Topic: OB penalties due to movement/maneuver in RM2

[miami.multiplication]

Hi there

I'm coming back to RM2 after a 20 year hiatus. Re-reading Arms Law the OB penalty due to movement/maneuver seems a bit confusing to me. I quote from Arms Law, page 9:

"If a character moves/maneuvers and then fires in Fire Phase (B) or melees in Melee Phase, he takes an OB mod to that attack. The OB mod is -5 for every 5% moved/maneuvered. In order to fire or melee, the character must have moved/maneuvered less than 51% of his normal allowance and may not have performed any other activity"


I simply don't understand how to make sense of "the OB mod is -5 for every 5% moved/maneuvered". Does this mean -5 for every 5% below a 100% maneuver completion? But in that case, to partially succeed at a maneuver would result in a smaller penalty! I gather that an incomplete or unsuccesful maneuver should increase the penalty on the attempted attack.

Or maybe since "in order to fire or melee, the character must have moved/maneuvered less than 51% of his normal allowance", the penalty only applies to the % of the accomplished maneuver exceeding 50%? Yet again in that case an incomplete maneuver would imply less penalty!

In our game back in the day we avoided the more technical exhaustion/pace/BMR thing - we were happy enough with saying "50' movement rate for everybody, in combat you can move and hit an opponent up to 25' away with no penalty", but now that we're revisiting the book the rule is hard to understand.

What would you say/ what do you do with this rule?

This forum is simply amazing. Keep up this great work.

Cheers from Argentina and many thanks in advance!

M.

[Peter R]

We always played it that if you used 10% of you movement you took a -10 to your attack, if you used 25% of your movement then that was -25 to your attack and so on.

[Spectre771]

To avoid arguments and for the sake of brevity to combat, we just 'calculated' that a player could move under 10' and still attack without penalty.  The average length of a normal walking stride for a human is about 3' so it seemed fitting that anything above 9' of movement meant the PC was more intent on maneuver than combat.   

[miami.multiplication]

We always played it that if you used 10% of you movement you took a -10 to your attack, if you used 25% of your movement then that was -25 to your attack and so on.

Thank you Peter! Surprised by the speedy reply. Sounds reasonable. Did you guys estimate the percentage of the movement used by a table, using BMR or was it rule of thumb?

Now I'm coming to realise that there's (for me) one extra confusion: one thing would be the amount of displacement taken in the round expressed as a percentage of your movement rate

and a different thing would be

the percentage of the maneuver achieved by rolling dice + bonuses that the dinamic table gives. I guess that lies in the core of my problem with this rule.

Thanks again for taking your time to reply!

Cheers

Manuel

[miami.multiplication]

To avoid arguments and for the sake of brevity to combat, we just 'calculated' that a player could move under 10' and still attack without penalty.  The average length of a normal walking stride for a human is about 3' so it seemed fitting that anything above 9' of movement meant the PC was more intent on maneuver than combat.

Sounds reasonable and somehow resonates with the way we used to play.

How did you handle a character wanting to maneuver and then attack? "I want to sprint, roll on the ground and attack from the floor with my dagger" kind of stuff.

Now I'm coming to realise that there's at least for me one extra confusion: one thing would be the amount of displacement taken in the round expressed as a percentage of your BMR and a different thing would be the percentage of the maneuver achieved by rolling dice + bonuses that the dinamic table gives. I guess that lies in the core of my problem with these rule.

What do you think?

Thanks again for taking your time to reply.

Cheers all the way from Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Manuel

[Hurin]

How did you handle a character wanting to maneuver and then attack? "I want to sprint, roll on the ground and attack from the floor with my dagger" kind of stuff.

In these cases, our GM (which was usually me) would have to rule how much movement 'roll on the ground' was. I might say for example that falling to the ground and rolling was a 50% activity, so the attack would be at -50. If I said it was only 25% activity, then the attack would be only -25. And if I said it was 75% activity, then the character could not also melee attack in the same round.

Remember too that, since characters can move up to 50% of their movement and still melee attack (at a maximum -50 penalty) in one round, you can move 50% of your BMR x your max pace. So for example, a character with a 50' BMR and a x5 max pace could move 125' (50/2 x 5) and still attack at -50.

[Sidenote: These complications are precisely why I think RMU made the right choice in going to an action point system. In an action point system, you no longer have to anticipate all the possible combinations of movement + action that characters might take, nor do you have to lay out rules for each specific combination, nor add up percentages to try to figure out if you can get to the Orc 100' away and what your OB will be against him. Instead, you just spend some of your action points to move and the rest to attack.]

[mtpnj]

Rolemaster companion 4 has a table that handles moving and attacking.  Based on speed and distance moved it gives you a difficulty to roll on movement table.  Based on roll(modified by armor movement penalty)  you get a percentage that can be used to attack.

[miami.multiplication]

Rolemaster companion 4 has a table that handles moving and attacking.  Based on speed and distance moved it gives you a difficulty to roll on movement table.  Based on roll(modified by armor movement penalty)  you get a percentage that can be used to attack.

Thank you very much! I'll look that table up and see what we can do with it. Hopefully it clarifies this surprinsingly obscure little note on this issue.

 This is why we love Rolemaster: TABLES.



Thanks again man,

Cheers from Buenos Aires


Manuel

[miami.multiplication]

In these cases, our GM (which was usually me) would have to rule how much movement 'roll on the ground' was. I might say for example that falling to the ground and rolling was a 50% activity, so the attack would be at -50. If I said it was only 25% activity, then the attack would be only -25. And if I said it was 75% activity, then the character could not also melee attack in the same round.

Remember too that, since characters can move up to 50% of their movement and still melee attack (at a maximum -50 penalty) in one round, you can move 50% of your BMR x your max pace. So for example, a character with a 50' BMR and a x5 max pace could move 125' (50/2 x 5) and still attack at -50.

Thanks for your reply, Hurin!

Lemme see if I get this straight.

As I understand it, you made a distinction between a dyamic maneuver and a bare translation: a dynamic maneuver taking up x% of a normal round would imply a penalty of -x to the BO if x were less or equal to 50; for x greater than 50, you wouldn't allow to melee.

As I get it, this is a separate thing from "moving" less than 50% of your allowed motion, correct? What I made sense of the rules in Arms Law was that a character was able to move up to half of his BMR and attack with 0 penalty. Is that correct? But then under the Exceptions the obscure "-5 for each 5% maneuvered/moved" really puzzled me. I believe my difficulty lies in proximity of the usual meaning of "maneuver" and "movement".


We were users of RM2 with the first 2 Companions in the late 90's. We never got hold of the following editions/versions/issues of the Companion series nor system. Now that we got back to it, we picked up were we left. We'll see if the group is willing to dive into RMU.

Thanks again for you time, man.

Manny

[Hurin]

As I get it, this is a separate thing from "moving" less than 50% of your allowed motion, correct?

I believe so. I am just applying the rules we use for moving to other maneuvers as well.

What I made sense of the rules in Arms Law was that a character was able to move up to half of his BMR and attack with 0 penalty. Is that correct?

I don't think so, and I think this is what is causing you to have questions.

On p. 8 of the red band edition of RM2 Arms Law (the one with the red band on the left side of the cover, and the characters fighting a golden or brass golem on the front), under the description of the 'Melee Phase', it does say 'All characters may make a melee attack except those who have used more than 50% of their activity for the round.' That is true, but that doesn't mean that characters who have moved can attack with no penalty. If you move forward to section 5.2, on Offensive Bonuses, and especially to table 8.2.7 (p. 15), you will see all the offensive bonus modifiers. Down near the bottom is '-(variable) | Moving (normally the % of possible movement equals the penalty'.

What this means is that any % of movement you take reduces your OB by a corresponding amount. Move 25%, and your penalty is -25; move 50%, and your penalty is -50. Move 1% of your movement, and your penalty is -1.

Some of us have found these penalties to be excessive; they lead to a game where characters are penalized for moving only 1', and no one wants to move at all in combat. That is why for example Spectre houseruled this to say that characters in his RM2 game could move 10' and not incur any penalty. We've also discussed allowing players some free movement in RMu, or developing a new skill (Footwork) that would eliminate these penalties.

[Spectre771]

How did you handle a character wanting to maneuver and then attack? "I want to sprint, roll on the ground and attack from the floor with my dagger" kind of stuff.

TLDR:

Tumble Attack. 


As long as the player wasn't trying to get any special treatment or bonus from the maneuver, then it was just part of their fighting style.  If your player wanted to gain a back attack bonus, or flank attack bonus, etc. then they had to have Tumble Attack. 

If your players wants to do all that sprinting or tumbling, then it's sprint 50% the distance he could normally go and make an attack at 50%.

If he wanted to add the tumbling to it for whatever reason (Hurdle an overturned table, swing from a chandelier, slide under a table) to make an attack, he would need to succeed on the Movement/Maneuver Table on an appropriate difficulty level.  Base difficulty for us is medium, in the heat of battle, I always bumped it up one or two levels.  But that would be his action for the round.  The attack comes the next round and he's in fighting distance.  Running, diving, sliding... that's the PC's action, not actual fighting.

That's just how we handle it.  Again, anything more than 3 strides and the PC is more concerned with positioning and maneuvering than he is with combat for that brief 6-second round.

[miami.multiplication]

I don't think so, and I think this is what is causing you to have questions.

On p. 8 of the red band edition of RM2 Arms Law (the one with the red band on the left side of the cover, and the characters fighting a golden or brass golem on the front), under the description of the 'Melee Phase', it does say 'All characters may make a melee attack except those who have used more than 50% of their activity for the round.' That is true, but that doesn't mean that characters who have moved can attack with no penalty. If you move forward to section 5.2, on Offensive Bonuses, and especially to table 8.2.7 (p. 15), you will see all the offensive bonus modifiers. Down near the bottom is '-(variable) | Moving (normally the % of possible movement equals the penalty'.

What this means is that any % of movement you take reduces your OB by a corresponding amount. Move 25%, and your penalty is -25; move 50%, and your penalty is -50. Move 1% of your movement, and your penalty is -1.

Some of us have found these penalties to be excessive; they lead to a game where characters are penalized for moving only 1', and no one wants to move at all in combat. That is why for example Spectre houseruled this to say that characters in his RM2 game could move 10' and not incur any penalty. We've also discussed allowing players some free movement in RMu, or developing a new skill (Footwork) that would eliminate these penalties.

Man, this reply made my day. Thanks a lot.

It's awesome what you guys are doing here. Keep it up!

Cheers and thanks again,

Manny

[miami.multiplication]

TLDR:

Tumble Attack. 

Yeaaaa, I realized right after posting the message. But anyway, the intention was to ask what you guys did when a PC wanted to move more than half their BMR and/or attempt a dynamic maneuver.

That's just how we handle it.  Again, anything more than 3 strides and the PC is more concerned with positioning and maneuvering than he is with combat for that brief 6-second round.

Sounds reasonable to me. Thanks man. Can't remember the username, but somebody a few messages ago suggested me to take a look at RMC4. We'll see how it goes...

Thanks again and cheers from Argentina!


M.

[Peter R]

I simply don't understand how to make sense of "the OB mod is -5 for every 5% moved/maneuvered". Does this mean -5 for every 5% below a 100% maneuver completion? But in that case, to partially succeed at a maneuver would result in a smaller penalty! I gather that an incomplete or unsuccesful maneuver should increase the penalty on the attempted attack.

Or maybe since "in order to fire or melee, the character must have moved/maneuvered less than 51% of his normal allowance", the penalty only applies to the % of the accomplished maneuver exceeding 50%? Yet again in that case an incomplete maneuver would imply less penalty!

How successful the maneuver is has no impact on the penalty to the OB. The maneuver is resolved entirely separately. Failing to complete the maneuver may mean that the character is not in a position to make the attack regardless of the penalties incurred.

[miami.multiplication]

How successful the maneuver is has no impact on the penalty to the OB. The maneuver is resolved entirely separately. Failing to complete the maneuver may mean that the character is not in a position to make the attack regardless of the penalties incurred.

Peter!

Many thanks. That was one of my concerns - I was mixing the maneuver phase and the meleé phase.

We'll stick for now to the original AL combat sequence. I jut put forward the alternative engagment system that appears in RMC1 to my friends and we'll discuss if it's worth trying. Feels good to be reading all this stuff again!


Thanks again!

M.