Iaijutsu Dueling

The iaijutsu duel is the formal means of conflict resolution in Rokugan between members of the samurai caste. Such duels are most often to first blood, but matters of a truly grievous nature can result in a duel to the death. The social rules of such duels, and the circumstances giving rise to them, are described in the Book of Air. Mechanically, once a challenge has been issued and accepted, the process takes place over the course of two combat rounds. In an iaijutsu duel, both duelists are considered to be in Center Stance throughout the duel, and may not take any actions other than the ones outlined below.

Assessment: On the first Round of the duel, both characters enter the Assessment stage on the Initiative Turn of the faster duelist. During the Assessment stage, each participant assumes the Center Stance and makes an Iaijutsu (Assessment) / Awareness roll against a TN equal to 10 plus their opponent’s Insight Rank x 5. If successful, a duelist’s roll reveals any one of the following pieces of information, plus an additional piece of information per Raise. If a character’s Assessment roll exceeds the total of their opponent’s roll by 10 or more, whether or not it gained any information, the winning character gains a bonus of +1k1 on his subsequent Focus roll. At this point, it is possible for either of the duelists to concede defeat, recognizing his opponent as superior.
 * The opponent’s Void
 * The opponent’s Reflexes
 * The opponent’s Iaijutsu Skill
 * Any Iaijutsu Emphases the opponent may possess
 * The current number of Void Points the opponent has available
 * The opponent’s current Wound Level

Focus: During the second Round of the duel, both characters enter the Focus stage on the Initiative Turn of the faster duelist. The opponents study one another carefully, looking for any weakness. The duelists make a Contested Iaijutsu (Focus) / Void Roll. If one duelist beats the other’s roll by 5 or more, that duelist earns the right to make the first strike. He gains a Free Raise toward his strike roll for every additional increment of 5 by which he beats his opponent’s roll. If neither duelist beats the other’s roll by at least 5, then a simultaneous “kharmic strike” takes place.

Strike: On the third Round of the duel, both characters enter the Strike stage on the Initiative Turn of the slower duelist. The duelist who won first strike makes an Iaijutsu / Reflexes attack roll against his opponent’s normal Armor TN. Any Free Raises gained from the Focus stage apply to this roll. The attack is resolved normally, including Wounds being applied. The second duelist may then make his Iaijutsu / Reflexes roll, assuming he still lives. In a duel to first blood, the second duelist has lost the duel if his opponent struck him, and striking after first blood is considered extremely dishonorable. In the event that neither opponent won the Contested Roll during the focus stage, both make their attack rolls simultaneously, an event known as a kharmic strike. Destiny has intervened, and the cause of the duel is considered dropped by both parties. Neither is the victor or the defeated. If neither duelist is dead at the end of the Strike phase, and if the duel is to the death, the duel becomes a standard skirmish, continuing until one combatant is dead. Regardless of the results of the duel, the act of striking counts as each character’s actions for this Round.

Clarification of the 4th edition dueling rules

The 4th Edition of the Legend of the Five Rings RPG extensively re-worked the rules for Iaijutsu Dueling, and based on the number of questions asked in the nearly five years since publication, the new dueling rules can be somewhat confusing to both old and new players. Accordingly, this section offers clarifications of the more frequent questions about dueling.

A Duel is Three Rounds: The rulebook mistakenly refers to an iaijutsu duel taking place over two Rounds. This is an editing artifact from an earlier draft of the rules that somehow made it into the final version. The correct rule is that an iaijutsu duel takes place over three Rounds (Assessment, Focus, and Strike).

A Duel is not a Skirmish: For simplicity of game terms and rules, the timing and structure of a duel is organized into Rounds rather than invent some other unique term for the three phases of the duel (Assessment, Focus, Strike). Also, by structuring a duel in Rounds, it can take place during a larger skirmish scene – for example, a duelist PC and a bandit leader might engage in an iaijutsu duel while the rest of the PCs and the remaining bandits fight a normal skirmish. However, it cannot be emphasized enough that the duel itself is NOT a skirmish; players should not assume that the normal skirmish rules and mechanics, such as Initiative, apply to duels.

Center Stance and Duels: In a normal skirmish, a character cannot stay in Center Stance for more than one Round. However, in an iaijutsu duel, the two duelists are assumed to enter the Center Stance at the beginning of Round One (Assessment) and remain in it until the end of Round Three (Strike), regardless of their normal Initiative. Thus, the Center Stance bonus will be available on both Round Two (for the Focus roll) and on Round Three (for either the Strike roll or a damage roll, as the player chooses). Rank 5 Kakita Bushi will also get the bonus on Round One (for the Assessment roll).

An additional note in this regard: If both duelists are still alive and fighting after the Strike phase, the duel becomes a normal skirmish. On the first Round of that skirmish, both duelists will emerge from the Center Stance and assume whatever other Stance they choose (again, if they are Kakita Rank 5 they can choose to remain in Center Stance). They will get the Center Stance bonus on one roll of their choice on Round One of the skirmish.

The Strike: The iaijutsu strike is a “normal” attack roll (albeit with extra Raises if the duelist won the Focus roll by a lot). The use of Maneuvers on the Strike roll is at the discretion of the GM, since some of them will be easier to justify in this context than others. The Called Shot Maneuver is probably perfectly legitimate in an iaijutsu strike, but a Disarm or Feint Maneuver is harder to justify. Defense and Armor TN: During the Strike phase of an iaijutsu duel, character﻿s are assumed to have their normal Armor TN. The reference on Core rulebook page 139 to the Defense Skill applying to duels (“make you more difficult to hit in a skirmish or duel”) is an error and should be ignored.

Initiative and Duels: The references to Initiative in the dueling rules are included purely as a convenience for GMs who are running duels as part of a larger skirmish scene. They are intended to provide “timing cues” for when the GM should have the duelists perform their Assessment and Focus rolls in the Round. Initiative has no actual effect on the duel itself, and Techniques which rely on Initiative cannot be applied to iaijutsu duels.

Duels and Actions: Again, a duel is not a skirmish, so the rules on what Actions can be taken during a Round do not have any real applicability to a duel. Characters do not need to worry about whether they have an Action to draw their weapons, for example. Similarly, a character who can attack as a Simple Action will still only get one attack during the Strike phase.

The Physical Nature of a Duel: The ideal form of a duel consists of two duelists facing off, a few paces apart, with their blades sheathed until the moment of the Strike – at which point they leap forward, drawing their blades near-simultaneously. However, a duel does not have to exactly conform to this ideal – for example, many Dragon samurai will start a duel with their swords already drawn, and battlefield duels routinely take place with the characters already having their swords drawn. The one universal principle is that a duel is fought only with swords, and usually the katana. A contest fought with other weapons is not an iaijutsu duel – it is merely a one-on-one skirmish. Mechanically, these physical details make no difference to how an iaijutsu duel is resolved – the same Assessment/Focus/Strike format is followed. Mirumoto Rank 2: The bonus from this Technique applies to all three rolls in an Iaijutsu duel (Assessment, Focus, and Strike).

Additional Information

During the Reflexes/Iaijutsu roll of the Strike Phase of an Iaijutsu duel, the duelist may apply their Kenjutsu (Katana) emphasis to the Iaijutsu strike, if available. This is the reason the rulebook does not list a "Strike" emphasis for the Iaijutsu skill.