Dwarf Fortress Arena Challenge: Season 2- Contestants Welcome!

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Vox Nihili: May 28, 2008

Round One, Match Thirty-Eight :siren:

Match Thirty-Eight, Socrates (PublicOpinion) vs. Helga Hammershock VI (ST)

Socrates the serpent man is equipped with an unusual set of gear, including a copper pick, oaken shield, leather armor and cap, and iron gauntlets. Helga Hammershock the tigerwoman, on the other hand, opts for a simple approach. She carries a silver war hammer and wears a simple copper helm. Will Socrates be able to land a decisive strike, or will the larger warrior prevail once more?

The fight begins, and both warriors sprint forward! Socrates strikes first, but Helga parries his attack with ease, then delivers one of her own. But the serpent man is able to fling himself backwards, avoiding the strike. The two jostle for positioning for a moment then continue the melee.

Helga attacks next, smashing the serpent man's shield hand completely! Socrates winces as his primary form of defense falls away, then flicks his tail at the tigerman in a surprise move! The strike hits Helga in the leg, but inflicts only superficial bruising. Now Helga charges, landing a glancing blow to Socrates' arm on the way. The serpent man folds up and collapses into a heap on the ground. His iron gauntlets prevent his hands from being wounded by Helga's tearing claws, but the tigerwoman's next hammerstroke crushes the poor serpent man's tail, leaving him unable to rise!

Helga scents blood and goes into a frenzy, bashing wildly at the entire area within Socrates' vicinity! The serpent man parries, rolls, parries again, and attempts to fight back, but Helga knocks aside his feeble strikes with ease! Socrates sustains a painful blow to the the chest, but continues fighting. Suddenly, the downed serpent man gets a strike through Helga's guard! The copper pick pierces the tigerwoman's chest, digging deep and punching a hole directly beside her spine! Helga is a mere centimeter from being disabled by this strike, but instead is able to shrug it off like nothing.

Now Helga redoubles her efforts, bashing Socrates in the throat, then absolutely crushing his weapon hand. As his pick slides from his grasp, Socrates loses any hope of mounting a proper offense against his much larger foe. He instead bites at Helga, who avoids the attack and lands a earth-shaking hammerblow on the serpent man's shoulder, causing bones to cascade through one another and splinter horribly! Socrates is clearly in extreme pain at this point, but Helga isn't done yet. She bites onto the serpent man's head with her impressive jaws, nearly fitting the entire thing within her mouth, then starts shaking! The crippled snake man's body is whipped to and fro like a rag doll. With every flex of Helga's muscles, blood sprays from Socrates.

Just as all seems lost for Socrates, the serpent man somehow manages to get free for just one moment and bites down on Helga's paw, injecting his lethal venom! Helga's entire body seizes up instantly as many milliliters of neurotoxin flood her veins. Socrates then bites into the tigerwoman's body several times, but finding himself sapped of strength, collapses into unconsciousness next to his paralyzed opponent! Blood pools around both of the warriors as their wounds continue to leak precious fluid. Socrates awakens for a moment and bites down on Helga's midsection, only to collapse again a moment after. Who will perish first? As it turns out, Socrates' wounds stabilize, leaving the serpent man completely sapped, but alive. Meanwhile, Helga suffocates, her respiratory muscles overcome by paralysis. Socrates, serpent man, pulls off the most unlikely victory at the very last moment!

Combat Log

# ? Sep 21, 2011 19:54

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# ? May 29, 2024 16:45

Locomotive breath: Feb 1, 2010

Dear lord, Socrates, what a magnificent man-snake. Truly, he is a warrior-philosophizer without peer.

# ? Sep 21, 2011 19:58

StupidSexyMothman: Aug 9, 2010

holy poo poo. I've never seen a who-has-the-worst-luck contest to the death before.

# ? Sep 21, 2011 20:00

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

I never thought I'd laugh so hard at the thought of two people lying maimed and motionless in a contest to see who can circulate blood the slowest.

# ? Sep 21, 2011 20:05

PublicOpinion: Oct 21, 2010; Her style is new but the face is the same as it was so long ago...

That wasn't quite the win I was hoping for, but looks like putting most of my points into biting actually paid off! Breaking his hands and tail only made him deadlier.

# ? Sep 21, 2011 20:27

Jazzimus Prime: May 16, 2002; The Brothers Autobot

Vox Nihili posted:

Combat Log

code:

Socrates bites Helga Hammershock VI in the lower body, denting the skin and bruising the fat!
Socrates latches on firmly!
Socrates shakes Helga Hammershock VI around by the lower body, tearing apart the lower body's skin and bruising the fat!
The Socrates gives in to pain.
The Socrates regains consciousness.
Socrates shakes Helga Hammershock VI around by the lower body, tearing apart the lower body's skin and bruising the fat!
The Socrates is no longer stunned.
Socrates shakes Helga Hammershock VI around by the lower body, tearing apart the lower body's skin and bruising the fat!
The Socrates gives in to pain.
Helga Hammershock VI has suffocated.

Interesting. So apparently, if you bite and latch on to your opponent and then fall unconscious, you stay latched on while unconscious if your opponent is not able to break the hold.

Or in other words, the mere act of the attacker falling unconscious doesn't break the hold, but instead the opponent has to be conscious and able to move in order to break it. I didn't know it worked that way.

# ? Sep 21, 2011 20:47

FiddlersThree: Mar 13, 2010; Elliot, you IDIOT!

Holy poo poo. Well done, Socrates. Well done.

# ? Sep 21, 2011 21:31

Vox Nihili: May 28, 2008

Jazzimus Prime posted:

code:
Socrates bites Helga Hammershock VI in the lower body, denting the skin and bruising the fat!
Socrates latches on firmly!
Socrates shakes Helga Hammershock VI around by the lower body, tearing apart the lower body's skin and bruising the fat!
The Socrates gives in to pain.
The Socrates regains consciousness.
Socrates shakes Helga Hammershock VI around by the lower body, tearing apart the lower body's skin and bruising the fat!
The Socrates is no longer stunned.
Socrates shakes Helga Hammershock VI around by the lower body, tearing apart the lower body's skin and bruising the fat!
The Socrates gives in to pain.
Helga Hammershock VI has suffocated.
Interesting. So apparently, if you bite and latch on to your opponent and then fall unconscious, you stay latched on while unconscious if your opponent is not able to break the hold.

Or in other words, the mere act of the attacker falling unconscious doesn't break the hold, but instead the opponent has to be conscious and able to move in order to break it. I didn't know it worked that way.

Good catch. It makes sense, I suppose. Adds a bit to the mental imagery of the end of that fight as well.

# ? Sep 21, 2011 21:42

ToxicFrog: Apr 26, 2008

Vox Nihili posted:

Just as all seems lost for Socrates, the serpent man somehow manages to get free for just one moment and bites down on Helga's paw, injecting his lethal venom! Helga's entire body seizes up instantly as many milliliters of neurotoxin flood her veins. Socrates then bites into the tigerwoman's body several times, but finding himself sapped of strength, collapses into unconsciousness next to his paralyzed opponent! Blood pools around both of the warriors as their wounds continue to leak precious fluid. Socrates awakens for a moment and bites down on Helga's midsection, only to collapse again a moment after. Who will perish first? As it turns out, Socrates' wounds stabilize, leaving the serpent man completely sapped, but alive. Meanwhile, Helga suffocates, her respiratory muscles overcome by paralysis. Socrates, serpent man, pulls off the most unlikely victory at the very last moment!

My bet on Socrates, based entirely on the name, pays off!

# ? Sep 21, 2011 23:48

resistentialism: Aug 13, 2007

CommaToes posted:

Save for a few upsets, the larger enemy is doing a number on his or her smaller opponents.

Maybe the rebalancing that happened in the last round erred on the larger advantage too much.

Seems like chain body-slams are pretty common.

# ? Sep 22, 2011 00:43

PublicOpinion: Oct 21, 2010; Her style is new but the face is the same as it was so long ago...

Ha, turns out relentlessly soliciting bets for my opponent has propelled me to 5th in the gambling standings. Would've felt very silly about that if Helga had won, which was a close thing. Three cheers for neurotoxins.

# ? Sep 22, 2011 09:32

Dr Solway Garr: Jun 28, 2009

PublicOpinion posted:

That wasn't quite the win I was hoping for, but looks like putting most of my points into biting actually paid off! Breaking his hands and tail only made him deadlier.

This is a little more impressive than my guy biting an already unconscious gremlin after the fight had been won. It does seem that serpent men only really bite when their hands have been crippled though.
I guess now that disarming strikes are more common it's slightly increased the chance of biting happening, but they never seem to use their bite otherwise.

# ? Sep 22, 2011 10:18

JosephWongKS: Apr 4, 2009; by Nyc_Tattoo

Dr Solway Garr posted:

It does seem that serpent men only really bite when their hands have been crippled though.

Contestants are allowed to purchase a bow or crossbow for their gladiators and request Vox to let their gladiators start the match with less than the maximum number of arrows/bolts or no arrows/bolts at all.

In the same way, are contestants allowed to have their serpentman gladiators' arms disabled at the start of the match?

# ? Sep 22, 2011 10:49

ZeeToo: Feb 20, 2008; I'm a kitty!

JosephWongKS posted:

In the same way, are contestants allowed to have their serpentman gladiators' arms disabled at the start of the match?

That's not possible without messing with the game pretty heavily (as in, make a new species that copies the serpentman raws, but with everything that references their arms being edited out).

So guessing no.

# ? Sep 22, 2011 14:22

Bad Munki: Nov 4, 2008; We're all mad here.

PublicOpinion posted:

Ha, turns out relentlessly soliciting bets for my opponent has propelled me to 5th in the gambling standings.

Huh. Well, in that case, I'd like to point out that fight 52 has a rather lop-sided set of bets right now! Almost 2:1 odds, get it while it's hot!

# ? Sep 22, 2011 16:38

Vox Nihili: May 28, 2008

Dr Solway Garr posted:

This is a little more impressive than my guy biting an already unconscious gremlin after the fight had been won. It does seem that serpent men only really bite when their hands have been crippled though.
I guess now that disarming strikes are more common it's slightly increased the chance of biting happening, but they never seem to use their bite otherwise.

They will bite without being crippled, but if they have a proper weapon, they will only bite rarely. If they are unarmed, they will bite very often.

# ? Sep 22, 2011 17:34

PublicOpinion: Oct 21, 2010; Her style is new but the face is the same as it was so long ago...

I went with a pick to try and minimize the opportunity attacks that involve pommel-strikes or flat-slaps, so there'd be more biting opportunities. Even with the venom, my working belief is that a shield and weapon are pretty necessary for that size of gladiator in order to block and parry, so I couldn't go in unarmed.

# ? Sep 22, 2011 18:54

Glazius: Jul 22, 2007; Hail all those who are able,
any mouse can,
any mouse will,
but the Guard prevail.; Clapping Larry

Halloween Jack posted:

I never thought I'd laugh so hard at the thought of two people lying maimed and motionless in a contest to see who can circulate blood the slowest.

The arena is a harsh mistress.

Still, what an outcome.

# ? Sep 22, 2011 20:53

AmadeusVonBlastoise: Jul 4, 2008; AMADEUS AMADEUS
~DO~DO~
~DO~DO~

So Socrates prevented his own death by filling someone else with a poison. Huh.

AmadeusVonBlastoise fucked around with this message at 02:54 on Sep 23, 2011

# ? Sep 23, 2011 02:52

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

If questioned, he'll stridently deny that he used his venom to make the stronger fighter weak.

# ? Sep 23, 2011 05:30

Sibling of TB: Aug 4, 2007

I haven't been following very long so I don't know if it's happened in past tournaments, but has there ever been a for fun round where the top contenders are put up against a specific Dragon or Forgotten Beast to see how everyone stands up to such a thing?

# ? Sep 23, 2011 07:28

Jazzimus Prime: May 16, 2002; The Brothers Autobot

Sibling of TB posted:

I haven't been following very long so I don't know if it's happened in past tournaments, but has there ever been a for fun round where the top contenders are put up against a specific Dragon or Forgotten Beast to see how everyone stands up to such a thing?

We haven't done that yet, although if Vox is okay with it we could probably run a tournament of past champions vs. dragons or bronze collosi or forgotten beasts or whatnot between rounds.

Jazzimus Prime fucked around with this message at 08:02 on Sep 23, 2011

# ? Sep 23, 2011 08:00

PublicOpinion: Oct 21, 2010; Her style is new but the face is the same as it was so long ago...

Fake edit: It hadn't occurred to me until Jazzimus posted that getting Vox's permission to clutter his thread would be the polite thing to do. Consider this an apology and retroactive request.

I thought, "Hey, that sounds good! A little more promotion for Socrates to run up the betting in round 2." So I tossed him the arena with that iconic Dwarf Fortress foe, the Giant Cave Spider, bane of a thousand cavern explorers.

Now, I had left my FPS uncapped and forgot about it, so I wasn't able to experience this as it unfolded. However, I've excerpted the first few lines of the log:

Dwarf Fortress posted:

Giant Cave Spider 1 bites Serpent Man 1 in the head, but the attack is deflected by Serpent Man 1's redacted!
Giant Cave Spider 1 bites Serpent Man 1 in the head, tearing the muscle through the small cow leather cap!
Giant cave spider venom is injected into the Serpent Man 1's serpent man blood!
Giant Cave Spider 1 latches on firmly to Serpent Man 1's throat!
The Serpent Man 1 loses hold of the redacted.
The Serpent Man 1 loses hold of the oaken shield.

...aaaand that's about where the match was decided.

Dwarf Fortress posted:

Serpent Man 1 has suffocated.

Death by paralytic poison: Socratic irony?

This show of weakness obviously means that you should all bet on Socrates' opponent in Round 2, whoever that might be. Forget what I said before, GCS are chumps and this obviously means Socrates isn't fit to do battle with a kobold's reanimated leg. Free money, come get your free money!

# ? Sep 23, 2011 08:18

Vox Nihili: May 28, 2008

Consider permission granted. If anyone else wants to do some of these things over the weekend, that's fine with me. It's my birthday weekend, so we aren't getting more updates until Monday anyway.

# ? Sep 23, 2011 19:07

VladTheEater: Dec 30, 2008; Ahhhhhh, fresh meat.

Vox Nihili posted:

Consider permission granted. If anyone else wants to do some of these things over the weekend, that's fine with me. It's my birthday weekend, so we aren't getting more updates until Monday anyway.

Happy Birthday in advance, Vox!

Also, I am totally going to take advantage of this and run a mini-tournament!

:siren:

Vlad's 'Friends Come In All Sizes' Smashstravaganza! :siren:

Here's the rules:

Entries must be emailed to me at [my username] @gmail.com

I will be running a 16-man brawl full of 1v1s, single elimination, random placement for the first round and continuing from there until we have one sole champion.

Here's the catch:

I will only be accepting ONE entry of each race. First come first serve so you'd better email me that totes sick Tigerman build ASAP or someone else will claim dibs!
Only one entry per person, please! Don't think you can just send me one of every race to guarantee your spot :smug:

We will be using third round points and no gear restriction, so anything goes!

I may post an update when I wake up as to which races are still unclaimed but I'm hoping to run this when I get home from work tomorrow, roughly 18 hours from this post.

WHICH RACE WILL CLAIM SUPREMACY? WHICH SPECIES WILL RISE TO THE TOP OF THE FOOD CHAIN? WHICH TAXONOMIC GROUP WILL STUFF AND MOUNT THE COMPETITION?

Not Kobolds, because they're dumb!

# ? Sep 24, 2011 09:45

talenramel: Feb 23, 2011

This sounds fun, but I have no idea how to create a fighter. So I guess I'll just watch.

# ? Sep 24, 2011 11:24

TheWhaler: Nov 6, 2009

Sent in my gremlin. Little Oliver's going to die horribly.

# ? Sep 24, 2011 11:37

Pittsburgh Lambic: Feb 16, 2011

Human sent.

# ? Sep 24, 2011 11:45

Bene Elim: Feb 9, 2010; The beast from Crete that can't be beat!

Almost went with dark gnome, but no.

Elf has been taken.

# ? Sep 24, 2011 11:52

Astus: Nov 11, 2008

VladTheEater posted:

Not Kobolds, because they're dumb!

I accept your challenge, Kobold sent.

# ? Sep 24, 2011 11:59

AJ_Impy: Jun 17, 2007; SWORD OF SMATTAS. CAN YOU NOT HEAR A WORLD CRY OUT FOR JUSTICE? WHEN WILL YOU DELIVER IT?; Yam Slacker

Glen Starr has been sent in.

# ? Sep 24, 2011 12:36

mdct: Sep 2, 2011; Tingle tingle kooloo limpah.
These are my magic words.
Don't steal them.

Sent my Troll in.

Fake Edit: I derp'd and my first email had level 1 points.

# ? Sep 24, 2011 13:09

Astus: Nov 11, 2008

KezzKezzan posted:

Sent my Troll in.

Fake Edit: I derp'd and my first email had level 1 points.

I did too. But I have a good feeling, so I will take on all of you with my 1500 point Kobold.

# ? Sep 24, 2011 14:05

Krysmphoenix: Jul 29, 2010

Astus posted:

I accept your challenge, Kobold sent.

Welp, now I can't participate.

# ? Sep 24, 2011 14:58

Locomotive breath: Feb 1, 2010

Oh hey, I just sent in a Woofman of my own. And I forgot to include my name in the first one, so I had to send a second email :v:

Sorry Vlad!

# ? Sep 24, 2011 15:02

Anchors: Nov 27, 2007

Ant Flow shall raise again, no matter how many times she is struck down! She shall return over and over again, month after month, like a beautiful phoenix.

All of her opponents shall wither and falter under the barrage of her muscle cramping kung-fu strikes!

# ? Sep 24, 2011 16:22

VladTheEater: Dec 30, 2008; Ahhhhhh, fresh meat.

Gremlin: TheWhaler (Confirmed)
Dark Gnome:
Kobold: Astus (Unconfirmed, awaiting revision - if no revision is made, I will be accepting another Kobold entry)
Strangler: AJ_Impy (Confirmed)
Serpent Man:
Soldier Ant Woman: Anchors (Confirmed)
Dwarf:
Elf: Bene Elim (Confirmed)
Goblin:
Human: Brick Moses (Confirmed)
Molemarian:
Werewolf: Locomotive breath (Confirmed)
Tigerman:
Minotaur:
Troll: KezzKezzan (Confirmed)
Yeti:

Still half of the races have not laid claim to a champion to herald them to battle! Get those entries in, I'll be returning home from work in about 10 hours and I'd like to begin immediately!

# ? Sep 24, 2011 17:53

PublicOpinion: Oct 21, 2010; Her style is new but the face is the same as it was so long ago...

Serpent Man sent.

# ? Sep 24, 2011 18:23

Hooplah: Jul 15, 2006

Sent you a minotaur... Hopefully I formatted it at least somewhat ok, I didn't participate before the website went up.

E: emailed you a small edit, hope it's ok.

Hooplah fucked around with this message at 20:26 on Sep 24, 2011

# ? Sep 24, 2011 18:43

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# ? May 29, 2024 16:45

Ramc: May 4, 2008; Bringing your thread to a screeching halt, guaranteed.

Sending Dwarf. Lets try this again.

# ? Sep 24, 2011 19:03

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