Official ICE Forums
Systems & Settings => Rolemaster => Rolemaster Software => Topic started by: Ginger McMurray on November 17, 2019, 02:59:47 PM
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Is there anything out there to help simplify combat resolution? Preferably RM2, but anything works as long as the charts are similar enough not to throw balance out the window. The perfect thing would be a phone app that lets a player pick a weapon, enter OB and DB, add any crit rules for the monster, then click to roll.
It's not hard from a technical standpoint. I could probably put that part together in a weekend (albeit without pretty UI). The data entry would be a beast.
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I don't see a way to delete or edit the question and just found ERA (yes, I'm slow). So the better questions are:
1. Does ERA support RM2?
2. If not, are the RMC weapons and crits close enough to not skew game balance too much?
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Once you have the routine, the tables aren't more effort than the usual "roll attack. Roll defense. Roll damage. Roll hit location" of many other systems, and in fact faster. I never felt the pressure to actually make that a software problem.
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Once you have the routine, the tables aren't more effort than the usual "roll attack. Roll defense. Roll damage. Roll hit location" of many other systems, and in fact faster. I never felt the pressure to actually make that a software problem.
I agree. We used to always have the critical hit chart for a weapon printed on the back of the to hit chart so there was never any flipping through pages. The problem is that I've got some new players i'm trying to get interested in the game and I don't know if handing them a stack of pages for their character sheet will be scary, especially when one or two of those pages is covered in wall-to-wall numbers. They're used to D&D, which is just "roll to hit, roll damage." You can do that with one toss of the dice if you're rolling your d20 and damage at the same time. And there's never a chart involved, just basic addition.
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I'm pretty sure the RMC attack tables and criticals are the same as RM2, so it will be fine.
Having some kind of combat tracking software is nice not just for the table lookups (although that's great) but also for recording the damage, applying injury penalties and tracking stun and bleeding, etc etc. I have not had a chance to play with ERA yet myself but I would definitely suggest giving it a shot.
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I'm looking at it now. It looks like there's a bunch of setup to get a character far enough along to do combat. I'd love something super basic. Then again, maybe it would be worth it to buy for the XML charts and use them in my own app.
Step one: get the players hooked with a sample adventure and characters, which will show them how things work.
Step two: ask them how much online presence they'd like to have. If they want to roll and do charts, great. If not, we'll see how much of combat they want to do through a tool.
Step three: If they want to avoid weapon charts, I'll buy ERA, either in whole or in part. If they want combat completely done online, we'll try it out fully. If not, I'll toss together something which only does basic attack and crit rolls.
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You could also consider Rolemaster Combat Minion, a web app for tablets and desktops:
http://www.ironcrown.com/ICEforums/index.php?topic=14077 (http://www.ironcrown.com/ICEforums/index.php?topic=14077)
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Some points about ERA to help you make the best informed decision:
- As they have already pointed out, there is support for RMC which as regards tables and most mechanics is the same as RM2.
- It is, in my experience (of course it is biased!) an excellent tool to help bring new people to the game. Most of my regular players had not played RM before, and they could be as little involved as they chose to with the mechanics, only focusing on making choices during the adventure and rolling, and after their first campaign maybe start handling their own level up using ERA, and only in their third campaign use the character wizard to generate theirs on their own.
- You can create simpler characters only for combat/skill resolution/spell casting if you go to the Adventuring Module and create NPCs, then edit by hand their bonus with weapons, skills and spells, then save the adventure and proceed from there. With a little custom XML work, you could define the players as "creatures" which is an intermediate format between ad-hoc NPCs and full fledged characters. There is an idea to create a creature/simple character crafting module in ERA, but that is a middle/long term feature.
- You won't be able to purchase the book modules and then query them from another application. Due to ICE IP restrictions, the format of the book files is not XML but an encrypted proprietary format. If you own the physical books or PDFs, you can create the necessary XML files for ERA, and you don't have to pay for anything, just use the base free module and add all the XML files you want (the idea with the business model here is that you have already paid for the content).
Thanks for your interest in ERA, and do not hesitate to ask any questions regarding it use and how it can be of use to your gaming group.
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lots of useful info
Thanks! I started making pregens for the players to use on our intro session. I already broke down and bought Arms Law, Character Law, and Spell Law. :) I'll probably also buy the companion and C&T since I'll want to use some things from there.
Questions:
- Does it contain rules for smoothed stat distribution? I don't actually own the RMC companion I, only the RM2 one. I don't even know if those rules are in there.
- Does it have a combat system in place for the streamlined version in RM2. i.e. roll QU + d100, start at 200, and work your way down?
- I also don't have the RMC Creatures or Treasures books. Do they have a large sample of things from the original C&T 1-3?
- What other optional rules can be turned on or off?
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And another:
5. Is there a module that includes skills from RM2's Companion II? I don't see them in RMC's Companion I table of contents and can't find any other RMC companions. For example: Demon/Devil Lore. If not, how can I add a skill to a profession whose base data isn't in XML?
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1. Does it contain rules for smoothed stat distribution? I don't actually own the RMC companion I, only the RM2 one. I don't even know if those rules are in there.
Yes, you can choose that in the customization section. Click on the "About" button to the right of the main screen, then choose the link in the "To customize your rule set, click here." sentence. Open the "Calculate Stat Bonus" option and choose "Smoothed Stat Bonus". Finally click on the "Apply these values" button.
2. Does it have a combat system in place for the streamlined version in RM2. i.e. roll QU + d100, start at 200, and work your way down?
The initiative when starting each round asks for a roll, to which is added to the Qu bonus. It does not "Start at 200" but it will list the actions declared ordered by decreasing total, BUT it splits the round in 4 steps (Snap,Short,Normal,Long) using the RMC rule. You could ignore that if you state that all actions take 100% of the round, and enter a d100 roll intead of 2d10 as in RMC.
3. I also don't have the RMC Creatures or Treasures books. Do they have a large sample of things from the original C&T 1-3?
I did a quick check and it seems RMC Creatures are just the ones from C&T 1. The weird thing I found while looking is that C&T 2 is included in the RMFRP Creatures, and they even seem to have equivalent stats. So in theory you could buy and install ERA RMFRP Creatures package, to get stuff from RM2 C&T 2 into your RMC installation.
4. What other optional rules can be turned on or off?
You should check the custom rules section I mention in the first item on this list. There are many things that are listed as optional rules in the different companions that you could do in ERA, mostly by doing manual editing of character skills in the character sheet. Let me know about what you have in mind.
5. Is there a module that includes skills from RM2's Companion II? I don't see them in RMC's Companion I table of contents and can't find any other RMC companions. For example: Demon/Devil Lore. If not, how can I add a skill to a profession whose base data isn't in XML?
You can add skills that you want to appear as default for all characters in the ERA/RMC/Configuration/Skills.XML file. They will appear by default with a cost of 0 for all characters. You could edit the skill for that character inside the Character Sheet Module and indicate the required cost for that profession. There was talk some time ago (I tried to find the thread to post a link but couldn't find it) about adding a profession extender feature, where you could define the cost of skills that were not included in the professions contained in the packages offered. Sadly it is not currently in the short term ToDo list of features.
Please let us know if that answers your questions, and ask any other that you might need.
Thanks!
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Thanks!
I just got the Companion I update and it made the smoothed distribution option show up. :)
I also added my first skill. It looks like every character will need to have their cost updated upon creation, but it's all good.
I played around a bit with the combat and it'll definitely work. We'll probably do initiative on our own rolls with me counting down. It seems to get more attention from the people who are otherwise distracted. We don't do action announcements, but the app doesn't seem to need them. :)
Re: creatures. "In theory" worries me a little. Will it work? I don't mind numbers being a little bit off here and there between editions, but if the functionality between the two systems isn't compatible and the program itself goes wonky, that's bad.
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What does the "Affect Skill Development" option change?
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Re: creatures. "In theory" worries me a little. Will it work? I don't mind numbers being a little bit off here and there between editions, but if the functionality between the two systems isn't compatible and the program itself goes wonky, that's bad.
I checked that if both RMC and RMFRP creature books are installed, you will get most creatures twice, one for each. A quick review showed that at least the creature description is the same in most cases. I also checked that using those creatures in an RMC combat is fine, as long as the creature in RMFRP does not list an attack that does not exist in RMC Arms Law. I can't guarantee 100% compatibility without checking each and every creature. I can't promise a refund if you buy it and then don't use it since I don't manage the DriveTruRPG part, but from a technical point, in case you don't like a component from a book package it's really easy to uninstall if you need to, and I can promise to help with that uninstallation if need be.
What does the "Affect Skill Development" option change?
It relates to how a profession understands modifications to skill cost and development.
It's not used by default in RMC, but it could be.
If you check a profession XML file, you'll see sections named SkillCategoryCostModifiers and SkillCostModifiers. In the RMFRP files, the modifier value is used to indicate if the skill is Everyman, Occupational or Restricted. So a modifier of 0.5 means that for every rank purchased you get 2, 0.3 means that for every rank purchased you get 3, a modifier of 2 means that you need to purchase 2 ranks to get 1.
The Change cost option will use the modifier to change the cost of the skill. So you could play RMFRP where all skills in a category share the cost, but indicate that a specific skill gets a discount in the cost (x0.5 for example).
Finally, Adjust bonus is used in RMU to indicate that the profession gets a special bonus to that skill (the modifier value is applied directly as a special bonus for all characters of that profession).
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Thanks! What happens if the monster uses an attack that doesn't exist? If it's not a catastrophic failure I can just pick out an attack type that matches when needed and bust out the actual books.
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If a creature has an attack that uses a table that you don't have installed it will just list "N/A" on the damage result of the attack.
You could even manually edit the creature in the adventure and change the attack table to something else.
The rest of the stuff is not version dependent: DB, Armor, Size, Hits... at most the values should change because of small differences in the rules, but what I saw after making a quick check is that the RM2 C&T II creatures that got into the RMFRP C&M were given exactly the same values.