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Tactical fights in the arena

Every bout is a turn-based fight on a grid, in whatever arena the GM rolled: a stone court full of pillars, a flooded ring, a sand pit where a rogue disappears into the tall grass, a vault where a dragon guards the gold. Take the high ground, duck behind cover, keep your reaction ready for a Shield spell or a swing at whoever tries to walk past you, and spread out before the dragon breathes. Turn the camera between four angles to line up the Fireball.

Friday night. Nobody wants to run the campaign. Let's fight in the Arena!

Somebody's basement, a card table, and a group of friends who all want to play. Nobody runs a campaign tonight. One of them runs the arena instead, and everyone else brings a character to fight in it. They talk the whole time: about your rolls, about their own characters, and about you.

Somebody has to run the game

At the start of every night the friends each roll a d20, and the high roll is the Game Master. It is never you. Each of them runs a different night. One rolls behind a screen and only tells you how it went. One will quietly let a killing blow miss. One builds fights that trick you into hitting your own side. One is out to kill you. Bring the right snack and you might get a GM who doesn't see your natural 1.

Your character is a sheet of paper

Roll 4d6 and drop the lowest, in order, with no rerolls, or roll 3d6 straight for a bonus only the stubborn get. Every night opens with the table showing off the characters they brought. If yours dies in the arena, the Game Master tears the sheet in half while everyone watches. The halves are taped up in the Hall of Torn Sheets, with how and where they died, unless someone at home can afford the diamond to bring them back.

The encounter table is on the table

Before every bout the GM rolls percentile dice on a printed table you can read row by row. A row you have already fought gets crossed out and rolled again. Most rows are what you'd expect from an arena. Roll a double zero and you might find yourself in a vault full of gold, guarded by things that spill coins when you hit them. Some of the chests bite.

Every roll lands where you can see it

Attacks, saving throws, damage, and death saves tumble into a felt tray, and the table reacts to whatever comes up. Roll a natural 1 and some GMs reach for the fumble table. Paralysis crackles across a body, a petrified fighter goes gray, and a blink dog is gone before you can swing.

Between bouts

After each bout you split the purse, level up, and spend your gold at the Quartermaster. Some nights the GM sets a scene outside the ring, like a bookie with a tip or a gate guard who might be talked around or charmed, and how it goes follows you into the next fight. At each bell the party can walk out with everything it has won, or stay for the champion's purse and worse fights. If the whole party goes down, everyone rolls death saves, and whoever lives is dragged out without the night's gold and loot.

Allowance day

Play a game night and there's an envelope on the fridge at home. Spend it at the comic shop: handbooks that open new classes, species, and feats, dice sets you can't win anywhere else, and snacks to slide across the table to the Game Master.

Room to dig in

Every class in the core rules comes with its subclasses, spells up to 9th level, feats, backgrounds, magic items, and levels 1 to 20. Winning unlocks more classes, species, and subclasses you won't find in any rulebook, new dice to roll with, and harder arenas to take them to, from the Pit all the way to Godsmeet.

Bring your friends

Host a table online through Steam, or on your own network, and your friends sit down with sheets they made at home. Empty seats go to the regulars, who play their own characters and have opinions about yours. Friendly fire is always on. You can hit your friends. They will mention it.

Rules content

This work includes material from the System Reference Document 5.2.1 ("SRD 5.2.1") and the System Reference Document 5.1 ("SRD 5.1") by Wizards of the Coast LLC, both licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Rules text has been adapted and abridged. The full notice, with links to both documents and the license, is in the legal section at the bottom of this page. Swords & Sodas is not affiliated with, endorsed, sponsored, or specifically approved by Wizards of the Coast LLC.