Editing Coup-De-Grace: Arena Design (section)

=Obstacles= 

Obstacles are things that get in the way of movement and line of sight. Walls and doors are obstacles, of course, as are other minis. This section expands on this idea:

==Movable Blocks==

An interesting variant is to have blocks that can be moved around, to make the battlefield more dynamic.

Blocks that move from triggers on the map might include sliding wall sections that move with lever pulls, boulders that roll when a pressure plate is triggered, or blocks that slide towards or away from the nearest mini.

You could also have directly-movable blocks: perhaps heavy crates that can be pushed or pulled. Rather than have a movement point cost to move these its recommended you have a player use his "hand activations" to move it a fixed number of spaces. This avoids having the less believable scenario of an unarmoured elf being able to move a block quicker than a dwarf in fullplate!

==Water==

Shallow water that needs to be waded through could double movement point costs for movement only, while unaffecting attacks. Also, you could say that someone wading has -1 Defence Value.

Deep water that needs to be swum through could have a more dramatic effect: maybe triple movement point costs, no ability to use attacks, and -2 Defence Value. You could also force a test each turn to avoid drowning: maybe roll a D6, and if it is equal to or greater than the target's movement value, they lose a HP!

==Pits==

A dungeon classic, the pit is represented on the arena as a marked area that you can fall into and take damage.

Generally speaking it should be possible to jump over pits. A good way to do this is to introduce a jump rule: allow a move straight forward of 2 squares for 3 Movement Points, which avoids stepping on the intervening square, and which lands with the same facing. The reason for making this 3 MP rather than 2 MP is to stop people using jump moves for outflanking: 3 MP is the same it would cost to move up and past a nearby mini.

Moving within the pit would be normal movement, but climbing out of a pit to an adjacent square should be double normal movement cost. Its also worth ruling that minis in a pit can't draw LOS out of the pit except to squares adjacent to the edge, and that they can't make melee attacks out of the pit. Also, characters in pits shouldn't increase the MP cost of actions taken by adjacent players outside the pit.
To avoid unscrupulous players using "hidey hole" tactics, its worth saying that the opposite isn't true. This might be a little unrealistic, but it keeps the idea that pits are a bad place to be.

Its unlikely anyone would voluntarily step into a pit. Instead, consider the weapons and spells that include forced movement effects. Its worth noting that to put a player in a pit, you usually need to end the forced movement on a pit. Any movement "along the way" should be considered to be airborne.

If a mini falls into a pit, it should suffer for doing so.

===Pit Types===

A "standard pit" might be considered to have a hard stone floor after a drop of ten feet or so. Represent this by having a mini that falls in automatically lose 1 HP, with no roll required. The fixed damage from falling in means that heavy armoured characters are just as prone to gravity as unarmoured ones! 

A "spiked pit" has some sort of extra damage inherent in it. A good way to approach this is to have the fall in still do 1HP, but then have the spikes make an "attack" against anyone who falls in, potentially doing another HP damage. This makes heavy armour a decent protection against pit spikes, though the fall itself might cause damage.

An "instant kill pit" simply takes out of action anyone who falls into it. This might represent the classic bottomless pit, or a pit filled with lava, or scorpions. Instant kill pits are a fun thing to put at the edge of the arena, to discourage players from hugging those edges.

==Forced Movement Obstacles==

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