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Okay, these seem a -little- complex so I just wanted to ask a few questions to make sure I understand properly.
1. Do you have "movement" and "space" in the duel? Or is considered that whatever you do, you can hit your opponent if desired?
2. You can only generate defensive manifestations if you reserve the MP to do so from your turn correct?
3. Thoughtforms are an additional manifestation, they cannot be "you" or used in a similar manner to synthesis summoners.
4. You cannot increase your attributes within the mindscape, so you had an 08 dex in the physical world, you couldn't change this? (while I understand why mechanically this is a thing, I am a little sad at the loss of flavor)
5. No one can just "attack". To attack you must spend MP on manifesting offensive attacks OR on generating a thought-form manifestation and nothing carried over from the physical realm. Your "attack" can be you (as a fighter) attacking something, but it must use the offensive manifestation rules for damage?
5.A Given my assumption to the above is correct, Fighters or other purely physical focused combatants are at a huge disadvantage in a psychic duel. As they have nothing to draw MP from other than their ability scores, which likely won't provide much.
5.B Would allowing fighters to gain 1 MP for free each round per weapon training bonus(or -1+ WT bonus) be too much(to represent their discipline?) In a similar vein, would allowing barbarians to trade 2 for 1 rage rounds-MP be breaking the system too much? After all, the idea is that the duel initiator is putting himself at a huge advantage in the situation.
Okay, these seem a -little- complex so I just wanted to ask a few questions to make sure I understand properly.
1. Do you have "movement" and "space" in the duel? Or is considered that whatever you do, you can hit your opponent if desired?
2. You can only generate defensive manifestations if you reserve the MP to do so from your turn correct?
3. Thoughtforms are an additional manifestation, they cannot be "you" or used in a similar manner to synthesis summoners.
4. You cannot increase your attributes within the mindscape, so you had an 08 dex in the physical world, you couldn't change this? (while I understand why mechanically this is a thing, I am a little sad at the loss of flavor)5. No one can just "attack". To attack you must spend MP on manifesting offensive attacks OR on generating a thought-form manifestation and nothing carried over from the physical realm. Your "attack" can be you (as a fighter) attacking something, but it must use the offensive manifestation rules for damage?
5.A Given my assumption to the above is correct, Fighters or other purely physical focused combatants are at a huge disadvantage in a psychic duel. As they have nothing to draw MP from other than their ability scores, which likely won't provide much.
5.B Would allowing fighters to gain 1 MP for free each round per weapon training bonus(or -1+ WT bonus) be too much(to represent their discipline?) In a similar vein, would allowing barbarians to trade 2 for 1 rage rounds-MP be breaking the system too much? After all, the idea is that the duel initiator is putting himself at a huge advantage in the situation.
1. No. Movement and space are irrelevant; your manifestations just do stuff, and resolve as normal attack rolls or saving throws as appropriate.
2. No. You generate your MP as you use them - even if it's not your turn, as with immediate actions. If you over-generate, points not used "immediately" are wasted.
--- Your GM might rule that you must do immediate actions from your ability pool, since that free action isn't really converting anything, just activating points from that pool.
3. Yes. Thought-forms are basically summoned monsters, except that you must concentrate on them as a full-round action *on top* of the typical one-round cast time.
4. Yes, you cannot alter your stats. Note that any situational modifiers TO your stats actually carry over - so an Eagle's Splendor spell will follow you into the mindscape.
5. Unfortunately, yes - and they can't even simulate the effects that make them effective martials. They'll basically be stuck swinging for 1d4 or maybe 4d4 for a few rounds, then being tapped out.
- 5a. Unless they have racial spell-like abilities that they can leverage, they're stuck with their ability pool only.
- 5b. You'd have to consider the full can of worms in that case. Would bardic performance rounds count? Channels? Lay on hands? Could kineticists accept burn for MP?
And would anyone else be able to generate free MP?
A lot to think about before going to such house rules.
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Thanks for the reply!
After reading over, I think the rules have potential, but I do feel like the duel itself is a little resource intensive. So a "passive" generation of MPs depending on level and or other aspects was the first thing that came to mind. Note, it wouldn't be a lot, and to be effective other resources would have to be expended. But RAW it makes even psychic spellcasters "less effective" than simply casting X spell. My permissive nature would actually be inclined to say yes for 5b. Though in most of the cases at a reduced rate (2 to 1).
I looked at the psychic duel rules (and other dueling rules) a long time ago, and I did not try to understand them thoroughly but decided I didn't care for them and that they were too exploitable for those designed to use them and effectively a death sentence for those not designed for it.
I decided that you couldn't force someone into a duel. Which basically means only someone who thinks they can succeed will fight you, so martial characters just say "No thanks" while the Psychic class NPC may be willing to pit themselves against the party psychic.
Same sort of thing for a standard "duel" in that you can't force someone into a duel, or at least you can't create consequences for someone refusing to duel beyond "Oh, so you're a coward!".
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I looked at the psychic duel rules (and other dueling rules) a long time ago, and I did not try to understand them thoroughly but decided I didn't care for them and that they were too exploitable for those designed to use them and effectively a death sentence for those not designed for it.
I decided that you couldn't force someone into a duel. Which basically means only someone who thinks they can succeed will fight you, so martial characters just say "No thanks" while the Psychic class NPC may be willing to pit themselves against the party psychic.
Same sort of thing for a standard "duel" in that you can't force someone into a duel, or at least you can't create consequences for someone refusing to duel beyond "Oh, so you're a coward!".
do you ban spells like dominate person/monster or flesh to stone, etc? As those are far more exploitable IMO and require far less resource investment. (which is part of what I'm considering changing)
No, but this spell is worse in the sense of it requires the GM to keep track of two separate battles and doesn't clearly outline if the psychic duel occurs "instantly" from the view of those around them or if each round still takes the same time scale as regular combat or how to handle what happens otherwise....so there are other factors (for me) that figure into how to handle it.
I would rather them just cast something like the spells you mention because even though they are just as disabling there are less question surrounding how they function.
Basically the psychic duel spell is "You die on a failed save" with extra steps (for characters that aren't magical). And more than anything that's the primary reason I remove it. You already have save or die spells, use those instead.
In general I just don't like the systems because they don't feel well thought out to how they work in the middle of a normal combat.
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due to the fact that it continues with normal round actions (swift/full round) and stating that it follows initiative if already in combat, you would simply run it alongside the other combat, except instead of casting a spell or rolling an attack the person(s) in the duel use the psychic duel rules to make an attack except with the added bonus of being able to pretend its a FF fight and summon meteor as their attack.
Its certainly not remotely the most powerful thing a 9th level caster can do in a fight, though one of the most fun and thematic things they could do, imo. I'd rather them use this than cast dominate on the scary fighter so they can sit back and watch the boss defeat himself.
I guess it's just a difference of opinion.
The idea that it's a duel pretends that it's somehow an idea of equal footing and a fair fight.
But in truth a smart player isn't going to use this against anyone capable of fighting back, so it's effectively a save or die with extra steps.
I guess the real problem is that this is a second level spell that is effectively a save or die. Although I guess it's not much worse than Hideous Laughter.
Perhaps if you add into the psychic duel rules that a character can attempt (on their own, without the intervention of another character) a will save to leave against the DC of the original spell.
I think if that change was made that puts it on the same power level as Hideous Laughter with some extra damage being possible.