21 minutes ago, Ultimatecalibur said:

No, it doesn't suck. It is useful when you want to prevent your opponent from taking a certain stance. Earth, Water, Fire and Air all have different benefits and cause different problems in different duels. The 4 Strife is a bonus not the primary purpose.

• You can predict Air to make your actions easier to perform.

• If you know an opponents high ring you can prevent them from using it.

• You can make an opponent without Iaijutsu Cut waste a turn readying their weapon by locking them out of Water.

• You lock your opponent out of Earth if you think you can get the successes and opportunities for an Air Crit Strike.

• You can use predict to lock your opponent away from stance based techniques such as Heartpiercing Strike, Flowing Water Strike and Crimson Leaves Strike.

The new dueling system is very tactical and discounting the various tools can easily lead to a defeat.

you do realise that you need to take a Predict action instead of Centering or Striking, right ? And... AND the opponent can always chose to use void stance and totally nullify your predict attempt. so basically, he gets a Strike in Void or Center (thats at WORST) and you get... nothing. Until the next turn. Was the benefit you got out of losing 1 action worth it ? To me, definitely not. Especially when you have higher ranked character than can relatively easily hit you and probably make you bleed in one strike with multiple rings or techniques. Like, sure you can take your opponent out of air or earth stance for when you will strike, but thats at the expense of not centering... again, worth it ? no.

making predict a free action during staredown for both contestant, and making it able to predict void, opens a LOT more varieties and mindgames. And more cinematic finishing blows.

but you can feel free to do some duel exercises between characters (with a friend, so "predict' work as intended by him not knowing your choice) and see how bad it is.

1 hour ago, Ultimatecalibur said:

No, it doesn't suck. It is useful when you want to prevent your opponent from taking a certain stance. Earth, Water, Fire and Air all have different benefits and cause different problems in different duels. The 4 Strife is a bonus not the primary purpose.

This. Here's the thing about going into a duel: you NEED to know your enemy. For real, as soon as "Duel - Thursday, 3:30 PM" shows up in your social calendar, you need to be finding out everything you can about your opponent. A lot of this knowledge is going to be sort of metagamey. That's fine. GMs: please let your players do this.

So you've booked a duel. and you've learned your opponent is a Rank 1 Bushi, not trained in the Kakita or Mirumoto school. Just that is a hefty bit of information, because now you know that he does NOT have an iaijutsu technique. If you win the first round of initiative, you can Predict: Water, and you've just insured that he CANNOT Strike you in the first round. He needs to take another Stance, and spend his action just drawing his dang sword. It's not an automatic win, of course, but depending on the conditions of the duel, you just took away a lot of his options.

What's his name, and what school is he? If his name is Hida, and he's a Defender, he has Earth 3 at least, and at least 10 Composure, maybe 12, just coming out of the gate. If you're sitting on Composure 6 or 8, this is extremely important to know, because you are going to have a VERY hard time getting him to Strife Out. If you're fighting for a certain level of blood, Strike is going to be a slow process, because he can just go full Earth, waiting for you to become Compromised, and you will not be able to land a Crit on him.

So let's say you're on the other side of this situation. You're a big tough Hida, and you love your Earth Stance. Your opponent goes first in a given round, and uses Predict. Now it's your turn, and you figure he's probably Predicted Earth, but you're not sure. Now is when you Center, because Void is the one Ring you know he CAN'T predict. Roll your Skill dice (and yes, Center kinda sucks for beginning characters with only one point in their skill), if anything really nice comes up, keep that. Then the next round, bid that Strife! Winning Initiative here means that you act twice in a row, and even better, use whatever Ring you want! Now is actually a pretty good time to Strike with Fire, just to pop some extra Strife at your opponent, and hope he Compromises!

I'm not saying the Dueling rules are perfect, or that Center and Predict are tools you want to use all the time. Sometimes you just need to hop out of your boat and clobber a guy with an oar. But if you know your enemy and know what it will take to secure victory, Center and Predict can help you.

2 hours ago, The Grand Falloon said:

This. Here's the thing about going into a duel: you NEED to know your enemy. For real, as soon as "Duel - Thursday, 3:30 PM" shows up in your social calendar, you need to be finding out everything you can about your opponent. A lot of this knowledge is going to be sort of metagamey. That's fine. GMs: please let your players do this.

So you've booked a duel. and you've learned your opponent is a Rank 1 Bushi, not trained in the Kakita or Mirumoto school. Just that is a hefty bit of information, because now you know that he does NOT have an iaijutsu technique. If you win the first round of initiative, you can Predict: Water, and you've just insured that he CANNOT Strike you in the first round. He needs to take another Stance, and spend his action just drawing his dang sword. It's not an automatic win, of course, but depending on the conditions of the duel, you just took away a lot of his options.

What's his name, and what school is he? If his name is Hida, and he's a Defender, he has Earth 3 at least, and at least 10 Composure, maybe 12, just coming out of the gate. If you're sitting on Composure 6 or 8, this is extremely important to know, because you are going to have a VERY hard time getting him to Strife Out. If you're fighting for a certain level of blood, Strike is going to be a slow process, because he can just go full Earth, waiting for you to become Compromised, and you will not be able to land a Crit on him.

So let's say you're on the other side of this situation. You're a big tough Hida, and you love your Earth Stance. Your opponent goes first in a given round, and uses Predict. Now it's your turn, and you figure he's probably Predicted Earth, but you're not sure. Now is when you Center, because Void is the one Ring you know he CAN'T predict. Roll your Skill dice (and yes, Center kinda sucks for beginning characters with only one point in their skill), if anything really nice comes up, keep that. Then the next round, bid that Strife! Winning Initiative here means that you act twice in a row, and even better, use whatever Ring you want! Now is actually a pretty good time to Strike with Fire, just to pop some extra Strife at your opponent, and hope he Compromises!

I'm not saying the Dueling rules are perfect, or that Center and Predict are tools you want to use all the time. Sometimes you just need to hop out of your boat and clobber a guy with an oar. But if you know your enemy and know what it will take to secure victory, Center and Predict can help you.

"So you've booked a duel. and you've learned your opponent is a Rank 1 Bushi, not trained in the Kakita or Mirumoto school. Just that is a hefty bit of information, because now you know that he does NOT have an iaijutsu technique. If you win the first round of initiative, you can Predict: Water, and you've just insured that he CANNOT Strike you in the first round. He needs to take another Stance, and spend his action just drawing his dang sword. It's not an automatic win, of course, but depending on the conditions of the duel, you just took away a lot of his options."

"What's his name, and what school is he? If his name is Hida, and he's a Defender, he has Earth 3 at least, and at least 10 Composure, maybe 12, just coming out of the gate. If you're sitting on Composure 6 or 8, this is extremely important to know, because you are going to have a VERY hard time getting him to Strife Out. If you're fighting for a certain level of blood, Strike is going to be a slow process, because he can just go full Earth, waiting for you to become Compromised, and you will not be able to land a Crit on him."

Cool, you win the initiative, you predict earth. you've also done nothing. And your dang sword still ain't out. (well you took water stance to take them out? hopefully) good your turn is over.

now, he take water stance too, take his sword out and smack you with his water stance. healing some strife probably, and maybe, if hes lucky, damaging you. because, why not ? might as well throw a void point in that strike, for fun's sake.

Now you hit him ? hes not in earth stance ? WOW. you better make that blow count, you have not centered, you're going raw. and he is a big bad Hida with lots of fitness that probably won't bleed the first naked strike he receive. well... its always possible you explode like a madman in your roll, but that could have been possible anytime.

now its his turn...and hes gonna smack you. again.

so you did all this to remove his earth stance for one raw attack ? not bad.. not bad... slow clap. and in that story, you've also gained the initiative(initiative is super super strong in duels), because otherwise this big bad guy would have taken earth stance first round and give you a strike whack right off the bat. Hopefully you wouldn't have use "predict" after that whack, cause he sure would have laughed.

do better next time. " predict" is totally edgecase. and sure, the biggest(only) edge case is if somebody take earth stance so you cannot crit them with the Strike attack. (i'll give you that) In all other cases I don't see why you just wouldn't strike all the time or go for a strife out (using fire strikes? or maybe your dm allows verbal fire taunts?), your chances are better this way.

and, eventually, higher ranked samurai will be full of techniques that they can do to screw you up, make you bleed or what not... predicting will be even more useless.

Psh. Never Predict Earth on the first round. That's amateur hour. Predict Water, because that's the only way he can draw and attack in the first round. Or even Air (yes, even on a Hida), because he knows it will make your Rising Cut a TN 4 attack.

A few questions about duels (don't have my book yet).

1. How many iaijutsu techniques are there (there were 2 in beta iirc correctly : horizontal and vertical cuts).

2. Does every bushi have access to them?

3. Do you guys see design space for more iaijutsu strikes?

2, all once they get to rank 2, definitely there is more design space

6 hours ago, Avatar111 said:

"So you've booked a duel. and you've learned your opponent is a Rank 1 Bushi, not trained in the Kakita or Mirumoto school. Just that is a hefty bit of information, because now you know that he does NOT have an iaijutsu technique. If you win the first round of initiative, you can Predict: Water, and you've just insured that he CANNOT Strike you in the first round. He needs to take another Stance, and spend his action just drawing his dang sword. It's not an automatic win, of course, but depending on the conditions of the duel, you just took away a lot of his options."

"What's his name, and what school is he? If his name is Hida, and he's a Defender, he has Earth 3 at least, and at least 10 Composure, maybe 12, just coming out of the gate. If you're sitting on Composure 6 or 8, this is extremely important to know, because you are going to have a VERY hard time getting him to Strife Out. If you're fighting for a certain level of blood, Strike is going to be a slow process, because he can just go full Earth, waiting for you to become Compromised, and you will not be able to land a Crit on him."

Cool, you win the initiative, you predict earth. you've also done nothing. And your dang sword still ain't out. (well you took water stance to take them out? hopefully) good your turn is over.

now, he take water stance too, take his sword out and smack you with his water stance. healing some strife probably, and maybe, if hes lucky, damaging you. because, why not ? might as well throw a void point in that strike, for fun's sake.

Now you hit him ? hes not in earth stance ? WOW. you better make that blow count, you have not centered, you're going raw. and he is a big bad Hida with lots of fitness that probably won't bleed the first naked strike he receive. well... its always possible you explode like a madman in your roll, but that could have been possible anytime.

now its his turn...and hes gonna smack you. again.

so you did all this to remove his earth stance for one raw attack ? not bad.. not bad... slow clap. and in that story, you've also gained the initiative(initiative is super super strong in duels), because otherwise this big bad guy would have taken earth stance first round and give you a strike whack right off the bat. Hopefully you wouldn't have use "predict" after that whack, cause he sure would have laughed.

do better next time. " predict" is totally edgecase. and sure, the biggest(only) edge case is if somebody take earth stance so you cannot crit them with the Strike attack. (i'll give you that) In all other cases I don't see why you just wouldn't strike all the time or go for a strife out (using fire strikes? or maybe your dm allows verbal fire taunts?), your chances are better this way.

and, eventually, higher ranked samurai will be full of techniques that they can do to screw you up, make you bleed or what not... predicting will be even more useless.

npcs dont use school ranks or school abilities and can get whatever technique or ability gm wants. they also dont follow a formulae for composure.

There's also one thing Avatar isn't grasping - the mechanics of the duel aren't the be-all-end-all... there are several vital parts of the social conventions that limit it.

The standard non-battlefield duel in Rokugan is, based upon prior canon, one strike each, in iaijutsu.

The goal of the Iaijutsu/Iaidō duel is to get ONE shot, and do one crit. the second swing is a dishonor. The third is pretty much bottom line of the scoring table.

Oh, and the Iaijutsu techniques do NOT allow opportunity spends for crits. So, unless the target is compromised, rising blade is worthless save for the +1/+3 damage.. crossing is for fatigue - it uses the higher deadliness in lieu of the damage, but only crits if one cannot defend,,, even opportunity won't do a crit there. And, if the forms are followed to the letter, it's one and done, and there is no honorable way to do a second attack. Shovel your honor away if you take the swing-swing-swing method.

Duels do not exist in a vacuum; they exist inside a framework of social construct requiring following the correct forms, and accepting that you may lose. And that, legally, the issue is over following it. Period. Bringing it up again following is a dishonor. Not following the form is a dishonor. The only solutions that are honorable are showing up and ...

• Conceding the duel. This may possibly require an apology.
• Fighting and losing. This may possibly require an apology
• Fighting and winning.
• Fighting and a draw - both drop the issue...
• fighting to a draw, taking a few minutes, and refighting the duel. Depending upon the gravity of the issue, this may be dishonorable, or may be the only honorable choice.

The play of the duel itself is all about the head game of Iaijutsu duels, not the rough and tumble of a Crab-clan dōjō, even tho' it can be used for the latter... And it's far better at the goal of Iaijutsu head game than the simple push your luck of 1E, 2E, and 3E duels.

Each duel now includes deciding win conditions and allowed weapons and styles. Iai duels is called ''high art'' by crane only, not the law-demanded default anymore, Duel rules easily allow one strike rules in form of one roll duels.

10 hours ago, Avatar111 said:

you do realise that you need to take a Predict action instead of Centering or Striking, right ?

And if you succeed, you move the strife clock up a good bit. It's a gamble and part of the head game.

2 hours ago, Shosur0 said:

A few questions about duels (don't have my book yet).

1. How many iaijutsu techniques are there (there were 2 in beta iirc correctly : horizontal and vertical cuts).

2. Does every bushi have access to them?

3. Do you guys see design space for more iaijutsu strikes?

#1: still just the two.

#2: every bushi at rank 2. Some at rank 1.

#3: oh, heck yes. The problem isn't the design space, but the emulation of Iaidō, and how it limits the design space. A draw-to-block is hard to emulate in the current structure.

14 hours ago, Avatar111 said:

you cannot predict void, as written you can only predict; air,earth,fire,water.

predict as written is 100% trash/useless.

the question is, do you prefer to strike twice, or center and strike ? debatable i agree. but predict always suck.

there you go. read my tweaks to duels, that is how they should play out.

The second strike in a traditional iaijutsu duel is a dishonorable tactic. It's not a viable way to win, especially since the judges determine, not the fighters themselves.

6 hours ago, The Grand Falloon said:

Psh. Never Predict Earth on the first round. That's amateur hour. Predict Water, because that's the only way he can draw and attack in the first round. Or even Air (yes, even on a Hida), because he knows it will make your Rising Cut a TN 4 attack.

wow. ok.. hopeless. it isnt worth my time anymore. you know Rising Cut is only a WORST strike right ?? its only advantage is allow you to attack the first round in a different ring than water. Which is decent.

the rules of duels as is HEAVILY favor striking all the time, from the point system to the rules. That is how you strife out your opponent with fire, that is how you beat his fatigue to crit him etc. This is how you score points. Predicting is useless in the duels written as is.

now, IF you want to do those one strike Iaido duel, it is a different animal. But I still think predict is useless, as you have 2 options here; strife out the opponent (you can't do with predict) to fish for a finishing blow, or strike and hope for 2 opportunities (that is your only way to crit without compromising the opponent or if you have a kata that can bleed them). Predict can be useful here if you are facing an opponent really strong in earth and you want to strike 2nd turn. but thats all. thats all predict is used for.

Everyone is also assuming that both duelists are walking into the duel with 0 strife accumulated. I think there's opportunity there to stress or be stressed out by the political circus preceding the duel. If someone has to enter a duel compromised, Rising Cut is almost a sure immediate win.

The technique only looks useless if you approach it from the standpoint of a first round strike. If you focus on centering, strife mitigation, and playing the head games, you stand to win the battle against compounding strife.

Long story short - the idea that if the opponent is compromised they cannot defend against Rising Cut means it's a critical strike, because they cannot use fatigue to "defend". So you focus on not getting hit and not taking strife till you get your opportunity. Not sure how well the meta supports the strategy, but that's the intent.

The only way to "heal' strife, and or "give strife" to an opponent is to make a roll and use the opportunities.

The only action with a roll is Strike..

Plus you gain "scoring" if you strike first and for all fatigue dmg you deliver.

Now, if you have different techniques that can give you a roll, it can change everything. Or if the GM allows social rolls so you could fire taunt the opponent, maybe?

All I am certain of, is that "predict" is absolutely useless. The duel rules need to allow ways for a better duelist to strife out his opponent. "Staredown" being the best tool for a high initiative character, because I have a feeling initiative is so important in duels that the opponent might be forced to spend strife to act first eventually. But, i still think duel rules needs a way to make rolls during your turn without using "strike".

Right now, a good duelist is a big crab with lots of earth and water. But that is strictly because hes hard to strife out and hard to crit.

Or a high fire iaijutsu character who basically win ini, iai strike with fire and strike again all the turns with fire in hope of making you lose composure because of the strife and fatigue pressure of his attacks.

The water duelist will just slowly take you down, but will be impossible to strife out. Aside from the water technique that can make an opponent bleed and him not having to use a iai strike for first round, hes probably the weakest (not by much). Though, having good water is always good if you start losing the strife race.

The air duelist is a high risk high reward. Hes harder to hit, he can keep opportunity dices, but can be strifed out easily.

Predict is only useful if you do a duel to first blood and you are facing an opponent who picks earth all the time. And then again, he still have the advantage because you are basically skipping one turn out of two so that you can "maybe" crit him.

I'll have to give an example when I get home from work/fencing class, but I saw RAW gives you opportunities to lock your opponent out of two rings with a combination of initiative techniques, and predict. It'll be hard to hit someone settling in air stance if they're forcing you to use your weakest rings, and by the time rings get rounded enough to circumvent that, all duelists will have newer better tricks in their bag.

You also get points for achieving the objective and the highest critical strike severity, which will be high against a compromised opponent plus a Kakita basically gets to add their school rank in free points. The points for fatigue are meant as a valid strategy for people to close the points gap. Their narrative hints that they wanted to balance points so victory is made in 1 or 2 points, because a narrow victory = uncertain victory = drama.

43 minutes ago, ExplodingJoe said:

I'll have to give an example when I get home from work/fencing class, but I saw RAW gives you opportunities to lock your opponent out of two rings with a combination of initiative techniques, and predict. It'll be hard to hit someone settling in air stance if they're forcing you to use your weakest rings, and by the time rings get rounded enough to circumvent that, all duelists will have newer better tricks in their bag.

You also get points for achieving the objective and the highest critical strike severity, which will be high against a compromised opponent plus a Kakita basically gets to add their school rank in free points. The points for fatigue are meant as a valid strategy for people to close the points gap. Their narrative hints that they wanted to balance points so victory is made in 1 or 2 points, because a narrow victory = uncertain victory = drama.

how will you "compromise" your opponent again ? oh, that's right, using rolling initiative with Fire, and Striking with Fire?

Predict will do nothing for you there. i'll repeat for 100th time; duel rules need a way to create strife/pressure on an opponent without striking. without that, it devolves into a strike every turn is the best way to win. for ALL kinds of duels written in the book. the only duel (that isn't in the book, but that some people may want to do) that would be different is a "one strike only allowed iaido style duel". Then predict could be useful to block earth stance when you are ready to strike. But that is very niche case. making the action of "predict" very, very trash in 99% of the cases.

there is no "mindgames" in the duel rules as written. its a strike fiesta.

which is my original issue with the whole thing. and I will find a way to fix this.

There is nothing in the Duel rules preventing you from making a Skill Check using your Fire Ring to give your opponent Strife with Opportunities, such as a Composition / Fire check to recite a spontaneous haiku about how your opponent's technique reminds you of a certain man from Islands of Silk and Spice. Get some Opportunities, and increase that Strife.

I do agree that going with Strike every turn until you win is, honestly, the best way to win MOST duels at present. Perhaps a good counter for this is a change to "Finishing Blow" which allows you to go for a Finishing Blow if A) your opponent becomes Compromised or B) your opponent fails an Attack action targeting you. It would make using a "Strike" action risky.

4 minutes ago, sndwurks said:

There is nothing in the Duel rules preventing you from making a Skill Check using your Fire Ring to give your opponent Strife with Opportunities, such as a Composition / Fire check to recite a spontaneous haiku about how your opponent's technique reminds you of a certain man from Islands of Silk and Spice. Get some Opportunities, and increase that Strife.

I do agree that going with Strike every turn until you win is, honestly, the best way to win MOST duels at present. Perhaps a good counter for this is a change to "Finishing Blow" which allows you to go for a Finishing Blow if A) your opponent becomes Compromised or B) your opponent fails an Attack action targeting you. It would make using a "Strike" action risky.

exact. need to find a way put more "mindgames" in the duels. or risks. I think a good way to do this would be by reworking the "predict" action. somehow.

i do like your idea also. need testing.

4 minutes ago, Avatar111 said:

exact. need to find a way put more "mindgames" in the duels. or risks. I think a good way to do this would be by reworking the "predict" action. somehow.

i do like your idea also. need testing.

Perhaps a rewording / changing of Predict would be key?

Predict
As a Scheme Action, secretly write down Earth, Air, Water, Fire, or Void and make a TN 2 Tactics check. The next time your opponent declares their Stance, you may reveal your answer. If you are incorrect, both you and your opponent gain 2 Strife. If you are correct, your opponent gains 4 Strife and you may make a Finishing Blow if you succeeded on your Tactics check.

This way, you are not forcing your opponent to change their Stance (which is a weird mechanical effect, honestly), but you are punishing them for being predictable. By attaching a Dice Roll to this action, you are preventing someone from spamming Water Stance to Strike then Predict. It also allows a PC to enter into Water Stance on their first round, ready their weapon and do something OTHER than call Strike.

Personally, I still think that in a Iaijutsu Duel, every Strike action should give you -1 or -2 points for "Determining the Winner" scoring. That way, you are incentivized to only Strike when you can make it count.

3 hours ago, Avatar111 said:

wow.    ok.. hopeless. it isnt worth my time anymor  e   . 

And yet, here you are, still jabbering away, being snide and insulting to one and all...

45 minutes ago, sndwurks said:

I do agree that going with Strike every turn until you win is, honestly, the best way to win MOST duels at present. Perhaps a good counter for this is a change to "Finishing Blow" which allows you to go for a Finishing Blow if A) your opponent becomes Compromised or B) your opponent fails an Attack action targeting you. It would make using a "Strike" action risky.

That makes Air stance and Striking as Air lot more dangerous in every duel. I have to believe that, considering the above scenario that Falloon gave has the opportunity to result in your opponent taking 7 strife before they even pull their sword out, the current techniques have enough promise without making drastic changes. Even failing the prediction, that's 3 strife just to take a stance and pull a sword out. More if they tried to bid to win initiative. More if they rolled strife to try to strike. As was said before, it's one way to approach things, and going that approach would mean focusing on techniques like Courtier's Resolve to ensure the edge.

I don't mind the mechanic. It's like when you take a passing step while your opponent is mid advance in long sword fencing. They have to scramble to find good footing while you're pressing on them, because you predicted their step.

21 minutes ago, sndwurks said:

Personally, I still think that in a Iaijutsu Duel, every Strike action should give you -1 or -2 points for "Determining the Winner" scoring. That way, you are incentivized to only Strike when you can make it count.

Changing up the point system is pretty reasonable depending on how they play out. Keep in mind that "First Strike" should be first Critical Strike, which is not always severe enough to satisfy duel conditions. Fatigue damage insinuates your opponent defended and was not hit.

1 hour ago, sndwurks said:

Perhaps a rewording / changing of Predict would be key?

Predict
As a Scheme Action, secretly write down Earth, Air, Water, Fire, or Void and make a TN 2 Tactics check. The next time your opponent declares their Stance, you may reveal your answer. If you are incorrect, both you and your opponent gain 2 Strife. If you are correct, your opponent gains 4 Strife and you may make a Finishing Blow if you succeeded on your Tactics check.

This way, you are not forcing your opponent to change their Stance (which is a weird mechanical effect, honestly), but you are punishing them for being predictable. By attaching a Dice Roll to this action, you are preventing someone from spamming Water Stance to Strike then Predict. It also allows a PC to enter into Water Stance on their first round, ready their weapon and do something OTHER than call Strike.

Personally, I still think that in a Iaijutsu Duel, every Strike action should give you -1 or -2 points for "Determining the Winner" scoring. That way, you are incentivized to only Strike when you can make it count.

will test that when i'm back at home.

1 hour ago, ExplodingJoe said:

That makes Air stance and Striking as Air lot more dangerous in every duel. I have to believe that, considering the above scenario that Falloon gave has the opportunity to result in your opponent taking 7 strife before they even pull their sword out, the current techniques have enough promise without making drastic changes. Even failing the prediction, that's 3 strife just to take a stance and pull a sword out. More if they tried to bid to win initiative. More if they rolled strife to try to strike. As was said before, it's one way to approach things, and going that approach would mean focusing on techniques like Courtier's Resolve to ensure the edge.

I don't mind the mechanic. It's like when you take a passing step while your opponent is mid advance in long sword fencing. They have to scramble to find good footing while you're pressing on them, because you predicted their step.

Changing up the point system is pretty reasonable depending on how they play out. Keep in mind that "First Strike" should be first Critical Strike, which is not always severe enough to satisfy duel conditions. Fatigue damage insinuates your opponent defended and was not hit.

which is "fun" to me, Finishing Blows is a great mechanic, very cinematic, and thematic to what iaijutsu duels should be.

the current "predict" option doesn't capitalize enough on making mindgames important. If mindgames are directly related to strife (which staredown bidding is, and is good as is) then you make the duels much more tense.

2 hours ago, The Grand Falloon said:

And yet, here you are, still jabbering away, being snide and insulting to one and all...

its just a bit of strife, you'll survive.

btw, in this thread, I agree 100% with the original poster first question/conclusion. So far, despite all you guys trying, I still side with the original poster. His issue is true, i think, after the testing i have done.