FG: Gladiator VII - The Grand Tournament

[Ljube]

Rome, late November 192 AD


It’s a warm November day in Colonia Commodiana (formerly known as Rome). The crowd has gathered to witness an unprecedented event: The Grand Tournament of the four most skilled gladiators in the entire Roman Empire. Emperor Commodus, who fancies himself the greatest of all gladiators in the history of Rome, will attend the competition. Bear in mind that this ruthless despot, who prefers being addressed as Hercules Romani thirsts for gladiators’ blood and may at any time execute any of the losers (or the winners if it pleases him). So, fight with courage and tenacity and you may yet live to see another day.


The fighters:

DrSpike, also known as he of the rapier wit. Excellent fighter, two times champion. Lightning fast attack. Strong thrust. A bit weak on defence but his opponents usually don't live long enough to find that out.

Jamski, also known as Jamski-San the Fifth. A balanced fighter who prefers defence to attack. Only when his opponent has exhausted his energy in futile efforts to penetrate the celebrated bamboo armour will Jamski-San counter-attack with deadly accuracy and power using his katana. However don't expect him to follow this routine now when I've spoken about it.

Kassipeia, also known as the Nephew-in-Law of Bob. Like late Bob a maverick who will always try to do the unexpected even at his own expense. Equipped with the swift and deadly Fists of Steel he is going to be a dangerous opponent and one who can score a quick knockout victory in a matter of seconds.

Paramir, also known as Bob's second cousin twice removed. He inherited Bob's famed weapon the Sword of Bob. But he has not shown great skill with the weapon, unlike his late cousin. So he specialised in defensive combat. He attended the school held by Jamski-San IV and acquired a bamboo armour there. You should expect from him tougher and longer fights with lots of manoeuvring, good anticipation and quick blocks.



Stats:

DrSpike: W 20, A 0
Jamski: W 10, A 10
Kassiopeia: W 20, A 0
Paramir: W 0, A 20


Matches:

DrSpike - paramir
Jamski - Kassiopeia


Both matches at 100 HP.

Orders due by this time tomorrow.

[Ljube]

Rules

1. Each contestant must distribute 20 points between weapon and armour values which remain constant throughout the contest (e.g. weapon 11, armour 9). These values are public knowledge.

2. Each match is divided up into combat rounds, which are further divided into 3 segments.

3. In each round you must distribute 100 points amongst the 3 segments, each of which requires values for attack, defense and power.
e.g.:

1st A11 D11 P11
2nd A12 D08 P15
3rd A15 D02 P15

The total of all 9 values must equal 100, and the total of the 3 values in any one segment must not exceed 50.

4. These ADP values are modified by the contestants choice of weapon and armour values. Half the armour value is added to each defense, half the weapon value is added to each attack, the weapon value is added to each power and the opponents armour value is subtracted from each power.

5. In each segment the modified attack and defense values are compared. If, in any round, your attack is greater than your opponents defense then you hit them, and so damage equal to the power for that segment.

6. Ties between attack and defense values result in 50% damage rounded down. 0 attack 0 defense ties are possible.

7. In the initial portion of the competition, each contestant will face every other contestant for one match consisting of two combat rounds.

8. In each match, each contestant will begin with 100 HP from which damage is subtracted. A contestant who loses all of these is considered incapacitated and cannot continue with the match (no more segments take place), but is presumed to recover for their other matches, which remain unaffected.

9. If both contestants are incapacitated then the match is considered a draw, and each contestant recieves 1 point.

10. If one contestant is incapacitated then the other is considered the winner and recieves 4 points.

11. If neither contestant is incapacitated, then the one inflicting the most damage in the whole match is considered the winner, and recieves 3 points. If both contestants inflict the same amount of damage then the match is considered a tie and each contestant receives 1 point.

12. The four contestants who receive the most points in this way will proceed to the second portion of the competition, the Semis.

13. A tie for fourth place will be resolved at the discretion of the GM.

14. The second portion will consist of a knockout competition of matches, with combat similar to the round-robin but instead it is to the death. Winners of the Semis advance to the final.

Now, the initial matches of the competition will come in three sections, and each contestant will be facing two opponents in the first and second sections, but three in the third. If you look at your programme you'll see a table showing how this works, where the entries marked 'a' indicate a pair who will face each other in the first section, and those marked 'b' and 'c' indicate pairs who will face each other in the second and third sections respectively.


--12345678
1 !abcccba
2 a!abcccb
3 ba!abccc
4 cba!abcc
5 ccba!abc
6 cccba!ab
7 bcccba!a
8 abcccba!

Previous Games

Gladiator -poly- 2 "The Competition"

Gladiator -poly- 2 "The Competition" Part Deux

Gladiator III - Let the Battle Commence!

Gladiator III - Let the Battles Continue!

Gladiator IV - The fights begin!

Gladiator IV - The fights proceed!

Gladiator V - The Onset

Gladiator VI - The Unbearable Lightness of Fighting

[Kassiopeia]

Sent.

[paramir]

sent

[Spaced Cowboy]

Go Kassi!
Down with the Doc!

[DrSpike]

Someone sure is bitter about getting whupped in two finals.

Orders shortly.

[Jamski]

Teh Mortisomething Salutant!

Orders Sent. Kassi to die.

-Jam

[Kassiopeia]

Morituri te salutant, methinks.

Are these to the death, btw? I suppose they are, what would the point be if they weren't.

[Jamski]

Methinks you may be right...

...hmmm... was it you that got all the awful Latin jokes in my Roman Mafia game?

-Jam

[Kassiopeia]

Originally posted by Jamski
Methinks you may be right...

...hmmm... was it you that got all the awful Latin jokes in my Roman Mafia game?

-Jam

Heavens, no. Smiley maybe? Or Duck? But not me. I've studied it for a full 30 hour course and not a minute more. I used to be able to conjugate verbs into tenses and whatnot, now I'm back to carpe diem level

[Ljube]

Me too in spite of my classical education.


DrSpike's late, so I'm going to grant a 24-hour extension, but in the future I expect the orders on time or else...

If he sends his orders soon I'll process tomorrow morning at work.

[DrSpike]

I sent earlier. I'll resend.

[DrSpike]

Definitely sent now.

[Jamski]

Oh yeah it was Duckie

-Jam

[Ljube]

Round 1


The crowd on the Central Arena was getting restless.

“Start the fight!” a man shouted.
“Get on with it!” a woman cried.
“Hush”, her husband warned her, “we’re waiting on the arrival of Emperor Commodus. The combat can’t start without him or he would throw both gladiators to the lions.”
“Where is he already? Too busy admiring his reflection in the mirror?” the woman was malicious.
“Watch your tongue woman! You’re lucky nobody heard you or you would be joining the gladiators now! Now shut up and wait for the Emperor like everybody else!”

At that moment the fanfares signalled the entry of Imperator Caesar Marcus Aurelius Commodus Antoninus Augustus. He sat in his chair and raised his hand to mark the official opening of the games.

“Ave Caesare, Morituri te salutant”, DrSpike and paramir raised their weapons and awaited the signal from the emperor. He lowered his hand and the fight began.


“I expect a swift victory by DrSpike”, Emperor Commodus said to his sister Lucilla. “If paramir doesn’t fight bravely, I’m going to order his execution.”

The Emperors entourage laughed.
So did the crowd. And so did DrSpike. Wholeheartedly.

Paramir exploited this moment of carelessness to strike DrSpike for 11 points of damage. The crowd uttered a sigh of surprise and disbelief as their favourite lost balance and started to totter around shaken by the surprise paramir’s blow and seemingly unable to recollect himself. But then paramir made a crucial mistake which we can attribute to his lack of experience. Instead of finishing the already severely weakened DrSpike, he started to celebrate his apparent victory with his supporters in the crowd. That gave DrSpike precious moments to recover his strength and he charged paramir with such crushing power that he nearly brought him to the ground, piercing his bamboo armour and inflicting 24 points of damage on paramir’s torso. Although surprised paramir managed to lift the Sword of Bob and the mighty weapon struck DrSpike for additional 11 points of damage. This only enraged DrSpike and he repeated his lunge with vicious power which actually brought paramir to the ground and inflicted additional 24 points of damage. Fighting for his life paramir managed to lift his sword once again, but he merely scratched DrSpike in his groin area for 11 points of damage. This was however enough to prevent DrSpike from continuing his onslaught and saved paramir’s neck. At least for the moment.

“A ferocious fight I must say. But amateur.” Emperor Commodus commented.


*******


Meanwhile at the Arena No. 1. Prefect Pretoriae Publius Helvius Pertinax marked the beginning of the games.

The fight didn’t start as predicted. Everybody expected Jamski-San V to defend in accordance with the Jamskian school but my comments about his play style may have prompted him to attempt a surprise attack. But he never expected Kassiopeia would distinguish himself with weapon block mastery. Not only did he manage to repel Jamski’s attacks but he also struck his exposed flank for 10 points of damage. This didn’t deter Jamski as he tried the same thing again and yet again was he repulsed with another scratch for 10 points of damage. Jamski tried the same routine a third time and he received another 10 points blow and in the end he decided to return to his defensive strategy.


DrSpike – paramir

Round 1: DrSpike takes 11 points of damage.
Round 2: DrSpike takes 11 points of damage and paramir takes 24 points of damage.
Round 3: DrSpike takes 11 points of damage and paramir takes 24 points of damage.

DrSpike at 67
Paramir at 52


Jamski – Kassiopeia

Round 1: Jamski takes 10 points of damage.
Round 2: Jamski takes 10 points of damage.
Round 3: Jamski takes 10 points of damage.

Jamski at 70
Kassiopeia at 100



Orders are due Sunday late evening GMT.