Duels in Pirates and Traders II

Duels (and minor skirmishes involving a few characters) are a common event in the rough and tumble world of the 17th century Caribbean. Even if you intend to play a peaceful or more cerebral character, you would be well advised to develop at least a minimal amount of martial ability in your character. It can also be wise to cultivate at least one companion who is capable of dishing out some pain. The combat system in P&T2 is not forgiving, fighting duels at a numerical disadvantage will eventually see your character six feet under.

Turn Sequence
Duels in P&T2 are turn-based the same way as the rest of the game; i.e., each character takes it in turn to carry out and resolve an action. We refer to a turn in a duel as a round.

At the start of each round, every character rolls for initiative, which determines the order in which they will act during the round. Characters with higher initiative (usually those with high agility) will tend to act earlier in the round. Characters that score a critical success may act more than once during a round; characters who fumble the score may end up not acting at all. It is thus possible for a character to have two (or more) consecutive actions without their opponents being able to respond.

During their turn, the character can typically do two things; change their defensive stance and carry out an action. Carrying out an action will always end that character's turn.

Stance
Each character is in a stance (or status). There are seven different stances.

Actions
There are basically five types of actions in the dueling system:


 * Attack Actions: These are actions that inflict direct damage on the target of the action.
 * Maneuver Actions: These are actions that attempt to gain the acting character some kind of advantage over their opponent.
 * Ready Actions: These are actions that allow you to ready a new weapon (or load a fired one).
 * Recover Actions: Try to recover from a disadvantageous stance or fatigue.
 * Give Up: Actions to end the duel.

Attack
The type of attack available to your character depends on what weapons they are currently wielding. Different weapons have different aspects.

Attacks always causes the attacker to accumulate 1 or more points of fatigue. In addition, every attack action is inherently risky - failing at an attack action always results in the character's stance degrading by 1 level (or more). The current stance of both characters can modify the attack chance with both bonuses and maluses.

Different attacks inflict different types of damage. Weapons are rated for how much damage they inflict of the three types: blunt/edge/point.

Maneuver
Maneuver actions are usually concerned with trying to gain an advantage on the opponent; usually by lowering the opponent's stance.

Maneuvers usually cost the acting character to accumulate a point of fatigue. Unlike attacks, however, they do not cause a degradation of your own stance when

Ready
Ready actions are used to ready weapons for use.

Recover
Recover actions are used to remove or reduce detrimental effects.

Give Up
These actions are used to end the combat.

Defensive Stance
There are three basic defenses against an attack.


 * Evade: Try to evade an attack.
 * Block: Use your weapon to block an attack.

Evade
Your ability at evasion is based on agility + Athletics skill.

Block
Your ability at blocking is based on your skill with the weapon you're wielding.

Counter
Countering an attack, is the art of the riposte; i.e., blocking the attack against you and setting up a counter-attack while your opponent is disadvantaged. The skill used is the same as for blocking, but because of the difficulty involved in carrying out an effective counter, characters attempting this receive a significant malus. You should really only do this if you are very confident in your character's skills, but done right by a highly skilled character, it can allow them to make short work of their foes.

Fatigue
Each character has an endurance bar. This will usually be full at the start of combat, but will rapidly deplete as combat goes on. Most actions cost 1 fatigue point; some cost more. As fatigue accumulates, the character will become tired (-1 to all rolls) and exhausted (-2 to all rolls).