Arena Standards

This is just a rough post, and I do not intend it to be the end-all-be-all of
Arena info... but through some fairly extensive testing, myself
and many others have found some pretty straightforward and
fair ways to enjoy arena competition.

The first rule we usually use is no healing items. You use a healing
item, you forfeit. (casting healing spells should be OK as that would
be part of your class, not an item)

The second rule usually states how many "buffs" each combatant
is allowed to cast on themself before combat commences. Depending
on who is facing off against who, the details of this rule can have a
*dramatic* impact on the fight. The standards we have been using so
far have been 2 buffs in most cases, and in others we have
used none, one, three, five, or everything you've got.

From what I can tell, the higher the number of buffs allowed, the
more the advantage seems to shift towards casters, and melee
classes that benefit well from stacking buffs. (Manny's shifter,
Alex, is a beast even with *no* buffs, but when he has 5 buffs
up, he is almost unbeatable because of how things stack for him)

The last thing encountered recently was that gear can obviously
have a dramatic impact. Crideas's gear is very slanted towards
defeating opposing casters by nullifying their best attack
spells, for intance. This has shown that gear can change
the dynamic of a fight from a fireworks show to a long, drawn
out chess match. Depending on which combatant has more
hours played and more reward chests... they may have more
custom items, and depending on the choices made for those
items' properties, this can impact the dynamics
of combat between builds. Depending on how various duels
play out using the above rules, or variations thereof, it may
be advisable to allow "handicap" for certain fights to balance
any large disparity in gear.

Handicaps could be in the form of allowing a certain amount
of healing, or more buffs to start with, or even a time limit
that when reached will determine the winner by % of health
remaining or total hit points remaining. (time limites may
require a neutral 3rd party as time-keeper)

My best suggestion to achieve the fairest "sample" of
engagements is to try a certain set of terms/rules with
a "best out of 3" scenario, and then switch the terms
at least twice more using again, the "best out of three".

9 duels split between 3 good sets of terms should allow
you a good variance of dynamics to test your characters
combination of gear, build, and playskill against other
worthy Aenean combatants in differing situations
that should help allow each characters a chance to
play to their strengths.

Of course, feel free to put any concerns, comments or
suggestions here to improve our Arena process. Everything
is handled pretty informally at this point, so its a good
time to give feedback and input

I am considering an Arena Tournament for the future, once
we have more epic level combatants, I may post again
to see who might be interesting in participating.

Oh, and ... can we possibly have it made so folks can rest in the Pit Master's office, please?

Would make arena a *LOT* more convenient... folks who can't teleport have a hard time between duels.

And horses.... granted there's no jousting knights, but fighters/rangers/AA's (not sure what other classes) get ride as a class skill, and it does have combat usage with the right feat

Oh, and in the pitmaster's office, there's two doors, each takes one to a different side of the arena itself. Perhaps that could be better utilized for a starting point? Both combatants (or teams) start in the pitmaster office unbuffed. Enter through their door, unbuffed.... once in, you're fair game and gotta get your buffs up, no safe buff period. The distance between the start points gives casters some time to throw up a few buffs but an enemy caster could also throw out a long range AoE towards your general direction, and it also gives non-HIPs stealther's a chance to slip into stealth right away, or trappers to start laying down a field of traps before the other team approaches.

I always thought from the design of the pitmasters office that was the intention with the doors.... very "Gladiator" style.. ... ...