I recently ran an arena match to my party. It was fun to design and the players enjoyed it (at least to some extent, I'll summarize in the end), so I thought I'd also share the same concept here for you to add or adapt into your games. Or just provide general feedback and improvement ideas. I'm a relatively new DM and I haven't homebrewed a lot of content yet, so parts of the match didn't work quite as I expected, but it was fun nonetheless.
In short, it was a single hard-difficulty combat encounter against some appropriate CR monster (in my game it was 3 Merrows for a 4 person party of level 4 characters) where the focus was on performance and not necessarily in the combat. The party would be awarded points based on the stunts and flourishes they performed during the combat. When the combat was over, they would receive rewards based on their total points.
The characters had to sign a fighting contract before the match that they understand and accept the rewards or consequences of their actions during the match. There was an entry fee of 10gp, which would be returned along with all winnings when the fight was won as long as the party wasn't disqualified. They would receive 60gp (incl. the 10gp entry fee) when if they won the fight plus any other rewards given by audience, gamblers, etc. (i.e. rewards for the points they gather). The entry fee was a warranty that the party would try to not be disqualified.
The Fighting Agreement
Fighters would receive full healing, limb regrowth, curse removal, resurrection, etc. after they win the fight
This healing would be free unless the spell has an expensive material component (like Revivify). The costs of these material components would be deducted from their winnings.
If the party left the arena by any means they would be disqualified. This included spells like Dimension Door or Teleport (which my party didn't even have access to), but also Misty Step or simply climbing the fence or escaping.
The audience came to see a spectacle, so any vision impairing magic (such as Fog Cloud or Darkness) would result in an official warning. After one warning, the party will be disqualified on the next violation (there was wild magic involved as the arena was a somewhat wild magic zone, so I wanted to give them some safeguard if they accidentally cause a fog cloud to appear).
All vision impairing magic would be dispelled by a magic ward at initiative 0 on every round.
The fighters cannot be invisible or remain in the ethereal plane no more than 1 turn. They must be at the arena during their next turn or the party will be disqualified.
The Match
The match itself would play out as a normal combat encounter, except that once during their turn the characters would roll a Performance roll. The Performance check would be based on the what the character would do, so for example the DEX max finesse dual wielding Fighter would make dexterity based Performance checks most of the time, whereas the Cleric made Wisdom based checks if they cast spells or channeled divinity, etc. The flourishes were divided into three categories: Easy, Medium, and Hard. Easy stunts had a lower DC, but would grant less points, whereas Hard would be more difficult, but yield more points. Rolling a Nat1 would result in negative points (-1, -2, -3 for easy, medium, hard respectively). Missing the DC for medium and hard stunts would still grant 1 point. The formula for the points would be somewhat similar to this:
E.g. the Base Points of an Easy stunt was 2, multiplier 0.2 and the DC was 7, so a roll of 17 would result in 2 + 0.2 * (17-7) = 4 points. The same roll for a Hard stunt (BP 7, multiplier 1, DC 16) would result in 7 + 1 * (17-16) = 8 points. The BONUS was a DM administered manual bonus for anything worth rewarding from rolling a Nat20 to a flourish description I really liked.
In addition, when an enemy missed an attack, the player could roll a Strength or Dexterity check to block or dodge out of the way to award some extra points. And I re-emphasize that the Performance rolls were completely isolated from the "normal" combat entirely. Messing up the stunt with a Nat1 just failed the stunt, but an attack itself could be a critical hit. Killing blows gave advantage to the Performance roll. Doing the exact same trick over an over again would first grant disadvantage, then a static penalty, until finally granting an automatic 0 if the player didn't get the hint.
Rewards
The reward tiers based on points were arbitrary following this table (in relation to entry fee):
0-29 points: 0x
30-54 points = 0.5x
55-79 points = 1x
80-114 points = 2x
115-159 points = 4x
160+ points = 8x
My party landed somewhere in the 4x zone, so they got 4x4x10gp = 160gp worth of rewards from the audience, which was not only money, but they received a potion of healing (worth 50gp) and some gems, free lodging at an inn with a wealthy lifestyle for a day, etc.
How the match played out
The match started greatly with the whole party making a great entrance and describing great stunts. However, it quite quickly defaulted to just "I'll do some medium stunt" or similar as the players didn't bother to try think of stunts and flourishes. I could've enforced them to actually describe their flourishes, but that would've slowed the combat down and I didn't really want that. Some players enjoyed coming up with the stunts more than others, which is kind of expected anyway, but as the combat dragged on, even the more creative players started to default their answers.
I also hadn't accounted the Cleric to just use Bless on the first turn and keeping their concentration for the whole match, so the party landed way more points that I had initially thought. But then again, Bless is intended to boost the party, so I didn't actually mind this and was happy that it encouraged the party the try more difficult stunts than they would've tried otherwise and getting rewarded for that.
That's the concept in a nutshell, feel free to adapt it and suggest improvements!
Hi,
I recently ran an arena match to my party. It was fun to design and the players enjoyed it (at least to some extent, I'll summarize in the end), so I thought I'd also share the same concept here for you to add or adapt into your games. Or just provide general feedback and improvement ideas. I'm a relatively new DM and I haven't homebrewed a lot of content yet, so parts of the match didn't work quite as I expected, but it was fun nonetheless.
In short, it was a single hard-difficulty combat encounter against some appropriate CR monster (in my game it was 3 Merrows for a 4 person party of level 4 characters) where the focus was on performance and not necessarily in the combat. The party would be awarded points based on the stunts and flourishes they performed during the combat. When the combat was over, they would receive rewards based on their total points.
The characters had to sign a fighting contract before the match that they understand and accept the rewards or consequences of their actions during the match. There was an entry fee of 10gp, which would be returned along with all winnings when the fight was won as long as the party wasn't disqualified. They would receive 60gp (incl. the 10gp entry fee) when if they won the fight plus any other rewards given by audience, gamblers, etc. (i.e. rewards for the points they gather). The entry fee was a warranty that the party would try to not be disqualified.
The Fighting Agreement
The Match
The match itself would play out as a normal combat encounter, except that once during their turn the characters would roll a Performance roll. The Performance check would be based on the what the character would do, so for example the DEX max finesse dual wielding Fighter would make dexterity based Performance checks most of the time, whereas the Cleric made Wisdom based checks if they cast spells or channeled divinity, etc. The flourishes were divided into three categories: Easy, Medium, and Hard. Easy stunts had a lower DC, but would grant less points, whereas Hard would be more difficult, but yield more points. Rolling a Nat1 would result in negative points (-1, -2, -3 for easy, medium, hard respectively). Missing the DC for medium and hard stunts would still grant 1 point. The formula for the points would be somewhat similar to this:
In addition, when an enemy missed an attack, the player could roll a Strength or Dexterity check to block or dodge out of the way to award some extra points. And I re-emphasize that the Performance rolls were completely isolated from the "normal" combat entirely. Messing up the stunt with a Nat1 just failed the stunt, but an attack itself could be a critical hit. Killing blows gave advantage to the Performance roll. Doing the exact same trick over an over again would first grant disadvantage, then a static penalty, until finally granting an automatic 0 if the player didn't get the hint.
Rewards
The reward tiers based on points were arbitrary following this table (in relation to entry fee):
My party landed somewhere in the 4x zone, so they got 4x4x10gp = 160gp worth of rewards from the audience, which was not only money, but they received a potion of healing (worth 50gp) and some gems, free lodging at an inn with a wealthy lifestyle for a day, etc.
How the match played out
The match started greatly with the whole party making a great entrance and describing great stunts. However, it quite quickly defaulted to just "I'll do some medium stunt" or similar as the players didn't bother to try think of stunts and flourishes. I could've enforced them to actually describe their flourishes, but that would've slowed the combat down and I didn't really want that. Some players enjoyed coming up with the stunts more than others, which is kind of expected anyway, but as the combat dragged on, even the more creative players started to default their answers.
I also hadn't accounted the Cleric to just use Bless on the first turn and keeping their concentration for the whole match, so the party landed way more points that I had initially thought. But then again, Bless is intended to boost the party, so I didn't actually mind this and was happy that it encouraged the party the try more difficult stunts than they would've tried otherwise and getting rewarded for that.
That's the concept in a nutshell, feel free to adapt it and suggest improvements!