Topic: Discussion for all RM Versions. RE: "Light Law" spell list

[Dark Schneider]

The problem with a cold-only based bolt is that there's no such thing/energy as "cold"

We have even void (see Arcane Companion), magic is magic...

[Nders]

I don't think so, you can be resistant to impact (a slime?), so resistance is not in this question. A main clod critical is better than impact+cold because you can use it only with F or G criticals, rare, and the cold critical is better than the impact one for a simple point, bleeding.

try reading the tables again Dark Schneider. And consoder then the sheer amount of hp and stun that impact does. Read it before you answer again and then tell me again that cold is not a massive downgrade.

True the new attack table in cc use cold for ice bolt and this of course is a blunder and if it is not then it is in all respects used in conection with an entirely different attack table that is not figured from a blunt force perspective.
The problem is that when you change the criticals without considering how the tabel was made you svrew things up. The ice bolt attacks differently from a fire bolt. This is because the fire bolt seers at its target and is a form of energy attack. The ice bolt is a crushing attack - this is figured into the attack table as you can see if you examine it - and as such you cannot simply change the critical without messing things up. You could if you still insist use invent yet another cold bolt and use the firebolt attack table with cold criticals.
The attack tables for RM are not made as a traditional power scale particularly when we look at ice and fire bolt which have each their strenths and weaknesses but are not either less or more powerful than one another. This is a thing that has not been fully grasped by many and we even see this misconception in some of the express spell lists but particularly on warrior's element for the new elemental warrior. I don't know from where this understanding stems but it is not in essence with the way the tables were made way back in time

[Dark Schneider]

And consoder then the sheer amount of hp and stun that impact does. Read it before you answer again and then tell me again that cold is not a massive downgrade.

Yes, I am looking it, and know them well. Sometimes impact does more HPs, but other times cold does more, but this really goes to cold side when we see bleeding, we can put some examples, but I see generally cold better, some ones:

C(81-85):
- cold: stun(6), bleed(5), penalty(-40)
- impact: 15HP, stun(1), penalty(-25).
We see that in 3 rounds bleeding compensate the HP difference, and now the foe continues loosing HPs.

C(86-90):
- cold: stun(9), bleed(6), penalty(-80).
- impact: 20HP, stun_no_parry(2), penalty(-60).

D(76-80):
- cold: 15HP, stun_no_parry(3), penalty(-25), destroy liquid equipment.
- impact: 10HP, stun(1), break arm.

E(61-65):
- cold: 13HP, stun(3), penalty(-30), freeze(destroy) belt equipment.
- impact: 20HP, stun_no_parry(3), fall down(in description).

I evaded cases like "if wears...if not then..." because are not good for compare.

I see generally cold better, impact does some more HPs and some more stun, but the bleeding, greater penalties and posibility to destroy equipment are better (bleeding is much better than direct HPs).

IMO, in some cases is better impact, but in more cases is better cold, some more HPs is nothing compared with bleeding. Precisely for that is so good heat criticals, and fire attacks does not need any other secondary critical (see that ice bolt uses secondary critical), heat does bleeding since A critical, cold does bleeding since B critical, but penalties are usually greater for cold.

It would be good if you put some example why you think impact is better, I really think that elemental criticals are better than others (and impact is not elemental).

Note: I usually use fire bolts because when you do enough bleeding you can go for the next target.

[Nders]

well it really depends on your perspective on hits/round injuries vs instant damage. I consider instant damage to be superior when confronting npc or advesaries as a player as a bleeding enemy can stil kill or injure you - and he will only rarely bleed to death from any single injury. If it is against pc's I think bleeding damage has its forces as bleeding adds to exitement and pc's will have to figure out hoow to treat their injuries and get away after the battle is done. Also as you do not seem to have a lot of respect for stuns you probably use the skill stunned manuvre. The examples you have chosen are good for illustrating that in some cases cold is to be prefered but you overlook all the middle crits on which impact does more instant damage than any other critical type. There are certaintlyn instances where cold is more effective but that is due to the amount of initiative loss you get from cold and won ini's get you along way towards winning.

That aside I still think that changing crits without an understanding of why the attack table looks as it does and why the damage/crit parameters are measured as they are across the different armor types.

[Dark Schneider]

I suppose it has only one chance, test it playing. Unfortunately I can't play lately.

I encourage you to test the bleeding, use fire bolts instead ice bolts in your combats, bleeding is what makes blade weapons so dangerous, once you have a good bleeding in a target (5+/rnd) try to attack another target

I consider instant damage to be superior when confronting npc or advesaries as a player as a bleeding enemy can stil kill or injure you

as in any case a not injuried target is more dangerous, is preferable to attack new targets. Combat is much more than instant or fast deaths. Remember that stun and/or penalties are usually associated with bleeding results too.

Also as you do not seem to have a lot of respect for stuns you probably use the skill stunned manuvre.

Not use it, but stun difference usually is very low, and penalties are greater for cold that lasts the whole combat.

It can helps to save PPs, surely magical attacks is used many times to help fighters against a hard target (we ignore large/huge targets as use the same table), so once it is bleeding at reasonable rate, fighter can do full parry until the target dies.

Test it, change the ice bolt or use fire bolt instead. I say this after many uses of both bolts.

[providence13]

Since we got onto the subject of bolts..

Spell Mastery can change color and many other effects...
Even a bolt into a ball !!
Has anyone ever used it to change a crit table?

Slashing Shock bolt: with burn crits
A Firebolt blade: Just doing slashing damage and heat crits (not handheld... but that would rock!)
A razor storm if ice: pierce/slash damage and cold crits, spread out over a larger area.
Drilling waterbolts: Awesome for boring into rock.. or penetrating armor.. (Years ago, a friend told me that they used wooden handle brooms in subs to check leaks. If the tiny spray of water cut through the broom handle, then don't walk through it! I don't know about the veracity of this claim; but I remember reading about water drills that cut through circuit boards/steel/explosives and even chocolate cake without heating
surrounding areas.)

Or even a ball into an powerful bolt?

[markc]

 With Spell Artistry in the RMSS Essence Comp you can also change the visual appearance of spells. IMO very useful in some situations.
MDC

[Nders]

Test it, change the ice bolt or use fire bolt instead. I say this after many uses of both bolts.

I have been testing the limits a parameters of this game for the past 15 years and more than 10 of those years have been 6-7 days a week of playing rolemaster. Roughly this means that I have played abouut 3000 sessions of rolemaster just in the 10 uyears I played it most. I have tested all manner of bolts and one fact stands out: instant dammage and stun has a far greater impact on battle than bleeding does.

I said this before but as it may not have been fully grasped I will recap. bleedings will kill foes slowly and most of the time not at all. Most battles in rolemaster are not all that long and a bleeding of even 5 hits pr round will take 10 rounds to floor an orc assuming you did 20 hp of basic damage with your attack. Even if this was the only foe there was and You parry at full capacity for the rest of the battle there is still a 1/2 (1 every 20 attacks) that the orc will score a hit on you with an open ended attack.

A final note: The attack tables presented in the core products are exelent as they are and should not be changed. A lot of work was done caliberating the type of attacks with the types of armor and as such it should not be tampered with lightly.

[Dark Schneider]

Even a bolt into a ball !!

I think there is many people confused with that, how to apply it?, I use it simply applying a radius to spell, so you use the bolt table, you use your OB and targets DB normally (as with a normal bolt attack), but apply the attack to all within the radius.

Do not try to use fire bolt table with electricity attacks for a 'ball lightning bolt' or things like that, is too much confusing and maybe is not appropiated use only the 2 ball tables for all attacks (i.e. electricity attacks are better against metal armors than the fire ball is).

Or even a ball into an powerful bolt?

Use the bolt instead directly, usually cost less PPs and no need to use SM skill.  

15 years

Aprox. the same  

bleedings will kill foes slowly and most of the time not at all...

But you talk as if other criticals, like heat or cold doesn't do HP damage, really they do near impact HP damage, plus the bleeding. Are for very low results whern impact does some more HPs, but really not many, examples, for low results, we can see HP damages like 5-8 in cold and 6-10 or 11 (maybe 12) for impact, the difference is compensated in only 1 or 2 rounds of the bleeding, so count all those 10 rounds is not realistic. The exceptions are some low results for E impact criticals with greater dif., but it is usual to have better cases than others in any critical type, we have too in heat or cold of course.

We have that usually the bleeding compensates the HPs dif. in results in about a max. of 3 rounds (look tables and compare), and then any additional bleeding (typical consecutive attacks against the same target) accumulates so each new attack we need less time to compensate, and surely after the 3rd attack (we suppose medium attacks) the balance is in the cold critical side, with an additional HP loss about 6 HP/rnd (let's say an average bleeding of 2 hits/rnd per medium attack) that the impact dif. can't compensate (as the average dif. for medium attacks is about 3-5 HPs, but for the E critical).

These averages can be translated to other results as greater dif. for high results is translated in great bleeding too for the other side.

Damn!, I can't test it now, please if you can play you could test it for a while.

[Nders]

Granted you are right far along the way.
The thing is that you posted that you would change enemy after a 5/rnd bleeding and this I oppinionated against. There is good reason in your math and I may have to reconsider impacts status. At least as far as considering them equal
The thing is still though that the attack tables are made based on the type of attack and as such it is wrong to just change the crit. Think of is just like a broadsword and a mace. Broadsword being the fire bolt here and the mace being the ice bolt. The attack table for broadsword is figured from a slashing weapons perspective whereas the mace is figured a blunt crushing weapon - we know I hear you cry  but the difference is figured into the attack tables and as such the broadsword does better against at 10 and down whereas the mace does better, compared, against AT's 13-20. My point is this: you would not change the critical type for mace to slashing because you considered a mace to be sharp and in the same way you should not change the critical type for ice bolt. If your aim is to rethink the bolt as one that freezes people use a different attack table than ice bolt, one that was made considering how energy would function against the various AT's like for example fire bolt. 

[providence13]

Thank you for the corrections!

[OLF, i.e. Olf Le Fol]

Cold, 81-85	| +13, snp2	| +14, snp3, 4/r	| s6, f-40, 5/r	| s9, 6/r	| +17, d9
Impact, 81-85	| +10, f-25	| +10, s2, f-25	| +15, s3, f-40	| +20, out	| +30, d6
------------------------
Cold, 86-90	| down, s2 (f-70)	| down, s3 (f-75)	| s9, f-80, 6/r	| down (d12)	| d9
Impact, 86-90	| +10, down3, np3	| +20, s3, f-50	| +20, snp2, f-60	| +20, s12 (d6)	| +50, d3
------------------------
Cold, 91-95	| down, s3 (s6, f-50)	| +17, snp3, f-75	| +17, down (d9)	| +18, d9	| +19, d6
Impact, 91-95	| +20, snp3, f-50	| +25, d (out)	| +20, snp9, f-75	| +50, d3	| +30, d6
------------------------
Cold, 96-99	| s9 (out)	| out (d9)	| +18, d6	| +19, d6	| +20, d, nr+10
Impact, 96-99	| +20, out	| +25, d12	| +50, d	| +25, d1	| d, nr+20
------------------------
Cold, 00	| +21, out	| d1, nr+5	| out	| +20, d2	| d
Impact, 00	| +25, out (d3)	| +30, out	| d, nr+10	| d, nr+25	| d

So, I made a comparative table.

• +X   = +X hit damage,
• snp  = stun no parry,
• X/r  = bleeding damage of X hits per round,
• f-X  = fights at -40,
• s    = stun
• np   = no parry,
• dX   = death in X rounds with no number given meaning instant death,
• out  = cannot fight any longer,
• ()    = happens if no armour at location,
• down = is down (but not out),
• nr+X  = +X to next roll.

In green, the result I think is best, in red the exact reason why. So I have 4 cases where Cold critical is better, 20 where Impact critical is better, and 1 where both are equal. I think this gives my opinion on the matter. Reasoning:

• no parry is good!
• Sure damage is better than conditional damage.

[thrud]

This discussion is getting way OT.

The original question is legit however.
Some sort of light bolt would be more appropriate but electricity crits doesn't bother me that much.
How much better/worse is electricity compared to heat?
And fire isn't really the same as heat when you look at the crits.

[Dark Schneider]

This discussion is getting way OT.

Right, moving ice bolt topic to http://www.ironcrown.com/ICEforums/index.php?topic=8766.0

How much better/worse is electricity compared to heat?
Some sort of light bolt would be more appropriate but electricity crits doesn't bother me that much.

It is not easy, I see generally for medium results heat better, but for high results electricity does some special damages like blind very interesting. I think it needs some depth study. I really love heat criticals (and fire attacks) but for variety I think use electricity in light law is better, as I explained before we can generate electricity with light energy.