Topic: Rules Questions-Spells, Facing and Ranged Attacks

[Lawdog1700]

Hi all,

New to the forum.  Old school RM player and new player of RMU.  I really like the new Rolemaster.  We have been looking for a crunchier rule set for an RPG, and RMU definitely fits the bill.

Anyway, I have a few rules questions.  I apologize if these are very obvious:

1. Is there a penalty applied to cast a spell if the spellcaster is engaged in combat with an enemy?

2. On the Monk spell list “Evasions”, there is a spell called flip.  I know that generally if a character moves and is engaged with an enemy, the enemy is allowed to freely rotate to keep facing against the target. That prevents one character from running around behind the other character to gain advantage every single round. However, flip allows you to jump 10 feet. If a monk were to flip over an enemy, would they be allowed to automatically rotate to face the monk after, the monk lands? Or, would they be able to change when their initiative came up?

3. Is there a penalty to use a ranged weapon when engaged with an enemy?

Thanks for any answers you provide. I appreciate it.

[jdale]

Welcome, glad you like it!

1. Not inherently, but a spellcaster might want to partial dodge or take other defensive action. Partial dodge is a concentration action, so you could only dedicate 2 AP to spellcasting, resulting in -50.

2. In general, when you are trying to outmaneuver a foe to get in their flank, I handle that as conflicting skills (usually Running vs Running, with success giving flank and absolute success giving rear). In a one-on-one situation it's really hard to get flank (maybe sheer folly), but if you have allies or special abilities (like flip), it will bring the difficulty down. When you have an ally, I would generally treat it as a medium conflicting maneuver for one of you to get flank (again, absolute success gets rear). For Flip, maybe... +50 on that maneuver?

3. "Attacker in melee" is -20, on table 9-5.