rithmatist batteling as a pair

[High prince of geeks]

Okay my main question is why hasn't dueling as a pair been done before. We sea Joel and melody do it at the end, and even taking away their respective high amount of skill in their respective areas they did extremely well. Unbalanced rithmatist (for example one who is great at defensive circles but can't for the life of him draw, and another who is great withdrawing fast but horrible at straight and perfectly curved lines) could easily fit in the same circle and balance each other out. Presumably they would do even better the Joel and melody because both (or all if there are three) would be rithmatist being able to strengthen defenses without having to get their friend to do it for them.

The reason this might not have been done before is the high amount of trust and coordination needed to get it right, but surely after speaking it work so effectively it will soon become common practice? Please tell me what you think

[Melaan]

interesting topic.
I believe in the book the professors watching the duel say that they have had two people in the same circle but that most people thought the weakness outbalanced the strength of doing so.  It's kind of a  pro and con thing.

It seems to me that while it's almost looked down upon in a duel setting that battling in pairs might be more common in an actual battle field. I mean, think about it. It certainly has benefits in a well planned and strong attack and defense. It's also very common for civilians to believe one way, even while training for the real thing (The war in Nabrask) Once the students get out of the classroom however, I think a lot of the things they 'know' about dueling will become of little importance. Sure the basics will be the same but if we were to see the Rithamtist's actual war zone, I think we would see a lot of VERY interesting ways of using these abilities, including different ways of working together.

Edited December 17, 2014 by Melaan

[king of nowhere]

yeah, the book mentions that in most cases the two rithmatists working from two circles are better than them in a single circle. I suppose that may still be the case, most of the times.

Still, that applies to dueling, not to war. in nebrask, if you consider, there is a single rithmatic circle held by hundreds (thousands?) of rithmatists. so you could argue that strategy is implemented. and if rithmatists were to fight a war, it would be fought in a totally different way - no one would care a wit about defensive circles, the main focus would be putting on lines of forbiddance to protect against gunfire and sending chalklings at the enemy - and the defense against those again would not be a circle (which would protect the rithmatist but leave the rest of the army exposed) but other chalklings, lines of vigor, and acid buckets.

[Blaze1616]

As I understand it, dueling within the Rithmatist setting was more of an art form. No danger befalls anyone partaking, and the only real consequence of losing is that you get demoted (or placed lower in the hierarchy upon graduation). Being an art form, it is really just a sport, and as such duels are performed one v one. Same with tennis, where you have singles and doubles. Joe merely took advantage of the fact that the rules did not specify that there is only one individual per "team." 

[DanTheSeamonster]

In the book, Fitch (I believe it was Fitch, but it may have been another of the Professors) talks about how in a duel, it's not illegal for two Rithmatists to battle in the same circle, but if they do and that circle is breached, then both of them lose. Not just one. It would take a great deal of trust, timing, coordination, whatever to do this with another Rithmatist. So that's probably why this technique is not seen often.

 

Also, it probably has been done before. Otherwise, theoretically, they would not need to have this rule in place.

 

And lastly, that was a duel. As king of nowhere said, the strategies in a war would be completely different than in a duel.   

[Wrath]

If memory serves, don't the teachers realise at the end that Melody and Joel are fighting rather than duelling? I know someone at some point (Fitch, I expect) thinks about how Nalizar's offensive-oriented teachings are great for duels and terrible for actually fighting in Nebrask.

 

So working together, focusing on defence and being careful and strategic with your attacks are probably all things that Rithmatists in actual combat would use.

[Worldbringer of JoSeun]

There is an advantage to having rithmatists in two seperate circles in a battle than having both in just one. In one of the fights between one of the students (I can't remember his name, I don't have my book with me) and the Scribbler, the student decided to make a series of circles concentric on himself. To reinforce his defenses he drew lines of forbiddence but they all acted together just as a time delay to the wild chalkling's attacks. Once an outer circle was breached, many of the wild chalklings rushed in through the hole and attacked the inner circles. Now, chalklings can't cross lines of warding but rithmatists can. The rithmatist could, theorectically in advance, draw a massive complex defense with two lines of forbidding blocking off an arc of the circle so that no wild chalkling would try to break in from that way. Maybe also throw in some defensive chalklings in there so that it would be foolish to try to penetrate that arc when it is crawling with defensive chalklings. And when the wild chalklings have breached his circle too close for comfort, he can just run over his lines of warding and into a neighboring rithmatist circle, at which point, cooperation between two people in dire straits would become key. Unfortunately, I think this strategy would be quickly observed and counter measures taken by the Forgotten which would make this much more complicated, especially since wild chalklings are faster than humans.

 

Now, back to topic, which is about combining people into one circle in a duel not a battle, remember that while two people in the same circle would be better offensively and defenesively, the problem in a duel comes when the outer circle is breached. Therefore, it doesn't matter that your defense and offense is stronger because you still have the same amount of 'hit points' to use game terms. By taking in another person, you basically agree to share your hit points without gaining any additional health.

Once you have a second person, you no longer have the same tradeoff between defense and offense as a single person does. A single person, unless ambidextrous, can only do offense or defense. Two people can choose to have one on offense, one on defense, or both on one or the other. A definite advantage. You can set up defenses at the beginning faster and therefore set up a stronger defense in the time it take for others to set up theirs so that after the intial defense creation stage you can both attack for a brief time before one of you has to focus on repairing and maintaining defenses. So you get a good advantage in the early game against all the rush attackers who will attack without adequete defenses but not quite against the defensive oriented players which means that this advantage trails off towards the end of the duel. But remember in a duel you can't draw a new main circle that you are inside. Defensivewise, you can only use bindpoint circles, defensive chalklings, and lines of forbiddance.

Which lines brings us to a new problem with two people. Only the person who made the line of forbiddance can dismiss it. If I am on one side of the circle and my friend had drawn a line of forbiddance in front of me which I need to have dismissed before I can do my action, I have to get his attention, wait for him finish what he is doing, come over and spend 4 seconds dismissing his line of forbiddance before I can do my thing. (The only other alternative is to attack my own defenses which is stupid since it would probably take even more time and would do your enemy's work for them.) That is a lot of time wasted. Time which is very valueable in something like the Melee where dozen of opponents are dueling you, meaning that the two of spent a lot of time on a grand total of two actions during which each of your opponents have had opportunity to to do at least two actions as well. You have effectively lost your advantage of being two people temporarily. You can go and do other things while waiting but it will still require that both of you have to throw away your current plan and create a new plan and thereby throwing off both of your rythems, which will weaken you both. In summary, in exchange for having two people with the same hit points, you have a net ability to fight that is less than two seperate people's combined ability to fight.

In such a case, it would make sense to strike up an alliance between yourselves and just have two allies fighting back to back. This way, you could team up and attack one person at the same point for double damage or split the enemy's attention by having one attack at the front (if such a term exists with a circle) and the other attacking at the back. Your opponent would have to keep an eye on two different people in two different locations in order to properly defend. Furthermore, if one of you is attacked, he can focus on defense while the second attacks the attacker and forces him onto defense. 

In such a, very likely, case of receiving attack, we can see a definite advantage in having two seperate circles. One person defends for a bit and the other attacks the attacker until the defender can join in on the attack as well. If it was one circle then the opponent might be tempted to simply rush attack the two of them. After all, all he needs to do to win is breach a hole in the circle and both attackers/defenders are gone and he gets to look cool. But if there were two circles, if he rush attacks one of them, he will turn to find that he took a lot of damage from the second person while defeating the first person and that the second person's defenses and hitpoints are still fresh. He will have defeated half of the pair but will almost certainly be defeated by the other half of the pair, thus making rush attacking completely pointless since he might win the skirmish but lose the war. 

 

There are certainly more complex elements when we see multiple people make alliances. Treachery, what to do if both are last person standing, how to fight against a bigger team of opponents, what to do if you are on opposite sides of the dueling field, ect. But I think we have addressed the points of two people in one circle well enough.

 

Finally and this is probably the major reason that two people don't get in the same circle often, is that this is a duel and has the nature of a duel. You fight, not for victory but for honor and prestige. If you win as a pair, you each get less than half the glory than if either of you were alone since people will think that it is natural that you won since there was two of you and thus decrease the total glory going to you both. Therefore, you gain an advantage at a decrease of your reward.

Worse, if you two as a pair lose, than you didn't merely lose like in a game or a sport, but you had an advantage over everyone else and you lost. It would be like playing football with an additional player or two and still losing. You will be mocked and shamed and remembered by everyone as the "cheater" that lost. No honor, and a lot of dishonor. You would even prefer not being remembered than to be remembered as that.

In the Grand Melee, Joel and Melody were able to avoid the shame since Joel was not a Rithmatist and so shouldn't have been able to contribute anything to offense or defense and therefore it would have been perceived closer to Melody taking in a disadvantage and then winning by herself. We know that Joel was the mastermind and the person capable of producing Melody's needed defense and offensive strategy for her victory since he was a genuis at Rithmatics but the observers don't know that. They think that "oh, he is just some random, untalented, average kid who managed to legally sneak into the Grand Melee and Melody agreed to take him in (maybe because of a crush or something, wink, wink) and then managed to beat everyone else." They think that Melody was the gracious and skilled one since she is the Rithmatist and did all the work. Or they might not. The book ended before the onlookers were able to analyze the Grand Melee so perhaps in the next book we will see how different people react to Melody and Joel's victory and probably in different ways. 

 

In conclusion, the advantage in offense and defense is less than doubled when you put two Rithmatists in the same circle, you have half the hitpoints than if you were seperate, you get an early advantage at the start but at the end the lack of hitpoints stings you worse than your early advantage, you don't have an ally who could pressure your opponents, and people will be drawn to attack you since you are a double kill. In addition to that, you have to share your working space with someone else meaning that you might bump elbows and ruin your chalk drawing. And worse of all, if you win, you get less glory, if you lose, both of you will be looked down upon unfavorably and you will never escape the stigma.

Therefore, I doubt that two people in one circle will ever become a popular tatic. It only worked well because Joel was a natural and couldn't do his own drawings and what he could do well (set up ideal tracing lines) was essential to Melody's victory. 

[Curiosity]

Presumably, there had never been two Rithmatists who were that bad at either offense of defence such that they would be best suited to pairing up. We assume that the Rithmatists were trained sufficiently and that anyone actually planning on dueling would have somewhat of a balance. Also remember that a wider circle leaves more room for error as one draws, so there is a significant disadvantage to a team that must use a larger circle to accommodate two Rithmatists. 

 

The unique pairing of a Rithmatist and non-Rithmatist is exceptionally interesting because no non-Rithmatists would have been trained enough to participate in that manner. What you have is one young, inexperienced Rithmatist and one Rithmatically-well-read and analytical sketcher. This combination had never been used before and had never had occasion to be used before, since those Rithmatists are so secretive about their art.