Author Topic: Director's Briefing - September 2020  (Read 2354 times)

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Offline NicholasHMCaldwell

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Director's Briefing - September 2020
« on: September 01, 2020, 02:27:52 PM »
Welcome

To the one hundred-and-eleventh Briefing and ninth Briefing of 2020. We sincerely hope that you and yours are still staying safe and managing as best you can in these trying circumstances.

Eleventy-One!

As was pointed out in the forums last month, we have reached an anniversary Briefing number beloved of a certain hobbit and his long-expected party. Like many ICE fans, I came in via The Lord of the Rings and playing in a friend’s MERP game, which he morphed into using the RM 2nd Edition rules to provide greater possibilities. I had the loan of his Spell Law volume for a while and one of my first rule meddlings was seeing how I could compress the Mentalism spells into ten levels just like the MERP Animist and Mage. It is perhaps not so surprising that I would end up writing Mentalism Companion a few years later.

Virtually Expo

Fresh from Gen Con Online, we moved in force on Virtually Expo, which was a much better organized experience. Colin had spent more Development Points in his new skill - Discord Server Mastery - and we had three very good Q&A sessions, one on RMU, one on ICE generally and a live demo/Q&A on Fantasy Grounds for Rolemaster. One of the things discussed was the status of the product pipeline. I all but suffered a mathematics critical when I added up all the products for which we have a manuscript.

The Great Manuscript Hoard

For the purposes of the hoard, I am only going to count projects where I have at least a first draft in my hands. There are other projects where work is underway but I have not seen a full draft yet so they will not be formally counted as part of the hoard.

HARP and HARP SF

Here we have HARP Subterfuge which is with Terry for layout, closely followed by the long-awaited HARP Bestiary which is ready to go into layout. HARP Garden of Rain is receiving more artwork (during one of the Virtually Expo Discord chats, we saw Joel’s cover rendering which is fantastic). HARP Beyond the Veil is complete and ready to have its artwork commissioned. HARP SF The Poseidon Gambit is still with Joel but when he finishes, it will be complete in text, artwork and cartography (and since I have seen a draft, I am prepared to count it in the hoard). So remember the number five.

I am not counting for the purposes of the hoard the adventure module HARP Dark Hunt, HARP Strongholds, HARP SF Vehicles Compendium, HARP Steampunk, or HARP Something Wicked Something Wondrous because they are all still in progress.

Cyradon

Colin has finished his amendments to the Cyradon setting book, so it is ready for me to edit. We also have Allen Maher’s original trilogy of Cyradon adventures to transform into Arrival in Cyradon plus the manuscripts of M is for Murder, The Ruins of Kausur, Enya Lote and Escort Duty to update for the current rules set. Remember the number six.

Elsewhere in the wider world of Mithra, Chris Seal is working on Caer Glais.

Shadow World

Brian Hanson’s The Priest-King of Shade is patiently waiting its turn in the editing queue before its artwork can be formally commissioned. Remember the number one.

Of course Terry is busy (when not in layout) with Emer IV and we also have the HARP Handbook for Shadow World underway, but again until a full manuscript appears, I will not count it in the hoard.

RMU

For RMU, we have Arms & Character Law, Spell Law, Treasure Law and Creature Law. Given that Creature Law is not ready yet but will appear as two volumes and we did have a full beta version, I will stretch the rules and include it in the hoard as one item. Remember the number four.

In addition to RMU, we also, for instance, have a complete Rolemaster adventure module, Night of the Third Moon, which is set in the Bladelands notionally. I am not currently counting this as the complete manuscript is still all in German!

In terms of progress on RMU, I have double-checked all of Jonathan’s amends to Arms & Character Law and they are all good, and modulo the necessary introductory text and credits, Arms & Character Law is now final.

I have completed the editing pass on Spell Law. Working with Jonathan, we made some final modifications to the spell lists so we have improved versions of the Dabbler, Lay Healer, Healer, and Open & Closed Channeling and Mentalism spell lists – I hope the greater clarity of descriptions on the healing spell lists will make game play better. In terms of other fixes, there were some comments raised about the potency of the Herb Enhancement and Herb Mastery spells, so I have altered these so that they have different and meaningful effects. There was also concerns about the Mystic’s Hiding spell list having Invisibility spells at a higher level than Invisible Ways and the Unpresence Self spell duplicated on two Mystic base lists – I rolled up my sleeves here (and in a nod to my earliest rules tweaking) have created new modified spells to resolve the problem. Again, modulo the necessary introductory text and credits, Spell Law is now final.

I have sent the final textual versions to Max so that he can get properly underway with ERA for RMU and also to Dakadin so that he can make progress with Fantasy Grounds RMU rules set.

Colin is chomping at the bit to get on with commissioning artwork for RMU, which leads to the question – should we go for black&white interior artwork or colour interiors? While this does not necessarily have an impact on the pdf price, it does make a difference to the cost of the print versions. For a standard size book, the per-page cost is currently about two cents per page for black&white, rising to about five cents per page for “standard colour” (which is what we use for Shadow World sourcebooks) and up to nine cents per page for “premium colour” (which we have used in the very early days for the Shadow World Player Guide and HARP SF Xtreme). You can play with the DriveThruRPG printing calculator at https://www.drivethrurpg.com/pub_pod_cost.php . We know our legion of artists are perfectly capable of handling either. We would be interested in your views on the subject – please let us know on the forums or via the Discord server.

Back to the Hoard

You have probably forgotten the numbers. They were five, six, one and four, which means that we have sixteen (!) manuscripts at varying stages of development.   

Until next time

RMU Treasure Law is next on my editing list

Please stay safe.

Best wishes,
Nicholas

Director, Iron Crown Enterprises Ltd
Dr Nicholas HM Caldwell
Director, Iron Crown Enterprises Ltd
Publisher of Rolemaster, Spacemaster, Shadow World, Cyradon, HARP & HARP SF, and Cyberspace, with products available from www.drivethrurpg.com
Author: Mentalism Companion, GURPS Age of Napoleon, Construct Companion, College of Magics, HARP SF/HARP SF Xtreme

Offline Hurin

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Re: Director's Briefing - September 2020
« Reply #1 on: September 01, 2020, 03:22:26 PM »
Wow, that is a lot on your plate! Thank you Nicholas.

A couple of quick questions:
--I'm glad to hear of all the progress on RMU Spell Law. Any hints on how you tried to improve the Dabbler's spells? The consensus in the forums seems to be they were not especially useful in combat.

--I'm also very happy to hear that RMU is getting the ERA and Fantasy Grounds treatment. There also seemed to be some parties willing to have a go at giving RMU the Roll20 treatment. Is that intended too?

--As for color vs. B+W, I'm in the color camp!
'Last of all, Húrin stood alone. Then he cast aside his shield, and wielded an axe two-handed'. --J.R.R. Tolkien

'Every party needs at least one insane person.'  --Aspen of the Jade Isle

Offline NicholasHMCaldwell

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Re: Director's Briefing - September 2020
« Reply #2 on: September 01, 2020, 03:41:52 PM »
Wow, that is a lot on your plate! Thank you Nicholas.

A couple of quick questions:
--I'm glad to hear of all the progress on RMU Spell Law. Any hints on how you tried to improve the Dabbler's spells? The consensus in the forums seems to be they were not especially useful in combat.

Concealment Mastery has accrued proper Invisibility, Mechanisms and Trade Mastery have merged, Smoke and Mirrors is a new list in the illusions domain. These are all Jonathan's doing, so the credit is his. They don't necessarily make the Dabbler stronger in combat but they are stronger spell lists.

Quote
--I'm also very happy to hear that RMU is getting the ERA and Fantasy Grounds treatment. There also seemed to be some parties willing to have a go at giving RMU the Roll20 treatment. Is that intended too?

Yes.

Best wishes,
Nicholas
Dr Nicholas HM Caldwell
Director, Iron Crown Enterprises Ltd
Publisher of Rolemaster, Spacemaster, Shadow World, Cyradon, HARP & HARP SF, and Cyberspace, with products available from www.drivethrurpg.com
Author: Mentalism Companion, GURPS Age of Napoleon, Construct Companion, College of Magics, HARP SF/HARP SF Xtreme

Offline jdale

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Re: Director's Briefing - September 2020
« Reply #3 on: September 01, 2020, 03:53:44 PM »
Nicholas beat me on the draw but you can see the original drafts of those lists in the forum:
http://www.ironcrown.com/ICEforums/index.php?topic=16659.msg202777#msg202777
http://www.ironcrown.com/ICEforums/index.php?topic=16659.msg202776#msg202776
http://www.ironcrown.com/ICEforums/index.php?topic=16659.msg202771#msg202771

Still not really combat focused but much more utility. There are some other good ideas out there too (including in that thread). Personally I would still like to see all the professions expanded so they are selecting 6 base lists out of list of 8-12 possible base lists, that would give a little more room to customize and refocus, and that could include perhaps a combat illusions list or something like Kwickham's explosives law (in the linked thread). But that's something that would have to wait for future companion material and will depend on who is writing it.

(I do have a combat illusions list adapted from the one in the Essence Companion. If people are interested I can post it on the RMU Spell Law board. Personally, I don't think it feels like a dabbler but....)
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Offline Hurin

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Re: Director's Briefing - September 2020
« Reply #4 on: September 01, 2020, 04:26:59 PM »
Great to hear about Roll20!

Those are all great changes for the Dabbler. I am going to try to make a viable dabbler pregen character to go with my pregens of all the other classes (for playtests and conventions and such).

I wonder if Ignite Fuel could be used offensively, on the poor town guard carrying an oil lantern? If so, I assume the size of the ignition/explosion would depend on the amount and type of fuel?
'Last of all, Húrin stood alone. Then he cast aside his shield, and wielded an axe two-handed'. --J.R.R. Tolkien

'Every party needs at least one insane person.'  --Aspen of the Jade Isle

Offline Colin-ICE

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Re: Director's Briefing - September 2020
« Reply #5 on: September 02, 2020, 04:39:09 AM »
For anyone who is interested, you can join our Discord server via this link: https://discord.gg/8cTpcDJ

Offline jsoldati

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Re: Director's Briefing - September 2020
« Reply #6 on: September 02, 2020, 10:08:08 AM »
It is nice to see some work done on improvements.  Serious question.  Have you ever fixed armour type 9?

Offline jdale

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Re: Director's Briefing - September 2020
« Reply #7 on: September 02, 2020, 10:46:04 AM »
For the RMU attack tables, since beta2, we:
* Increased the max damage by 25%
* Increased the initial damage (for the lowest possible hit) to make those non-critical hits more relevant
* Decreased the threshold for the lowest possible hit by 5 to make it a little easier to get those hits (especially important for lower level battles where originally it seemed like there were too many rounds when everyone was missing)
* Reduced the advantage of AT 6 and slightly boosted AT 5, 7, and 8. We didn't adjust AT 9 directly but adjusting AT 7 and 8 will affect its relative advantage.

I've been liking what I'm seeing in combats. Criticals always matter of course, but hits also matter, and foes (and sometimes PCs) drop to loss of hits after what feels like a reasonable number of attacks. There were also adjustments we made reducing the number and severity of injury penalties, they are still relevant but in the earlier beta it seemed like foes were more likely to lose simply because those penalties stacked up so high, it was almost like their injury pool was more important than their hits. That does not seem to be true anymore in my experience.
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Offline jsoldati

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Re: Director's Briefing - September 2020
« Reply #8 on: September 02, 2020, 11:38:22 AM »
Thank you for the quick response about armour type 9. I should have posed it relative to Armour type 1.  I know that certain weapons (piercing) should be inverse in protection, but years ago we found wearing nothing universally superior.
Is that still the case?

Offline jdale

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Re: Director's Briefing - September 2020
« Reply #9 on: September 02, 2020, 11:50:24 AM »
Are you referring to AT 1 and AT 9 from previous editions of Rolemaster, in which there were 20 armor types? The old tables build in some assumptions about the relative mobility of combatants in the various types of armor. That gave a big advantage to the natural armor types (AT 1, 3, 4) and it was definitely true that in many cases you were better off in no armor than in leather.

The RMU tables (with 10 armor types) do not make those assumptions. If you are suffering maneuvering and encumbrance penalties, those reduce your dodge (if you are relying on dodging) so they are still relevant, but it's not an assumption of the tables. On the tables, more armor is better. It gives less advantage against some kinds of attacks (e.g. you don't get a lot of protection from armor against grappling although you do get some) but you're never worse off in armor.

My previous comments were just about tweaks to the RMU tables we made along the way based on input received, but from the beginning the RMU tables were intended to fix issues such as the ones you are referring to from previous editions.
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Offline jdale

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Re: Director's Briefing - September 2020
« Reply #10 on: September 02, 2020, 05:14:11 PM »
Ok, for everyone who has not been following the RMU development over the past many years obsessively like I have, and is wondering what it's all about, I have posted a summary here: http://www.ironcrown.com/ICEforums/index.php?topic=19914.new#new

If you are looking at converting to RMU, I also just posted a list of what RMSS/RMFRP skills correspond to which RMU skills. http://www.ironcrown.com/ICEforums/index.php?topic=19910.0
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