Escalation

Number of Players: 2-200
Type of Battle: Field battle
Time to fight: About 30 minutes, with a 12-20 person field of fighters
Special Rules: No Reusable Missiles

Escalation is a game designed to get players used to fighting in imbalanced situations, with minimal gear. It’s a great game to play towards the end of the day, as it requires people to remove their armor. In Rhovanion, we end almost every practice with an endurance fight, usually Escalation or Capture the Flag, so people leave as they tire out. Here’s how you play:

1 – Teams are chosen and divided as appropriate
2 – Each fighter begins Escalation with only a single blue
3 – The fight lasts until one team wins
4 – The losing team may pick up one piece of gear for every 10 fighters on the field
5 – Teams line up and fight again, repeating this cycle until each team has all the gear they want
6 - Teams then fight a best 3 out of 5 to determine the game's overall winnner.

Variations
-- Any end condition to the game may be set, including a timer, exhaustion, or attrition if you want play to emphasize endurance.
-- For sheer amusement, the herald may dictate what equipment each team picks up when they lose.

Gaining Gear
When a team picks up a piece of gear, it may be anything allowed by the rules of the game. Each piece of gear is counted separately, so it can take a while for a team to gain full sets of gear. Note, in Escalation, there are NO REUSABLE MISSILES. Reusable missiles effectively compound the amount of gear a given team receives.

Armor:
A single player may gain up to full armor and it counts as a single piece of gear.

Bows/Arrows:
If a player elects to pick up a bow, the player may have ONE arrow. They may pick up more arrows at the cost of 2 arrows for one piece of gear selection. In escalation, missiles are NOT reusable.