Topic: Stalking for an Elf (and Half Elf)

[Dirz]

In RMC, can't find a rule I'm sure I read ... it dealt with Elves and Stalking, I think there was a bonus to add.

In fact, if there is no bonus, Elves (and Half Elves alike) are among the less stalking creatures (due to they malus in SD).

Am I wrong?

If this bonus exists, will it just add to stalk, or replace the SD malus? (I think that in RM2 there was something link ... in Stalk, the SD malus becomes bonus).

And will this bonus also apply to Half Elves?

Thank you.

[Elton Robb]

Actually, reading through RM Classic, Stalking apparently has an agility bonus.  Which all those of Elven Blood have a bonus.  Wood elves can do it better than some (+10 bonus to Agility).

[yammahoper]

Back in RM2 there was an optional rule to treat the racial Sd mod as a positive for stalking.

lynn

[Rasyr-Mjolnir]

Dirz, I think that you are thinking of a rule that appeared in Rolemaster Companion I, which gave elves something like a +25 to Stalking/Hiding.

[PiXeL01]

On page 47 in the old Rolemaster Companion I there is a discussion about Elves, SD and skills. It basically reverses the SD mods on those skills discussed (Stalk and Hide among them) so all "full" blooded elves have their racial mod to count as +20 instead of negative, Half elves would be +10 and the same for Halflings.

The +25 Rasyr mentions is from the background tables in the same book called subtle I think. Also as Elton mentions Stalk and Hide is developed as a single skill, but you need to calculate two totals, one for Stalk (using Ag as stat bonus) and one for Hide (using SD as the only stat bonus).

[Rasyr-Mjolnir]

Yeah, I was referring to the Elves & SD and skills that Pixel01 mentions, just didn't remember the details and didn't take the time to actually look it up before responding (which is why I said "something like", cause I wasn't positive what the details were). 

[Marc R]

One of the issues here is the conflict between archetypes. . .

So elves were great stalkers and bad hiders. . . leading to "My elf just keeps moving around in the shadows so I can use stalk instead of hide."

I find this to be one of those "If you eliminate the flaw, it's not a flaw."

PC whines about their elf not being able to hide, in conflict with the archetype of sneaky elves, and a rule spawns to "fix" that. . . .

I'd say that what that player really needs is a variant elf type that has no SD penalty, or to buy more ranks in stalk/hide to get over the penalty.

It's imposing an "Outside the game" archetype of "Elves hide well" over an "Inside the game" mechanic of elves having SD penalties.

Of the whole package of racial skill bonuses applied here and there to the races, the only two I ever liked as applying directly to the in game archetype of the race without making an effort to fudge anything were:

Elves +25 meditation (since they naturally meditate in place of sleep.)
Dwarves -50 swimming (since they are denser than humans, and have a poor physiology shape for swimming.)

All the others strike me as cultural factors, or attempts to impose outside archetypes onto the game mechanics in order to avoid a penalty (or get a bonus) for free.

Like, why would an urban upper class elf who'd never been in the woods or a sneak thief get a +25 to hiding?

Jus' my $.02

[Rasyr-Mjolnir]

The meditation bonus could also be seen as a cultural aspect as well, since it applies to something that they "do" not what they "are".

[Marc R]

they don't sleep, they go into a meditative "Downtime" instead, I thought that was a built in thing, rather than a cultural thing.

[Rasyr-Mjolnir]

It is not specified, though the use of a skill suggests something learned rather than inherent.

I have always played/GM'd it as meditation being a learned attribute, not something that is inherent like having denser muscles.

[vroomfogle]

I've always played it as an inherent thing.  I figured that is how they sleep so it would seem strange to have them take levels in it even...what if they fail they then have to sleep like humans?     I treat it as automatic, they don't even have to take the skill.

In the end, it's just a setting and GM decision.

[Rasyr-Mjolnir]

In the end, it's just a setting and GM decision.

Yup

[Marc R]

Besides, if it was learned, you'd get "I'm human, but I was raised by elves you see, so I don't sleep and instead I meditate, yeah."

[yammahoper]

The only bonus involved regarding elves and stalking should be when stalking elves, because as a whole they are a bunch of sissy treehugging nancy boys.

Stinkin elves.

Oh how I will drool over the system/setting that leaves out elves, in any form.

lynn

[Rasyr-Mjolnir]

Besides, if it was learned, you'd get "I'm human, but I was raised by elves you see, so I don't sleep and instead I meditate, yeah."

Except that in Rolemaster, Race/Culture has always been combined....

[Marc R]

Well, non human race/culture. . .seeminly all elves/dwarves are all the same culture, it's assumed. . .how. . .Tolkien. . .

[PiXeL01]

Always easier to stick with an archetype than to come up with something on your own, when you need it. I have tried to make up some Elven Nations for my own realms, but my players seems to be stuck on Tolkien ideas which makes it harder to break through to them

[Marc R]

Some of the more successfull attempts I've seen have used jujitsu on the archetype. . .to get something similar but different.

Like Amerindian Elves. . . . .or Scottish Dwarves.

[munchy]

That's so Shadowrun ... a popular German RPG (The Dark Eye in English) had computer games which basically turned the Orcs into misunderstood Indian (Native Americans) which became rather sad as an attempt to make the game more grown-up. Horrible that.
On the other hand, I've got a friend who just more or less devised his own campaign world (well setting, world is said too much) and he has decided against orcs and just has humans in his world. He argued that basically orcs are just bad humans that are okay to be killed. That, however, is another discussion, but also hints at how stereotypes are used in the game(s).

In the groups I've played it was really a decision whether elves are more like Tolkien's which usually made the rather hard to play and quite distant from the "real life" in the game, or more like the DnD elves, which as player character usually ended up as being a mixture of Drizzt Do'Urden and Blade, just elven characters because they are a bit more mystic, a bit better than the ordinary human (and I also suspect because a vampire as a player character has always been hard to realise in our groups ).

[Rasyr-Mjolnir]

My viewpoint on Elves and Meditation is as follows (numbering is only to keep thoughts straight):

1) Meditation is a skill
2) Skills are not supposed to be required to have rolls unless the character is in a stressful situation or wants an unusual result.
3) Elves gain a bonus to meditation (a skill) -- this gives them a non-negative bonus even without ranks in the skill.
4) Camping for the night is not a stressful situation, so wouldn't require a roll for entering a normal meditational state, thus there is no chance for failure so long as the character has a non-negative skill bonus.

Heike's viewpoint is that she always considered it to be an inherent racial ability, as others have also considered it to be and stated.

After discussion we decided the following:

ICE's ruling on this is that ICE is not going to make a ruling on this. Both points of view are equally valid, and should actually be determined by the GM based on how he wants to handle it for his setting. And since the core rules do not separate race from culture, there isn't a real need to officially decide one way or the other.