Topic: No spell lists during Adolescent & Apprentice levels?

[phydaux42]

My friends and I played Rolemaster way back in the day.  One of the things I remember was that no one, even pure spell users, selected spell lists during their Adolescent & Apprentice levels. 

This was actually kinda cool because it allowed, forced really, casters to spend lots of development points on things like Body Development and a parry weapon.  Then once level one rolled around it was spells, spells, spells, and weapons & Body Development were more or less forgotten about.  We all thought that this was very cool and "in genera."

Recently I bought the Classic Rolemaster PDFs, and right there is the character creation examples characters are buying spell lists in Adolescent & Apprentice levels. 

Now, it seems to me that that couldn't have been there in the old editions.  I distinctly remember helping many new players create their first few characters, and having to tell some of them several times "No spell lists during Adolescent & Apprentice levels."

Is what I'm remembering just a deeply ingrained house rule we had, or was this "the rules" and those rules were changed?

[Rasyr-Mjolnir]

Now, there are some changes between RM2 and RMC. In regards to character generation, the biggest change was to when you purchased ranks for a given level. In RMC you get them when you buy them (in RM2, you bought them when you reached the prior level -- confusing...)

In RM2, you purchased ranks for the NEXT level as soon as you went up a level, but didn't get the ranks until reached that level (i.e. when you made second level, you purchased your level 3 skill ranks but didn't get them until you reached level 3).

Because of the way this worked, you would need to purchase spells during the apprenticeship level to get have the spells available at first level.

So, chances are that you are remembering house rules, or just the way you normally handled it (without actually making a rule for it..).