Topic: Wednesday - Power vs Resistance

[tbigness]

Still why all the extra work? This inhibits the game flow by constant tracking of other continuous stats and unneccessary DP dumping into skills to min/max characters while taking away form other skill categories due to this divergent need to max these skill area's. This will lead to cookie cutter characters because everyone will be maxing these skills as much as possible and not have much left for primary skills and "game flavor" skills to roleplay by. With the many characters I make in RMU and HARP, I find that talents gobble up most of my development points instead of skills due to the advantages of the talents. I tend to make similar characters because of the shortfall of DP available. Unless the character creations gets x DP's for primary skills and x DP's for secondary or knowledge skills this will remain true. In most cases a thief will be similar to every other thief minus talents and a fighter is in the same category. How else are PC's going to diversify if they do not have to worry about skill dumps that are a must for survival leaving colorful skills that may enhance the game play behind due to running out of DP's?

[Thom @ ICE]

I see your point and agree regarding the talents.


One topic I have not referenced as of yet is talents... I won't have them.  If you want to do something special you should have spent the DP building up the relevant skill.  Regardless of your skill level, you can always try it - but everything you do special has a penalty associated with it.  As a result if you are a high level archer, shooting multiple targets on a single shot with multiple arrows is possible.  If you are a low level archer, you can try the same thing - but unless you pull off a multiple OE set of rolls you are unlikely to be successful.  Now the truly heroic characters can be truly heroic!


The only place to spend DP's will be in skills.
There will also be a limit to # of DP's per level advancement on a single skill.
These skills will be costed at a base level to allow full max development each level if so desired.
No declining ROI but also bonus per rank is no longer going to be +5.

[Cory Magel]

Still why all the extra work? This inhibits the game flow by constant tracking of other continuous stats...

That's one of my issues with some changes people want to make to Rolemaster.  I like the increased detail as compared to other systems, but there is a point at which degrees of detail simply create more paperwork and tracking without actually contributing to the game in an overall beneficial way.

For example, let's take some of the talk about critical hit charts if we applied them to RM.  Some people feel that making the criticals truly random, so that even a specific roll on a specific chart would vary, would increase the 'fun'.  But, for me, if you have enough variety in the charts as they are already, in the bigger picture all you're doing is causing more dice to be rolled and results to be calculated and looked up.  Which, for me, isn't fun.  I know I say it all the time... but Fun > Balance > Realism

[markc]

  The idea reminds me of Dragon Age Origins, in which you had a Magic stat that affected the health you got from a health potion (because it was magic) or if you were a mage the stat affected your magic abilities, your health potion and your spell point bonus.   
MDC