Topic: Professions - Some New Ones and Seeking Help

[Eladan]

I am in the process of trying to combine/streamline/revive professions and could use some help in terms of advice. Here is the current list of professions I’m trying to bring into my meta RM/RMU game. For a few of the new professions, I've attached their Base Lists in case anyone wants to use or critique them:

Arms:
Fighter / Rogue / Thief / Burglar / Barbarian / Warrior Monk / Shapechanger (from MERP 2.0)

Communal Magic (our universe's version of Channeling):
Pure — Cleric / Animist / Shaman (slight WoW flavor - See lists below
Semis — Bard / Ranger / Delver (combo Sleuth/Delver… think Indiana Jones hunting info in cities and scouring ruins)

Primal Magic (our universe's version of Essence):
Pure — Mage / Alchemist / Caller (think Rydia from FF3 – modeled after a Conjuror)
Semis — Nightblade / Monk / Warrior Mage

Personal Magic (our universe's version of Mentalism):
Pure — Mentalist / Healer / Illusionist
Semis — Champion (Paladin/Noble Warrior combo) / Warder (think Lan from Wheel of Time or Steiner from FF9… a pure magic-user's body-guard) / TBD

Hybrid Casters: Astrologer / Mystic / Sorcerer / Archmage

Help: I’m looking for a unique profession to fit that third semi-user in the Mentalism/Personal magic realm, or perhaps moving another semi into that realm and adding to Channeling or Essence. Nothing seems to be jumping out at me that is particularly balanced. Any advice or even commentary/questions on the direction I’m taking with these professions?

[jdale]

It seems to me (without familiarity with your references) that you have two martial semis in Personal. I would add one that is more discreet. Mentalism is well suited for subtlety. Could be the Magent, although that overlaps a lot with Nightblade.

Alternatively, could be a profession that uses magic more for personal enhancement: senses, movement, strength, etc. That could be more open-ended. But that might overlap heavily with what you already have. (Cannot see your spell lists yet to compare.)

[Eladan]

Great points Jdale. I’ve considered the possibility of moving the Nightblade back into the Mentalist realm, and then putting the third Semi-user into the Essence realm. My issue with that lies in that I think of the Nightblade/Magent as an unarmored espionage agent, which is fitting for Essence. Again, balance being the key issue as I look at relative power of the realms as the thing balancing factors like wearing heavier armor and skill costs.

Alternative professions that I’m toying with then are:
- Druid (in the style of World of Warcraft) that can fit a variety of roles (frontline fighter, spy, etc) with access to only a few chosen forms, rather than the blanket access to infinite forms granted by Shapechanging Ways.

- Bounty/Mage Hunter that would focus on tracking single targets and have some form of ability suppression and single target tracking/effectiveness. Again, this could go into Mentalism but then I’m back to three martial professions there.

[Hurin]

Since you seem to be most lacking a third semi from your Personal Magic realm, I would suggest Beastmaster (which originally had a Mentalism variant). You could also move Monk back to Mentalism (they are lightly armored and can be quite stealthy).

If it helps, I've been doing a homebrew conversion of many old RM2 classes to RMU. I have a chart of skill costs and have been converting/inventing some spell lists as well. You can see the chart in this thread:

http://www.ironcrown.com/ICEforums/index.php?topic=17454.80

I've also recently redone some spell lists. I've added:
--A new combat/control list (Mockery) for the Bard.
--Two weapon buffing lists (Wyrd Bow and Wyrd Blade) for the Ranger.
--Three lists converted from earlier editions (Druidstaff, Insect Mastery, and Stone Mastery) for the Druid.
--A full set of six lists for the Warrior Mage.
--I'm currently working on converting the Armsmaster, and a conversion of the 4e D&D class, the Warlord.

You can see all those on the RMBlog, here:

https://www.rolemasterblog.com/category/hurins-rmu-houserules/

[Eladan]

Hurin - I had considered the Beastmaster, but what do you consider to be the major distinctions of his class? The original RMC2 has him with half the same base spells as a Warrior Mage and the Animist, while his skill costs align with a Rangers. As such I considered simply offering his Animal Bonding List as a choice of one of the Ranger’s 6 Base lists, providing some variation amongstthe class. The beast master has, to me, suffered the same patchwork “pick your best abilities” philosophy as the Warrior Mage, as you detailed on your blog.

The only way I can see the Beastmaster as a separate class is if he were to integrate the Wyld Weapon lists (very cool by the way) as his own and had some other distinctive lists as well. But like I said, then he moves closer to the Ranger/Animist model.

I’m curious on your opinion: do you think a bounty/mage hunter class is too specifically tailored?

Side note, my attachments from the house and I’ll post haven’t cleared yet so I may create some new posts advertising the new professions, just for discussion and evaluation purposes.

[Hurin]

Hi Eladan,

My current list of classes I want to get to next is Armsmaster/Warlord (in progress), but right after that is Beastmaster and Witcher.

As to the Beastmaster, yes, you might have put your finger on the problem. Some of the original lists are either not distinctive (i.e. taken from another class) or ill suited to the class. I have not yet done my deep dive into the history of the class (before I start remaking it, I go through all previous versions of the class and all its spells in previous editions). The Animal Bonding seems to be essential to the class, but also needs to be carefully balanced and updated for RMU. There is also a very distinctive new RMU list (based on an expansion Druid list from RM2 or RMSS) called 'Beastly Ways' that has been given to the Ranger in RMU, and works just as good if not better for a Ranger. So I think the Beastmaster could function very well as a variant Ranger, and that is probably the way I will do him. But since the class originally had a variant Mentalism option, I might move him to Mentalism, as I think the Open Mentalism spells might work even better. So, I think you could do either or both: make a few distinctive lists for him and keep him as a variant Ranger; or move him to Mentalism and make him a more distinctive class.

As for the Bounty/Monster Hunter: Yes, I think that would work very well. For precedent and inspiration, note that there was a Bounty Hunter class in Rolemaster Companion III, though I believe he was pure arms. Much better as a model was the Channeling semi-spell user class called Witch Hunter in RoCoVII. He was a Ranger variant, though I think his spells would fit the Mentalism realm better than Channeling. His spells focused on control, dispelling, interrogation, detection, and combat buffs, and some were really quite cool and distinctive. And the popularity of The Witcher books, videogames, and tv series makes this a pretty hot idea. D&D even introduced a Witcher-like class recently with the Blood Hunter. So there is lots to work with here.

Sorry I can't give you more right now, but before I do my deep dive into the history of these classes, I'm not quite sure which way I will take them for my own game. I definitely plan to have both a Beastmaster and a Witcher class, the latter definitely being a Mentalism variant (possibly a Hybrid semi with Mentalism and Essence).

[jdale]

Beastmaster became a training package and one spell list (animal bonding) in RMSS. If you make it a mentalism profession, it would be good to add some kind of more generalized animal control (could base it on the druid Animal Mastery list), perhaps a spell list for controlling animals to use as messengers and spies. Some kind of wilderness abilities, maybe look at Hunting Mastery from the RMSS Channeling Companion. I have a spell list "The Hunter" I could share, too.

Bounty Hunter seems like a viable profession to me too. There is a stealth aspect there (stalking which could be wilderness or urban), information gathering, but you could also have a magically empowered focus on a particular target. Bonuses to tracking that target, intuition about what that target might be doing, etc. If you want the magehunter aspect, there is Power Lore in the RMSS Arcane Companion but for my game I felt like it needed to be enhanced quite a bit, the original is too limited.

[Hurin]

Beastmaster became a training package and one spell list (animal bonding) in RMSS. If you make it a mentalism profession, it would be good to add some kind of more generalized animal control (could base it on the druid Animal Mastery list), perhaps a spell list for controlling animals to use as messengers and spies. Some kind of wilderness abilities, maybe look at Hunting Mastery from the RMSS Channeling Companion. I have a spell list "The Hunter" I could share, too.

That sounds pretty great. I would like to see the Hunter list too.

One of the reasons I like Mentalism is because I can see (and would prefer to play) a Ranger who gets his power not from Channeling magic from a deity, but from his own mental discipline. Beastmaster is a subclass of Ranger in D&D, but in 4e D&D it could have either a Martial or a Primal power source (neither was Divine), and I really liked that. I can understand why Rangers have been seen as Channelers (the healing from Aragorn in Lord of the Rings I think helped inspire that), and am fine with a Channeling Ranger who worships a nature goddess or just nature. But I think a Mentalism Ranger/Beastmaster is just as cool, if not cooler. I like the idea of an atheist Beastmaster who lives by the law of nature and his own mental discipline.

Bounty Hunter seems like a viable profession to me too. There is a stealth aspect there (stalking which could be wilderness or urban), information gathering, but you could also have a magically empowered focus on a particular target. Bonuses to tracking that target, intuition about what that target might be doing, etc. If you want the magehunter aspect, there is Power Lore in the RMSS Arcane Companion but for my game I felt like it needed to be enhanced quite a bit, the original is too limited.

Cool, I had forgotten about the Magehunter. Some of his lists seem to be inspired by those of the Witch Hunter. There's definitely enough for a Witcher type character in all that.

[jdale]

This has some obvious similarities with the ranger spell lists, but is more about internal focus and honing the self, not about nature magic. Note the level 17 and 25 spells are a bit setting specific. Could be replaced by something that detects undeath, life draining, etc? I already replaced the other setting specific spells.

The half-orc in my game loves the 8th level spell the most. He hasn't quite reached that level yet though (he's 6th).

THE HUNTER
Lvl   Spell   Area of Effect   Duration   Range   Type
1   Untiring Pace I   caster   10 min/lvl   self   U
2   Heat Resistance   caster   10 min/lvl   self   U
3   Cold Resistance   caster   10 min/lvl   self   U
4   Predator's Senses I   caster   10 min/lvl   self   U
5   Sense Poison/Disease   caster   10 min/lvl   self   U
6   Wind Resistance   caster   10 min/lvl   self   U
7   Light Resistance   caster   10 min/lvl   self   U
8   Scavenger’s Sustenance   caster   10 min/lvl   self   U
9   Untiring Pace II   caster   10 min/lvl   self   U
10   Physical Resistance   caster   10 min/lvl   self   U
11   Predator's Senses II   caster   10 min/lvl   self   U
12   Hunter’s Concealment   caster   1 day   self   U
13   Sense Detection   caster   10 min/lvl   self   U
14   Environmental Resist.   caster   10 min/lvl   self   U
15   Sense Magic   caster   10 min/lvl   self   U
16   Predator's Senses III   caster   10 min/lvl   self   U
17   Sense Corruption   caster   10 min/lvl   self   U
18   Hunter’s Strike   caster   1 attack   self   U
19   Untiring Pace True   caster   10 min/lvl   self   U
20   Purge Disease   caster   P   self   U
25   Corruption Resistance      caster   10 min/lvl   self   U
30   Purge Poison   caster   P   self   U
35   Predator's Senses True   caster   10 min/lvl   self   U
40   Resistance True   caster   10 min/lvl   self   U
50   Wastewalker   caster   10 min/lvl   self   U
1. Untiring Pace I: Caster may move at a Run (x3) pace with no fatigue.
2. Heat Resistance: Caster is protected from natural heat up to 80°C (treat as if caster were in 20°C temperature). For temperatures above 80°C, subtract 60°C to determine the effective temperature. Caster also receives +20 to RRs vs. heat spells/attacks and +20 DB vs. elemental fire/heat attacks.
3. Cold Resistance: Caster is protected from natural cold down to -10°C (treat as if caster were in 20°C temperature). For temperatures below 20°C, add 30°C to determine the effective temperature. Caster also receives +20 to RRs vs. cold spells/attacks and +20 DB vs. elemental cold/ice attacks.
4. Predator’s Senses I: Caster’s senses are honed, granting a +20 bonus to all Perception and Tracking maneuvers, and the caster can concentrate to detect the approximate size and location of any Medium or larger living creature within 1’/level (half distance through soil, one quarter through stone or water, 1”/level through metal).
5. Sense Poison/Disease: Caster is immediately aware of any poison or disease within 1’/level unless blocked by a seamless impermeable barrier (e.g. metal).
6. Wind Resistance: Caster is protected from natural wind including blowing sand, dust, or ice. Perception penalties for such conditions are halved and the caster does not suffer any other harmful effects. RRs and DBs against wind-based attacks receive a +20 bonus.
7. Light Resistance: Caster is protected from natural light and light changes (instantly adjusting vision to changing light intensity to never be blinded by glare, sudden light, or sudden darkness). Caster also receives +20 to all RRs vs. light or electricity spells/attacks and a +20 to DB vs. elemental light/electricity attacks.
8. Scavenger’s Sustenance: Caster can safely consume and gain sustenance from any organic matter he is able to chew and swallow, even if it is normally poisonous or indigestible.
9. Untiring Pace II: Caster may move at a Sprint (x4) pace with no fatigue. If the caster moves no faster than a Creep (x0.5), they are treated as resting for purposes of fatigue recovery.
10. Physical Resistance: Caster is immune to natural irritants (e.g. poison ivy, nettles, ordinary bee stings) and receives a +20 bonus to Physical RRs (e.g. for poison and disease).
11. Predator’s Senses II: As Predator’s Senses I, except the bonus is +40 and Small living creatures can be sensed.
12. Hunter’s Concealment: The caster’s movements unerringly minimize attention, receiving a +30 Stalking bonus. In addition, the caster’s scent is suppressed, causing a -50 penalty to any attempt to detect the caster by scent.
13. Sense Detection: Caster is immediately aware of any spell or magical trap contacted, including by any of his clothing or equipment. If he immediately withdraws contact, any attempt to detect him suffers a -100 penalty.
14. Environmental Resistance: As Heat Resistance, Cold Resistance, Wind Resistance, Light Resistance, and Physical Resistance.
15. Sense Magic: Caster is immediately aware of any active spell he comes into physical contact with, including spells for which he is in the area of effect or in contact with that area. Inactive enchantments may be detected after 1 round of examination per item. The spell or item is not identified, the caster merely knows whether there is active or inactive magic present.
16. Predator’s Senses III: As Predator’s Senses I, except +60 and Tiny living creatures can be sensed.
17. Sense Corruption: Caster is immediately aware of corrupting energies of the wastes and balefire within 1’/level.
18. Hunter’s Strike: The caster’s next strike is precise and perfectly directed to minimize any sound or visual cue. If the caster is using Ambush skill, the critical adjustment is increased by +10 (halved if the target is in melee). If the caster takes any action not focused on preparing the ambush before the attack is made, the benefit is lost.
19. Untiring Pace True: As Untiring Pace II, except a Dash (x5) pace permits no fatigue, and a Walk pace (x1) is considered rest.
20. Purge Disease: Caster may make an additional RR against any one disease at +100. If unsuccessful, this spell may not be used against the same disease until the caster gains a level.
25. Corruption Resistance: Caster gains a +50 RR against the corrupting energies of the wastes and against balefire.
30. Purge Poison: As Purge Disease, except against Poison.
35. Predator’s Senses True: As Predator’s Senses I, except the bonus is +100 and Diminutive living creatures can be sensed.
40. Resistance True: As Environmental Resistance except the RR and DB bonuses are +30 and the RR bonus also applies to all other RRs.
50. Wastewalker: As Resistance True, Corruption Resistance, Predator’s Senses True, Untiring Pace True, and all Sense spells from this list.

[Hurin]

That is a very cool list, and I like it as a Beastmaster/Hunter one. Is it Mentalism in your world, or did you keep it Channeling? I definitely think it could fit in Mentalism (especially since the resistance spells are all caster only).

The level 8 spell is definitely the jewel in the crown. I will unofficially dub it 'Survivorman'. 

[jdale]

In my setting it's Augmentation, which is sort of an internal-only version of Mentalism. There are no pure Augmentation professions, only semis. I don't have any Channeling at all.

But of the normal RM realms, this one fits Mentalism the best. It's really about yourself, honing your senses, focusing your attention. As opposed to creating a connection between you and things outside yourself (e.g. connecting to nature) which could be Channeling.

[Eladan]

Wow guys... your creativity amazes me, as always.

Jdale - I like your interpretation of the multiple realm option for the Ranger, and it opens up possibilities for the Hunter you mention. Like Hurin, I'd love to see more on that profession as well. The list you gave has some great ideas in it. The class as you describe it has the flavor I think I'm looking for in terms of a wilds/urban combo tracker who is focused against a speficic target or even a changeable group (Mages, lycanthropes, etc). If you are familiar with White Wolf at all, it reminds me of the Hunter sourcebook.

Hurin - I've used your blog's notes on the Ranger and Warrior Mage as a key source in restructuring a lot of of my professions and am evaluating play balance as a result. The lack of distinction between the Ranger and the Beastmaster is something that I obviously still struggle with, hence my leaning towards a combination of the classes. I agree that recent developments, specifically the Beastly Ways list, serve to make the classes blend a bit. I'm curious to see how you address that in future blog musings. Regarding the Bounty Hunter and Mage Hunter classes, I'm familiar with both from the companions, I just struggle with how to balance them. Something I'm look at though down the line...

Regarding the realms for the professions, I'm slowly working towards a model that uses spheres rather than realms, with professions that abide by armor restrictions based on their philosophical approach to magic (i.e. a Ranger might access a sphere through his communion/non-diety-based channeling and connection to nature, whereas a Champion accesses it through personal mental discipline), but that system is still out a ways... However, I like that both of your approaches don't pigeon-hole professions into specific realms and instead work toward your specific world-building.

[jdale]

I would say I generally do assign a profession to a specific realm, but every profession has a certain role and that role may be present in multiple realms. So for example I have a Ranger who uses life/nature magic, and a River Warder which serves a very similar function but using water magic. You will not be surprised to hear that River Warders are better at maneuvering in and around water, water based elemental attacks, waterbreathing, etc, and Rangers are better with plants and terrestrial animals, etc.

Not every society has every realm of magic represented, so they need different people to solve those same problems. The river cities use mainly water magic and a little aether and augmentation, so if you need a magically empowered wilderness guide, it's probably a River Warder. Among the elves, it would definitely be a Ranger. Or conversely you might put it, there is a different outlet for wilderness-oriented people with a mystical bent. I considered making (and may still) an Aether ranger who would be more about seeking the guidance of the stars (but there wasn't a player interested so I left it on the back burner).  That said, I do have a few professions like Bard where, although the spell lists are different between realms, it wasn't clear how the costs or professional skills would differ, so I just have an aether bard and a life bard that differ only in realms and spell lists.

But I actually do really like Rolemaster's classic three realms, and I think the spell lists of a profession should reflect their realm, rather than having the same spell lists show up in multiple realms (which I never do). That's sometimes reflected in the rules, e.g. the Zen Monk and the Taoist Monk in the Martial Arts Companion are great illustrations of how that can look. The classic realms just didn't work for my setting concept, that's why I made all that extra work for myself.

[Eladan]

Here are links to two of my new/amended professions if you have any interest, if it would better to put them in a separate posting, let me know. They're both works in progress...

Shaman - Actually I took some inspiration from BRIH's post on Rolemasterblog and tried to recreate a Shaman in the vein of World of Warcraft. The concept is that they utilize their relationship with spirits to both influence the masses and as familiars to empower their elemental abilities. There's also a chart for new "elemental totems".
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ztfmgenpKVe7aaF-MSQJW2qiYWxzkMUk/view?usp=sharing

Warder - In the Wheel of Time series, the Aes Sedai (the series magic-users) are each given a bodyguard that is magically linked to them. As a result of the bond, the Warder can magically communicate with the magic user (his Ward), gains physical enhancements, and even lend their own strength to their Ward (and sometimes vice versa).
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S9KeQLR2b6bQRpRAcNfb5EOebdPvZOqw/view?usp=sharing