Ok, so we agree that U spells are designed to be used in a non-offensive way, in other words they cannot be used as an attack (in-game reasons can be found for this point, but leave the aside for the moment). This means that you cannot use a U spell to deliberately harm a target, because spell's nature will prevent you from doing that. So, if you cast a U spells on a target, knowing that it will cause harm to it, the spell will not work.
Plus, if the would-be-target doesn't actually want to receive the spell's effects (because he knows that it will cause him harm or for any other reason), spell will not work.
This makes U Spells a sort of magical contract between caster and target: both must be willing to sign it and laws governing the spell make sure that the contract will not be used for target's harm.
But U spells aren't perfect and they cannot prevent indirect damage or harmful situations of which neither caster nor target are aware of. So if you teleport me to a place were there's a trap of which we're both not aware of and I agree, "magical contract" will be legally signed and spell will work.
What do you think?....
....I would treat unconscious and sleeping target in the same way, for semplicity's sake..
I would say the "not for harm" idea of U spells is not implicit in the description for U spells (putting aside the attempted 'bug fix' called "Official Ruling"), but I would agree with the idea of a magical contract between caster and target for U spells.
If the spells themselves were automatically canceled if harm was about to occur, that would be specified in the description. The description allows for a target to be harmed if they wish to be (by not resisting a harmful spell), so I don't think that idea stands up.
The 'contract' situation is an interesting one. If you go with the 'mystical contract' idea ie unconscious soul/aura etc controls the contract, we have to decide how much the aura 'knows' (both about the spell itself and the caster's intentions - I don't like the idea of some aura having perfect Spell Lore, Power Perception, Lie Perception, etc), and how far into the future it can see. In some ways you can argue that this is a more simple solution, but I would say that it raises more difficult and convoluted questions (mostly metaphysical, I would accept). In one of my earlier posts on this topic I described how a double cross situation could be resolved (one of the advantages is that using power awareness to realise there is a double cross going on is that the character with good magical knowledge/feeling is at an advantage over the barbarian who knows/feels nothing - Rolemaster being largely skill and ability based is also reflected here).
(Note again, if a conscious character does
not choose to
not resist a U spell there is no argument - spell fails. I am dealing here with the situation where a character 'wants to have his cake and eat it too' - have a friendly character help them, but not want to suffer if their trust is ill judged)
I would add that the contract should only be about the spell being cast, not
why the caster is casting it (ie the contract is violated by casting a spell contrary to the one agreed upon. eg I cast waterlungs on you, at your request, but because I know you will be using it to swim into a trap, or because I know the water is about to disappear, or the water is an illusion)
Do you mean that you would treat unconscious, conscious and asleep
all in the same way? or just asleep and unconscious? It would be simple, but for me would be a kind of 'sweeping under the carpet' way of doing it.
Rolemaster does detail and consistency very well in other areas, but for U spells falls down a bit, in my book.
I would add here that part of the problem is the number of different types of spells that are designated U.
Really 'healing' spells (including Awaken) should be H type - no RR unless you are conscious and unwilling.
Teleport/Longdoor should be F, with unwilling targets (awake and conscious) given a big additional RR bonus
Lifegiving could be treated as mentioned above
(the list of potential adjustments is long, but you get the idea)