No, he was calling you a wimp for not fighting *to the death* because you had been mouthing off to him and you look like a beardless little boy. First blood duels are fine between peers or people who haven't been egregiously insulted by a bard declaiming made-up faults to the passers-by. That you were unwilling to put your blood on the line your mouth had drawn was what pissed him off. Melas also had good call for a second blood or to the death duel, but while his opponent may still think Melas is a malformed beast, yours actively hates you for being a mouthy little wimp who hides behind other people's honor to avoid the least possible repercussions.
The problem there is that it becomes all too much about speed - as ladegard and Cambias both pointed out, the only feat worth having in most duels, as most dues will be to satisfaction, is improved Initiative. Take it 2, 3, 5 times as going first becomes all important.
After all, at the start of the duel the initiative loser is still technically flat footed (unless we want to seriously degrade the sneak attack ability), so the slower person is at a lower armor class. By a strict reading of the rules the slower person can't even have adopted a defensive stance or made use of Expertise, so armor class has concievably dropped even further. Since few people are wearing armor in Emirikol and the arrmor they wear is not high in armor bonuses anyway, we're looking at the first round of the fight giving the initiatve loser an AC of about 11, or maybe 13 if we let him adopt a defensive stance.
At the level of the game Base Attack Bonuses will run from 1-4, with strength bonuses, feats and masterwork weapons call it 1-7. But even at first level it's a +2 or so, and that's enough for a good initiative to make a 'duel' to first blood a coin toss, finished with a 50% chance in one round. As levels go up, initiative becomes even more useful - with a +6 to hit that same initiative victory means you'll take the duel 75% of the time in a single round.
That just gets boring - if there's only one successful strategy then why bother with anything else? Max that initiative, max the attack bonus, charge if you can and who cares about damage or HP higher than 8 (which elimiates a huge fighter advantage). But more on HP in the next response.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2007-02-15 11:30 am (UTC)The problem there is that it becomes all too much about speed - as
After all, at the start of the duel the initiative loser is still technically flat footed (unless we want to seriously degrade the sneak attack ability), so the slower person is at a lower armor class. By a strict reading of the rules the slower person can't even have adopted a defensive stance or made use of Expertise, so armor class has concievably dropped even further. Since few people are wearing armor in Emirikol and the arrmor they wear is not high in armor bonuses anyway, we're looking at the first round of the fight giving the initiatve loser an AC of about 11, or maybe 13 if we let him adopt a defensive stance.
At the level of the game Base Attack Bonuses will run from 1-4, with strength bonuses, feats and masterwork weapons call it 1-7. But even at first level it's a +2 or so, and that's enough for a good initiative to make a 'duel' to first blood a coin toss, finished with a 50% chance in one round. As levels go up, initiative becomes even more useful - with a +6 to hit that same initiative victory means you'll take the duel 75% of the time in a single round.
That just gets boring - if there's only one successful strategy then why bother with anything else? Max that initiative, max the attack bonus, charge if you can and who cares about damage or HP higher than 8 (which elimiates a huge fighter advantage). But more on HP in the next response.