Topic: The death of CHARTMASTER?

[yammahoper]

Most of the charts in RM are attack tables.  So what if we got rid of all attack tables?

Weapons and spells could instead have crit ratings, which PC's would note down on their character sheets.  A crits on 90+, B crits on 115+, C crits on 126+, D crits on 140+ and E on 145+ could be the stats for club, as an example.

Now all the attack tables are gone.  Attacks would no longer deliver hits and crit, though hits would still be delivered by critical results.

Instead of Arms Law, ICE could make Critical Law, allowing expansion beyond the base slash/crush/punture that would be included in the rule book (heat/electric/cold too I imagine).

Magic weapons could reduce crit ranges, as could talents, or even professional abilities (i.e. fighters reduce A crit ranges by 1 per level).  A +15 weapon would reduce crit ranges instead of providing an bonus to OB.

To big of a change?  Not enough?

[ToM]

Something similar was presented in a RM2 companion (can't remember what, maybe 3 or 4).
Weapons delivered dice of damage and had critical thresholds on various armors.

It worked well, but it wasn't Rolemaster anymore.

[Arioch]

I don't think that would ever be possible: Rasyr, Defendi and all other RM authors just LOVE writing new attack and critical charts! 

[Rasyr-Mjolnir]

I don't think that would ever be possible: Rasyr, Defendi and all other RM authors just LOVE writing new attack and critical charts! 

That earned you a laugh point........


In Express Additions #3, I offered up an option (actually a series of options) for table-less Rolemaster, including for combat.

The combat option essentially divided weapons into 5 size categories and assigned a die type to each one (d6 through d20). If you got total attack roll of 101 or better you rolled one of the damage dice, and for every 20 points above that you rolled another die of damage (up to a max of 5 dice). For critical damage, the system used various triggers to assign specific critical-type damage.

Now, instead of doing that (the critic damage parts), how about something where a roll of a specific number on the damage die means that you roll on the critical table. For example, the critical range on a d6 would be a 6, the crit range on a d8 would be an 7-8, on a d10 would be 9-10, a d12 would be 10-12, and d20 would be 16-20. If more than one damage die rolls within the crit range, you add +5 to the crit roll.

For the crit tables, use the ones out of HARP's Martial Law - the ones that are divided by location. Use the "ones" die of the attack roll to determine location of the attack ("tens" die can determine left/right if needed). The actual critical table is determined by the way the character attacked (i.e. if using a sword, the player has to declare whether or not they are stabbing or slashing and uses the appropriate critical table. If they want to use the sword to club somebody like a skeleton, then they get a -20 to OB, and any critical rolls are halved before looking them up).

The cool thing about this, is that you could really mix-n-match things. Flaming Sword? Cool, it is a d20 weapon, and does an additional d6 of Fire damage when it is flaming. The character could then do both a Slash and a Fire critical (though I would only allow a fire critical if the main attack also pulled a critical).

I would think that this also has the benefit of making criticals more special again, rather than being almost required.

Just an idea....

[jolt]

 ICE could make Critical Law,

See?  See?  I told you it was a good idea. 

jolt

[Rasyr-Mjolnir]

See?  See?  I told you it was a good idea. 

Methinks that jolt wishes to be slapped into next week....

 

[yammahoper]

Redesigning and new critical tables would be lots of (dull) work, but it also would offer the opportunity to create armor by the peice rules that blend right in with the critical system of rules.

I do not think the changes I proposed are a big departure from RM at all.  In fact, it is the system that has always been used, boiled down to the very basics.  I feel this alternative stays truer in some ways than the current hits/crit/chart system.  As we know, in Rolemaster, it is assumed that warriors can be smacked around a great deal without being killed.  It is critical damage that kills.  By adding hits delivered to the critical result rather from an attack table and THEN role a crit, all damage is tied directly to the critical.  This also removes those odd moments of doing 30+ hits in a blow and nothing on the crit.  Hits are in the crit result and will always be consistant with critical damage.

Yes, it makes everyone a little bit tougher if used with current critical tables, but not THAT much tougher.  I've now play tested this, and it worked beautifully.

[jolt]

Yes, it makes everyone a little bit tougher if used with current critical tables, but not THAT much tougher.  I've now play tested this, and it worked beautifully.

How did you decide how many hits to add to the existing critical tables?

jolt

[yammahoper]

I did not add any.  I played with a few optional rules (weapon bonuses add their bonus to hits, ranks in weapon equaled hits delivered minus AT, dice value for weapon, dice value for weapon tied to number of ranks in weapon, etc).  In the end, the only effect was making it harder to knock a foe out on hits.  I also tripled the time for hit recovery and a few other things, but in the end, taking damage right from the crit tables worked fine.

[markc]

 I remember a guy a couple of years ago that made a program and just used his own numbers for the weapons and crit levels.

 Also IMO if RM did go the above way then also it would allow for a dice-less option in which the weapon tables could also be published and bought.

 Right now I am not really sold on the rolling various other types of dice for damage but that is just me. I guess you could also create a small table that would convert 1d10 to any die type and get away with only 1 table for hits.

MDC

[dutch206]

Sorry, but I have to be the stick in the mud here.  Every time I have played Rolemaster, listening to the GM read the critical descriptions is what sold our new people on the combat system.  It's a small consideration, but one that I feel is important.

[markc]

Sorry, but I have to be the stick in the mud here.  Every time I have played Rolemaster, listening to the GM read the critical descriptions is what sold our new people on the combat system.  It's a small consideration, but one that I feel is important.

 I agree 10000000% or so, it is the crits that tend to sell the game. But what I think they are saying it that they still have the crit charts the only thing that is going away is the weapon chart.
 But again I still like the weapon chart as well as the crit charts.
MDC 

[Arioch]

One of the things that I like about RM combat is that it use a single roll to see if I hit and how much damage I do, instead of having to roll for both.
So I don't like very much the option proposed by Rasyr, as it adds a roll to the combat, I'd prefer something more along the lines of what Yamma said.

[lev_lafayette]

You may wish to check RMC VI 3.10 One Roll Combat Resolution, which included (with the single roll) variable damage according to weapon and graduated criticals according to weapon type. Happy to elaborate if you don't have that book.

[jdrakeh]

Didn't MERP2 have a single table for combat/critical resolution? That might be a good place to look for inspiration.

[yammahoper]

MERP had single attack tables, with colums for no armor, SL, RL, CH and PL.  Critical tables were one colum per slash, crush, puncture, etc, with -20 for A, -10 for B, 0 for C, +10 for D and +20 for E crits.

I am not suggesting losing the critical tables.  I am suggesting an attack roll (modified by OB/DB?etc), and a crit roll, with ALL damage on the critical result.

All attacks would have a critical spread.  Armor and perhaps weapons or skill could modify the range.  So, take the martial art sweep attack.  Attack totals of 100+(A crit), 115+(B crit), 124+(C crit), 133+(D crit), 142+(E crit).

That is right from the current attack table (verus AT 1).  Armor would then mod crit thresholds. 

Attacks would have to fall into two catagories; standard or reverse.  Armor bonuses would act as penalties when facing reverse attacks (i.e. the attack is more effective against armor than no armor, like grapples, lightning, sweeps, etc).

Every player could note the respective thresholds for their attacks on their character sheet, or the GM could.  Point is, the need for an attack table is removed.  All that is left are the critical tables.  Cleaner, quicker and RM maintains its unique flavor via crit based combat.

I have tried the alternate combat systems in companions, anda few derived in house.  I always come back to the RM standard rules because they are superior.  My question is would removing the attack tables benifit or harm RM as a system.

[pastaav]

I don't think the reverse idea work, the scale of bonus from the armor in general and the weakness against lighting is probably quite different.

On the other hand it sounds like the idea AT20 give XX in db, but have YY in DB penalty against Lighting would be a workable solution.

[vroomfogle]

I think it's a good idea.    I like the critical tables, but the attack tables to me seem rather arbitrary, especially since there's no real consistent pattern in them.   (true with the critical tables too, but to a lesser extent).      I could see getting a bit more complicated then just critical ratings and vs AT....but the central idea that the attack tables themselves can probably be distilled to a compact set of defining numbers is a good one.

As far as removing the additional hits and just using criticals as is I think that would also work well along with removing Body Development as a skill and instead having total hits be a fixed number for everyone (with some variability based on race and size)....instead use some sort of skill, perhaps still called Body Development, that is used to try and ignore pain penalties or even overcome stun.

[rdanhenry]

The charts are the genius of Rolemaster. They allow the game to provide detailed results with simple rules (very simple for original Rolemaster, but still pretty darned simple for RMSS/RMFRP core -- outside the core rules, of course, all versions have piled on options that complicate things, but that's the nature of all games). You just look things up on a chart when the information is needed. You only need to know the rules and how to use a chart.

You don't change a reputation by changing the facts, anyway. You have to attack perceptions. Persuade people that charts are good and the problem is solved; change the facts and you still have a tough sell, compounded with a seeming admission that your new and improved product is so in comparison to a bad one. The D&D name had more positives than negatives; it was worth keeping from a marketing standpoint even while jettisoning defining features like "Vancian" magic. If the Rolemaster name is really seen as a detriment, it is questionable whether a new edition should be considered at all, unless the distinctive features of Rolemaster -- attack charts and criticals, spell lists and elemental attack charts, professions (even if renamed) that control skill development costs and stat gains -- are considered worth the effort to justify and convince potential customers of their worth.

[vroomfogle]

Let me clarify my position - I think yamma's idea is a good one, but I also don't mind the charts.   

One thing I would definitely like to see is a better, consistent system for creating attack and critical charts then currently exists.     Such as assigning a series of important numbers to weapons (e.g. crit thresholds, armor penetration, etc) which could then be used to recreate the tables.   This would take out some of the arbitrariness of the attack tables.    Tables should always have some sort of pattern, and the existing attack tables do not, they only have rough trends.

Same goes for the critical tables, I'd like to see a point value system so that one could create new consistent critical charts.  Every effect would have a certain point value (e.g. death:50, stun:1/rd, etc) and you would use a a template:
           A    B     C   ....
76-80   15   20   25 ...

which would show you how many points were in each entry (the numbers above are completely made up!).   
I played with this idea a little bit during the RM Classic redesign, but never really pursued it much past some rough ideas.