Battle Arena
A gladiatorial boss ladder, not a player-vs-player system. You pay an entry fee based on your level, then choose one of ten fixed named opponents — starting with Walden Macnair and, if you're good and lucky enough, working your way up to Severus Snape. Cost: fee gold × your level (default: 100 gold per level). Daily limit: fightsallowed fights per day (default: 5). Winning nets real gold winnings, battle points, and a bonus for finishing at full health; losing costs battle points and leaves you at 1 HP. Where the arena crowd doesn't care that you're fighting the same ten Death Eaters everyone else fights, in the same order, for the same reasons — they just want blood, and Walden Macnair is contractually obligated to provide the first pint of it.
Location & Access
Where: Village → "Battle Arena"
Prerequisites: None to enter. Available to all players. Later opponents unlock as you accumulate battle points and dragon kills (see below).
Daily Limit: fightsallowed fights per day (default: 5). Resets at newday.
How the Arena Works
Entering the Arena
The Arena: A packed stadium, a plaque naming the current Battle Arena Champion (or "no one," if the position is vacant), and a registration table listing every opponent you're currently eligible to fight.
Cost Calculation: entry fee = fee × player_level (default: 100 × level)
Examples:
- Level 10: 100 × 10 = 1,000 gold to enter
- Level 50: 100 × 50 = 5,000 gold to enter
- Level 100: 100 × 100 = 10,000 gold to enter
The fee is paid once per visit, before you pick an opponent. It is not refunded if you leave without fighting, and it is not refunded if you lose.
The Ladder — Fixed Opponents, Not Random Players
There is no matchmaking and no other player is ever involved. You are always fighting one of ten scripted NPCs, unlocked in a fixed order by battle points and dragon kills earned:
| Opponent | Unlock Requirement | Battle Points (win/lose) |
|---|---|---|
| Walden Macnair | Always available | 1 |
| Augustus Rookwood | >12 battle points, >1 dragon kill | 2 |
| Igor Karkaroff | >36 battle points, >2 dragon kills | 3 |
| Peter Pettigrew | >72 battle points, >3 dragon kills | 4 |
| Antonin Dolohov | >120 battle points, >5 dragon kills | 5 |
| Lucius Malfoy | >180 battle points, >10 dragon kills | 6 |
| Barty Crouch Jr | >252 battle points, >20 dragon kills | 7 |
| Fenrir Greyback | >336 battle points, >30 dragon kills | 8 |
| Bellatrix Lestrange | >1000 battle points, >40 dragon kills | 9 |
| Severus Snape | >1600 battle points, >50 dragon kills | 10 |
Each fight costs the same entry fee regardless of which opponent you choose — the arena doesn't charge Snape-tier prices for a Snape-tier fight. The later opponents also scale up in raw stats (attack, defense, health), and the last two (Bellatrix and Snape) actively scale their attack and health to stay ahead of your own combat stats, so they don't stay easy even after you out-level them.
Arena Combat
Combat Mechanics: Standard turn-based fight screen (same engine as forest fights). Takes 1 turn to enter.
Buffs: Unless the admin-only allowspecial setting is on, your active buffs are stripped for the duration of the fight and restored afterward — the arena is meant to be a fair fight, not a buffed stomp.
Not Actually Lethal, But Not Painless Either: You can't die from an arena loss, but you don't walk away unscathed — see Defeat below.
Combat Outcomes
Victory:
- You're awarded battle points per the table above (1 for Macnair, up to 10 for Snape).
- You win real gold — a random amount scaled to your entry fee and to how tough the opponent was (tougher opponents pay out more).
- If you finish the fight at full health, you also collect a "Perfect Fight" bonus of extra gold.
- If you're not at full health afterward, the arena healers give you a potion that restores a random 30-60% of your max HP.
Defeat:
- You lose the same number of battle points the win would have awarded (1 for Macnair, up to 10 for Snape), and your total can go negative.
- Your HP is set to 1 — losing hurts. If you're already at 1 HP when the fight ends, the arena healers hand you a smaller potion (10-40% of max HP) on your way out.
- No gold is refunded and no gold is lost beyond the entry fee already paid.
Battle Points System
How Points Work
Starting Points: 0 (battlepoints preference default)
Earning Points: Winning against an opponent grants that opponent's point value (1-10, see table above)
Losing Points: Losing to an opponent costs that same point value
Point Range: Unlimited. Can go negative if you lose more than you win.
Points aren't just a scoreboard — they (alongside your dragon kill count) gate which opponents you're even allowed to fight. Losing enough can knock you back below the threshold for an opponent you'd previously unlocked.
Leaderboard
Champion: Player with the highest battlepoints value across the whole server.
Tracking: After every fight, the module re-queries all players' battle points and updates the recorded champion if someone has overtaken them.
Champion Display: If the indexstats setting is enabled, the champion's name is shown on the login screen.
Public Rankings: The arena has its own "Rankings" screen (accessible from the main arena page) listing every player with a positive battle point total, sorted highest to lowest. This is a real, visible leaderboard — not just the single champion name on the login screen.
Checking Your Points
Your current battle point total is shown whenever you're at the registration table, before you pick a fight.
Daily Fight Limit
Default Limit: fightsallowed setting (default: 5 fights per day)
Counter: fightstoday preference tracks how many fights you've used today
Reset: newday hook resets fightstoday to 0
Limit Reached: The arena tells you you're out of fights for the day and to come back tomorrow.
Cost Analysis
| Player Level | Entry Fee | Daily Cost (5 fights) | Weekly Cost (35 fights) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | 1,000 gold | 5,000 gold | 35,000 gold |
| 25 | 2,500 gold | 12,500 gold | 87,500 gold |
| 50 | 5,000 gold | 25,000 gold | 175,000 gold |
| 100 | 10,000 gold | 50,000 gold | 350,000 gold |
| 150 | 15,000 gold | 75,000 gold | 525,000 gold |
Takeaway: Unlike most gold sinks, the arena pays you back on a win — real gold winnings plus a possible Perfect Fight bonus. Whether it nets positive depends on your win rate and how deep into the ladder you are.
Strategy
Is the Arena Worth It?
Pros:
- Actual gold rewards on top of battle points — this is not a pure sink
- Free HP top-ups from the arena healers after most fights, win or lose
- A real, visible rankings list, not just a single champion name
- Ten distinct scripted bosses to work through, each tougher than the last
Cons:
- Entry fee scales with level and is paid up front regardless of outcome
- A loss drops you to 1 HP — you leave the arena in bad shape
- Limited to fightsallowed fights per day (default 5)
- The top opponents are gated behind steep battle point and dragon kill requirements, so you can't rush the ladder
Verdict: Worth doing regularly once you can consistently beat your currently unlocked opponent — the gold winnings and healing offset the entry fee, and every win pushes you toward unlocking the next, tougher (and more lucrative) fight.
Winning Strategy
- Enter at full HP if you can — a Perfect Fight bonus is only paid if you finish the fight without taking damage.
- Don't count on your buffs; the arena strips them by default (unless the admin has enabled specialties), so raw combat stats matter more here than usual.
- Keep grinding dragon kills alongside battle points — both gate access to the higher-value opponents, and neither substitutes for the other.
Climbing the Ladder
- Beat Walden Macnair repeatedly until you clear the battle point and dragon kill thresholds for Augustus Rookwood.
- Keep winning to accumulate points; every loss sets you back by the same amount the win would have earned.
- Watch your dragon kill count in parallel — high-tier opponents require both a battle point total and a dragon kill count, so neglecting the forest can stall your arena progress even with plenty of points.
When to Skip Arena
- Low on gold (can't afford the entry fee at your level)
- Not confident you can beat your current opponent (a loss costs the fee and leaves you at 1 HP)
- Out of fights for the day
Admin Configuration
Settings:
- fee: Gold cost per player level per fight (int, default: 100)
- fightsallowed: Number of fights allowed per day (int, default: 5)
- leader: User ID of current champion
- homearena / arenaloc: Where the arena's village navigation link appears
- allowspecial: Allow buffs/specialties during arena fights (bool, default: false)
- indexstats: Show the champion's name on the login screen (bool, default: 0)
User Preferences:
- battlepoints: Player's total battle points (int, default: 0)
- fightstoday: Fights used today (int, default: 0)
Technical Details
Hooks Used: village (navigation link), index (champion display), newday (reset daily fight counter), dragonkill and namechange (keep the cached champion name fresh).
Combat logic lives in modules/lib/battlearena.php, which defines the ten fixed opponents, calculates entry fees and winnings, and hands off to the shared battle engine for the actual fight.
Lore & Theme
Gladiatorial Arena: A fixed roster of infamous Death Eaters, apparently contractually available to be punched by students for sport, in ascending order of menace from Walden Macnair to Severus Snape.
Champion Status: Top point-holder recognized publicly, if the admin has turned that display on. Everyone else can still check the full rankings list.
Pay-to-Play, But It Pays Back: The entry fee funds the spectacle; winners walk out richer, losers walk out at 1 HP and down a fistful of battle points.
Common Questions
Q: Can I fight other players?
A: No. The arena is a fixed ladder of ten named NPC opponents, not a matchmaking system. There is no PvP here.
Q: Can I die in the arena?
A: No, but a loss sets your HP to 1, not "no HP loss" as you might expect from a purely non-lethal sport.
Q: Do I get anything for winning besides battle points?
A: Yes — real gold winnings scaled to the opponent and your entry fee, plus a Perfect Fight bonus if you finish at full HP.
Q: Can I see other players' battle points?
A: Yes. The arena has a public Rankings screen listing every player with positive battle points, in addition to the champion's name on the login screen (if enabled).
Q: Can battle points go negative?
A: Yes. Losing costs the same number of points a win would have earned.
Q: Do I get my gold back if I lose?
A: No. The entry fee is non-refundable regardless of outcome.
Q: How do I unlock the tougher opponents?
A: Each opponent past Walden Macnair requires both a minimum battle point total and a minimum dragon kill count. You need both, not just one.
Q: Does the arena cost scale with level?
A: Yes. Entry fee = fee (default 100) × your level, regardless of which opponent you pick.
Battle Arena: where you pay an entry fee scaled to your level for the privilege of getting thrown into a pit against one of ten fixed, increasingly notorious Death Eaters, the crowd cheers no matter who wins, a loss knocks you down to 1 HP and costs you battle points while a win pays real gold and might even earn you a Perfect Fight bonus, and the only way to eventually get a shot at Severus Snape is to grind out both battle points and dragon kills — the arena, it turns out, cares about your whole résumé.