[CRC] Place your bets! (Challenge Rating.... Challenge?)

[Linklegacy77]

Alright everyone, step right up and place your bets!

Please give your opinion on who will receive each 'reward' before the challenge begins:

Challenge Winner
Longest Single Battle
First to be Eliminated
First to fail to drop a foe in one round
First to be injured
First to enter a stalemate

[Doombot]

Challenge Winner: Biff
First to be Eliminated: Everyone Else


...and Biff's not even in this match.

[Icebird]

Challenge Winner: Skippy Billy - I trust that there's no creature in the books that can pull a trick a cleric can't deal with, which is how I think the rest of us will die.

Longest Single Battle - Atilla the Hun - I haven't looked over the sheets very carefully, but something with a high AC and HP could just take a while to kill. This isn't counting stalemates, of course.

First to be Eliminated: Kul - I suspect that somewhere, there's a creature that just has his name on it with some ability he just can't deal with. I can't explain why it won't be Atilla in the same situation, but I just like the Hun. ;)

First to fail to drop a foe in one round: Boaz Bogwyrm - his ranged attacks aren't all that impressive, and he won't waste spells in early matches on things that can't hurt him anyway.

First to be injured: Boaz Bogwyrm's animal companion - I know the giant crocodile isn't a competitor as such, but it just doesn't have the defenses that the characters have.

First to enter a stalemate: Kul - For the same reason as I put at the top. In the event of a stalemate, he'll be unable to pull out and loose. Sorry, Majik. :roll:

I'm not anywhere in the list, because I have no idea how I'll do. In spite of the strange build, Milo actually has quite a few options. I suspect he'll either be the first casualty or one of the last ones. We'll see.

[LeadPal]

Hmm, you make some pretty good arguments, Icebird. But I think Doom's points are more well-reasoned.

Biff FTW!

[Tashalar]

Okay, here are my bets:

Challenge Winner: Red (I'm an optimist not a realist)

Longest Single Battle: Either Doom's Archon or LT's Deva (they don't deal as much damage as others but are flexible enough to retreat and attack again)

First to be Eliminated: Kul (as Icebird said, he'd be the first to fall for some kind of will save - even though his AC is great. Admittedly, Red could get destroyed as well with some bad luck - but I'm an optimist, so....)

First to fail to drop a foe in one round: Uh... depends on strategy. None of the casters, neither kul nor the sahuagin, maybe the pixie? Obviously, the casters will use their spells sparingly, so... it will probably be one of them.

First to be injured: Mysticar (low initiative and low AC)

First to enter a stalemate: stalemate? Huh? No idea, really. Anyone feel like describing how a stalemate will be achieved?

Where's Biff btw? He said he'd participate for sure but never lived up to that announcement. Sad, really. I was curious to see what he would bring up.

[Doombot]

Who do you think is going to be the CR 58 monster that the 'DM made up?' I'll give you a hint: it involves Biff and a peg-legged kobold ballet-dancer, who is a first level commoner, so all the perform ranks are cross-class.

[Tashalar]

Hehe... Doom, I'd like to hear some serious bets from you. Too much involving Biff has been thrown about - the only thing that really makes sense was mentioned by you now. The CR 58 monster. ;)

[Thanos]

Challenge Winner - Thanos, of course!
Longest Single Battle - Thanos
First to be Eliminated - Thanos
First to fail to drop a foe in one round - Thanos
First to be injured - SlagMortar (http://online-roleplaying.com/forums/member.php?u=1853)
First to enter a stalemate - Majik (http://online-roleplaying.com/forums/member.php?u=2760)

I have very good reasons for listing myself in 4 categories. The others are educated guesses.

[Doombot]

Ok, I'm not very good at these, but I'll give it a go.

Challenge Winner - Darken. Clerics are like clowns: terror-inducing engines of destruction.
Longest Single Battle - Doombot. I suspect I have the lowest potential damage output of anyone here.
First to be Eliminated - Thanos. I think I've figured out his trick, and I don't think it'll be enough to overcome such low init plus AC. If something gets the drop on him, game over. Tashalar is a runner up in this respect.
First to fail to drop a foe in one round - Doombot. Damn animated shield...
First to be injured - Thanos/Tashalar. Low AC presents a reasonably overcome obstacle, even with buffs.
First to enter a stalemate - Doombot or Lord Twig. I think both characters present the most flexibility with the least 'oomph.'


Please bear in mind that I'm terrible at making predictions like this. I think that everyone so far has entered an interesting, and above all, potent build. Time will tell.

Edit: Replaced first to fail to drop a foe in one round with myself. I have to animate my shield (a standard action) before I can attack with my sword. That'll cost me a round. I will probably be able to paralyze my foe, but I don't think that counts as 'dropped.'

[SlagMortar]

First to be injured - SlagMortar (http://online-roleplaying.com/forums/member.php?u=1853)
If I get injured during this, that will prove I am indeed the clumsiest person around. I expect Attila to take quite a beating, but hopefully I'll survive unscathed. :)

I haven't really looked at all the characters close enough yet to place any real bets.

[Linklegacy77]

A stalemate would be a situation where neither the character or the foe is damaging the other for an extended period of time.

And I spoke with Biff. He said he was sorry, but had to opt out (not enough free time)

[Doombot]

...which still doesn't negate any of my earlier statements. I retract nothing!

[Tashalar]

Since this is not only a contest between players but it's also us against them, I'd say we make a bet on how many monsters we get to kill.

It's a... group thing sort of.

Okay, I'll give it a go without thinking too much about it.
Doombot: CR 16 / 16 monsters
LT: CR 16 / 16 monsters
Majik: CR 15 / 15 monsters
Slag: CR 16 / 16 monsters
Tash: CR 18 (I obviously had to vote highest for myself considering my other set of bets... ;) )
Icebird: CR 15 / 15 monsters
Boom: CR 16 / 16 monsters
Darken: CR 17 / 17 monsters
Thanos: CR 15 / 15 monsters
Beidamon: CR 16 / 16 monsters

Total: 160 monsters - 16 on average.

Obviously some will be higher, some will be lower - depending on a few rolls and luck in drawing the 'right or wrong' kind of opponent. :)

[Doombot]

I'd say those are pretty well on, for the most part: just browsing through some of my monster books, around 15-16 is where I figured I'd start having real trouble.

[Thanos]

Heck, I planned on getting into the mid 20's :-P

CR 15 my BUTT!

[Tashalar]

For my last bet above... I'd be happy to be wrong if you guys get further! The more monsters we kill, the merrier! And the more awesome the party we'll have afterwards. :roll:

[Lord Twig]

Heck, I planned on getting into the mid 20's :-P

CR 15 my BUTT!

Good luck with that! :)

Your resources will probably get pretty strained by 16th level, by 20th you should be about out, if not out already!

An encounter of the proper challenge rating is designed to use up 1/4 of a parties resources. So at 20th level you should have a 50/50 chance of winning. But in reality that is not the case. Some monsters are far tougher than the base line. Dragons for example are specifically stated to have a lower CR than they should because they are supposed to be tough, "End Battle" opponents. So if you happen to get a dragon while everyone else got some random critter your chances have just gone down.

The higher the level the more "Boss" creatures you will find. I will be surprised if anyone makes it past 20th level.

[Beidamon]

My bet would be that doombot is the likely winner.

He can fly to avoid a lot of focus fire for most of the match.

While flying, he can try to use his horn at will to try to stop his opponent and get some free attacks in on him before retreating. With the high DC, it wont be resisted until some of the higher level creatures most likely.

He has relatively good defense with some DR and high armor, good saves, and SR, which means until latter on he doesn't need to worry to much about taking damage, and even if he did he can safely heal himself with spells. With the ring of freedom of movement he can avoid staying grappled which would be one of him main weaknesses I would think.

Having said that of course, the match can still go any way as he does still have some weaknesses. His main problem I can see is that his character is very defensively oriented, if he comes up against a character that can hurt him latter on, it may take a bit of effort to take them down before he has to burn a lot of his healing to recover.

I can see him winning, but then again I could see him having some problems against something like a dragon.

[Doombot]

Hopefully you're right, Beidamon. The horn is one thing that could potentially break a stalemate: if I spam my horn, whatever I'm facing would statisically fail, and if I do that enough, I can beat anything that can be paralyzed. Now, that odds of that happening are ludicrously slim, but it presents a scenario in which I could (simply, if not easily) beat the Tarrasque without taking any hits.

All that being said, I now expect myself to die in round five to a 'random' encounter with a pernicious DM ;).

[Beidamon]

I agree, the only problem being as I said the large amount of dragons, and them ignoring your horn. Then again, if everything we fight happens to be half dragons, who is to judge?

[Doombot]

Not sure, but I think half-dragons are also immune.

Hey Link: are you doing templated creatures, or just straight from the books? (Which I suppose doesn't prohibit using the examples given under the template.)

[Linklegacy77]

Just straight from the book. The only foe you face that I created is the cr 58...

[absolution]

If the pixie, archon, or deva doesnt win this I will be pleasantly surprised.

Sorry I kinda fell out of the loop before the challenge started, family stuff. I will be looking in on everyones matches though and hoping everyone makes it far.

-absolution

[Lord Twig]

I think it is time to revive this thread. :)

Tashalar predicted that people would start dropping at around 16. I said I would be surprised if anyone made it past 20.

Here are where things stand now and how much farther I think they will get.

Attila the Hun: CR16 (CR17. I don't think he will be able to heal enough to last much longer.)
Aziraphale: CR14 (CR18. Good defenses and healing will see him this far.)
Kul: CR15 (Cr18. Eventually he is going to run into a spell caster that actually has some offense.)
Red: CR16 (CR19. If he loses initiative, he can go down quick.)
Seraphiel: 17 (CR20. If I get lucky. :) )
Skippy Billy: 16 (CR20. He has some good tricks and great healing, but the wrong environment could put him in trouble.)

So what do you all think?

[Tashalar]

Well, I really thought 'we'd' be dropping earlier. Which is good 'cause we ain't. :roll:

Atilla will have a hard time, agreed. He really had one of the worst CR 15 monster that are out there. Now there won't be any monsters who don't have ranged attacks and cannot fly... well, I won't give up on him so easily. He's a barbarian after all! Hey, if we roll the monster that Seraphiel's up against now, he'll survive easily as well. :)

Kul will be gone as soon as he meets a spellcaster who can also fight - as you said, LT. I think it'll happen before CR 18.

Red is really dependant on his initiative rolls and the starting location of monsters. His saves aren't great but he does still have those luck blades. Other than that he could make it further than CR 18 as he has a 'solution' to most problems. He can always spam maze in case things get really tough.

Seraphiel and Aziraphale... I'm unsure, really. Seraphiel has a better chance of getting far as she's already (more or less) at CR 18.

Skippy. Well, he won't make it too far with only his spells (he'd need to get a little lucky there), but his bag of holding and portable hole trick might get him far. Alas, some types of terrain aren't that great for him and quite a few creatures will be able to teleport. Oh, wait. Teleport doesn't work... it has to be plane shift, hm? Ah well, we'll see how it goes. He does have awesome defenses as well, though. Great save and good AC (and touch AC). If he doesn't get unlucky, my guess is he'll win.

[hedgeknight]

Just my 2 cents > Tash and Twig should win the DM award for the year! Hot damn but you two have got it going! :D
To be able to keep all of this running so smoothly is un-freaking-believable! I bow to the both of ye! :nod::cat:
-g-

[Tashalar]

Haha, thanks coffee!

It's fun and I've got the time currently, so it's not such an exceptional job as you make it to be. I wouldn't be able to shoulder this by myself though. Honestly, updating three matches frequently is rather enough, eh, LT?

I'll probably have less time than I had in the last weeks, but I'll try to keep the rate of updates high. Furthermore, sadly, I do think that it won't be a month until the first competitor drops. :depry:

[Darken]

On the bright side, Skippy might be dropping in this round if luck is not on his side, so that's a lot of potential work you won't need to worry about in the future. Skippy's Heal and Mass Heal spells plus his Heal spell-like abilities will probably drag this out a lot longer than you'd like it to be :p

[Tashalar]

Well, Skippy still has the luck domain, eh? That, combined with gruesome offensive abilities typical for FF monsters mean that he won't be using any Heal spells. :)