Official ICE Forums
Systems & Settings => Rolemaster => Topic started by: Arawaen on March 06, 2011, 07:59:54 PM
-
Races and Cultures PDF
Adolescent Skill Ranks by Culture table lists ranks in Awareness*Perceptions Skill Category for Aerial, Arctic and Desert. Perceptions does not have skill category ranks.
Wood Elf Racial Information table has RR modifiers for Disease at +15 (should be +100) and for Psionic at +50 (should be -5 I think).
-
Should the former only be in the specific Awareness Skill?
-
Should it?
-
I believe what he is saying is that Awareness*Perceptions is a Special skill, so the category itself can't have any ranks devoted to it, only the skills under the category can have ranks.
-
But should the ranks be in Alertness, or Sense Ambush?
-
Sense Ambush seems a redundant skill when you have Alertness already. The definition of alertness is, paraphrased, "the natural ability to percieve when no statement of perception is made."
As such, I struck sense ambush from my skill list.
-
I agree with Yammahopper, Sense Ambush (along with all the uber-specialized situational awareness skills) needs to go. Alertness, the general subconscious awareness of your surroundings should be used in all of these cases. The only thing I would think modifies this, is specific professional mods and/or talents, like fighters getting a +30 to Awareness when in combat, a rogue gets their bonus when someone tries to sneak up on them or palms a knife, etc...
Marc R: In all cases (I believe) only Alertness is acquired through racial templates, never Sense Ambush. Usually it is 2 ranks, as well.
-
OK, now that an actual specific change is on the table, agree, disagree, flaming buckets of pitch?
-
I firmly state that RM needs to pare down its skill bloat.
-
To stay on the actual question at hand: it should be Alertness.
-
Does not Sense Ambush reduce the ranks of an opponents Ambush skill?
MDC
-
Any successful perception check will reduce ambush ranks to zero, as the attack is no longer a surprise attack.
-
Sense Ambush reduces the attacker's Ambush ranks, even when the attack is not perceived.
-
Must be a school of hard knocks rule, not the RM2 version I base my statements on.
If the skill works passively to reduce ambush ranks, that is handy...not that I have met may GM's with the testicular fortitude to use them against poor PC's. Heck, if your stun no parry in my game, the attacker gets to use 1/2 his weapon ranks as ambush. I went from RQ to MERP to RM. A step down in risk is not acceptable.
-
So should it be one skill, the other, a choice of either?
-
Alertness is normally developed by everyone. Sense Ambush is a highly specialized skill, that would not be standard unless you had a culture in which assassination attempts were everyday events. I could see that for certain specific fantastic subcultures, but not such broad, normal categories. Definitely Alertness.
-
Alertness is normally developed by everyone. Sense Ambush is a highly specialized skill, that would not be standard unless you had a culture in which assassination attempts were everyday events. I could see that for certain specific fantastic subcultures, but not such broad, normal categories. Definitely Alertness.
I could see it being taught to the royal family of almost any kingdom you can imagine, but that's one of the few places I'd consistently expect to see it.
-
IMHO it would be alertness not sense ambush.
MDC
-
My personal opinion also leans toward alertness, but keep in mind that if you live in an area where predatory cats see people as food, you might find yourself a potential ambush target more often than the most hated king. . . .of course per my opinion you'd still likely be more alert if you were living in such a place.
-
In my game, Sense Ambush can be used to a) detect traps as they are going off, allowing a moving maneuver to evade the effects, b) avoid being surprised by an opponent, allowing full activity during the first round, c) as a defense against Subterfuge * Attack maneuvers, possibly negating the Silent Attack / Ambush maneuvers completely, and d) as a penalty to Ambush ranks even if the Ambush was successful. These effects are enough to convince many players to invest DP in the skill. All of these could be handled using Alertness, but I prefer more granular skills.
-
Any opinion on where to aim the adolescence ranks per the OP Peter?
-
Any opinion on where to aim the adolescence ranks per the OP Peter?
IMHO, starting ranks should always be Alertness.
-
My personal opinion also leans toward alertness, but keep in mind that if you live in an area where predatory cats see people as food, you might find yourself a potential ambush target more often than the most hated king. . . .of course per my opinion you'd still likely be more alert if you were living in such a place.
Of course, the defense we would use in situation like that is the one classified as the best defense: offense. We would actively hunt them down - like we have consistently over the course of human civilization. Heck, we even hunted to near extinction animals we merely thought might be a problem.
As for the Alertness vs. Sense Ambush: I think that if Sense Ambush negates an ambushers ranks in Ambush, then it is a bona fide skill, but I also think that it is unnecessary because I think the Ambush skill is unnecessary. The ambushing character states their intention, and depending upon the roll succeeds, partially succeeds, fails, fumbles, etc... The nit-picky nature of RM to need to codify everything is why get skill bloat. Just work off of: intent & roll total. The GM deciphers from there.
Alertness is your basic, subconscious awareness to your surroundings ("unconscious observation" - School of Hard Knocks), and actually sounds like it should be more of an RR that is level based, going by that description.
-
My personal opinion also leans toward alertness, but keep in mind that if you live in an area where predatory cats see people as food, you might find yourself a potential ambush target more often than the most hated king. . . .of course per my opinion you'd still likely be more alert if you were living in such a place.
You live in New York City?
MDC
-
Ayup. My cats are only predatory vs very small animals and bugs. . . .and crime here in the big apple is way down since it peaked in the 80s. . .but I bet my adolescence gave me some ranks of alertness. ;)
I suspect, in relation to the OP, the errata will direct to Alertness rather than cat ranks (pun intended)
RandalThor, I saw a program recently, relating to how lions rarely eat herd culture Massai in Kenya, because their culture leans toward militancy, being armed all the time, and forming posses for hunting down and killing any man or cow eating lion. . .but in the Eastern seaboard of Tanzania the agriculturalist locals get eaten by lions fairly regularly, because their culture is non militant, people generally don't go around armed, and they don't posse up and hunt down man eater lions when they strike. . .Even in the modern era when guns make hunting down predators easier, in some cultures they seemingly tolerate a certain level of man eating predation, and have for as long as people can remember. (In pre modern India, people got eaten by tigers on a fairly regular basis, to the point where some tigers were thought to prey exclusively on people).
In europe, most of the megafauna predators were exterminated, not by farmers or vengeance seeking bands, but by the insatiable need to feed the Roman arenas, and the fact that for every animal that made it to the arena, ten or more died in capture, transit or storage. . .greed and spectacle, not a rational desire not to be part of anyone's diet.
So I wouldn't assume that in a game world where roving bands of violent adrenaline junkies (player characters) are tolerated, doesn't have animals (much less monsters) snacking on people. . .Hunting such creatures is a good chunk of many adventurer's occupational duties.
Heh, the above made me think of a game, where the party need to go out and capture monsters for the arena. . ."Don't kill the troll, he's worth nothing to us dead!"
-
Ayup. My cats are only predatory vs very small animals and bugs. . . .and crime here in the big apple is way down since it peaked in the 80s ;)
I agree that crime should be treated like small animals and bugs........ and we should get your cats involved. ;D
MDC
-
First of all, I never assume there aren't exceptions - but its the rule that, well, rules. Remember wolves? Well, we nearly hunted to extinction because we thought they were evil and preyed upon humans. They didn't. But the reality of the situation didn't matter, our perception of the situation. (The reality of the situation was that they were a competing predatory species that hunted the same things we hunted, and why the hell didn't ALL of them become dogs? ;D)
Heh, the above made me think of a game, where the party need to go out and capture monsters for the arena. . ."Don't kill the troll, he's worth nothing to us dead!"
Yeah, and the biggest difference between the typical fantasy world and Earth: many of the creatures are intelligent & actively seeking the destruction of humanity as a species. Plus, even the ones that aren't intelligent are generally much more dangerous than anything we have currently: A bullette would wreck a middle-ages village here on Earth! Frikkin wreck it! There would be very little to do about the beast.
-
Elves and cats: equally worthless.
:o
-
OK, the errata will read to change those ranks to Awareness.
Post now or never if you have issue with that.
-
Elves and cats: equally worthless.
:o
Yeah, but Elven-Cats are awesome.
-
Elves are cats.
They're beautiful, they're graceful, they're vicious little sods, and when they're happy they make pleasing noises.
The only difference is that an elf has fewer feet and, if you're really unlucky, a sense of humor (which cats never seem to have).
:o
-
My two new cats enjoy jumping in to join me in the shower, or tub. . .I'm baffled, perhaps they're changelings? I've never known a cat to be so casual about getting wet. . .it's a real pain in the arse to towel off, then chase them down and dry them before they get water everywhere. . .perhaps they're elves in disguise?
-
Or are related to tigers.
MDC
-
...or jaguars.
-
Must be a school of hard knocks rule, not the RM2 version I base my statements on.
The only difference between the RMSS version and School of Hard Knocks is that RMSS list 30 to -70 as penalty associated with assassinations without explanation how it is applied and school of hard knocks mentions in a note that Sense Ambush can be used to give a penalty to assassination attempts, but does not list any penalties or explain how it is done. Neither version include any rule about Sense Ambush ranks having any special meaning.
Actually if I recall correctly the only example in the RMSS book that talk about defending from ambush attacks suggest the use of Alertness as skill to discover that somebody is trying to ambush you.
The idea to have Sense Ambush ranks work as a automatic defense against ambush attacks would actually mean there is a point with having the skill.
-
we skipped over them, but what about the RR bonuses in the OP?