Inigo's also a Flambeau. And, yes, Erat is ready to train an apprentice, at least in terms of his Arts.
This is why I specifically stated that someone who has two strong Forms can ignore the others and be very hard to challenge and beat. I never said the same would be true for a single Technique plus single Form. For such an example, what would a specialist in shapeshifting (animals) have for Arts? He'd probably keep An and Co about even since it wouldn't benefit him much to have one higher than the other.
But you see, that statement works the other way around. The other guy needs to make that challenge to get the official resolution, too. Simply by having the two strong Forms, I take Certamen out of the picture. Thus the Certamen bully has been stalemated and has a greater than average chance at losing at Tribunal since Certamen bullying is generally a low crime.
The odds of winning a roll by at least three points are roughly 0.285. The odds of doing so four times in a row are thus roughly 0.0067, or roughly 1/150. I'm not saying it's like winning the lottery, but those aren't good odds.
For another view, let's see what happens if we change the dice rolls so they're all ties (the average) or change the Arts and keep the rolls:
First, without the edit on the first attack, to make things easier: Initiative goes the same way. Inigo knocks off 2 fatigue (Weakening total of 10) instead of 3 on the first attack. Erat is then only at -1 instead of -3. Erat's attack then knocks off 3 fatigue (Weakening total of 15) instead of 2. Inigo's now at -3 instead of -1. Inigo's second attack doesn't beat Erat's defense. Now Erat gets to make a second attack. At this point, it's a stalemate, entirely up to the luck of the dice. Whoever has more vis to spend at this point will win.
Second, with the edit on the first attack: Initiative goes the same way. Inigo knocks off 3 fatigue (Weakening total of 11) instead of 4 on the first attack. Erat is then only at -3 instead of -5. Erat's attack then knocks off 3 fatigue (Weakening total of 13) instead of 2. Inigo's now at -3 instead of -1. Inigo's second attack beats Erat's defense but does not cause fatigue loss. Now Erat gets to make a second attack. At this point, it's a stalemate but the odds for the rolls are definitely in Inigo's favor.
Third, let's see what happens if Erat turns down Ignem but the dice rolls are the same. Inigo would probably choose Corpus, though if he had enough knowledge, he would choose Aquam. Let's go with the probable Corpus. Initiative goes the same way. Inigo knocks off 2 fatigue (Weakening total of 9) instead of 4 on the first attack. Erat is then only at -1 instead of -5. Erat's attack then knocks off 3 fatigue (Weakening total of 11) instead of 2. Inigo's now at -3 instead of -1. Inigo's second attack then knocks off 1 more fatigue (Weakening total of 5). Erat is now at -3. Now Erat gets to make a second attack. At this point, it's a stalemate but the odds for the rolls are definitely in Erat's favor.
You can also see from the above analysis, that if after losing initiative Erat's dice rolls had each been 1 higher than Inigo's, Erat would have won at the end of the second round. Essentially, Erat's use of vis cancelled almost all of Inigo's advantage. The dice rolls made all the difference after that. Even using different Arts so that Erat had a 6-point and 0-point Art advantage and used 4 pawns of Vis, Inigo's dice rolls were good enough to keep him in the fight. Notice that Inigo would have won in PeCo if Erat had not used any Vis. Had it been PeAq, Inigo still would have won despite the use of Vis.
Yes, Inigo's rolls were that good. Inigo's victory came down to two factors: 1) Erat's overconfidence beat out his intelligence, and 2) Inigo's dice rolls were significantly better than Erat's.
The smart Certamen bully manipulates things to get the opponent to challenge them. Then they only need to worry about techniques being able to cover them since they will need only two forms.
Anyway, the point of that whole analysis was that even this interesting situation was heavily dependent upon only three things: the initial choice of Arts, the dice rolls, and the use of Vis.
Now let's look two factors within what everyone else is talking about:
Duels usually have a leveled playing field. Many are bugged by the use of Vis and how much it can skew results. As we saw above, the use of 4 pawns of Vis essentially eliminated the 5-point (total) Art advantage.
Certamen is essentially boring after the choice of Arts. What interesting choices were made in this example? The Arts. After that it all came down to dice rolls. So why don't we just choose the Arts and each roll a die and be done with it? A big part of what makes other conflict (not just combat) interesting is how you can use clever play to influence it. Where does that show up in Certamen?
So even this interesting example falls prey to the problem of Timothy's 4th conjecture - that it's not that interesting to play out the Certamen. He did a good job trying to make it better in HoH:TL, but Certamen needs more work.
This comes down to how common (or not) vis is in your saga, I think, rather than anything problematic about using vis in Certamen.
While, of course, this is just my saga experience, we've never had much trouble with people spending vis on Certamen. In fact, I don't think anyone has ever spent vis on certamen.
This is because we seem to play in a relatively vis poor saga. Certainly, we might fight certamen for the right to 4 pawns of vis, but I don't think we would spend 4 pawns on a duel. We just don't have that much vis to spare.
There is still some interest.
You do have to decide round-to-round which Art you are attacking or defending with, and whether you spend confidence, and whether you concede rather than fight to unconsciousness. The only time this is boring is when these choices make no difference --- which is when you are fighting a duel where you are hopelessly outclassed.
It doesn't take long to fight Certamen with the current system --- which is important too. If Certamen took as long to resolve as combat I think we would use it less in our saga.
I don't think you can spend confidence in Certamen. there is no set ease factor, and Confidence is only spent after the fact. If my total is 2 points short and I spend Confidence for +3, my opponent can also spend confidence. In said case, he succeeds and looses confidence, since my roll does not succeed I spend no confidence. Which means he doesn't spend confidence. It gets confusing and cyclical. Many people HR that you can spend Certamen and Combat confidence before the roll, which works fine, but that is an HR.
And I toss vis around liberally. 4 pawns? yawn, small price for victory. A duel over 4 pawns? Not likely for such a small sum. Vis poor sagas work well for some. They drive me nuts and I don't like running them. Then again, I also have my players start 10 to 20 years out of gauntlet because I don't like "1st level" campaigns anymore. Different tastes
Of course, you can spend Confidence points on Certamen. It's no different to spending Confidence on a combat roll. The fact that there is no set Ease Factor is irrelevant.
There's nothing confusing about it at all.
You decide if you want to spend a Confidence Point.
If you do, you cross off one Confidence Point from your character sheet.
Yes, your opponent can now decide if he wants to spend a Confidence Point (in which case he crosses one Confidence Point off his character sheet).
But you don't get your Confidence Point back, if it turns out it was useless to spend it. Once your Confidence Point is spent it is spent. You don't get a take-back.
That's fine. There is not Right Way to play.
Of course.
Low vis doesn't necessarially mean "low power". It just means that there is not much vis about.
But the rule is you do not spend confidence unless it makes the roll successful (and would be unsuccessful without it). No success, no confidence may spent. It isn't that he gets the point back, it is that he simply cannot spend it unless the result is success. Then, if no confidence is spent, the opponent does not spend confidence (and indeed, he cannot), which leads to the top again.
You can always spend Confidence even if it doesn't make a roll a "success". For example, it is perfectly valid in combat to spend Confidence on a Defense roll so that the attacker does not do as much damage to you (to turn a Fatal Wound into an Incapacitating one, say), even if you cannot cause him to miss by spending Confidence Points.
Even under this "rule", there is no problem. At the time that you spent the Confidence Point it made the result a "success". It is at this point that you spend the Confidence Point. The fact that immediately afterwards your opponent may spend a Confidence Point to negate yours does not cause you to get your Confidence Point back, you have already spent your Confidence Point.
I invoke my Perpetual Smurf's Parma, as I am at work. I have no interwebs at home. I will look it up tonight for further clarification. Most likely I will start a new thread though, as Confidence should be treated as a separate subject.
Because multiple rolls can build tension - which when the stakes are high, can get very tense indeed. We've had one duel where one party seriously considered yielding halfway through and then murdering their opponent. Then the tie turned, but that moment,and its insight into the character, was worth the few extra die rolls.
You are correct sir, and I am wrong. I do so enjoy that, because it opens my eyes to aspects I overlooked. I thank you sir
You may spend the confidence after the roll and after the putative results are known, but you can do it blind and it does not matter if it is success or fail. I had gotten over used to PbP, where the SG often rolls at home in secret and tells you if you pass or fail without mentioning the roll result, and you have to remind him that you are willing and able to spend multiple confidence points so tell me what the roll was
This makes Certamen very strategic indeed. Not only can you switch which Art you are using for attack and defense from Round to Round, you can also use vis as a bonus to attack or defense in any round, plus there are all sorts of interesting ways to employ confidence. I believe your Confidence score is your limit per roll, so when there are multiple rolls in a round of action, you can use confidence points (up to your score) to affect any of those rolls. Confidence is a valuable resource, more so than Vis.
But anyway, two guys with high Confidence scores can get into a bidding war of sorts. Say they each have a score of 3 and 7 points to spend. My Attack exceeds your Defense by 5, and I also spend a point of Confidence to add +3 (for a total of 8). You have several choices; spend three points for a +9 and block his attack, spend a lesser amount to lower my Attack Advantage, or spend none and hope your Resistance can take it. I also have options; if you spend Confidence I can raise the stakes and spend two more of my own, but is it worth it with such a small margin for an attack advantage? Maybe I should save them for now, get you to spend yourself out before I let loose with everything I got. Similar strategy could be used in martial combat.
The Certamen Schools are also an interesting way to liven things up. They give you more options; a double edges sword because it allows you to adapt to the current conditions of the dual and allow you to compensate & take advantage of the randomness of dice rolls; but at the same time having more decisions makes you focus harder on making the right choice.
Richard, the other houses can look at Certamen and see that Tremere magi are good at -it- to a degree that they are not good -at war-. It only works as a proxy if it really reflects how good they are ay war. Otherwise, it doesn't matter -how- they make the dueling system unrepresentative of war outcomes, it is enough that it -is- unrepresentative of war outcomes. And the other Houses clearly know the Tremere magi are better at Certamen than their raw knowledge of the Arts should permit. That's enough to make the system unjust, and therefore unworkable in a democratic Order.
This is still a system broken at outcome, though. Certamen gets its moral force as a legitimae proxy for war. Lacking this, becasue you can get far better at Certamen than you actually are at war by practice, breaks Certamen's rationale for use.
It really doesn't matter if dueling doesn't reflect ones ability to wage war, because they are really very different matters. A duel is a quick matter between 2 people. A war is a long affair between 2 alliances (true, you might not have more than yourself for an ally, but in many cases a covenant will support it's members, and some magi have other allies as well (like Tremere...)).
In-character all that a Tytalus (say) magus can determine is that if he fights a Tremere magus in Certamen, the Tremere magus appears to be better at Certamen than his apparent casting ability in the chosen Arts would suggest.
How can the Tytalus magus determine how good the Tremere magus is at "war" (whatever that means)?
Are you are saying that the Tremere magus is better at Certamen than he is at Wizard War? There's no way to categorically state (either in character or out of character) how good a character is at Wizard War. Being good at Wizard War is very, very dependent on what spells you know, who your opponent is, etc.
There would seem to be very little correlation between any magi's Certamen record and their Wizard War record (regardless of whether they are a Tremere or otherwise).
What do you mean by "moral force"?
It is true that certamen is an agreed method of resolving some conflicts without resorting to declared (or undeclared) wizard war.
But the only moral force that derives from this is that it is way of resolving conflict without killing people.
A magus could also be much better at Wizard War than they are at certamen, particularly against particular opponents. Why is that a problem?
Which makes it broken from the beginning, since a magus can win Certamen using arts which are less than useful in war.
But there is a story here: some magi object to Certamen on the basis that the tremere train so hard at it that it is no longer a useful proxy. They follow up lost certamen bouts with Tremere with Wizard Wars to prove the fact. House Tremere in turn works to systematically eliminate th eupstarts who would threaten its advantage and plunge the Order into chaos. Result: schism war II.
Agreed, though it might be worth to note that if certamen is slightly unrepresentatibe of war outcomes, it may well be that in most cases a magus would rather face a certamen slightly against the odds than face a war.
Ah, but they have witnessed over and over that Tremere magi are better at War, too, than their raw knowledge of the Arts should permit, because their House is so cohesive, organized and militaristic. So it's not clear at all that a magus of another House has worse odds at fighting a Certamen, rather than a Wizard's War, against a given Tremere. In some sense, it's the same argument that makes vis use perfectly reasonable in Certamen: it reflects the fact that in War, even if your intrinsic magical power is somewhat inferior, you will still have an advantage if your resources are sufficiently superior to those of the adverary. Which makes me reject the statement that:
It is hard to imagine with the Certamen and house cohesiveness of Tremere how they haven't managed to take over the order. The books mention they tried but I never really understood how it was stopped clearly or prevented from happening again.
Unless being tremere has a negative reputation or inherent distrust that the other houses actively work together to keep tremere down.
I'd imagine that any attempt to take over the order overtly would trigger a second scism - which the Tremere likely would lose. Thus they must work slowly and behind the scenes. As for how the initial attempt failed (and how they thought to do it) that would be a good story... (As would the tale of the next attempt)
To sum up my opinion, Certamen works awesome and it is not broken at all. I have run several duels in my games, and each one worked out fantastic. There is a huge difference between theory and practice.
