Optimizing Duel of Wills

[Amechra]

Alright, so I want to make Duel of Wills a potent option for a character; therefore, I went out and searched out things that could buff it up.

So far, I've found these things:

Unnerving Calm: Use Concentration instead of Intimidate for Duel of Wills; it also gives a +4 to your check and makes it so if they ignore you, the Morale Bonus to attack rolls is +2 instead of +1.

Perfect Clarity of Mind and Body: If you win a Duel of Wills, you get a +4 morale bonus on Trip, Disarm, and Feint an opponent.

Reforged 3rd Level Benefit: Any Morale bonus you receive is increased by +1.

Battlebred feat: Any effect that grants you a Morale bonus is extended by 2 rounds.

End result: You challenge a dude to a duel of wills; there are 3 options:

They submit, and take a -2 to Initiative and a -1 to attack rolls for one round.

They ignore you, and you get a +3 on attack rolls against them for 3 rounds.

They return the challenge; if you win, you get a +5 bonus on Trip attempts, Feints, and Disarm attempts for 3 rounds, and have a +2 bonus on attack and damage rolls against them for the encounter.

Now, if only there was some way to apply a Duel of Wills to more than one guy, or something...

[awaken_D_M_golem]

Expend Psi-Focus for a Take 15 on the Con check.
Needs just psi subtype, 1 pp, ~1 rank of Concentration.

[Kasz]

I don't have the rules for Duel of Wills in front of me here at work but it's normally based off Intimidate...

Never Outnumbered skill trick allows you to intimidate multiple foes once per encounter.

Whether you could apply Never Outnumbered to Duel of Wills is probably a judgement call... I can't really look at my books until I get home though.

[Tr011]

The use of duel of wills is heavily depending on your DM. Assuming you focus on it and thus take the three feats you mentioned, there are three options that your DM can choose from:
-submit and you have spend three feats for minor penalties for one enemy for one round.
-ignore the challange and grant you a bonus that is way inferior to hypothetically taking Weapon Focus three times (which is pretty bad itself)
-return the challange and grant you bonuses that are kind of ok for three feats assuming you enjoy tripping and attacking (which we can assume for such a build)

In my opinion, the most optimized use of duel of wills is without including it in your build, just by using it whenever you think your enemy would have bad chances in the intimidate check. I mean you can get the same bonuses to tripping and attacking permanently if you just take some other feats.

I don't have the rules for Duel of Wills in front of me here at work but it's normally based off Intimidate...

Never Outnumbered skill trick allows you to intimidate multiple foes once per encounter.

Whether you could apply Never Outnumbered to Duel of Wills is probably a judgement call... I can't really look at my books until I get home though.

Never Outnumbered only works to demoralize foes in combat (which is a defined use of the intimidation skill).

[Amechra]

PCoMaB also gives enemies a -2 to attack rolls the round after you trip/damage them, and gives you a weird spring attack-like option (if you Fight Defensively for a round and only move 5ft, the next round you get a +30ft bonus to your land speed and a +2 to AC, and you get an attack at the end of moving.)

Battlebred extends anything that gives you a morale bonus, and also affects Rage.

So really, Duel of Wills will suck (as you say), if there aren't other things that alter Morale bonuses...

[PlzBreakMyCampaign]

I'll put it this way. I looked into it, and could never make it worth it. 

But ya, for a second it tricks you into thinking melees got something nice 

[Tr011]

Remember that any enemy that is an undead, construct, has mind blank or some other kind of mind-affecting immunity, the penalty doesn't work.
Also, if you got mind blank you don't get the bonus and it doesn't stack with heroism or similar things.

[Kasz]

For the reasons of Duel of Wills not exactly being gamebreaking if I were DMing I'd allow it to work with Never Outnumbered... I mean it costs 2 skill points and it's only 10ft....

Thematically it works.. you're pitting your will vs theirs via intimidate, and you're so badass you're never outnumbered.

It's very fiat though... any decent intimidate build will have never outnumbered anyway...

Does Duel of Wills count as a Gaze attack? You might be able to swing that and then optimize it as a Gaze attack.

[SorO_Lost]

Does Duel of Wills count as a Gaze attack? You might be able to swing that and then optimize it as a Gaze attack.

Not really. The stare hard at them part is both a "usually" and in parenthesis.

If you need a visual reference, thank of Code Geass's Lelouch vs Schnitzel fight near the end of the series. Each one initiating battle formation changes to "dual" his opponent's strategy.

[Duralan]

With the use of the Undersong spell (SpC) one could technically use his perform checks in place of concentration checks - that was the foundation of the currently '404d' 'Lord of the Dance' build on the old 339 boards.

Still, I found it more amusing to employ my warforged battle-bard's fancy dance moves in place of saves and... damage at times (diamond mind maneuvers here hehe).

From a more practical perspective... we could perhaps use bard/warblade paired with song of the white raven and whip for some semi-decent trip-happy battlefield control (and bards DO get quite a hefty number of ways of getting morale bonuses).
Somehow getting a constant item of Undersong is a must in that case, though the novelty of 'performing your foes away' is can result in memorable, if silly, moments.