Kristoffer posted on the other forum and explained the Magic Duel situation. There is no bug. What happens is that only the BASE astral level matters during a duel. No artifacts, no communion, no "Light of the Northern Star". None of that counts during the actual mental fight. This is why mages with seemingly 6+ astral levels can still sometimes die in a duel. Use this spell at your own risk!
Feel free to start sending the pretenders to me at my email address:
ThePanther@comcast.net
Be sure and put in a pretender password, for I intend to mass mail all 6 turn files to all 6 players each time. If I see a pretender without a password, I will ask for a resend. I will use a master password so I can view all things and make sure everybody is honest. I will also back up all fatherland file to one of those USB data devices in case of a computer or hard disk crash.
I intend to upgrade to version 16 and use that in this game unless there is a hue and cry over this.