In western movies and even real life western style duels have always interested me and I’d love to incorporate this in my campaign besides for the basic turn style fighting, and trading hit points points back and forth, I was thinking about add something like this. Imagine death and saving throws except you are try to beat the rolls of the NPC you are dueling. Obviously this is difficult as if you lose it would be an outright kill. I don’t want a duel to last very long like normal combat but don’t want to outright kill a players character but would also be unfair to outright kill the npc, not sure what to do about this.
The shoot out at noon is a very weird creation, done only for the movies. Older style duels had a ref and seconds, so there were good reasons not to just shoot on sight.
Assuming you put in ref's and seconds, then why not do the count and turn?
Two guys in the middle of an empty street waiting to attack only makes sense if neither of you is sure you want to do the fight. Some consequences for doing it have to exist.
I could see a situation where there is some kind of Sherriff/authority that will not kill you as long as you make an honest attempt to talk it out. When the talk fails, then you draw. Even then the Sherriff should fine you some amount of money for the killing. Perhaps the Sherriff could also give you the special one shot to kill weapons, just to make sure you both have a 'fair' shot.
You could make the duel to first blood. Then the first one to get hit loses.
Or, if you really want to jazz it up you could have them reroll initiative every round so it isn’t just a matter of back and forth, and make it a best of three thing where the first person to score two hits on the other wins.
In western movies and even real life western style duels have always interested me and I’d love to incorporate this in my campaign besides for the basic turn style fighting, and trading hit points points back and forth, I was thinking about add something like this. Imagine death and saving throws except you are try to beat the rolls of the NPC you are dueling. Obviously this is difficult as if you lose it would be an outright kill. I don’t want a duel to last very long like normal combat but don’t want to outright kill a players character but would also be unfair to outright kill the npc, not sure what to do about this.
The shoot out at noon is a very weird creation, done only for the movies. Older style duels had a ref and seconds, so there were good reasons not to just shoot on sight.
Assuming you put in ref's and seconds, then why not do the count and turn?
Two guys in the middle of an empty street waiting to attack only makes sense if neither of you is sure you want to do the fight. Some consequences for doing it have to exist.
I could see a situation where there is some kind of Sherriff/authority that will not kill you as long as you make an honest attempt to talk it out. When the talk fails, then you draw. Even then the Sherriff should fine you some amount of money for the killing. Perhaps the Sherriff could also give you the special one shot to kill weapons, just to make sure you both have a 'fair' shot.
You could make the duel to first blood. Then the first one to get hit loses.
Or, if you really want to jazz it up you could have them reroll initiative every round so it isn’t just a matter of back and forth, and make it a best of three thing where the first person to score two hits on the other wins.
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