I’m hombrewing a Duelist school and thinking of what useful and unique mechanics I can implement for the school ability.

One of the things I was thinking was Stance Prediction, I wanted to ask you how often you use stance prediction in your duels? Do you like this option in your games?

It's unfortunately pretty weak, unless the enemy is hogging one specific stance, you can manipulate them with Immobilised or are specifically trying to prevent them from using an ability that requires a specific ring - but that's rare for NPCs.

So it's mostly a tool for NPCs to use against PCs, in my experience.

The effect is too weak at the cost of an action.

Thanks Myrion.

That’s what I wanted to hear, an objective opinion based on experiences. I will strikethrough Stance Prediction from my list and move on.

I’m looking for something different that can help them in both skirmishes and dueling mechanics like the Hiruma stance dancing, maybe delaying a lethal blow if compromise for a round, etc...

Anything which can delay being compromised is good in any conflict but is life-or-death in a duel.

Alternatively, some sort of conditional TN increase for your enemy? There aren't that many which work in duels, especially for a school which doesn't favour air.

What about these:

School ability: During a a duel or skirmish if your strife exceeds your composure, you’re not considered Compromised. While in this state you do not provoke a Finishing Blow, your vigilance count as it’s normal value and you can keep dice containing strife symbols. This effect last for a number of rounds equal to your Vigilance.

School Mastery: During a duel You may spend a Void Point to increase your TN to be hit by your Vigilance.

That feels too strong, to me. Because guaranteed and free pushing back the strife clock by 2-5 rounds is an almost guaranteed win in a duel. The mastery is better, although I'd just say "once per scene when targeted by an Attack action, you may..." - it's basically a guarantee to get missed, but the opponent can still use opportunities.

At the same time, it's exclusively useful in duels, which is something that the game avoids. Schools should not be useful only in one type of fight and completely dominate that. (The mastery, that is. The school ability isn't just useful in duels, but it is pretty weak in skirmishes and too strong in duels.)

How about this:

A number of times up to your school rank per scene, you may predict an opponent's next stance while performing any checked action. If you do so correctly, you reduce the TN of any Attack or Scheme actions you target them with by 1 until the end of your next turn. Additionally, you remove strife equal to your Honour rank, as they behave predictably.

I kinda want some sort of "if you're wrong" clause in there, but can't think of anything good...
This should ensure that it's useful in skirmishes and duels (slightly more so in duels, as strife matters more), is flavorful for a good and honorable duelist but isn't only good in duels.

The mastery I would then keep the same as I modified it above, letting you guarantee a miss and defending yourself against one crucial attack.

That’s a really neat Myrion! I really liked it. Good Job 👍

Also for learning purposes on my School Ability will it had worked better if I chose a duration of only one turn? Or it was still OP?

Still OP. 😂

Being anle to delay for a single turn the Finishing Blow can literally be the difference between life and death (or at least maiming) to the character.

Sigh....

But happy with Myrion’s tech

10 hours ago, Myrion said:

A number of times up to your school rank per scene, you may predict an opponent's next stance while performing any checked action. If you do so correctly, you reduce the TN of any Attack or Scheme actions you target them with by 1 until the end of your next turn. Additionally, you remove strife equal to your Honour rank, as they behave predictably.

I kinda want some sort of "if you're wrong" clause in there, but can't think of anything good...

I like that ability. I was trying to come up with something like your when I tried to create a school for Firefly bushi's, but I couldn't come up with anything like this! Would it be a good idea to give your target two opportunities if you have guessed wrongly?

clunky. can lead to double predictions during duels and weird stuff.

Only if you do a checked action that is neither Attack nor Scheme, and that's easily fixed by adding the Scheme tag to the ability.

@Kiso giving them two free Opportunities on their next check is probably too much of a drawback. It guarantees that they can crit you with a Strike for example. I'm not sure I'd risk it in that case.