The official rules for AGO's finals-week D&D Arena.
Version 1

Rules:

• 1. There will be no DM: All disputes during combat will be settled by majority vote of those not involved, and a random die roll if tied. Disputes with these rules beforehand will be settled by overwhelming opinion (as determined by posts. i.e. if you want to change something, and no one bothers to post agreeing with the change, it doesn't happen). Questions and clarifications about the rules will be done by whoever is organizing, and will then be subject to the above process.
  
• 2. Character building: 40-point buy system, as per the DMG. (Start at 8, each rank up to and including 14 costs one point, 15 and 16 cost 2 each, 17 and 18 cost 3 each, for a total of 16 points for an attribute at 18) Character advancement as normal up to the tournament's stated maximum.
  
• 3. Player Race: Any playable race with an ECL equal to the maximum level or less is legal, provided that you adjust your class levels appropriately (Monster HD + level adjustment + class levels = ECL). No partially completed monster progressions.
  
• 4. Legal source material: In general, anything WotC published for 3.5 is legal, except Psionic material, Incarnum material, and Libris Mortis. No 3rd party books are legal. 3.0 books are not legal, but specific classes or items which don't exist in 3.5 can be made legal by asking for them on the forums and getting a majority of posters to agree. The same goes for Libris Mortis material. For a full list of legal material, see below.
  
• 5. Arena:
  [list]
  
• The arena will be on a hex grid, and will usually fill the map.
  
• Lighting condition, terrain type, and atmosphere will be determined randomly at the beginning of each fight based on the tables below.
  
• After all conditions are rolled, one may be rerolled by majority decision. Any further rerolls must be unanimous
  
• Obstacles may be determined through an as-yet-undetermined method. (If you have suggestions, post! - no one yet has come up with a way to make the terrain truly interesting)

[*]6. Match setup: Everyone will be part of all matches, unless the number of players necessitates splitting up. Characters will be placed on the map in initiative order (rerolled for each match). No one can start within melee range of an enemy character. Every player's character or set of characters form a team, opposed to all other teams.

[*]7. Match length: Each match will end after 20 rounds, or when only one player has characters surviving.

[*]8. Buffing: There will be X+1d2-1 rounds before placing characters for buffing. X is equal to one third of the highest level spells available, rounded up. Round-per-level buffs don't expire in these rounds.

[*]9. Start of Combat: After all characters have been placed, there is one round of positioning. In this round, your character(s) can move, cast spells, ready actions, and so on, but you may not do anything that directly affects characters of another team. Nothing provokes attacks of opportunity in this round. Buffs start expiring, and this counts as one of the 20 rounds until the end of combat.

[*]10. Scoring: Gain one point for every opponent killed. Lose one point for each character of yours killed. Highest score wins. There is a 1 point bonus for first kill, and a two point bonus for being the last surviving player.

[*]11. Match resets: After every match, all characters relearn all spells, as if they rested and all used items get recharged/replaced. Basically, you reset your character, although you may change spells if you wish.[/LIST]

Here's the tables so that we don't have to run around trying to find it in later terms (make sticky?)


Lighting: (remember to bring your torch!)
1d6:
1 Standard daylight (no sight limits, affects daylight vulnerable PCs)
2-3 Standard indoor lighting (no sight limits, no effects)
4 Night (30' w/standard vision)
5 Pitch black (blind with normal or low-light)
6 Twilight (60' w/standard vision)

Terrain: (See the DMG p. 87-93 for details of types 4 and up)
1d10
1 Flat Grassy Plain
2 Flat Sandy/Dusty Plain
3 Open stone ground
4 Forest
5 Marsh
6 Hills
7 Mountain (w/peak - all terrain slopes away from the middle)
8 Mountain (one side - all terrain slants the same way)
9 Desert
10 Aquatic (roll d4 - on a 1, deep water, otherwise 1d4+1 feet)

Atmosphere: (See the DMG p. 93-94 on weather)
d12, rolled twice, reroll duplicates
1-5 Normal weather
6 Heat (70% hot, 30% extreme heat) (reroll if already cold)
7 Cold (70% cold, 30% extreme cold) (reroll if already hot)
8 Rain / Snow
9 Downpour / Heavy Snow
10 Wind (1d20, see below)
11 Fog (1d6, see below)
12 Roll twice again, discard subsequent 12's.

Wind: (DMG, page 95)
d20
1-3 Light wind (no effect)
4-6 Moderate wind (no effect)
7-11 Strong Wind (-2 to ranged attacks)
12-15 Severe Wind (-4 to ranged attacks)
16-18 Windstorm (ranged attacks impossible)
19 Hurricane (ranged attacks impossible)
20 Tornado (ranged attacks impossible)

Fog:
d6
1-3 Light fog, vision reduced by 10'
4-5 Moderate fog, vision reduced to 30' (or by 20' if already limited)
6 Heavy fog, all vision reduced to 5'

Core books - Always legal

• Player's Handbook - July 2003
  
• Monster Manual - July 2003
  
• Dungeon Master's Guide - July 2003
  
• Miniatures Handbook - Oct. 2003
  
• Draconomicon - Nov. 2003
  
• Complete Warrior - Dec. 2003
  
• Complete Divine - May 2004
  
• Planar Handbook - July 2004
  
• Races of Stone - Aug. 2004
  
• Frostburn - Sept. 2004
  
• Monster Manual III - Sept. 2004
  
• Complete Arcane - Nov. 2004
  
• Races of Destiny - Dec. 2004
  
• Complete Adventurer - Jan. 2005
  
• Races of the Wild - Feb. 2005
  
• Sandstorm - Mar. 2005
  
• Lords of Madness - Apr. 2005
  
• Heroes of Battle - Apr. 2005
  
• Weapons of Legacy - June 2005
  
• Dungeon Master's Guide II - June 2005
  
• Stormwrack - Aug. 2005
  
• Heroes of Horror - Oct. 2005
  
• Champions of Valor - Nov. 2005\
  
• Spell Compendium - Dec. 2005
  
• Races of the Dragon - Jan. 2006
  
• Player's Guide to Eberron - Jan. 2006
  
• Magic Item Compendium - ??? 2008?
  
• Rules Compendium - ??? 2008

Upcoming & Recent Books - May not be allowed, as not everyone would have had a chance to go over them. Organizer decision.

• Nothing here yet.

Restricted books - Disallowed. Specific rules may be introduced to the arena. Ask if there is something you want to use. See above for details

• Libris Mortis - Oct. 2004

Banned books - Disallowed. Specific rules may be introduced by the organizer.

• Book of Exalted Deeds - Oct. 2003
  
• Unearthed Arcana - Feb. 2004 (Select rules may be allowed by the organizer)
  
• Expanded Psionics Handbook - Apr. 2004 (Unless the organizer chooses to make a Psionic battle)
  
• Magic of Incarnum - Sept. 2005 (Unless the organizer chooses to make an Incarnum battle)

Setting books
We need a general ruling on this. I think Eberron is fine, but if we want to allow Forgotten Realms, we need a) a list of valid books, B) a general ruling on regional feats c) a ruling on shadow weave & spell fire & wild magic. We can allow Eberron without Forgotten Realms or vice versa. (Note that both Shifters and Warforged are in Monster Manual III, so banning Eberron doesn't block those races.)

Proposed changes to the rules
Discuss these changes or propose new ones here.

Proposed changes:

• Increase the cost of potions to discourage "Everyone gets all the nice buffs, without needing a caster"
  
• Weather tables (Please discuss here instead)
  
• Forgotten Realms:
  [list]
  
  
• Books: Do we allow all the books, as per raion's list here?
  
  
• Do we allow regional feats, and do we impose region/race restrictions on them? (there'll always be the limit of one regional feat, regardless of who can take them)
  
  
• Do we allow extra rules like Weave and Spellfire?
  
  
• Eberron:
  
  
• Do we allow dragonmarks? If so, do we impose race restrictions on them?
  
  
• Do we allow action points?
  
  
• Other sources:
  
  
• Do we allow Arms and Equipment?

[/list]

(Apologies, but lists within lists appear to not be functional outside of Preview Post)

How cheesy does a proposed build need to be before it's illegal for entry? The CharOp boards have come up with a lot of stuff over the years in varying degrees of brokenness.
Note that the following classifications are my own inventions, and reflect my own opinions as to the relative brokenness of the builds.

There's the Tier 0 builds (Pun-Pun, Omnicifier, etc.) that set up infinite or unbounded loops.
There's the Tier 1 builds (Hulking Hurler, Chuck E. Cheese, etc.) that aren't infinite, just absurdly large to the point of brokenness.
There's the Tier 2 builds (Cheesewrought Instabold) which use loopholes to get cheesy advantages, but do have a cap on how ridiculous they can get.
There's the Tier 2.5 builds, which would include things like a Half-Amethyst Dragon Crystal Troll or Half-Red Dragon Half-Green Dragon Troll to become immune to lethal HP damage - not invincible, but impossible to kill by any non-spellcaster. Ranked above tier 3 because of how annoying they can be to other players or the DM, moreso than any offensive capability they might bring - its fine to do pathetic damage when you can't be injured.
There's the Tier 3 builds (Ubercharger, King of Smack) that are just optimized to be really, really good at what they do, and can look broken compared to a less well-planned out build.
And anything below this.

Using these subset of books, you can't do any of the tier 0, 1, or 2 builds, at all (i'm not sure who really determines "tier", but its not an issue).

We've had people make half amtythest dragon crystal trolls in tournaments before. You just beat them unconscious, take their items off, and dunk them underwater till they drown.

Anything is legal, really, though we won't allow anyone to do any "published" optimization builds because the idea is that you design your character, when you are just using something someone else came up with, it defeats the purpose.

Good enough.

Out of abject curiosity, what in Libris Mortis was judged bad enough to get the entire book banned? The monstrous racial classes, maybe?

Edit:

Complete Champion, Complete Scoundrel, Fiendish Codex 1+2, are all books that came out after the Compendiums. Are they going to be allowed this time around?

The general rule has been, if you can't implement your ubercombo in the set number of buff rounds you have before the tournament starts, and you're not willing to take turns during it to finish, then you can't use it. There's been exceptions to that (Nate would have allowed my shambling mound with a sorcerer level to zap himself silly with shocking grasp wands for the entire day before the tournament, one term), but it's generally held.

Also, keep in mind that ubercombos have been routinely defeated before. The last tournament had a guy with obscenely (and illegally, we realized later after asking WotC) high AC and saves, a cleric who could cast holy word and similar spells with a high enough caster level to auto-kill a 20HD creature (like one of the players), and so on. The winner was a succubus sorceress who mostly brought balors into play and had them cast greater dispel at will...

I think the very first tournament was either won by someone who flooded the arena magically, and had a pair of aquatic characters, or two people who (illegally) teamed up to eliminate everyone else first, by summoning a snowstorm that only they could see through. IT's often not the most powerful build, but rather the most unexpected, un-prepared-for one that wins.



In other points, not all our tournaments have used the above rules, although most do use a subset of them. They are definitely out of date, though.

What's the typical ratio of casting characters to melee characters?