Topic: Question about combat (and others)

[Cpt Tiberius J. Krik]

This question is a bit odd, and I'm not even sure anyone can answer it for me but here goes.

I'm just getting to the end of Character Law. At times it's been difficult trying to parse some of the rules. It's been mentally taxing for me (probably something to do with my ADHD), and I'm thinking, I don't know if I can go another round with RMC's Arms Law, then RMC's Spell Law, not to mention Creatures & Treasures. Don't get me wrong, I like the rule system, it isn't complex, but it is crunchy and it's starting to feel a bit overwhelming to me.

I imagine a lot of the page count is made up of charts and tables and descriptions of spells and creatures - which I can read as and when needs be, but (and I realise this will be subjective a call), how much more mental energy is this going to take? Are the other books the same, more so, or less taxing than Character Law? I'm just getting to that age when my ability to absorb more and more rules, is diminishing.

Thanks all.

[MisterK]

The basic rules of character creation, action resolution, and combat resolution are the lion's share of headache.

Spell Law is mostly a list of spells, and a few attack and critical tables. The most taxing is the set of sections that deal with specific spell effects.
Arms Law is mostly attack tables and critical tables. Not much to absorb and digest here.
Creatures & Treasures is mostly a set of stat blocks. The only problem I can see with it is that the attack patterns are not always intuitive and that the monster description sometimes seems to imply capabilities that the stat block does not cover (the dreaded artistic license).  But otherwise, it's a monster catalog with fairly limited textual description.

One point about RM2 (dunno about RMC) is that there is still text in Arms Law and Spell Law for people who use those books without the full RM rule set, and those chapters can be confusing and sometimes contradictory with Character Law. It's a leftover from RM1 (which was more of a tookbox).

[Cpt Tiberius J. Krik]

The basic rules of character creation, action resolution, and combat resolution are the lion's share of headache.

Spell Law is mostly a list of spells, and a few attack and critical tables. The most taxing is the set of sections that deal with specific spell effects.
Arms Law is mostly attack tables and critical tables. Not much to absorb and digest here.
Creatures & Treasures is mostly a set of stat blocks. The only problem I can see with it is that the attack patterns are not always intuitive and that the monster description sometimes seems to imply capabilities that the stat block does not cover (the dreaded artistic license).  But otherwise, it's a monster catalog with fairly limited textual description.

One point about RM2 (dunno about RMC) is that there is still text in Arms Law and Spell Law for people who use those books without the full RM rule set, and those chapters can be confusing and sometimes contradictory with Character Law. It's a leftover from RM1 (which was more of a tookbox).

That doesn't sound so bad. Action resolution is in ChL but none of the combat is, but if AL is mostly charts and tables, I should be good to go.

Thank you.

[Jengada]

Yes, Character Law is a lot to absorb. I also find, as I look back at it (I've been playing Rolemaster since 1986, so it's all melded in my brain) that it is not at all well organized. There are rules I know are in there, but cannot find without serious digging because they're not where I thought they should be. That got better with newer editions/versions of the rules, but it came with rule changes in many cases.
Spell Law is the next most dense. Because it has the rules for different types of spells, casting, learning, researching, and making items, those make up about a third of the book. The rest is charts.
Arms Law has fewer rules in it, and more charts. The rules cover details of combat, things about actions you can and cannot take as part of an attack, or defending.

My suggestion would be, now that you're done with ChL, go to Arms Law. Skim the part about how to read the tables, look at a couple of those. Then read the rules portion. For comic relief, read some crits from the crit tables.
Then go to Spell Law, skim spells to see what's there. You'll see symbols and notations, flip back to the earlier pages that explain them as you're interested. Then once you're curious enough, go back and read about learning and casting. I would strongly discourage reading the parts about spell research and making items, until you've got the headspace for that. You can run a starting campaign without knowing those.
And never forget the value of casual bathroom page-flipping. The spells, creatures, and crit tables are all great for that. 

[Vladimir]

  The many charts included in CL help speed up calculations, such as the Movement Rate Chart or the Pace Chart. They provide an easy reference that allows players to look up corresponding stats and mods to find pertinent data. That being said, most of the CL charts would be used for character generation and not constantly utilized in gameplay as the combat and critical charts would be.
  I usually have the spell users maintain the references needed for their particular spells. Should there be a need for clarification, they are obligated to provide the necessary data for
  me to make a ruling.

  When the various players are aware of which charts they need in normal gameplay, the GM doesn't have to juggle as many books or marked pages. When we gamed at a table at our local game store, I'd have some of the observers handle NPCs during combat, especially if they were familiar with the rules.