So... I dont like how they have approached duels in the new edition (iaijutsu ones at least) so im tweaking it for my group. First I was going to use the opposite roll system, but then I talked about it with Shinjo Koetsu here in the forums. He shared some ideas that were cool, so I took a slightly different path. I took ideas from 4e and I took things from this edition cause they did think of some awesome stuff (strife bidding, predict action etc). Its just my first draft but have tested it with a couple of characters and im liking it so far. A lot of strategy and options I think.

The idea is that each Phase is a different round:

Initiative:

For a duel, the base initiative value for each opponent is their Focus. Then characters roll a TN1 Meditation check and add successes to their Focus value. A dditionally, each character may secretly bid additional strife to increase their initiative value for that round. Each character secretly chooses a number between 0 and their focus attribute and they add it to their initiative value. The bid and the final value is kept hidden.

Assessment Phase:

Both players roll Void - Sentiment prior to taking stances. If successful, the character learns 1 piece of information about their opponent. For each bonus success, they learn one additional piece of information. The information they can learn are: The value of 1 ring (Air, Earth, Fire, Water, Void), the value of 1 derived attribute (Endurance, Composure, Focus, Vigilance), the value of 1 skill (Martial Arts [Melee], Meditation), the opponent's current Strife, or any Iaijutsu Kata the player has access to.

Focus Phase:

Each opponent can take one of the following actions:

- Focus. The character rolls Air (Meditation). Every success adds 1 to their initiative. (Focus tries to improve initiative even further).

- Staredown. The character makes a Fire (Command) roll to try to unsettle their opponent. Every opportunity spent infilcts 2 strife to their opponent. (Staredown tries to drive your opponent to a compromised position so that he cant keep strife dice during the strike roll).

- Center. The character rolls a number of dice equal to their Void ring. He may reserve any number of these dice. If he does, the next time he makes a skill roll he may roll one fewer skill die for each reserved die, then add the reserved dice to the result. (Center tries to improve your strike roll).

- Predict. The character secretly selects a Stance. The next time your opponent chooses their stance, you may reveal your selection. If it matches the stance they chose, your opponent suffers 4 strife and must choose a different stance. (Predict is a high risk – high reward action; it can be useless if you miss, or devastating if you guess correctly; it could be too good vs bushi without iaijutsu techniques that really need to pick water.... so may have to change this).

Strike Phase:

Each opponent reveals initiative and selects a stance for the strike. Opponents strike in initiative order. Here iaijutsu techniques can be used and opportunities can be spent depending on stance chosen etc....

If the duel is to first strike, first samurai to connect a blow wins.

If the duel is to first blood (crit of severity 5 or more), incapacitation (warrior's test), or death, then it just goes on like a skirmish. Kinda like in the old edition.

So the idea is to try to raise your initiative as much as you can while not getting compromised (that would shut you down from using strife dice). Your opponent can play the same game, or try to compromise you, or try to f.e. lock you out of your best stance and perhaps go air to raise his TN.... There's several options.

I like it, but it is a big revamp. I prefer changing as less things as possible instead of adding more layers of checks etc.

like right now, you have a check in: Initiative, Focus and Assessment phase... that is a LOT of opportunities to spend and things to track. Which I feel could be bloated.

I really like the idea of giving a "predict" free action to both character during the staredown phase though (same time as initiative bid, but before the initiative bid is revealed).

This doesn't require a check, put some "mindgame" into the duels and is generally fun and simple mechanic.

My only reason I haven't done that yet is because with that, you could essentially lock your opponent out of one stance all the time... which is a bit boring. So, I would need to revise the predict action to work slightly differently while keeping its flavor.

so far, thats what i have in mind:

Keep Predict the same ruling EXCEPT it would NOT lock the character out of his stance, but instead would divide the ring value by 2 for the turn. meaning ring 1=1, 2=1, 3=2, 4=2, 5=3.

so, to recap: free predict action during staredowns (predict becomes a non-action, more like just something that happens) for both characters (and remove predict action from regular actions), plus predict wouldn't lock out of stance but divide your ring by 2 for the turn (and still give 4 strife).

My concern is that it seems to monofocus a couple of elements (Void/Air/Fire seem the best, as Earth and Water don't actually have actions associated)

2 hours ago, Ikiry0 said:

My concern is that it seems to monofocus a couple of elements (Void/Air/Fire seem the best, as Earth and Water don't actually have actions associated)

edit: i was in the wrong thread. disregard my comment

2 hours ago, Ikiry0 said:

My concern is that it seems to monofocus a couple of elements (Void/Air/Fire seem the best, as Earth and Water don't actually have actions associated)

Actually earth is quite powerful. In testing Hida samurais with high composure can bid higher during initiative giving them a fair chance vs traditionally good duelists like Kakita.

F.e. In one of our tests I was running a Hida vs one of my players' Kakita. He bid quite high thinking I would do the same (which I did). During focus phase I predicted Air and he did strike with Air (he shouldn't have). So bam! He took more strife becoming compromised. He had to swap to a worse stance and he couldn't keep stride dice so he did strike first but he missed (I attacked with air too, thinking he would predict Earth) !

Water is a must if you don't have a iaijutsu technique.

That said, I get what you are saying. The thing is that we are talking about iaijutsu duels so I expect agile duelists to be better at them. Also remember that if you challenge a Hida samurai the challenged traditionally gets to chose dueling conditions. So the Hida will call for a warrior's test (to incapacitation) and prolly beat the Kakita to a bleeding pulp. "Ha! You strike first but I laugh at your puny blows". Earth is very good in skirmishes and I can see Earth oriented samurais being great in all other type of duels/clashes.

what do you think of this strong simplification of your idea (basically making "predict" its own thing during staredowns)

-First, remove the "predict action" from the list of possible actions to execute during your turn.

-Second, make the "predict action" a non-action, free event, that both duelist can take during each Staredown phase of the duel (same time as you do the bidding for initiative).

-The ruling would be the same, you can "predict" a stance between earth/fire/air/water, and if the opponent chose that stance at the beginning of his turn he suffers the consequences.

-The consequences would be: Lose your stance ring value in Strife AND Your stance ring value is then divided by 2 (round up) until the end of your turn.

This makes the the "predict" happens every round, which creates some fun mindgames, but it doesn't totally keep you out of your stance (but make you much weaker for that turn!) and still gives some strife. I feel this would improve the fun factors in duels, while not adding more "checks", and giving players some fun options like "you want to water stance and hit me first turn? well, it will cost you, and will be harder to achieve the hit!"

10 minutes ago, Avatar111 said:

doesn't totally keep you out of your stance (but make you much weaker for that turn!) and still gives some strife. I feel this would improve the fun factors in duels, while not adding more "checks", and giving players some fun options like "you want to water stance and hit me first turn? well, it will cost you, and will be harder to achieve the hit!"

Interesting idea. I could totally make predict a standard step for both duelists.

Do you find predict weak atm? Cause your suggestion is harsher. I mean imagine I'm a Mirumoto duelist with Fire 4, Air 3 as my best rings. You assess me successfully and you predict Fire. With your suggestion for predict I take 4 strife (same as standard predict) and I'm forced to go with Fire 2 keeping only 2 dice instead of swapping to Air 3.

1 hour ago, Shosur0 said:

Interesting idea. I could totally make predict a standard step for both duelists.

Do you find predict weak atm? Cause your suggestion is harsher. I mean imagine I'm a Mirumoto duelist with Fire 4, Air 3 as my best rings. You assess me successfully and you predict Fire. With your suggestion for predict I take 4 strife (same as standard predict) and I'm forced to go with Fire 2 keeping only 2 dice instead of swapping to Air 3.

well if you know that I predict Fire... pick Air.

point is I don't like perfect options, basically predict was "keeping you out of a stance you wanted to be in". Now it would just make you weaker but you can still use the stance.

for example, the earth stance user. he doesnt want you to crit him. Well, sure, he can STILL do it, but will have much harder time hitting you. Which gives a choice I suppose.

there are probably other ways to figure it out and I am open to hearing your suggestions!!

but the general idea I got from your own idea is that by simply giving a free predict action to both duelist during staredown that doesnt 100% keep you out of the predicted stance ... you open the door to fun duels that are not as binary as they were under the regular rule without really adding or changing rules so much.

edit: your point made sense so I revised to that:

Lose your stance ring value in Strife AND Your stance ring value is then divided by 2 (round up) until the end of your turn if you want to use that stance, or you can select Void stance instead.

that basically open up the possibility to use "center" or a basic Void strike instead of having a nerfed turn if you prefer, or eventually enable you to use the rank 5 "stricking as void" technique. but hey, its rank 5...

too much thinking lol... maybe would be better to let them chose another stance (any stance) if they don't want to use their predicted stance at /2 value...

thinking...

@Shosur0 , I really like your write-up for this! It reminds me a lot of the old 4e dueling rules (which I loved). A few questions/thoughts:

1) For First Strike when you say " to connect a blow" , are you using the RAW "Critical Strike of any rating" or simply succeeding on the Martial Arts check (typically TN2)? If the former, it would still make someone in earth stance effectively immune to a turn-1 win in that case--correct?

2) Have you done much subsequent testing? How has this played out in-game?

3) How did this play out for people without iaijutsu tech? Like you mentioned, a predict: water would shut them down pretty hard during the dual pass....which might be fine. It's what Iai techs are for after all.

4) Do you see people use something other than Predict? It seems like locking out earth ring or water ring (depending on the duel type) would be key.

1 hour ago, AltitudeMatters said:

@Shosur0 , I really like your write-up for this! It reminds me a lot of the old 4e dueling rules (which I loved). A few questions/thoughts:

1) For First Strike when you say " to connect a blow" , are you using the RAW "Critical Strike of any rating" or simply succeeding on the Martial Arts check (typically TN2)? If the former, it would still make someone in earth stance effectively immune to a turn-1 win in that case--correct?

2) Have you done much subsequent testing? How has this played out in-game?

3) How did this play out for people without iaijutsu tech? Like you mentioned, a predict: water would shut them down pretty hard during the dual pass....which might be fine. It's what Iai techs are for after all.

4) Do you see people use something other than Predict? It seems like locking out earth ring or water ring (depending on the duel type) would be key.

Hi there! This system is pretty much based in the old 4e dueling rules. I took a few things that thought were cool about 5e. Im finishing a 4e campaign (like 10 sessions left or so) and would like to move to 5e for the next campaign so im tweaking the things that my players dont like. We did a one shot with the new rules; I ran an old adventure from Heroes of Rokugan season 1 (Champions of the Emerald Empire) called People's Expense and they really liked the new system with a couple of "but"s... One was the duelling system.

1- For first strike we are using "succeeding on the Martial Arts check". RAW you could argue that the character has defended (with fatigue) but then its impossible to make a system to recreate the traditional single-strike samurai duels. So we decided that succeding is enough. It's not a damaging blow, since it only removed fatigue, so just some bruises, but the blow connected and that is enough.

Also its not always 2 (f.e. striking in Air stance can raise it, rising cut has a TN=Vigilance and we've added some custom katas that can also improve your TN).

2 - I asked my players to roll different rank 2 characters for the one shot. I had a Mirumoto Bushi, a Hida Bushi, a Matsu Bushi and a Phoenix shugenja. Since my Mirumoto player is playing a somewhat renowned duelist he wanted to test the system so we sparred. We did like 10-12 duels using the 3 bushi we had. To be honest we were quite happy since we got a lot of different results. There's a lot of mind games in it.

F.e. earth and fire bushi are surprisingly good cause their high composure lets them bid a lot of strife to get the first blow, even though their focus is a bit worse than f.e. air bushi.

3. People without a iaijutsu tech are pretty much screwed, but I guess that is fine. That is what iaijutsu tech are for. If you are gonna be dueling you better learn iaijutsu. Also, not all duels are to first strike. So a good Hida will probably dont care if you strike first. All he cares is who goes down first.

The only odd result that I dont like with this system is having 2 samurai in a iaijutsu duel without iaijutsut techniques. If both predict water there's this odd firs turn were both are caught off-guard and have to switch stance and thus can draw their katanas but are unable to strike in the same round. So I guess they will have to go to round 2 and go on with the skirmish.

4 - Again, there's a lot of mind games in this. It works pretty well when you dont know your opponent. Predict in Phase 2 is strong but can be worthless if you are smart. First, your assessment roll will probably will be unable to give you all the info about your opponent that you would want. You prolly want to know if he knows a iaijutsu technique, and prolly want to know his Composure and current strife, perhaps one ring?

So imagine Im a Matsu bushi with Fire 3, Earth 3. My opponent has asked about my iaijutsu technique (i have one), and my composure/strife. Ive bid a lot of strife to get first blow, and im near being compromised. I suspect my opponent is going to go with Staredown or Predict in Phase 2 (Focus) to get me compromised. Matsu are traditionally Fire focused bushi, so Im going to use center (this can help me get the successes in case i get compromised because of staredown) and im going to strike with Earth. We go to Phase 3 (Strike) and my opponent predicts Fire, and misses... and he is wasted his Phase 2 action. So Predict can be good vs ppl without iaijutsu (and I think it should) and perhaps bushi that are focused on one ring AND you know about that. Otherwise its pretty much a lottery.

If you test it and find anything odd, please let me know. This is stil a work in progress.

36 minutes ago, Shosur0 said:

If you test it and find anything odd, please let me know. This is still a work in progress. 

Awesome! Thanks for the insight.

My group is a pack that (aside from myself and one other) didn't play 4e, and don't seem to care much about dueling. That said, I expect they'll probably get themselves roped into a duel in this week's game barring some impressive social rolls, and I'm inclined to give this a go! I'll let you know if it occurs and/or what the results are. ?

I kind of regret the loss of Finishing Blow -- I like the idea of the Staredown-to-Stress, followed by a faster-than-thought finish. I think this still plays out *pretty* well, though.

I see one issue... Center.

Center, RAW, is roll the MA-melee or MA-unarmed skill; it is thus adding white dice. It's most valuable when keeping no-strife explosives.

Center, in your variant, is rolling a ring, so is rolling black dice.

The important metrics are strife and successes. converting the d6 to twelfths for easier comparison.

Either die, explosive is 1/6 chance

• Black: 6/12 successes
  • 2 of those 6 are explosive & strife
  • 2 of those 6 are success & strife
• White: 7/12 successes
  • 1 of those 7 is explosive & strife
  • 1 of those 7 is explosive (no strife)
  • 2 of those 7 is success & strife
  • 1 of those 7 is success & opportunity
  • 2 f those 7 are success (no strife)

While the opportunity isn't that important, the lower strife chance with explosive is.

3 hours ago, AK_Aramis said:

I see one issue... Center.

Center, RAW, is roll the MA-melee or MA-unarmed skill; it is thus adding white dice. It's most valuable when keeping no-strife explosives.

Center, in your variant, is rolling a ring, so is rolling black dice.

The important metrics are strife and successes. converting the d6 to twelfths for easier comparison.

Either die, explosive is 1/6 chance

• Black: 6/12 successes
  • 2 of those 6 are explosive & strife
  • 2 of those 6 are success & strife
• White: 7/12 successes
  • 1 of those 7 is explosive & strife
  • 1 of those 7 is explosive (no strife)
  • 2 of those 7 is success & strife
  • 1 of those 7 is success & opportunity
  • 2 f those 7 are success (no strife)

While the opportunity isn't that important, the lower strife chance with explosive is.

I see what you mean. I wanted to give Void some use in duels, like Air (focus) and Fire (staredown). Earth and Water are pretty good already since Earth adds a lot to composure and helps you resist crits (somewhat relevant in duels to first blood) and water let's you "compete" at iaijutsu even if you don't have a technique. So I thought about Center and had to go with Ring dice. I could make it a Void / Meditation roll and just reserve dice up to your void, but that would prolly be too good?