Topic: RMC House Rules

[Cpt Tiberius J. Krik]

I'm considering making a house rule where the lighter weapons can be used with ST/AG/AG instead of ST/ST/AG so as to better differentiate between big strong fighters and those that rely more on footwork and lighter weapons. Rapiers, shortswords, that sort of thing.

Have you done similar?

I'm not sure how to go about it though (being new to RM). I was going to base it on how heavy the weapon is. Perhaps something like "any melee weapon with a weight of 3lb or less can be used with ST/AG/AG." That seems to work but I'm not sure why weapons have a range of weight. E.g. the shortsword is rated at 2-4lbs. So, my house rule means you can (3lbs) and can't (4lbs) use ST/AG/AG. 

Any advice?

I should note I haven't even read all of Character Law yet, let alone Arms Law.

[jdale]

Real weapons have a range of weights and lengths. In game terms, it doesn't make much sense to provide a range rather than a single number. If the player chooses, there's generally no reason not to pick the lightest weight in the range. If the GM chooses every time a weapon is purchased or found, it's unnecessary work. Just use the average or minimum (your choice) across all the weapons.

I think agility is most relevant for weapons that are not just light but also balanced. E.g. a fencing weapon like a rapier might make sense, and I would think a shortsword, but I'm not so sure it works for a hand axe or a small mace.

[Majyk]

Yup, we ended up doing something similar.
I think it was the old RM2 Arms Companion that had different stat calculations depending upon the type of weapon you wielded.

As JDale says, anything with a majority of thrusting during use should get your new stat calc vs something that requires “wild” wide swoops and swings where heft and momentum are more valuable to effective strikes.
Good luck on your testing in game.

[Cpt Tiberius J. Krik]

I don't think I'm going to use the xp allocation system as it's way too fiddly.

I would like to use an xp system similar to Savage Worlds. It offers a flat xp cost depending on how well the players did. For example (per player):

XP   Success/Failure Outcome
3000     Almost total success
2500     More success than failure
2000     About equal success and failure
1500     More failure than success
1000     Almost total failure

I'm not sure how much xp to give out though. Any recommendations, have you employed a similar xp system? I don't want to just, decide when the pcs level up; I want some structure.

[jdale]

How fast do you want the PCs to level? It's 10,000 XP per level so if you want them to level every three sessions on average, they should get around 3300 XP per session. Depending on your expectations you could make that your "about equal success and failure" award (or maybe "more success than failure"). They still have the opportunity to do better or worse depending on their performance.

Another way to think about this is your long-term plans for the campaign. Suppose you want to run the campaign for a year, and you expect to play every other week, and you want the characters to end up around level 15. That's 26 sessions over which you want them to earn 140,000 XP so target awarding about 5400 XP per session.

All of these numbers are totally arbitrary, it's just about matching them to your goals for the campaign.

The rate of advancement also doesn't have to be uniform. E.g. I've targeted having the characters advance every session or two for the first few levels, with a plan of then slowing down. I think it's best to lay this out to the players in advance though. Otherwise they may be unhappy if the rate of advance suddenly drops. (No one will really complain if it increases!)

Also, you might look at RMU for another goal-based XP system.

[Cpt Tiberius J. Krik]

Good advice! Thank you jdale

IS RMU still going to be released? It's been a while.

[jdale]

Yes, but first Creature Law must be completed.