Wherein we shall discuss the proper use of a blade for defending your honor.
You will duel someone when you have 'cause' with them, or they have 'cause' with you, or both of you with each other ('mutual cause'). Some things give cause automatically (in particular two PCs from enemy regiments meeting, a noble meeting a non-noble four or more SLs above him, and various reasons to do with mistresses).
Other cases of 'cause', usually insults in the press, are less clear-cut. If you wish to take a given matter to a duel, you should issue a challenge and public opinion will be solicited. The other players will also be asked to vote on whether the challenges to duel which have been announced in the press have 'cause'. Regimental friends and colleagues of either party are not allowed to vote. If more people vote for cause than against, it is deemed to have cause. Members of the same regiment or friendly regiment as one of the parties may not vote. If your challenge is voted down, you lose 2SPs. Challenges should be issued before the announcement deadline: if they are not, they will be held over until the next month.
Once you have had a duel (which includes cases where one person refused to fight, due to low endurance or whatever) you will have no further duels with the same person that month.
You may bring up to two seconds to a duel - details of how to choose your seconds are in section 10.8.
If the duel is caused by people meeting, or caused automatically and the parties then meet later in the same month, then it is fought on the spot with whatever weapons the two are carrying (usually regimental weapons).
Otherwise, before the announcements deadline, the person with cause names the week of the month in which it should be fought (it occurs before any other events in that week) and which weapons will be used. (The defaults are the first week and two of the person's default weapon.) You may name two different weapons, in which case your opponent may choose which to use.
If one of the two parties is at the front in the month following the duel then it is held over, and will be fought in the first week of the next month that both parties are in Paris. If a duel is not fought within six months, then cause lapses.
Assuming neither party declines, each duelist will enact a series of routines, until one (or both) is dead or surrenders. These routines are made up of 'actions' which all take the same amount of time to execute. Not all routines have the same number of actions in them, and so take various amounts of times to execute. A list of routines and the actions which make them up follows :
|
Routines: |
Actions: | ||
| Rest | X | Rest | X |
| Lunge | X - L - X | Lunge | L |
| Slash | (X)- X - S (1) | Slash | S |
| Furious Slash | X - S - X - C - X - X - X | Cut | C |
| Furious Lunge | L - X - X - C - X - X - X | Kick | K |
| Kick | CL - K - X - X - X | Close | CL |
| Jump Back | JB - X | Jump Back | JB |
| Throw | JB - X - T | Throw | T |
| Parry | P -(R) (2) | Parry | P |
| Block | B | Block | B |
| Close | CL | Riposte | R |
| Surrender | Sur | ||
| Optional Routines | |||
| Surrender | Sur | ||
Notes:
|
Weapon vs Action table | ||||||
|
Rapier |
Dagger |
Foil |
Sabre |
Cutlass |
Zweihander | |
|
L |
1 |
1 |
1 |
0.5 |
0 |
0 |
|
S |
1 |
0.5 |
0 |
2 |
4 |
3 |
|
C |
1 |
0.5 |
0 |
2 |
0 |
2 |
|
K |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
0.5 |
0.5 |
|
T |
1 |
2 |
1 |
0.5 |
* (1) |
* (1) |
|
R |
1 |
1 |
1 |
0.5 |
0 |
0 |
|
Action vs Action table | ||||||||||||
|
X |
L |
S |
C |
K |
JB |
CL |
T |
P |
B |
OP |
Sur | |
|
L |
2 |
2 |
1 |
1 |
2 |
0 |
3 |
2 |
0 |
2 |
1 |
2 |
|
S |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
2 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
1 |
|
C |
2 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
0 |
3 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
|
K |
3 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
1 |
0 |
3 |
3 |
3 |
3 |
3 |
3 |
|
T |
4 |
4 |
4 |
4 |
3 |
4 |
3 |
4 |
4 |
4 |
4 |
4 (1) |
|
R |
1 |
|||||||||||
To reflect the difference in expertise between duelists your damage and chances to hit (assuming your blow is not parried or blocked for a lunge or slash resp.) are changed according to the following formulae:
[currently, we reserve the right to change the formulae without warning to keep things balanced]
Note that the maximum Prob. to hit is 95%.
You may surrender on any action, but your opponent will still have his attack (if any) against that action. The Surrender counts as a rest from this point of view.
In addition, if your current endurance becomes equal or lower than the action number you will be forced to surrender through fatigue. (This is mainly to prevent the possibility of infinitely long duels.)
If you are under half endurance then you may decline the duel without loss of honor (or your opponent being credited with a win), but if you choose to fight anyway, you gain 3 SPs, regardless of the outcome of the duel.
Your orders should contain the following:
[where a choice is a routine or set of routines]
Note that your opponent's strength will become known to you as soon as he hits you, and you may have surrender conditions based on his strength. For the benefit of very small characters, we allow you to conditionally not turn up if you are above half endurance and could be killed in one blow.
It should be noted that you will not be required to fight a duels with a weapon other than your standard weapon without being given warning (someone having cause with you and choosing something different) so there is no need to include routines for them before you need to.
If you are faced with a combination of weapons that your orders do not cover, the GM will either choose the set that he considers most similar or use the generic default orders as he sees fit.
The routines you use are selected as follows:
First use the initial choice. When this runs out, go down the possible situations, and use the choice corresponding to it. If none match, then the default is used. Then repeat. If your choice contains a *, then the conditionals are checked: if none of them match (except the default) then you keep going, otherwise you drop what you were doing and go for that choice. It should be stressed that the first conditional that matches will be used, even if there is a more specific one further down the list. This avoids the problem of which one choice to use when more than one independent condition which matches.
Here is an example, which also illustrates the preferred format for you to use. Comments are in []
Note that what is on the left hand side (the IF) is expressed in actions, but what is on the right hand side is in routines. KOB has different meanings in the Decline: order and the Surrender: order (since in the former you don't know your opponent's strength and in the latter you do): in the surrender it means 'killed in one blow' and in the decline it means 'killed in one blow and over half endurance.
Decline: UH, KOB, senior members of same regiment
Weapon: Sabre
[UH = under half endurance, KOB = can be killed in one blow (and over half endurance). DC=opponent's dueling class: 6 is big. SR = same regiment. SSR = senior member of the same regiment]
Routine: Sabre v Sabre
Surrender: UH, KOB, FB v DC 5 or 6
[ Surrender at under half endurance, if can be killed in one blow, or at first blood (FB) against a big person). ]
Initial: FS [Start with a furious slash. ]
X-S-X: JB-S
L-X-X: JB-S
Cl: JB-S
[If your opponent has just done X-S-X or L-X-X (assumed to be part of a furious slash or lunge) or Cl (start of a kick), jump back and slash.]
Default: S-*-FS
[Otherwise slash, check the conditions again (which is what * indicates) and if none apply, furious slash).]
Routine: Sabre v anything else
Surrender: UH, KOB, FB v FC 5 or 6
Initial: FS
X-S-X: S vs cutlass, JB-S vs anything else.
Default: S-*-FS
Routine: Rapier v anything
Surrender: KOB
Initial: L
Default: L
Routine: Anything else
Surrender: FB
Initial: K
action >50: L-L then return to default
Default: K
The following are of use in conditionals:
You may order RA which does a 'useful' attacking move at random (not including throw).
Parries and ripostes: if you order PR then it will insert a riposte automatically if you parry a lunge. Alternatively you may order P, then R. Note that if you try and riposte and you haven't just parried a lunge, then it will be replaced by a rest.
Duels are semiautomated: it would thus help if 'word conditionals' are put on the THEN side, i.e.
is preferable to
and if word conditionals can occur as far down the priority list as possible.
Also, please do not put any other colons in your orders, or else it may break something! If you need to go onto a second line, then do so (without repeating the if), thus
The default dueling orders for those who haven't submitted any dueling orders are:
Decline: UH, KOB, any member of my regiment
Weapon: regimental, foil
Initial: RA
Default: RA
Surrender: UH, KOB
Suffice it to say this isn't a particularly good set of orders.
If your dueling orders cannot be easily written in the above format, don't worry, we'll manage. Note however that the longer and more complicated your dueling orders are, the more likely mistakes are to arise, and that the longest sequences don't always win the most duels.
In a given week you may practice either expertise in a given weapon, or strength, or constitution. This practice happens 'at the Gym'.
Weapon: you may only practice up to expertise 14. You gain 0.25 expertise per week. The cost is your current expertise (rounded down). Your regiment will subsidize practice in your regimental weapon by an amount up to your monthly pay.
Strength or Constitution: it takes 10 weeks to raise your stat by 1. The cost is SL+current stat per week (for special diets, etc).
It is no longer possible to convert your expertise to strength.
If you want to increase your expertise above 14 by practicing, or to increase it at 0.5 Exp per week rather than 0.25 Exp per week below 14, you will have to pay go to one of the six fencing schools. Since you may not know what your expertise is at the point of going to the school, you should order 'go to the fencing school' and you will be sent to the correct one. Note that you do not have to join a school in the same way that you join a club: they are just a facility to allow you to increase your expertise.
Each school appoints two instructors (an appointment which may be held in addition to other appointments). The minimum requirements are an SL at least that of the SPs gained for being an instructor at that school, and an expertise at least two better than the top of the school's range in some weapon. An instructor must spend one week a month teaching. If you do not (even if you are at the front), then you lose the post.
The instructors are appointed by the Director of the Fencing Schools (DFS), which is a normal appointment requiring a rank of Colonel or above, or a title of Knight or above, or expertise of 26+, and SL at least 10. If an NPC, he takes a level 4 to influence. It is appointed by the King. The DFS cannot appoint himself to a instructorship.
Your regiment will subsidize tuition in your regiment weapon, up to the value of your monthly pay.
You may bring up to two seconds to a duel. These will be by default the first two available people on your 'default second list', which may be as long as you wish. People in your regiment and friendly regiment are always prepared to act as default seconds; people in your enemy regiment never will. Other people will offer to second you only if they explicitly order it.
Seconding orders should go in the premonthly part of the main orders, in the form (for example):
People can obviously not second you if they are at the front. If someone is asked to second both sides, they will give priority first to the person who has cause, then to the one with highest SL, then randomly.