Topic: Ambush modification

[Neee-Wom]

I was never happy with fighters in RM at higher levels as they become less interesting than magic users, but how we could make it more powerful without creating new rules?

At the end I have found a method that I like, the Ambush skill is becomes a combat skill and can be used in full attacks. that means a figher level 5 could have for example 5 ranks + 15 from level, that means when a critical is achieved the fighter can select  the critical in the range ±20. It the attack is stealthy (traditional ambush) you double the bonus.

I have not noticed big problems during play except that combat is slower when players have to decide which critical they want.

Feedback is appreciated.

[Ginger McMurray]

At higher levels fighters should be getting E crits at pretty much any distance with a couple of swings per round (adrenal speed or haste from another PC or item). I'm not sure this rule is needed. But, if it fits your group then it's a good rule. 😊

Also, I don't think the per level bonuses affect static things like that. They're plusses to rolls, not ranks. Ambush, Adrenal Defense, etc. all specify ranks in their effects. But again, if it works for y'all then all is well.

[Neee-Wom]

Thanks, for the feedback.

Adrenal Move requires 1 round of preparation, and Haste assumes you have a colleague or an item helping you. I'm not sure a high level fighter gets this E critical if fighting agains another good fighter or several enemies.

You're right, Ambush should not take the level bonuses but I use it also to make the skill more powerful. That can help also to make non-lethal attacks.

[MisterK]

NSU suffer from two different issues
- lack of variety of capabilities (which, to be honest, is an issue with many fantasy RPGs because, apparently, it's much easier to design a hundred new spells than a hundred different new ways of useing a sword, who would've thunk ? )
- asymptotic effectiveness, which is a bit more RM-specific : power increases linearly with level on spell lists, while skill bonus is not linear per level.

The second point actually has potential for NSUs : it means they can allocate more DPs elsewhere, while the efficiency of a spellcaster is more or less tied to their continued investment in spell list acquisition. However, fighters get the short end of the stick because their speciatly is combat and skilling up different weapons do not really makes a fighter more versatile, and their development for noncombat skills will always suffer when compared with other classes.
I'm not a fan of adding even more skills of very limited scope - if anything, RM has too many skills already IMHO. Allowing different uses of skills according to the number of ranks developed makes more sense, especially for combat skills (capability to perform a sweep attack with a large weapon, to trip an opponent with a pole arm, to perform combat manoeuvers to gain positional advantage or force the enemy to fall back, and so on). Of course, having said that, you will likely look at noncombat skills and wonder if they can also benefit from increased scope.

The first point is something you cannot really work around, because it is encoded in the way magic is defined in the game (some games have magic systems with a much narrower scope, which more or less cancels this issue, but RM - among others - suffers from it). The only way for Fighters to compete is... to acquire spells. Not combat spells (except possibly self buffs), because Fighters in combat have a well-defined role which is not that of a caster, but spells that provide them with an edge in non-combat situations. One way to do that is to reduce the cost of spell list acquisition for NSUs, especially for the lower level spells. Even a handful of Open Lists can make a world of difference.
The downside of this solution is that you basically acknowledge the fact that Magic is the be-all, end-all at higher level and just decide to roll with it. But the alternative - reining in magic at higher levels - requires a much more extensive redesign of the game.

Note that if the setting has a built-in limitation for casters (such as any serious late 3rd Age Middle Earth setting), then balance becomes much less of an issue because the casters have so many spells... they basically can't use except in life-or-death situations. In those settings, you will likely see spellcasters spend a great deal of their DPs on mundane skills... which solves the problem in a different way.

[pantsorama]

Hmmm.  Not a fan of NSU's having to get spells to keep up.  Because honestly, they can't ever catch up that way.  SU's have so many ancillary skills to make them effective (much like NSU's do).  Transcendance, Trickery, PPdev, Mental Focus, etc.

BUT

What if we reskinned NSU's spells as martial maneuvers (or whatever you want to name them).  Then you can have a list of one time "spells" that a NSU can learn that give small boosts to specific things you might try in combat.  To keep it simple avoid requiring PPs (maybe exhaustion rolls? - anyway use something the fighter should already have if they are even mildly well rounded) and make the bonuses about half to a qaurter what a spellcaster might get.

EG (and this is just spitballing here, to stoke ideas, not to bog down in the minutia)

Martial maneuvers require a medium exhaustion check with a penalty of the level of the maneuver.  Maneuvers over your level add 20 time the maneuver level minus your level to the exhaustion roll. Instantaneous maneuvers use your free action for the round, if you still have it, or 1AP otherwise.

Defensive Training
1. Turn Missile * – User adds +5 (10?) to his DB versus one missile fired at the user. The user must be able to see
the attack.
2. Turn Blade * – User adds +5 (10?) to his DB versus one melee attack on the user. The user must be able to see
the attack.
3. Shield * – User can defend against one extra attacker this round at 1/2 their regular shield bonus.
4. Turn Spell * – User adds +5 (10?) to his DB versus one directed spell attack on the user. The user must be able to see
the attack.
5. Deflect I * – Deflects one missile fired at the user; that missile has 25 subtracted from its attack (missile must
be in user’s field of vision).

And so forth

And there might be one for stealthy characters, etc.

[Hurin]

JDale might have a bit more to say on the subject of Fighting Styles or maneuvers...

For me, in addition to those, I also like the way RMU enables multiple attacks with the Multiple Attacks skill. This makes NSUs really deadly in combat.

[jdale]

You posted that while I was writing a response!

For RMU, the Character Companion will add fighting styles that allow the character to gradually accumulate additional abilities. It won't work the same as spell lists, but it should serve the function of letting higher level Arms characters get more diverse abilities and try new things. Unlike fighting styles in RMSS and RMC, your OB is not limited by the style, which means you don't have to keep developing the same thing for the entire life of your character. That's also generally true for the combat expertise and battle expertise skills, which frees up DP at higher levels to learn new things.

Even if you are sticking with RM2/RMC, I'm sure you could adapt the material for your game.

[pantsorama]

You posted that while I was writing a response!

For RMU, the Character Companion will add fighting styles that allow the character to gradually accumulate additional abilities. It won't work the same as spell lists, but it should serve the function of letting higher level Arms characters get more diverse abilities and try new things. Unlike fighting styles in RMSS and RMC, your OB is not limited by the style, which means you don't have to keep developing the same thing for the entire life of your character. That's also generally true for the combat expertise and battle expertise skills, which frees up DP at higher levels to learn new things.

Even if you are sticking with RM2/RMC, I'm sure you could adapt the material for your game.

Cool!

I'd really like to see fight styles that are effective for group fighting.  Weather it be building a phalanx, setting spears against a charge, or fighting back to back.  I have yet to see such formations modeled well by an RPG.

[jdale]

I have abilities that lets a group all move on the same initiative (with a bonus/penalty depending on their leader's Leadership skill), negate penalties for pole arms attacking past allies, improving the use of the Protect skill to protect allies with shields, and resisting fear while alongside allies.

[MisterK]

The problem with the above is that it does not solve the "out of combat" part. And I don't know about your games, but mine are less than 5% combat on the average. Casters can not do *everything*, but can do *anything* from instant-cleaning clothes to reading minds and tunnel through walls. Combat manoeuvers will not help for that - they will help for combat, which was my second point. But the first point  - out of combat versatility - will remain, and it is a built-in feature of the RM system.

As a side note, I have no problem with saying that magic is the end game of a magical world. As long as the players know it beforehand and build their characters accordingly, everything's fine - if they know at what level the campaign will begin and end, they have all the cards in hand. You will have more NSUs at low level, and more casters at high level. When you look at rosters of major NPC organisations (I'm looking at you Court of Ardor, Loremaster Council and Jerak Ahrenreth, among others), you see that kind of trend in magical worlds. Fighters are powerful at low level. At high level, they are the glorified guard captains and military advisors. The only way out of the niche is to get your hand on a crapton of high-powered magic items, which is another way of beign able to cast spells

[pantsorama]

The problem with the above is that it does not solve the "out of combat" part. And I don't know about your games, but mine are less than 5% combat on the average. Casters can not do *everything*, but can do *anything* from instant-cleaning clothes to reading minds and tunnel through walls. Combat manoeuvers will not help for that - they will help for combat, which was my second point. But the first point  - out of combat versatility - will remain, and it is a built-in feature of the RM system.

As a side note, I have no problem with saying that magic is the end game of a magical world. As long as the players know it beforehand and build their characters accordingly, everything's fine - if they know at what level the campaign will begin and end, they have all the cards in hand. You will have more NSUs at low level, and more casters at high level. When you look at rosters of major NPC organisations (I'm looking at you Court of Ardor, Loremaster Council and Jerak Ahrenreth, among others), you see that kind of trend in magical worlds. Fighters are powerful at low level. At high level, they are the glorified guard captains and military advisors. The only way out of the niche is to get your hand on a crapton of high-powered magic items, which is another way of beign able to cast spells

NSU get scads of DP to put towards other skills.  I don't think that is an issue.  But beyond that, JDale talked about Leadership skills, and I'll bet that other out of combat situational skill bonuses can be added to fighting styles - if they aren't there already.  Crafting, metalurgy, weapon lore, riding, weight training, Perception, Vocational Skills, animal handling, stalking, trickery, piloting, running, mechanics, etc., etc. all seem like they can be seamlessly slotted into a fighting style.

[MisterK]

At that point, you might simply rework the skill list completely and have "Fighter skill : everything a fighter should know; Mage skill : everything a mage should know", and so on.
It's not a joke - there are actually systems that are designed that way, and they work. I'm just not convinced it goes hand to hand with the dozens of different skills RM has - that's a radical change in game design.

I'm all for trimming the skill list (which is one of the reasons I'm not interested in RMU), but the consequences on the overall game balance are not trivial.

[jdale]

There are abilities with bonuses to Intimidation, Disarm, Mounted Combat, Riding, Leadership, Fortitude (basically), Blindfighting, and Influence (in combat). But it's definitely true that fighting styles are for fighting. What improves the overall usefulness of Arms characters is their available DP, as Pantsorama said. In RMU (but less so in previous editions), there is a point where you have a high enough bonus in your combat-related skills and don't need to advance them anymore, for example because you have a high enough bonus to cancel out the entire penalty and additional ranks aren't going to gain you anything. That's quite different from how skills like Disarm, Subduing, two-weapon fighting, etc. worked in previous editions.

Having those DP available also gives you the option to get into talents, too.

[MisterK]

That is RMU - this is RMC/RM2

But then again, having ten skills to perform ten different combat manoeuvers seems counter-productive to me. I'd rather have combat style skills that include a bunch of things they do well (or less well), including which weapons proficiency they provide, which armor and shield proficiency they provide, and so on. I think there is an option for Combat Style skills in RMC, only not as developed as the one I have in mind, but the idea is fairly similar.

Because skill nit-picking (the herb lore / gathering herbs / preparing herb / apply herb kind of hair-splitting) is *really* not my style.

[jdale]

The version in RMC replaces your weapon skill, if I remember correctly. That means you would normally pick it once and develop it for the lifetime of your character. And for the most part you get all the abilities initially, which means you aren't developing new ones later. (You can add new weapons to a style you have, and some bonuses go up, but that's it.)

We are getting a bit sidetracked here but what I suggested originally is that the RMU version would be something that could be adapted for RM2/RMC.

[Hurin]

I'm all for trimming the skill list (which is one of the reasons I'm not interested in RMU)....

I'm not sure what you mean. RMU's skill list is leaner than any other edition; vastly leaner than either RMSS or RM2 in their current form.

Even JDale's combat styles for RMU follow the RMU philosophy of resisting the skill bloat that plagued all earlier editions of RM. There are only a few new skills. The actual abilities are not new skills per se -- they are essentially talents/feats that unlock at a certain level of an already existing style. So for example if you get sufficient skill in a particular axe-fighting stance, you unlock essentially a feat that gives you the ability to hook an opponent's shield to pull it out of the way. [Edit: Sorry JDale if I said to much!]

So if you dislike skill bloat, RMU should be very attractive to you, as it does better than any previous edition in avoiding it.

On the wider issue of caster vs NSU balance, one of the factors that helped even them up in DnD originally was that NSUs got better saves as they went up in level. Many spells are completely nullified if the target simply resists them. I do think there should be a skill for resisting spells.
          In discussing RMU, we did talk about allowing characters to use their ranks in say Channeling to resist Channeling spells, maybe Power Projection for Essence, and Mental Discipline vs. Mentalism. While cool, the problem with this is that again, this privileges casters because they have lower costs for these skills than NSUs. So maybe the best category for such skills would be Fortitude. You could make resisting each realm a specialization of the Fortitude skill.

[rdanhenry]

On the wider issue of caster vs NSU balance, one of the factors that helped even them up in DnD originally was that NSUs got better saves as they went up in level. Many spells are completely nullified if the target simply resists them. I do think there should be a skill for resisting spells.

Skills for resists are almost impossible to balance between not-worth-it and must-have. And if they are must have, they might as well be baked in (as they currently are as a level factor). If you wanted to advantage NSUs here, it would IMO make more sense to rationalize that not using magic leaves your aura less open to its influence and offering a bonus to those without magical abilities (which would include ordinary beasts and a few monsters) a resistance roll bonus to all Realms of magic similar to (possibly even somewhat better than) what spell-casters get against their own Realm. I would, in this case, have this replace the Realm bonus for those who have not yet learned magic (leaving choice of Realm open until such learning takes place).

[Hurin]

Skills for resists are almost impossible to balance between not-worth-it and must-have.

I'm not sure I entirely agree. Fortitude costs 1/3 for Fighters -- it definitely could be worth 1 DP per level to get +1 to RRs (if skill in Fortitude: Resistance granted characters a bonus to RRs equal to their ranks in the skill).

There seems to be enough granularity to calibrate it even more finely too, if necessary: if +1 to all RRs is deemed to be too strong, you could for example require specialization in each realm of Magic.

I'm not saying your idea of giving NSUs a flat bonus to RRs won't work... just that I think simply using the existing Fortitude skill and allowing it to have a specialization in Magical Resistance seems to me flexible enough to work.

[Cory Magel]

A lot of the discussion of spell users vs non-spell users and how the balance plays out will vary over the levels.

In our experience pure arms users have the initial advantage. Some levels later (roughly 10) pure spell users will tend to surpass the pure arms users. Some levels later (upper teens or so) semi-spell users will tend to surpass them both. Then, eventually, there wouldn't be much difference (although we're talking pretty high levels at that point - likely well into the 20's if not 30's).

If you think about the costs for their various skills, how you'd spend them, and at what point you'd starting working on your non-profession oriented skills (like a caster learning a weapon) the evolution of balance is pretty obvious. At some point profession bonuses will be the main differing factor once everyone has hit the soft ceiling of diminishing returns.

So... the main balancing factor people might want to consider is at what level you start and stop your campaigns.

[Hurin]

Yes, that's a good point Cory. I tend to play mostly lower level campaigns (rarely past 10), so my views are skewed by that.

It is true that the balance changes at different levels too. Note though that the level at which casters surpass NSUs is earlier in RMU than in other editions. RMU makes spellcasting much easier, especially compared to RM2: no prep rounds for spells at or below the caster's level; many more PP because PP Development is a skill;individual spell acquisition; and even things like characters having more starting HP due to racial bonuses. All of this helped convince me that having a skill to help resist spells, and making it a skill that is cheaper for Arms users than spell users, is a good idea.