Why I wont use magic duel , ever, never again, I swear

[IKerensky]

I just lost my Astral 5, Banner of the Northed to Astral 6, Prince of Death Ermor pretender to a ....

Jotunheim , goblin mage with a puny astral 1 !!!!

I think this guy could just got the award for the best gold/kill ratio, except if you consider a pretender is free...

Anyway, AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGG

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by IKerensky:
I just lost my Astral 5, Banner of the Northed to Astral 6, Prince of Death Ermor pretender to a ....

You're only 5 astral ranks above your target: If you're not at least 6 Astral ranks better than your magic duel target, you will probably die.

[SurvivalistMerc]

Actually, I would love to see the same open-ended d6's used with astral duel that are used elsewhere. That would make astral risky for everyone, but there is, I'm sure, a reason why the devs decided not to use open ended dice here.

From what I've heard, it's your astral plus 1d6.

You: 6
Them: 1

If you roll 1 and they roll 6. (1/36 chance), then you both die. This isn't even a less than 1% chance regarding what occurred.

I find that the computer rarely forces an astral duel. So I try to avoid them unless I'm attacking something a lot more valuable than what I'm risking or have a great chance of success.

I've found those astral-2 merc magi quite useful against AIs that put astral 1 or 2 on their pretenders.

[Raz 24]

Also the banner lower resistance to magic

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Raz 24:
Also the banner lower resistance to magic

Magic resist doesn't have anything to do with magic duel, and the banner only lowers the carriers magic resistance.

[Blofeld]

I once saw my assault force including 2 Archdevils break their teeth on Astral-9 AI Sphinx pretender.
Until he cast Magic Duel on turn ~25 vs my astral-1 mage.
Puff! Goodbye mr. Sphinx! Better luck next time.