Ok..... just wrote myself another little self-to-self pm rather than getting heated offtopicly on a thread... hope this works out better than 'pet death'...
In any event here is my on-topic suggestion: leave it all how it is.
'he won the duel by using a potion'; well he also lost out on carrying X weight & a inventory slot by lugging the potion around till using it. And you could have had one too-- just cause you didn't think ahead doesn't mean he shouldn't be allowed to have done so.. He drank his potions too fast, well you can drink equally fast--besides if he drank em so fast he'll run out sooner. and if you're saying he can't realistically drink so many so fast I'll remind you what i said in dueling etiquette thread: a game hour is really something like 10-20 minutes. [--besides which that opens a whole can of beans for equiping anything "faster than the eyes can see", or for that matter equpipng/dequiping anything when both your hands are already full.]... He can carry more potions? you could have cast weakness (notice no one answered my request for gms' position on Weakness in the thread on dueling etiquette), but realistically if he is so much stronger than you that his carrying capacity allows a lot more potions than yours allows you--then his strength is aleady more a deciding factor than the potions, if that argument held weight then what about when ranged weapons are implemented with expendable ammunition "he could carry more JUST cause he's stronger"--well yes, that is one of the many benefits to training up one's strength, perhaps you should try it if you hope to win more fights. Every complaint i seen so far about it being 'unfair' strikes me as just plain whiny. The complaints about realism I adddress with this: you shouldn't be able to drink a potion when at a low health like 1% right? you'd be too weak to lift it to your mouth... probably too weak to attack too, certainly too weak to run, maybe too weak to stand even, maybe too weak to carry any inventory, to defend yourself... Get the idea? If we want to nitpick about realism rather than keeping things useful & gamelike then as soon as you take combat damage everything should drop by equal % to your hp: move speed, attack speed, attack damage, carrying capacity, mental stamina, temporary () agility... if you even think about saying how unfair that is because of how much that makes the fight hinge on who hits first: Try thinking of a realistic fight. And to really hammer the point home: If realism is really such a priority over people being able to enjoy it as a game then there is no need to challenge someone to a duel before killing them... the town guard would kill/jail you? -right, just like police caught jack the ripper the first time he killed... realism.
If realism=roleplay maybe there shouldn't be fantastic races, or magic, or a way out of deathrealm. Realism & this game's intended roleplay aren't the same thing (AFAIK), they are intended to be very different, but connected concepts-- and if you think even 50% of roleplay in games is realistic, please get me in touch with your dealer; I'd love to try whatever you've been smoking...
(IMO) Video Games in general, but ESPECIALY roleplay=fantasy.
PS: RE: "It is basically impossible for a weaker character to kills a stronger one, even with superior skill and tactics, if potions are used as they currently exist." weaker characters should generally lose to stronger ones I'm pretty sure (unless we are throwing all realism at all out the window), but if the skills and tactics are superior BY ENOUGH (which all depends how much weaker they are) their skills & tactics should win it for them...
Personally Speaking: I have no hotkey for healing potions, but i think the idea of changing the system is inviting things to be lamer. Like changing NPC chat to saying the NPC's name because it's more realistic to address a stranger by their name instead of clicking them with a pointer as if to tap someone on the shoulder... if it ain't broke why mess with it?. There are plety of people (in my opinion too many people) who already feel that using potions in duels is dishonorable etc, so to them this is a non-issue as they wouldn't use them anyway right?-- Implement any suggestion in this thread for changing how potions work & suddenly you have less options for those whose characters are supposed to be dishonorable [Note: people are rarely dishonourable if it will only impeede them & not provide any pertinent advantage. Think about it]. I'll stop now before I get more people mad at me...