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Harry Keller
Harry Keller's picture
Duel Interpetation and Problem
core rules

Hello folks,

We tried out our first duel tonight, but it ended a bit in limbo, due to unfamiliarity with the rules, so I'd like to run this by more experienced players / GM's to ask for their advice.

The characters involved were a Castillean Duellist (Villain) specialised in the Aldana Duelling School, and a Knight of Avalon.

To cut the preamble, the Duellist issued a challenge, and both went outside the Inn, in to the street to duel, to First Blood.

We commenced a Dramatic Sequence.

I explained Consequences ("You'll take wounds"), Opportunities ("There are none").

Duellist chose Aldana Stance, as is required to state at the beginning of a round.

Both rolled their respective weapon + attribute, and both got 6 raises.

RAW says that Villain goes first in the event of a tie.

Villain spends 1 raise to Feint. This says it deals 1 wound to player, and will cause them an extra wound if they are injured again this round.

Villain has 5 raises left. Player has 6, so player goes next.

Player uses 1 raise to mitigate the 1 wound caused by Feint. As Feint didn't work, I rule the secondary effect of Feint is now void.

Player has 5 raises, Villain has 5 raises, and Villain goes next as it's a tie.

Villain spends 1 raise and performs Slash, doing 4 wounds (because he has 4 Ranks in Weaponry).

Villain has 4 raises left. Player has 5, so Player goes next.

Player says "I remember reading in the QS rules, you can spend all your raises to accomplish something heroic, and I want to spends 4 raises to mitigate the 4 damage from Slash and my last raise to bring my shield down on his flimsy rapier and break it. I'm hopelessly outclassed by this guy and need to pull off something dramatic to buy me time or something."

At this point we adjourn, in good spirits, as we are trialing the rules and page referencing and checking we are doing things correctly.

I cannot find that rule in the core book, and hence posting here.

I believe what should have happened is..

Villain spends 1 raise and performs Slash, doing 4 wounds (because he has 4 Ranks in Weaponry).

Villain has 4 raises left. Player has 5, so Player goes next.

Player spends 4 raises, and mitigates 4 wounds. Player has 1 raise left.

Villain has 4 raises left, so Villain does Feint again (Previous action was Slash, so that's ok.). Villain does 1 wound, and player will take extra damage if wounded again this round.

Villain has 3 raises left, player has 1 raise left.

Player gets a free "respond to damage only interrupt" and spends their final 1 raise to mitigate the 1 damage. Feint is voided again.

Player has no more raises left, so the field is now the Duellists.

Duellist goes for a rather mocking "bop on the head" with the pummel of rapier, using Bash. Causes 1 wound. Player cannot mitigate, so we have First Blood and the end of the Duel.

What do you folks think ?

For a bonus question, we notice that the book references Weaponry for weapons held in the hand.

I've seen this paired as Brawn and Weaponry for the big swords and stuff, or Finesse + Weaponry seems to be for the more agile rapiers and daggers and stuff (precise weapons, I guess).

My question is...can you pair Resolve + Weaponry ? Eg, she said she'd like to fight with shield raised, sword poking over or under. Very defensive but able to dart out if needed. She bases her style as that of dogged resolve and steadfast determination. Steady wins the day.

Could you pair Panache + Weaponry ? Isn't that the same as Finesse, or is Finesse is raw natural speed, whereas Panance is pure style and showmanship ?

Could you pair Wits + Weaponry ? Someone who fights with very careful and considered strikes ?

Thoughts and comments welcome and thank you from the forum members for their patience and advice to date. It's been very helpful !

 

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NeoTanuki
NeoTanuki's picture
I posed a question similar to your bonus question in an earlier thread, because I wasn't clear if the final rules still included the"Brawn is rolled for Heavy Weapons, Finesse for Fencing Weapons" mechanic mentioned in the Quickstart. The consensus among other posters seemed to be: No, that is no longer part of the final rules, and the GM can have the player roll whatever Trait+Weaponry seems appropriate to the description of the player's Approach. So if Resolve+Weaponry seems right, go for it. Regarding your description of the player's duel above, when the player wanted to spend all remaining raises on a desperate one-shot gamble, I think I would have treated what he described as a Riposte (blocking the attack then coming back with a desperate attempt to hit), allowing the player to spend an additional Raise to prevent the extra Wound. The Villain would then need to spend Raises to prevent Wounds or lose the duel, and the player would still have 2 Raises left.
Salamanca
Salamanca's picture
The rules for duels have changed a lot since that quickstart because they did not work well. The rules on feint are a bit ambiguous but I agree with your ruling. Spending to negate wounds has to be done on a one for one basis so your thoughts on the hero dropping from 5 raises to 1 seems correct to me. The open field for the villain seems accurate and the next question becomes " what counts as first blood?". To avoid simply handing the victory to the person that rolls high and attacks first, the old system used to define it as the first Dramatic wound taken. But the rules are vague here so use what you want. Finally, the issue of what to roll. The problem stems from the examples being limited and repetitive in their use. The intent of the mechanic is to assign the combination of Trait and Skill that best fits the player description. So if your player wants to fight a defensive battle and wear down the enemy, the use of Resolve or Wits is totally appropriate. (Hopefully with a flair and description dice bonus).
James Walker
James Walker's picture

I could see feint going either way (dependant or independant of mitigation). I'm more partial to first blood meaning the first dramatic wound. Either way, for both of them it really seems to be a duelist's advantage, so why not give non-duelists a little more wiggle room. As for using different traits, it really seems to me that they've set it up specifically to allow you to do such. One point on duelists though, if you look through the different schools there seems to be at least one corresponding school to each manuever. In those schools there is often a trait + weapon bonus that's more effective than the basic manuever. I'd usually go in the direction that the trait listed in these schools are strongly associated with the manuever in question so if someone does use that manuever, unless they give me a compelling reason to think otherwise, I might be more likely to consider the trait from the "enhanced manuever" to be the appropriate one.

Harliquinn Whit...
Harliquinn Whiteshadow's picture

I may be the one voice of disssention but I would not negate the effects of Feint just because the person negated the wound on their next Action. Feint is a lower damage misdirect for greater effect later. Just because someone managed to parry or shrug off the initial damage you did, it does not mean they were suddently aware of where your next attack was coming from. In fact, they may have played right into your hands by blocking the Feint attack. It would also render Feint (a fairly weak maneuver) pretty useless otherwise unless you rule Feint to add 1 additional Wound EVERY time they are injured for the rest of the Round (Which I don't read it that way).

On the idea of 'something heroic using all your Raises' that's generally for doing something Dramatic in the scene that isn't just an attack. You can spend all your Raises to rush in and save the young prince from the burning building. You can spend all your raises to hold the doors open until the last of the prisoners escapes, etc. I wouldn't allow it to be used to 'negate damage and break a weapon' as those aren't really 'Heroic / Dramatic' things. 

However, if the player wanted to do something like "I spend all my Raises to kick out the support beam, bringing the roof down on both of us, ending the duel." that would be allowed (and perhaps have other consequences).

In either case 'breaking a weapon' by spending a Raise isn't something I would encourage, because it will start getting used a lot. Sure, the game isn't about weapons, but I don't think the players would like it when all their stuff is getting broken as well.

John

Salamanca
Salamanca's picture
John has a point on feint. But I think it's an option for each group to decide how they want to use it. The use of multiple raises to mitigate damage is legitimate but does not fall into heroic actions. They just get spent. The shield action at the end may result in a break or maybe a disarm depending on the situation.
BluSponge blusp...
BluSponge blusponge@verizon.net's picture

You know, it seems to me that to represent the true misdirection of a feint,  "negating" that first point of damage actually plays right into the duelist's hands. I'd be tempted to rule that you can negate one wound or the other, but not both. Downside, I'm not a big fan of "unavoidable" damage in this system. Since Lunge is pretty much a gaurenteed dramatic wound, it makes duels to the first blood a simple matter of a simple contested roll, which feels about as dramatic as mud.

Then again, feinting is definitely a good candidate for a "once per round" action. After all, how many times can a duelist truly feint and it be effective?

Wyrd GM
Wyrd GM's picture

I believe I would allow an item, so long as it is not a signature item, to be broken for a single raise, but mostly because it then becomes a story hook, rather than a true mechanical difference.

Part of this is the Riddick/Spoon fight that Wick is so in love with. Part of it is the idea of fighting someone with a broken rapier.

You break their sword, maybe they can no longer use their special Duelist School move, but they can technically use the others. The times people have been killed with half a sword in movies or books... awesome moments.

Disarm them completely, they can still do a raise for damage... They just punched someone.

They spend a raise to get another weapon.

How about you spend a raise to disarm the villain, and then give him a moment (where he spends a raise) to retrieve it, while you do a mighty quip?

You want the villain to have an epic, unbreakable weapon? Awesome. You want him to have an iron wrist, and be unable to be disarmed? Awesome. I might even spend a Danger Point and declare something like that, if I were running the game. Or maybe he has a new school of defense that helps him, if it becomes too common a tactic. 

Though, I once had an adventure I ran in old 7th Sea, where the players were using little tricks like this in a public fight. They won the fight, but lost the battle, because public opinion swayed towards the 'more honorable' fighter, the Villain.

Evan Sageser
Evan Sageser's picture

Duels to First blood have some wonkiness to resolve in this system. A lot of them come down to who goes first/ has more raises primarily due to the lunge manuever being unavoidable. In a regular duel Lunge immediately ending your turn is enough of a liability to balance this, but if the fight ends as soon as someone is wounded than there's very little incentive not to lunge immediately.

I try to mitigate this by going with first dramatic wound as others have suggested, but it still doesn't quite fix the lunge problem.

As for breaking a weapon, it's a very neat idea, but I don't believe it's RAW. Personally though, I might just treat it as an opportunity created by their choice of weapon. Personally I'm using a modified dueling system that allows for disarming by spending raises equal to the opponent's weaponry.

 

As for attributes, I've found that much about them is simply about approach, so I'm inclined to allow for any attribute being used so long as its described in a thematically appropriate way. One thing that should be noted though is that the Ambrogia Dueling style already has something of a mechanic for this in that they can build their risk pool with either finesse or wits. Changing the rule wouldn't make it useless though given that there's still the option to use both attributes by spending a hero point.

 

Now that I think about it, it might be interesting as a way to distinguish the dueling styles by outlining a specific attribute used for each of them. (So Panache would be for Valroux while Donovan might use Resolve) This would still make Ambrogia distinct, in that it could use either Finesse or Wits. It could be considered too confining by some though, so it's up to you.

Donovan Morningfire
Donovan Morningfire's picture

As far as a "duel to first blood," I've opted to take a page out of the Swordsman's Guild sourcebook, and go with "first blood" as equating to the first Dramatic Wound.

And if you have a PC that always goes for Lunge as their opening gambit, after a while put them up against a Villain that has the Astute Virtue, and then spend a Danger Point to have that Hero's action automatically fail and all those Raises lost, at which point they are a sitting duck for the Villian to casually slice up as they please.

Dono's Gaming & Etc Blog
http://jedimorningfire.blogspot.com/

Evan Sageser
Evan Sageser's picture

A fair idea, though i wish there was something in the rules beyond an arcana (that I can't give to every enemy duelist without it feeling cheap) that would avoid the first blood lunge conundrum.

A starting swordsman has three weaponry and typically about 2-4 raises each round, allowing them to already normally expect a dramatic wound with a lunge. But once we get to a master, we have someone with 5 weaponry and on average 5 raises each round (with potentially even more with the additional effects from high weaponry), for a lunge dealing 10 wounds.

One idea is to tone down the Lunge by having only the extra wounds granted by the additional raises spent be unavoidable. So if a three weaponry duelist lunges while spending three additional raises, he would deal six wounds, but a parry would avoid three of them. This might have the effect of overly nerfing Lunge however.

The other idea is to scale up the number of wounds in response. Rather than the flat four wounds per dramatic wound, we could have it as Resolve + 2. Thus there's the threat for a lunging duelist that their opponent will simply tank the lunge. The problem with that however is that no other attribute has such a distinct focus on it, and as such could become unduly important compared to the other stats.

Mars University
Mars University's picture

Thanks, Donovan, I've been wondering how to best reflect an opponent in a duel effortlessly sidestepping the Lunge Maneuver and then destroying the Hero. Relying on an Arcana also would prevent this from being abused too often. Good find!

Andrés Stein
Andrés Stein's picture

I would do away with lunge altogether to be honest. As a dueling maneuver I can totally see it being a slash with spending extra raises and taking away the unavoidability of it.

Evan Sageser
Evan Sageser's picture

Dur...

I'm dumb and just realized that Villains already have more wounds available to them than Heroes do based on their strength. Forgot that they don't use the same rules as heroes.

This definitely make Lunging less of a sure thing against a high strength villain. Of course that's probably the least of their problems in a one-on-one duel with a high strength villain, even if it is just to first blood, Villains are hard to fight like that.

Donovan Morningfire
Donovan Morningfire's picture

If you've got a Hero that simply resorts to Lunge to quickly end any duels to first blood and you don't want to rely on the Astute Arcana, than start applying social consequences as the "Hero" starts getting a reputation not as a duelist but instead as an unsportsman-like butcher.  This will lead to those of higher social status turning their noses up at this so-called "Hero" and want to have as little to do with them as possible (penalize their social Risks when dealing with such folks), while those of a darker and more sinister bent might look to make use of the "Hero" as an assassin of sorts; duels are dangerous things after all, and it's possible for the other guy to get killed "on accident."  And if the PC keeps doing this, then start employing the Corruption rules.  Attacking in a savage frenzy to demolish your opponent before they can do much of anything can certainly be seen the actions of a base villain, not even giving their opponent a sporting chance to properly defend themselves.  After all, swordsmen of the caliber of Zorro, Inigo Montoya, or the Three Musketeers could easily dispatch their foe in a duel in moments, but generally don't make a lunge for the heart right off out of a sense of honor and fair play.  A PC that simply resorts to Lunge as their opening move in a duel that's not to the death isn't displaying that sense of honor and fair play, and their reputations should suffer accordingly.

Mechanically, on a similar Arcana note, there's the Victorious Virtue, which lets you inflict a Dramatic Wound the first time you wound your foe.  Villain with this simply needs to start out with more Raises than the PC, inflict a single Wound, and then spend a Danger Point to incur an automatic Dramatic Wound.

Or, just have a talk with your player about how always resorting to Lunge in every duel isn't in the spirit of the game or the general setting.  Of course, it may be the player feels they have no choice because you've got them almost constantly facing off against high Strength Villains (10+) that they'd have little chance to actually hurt if just using Slash to dish out damage.  In that case, make an agreement that you'll dial back on the Strength of your Villains, but only so long as the PC doesn't abuse the Lunge Maneuver.

Dono's Gaming & Etc Blog
http://jedimorningfire.blogspot.com/

Carlo Lope
Carlo Lope's picture

Why do you have to punish a player that is using a manoeuvre that has been designed to be used like that? Applying social consequences or relying on arcana to prevent a player/villain from doing that goes, from my understanding, against the spirit of the game. The book itself says that you should not punish nor try to change a "yes" into a "no". Furthermore, saying that you could resort to corruption if he keeps it doing makes the GM a worse villain than the player, that's not playing dirty, it's simply telling a player "you are not going to do this or else...".

I don't like how Lunge is designed but I'd rather change the mechanics of that manoeuvre than force a player to change the way he plays when what he is doing is within the rules. You may say it is not in the spirit of the game but what you are asking is for both players and GMs to ignore one manoeuvre when it is used too often. What is "too often"? Would it be okay then to use it against every other villain but not against your big bad villain? Why? It's not in the spirit of the game... ok, when is it then?

Donovan Morningfire
Donovan Morningfire's picture

The problem isn't using Lunge in general combat, it's using what's generally consiered to be a "kill move" in a formal duel of honor where the intent generally speaking is to NOT kill your opponent.  It's almost akin to pulling a pistol at the start of a swordfight and just shooting the other guy.

Granted, the GM can cheat like a sunovagun do all sorts of petty things that aren't spelled out in the rules, but it's better for the table as a whole to come to an understanding between player and GM without having to resort to various dirty tricks.

A large part of the fun of 7th Sea is getting into the spirit of things.  Hack and slash combat, while the bread and butter of D&D and it's derivatives, doesn't really have as much of a place in 7th Sea, unless the PCs are playing pirates or Vesten raiders.  In which case, things like "duels to first blood" or "honorable dueling" really isn't something they'd be worried about, since they're generally fighting for keeps and the winner is the guy left breathing at the end of it.  But when the Montaigne gentry-born duelist starts every one-on-one duel they are in with a Lunge to deal anywhere from 6 to 8 Wounds (which will undoubtedly cause Dramatic Wounds in all but the strongest of Villains), that can break the fun for some groups, especially if the player of said duelist then has the gaul to say "well, duels are so boring" and then turn around and whine when the GM has a Villain duelist do the same thing, open a one-on-one duel to first blood with Lunge and invariably inflict a Dramatic Wound on the PC, ending the duel before the PC gets to do anything, even if the player has used that exact same trick dozens of times before.  And yes sadly, there are players that do exactly that when a loophole or exploit they've repeatedly made use of gets turned around on them.

Over in FFG's Star Wars RPG, there's been constent concern over the rules regarding autofire, which can very easily be made incredibly broken on the player's part.  The best solution as been for the GM to sit down with their players and come to an agreement that so long as the PCs don't try to take advantage of certain loopholes, the GM will show the same curtesy and not drop the 501st Legion on their heads every session.

Dono's Gaming & Etc Blog
http://jedimorningfire.blogspot.com/

Carlo Lope
Carlo Lope's picture

If that loophole poses a problem then why don't you change the way Lunge works or why don't you design a first blood duel mechanics that work only for the first hit? I think I'm not mistaken if I assume you have read Legend of the five rings. The first hit when a duel happened had different mechanics and actually I think they where pretty fun. I changed the first hit on first blood duels because of that but if you don't like it then you can tweak a few things here and there.

You are putting a lot of emphasis on roleplaying so why not use this strong point and change that part of the system to make these kind of duels more like that instead of roll, make raises and decide? Even if that makes that first hit a bit too long... you could treat like like an action or dramatic sequence on its own. What do you think about it?

Donovan Morningfire
Donovan Morningfire's picture

Problem with using L5R as a point of comparison is that these games have two very different approaches to combat.

In L5R, the intent was that a PC very much lives "three feet from death" and that anytime weapons are drawn, there's a very real chance your character could die as a result.  Armor was of some help, but not a lot, and even getting into a "duel to first blood" could result in the untended death of both parties, a fact that was accepted as part of Rokugani culture.

7th Sea however takes a much more cinematic flair, with combat really not being all that dangerous to the PCs, since apart from Dramatic Wounds any damage suffered vanishes at the end of the fight, meaning the PCs don't have to wait around to heal up, and can go right back into the action without needing to fret if that next fight will be their last.

As for my emphasis on the roleplaying aspect... well, this may come as a shock, but the focus of the entire game is roleplaying.  One thing 7th Sea most defnitely is not is a tactical combat simulator.

That and 9 times out of 10 with a system that's not super-heavy on the rules, the problem comes from a player exploiting the rules, or more accurately the places where there aren't rules that say "you can't do that."  I've seen FATE games that went south because one player ignored the DBAD (Don't Be a Dick) guideline and twisted what rules existed for maximum mechanical explotation, something that is very much against the spirt of what FATE is meant to represent, especially FATE Core and FATE Accelerated.  Star Wars RPGs have been riddled with jackass players trying to find ways to metagame around the penalties for using dark side powers like Force chokes and Force lightning, with the height of that line of BS being the ridiculous notion of "Grey Jedi."  And how many D&D groups have run afoul of the greedy thief/rogue PC that liberally screws over the other party members, with many using Dragonlance's Kender as an excuse to be utter jerks while claiming "it's in character!" when it's really not, or the Chaotic "Nuetral" lunatic that's really more of a Chaotic Evil character while the rest of the party are of generally Good alignments?

And in many of those cases, the best solution is to ultimately have a talk with the player and see if they'd be willing to amend their ways.  Speaking as someone that has a long history of tinkering/tweaking with RPG rules, sometimes the answer to fixing abuse of the system isn't to tweak the rules, but instead address the real source of the abuse, the player.

But hey, if you want to take the lazy route instead of addressing the real problem, knock yourself out.

Dono's Gaming & Etc Blog
http://jedimorningfire.blogspot.com/

Carlo Lope
Carlo Lope's picture

For someone who has just said that the entire game is roleplaying... how come you designed different rules for different schools and changed a few things here and there on other posts?

Look, don't call me lazy. I was using your points to show you you were contradicting yourself. From what I read, when you think it's appropriate you change rules like you did on some other posts but when they tell you you could change something if you don't like it and you disagree, you reply that the purpose is roleplaying. Furthermore, you are telling me that this problem should be addressed by talking to the players instead of tweaking things but before you were telling others they could punish players by using arcana, corruption among other things. Really?

If you allow players that will try to ruin your game on purpose then you should start wondering if they are the only problem.

And yeah, I will knock myself out.

Donovan Morningfire
Donovan Morningfire's picture

The schools thing was "hey, here's a fun bit of material from 1e that some players or GMs might like to use," while at the same time being something that a GM can easily say "nope, not using it" and not change any of the core aspects of the game.

As for the languages, I admitted up front that it wasn't a problem with how the game runs, as from what I can see the game runs quite fine with how the RAW handles languages, and has nothing to do with player attitude.

I also never insinuated that this hypothetical player was deliberately trying to wreck the game in any instance, as I've had players that didn't realize they were ruining everyone else's fun until it was brought up and they took a step back to reassess their actions in context of the whole group and not just themselves.

As for my own gaming groups, the type of assholes that deliberately try to run my games tend to not make into the group, or very quickly get shown the door.  But I have seen enough GMs that lack either the experience or confidence to stand up to some of these problem players, or the ability to recognize that a 'problem' player might not even realize that what they are doing is a problem, especially if it's a new player that has gotten used to the context of "winning" in an RPG is more about helping the group tell a fun and memorable story that everyone gets to have fun participating in.  I've had several new players that started out rough but turned into excellent role-players once I made the effort to speak with them away from the table (and the group as a whole) and come to an understanding.

This as opposed to taking the lazy way out and changing part of the rules simply in the hopes of not having to deal with the actual problem, all while hiding behind the hackneyed excuse of "Rule Zero: GM can do whatever they want."  So yes, if your solution is to simply alter the rules and hope the problem goes away (my post below should amply illustrate that it won't), then I am going to call you lazy for wanting to avoid the real problem, that being the player in question.  A problem that may well be fixed by simply spending a couple minutes talking with the person and coming to a mutual understanding between player and GM.

Dono's Gaming & Etc Blog
http://jedimorningfire.blogspot.com/

WookieeGunner
WookieeGunner's picture
Yeag, I think if they just changed Lunge so you couldn't use raises but could use Parry or Riposte it would work much better.
Andrés Stein
Andrés Stein's picture

Doing away completely with the lunge maneuver is a good option, or simply scratching the "unavoidable" part.

Donovan Morningfire
Donovan Morningfire's picture

So, presuming one does away with Lunge entirely, what's to stop this player from simply doing the same exact thing with Slash?  It's the same damage, and unless you as the GM have given the Villain a very high Strength score (8 or more), you've still got the same effect of starting PC hitting for on average 7 Wounds (Weaponry 3 plus 4 Raises), which tends to result in the target suffering a Dramatic Wound.  Or hey, PC gets a little clever, uses a Feint and then does the super-slash, cranking out about 9 damage on average, which again unless the Villian has a seriously beefed-up Strength still means the PC has won the duel to first blood, even if you don't count first blood as inflicting a Dramatic Wound but instead enough Wounds that the target can't hope to negate enough of them to bring the Wounds inflicted down to zero.  Then you've got the Sabat dueling style, which ramps up the Lunge even more, enough so that the average Wounds inflicted jumps to at least 10 (Weaponry 3 plus Finesse 3 plus 4 Raises) if not higher.

Dropping the "unavoidable" part of Lunge makes it absolutely no different than a Slash, except that Lunge forces the PC to spend all their Raises at once while a Slash gives the PC the choice of how many Raises to spend on damage.  Which brings you right back around to the problem of just removing Lunge discussed above, in that the player will simply find some cheesy new tactic to "auto-win" duels that aren't to the death.

Or, simply changing their Virtue Arcana to Victorious, which ensures the moment the PC inflicts a single Wound, they've won so long as they've got a Hero Point, as said Virtue inflicts an automatic Dramatic Wound the moment the Hero (or Villain) inflicts any amount of Wounds.  So what then?  Outlaw that Virtue entirely?  After all, because it allows a PC to "auto-win" a duel to first blood just like using the "open with Lunge" tactic it obviously must be just as broken and in need of "fixing."  (In case you missed it Carlo, that last sentence was 100% sarcasm.)

And as noted, Sabat's entire schtick is to ramp up the damage of a Lunge, so if Lunge is so broken, then obviously this style has to be chucked entirely.  (Again, more sarcasm.)

And what if there is more than one Duelist in the party?  Do you screw her over and neuter Lunge or various other "tricks" even though she's not once abused them simply because one player is being a munchkin power-gamer?

I've been in this hobby a damn long time (most of my natural life), and any time the game comes down to a Lensman Arms Race between a player and the GM in terms of finding and then "patching" various rules exploits, it's always been the group as a whole that inevitably suffers, when instead the ideal solution would be to discuss this calmly and rationally with the player.  Could very well be that he's not aware that by using said tactic, he's ruining the fun for you and possibly the other players, making what should be a fun and cinematic scene a rather boring session of "rocket tag," and that whoever scores the most Raises in the opening round wins.

I've had this scenario come up in games in the past.  First time, I fell into the Lensman Arms Race and wound up ruining what promised to be a great campaign.  After that, I spoke with the player, and found that most of the time if you approach them as a reasonable human being, they are willing to listen and tone it down a little.  Those other times, I simply informed the player to not bother showing up, especially if his antics (and in those cases, it was invariably a he) were spoiling the game for the other players as well as myself.

But hey, that's just my two dubloon's worth.

Dono's Gaming & Etc Blog
http://jedimorningfire.blogspot.com/

Rossbert
Rossbert's picture

I might need to reread it, but I think slash is just weaponry ranks without an option to spend extra raises.

Donovan Morningfire
Donovan Morningfire's picture

The chapter on Dueling makes no mention of spending extra Raises on any of the Maneuvers beyond the default of "1 Raise = 1 Action," and that you can't by default spend multiple Raises in the same Action to perform multiple Maneuvers (i.e. spend 2 Raises to perform a Slash and a Beat on the same Action).

The only bits in the rules on spending multiple Raises on an Action are pages 179 and 180, with 179 citing that players may choose to spend more than 1 Raise on an Action, and 180 citing that causing wounds is 1 Raise for 1 point of damage plus 1 extra Raise per added Wound, and negating Wounds is 1 Raise to prevent 1 point of damage plus 1 extra Raise per additional Wound prevented.

Then again, the rules make no mention of what happens when you apply Pressure to a Brute Squad, simply because it was something that never came up in any of the playtesting that John Wicks' groups did, something the author admitted when a fan asked him about that very situation while at GenCon.  Given that it's really freaking unwise to spend all of your Raises at once, and that a Duelist generally doesn't have a reason to spend several Raises on a Slash or Parry, it again is something that never came up within the playtest groups.

In regards to there being no mention of being able to spend multiple Raises to increase the Wounds inflicted or prevented with Maneuvers in the Duelist chapter, I wouldn't be surprised if this is a case of "we don't need to spell this out because it should be obvious" mindset that I've seen with indy-style RPGs as opposed to the WotC 3.X approach of spelling out every little detail and ensuring there's a rule for everything and everything has a rule.  It could very well be that it was something so obvious to the writers that you could do so that they didn't feel the need to call attention to it, and instead focused on the parts where Duelist Maneuvers break with the rules established in Chapter 4.

Dono's Gaming & Etc Blog
http://jedimorningfire.blogspot.com/

Rossbert
Rossbert's picture

I run it as slash can't be bought up, especially since lunge covers that need nicely.  I keep the overspending just to generic damage unless specifically mentioned elsewhere.  Helps minimize all actions bleeding together.

Harliquinn Whit...
Harliquinn Whiteshadow's picture

 

I also do not and will not allow additional raises to be spent on a maneuver beyond what is required to activate the maneuver as written. Duelists are already getting a heck of a Wound return per Raise spent.

John

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