1 on 1 Duel Tournament at level 9 - what would be good rules/chars?

[Wasp]

Hi everyone

in the new year we plan to have a little "tournament" where we enter with one 9th level character and then duel 1 on 1 until only 1 character remains. We are aware that allowing magic may lead to very short/swingy fights but it's just supposed to be a fun little side thing

The preliminary rules are as follows
- Characters are lvl 9
- All official sources but no Unearthed Arcana
- Multiclassing and feats are allowed, but no Variant Human
- any non-magic equipment allowed (melee and ranged weapons, armor etc)
- one common and one uncommon magic item allowed
- One duel per long rest, pre-fight self-buffing allowed
- start 60 feet apart
- a duel ends when one party is unconscious or surrenders

Do you think those rules work? Is anything missing? What would you change? What spells should be banned?

And as an addendum: What would you play in this scenario? I assume a ranged magic user with high initiative?

[LudicSavant]

Re: Rules

I would make it so that only long-term buffs (at least 10 minutes duration, or things that can be endlessly recast for free like Guidance/Shillelagh) can be pre-buffed. Stuff you're more likely to have up at the start of a fight in a real game, basically.

Also the "falls unconscious" win condition bugs me a little bit since there are characters who can self-resuscitate.

Also not sure why there would be no Variant Human.

Also, put some terrain in your arena, rather than just making it a featureless flat plane.

[Wasp]

Re: Rules

I would make it so that only long-term buffs (at least 10 minutes duration, or things that can be endlessly recast for free like Guidance/Shillelagh) can be pre-buffed. Stuff you're more likely to have up at the start of a fight in a real game, basically.

Also the "falls unconscious" win condition bugs me a little bit since there are characters who can self-resuscitate.

Also, put some terrain in your arena, rather than just making it a featureless flat plane.

Thanks, all good points. What would you do as a win condition instead?


Also not sure why there would be no Variant Human.
This is more a general house rule. Normally we have a free feat for everyone at first level, but therefore no variant human. So I think we could potentially strike this rule.

[Eldariel]

Broad "once a combatant is no longer able to continue fighting" is probably a good clause. It's easy to adjudicate and allows for all permanent win cons without also precluding self-resurrection type abilities. Just explain the intent to the participants: it's not enough to Wall of Force someone, they have to be permanently disabled and unable to get up.

[OgataiKhan]

A Hill Dwarf Shepherd Druid with War Caster and Resilient Con is probably the highest DPR option, and you have enough life to survive a martial's onslaught for long enough to summon your animals.

If you can also be an Azorius you can Counterspell a caster's first spell if they don't have Counterspell themselves. If they do, you must hope you are still able to fight after that spell.

I like the "No VHumans" rule, otherwise everybody would play them at such a low level.

[Dork_Forge]

Remove Banishment as an option and consider how the group will handle flight, it won't be much of fight if someone builds an Aarakokra Archer and ends up against a Barbarian.

Duels are really fun, sounds like your group will have a blast!

[Man_Over_Game]

You don't want characters to die in one turn, except maybe if it's against some kind of massive Alpha-Strike burst combo (like dealing with a Samurai Fighter).

That being said, a level 9 Fighter is probably going to deal about 50 damage in the first turn he can get to you (Action Surge) and ~25 damage every turn afterwards. Assuming you want your fights to last 3 rounds of real combat, you gotta find a way to make your characters able to take ~100 damage.

A level 9 Wizard probably has a +2 Con modifier and gains 3.5 from hit dice. That's 5.5 per level, + 3.5 from his first level. So your Wizard is going to take about 50 damage before dying.

A ranged character can reasonably get 1 extra attack in than a melee character. Assuming 3 rounds of melee combat, the ranged unit should be dealing 1/4 of the target damage each turn (25) while the melee unit should be dealing 1/3 (33%)

My recommendation is:


Weapon damage is decreased by 3. 1d10 + 5 + 2 = 11.5 damage, but -3 brings it down to 8.5 damage. This turns a turn 1 Action Surge from 46 damage down to 34. Because weapon damage is higher on melee attacks, this will negatively impact ranged characters more.
Spellcasters have 1/2 of their normal spell slots for each spell slot level (Rounded Up). Makes attrition against them a plausible strategy.
Limited number of arrows in a quiver. You get 10 arrows/bolts. Quivers are scattered around the battlefield on racks equipped with various ranged/throwing weapons.


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As for what I'd play: Monk with Mobile.

Monks are inherently resistant to magical effects, due to having high Wisdom and Dexterity, their Evasion feature and their Stillness of Mind feature. They also happen to afflict Stun on a Constitution Saving Throw, which most casters would fail.

Monks are inherently resistant to ranged attacks, due to their high speed and their Deflect Missiles.

Monks can kite a melee creature by using their higher speed to move just within the enemy's movement range. If I'm 35 feet away from you, I'm safe. If I can move 75 feet in a turn, I can always afford to attack you and run away. Exaggerate this even further if I'm a Kensei, since I can do all this, with a bow, and then swap to defense when you "trap" me.

The only reason Monks don't get a chance to excel is when they can't use their absurd mobility against melee units. In situations where that's not an issue (say, by a lack of enemy melee units), they're probably the most powerful class in the game.

[LibraryOgre]

Hi everyone

in the new year we plan to have a little "tournament" where we enter with one 9th level character and then duel 1 on 1 until only 1 character remains. We are aware that allowing magic may lead to very short/swingy fights but it's just supposed to be a fun little side thing

The preliminary rules are as follows
- Characters are lvl 9
- All official sources but no Unearthed Arcana
- Multiclassing and feats are allowed, but no Variant Human
- any non-magic equipment allowed (melee and ranged weapons, armor etc)
- one common and one uncommon magic item allowed
- One duel per long rest, pre-fight self-buffing allowed
- start 60 feet apart
- a duel ends when one party is unconscious or surrenders

Do you think those rules work? Is anything missing? What would you change? What spells should be banned?

And as an addendum: What would you play in this scenario? I assume a ranged magic user with high initiative?

I would include a rule about stat generation; if I come in with my "totally legit" guy that I "totally rolled in front of my cousin Bob" with 5 18s and 1 17 "so he has a bit of a believable weakness", and you're using a point-buy character, there's gonna be some issues.

[Eldariel]

Monks are inherently resistant to magical effects, due to having high Wisdom and Dexterity, their Evasion feature and their Stillness of Mind feature. They also happen to afflict Stun on a Constitution Saving Throw, which most casters would fail.

I wouldn't rely on that, basically every caster ever wants Resilient: Con anyways [that is, in a white room scenario and every other one] since their Concentration checks are keyed off it and they want for those to be reasonable (especially against minionmancers that are likely to force lots of concentration saves).

The issue with relying on numeric defenses is that those aren't infallible: there are options like Portent, which have the potential to negate most bonuses (though of course, it's down to the two rolls on this level). And summons are pretty good; Animate Object, Conjure Woodland Animals and similars seem great here and would incidentally be pretty effective against a kiter (provided the arena isn't infinite).

I do think I'd prefer a spellcaster with like Animate Dead + Seeming prep and a good set of spells (though I might go for the initiative build with War Wizard and Alert...though the inability to raise Int if picking feats makes War Wizard less impressive and I might default back to Diviner). That's pretty hard to play rocket tag against since there's a very high likelihood of wasting the spell.

[LordNibbler]

I wouldn't rely on that, basically every caster ever wants Resilient: Con anyways [that is, in a white room scenario and every other one] since their Concentration checks are keyed off it and they want for those to be reasonable (especially against minionmancers that are likely to force lots of concentration saves
Point buy wood elf monk with the extra first level feat mentioned could have Alert, Mage Slayer (for disadvantage to concentration checks for casters) and Dex 18/Wis 16. With flurry of blows giving 3 attacks per round without spending ki, that’s a good chance of keeping your opponent locked down for at least 3 straight rounds (9 stunning fists) and taking out any concentration spells. Shadow monk would only get 2 attacks per round if using shadow step but could get around virtually any obstacle to get to the opponent.

[Eldariel]

Point buy wood elf monk with the extra first level feat mentioned could have Alert, Mage Slayer (for disadvantage to concentration checks for casters) and Dex 18/Wis 16. With flurry of blows giving 3 attacks per round without spending ki, that’s a good chance of keeping your opponent locked down for at least 3 straight rounds (9 stunning fists) and taking out any concentration spells. Shadow monk would only get 2 attacks per round if using shadow step but could get around virtually any obstacle to get to the opponent.

That goes vs. every character, not just casters though. My point was that Con saves are unlikely to be a weak point for casters since they have to care about them anyways, unlike just about everyone else.

[Unknown Artist]

Make sure the environment is varied -
Add things like pillars of various levels of cover, weapon racks and the such.

When I did something similar I made the weapon racks contain some cursed magic items to make players look before they pick things up. maybe limit weapons and spell slots, so they actually has have to confront melee to collect stuff.

[Misterwhisper]

There should be no one round of prebuffing, that is just a straight bonus for the casters where as the non-casters get nothing.

Either get rid of that or give the non-casters an extra magic item that has to be a potion.

Also at starting at 60 feet means nobody will be playing a melee class so no monks, barbarians or Paladins.

Warlocks with their whole 2 spells is pretty pointless.

Bards don’t have the firepower.
Clerics and druids will just get counterspelled constantly

So essentially play a:

Fighter or ranger with a longbow
Shoot and run rogue depending on arena setup
A wizard of any kind
A sorcerer with lots of subtle spell

Really I would not even bother with the fighter, ranger or rogue, any smart arcane caster will just prebuff with invisibility if you are ranged or if for some reason they are dumb enough to play a melee build the prebuff with fly.

This is just set up for casters to get an easy win.

As with all one on one fights just boost initiative and win.

War wizard or diviner for the win

[DanyBallon]

Generally I dislike 1-on-1 duel, especially if there is only a single fight per long rest as it allows spellcaster to go nova and hit martials before they can even reach them.

But let give this a try! Maybe you could increase the size of the arena. Have the contestant start farther apart, create a rich environment on both side and set a wall of darkness splitting the arena in two. Tell the contestant that the wall of darkness will vanish in 10-20 minutes and they may use the time they got before them to prepare, cast spells, buff, hide, move around, even cross the wall if they want to. The wall of darkness will block sight only thus preventing from range instakill when the game start. By giving them a random time to prepare or act before both side can see each other may spur more creativity from your players (i.e. setting a trap on the edge of the wall of darkness, creating a dummy to bait your opponent, using your skill to blend yourself into your environment and use guerrilla tactics, etc.)

[No1ofIntrst]

Honestly, the arena makes a LOT of difference. If it's all heavily obscured, melee will be better, as line of sight and such don't work. In an arena without a roof, fight may be a little OP. In an open arena (particularly with the characters starting apart) characters that focus on melee (Barb, Paladin, and maybe Monk) will be disadvantaged.

As for a character, I feel like minion-mancy is the way to go (particularly with them being considered "long term buffs"). Maybe go Shepard Druid 9 (tortle could maybe be fun, but an elf or firbolg works better). AC and HP matter a lot, and it really comes down to being able to survive a round of combat, and then kill them in one turn.

[tKUUNK]

consider rolling random weather and/or terrain.

consider rolling random encounter start distance (like 1 or 2 d20 x5 feet)

also, my buddy and I had an agreement when we used to do this sort of thing-

1) you get serious Style Points for killing the other guy in creative ways...

2) However: A quick, clean kill is justified whenever you're about to bleed out and it's a desperate attempt at victory.

good times.

[Gignere]

Lucky, Alert, Divination wizard will probably win more times than not in this setup. Doesn’t matter if the target has good save when the diviner can just force you to lose the save and it’s probably over.

[Bobthewizard]

If it is a tournament, only allow a short rest between rounds, but with full HP healing. Then the LR classes can't nova the first two rounds and the SR classes can hold up better.

I also wouldn't allow any pre-fight spells. If they want to buff, make them use an action in combat. It's cleaner than trying to decide what is long-term and what is short-term. (Edit: allow mage armor, maybe others over 1 hour)

I like the random starting distance idea. I'd use 1d6 x10.

Then to keep it interesting, mix up the terrain. Maybe come up with 6 different arenas and show them to the players before hand, rolling a d6 when the fight starts.

[LudicSavant]

I also wouldn't allow any pre-fight spells. If they want to buff, make them use an action in combat. It's cleaner than trying to decide what is long-term and what is short-term.

I don't think it's clean, since it disproportionately punishes various builds and makes the whole thing feel more artificial. For example, it really sucks to use an in-combat action on Mage Armor, and that wouldn't be an issue in any real game.

Doing subsequent tournament rounds with limited rests on the other hand sounds alright, if you're okay with the fact that it'll put more of a focus on the "luck of the draw" in who you get seeded with.

I also fully endorse mixing up the terrain.

[Bobthewizard]

Lucky, Alert, Divination wizard will probably win more times than not in this setup. Doesn’t matter if the target has good save when the diviner can just force you to lose the save and it’s probably over.

I think a sorcerer with subtle beats this. So I'd probably try a goblin sorlock with darkness/devil's sight, counterspell, and subtle. Subtle counterspell their attacks, then darkness/BA hide, then eldritch blast, hide, move each round, keeping the darkness between us.


I don't think it's clean, since it disproportionately punishes various builds and makes the whole thing feel more artificial. For example, it really sucks to use an in-combat action on Mage Armor, and that wouldn't be an issue in any real game.

You're right. I forgot about mage armor. Maybe I'd just make the cut-off be spells that last longer than an hour then instead of 10 minutes. I mostly didn't want summons already on hand. Any other good long-term buffs over an hour at level 9?

The one hour cutoff would fit with my short rest between fights too.

[LudicSavant]

You're right. I forgot about mage armor. Maybe I'd just make the cut-off be spells that last longer than an hour then instead of 10 minutes. I mostly didn't want summons already on hand. Any other good long-term buffs over an hour at level 9?

Well, since you mentioned Darkness, upcast Continual Flame is cheap and permanent and is therefore habitually used by experienced players to hedge against anyone who thinks to use Darkness, just since the opportunity cost of casting it once in your life is so low.

We actually had a post on here a while back about a DM who thought they had made a crazy "boss Warlock" using a Devil's Sight build and had them waltz right into the middle of the party, only to have (according to his players) a very amusing look on their face when they realized that the Darkness got put out by something the party Cleric had been keeping in their pocket since 20 sessions ago and have their boss get cut apart in a single round. A cautionary tale :smalltongue:

Other random examples of good stuff that's an hour or more... lessee...
- False Life
- Armor of Agathys
- Aid
- Nondetection
- Animate Dead
- Death Ward
- Stuff like the Battlemaster or Samurai's temp HP not expiring until they rest.
- Stuff that might have a shorter duration than an hour but are unlimited use and can basically be kept up forever.

[Bobthewizard]

Well, since you mentioned Darkness, upcast Continual Flame is cheap and permanent and is therefore habitually used by experienced players to hedge against anyone who thinks to use Darkness, just since the opportunity cost of casting it once in your life is so low.

We actually had a post on here a while back about a DM who thought they had made a crazy "boss Warlock" using a Devil's Sight build and had them waltz right into the middle of the party, only to have (according to his players) a very amusing look on their face when they realized that the Darkness got put out by something the party Cleric had been keeping in their pocket since 20 sessions ago and have their boss get cut apart in a single round. A cautionary tale :smalltongue:

Other random examples of good stuff that's an hour or more... lessee...
- False Life
- Armor of Agathys
- Aid
- Nondetection
- Animate Dead
- Death Ward
- Stuff like the Battlemaster or Samurai's temp HP not expiring until they rest.
- Stuff that might have a shorter duration than an hour but are unlimited use and can basically be kept up forever.

If I were making it, I wouldn't allow the one hour spells like False Life or AoA. AoA isn't a bad first round action against a melee opponent for some builds, though. I wouldn't let the animated zombies come with you. Those seem about the same as hirelings. Nondetection and Aid are fine and Death Ward is a great choice. I'd let the Samurai have the THP since they could just do it as a BA anyway.

The rules you decide on make a huge difference in the effectiveness of each build.

[Fifel]

It's easy.

Level 9 Aasimar (Scourge) Divine Soul Sorcerer

Key Spells: Animate Dead, Seeming spell, Animate Object, Phantom Steed, Earth Eruption, Counterspell, Upcast Aid

Key class features: Subtle Spell, Extend Spell, Ritual caster feat, Inspire Leadership, Converting Sorcery Point to create high level spell slots.



- Create Skeletons, equip them with Longbow, Armor, Shield, Dagger. Space out them for avoid AoE damage.
- Buff them with Upcasted extended Aid and Inspire Leadership (+14 THP)
- Cast Extended Seeming Spell on his army and yourself and disguise kit on yourself.
- Extended Phantom steeds for you and your army high mobility. (It's crazy good)
- Cast subtle spells for impunity (Because It doesn't reveal you as the caster). It's impossible to detect you or detect -spellcasting feature.
-Convert Sorcery point for extra 5th level spell slot and them cast subtle Animate Dead (Creating 10 extra flying tiny creatures). Creating a cloud of tiny knives.
https://gamingmage.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/cloud-of-knives.jpg
- Blast the enemy with Subtle Earth Eruption. Counterspellcasting with Subtle Counterspell.
- Increase your power with Aasimar's Radiant Consumption for extra sweet damage on his spell..
- Low level effective concentration spell, bless for your party, subtle Dragon's breath (on your familiar or a skeleton) for a lot of damage.
- Extend spell allows you keep 100% of time with Aid, Mage Armor, Seeming Spell, Death Ward

100% chance to win.

[Fifel]

I doubt that a enemy can stay alive after 1 turn.