Not really? There isnt much at stake but the relationship to this npc, which the party wishes to keep as a good one. And the NPC has no intention on cheating as beating them isnt their goal. Its more a "show me what you got" kind of challenge
Have the NPC make use of terrain and scenery to pull off defensive or offensive stunts (or fail embarrassingly.) Have the NPC monologue entertainingly. If you’ve seen the Princess Bride, the fight scene between Inigo and the Dread Pirate at the cliffs of insanity might be a source of inspiration. And if the PC or NPC pull off a good stunt or wisecrack, give them inspiration for their next attack, so that there is a mechanical effect for the role play. Likewise, give the opponent advantage if they flop. Use acrobatics, athletics, perform or other skill checks, perhaps contested, to determine outcomes fairly simply without having to invent a whole new combat system for the show-off fight.
The best way is not to run it as combat. Just set a goal and adjudicate the scene normally, don't overthink it.
Despite not normally liking the arbitrary 3 successes before 3 failures of a skill challenge, I think a duel to 3 touches perfectly plays into this.
Just describe each scene, invite the player to act, set the roll, and narrate results as you would normally:
Describe the scene (NPC circles warily, showboats to the crowd, tries to conceal a dagger in their offhand, favours their injured leg, tries to position the sun to their back, etc.).
(Optional) Have a social exchange as they size each other up and look for an opening. Potentially ask how they seek advantage and call for a roll (unless they use a feature; success gives Advantage on their action, failure Disadvantage.
Invite the player to describe what they want to do (reward creativity).
Decide what roll and modifiers (and DCs/opposed roll) are relevant.
Narrate the results and set the scene for the next round.
Continue until one side reaches 3 successes.
You can either set a DC for the actions or make them opposed against the NPC. Opposed is a bit more exciting imo.
For the circling engagement seeking Advantage, and the main action, make sure the NPC responds to and learns from the player's actions. Reward creativity and penalise repeating strategies.
Soon in one of my games, an npc will challenge the a party member to a duel to prove their strength.
They will suggest going for half a minute (5 rounds)
How do I make this dual more interesting? I would like for it to be more epic than *roll* *hit*, *roll* *miss*, *roll* *hit*
Any suggestions? I couldnt find any good resources about this.
A duel is a 1 vs 1 combat meaning each round turn after turn it's usually melee attack roll hit and damage one another unless they use features, spells, maneuvers, actions, or special attacks such as grapple and shove instead.
Depending on their level, it may take more than 5 rounds to see one combattant falls so after that time a winner may be selected by the highest hit point proportion or damage dealt.
I agree with the people who say don't run it as a normal fight. However you run it mechanically, the interest is going to be in the narration.
I suggest keeping things changed up. Make it a set of skill contests mixed up with attack rolls.
And the person who suggested watching Princes Bride had the right idea. Also Empire Strikes Back, or other movies with dramatic duels. Think about how you'd narrate them if they were happening in-game.
How do I make this dual more interesting? I would like for it to be more epic than *roll* *hit*, *roll* *miss*, *roll* *hit*
Has the player indicated they want something more "interesting" than playing their character in the normal way they've designed it and built it for this very moment? As a player I'd be pissed if I finally got a 1v1 duel into the story line and the DM turned it into some open narrative skill check contest nonsense.
I guess I can understand it if you think the rest of the table will get bored watching one person take the spotlight so you want to just speed things up. But if you want things to be epic and memorable then do an actual duel. Rolling dice in a 1v1 fight that you're supposed to lose is going to seem boring to you as the DM but that's the most epic moment possible for a player.
I mean.. the whole game is kinda open narrative skill check 'nonsense'... The rules are there to support the narrative, not the other way round.
However, looking at the original question, I'd actually agree the normal combat rules would fit better IF the GM is going for a no holds barred test of strength until Bloodied (50% hp). I'd just make sure the NPC has interesting abilities other than just multiattack (use PC abilities as inspiration).
If the GM wants a more Princess Bride duel, then the first to 3 (or 5) hits skill challenge works better. Doesn't mean character abilities can't be used just because it uses the structure of a Skill Challenge.
Either way, I'd still include the circling, assessing, talking, etc. opposed check bit at the start of each round as a way to set initiative and keep things dynamic. That's something we've used at our table (as both GM and player) which has worked well.
Yeah this is a hard one. I recall that the first season of Critical Role had a duel, essentially, between two barbarians and it was... well boring. And that's saying something when Matthew Mercer is the DM.
May be worth having the NPC decide that a better test of strength would be some sort of adventuring challenge. Like "oh you're no match for me, but you might be able to take on some random dragon somewhere". That's not a good example, but you get the drift.
Hollow unbreakable arrows are the most OP common magic item, and my current method of coming up with insane combat shenanigans.
if you make a steel pipe with one end closed and a nozzle on the other, you can enlarge it, fill with any liquid, and then drop concentration, creating a high pressure squirt gun. (or a pipe bomb, depending if it holds)
Yeah this is a hard one. I recall that the first season of Critical Role had a duel, essentially, between two barbarians and it was... well boring. And that's saying something when Matthew Mercer is the DM.
There was another Barbarian duel in campaign 2. It was also boring. It didn't help that one of the Barbarians refused to use weapons despite having no skill in unarmed combat.
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Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny. Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
What if you make the objective not combat related. They have to ring a bell on top of a tower or mountain or something. Along the way, there would be obstacles. Smaller monsters, athletics checks, heavy boulders they can’t move alone, etc. so sometimes it might make sense to work together, sometimes it might be worth trying to shove the opponent over an edge.
Maybe with a scoring component, kill the dire wolf and you get 20 points. Or just run past it straight for the bell. Have a couple things like that, so there’s a choice of what to do or what to skip. Just don’t make the bell worth so much it’s like the golden snitch where it makes the rest of the stuff not matter.
The big problem is the solo nature. What are the other players doing while this is going on, whatever it is? That’s why I was asking about cheating. It’s better to find some way to let everyone participate — unless it’s going to be really quick.
Because some people suggested not following combat rules to make it more interesting, and someone else said that might annoy someone who built his character perfectly - Why not combine the suggestions? Use normal combat rounds, but let the player[s] know that for this fight they can take an extra action a round, as long as that extra action is spent on using the terrain.
Come up with a number of terrain features that you think they can use, if at all possible far more than you think they can use. Choose a few for your NPC to use, so as to draw attention to the possibility.
Can you make the fight be party against party, instead of individual against individual? Xalthu is right to say that it's unfair to the other players. (Unless they're very social, with them being willing to hang around giving out advice, and the dueling player being okay with backseat driving. Even then, many D&D encounters end up taking longer than expected.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
DM, writer, and blog master of https://dragonencounters.com/ a blog dedicated to providing unusual, worthwhile encounters for each monster, making each one unique.
Also, suggestions for which monsters might be found together (for people tired of dungeons full of one humanoid race, and perhaps a few beasts and undead.)
I've DM'ed a few "dueling" encounters where a single PC and a single NPC fight each other and it got boring to just the rules as written. Maybe that's a skill issue on my part, but no amount of narration could really make the "take turns making attack rolls until someone runs out of HP" mechanic engaging if there isn't at least some terrain or hazards that the characters can be using.
My solution has been to skip initiative, and use a sort of rock-paper-scissors rule. Each attack has 3 options: "strong attack" (rock), "counterattack" (paper), or "feint and attack" (scissors). As DM, I pick one of those options for the opponent and describe how the opponent circles, looking for an opening, and starts their attack... with a subtle hint or two of which choice they made. Then the PC chooses their attack option, and whoever "wins" (assuming they don't both pick the same thing) gets advantage on their attack roll. If a "mutual defeat" situation ever came up I might use initiative as a tie-breaker, but I haven't had that happen.
This worked out pretty well for my group because the player got to make some choices without really breaking out of the "dueling" theme of the encounter. However, I've only ever done that with low-level characters, so I didn't have to deal with class features that would have complicated things. It's not a perfect system, but maybe that will give you some ideas.
I've DM'ed a few "dueling" encounters where a single PC and a single NPC fight each other and it got boring to just the rules as written. Maybe that's a skill issue on my part, but no amount of narration could really make the "take turns making attack rolls until someone runs out of HP" mechanic engaging if there isn't at least some terrain or hazards that the characters can be using.
It's not a skill issue, it's an engine limitation. D&D is a hard RPG built around group combat, which leaves RAW lacking in the area of 1v1 combat. I've seen a few major streams do 1v1 duels, and the only time it was really engaging was when the DM and player improvised a stylized duel with skill checks instead of running it like normal combat (which was helped by the fact that neither side of the encounter was out for blood).
If I was going to attempt a true to the death single combat encounter in a campaign, I'd probably want to homebrew a stat block specifically for it as something of a glass cannon; relatively low AC and HP with slightly higher damage, to avoid 20 minutes of the two just standing there making attack rolls. No idea how difficult designing this as a useful block would be, though.
Hmmm... I personally think regular duels can be pretty cinematic with temp HP, though they do definitely get a lot longer at higher levels due to the massive hit point increases.
I might do something like this: Temp hp = to each character's hp and they're able to use features that they could recover over a short rest without losing anything. This'd only be in duels where the combatants weren't trying to kill each other and where you don't want them to waste resources, and skill checks make sense to but it's practically hard to represent hp and attacks with ability checks though I think skill checks makes more sense for higher levels and what I proposed above works better for lower ones just because I doubt most of the party would wanna sit down at their D&D session and watch an hour long duel play out.
IDK I'm just rambling lol.
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BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explainHERE.
You said a test of strength, so are we talking about arm wrestling? If so, that's just contested strength checks, I'd go best of 3.
Or are we talking hand to hand combat, no weapons or armor? Well, there's a whole combat system for that.
Or are we talking duels by pistols or hand crossbows? If so, that can also be handled in combat.
But that's just mechanics. As a DM, it's your job to add hype and set the mood. You are the one that needs to get the players waiting in anticipation for each roll. Is there a crowd? Describe the looks on their faces, the anticipation and excitement of the event. Does the other challenger have admirers or supporters? They will be boasting, taunting and cheering. Where is the duel taking place? The middle of a street? A crowded tavern? In a field at dawn? Set the stage for the event by describing the mood, location and weather, and do so before, during and after the event. Draw it out and make those rolls dramatic.
Dear peoples,
Soon in one of my games, an npc will challenge the a party member to a duel to prove their strength.
They will suggest going for half a minute (5 rounds)
How do I make this dual more interesting? I would like for it to be more epic than *roll* *hit*, *roll* *miss*, *roll* *hit*
Ect ect
Any suggestions? I couldnt find any good resources about this.
Thank you in advance!
Can the rest of the party get involved? Like cheating? Or stopping the NPC from cheating?
Not really? There isnt much at stake but the relationship to this npc, which the party wishes to keep as a good one. And the NPC has no intention on cheating as beating them isnt their goal. Its more a "show me what you got" kind of challenge
Have the NPC make use of terrain and scenery to pull off defensive or offensive stunts (or fail embarrassingly.) Have the NPC monologue entertainingly. If you’ve seen the Princess Bride, the fight scene between Inigo and the Dread Pirate at the cliffs of insanity might be a source of inspiration. And if the PC or NPC pull off a good stunt or wisecrack, give them inspiration for their next attack, so that there is a mechanical effect for the role play. Likewise, give the opponent advantage if they flop. Use acrobatics, athletics, perform or other skill checks, perhaps contested, to determine outcomes fairly simply without having to invent a whole new combat system for the show-off fight.
Also, Pathfinder had an optional performance combat system that you could easily modify for 5E. https://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/other-rules/performance-combat/
The best way is not to run it as combat. Just set a goal and adjudicate the scene normally, don't overthink it.
Despite not normally liking the arbitrary 3 successes before 3 failures of a skill challenge, I think a duel to 3 touches perfectly plays into this.
Just describe each scene, invite the player to act, set the roll, and narrate results as you would normally:
You can either set a DC for the actions or make them opposed against the NPC. Opposed is a bit more exciting imo.
For the circling engagement seeking Advantage, and the main action, make sure the NPC responds to and learns from the player's actions. Reward creativity and penalise repeating strategies.
A duel is a 1 vs 1 combat meaning each round turn after turn it's usually melee attack roll hit and damage one another unless they use features, spells, maneuvers, actions, or special attacks such as grapple and shove instead.
Depending on their level, it may take more than 5 rounds to see one combattant falls so after that time a winner may be selected by the highest hit point proportion or damage dealt.
I agree with the people who say don't run it as a normal fight. However you run it mechanically, the interest is going to be in the narration.
I suggest keeping things changed up. Make it a set of skill contests mixed up with attack rolls.
And the person who suggested watching Princes Bride had the right idea. Also Empire Strikes Back, or other movies with dramatic duels. Think about how you'd narrate them if they were happening in-game.
Has the player indicated they want something more "interesting" than playing their character in the normal way they've designed it and built it for this very moment? As a player I'd be pissed if I finally got a 1v1 duel into the story line and the DM turned it into some open narrative skill check contest nonsense.
I guess I can understand it if you think the rest of the table will get bored watching one person take the spotlight so you want to just speed things up. But if you want things to be epic and memorable then do an actual duel. Rolling dice in a 1v1 fight that you're supposed to lose is going to seem boring to you as the DM but that's the most epic moment possible for a player.
I mean.. the whole game is kinda open narrative skill check 'nonsense'... The rules are there to support the narrative, not the other way round.
However, looking at the original question, I'd actually agree the normal combat rules would fit better IF the GM is going for a no holds barred test of strength until Bloodied (50% hp). I'd just make sure the NPC has interesting abilities other than just multiattack (use PC abilities as inspiration).
If the GM wants a more Princess Bride duel, then the first to 3 (or 5) hits skill challenge works better. Doesn't mean character abilities can't be used just because it uses the structure of a Skill Challenge.
Either way, I'd still include the circling, assessing, talking, etc. opposed check bit at the start of each round as a way to set initiative and keep things dynamic. That's something we've used at our table (as both GM and player) which has worked well.
Yeah this is a hard one. I recall that the first season of Critical Role had a duel, essentially, between two barbarians and it was... well boring. And that's saying something when Matthew Mercer is the DM.
May be worth having the NPC decide that a better test of strength would be some sort of adventuring challenge. Like "oh you're no match for me, but you might be able to take on some random dragon somewhere". That's not a good example, but you get the drift.
Since there are only 2 participants, you could try rerolling initiative every round to make it interesting
Hollow unbreakable arrows are the most OP common magic item, and my current method of coming up with insane combat shenanigans.
if you make a steel pipe with one end closed and a nozzle on the other, you can enlarge it, fill with any liquid, and then drop concentration, creating a high pressure squirt gun. (or a pipe bomb, depending if it holds)
There was another Barbarian duel in campaign 2. It was also boring. It didn't help that one of the Barbarians refused to use weapons despite having no skill in unarmed combat.
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny.
Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
What if you make the objective not combat related. They have to ring a bell on top of a tower or mountain or something. Along the way, there would be obstacles. Smaller monsters, athletics checks, heavy boulders they can’t move alone, etc. so sometimes it might make sense to work together, sometimes it might be worth trying to shove the opponent over an edge.
Maybe with a scoring component, kill the dire wolf and you get 20 points. Or just run past it straight for the bell. Have a couple things like that, so there’s a choice of what to do or what to skip. Just don’t make the bell worth so much it’s like the golden snitch where it makes the rest of the stuff not matter.
The big problem is the solo nature. What are the other players doing while this is going on, whatever it is? That’s why I was asking about cheating. It’s better to find some way to let everyone participate — unless it’s going to be really quick.
Because some people suggested not following combat rules to make it more interesting, and someone else said that might annoy someone who built his character perfectly - Why not combine the suggestions? Use normal combat rounds, but let the player[s] know that for this fight they can take an extra action a round, as long as that extra action is spent on using the terrain.
Come up with a number of terrain features that you think they can use, if at all possible far more than you think they can use. Choose a few for your NPC to use, so as to draw attention to the possibility.
Can you make the fight be party against party, instead of individual against individual? Xalthu is right to say that it's unfair to the other players. (Unless they're very social, with them being willing to hang around giving out advice, and the dueling player being okay with backseat driving. Even then, many D&D encounters end up taking longer than expected.
DM, writer, and blog master of https://dragonencounters.com/ a blog dedicated to providing unusual, worthwhile encounters for each monster, making each one unique.
Also, suggestions for which monsters might be found together (for people tired of dungeons full of one humanoid race, and perhaps a few beasts and undead.)
I've DM'ed a few "dueling" encounters where a single PC and a single NPC fight each other and it got boring to just the rules as written. Maybe that's a skill issue on my part, but no amount of narration could really make the "take turns making attack rolls until someone runs out of HP" mechanic engaging if there isn't at least some terrain or hazards that the characters can be using.
My solution has been to skip initiative, and use a sort of rock-paper-scissors rule. Each attack has 3 options: "strong attack" (rock), "counterattack" (paper), or "feint and attack" (scissors). As DM, I pick one of those options for the opponent and describe how the opponent circles, looking for an opening, and starts their attack... with a subtle hint or two of which choice they made. Then the PC chooses their attack option, and whoever "wins" (assuming they don't both pick the same thing) gets advantage on their attack roll. If a "mutual defeat" situation ever came up I might use initiative as a tie-breaker, but I haven't had that happen.
This worked out pretty well for my group because the player got to make some choices without really breaking out of the "dueling" theme of the encounter. However, I've only ever done that with low-level characters, so I didn't have to deal with class features that would have complicated things. It's not a perfect system, but maybe that will give you some ideas.
It's not a skill issue, it's an engine limitation. D&D is a hard RPG built around group combat, which leaves RAW lacking in the area of 1v1 combat. I've seen a few major streams do 1v1 duels, and the only time it was really engaging was when the DM and player improvised a stylized duel with skill checks instead of running it like normal combat (which was helped by the fact that neither side of the encounter was out for blood).
If I was going to attempt a true to the death single combat encounter in a campaign, I'd probably want to homebrew a stat block specifically for it as something of a glass cannon; relatively low AC and HP with slightly higher damage, to avoid 20 minutes of the two just standing there making attack rolls. No idea how difficult designing this as a useful block would be, though.
Hmmm... I personally think regular duels can be pretty cinematic with temp HP, though they do definitely get a lot longer at higher levels due to the massive hit point increases.
I might do something like this: Temp hp = to each character's hp and they're able to use features that they could recover over a short rest without losing anything. This'd only be in duels where the combatants weren't trying to kill each other and where you don't want them to waste resources, and skill checks make sense to but it's practically hard to represent hp and attacks with ability checks though I think skill checks makes more sense for higher levels and what I proposed above works better for lower ones just because I doubt most of the party would wanna sit down at their D&D session and watch an hour long duel play out.
IDK I'm just rambling lol.
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explain
HERE.What kind of a duel?
You said a test of strength, so are we talking about arm wrestling? If so, that's just contested strength checks, I'd go best of 3.
Or are we talking hand to hand combat, no weapons or armor? Well, there's a whole combat system for that.
Or are we talking duels by pistols or hand crossbows? If so, that can also be handled in combat.
But that's just mechanics. As a DM, it's your job to add hype and set the mood. You are the one that needs to get the players waiting in anticipation for each roll. Is there a crowd? Describe the looks on their faces, the anticipation and excitement of the event. Does the other challenger have admirers or supporters? They will be boasting, taunting and cheering. Where is the duel taking place? The middle of a street? A crowded tavern? In a field at dawn? Set the stage for the event by describing the mood, location and weather, and do so before, during and after the event. Draw it out and make those rolls dramatic.
In my duels, I'm going to use emphasis dice to make it a little more on edge and add action.