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Duel Combat

Source Ultimate Combat pg. 150
A duel functions much like ordinary combat, with a few notable exceptions.

At the start of the duel, each participant makes an initiative check, just like in standard combat. Because duels are always planned and expected, there is never a surprise round. Alternatively, some duels start off with each side facing off, waiting for the other to flinch or break resolve. In such cases, substitute a Bluff, Intimidate, or Sense Motive check in place of the standard initiative check. The skill used is decided by the individual participants and is reflective of their approach to the duel.

At the beginning of each round, the participants check the status of the duel (the GM may want to mark the beginning of each round in some way during initiative tracking as a reminder to check this status). So long as all participants agree to continue dueling, the duel goes on. If any one of the participants withdraws from the duel, the duel immediately ends for all participants, even those who would see it continue. The participant or side that ended the duel is considered the loser of the duel. The duel’s remaining participants can, among themselves, agree to resume the duel, but this is considered a separate duel from the previous one and does not involve those who withdrew from the duel.

Each participant in a duel can act normally on his turn, but his actions must target or affect either himself or one of the other duel participants (either an ally or an opponent). For example, a warrior might make an attack with his bow against anyone participating in the duel, or he might administer a potion to a wounded ally also involved in the duel, but he could not attack anyone other than a participant. Similarly a dueling wizard could not cast haste on allies outside the duel while excluding himself, but he could cast it on his allies if he was among the targets. The same goes for offensive spells, such as fireball—the dueling caster must include one of his opponents in the duel among the targets of the spell, and could not affect some nearby creatures to the exclusion of his opponent.

In addition to his normal actions, each participant in a duel may use one of a number of special immediate actions, available only to characters participating in a duel. They may take dueling counters, dueling dodges, dueling parries, or dueling resolve actions, each of which is described below.

Archives of Nethys

Rules Index | GM Screen

Duel Combat