I'm looking for feedback on an Iaijutsu rule set inspired by CFS I've been playtesting. The more I use the RAW Duel rules, the more I find them to be game of shot for shot with the winner being the first to draw and hit consistently. Obviously some of that is what a Iaijutsu duel should be, but then i would just use the one-roll rule. I find the makes a lot of the options like Predict and Center trap options, and for stances like water to be clear winners.

The goal of my rules is to make mindgames a more prominent approach to winning a duel while making each stance viable. The key changes are to the action economy to allow non-attack actions to be taken by both parties before blades are swung. Duels are also more likely to end in a compromised character getting hit with a finishing blow.

Duel Rounds

Each round of an Iaijutsu duel consists of three phases:

1. Challenge: First contenders size each other up
2. Focus: hear contenders attempt to get the mental upper hand
3. Strike: contenders reach for their steal and strike

If no winner has been determined after going through all the phases, start a new round .

Challenge Phase

This phase is about predicting your opponents move

1. Each participant secretly chooses what stance they'll use and what stance their opponent will use
2. Reveal stance and prediction
   • If you guess your opponents stance, they suffer 4 strife and must choose a different stance for the round
3. If it's the first round
   • Both roll for initiative with TN1 Ring (Meditation)
   • A contenders adds their successes to focus for their total initiative. Highest result has the initiativ e
     

Focus Phase
Contenders can perform one non-Attack duel action this phase

Strike Phase

Contenders can perform any one duel action this phase .
If no winner has been determined by the end, start a new round

Duel Actions

Focus - TN1 Ring (Meditation) - Scheme

• Increase your initiative by 1
• Increase it by +1 for every bonus succ

Intimidate - TN Vig (Command) - Scheme

• Inflict 2 strife
  • +1 for every 2 bonus succ

Read - TN Vig (Sentiment) - Scheme

• Opponent tells you 2 rings, they must choose one of these next round

Feign - TN Vig (Performance) - Scheme

• Increase TN to target you by 1 till the end of your next turn
  • +1 for every 2 bonus succ

Draw a weapon - Support

Calming Breath - Support

• Remove 1 strife and 1 fatigue to a min of ½ composure or endurance respectively

Center - Support

• Roll Void skill dice
  • may reserve any number of these dice.
  • Roll that many fewer die and add the reserved dice

Use a Shuji - Special

Finishing Blow - TN 2 Martial [Melee] - Special

• Inflict critical strike = (weapon damage x 2) + bonus succ
• This action can only be taken w hen your opponent becomes compromised, or unmasks.
  • Can be performed during any phase
• Interrupt the action to perform a finishing blow with a drawn weapon

Strike - TN 2 Martial [Melee] - Attack

• Deal weapon damage to opponent
• If you fail, suffer 3 strife

Use a Kata - Attack

• If you fail, suffer 3 strife

Range

It's always assumed both contender are within weapon range of the other in an Iaijutsu duel.

Let me know what flaws you find or what you guys think.

Hi, long time lurker, but decided to actively start participating.

First of all, if you are pretty much rewriting entire sections of a system like the way you are doing. It's best to rewrite the entire system or use a different one.

My take would be:

on page 258 in the bullet point for Iaijutsu Duel (to first strike or first blood) I would consider the following:

• Iaijutsu duels are highly ritualized: combatants wear ceremonial clothes, only the katana and the wakizashi are permitted, and each warrior must begin with their blades sheathed, drawing them no earlier than their first turn. They must attack on the same turn they draw and they can only attack once.
  When fought to the first strike, the duel objective is to inflict a critical strike on the opponent. When fought to the first blood, the duel objective is to inflict the bleeding condition on the foe. If you strike first and doesn't hit a critical strike, you lose by default.

For the Iaijutsu Cut: Crossing Blade, I would add this additional opportunity option:

• Add a Two Opportunities option for Iaijutsu Cut: Crossing Blade with "If you succeed, inflict a critical strike on your target with severity equal to your weapon’s deadliness." So you can strike someone that is not turtling on Earth Stance.

This has a bunch of effects.

1. Predict becomes an actual choice, specially if you know the opponent doesn't have any Iaijutsu kata, because they must telegraph their attacks by choosing Water stance.
2. Center becomes an actual choice as well, as you try to get as many pre-determined successes and exp. successes as possible.
3. If it's a duel to first blood, and because you are using razor edge weapons, you just need to cause a flesh wound and risk of dismemberment due to duels can drop significantly.
4. It makes Iaijutsu Cut: Rising Blade relevant as well, because once the target is Compromised, it can't defend against the kata, so you can easily hit a critical hit with TN 1 (The vigilance of a Compromised target and the TN of the kata as per errata)

The con that I can foresee:

• The finishing blow is actually optional, but if you are a character fighting in an Iaijutsu Duel without any Iaijutsu kata (and why would you do that???) against an opponent turtling in Earth Stance, your only actual chance of hitting a Critical Strike would be with a Finishing Blow (which uses double the deadliness) so you might end up killing or dismembering the opponent. You might consider this a feature of the system, as it shows a clumsy duelist not actually having the finesse to strike some one in a "controlled manner", though.

I've been pondering something similar for a while. I think a few tweaks to the existing rules make it pretty workable, though it still takes a long time, and the other players can get bored. It might be good for the climax of a story, but trying to have one every session would get tedious. Unfortunately, the one-roll duels in the book are... lame. It's very swingy and doesn't take into account anything other than weapon skill.

I posted this about a year ago (holy smokes, time is moving!): 3-Roll Duels

In that thread, Magnus Grendel reminded me of the dueling rules from Edge of the Empire (there's a basic explanation in the thread), which i think might be the key. Reshuffling things a bit, I think the key is:

Challenge: A roll either to predict your opponent's move or to psyche them out. Sentiment, Command, something like that.
Focus: An initiative roll as written.
Strike: The duel begins as written.

The key is the Challenge. In EotE, this phase allows you to save up advantages and such, or apply penalties to your opponent. If we added the same thing to this game, a first-round Critical Strike (possibly even a Finishing Blow) would be much more likely. It's a tricky balance, but boosting your initiative and banking Advantage could end things pretty quick.

On 3/4/2020 at 10:28 AM, Diogo Salazar said:

When fought to the first blood, the duel objective is to inflict the bleeding condition on the foe.

The problem with this is Flowing Water Strike and Crashing Wave Style. Flowing Water, as long as they hit TN 3, there's nothing you can do to resist. Crashing Wave, they don't even need to succeed, but you're still faced with a resistance roll.

13 minutes ago, The Grand Falloon said:

The problem with this is Flowing Water Strike and Crashing Wave Style. Flowing Water, as long as they hit TN 3, there's nothing you can do to resist. Crashing Wave, they don't even need to succeed, but you're still faced with a resistance roll.

Duels to first blood... The system just can't deal with them whatsoever.
from Iaijutsu strike that can't crit, to earth stance, to all kind of cheese techniques and school abilities...

This victory condition should be deleted and just left to a decent scoring system.
Duels to first strike too.

The other kinds of duels (death, incapacitated etc) are cool enough.

Yeah, I forgot about those two kata. I guess study your opponents before you agree to a duel to first blood then?

Or only agree to duels to incapacitation or death.

So, after pondering for a while, I guess it doesn’t matter that much in a duel to first blood that an opponent has Flowing Water Strike or Crushing Wave Style. If you are suspicious or certain that your opponent has one of them, just predict Water Stance every turn. If you are right, they get locked out of Water Stance for that turn and get 4 strife anyway.

Or just make duels to first blood any Lightly Wounded result or higher. Give Rising Blade "**: the target can not defend against this damage." Probably remove the "can't defend if Compromised" part, because that's pretty redundant in a duel anyway.

Doing this blocks Earth cheese almost completely, though Earth Opportunities can still help resist your Critical Strikes and the stance is a hard counter to a Water draw-and-strike. It's still tough to roll that Crit, but if you Predict in Air Stance, you can bank an Opportunity, then be sure to spend a Void point on Rising Blade.

The one trying to go for water could always try to predict for Earth as well.

I’m just trying to find a way of making predict relevant. It is an action that only works 20% of the time, statistically speaking and even then, if always you pick Void, you can’t be predicted...

It would be nice if predict did something else as well.

6 hours ago, Diogo Salazar said:

The one trying to go for water could always try to predict for Earth as well.

I’m just trying to find a way of making predict relevant. It is an action that only works 20% of the time, statistically speaking and even then, if always you pick Void, you can’t be predicted...

It would be nice if predict did something else as well.

That's why I make Predict a rolled action, Sentiment, TN 1, and with 2 bonus successes you can choose a second Element to Predict. This greatly increases the chance that your opponent will trigger the 4 Strife effect, though it can't trigger twice. If you Predict Water and Fire, and your opponent chooses Water, he suffers 4 Strife and is locked out of Water, but he's safe to then take a Fire stance.

Being a rolled action means it also allows you to spend Opportunities. Using Predict in a Fire Stance means you can inflict 2 Strife, whether you succeed or not, and those Bonus Successes from Strife mean you can easily Predict a second Ring. Predicting with Earth allows you to reduce the severity of the next incoming Crit, which could put the kibosh on that Rising Blade. Water can recover Strife, which is handy in a duel, while Air can bank an Opportunity, and also increases the TN to use Predict on you. TN 2 is still pretty easy, but it's a lot harder to lock out that second Ring.

I really think the duel rules need to be drastically overhauled. I loved the duels in previous editions (although didn't get to use them much, so maybe that was just ignorance.)

Among the biggest problems with duels in this edition is that players not involved in the duel are pretty much left twiddling their thumbs. I actually try to encourage my other players to do stuff during the duels, but they always come back at me with the idea that duels are a matter of honor and should not be interfered with. I mean there is plenty of story that talks about courtiers subtly manipulating the outcome of duels. A proper duel in the current edition can't even take place for at least 8 hours after the challenge specifically so that other people will have the opportunity to mess with the duelists . So for me, any revised dueling system should incorporate some examples of what the characters who aren't actively involved in the duel might be doing which could impact the duel.. whether it's using your mirror to shine sunlight into the eyes of one of the competitors (which is clearly cheating if caught), or simply wearing some trinket that inspires one of the duelists to be their best (which isn't interfering with anything, right? I mean you could hardly claim that wearing a Daidoji mon while your Daidoji friend is dueling a scorpion is "dishonorable").

The thing is, some characters are specifically meant to perform subtle manipulations that either don't actually break the rules, or aren't obvious and I feel like the official dueling rules needs to obviously incorporate that, so that my players (none of whom have any experience with the l5r setting outside of my games) don't scoff at me when I suggest to them that it's okay to do things.

That was always true though - you're not supposed to interfere openly and in other editions the duels didn't involve other characters either. They just were more strictly iaijutsu-only.

Edit to add: but finding more ways to involve the other players is still a good idea! Maybe open a thread gathering ideas for that?

Well, for sure other players can act during a duel and the line of what is permitted or not can be a fine line indeed depending on the judge. Shouting words of encouragement might or might not be cheating depending on the interpretation of the judge. You could have hecklers as well.

If anything, this new system allows in an even easier manner for other players to interfere in a duel.

Fire social rolls with the right opportunities might be considered heckling, Earth social rolls being words of encouragement, etc.

4 hours ago, Black_Rabbit_Inle said:

The thing is, some characters are specifically meant to perform subtle manipulations that either don't actually break the rules, or aren't obvious and I feel like the official dueling rules needs to obviously incorporate that, so that my players (none of whom have any experience with the l5r setting outside of my games) don't scoff at me when I suggest to them that it's okay to do things

Indeed. We've got a series of duels coming up in a campaign I run at home and one person who will definitely be present is a Soshi shujenga. You.....don't think the Scorpion might try to cheat , do you?

😱

1 hour ago, Diogo Salazar said:

Well, for sure other players can act during a duel and the line of what is permitted or not can be a fine line indeed depending on the judge. Shouting words of encouragement might or might not be cheating depending on the interpretation of the judge. You could have hecklers as well.

If anything, this new system allows in an even easier manner for other players to interfere in a duel.

Fire social rolls with the right opportunities might be considered heckling, Earth social rolls being words of encouragement, etc.

Of course, assuming it is a formal duel to begin with.

Again, reminding that a duel is just a conflict between two individuals, per the rules. But an illegal duel for sure can have cheating involved and probable repercussions or rumors as a result of the duel. I think eventually, I will post on the stories sub-forum, the beginning of the campaign I'm playing and the illegal duel my character got involved. in

10 hours ago, Myrion said:

That was always true though - you're not supposed to interfere openly and in other editions the duels didn't involve other characters either. They just were more strictly iaijutsu-only.

Edit to add: but finding more ways to involve the other players is still a good idea! Maybe open a thread gathering ideas for that?

Yeah. I feel like it becomes more of an issue in this edition because of how it's possible to get some incredibly long, drawn-out duels in this edition. Going 5 minutes focusing on one or two characters is fine. going 15 or 20 minutes is a problem. The reason I say these rules should actually be included in dueling rules is, as a game master I've actually recommended to my players that they do things during the duels to subtly encourage their friends or dissuade their enemies and they just won't do it. I'm trying to get them to understand that there's a difference between having two combatants, and having two participants. The fluff talks about some of the stuff courtiers and observers may do. the rules don't specifically prevent anyone else from taking actions, but because the rules don't invite other actions, my players believe those actions shouldn't be taken.

P.S.: Part of my issue also is that 2 of my 5 players are duelists, and they really want to play their characters as duelists. This means that about 40% of my game should be dueling and intrigue around dueling, but my other 3 players ( a monk, a shugenja, and a shugenja/bushi) want nothing to do with duels (and all of my players really avoid intrigue). so in order to find a good medium I need to get my non-duelist characters to do something while the dueling is going on. Not being at the duel where your friend could achieve great glory, or might die for that matter, seems kinda dishonorable to me, so I don't really see the characters going off to do something else while the duelists are dueling.

I’m a bug fan of duels and I almost always play as one or make it somehow relevant in my campaigns. I agree that 4th ed rules for duels were really great. Each side did 3 rolls and unless it was a duel to death and they survive the first strike, it continues as a normal combat.

Still, if you are making at least 2 duels every time you get together to play, the two duelists are hogging a lot of time of everyone else. Duels should be relatively uncommon, not something that happens every other day and just because someone spilled tea. I mean, sure, you can have a short fuse character demand a duel for spilled tea, but people like this acquire infamy and lose honor extremely fast.

If you really need to determine the order of action of observers of a duel, use the initiative for intrigue along witht the initiative of the two duelists to determine what is the order of actions.

Well, duels don't necessarily have to happen with a big audience, so I think that can be arranged in a way to let the other characters go do other things without issue.

However, it seems to me to be a bit of an issue of party composition, actually. If the majority of you group doesn't wanna deal with duels, and a minority wants almost nothing but, that's a conflict the game can't really help you with. Even if you give the majority something to do during duels, it's still not gonna be what they want.

Talk about that with your players and find some balance with them, seems the best way of dealing with that to me.

On 3/24/2020 at 2:55 PM, Black_Rabbit_Inle said:

I need to get my non-duelist characters to do something while the dueling is going on.

I would probably suggest no more than one formal duel per session, but remember that Skirmishes have the Clash option. Even a group of bandits has a leader, and he needs to stand on his reputation to keep his subordinates in line. When weapons are drawn, it's time for a Duelist to point to the biggest, baddest dude in the room and bellow, "You! I am for you! Step forth or all shall know you for a coward!" Make that Command roll and he can't refuse without losing Glory, and even a bandit needs to save face.

EDIT: But yes, we need to figure out a three-roll-duel solution. One Roll is just not satisfying and the full rules can drag

Hmm. Maho this thread a little but...

1 dice roll and potential PC death is a bit rough.

I like the idea of a 3 dice roll game.

Hows about this?

A duel is a two or three dice roll mini-game. It is resolved completely after the three rolls from both characters. If the fight would continue for any reason (i.e. both people 'missed' by not doing a critical) then follow the standard rules for the skirmish . Depending on the situation, characters may begin with sheathed blades or drawn.

Challenge:

First section is simply initiative. Roll initiative and secretly pick the ring that will be used. Bid strife as required.

The ring chosen may have opportunities that can be spent. Air may grant knowledge of the opponent, fire intimidate or infuriate the enemy, etc etc. I'd grant knowledge of rings with opp spent here. Personally I use one opp of air answers a question from a player, two opps for other rings.

Focus:

Characters may also prepare an item or center, using their void ring regardless of what stance their initiative is in. Then predict the stance of the enemy and record this secretly. (not the predict action)

Strike:

Reveal stances. If the prediction was accurate, the target suffers a finishing blow - if the blade can be used through Iai techniques or water stance. (Hence prepare an item, above)

If not predicted, take any action desired, such as a strike action as required.

If at any time a character would become compromised, they also immediately suffer a finishing blow.

Special notes:

For judged, ritual duels to first blood, the winner is the first to critically hit and wound the enemy, regardless whether it's with the iai strike or not.

If both draw and cut it's a draw, but judges will say there's a winner based on severity of critical hit, then on who had the higher initiative.

For nonlethal duels, assume warriors can choose to 'pull' their critical hits, holding the blade to a throat or what not for the same opportunity spend.

For normal dirty duels to the death, just keep on fighting with the skirmish rounds.

Just had a thought though - if you compromise in skirmish, anyone within range gets an immediate finishing blow.... hmm...

I welcome feedback!

Regarding the pulling of critical hits, that's pretty much the reason for the reduced critical strike option for the Kakita Duelist. I know it would add too much text into that box but I think it should be worth mentioning that the reduced critical should be evident for anyone that it was also deliberate. So, for instance, in a duel to first blood, a Kakita Duelist rank 3 could, for instance, reduce the critical strike to 2 (which is a close call) instead of a debilitating gash. If the opponent decides to acknowledge that and accept defeat is another matter entirely (where they could or could not lose honor or glory for that).

In the end, you just have to accept that in 5th edition, duels, as described in the conflict chapter are not necessarily ritualistic formal duels, but really any martial fight that involves two characters and that iaijutsu duels are not the official across the Empire way of resolving disputes.

Interesting about the Kakita duelist - I hadn't considered that.

As for duels being martial fights - I'm entirely fine with that. Duels shouldn't be play time - hence why there's only one 'size up' round and then in to the old skirmish. It lets the iai people do their special thing, and if it doesn't work it's a fight like any other.

Well, yes, but I meant that, per the rules, every time you have only two characters fighting, that constitutes still a duel, not a skirmish.

No, it doesn't. One sentence in the book suggests that you could use duel rules for any 1v1, but duels do still represent a specific situation with rising tension etc. Not every 1v1 has to be a duel, nor does that remotely make sense narratively.

Edited to add: as the book calls out in the first sentence about duels, they are "stylized engagements". They're not just a freeform 1v1. There's at least got to be the tension and staredown aspect.