Official ICE Forums
Systems & Settings => Rolemaster => RMC/RM2 => Topic started by: Duette-1 on September 05, 2017, 07:17:32 AM
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Hey coming back to RM2/C after a long time and thought I'd try a semi spell caster. My simple question is this. Whats the point of single round instant combat spells (haste excluded thanks for the thread) such as noble warrior multi strike or paladin Arms law when in the round you cast them you cant attack or parry and are therefore likely to get critted to death (dismemberment, maiming, knocked out, bleeding out all over the place). Am i missing something? And do people have a way around this? My best thought was buy into Adrenal speed then cast/strike but it seems a bit of a long way around. Thanks.
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Sorry realise Noble weapons spells are all r/level
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All the spells on the Noble Weapons list have a duration of 1 round per level.
The Paladin Arms Way list is more puzzling. These sorts of spells work well in RMSS, where casting a an instant spell is only a 10% action, but giving up an entire round for a small bonus next round is pretty silly.
I couldn't find any optional rules in RMC I or II suggesting a reduced action requirement for instant spells, but my best guess is that whoever wrote the list was using such a rule.
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There are a few ways to handle this. The semi spell users were more popular than pure spell users because they had mid-level combat to fall back on. A lot of players preferred semis over pure combat because that had some nice lists to pull from in a pinch.
- Combat as the primary means with spells as boosts or backups.
- Spells prior to combat, then enter combat
- Parry parry parry.
- Partial cover bonuses
- Don't enter combat alone, use positioning to buy you time to prep your spell
- Snap casting/hipshot spells. Higher penalty, but a nice surprise when you pull it off
- Selecting the correct spell list at PC creation, then adding the lists "you really want" later on
If you can get Stun Relief spells, Healing spells, etc., even at low level, can save your hide. There are auto-spells too that would be great to have too. Like any RM PC, at low levels, there's a lot of balancing to consider until you can start leveling up and really fleshing out the PC.
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There's an option as early as in SL about how casting an instantaneous spell "only" uses up 50% activity. As such, a character doing so would still be able to half-parry (a 50% activity action). Later rules (RoCo. IV) have instantaneous spells being 0% activity actions and even class I spells being 50% activity actions.
As far as I'm concerned, instantaneous spells are 0% activity actions, though distracting enough that casting one gives a -20 penalty to all actions the same round.
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In the RMC Spell Law, Optional Rule 5.2 there is the option of these instant spells taking just 10% activity. So with that your Paladin can still make an attack with 90% of OB.
OPTION 5.2: QUICK
INSTANTANEOUS SPELLS
A Gamemaster may wish to allow instantaneous
spells to be cast at 10% activity, with
no recovery time. If this option is chosen, the
GM should still only allow one spell to be
cast per round. This does make it possible to
cast an instant and attack or fire in the same
round with almost no penalty.
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Thanks for the thoughts everyone. My personal view would be to go down 0-20% route but it does seem to depend a bit on party size. As mentioned before by spectre 771 dropping back to prepare (going into mage mode) is one option but we're likely to be a small party so that can make it difficult. I'm coming at this from a player perspective on this occasion so I'll have to put it to our GM. Thanks again.