The Psychic Duel

Rules converted from 1e Oriental Adventures by Gary Gygax

Though not psionic, the psychic duel is nevertheless a contest of wills between two intelligent characters.  Simply put, the combatants stare each other in the eye until one flinches, lowers his gaze, or draws his sword.  Picture John Wayne staring down the town troublemaker without ever having to draw a gun.  Then, call him "Suzuki" Wayne, and you have the picture.

Psychic duels can be planned or spontaneous, but they always occur before or in lieu of combat, never during or afterward.  Likewise, challenging a friend to a psychic duel is a grave insult and simply never done.  Psychic dueling can only be done between two individuals; you can't stare down an entire army.

You can only have one psychic duel with the same opponent every 24 hours.

The duelists must both have an intelligence greater than 2 (staring down a horse won't being you fame), and they must be within at least 10 feet of one another and able to see.

To initiate the duel, both contestants simply stare at one another without taking any other action.  Both contestants make a Will saving throw with a DC of 18 (kensei retain a +2 bonus to their roll when engaging non-kensei).  A character can also add half of his Intimidate ranks (ranks, not overall bonus) to the roll.

If neither contestant makes the save, the contest goes into the next round and continues with new Will saves.

If you succeed in your save, and your foe doesn't, you win the duel (and vice versa).

If both contestants make their Will saves, the one with the higher roll wins (a tie is means the contest continues).

If one character makes any other sort of action such as drawing a sword, speaking, giving hand signals, or even manifesting a psionic power (at least one that can be detected), he also loses.

Winning a psychic duel gives you a +1 morale bonus to attack vs. that foe for the next 24 hours.  If the contest was originally only to be a psychic duel but one party goes to attack, the side that initiated the attack suffers a -2 morale penalty to attack (and also forgoes the +1 bonus even if they won).

And that's the way it's done, pardner.

The Wu Jen