Official ICE Forums
Systems & Settings => Rolemaster => RMC/RM2 => Topic started by: thrud on July 14, 2007, 06:17:51 AM
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In RMC arms Law I just noticed that instant spells are supposed to take 75% of a round?
Must be a misprunt, right?
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Nope. In ole RM2, instant spells were like all other spells, 75% activity. Being instant only meant they required no prep, allowing quick casting.
lynn
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75% activity is not a mis-print. As Yammahoper points out, in the original rules they required 75% activity.
Now, one thing that we DID do was to say that Instantaneous spells are always considered to be short actions (thus resolving first), and that the majority of that activity percentage is the time required to recover from the casting of the spell.
RMC Spell Law also contains options that allow for instantaneous spells to be cast using less activity (50% and 10%, IIRC), and in both case, they still operate as listed above.
Just remember what Lordmiller and I have been telling folks for months now.... You will find things in RMC, that you did not realize was part of the core rules, like this, because you always played using the option and may not have even realized that you were using an option (the layout of the old books being that bad...).
Another example, is the ESF rules. In RM2 and RMC those are an option, they are not core. If you could not meet the casting requirements in the core rules, you could not cast, period.
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huh, ok. I think we used 20% action for instantaneous spells.
Like you said, options you never realised were option.
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;D
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Nope. In ole RM2, instant spells were like all other spells, 75% activity. Being instant only meant they required no prep, allowing quick casting.
lynn
Yoiks. So many years, so wrong... :( So how did we get from RM2's 75% (or 50% if you use the option in SpL) to RMSS' 10%?!
Ciao,
Old Man
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The 10% was an option in a companion. I always thought 10% was used so a spell user could cast defensive spells while prepping, which requires 90% activity. And of course in RMCI, in the optional 200 point init rule, instant spells could be cast every 50 points of init, which helped create the idea instant spells required less, little or even NO activity to cast.
lynn
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Casting two spells in the same round, now that's an interesting interpretation.
Never heard that one being allowed ever before?
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Casting two spells in the same round, now that's an interesting interpretation.
Never heard that one being allowed ever before?
Errr... raises hand .. back in the old wild and crazy days... but I got better. (Yeah, Haste-Bolt-Bolt-Bolt was unpleasant.)
Maturingly,
Old Man
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The 10% was an option in a companion. I always thought 10% was used so a spell user could cast defensive spells while prepping, which requires 90% activity. And of course in RMCI, in the optional 200 point init rule, instant spells could be cast every 50 points of init, which helped create the idea instant spells required less, little or even NO activity to cast.
lynn
I always figured it made sense for Hastes and similar spells for action that round (Attack N, Combat X, etc etc).
Anyhoo, in my current RM2/RMSS hybrids it does leave mages twiddling their thumbs at time, "I cast Shield and ... err ... ummm ... perceive... "
Ciao,
Old Man
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Simple - the Companions... As the number of companions increased, different initiative were given and in at least one of them, the % of activity for instantaneous spells was reduced (it may have been RMCIV, not positive)
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You could always "Cast an instant" then run behind a fighter. . .then percieve. . . ;D
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RMC Spell Law also contains options that allow for instantaneous spells to be cast using less activity (50% and 10%, IIRC), and in both case, they still operate as listed above.
My suggestion would be to use the above mentioned option that instantaneous spells use only 10% activity - but only for non-offensive spells. That way e.g. a Semi Spell User can use a Bladeturn spell and still do a melee attack in the same round. OTOH I would not want to allow a Cleric to use a Golden Slumber spell (also instantaneous) and parry in the same round, thereby just parrying his opponent as long as he finally one round fails his RR. That's why I would still require such spell to use 75% activity.
Just my 2 cents
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You can't base a system on special situations like that. All instantaneous spells should take the same amount of time.
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Sorry, but I disagree. If you take a look at the HARP rules, you will see that some very few spells are instantaneous there, and it's allowed to have a normal action, e.g. melee combat, in the round such a spell is cast. It's spells like e.g. Deflections and Bladeturn, typically cast in combat alongside other actions. But IIRC you will not find any attack spells among the instantaneous spells from the HARP rules - and for good reasons.
IMO allowing all instantaneous RM spell to be cast with only 10% activity would lead to balancing problems as combinations like e.g. Absolution + Full Parry are too powerful. OTOH having all instantaneous spell cost 50% or 75% activity would render spells like Bladeturn almost useless.
That's why I suggested to have defensive instantaneous spells cost 10% activity and the offensive instantaneous spell 75% activity. If you think that all spells that are in a given category, i.e. instantaneous one vs. normal spells, should require the same amount of activity, then invent a new category "instantaneous defensive spells". You would then have
- normal spells, these would require preparation + 75% for casting,
- instantaneous offensive spells, these would require 75% for casting,
- instantaneous defensive spells, these would require 10% for casting.
But in the end it's up to you. We use such a rules for some years now and it works fine.
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Personally I like the 10% for all instantaneous spells but I understand your concerns.
My main reason for disagreeing is that exceptions on exceptions seldom make for good rules.
The spell is instant but not really instant...
To solve your problem I would suggest making the troublesome spells normal instead of instantaneous but that wouldn't be as much fun now would it? ;)
To me it's not a problem. Very rarely will any character reach that level and when they do parrying isn't really the make or break kind of deal that it would be at lower levels.
You can't parry 6 orcs/demons/miscellaneous-hellspawn all at once no matter how good you are...
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I too use 10% for instant spells. However no more than 1 spell can go off in a round. Also you have to allocate that 10% at the start of a round. The result all other actions have only 90% of the round whether or not that instant spell was actually cast.
So you keep the 10% for a possible Bladeturn but in the event it is not used so that 10% is still ost.
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The core rules are actually rather strict about spells per round.
Only 1 per round counting innate and item casting, the only exception being constant items , like say if you owned a cloak or ring of invisiability that works when worn, not "when activated". You could then Cast a spell, then spend say 10% action to put the ring/cloak on, thus "Casting 2 spells in one round". . . .but other than that, the system is pretty strict about 1 per turn. . .even under haste, where you can get off 2 melee attacks or 4 missile attacks, you still only get to cast once.
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I'd say the grey area starts with preparing to cast a spell and casting instant spells all in the same round.
I wouldn't allow it myself but I'm sure there are people out there who would.
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Am reading the Spell Law rules for RMC atm(received it yesterday) and an idea stuck me that instead of just saying ClassI instants were 10% actions, but that ClassII instants were 50% and ClassIII 75%. The rules says/suggest ClassI can be cast as a 10% action, so kinda just adding an extra step to it.
Thinking about making that a houserule myself.
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Just remember what Lordmiller and I have been telling folks for months now.... You will find things in RMC, that you did not realize was part of the core rules, like this, because you always played using the option and may not have even realized that you were using an option (the layout of the old books being that bad...).
By the standards of the day they weren't that bad, in terms of organisation (try some o the FGU offerings for comparison). Man were they terse, though.
Another example, is the ESF rules. In RM2 and RMC those are an option, they are not core. If you could not meet the casting requirements in the core rules, you could not cast, period.
I never liked the ESF rules anyway, so I was happy they were optional. I would've liked casting times to be more like MERP's, though - you could prepare for less time at a penalty, and spell casting in one thing that's unequivocally better in RMSS, IMO.
One thing I always did in RM2 was to make it so that all items cast spells instantaneously. That made them much more popular for offensive magic.
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RMC Spell Law also contains options that allow for instantaneous spells to be cast using less activity (50% and 10%, IIRC), and in both case, they still operate as listed above.
My suggestion would be to use the above mentioned option that instantaneous spells use only 10% activity - but only for non-offensive spells. That way e.g. a Semi Spell User can use a Bladeturn spell and still do a melee attack in the same round. OTOH I would not want to allow a Cleric to use a Golden Slumber spell (also instantaneous) and parry in the same round, thereby just parrying his opponent as long as he finally one round fails his RR. That's why I would still require such spell to use 75% activity.
Just my 2 cents
Always done this way... At least after my evil cleric did the "Absolution + Full Attack" trick a couple of times!
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What are the design concepts behind instant spells, and why make attack spells as Absolution an instant if it proves to be so troublesome?
Wouldnt it be better if Absolution and its brothers were standard spells which leaves instants to be spells as Bladeturn, Dodging, etc?
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well, the design concept of Core Instant spells as "Always Treat as Class I" is to make them combat useful regardless of caster level, as they cast in one round.
The difficulties arise in the application of one of the options that make them 50% or 10% actions.
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Yes, some spells, like Bladeturn or Deflections, just don't make much sense when requiring them to be prepared for some rounds and then cast. Such spells are excellent candidates for requiring no preparation and 10% activity, making them useful in combat as a defensive spell alongside a melee/missile attack. Absolution seems to have been intended for use in combat too, but IMHO it should never use so little activity that a melee attack can normally be done in the same round.
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First off, look at the original tactical system, magic always resolved first, before missile and before melee actions. Therefore, in the terms of the tactical system being used at the time, a spell that did not require any preparation was basically "instantaneous" for all intents and purposes, even though it was not so in actuality.
The problems stated arising when folks began using different tactical/initiative systems, where spells were not always resolved BEFORE other actions. This combined with the inaccurate naming of the "instantaneous" type of spell made many folks think of such spells as if they really were supposed to be instantly cast.
In RMC, we tried to solve this issue in a manner that makes sense with the tactical/initiative system we used.
We set things so that an instantaneous spell takes 75% activity. 10% for actual casting and the remaining 65% to account for recovery for the sudden surge of magical energies through the casting. This is RMC core, as detailed in RMC Spell Law
Now, anybody who has ever stood up too fast and gotten dizzy for a few seconds can understand the effect we were going for. Basically, casting an instantaneous spell is like that.
You stand up too fast (cast instantaneous spell), and have to wait a few seconds until you are no longer dizzy (recover from the casting).
I hope that makes sense...