with whatever limited components you have access to. It can force you to think differently and take risks you normally wouldn't, and can make you feel really cool when your gamble works out.
The only time it's a problem is when it's always the same players that are getting to feel special all the time at the cost of other players. So yeah maybe the barbarian and the monk get to feel special for a little while in the battle royale challenge, so then you give the sorcerer and warlock a challenge down the road that highlights their abilities.
An advantage in the first fight means the Barb/Monk is going to eliminate another PC rapidly. How is that fun for that unfortunate individual? The Barb/Monk can probably cover more ground than the other PCs. His Passive Perception is probably high so doesn't need to take a lot of time looking for anything. What for anyway? They have built in armor and weapons.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
I'm assuming this is a battle royale where the party is still working together as a party against other parties of NPC's. D&D isn't really a PVP game, so I'm not assuming PVP. The OP didn't specify.
Battle Royale usually means a pvp scenario
I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
Check out "NPC Grudge Match" on youtube for some ideas.
There were attempted balancing mechanics put into the environment (modular rooms, punishment if you stayed in one spot for too long, chests you could loot for items, etc.)
Don‘t over complicate.
Have an arena with highground and walls, maybe a water obstacle. A couple of chests with useful loot.
Random Lair actions, lightning strikes, fire walls, force cage, poison clouds…
Once someone dies, give him a bunch of weak mobs to terrorise the battlefield.
Attack: [roll]3d20dl2+6[/roll] Damage: [roll](if([roll:-1:critical], =0, 1d8, 2{1d8}.expand()))+4[/roll] Sneakattack: [roll](if([roll:-2:critical], =0, 2d6, 2{2d6}.expand()))[/roll]My suggestion would be to take a fortnite, apex legends ect map view map and convert that into a dnd map. Place markers around for weapons (only for DM to see) and add some form of damaging enclosed that gets smaller such as poison gas or fire. Make it so players can start where very on the map. I play a lot of Battle Royale games so yah you've probably thought of this but thought I'd say
If your eyes tell you what your seeing how do you know there not lying?