Quote Originally Posted by Keltest View Post
Personally, I tend to fall into the "fair fights are for chumps" camp. While it can be entertaining at times to have two combatants whose relative HPs are falling at approximately the same rate, if im actually one of those combatants, that means that my victory is probably going to come about because of luck, not skills, and that if I botch a roll, or he gets a good crit, that will be the deciding factor in victory, rather than anything special about me, in particular.

If im going to duel somebody, I don't just want to win, I want to utterly outclass them. I want there to be no doubt that I won because I was stronger, faster, more handsome and generally a superior human specimen. Especially if im an elf or something.
We're talking about the power fantasy here. And I can get behind it except for one thing: I didn't do anything. The game balance did it. In other words, if I can find a way to cleverly defeat an opponent rather than letting my stats do it for me, that feeling of victory is far more rewarding. YMMV of course.