This book is oustanding.
I've spent a lot of time reading RPG books in search of a crunchy combat system that's just right. The system I imagined had an elegant balance between verisimilitude and complexity in a way that keeps it really playable by a wide audience but also still makes combat feel like a real sword fight by not abstracting out many details with concepts like AC. This system is that system!
We all must balance our life obligations with our RPG time right? So, it can be tough to justify learning really crunchy systems like Riddle of Steel, Blade of the Iron Throne, or Sword and Scoundrel. That's not to take away much from those games; I view them as an achievements on their own, but they're not right for everyone, and I especially think it's hard to argue against the assertion that they're not right for all groups.
Also, while still being interesting in their own right, some systems simply create different combat abstractions that still don't feel quite right like 7th Sea, Legend of the Five Rings, and the Apocalypse World Engine games. Instead of creating lots of new abstractions, FTD: Duels fits over top of standard D&D or OSR d20 rules and fixes many of the annoying abstractions by adding an option for an attack then defend and repeat melee system. By implementing the duel system in this way, it minimizes complexity because it uses a system many of us are familiar with as a base.
I won't go into much further detail about why Five Torches Deep: Duels strikes the verisimilitude vs. complexity balance perfectly, but I feel confident that I can tell you that it definitely does after having read all those other books.
P.S. The art is gorgeous and the book is laid out in a format that's very easy to read and reference.
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