The Intrepid party I shall draw this telling from was small for an adventuring group; a Druid, a Mage and a Cavalier, all with materials drawn heavily from RMCI and II.
Characters in RM are already uniquely memorable. Our adventures had already become more story and character driven than combat, but Arms Law guarantees no GM will ever want to fully remove combat. Arms Law is for players and Gm's who enjoy tension. Massive combat bonuses are not required to cause tension or excitement. Arms Law critical tables insure just picking up the dice will cause instant tension. This simple fact makes combat in RM always enjoyable and not a tedious exercise.
I have been a GM a long time. A PC must be or do something extraordinary for me to recall their Name. This episode did that in spades. A combination of roleplaying and that magic Arms Law can bring.
After a successful information gathering expedition, the group was heading home. A striken elven NPC begged aid from the party, requesting they cross the border into the cursed elven city to complete the task he had failed at. Now I expected the players to say no. The Cursed city of Elven Undead was a place to avoid, as ordered by their commanded, and as was very clear to a group of experienced gammers with 4th to 7th level PC's. The 4th lvl Cavalier would have none of it. He swore aid, to seek this dark vessel placed on this ancient high kings alter and shatter it, "...though it be my death me of." Burton Hubbard, the player, through mutual laughter informed us that since ending a sentence with a prepositional phrase was wrong, the Cavalier redused to do it.
So to certain death the Cavalier went, alone, because the druid and mage believed the definition of party did not include commitment to certain death. After two battles with lesser wights that were quite tense and spetacular in their own right, the fallen Elven Paladins ring brought our lone hero through trap and twisting streets to the kings tomb. Within was the Major Guardian Wight cursed to haunt the kings rest, protect the perversion of the tomb and guard it against intruding Cavaliers. So the wight advances, easily winning initiative, and strikes at this 4th level albeit Platemail clad mortal with his +30 eog sword of cold, a foe already stunned by the intense cold radiating from its undead bulk...and fumbles, resulting in dropping the blade, including requiring two rounds to recover.
Our hero weilded a mighty blade: a +10 two hand sword of superior design, which he tossed aside without a thought and almost screamed, "I'm going for its blade!" As picking up an object from the floor is a most routine mnv, yet being in combat is anything but routine, also considering the wight HAD already had its action, I demanded an easy manuever to grab it, which our hero did even with stuns stiff penalty to mnv.
Next round, I anounce that the wight will either blast with magic, physical attack, or try to dominate the Cavalier through the power of ITS sword. The d10 roll demanded everyones attention and resulted in mental domination. After a brief discussion if the wight should have 1/2 its will because the sword is tied to it but it is not holding the blade. we compromised with a -30 to its will, enough to swing the contest it turned out, as both the high mental stats and solid die roll of Burton prove out by winning the contest by 30+ points, well over the 25 needed to allow him to attack freely.
Breaking the shadow filled lock of the wights cold gaze, an "over head crush" was declared, a house rull of mine were all Qu DB is sacrificed to gain a set +25 to OB and x1 1/2 hits. Burton scored a D crit, so a critical was rolled, and one of the rarest events in Arms Law combat occred right there. Burton, rolling under the Mythrel column on the SL critical table, rolled a 96, followed by an 01. The Cavaliers mighty blow crashed down on the wight, splitting its skull, causeing it to instantly fall, shrieking, dieing a wights death in one round, which meant flashy pyrotechnics as its bulky form was sucked into darkfire, and was gone.
The hero did it. Several Co points lower, maybe lucky he escaped the last rounds cold crit, definitely LUCKY: Right there Arms Law shined. Many systems do not have the built in mechanic to display luck at work. Foes do not fall until beaten down. RM's Arms Law manages to not just allow lucky strikes, but in no small part because of them, keeps every battle full of tension. Just pick up your dice GMs and ask "What's your DB?" to see for yourself.
