Official ICE Forums
Systems & Settings => Rolemaster => Topic started by: rafmeister on March 08, 2016, 03:29:19 PM
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Apparently, my group has switched directions on how armor penalties will be applied.
How many of you apply penalties for maneuver in armor to melee Weapon Skills?
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I did Once, but then after consideration, since Amor wearers were being double Penalized and few players were Opting for any armor above a 9.... I switched gear on that and made adjustments to make Heavier armor more balanced with the game.
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In both RM2/RMC and RMSS/RMFRP, armor comes with a lot of downsides. You have the maneuver penalties, and the tables are designed so that you will take a lot of hits (though fewer and weaker criticals). If you also are reducing your OB, that reduces your Parry, and pretty soon you are better off not wearing armor at all. I don't think that's a sensible outcome.
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Perhaps this was not fully "correct" of us, but we attributed "Maneuver in Armour" to anything NOT combat related as the wearer trains in the armour and is able to compensate, train harder, work within, etc. the limitations of the armour. The armour was designed for specifically for combat and combat related maneuvers and is geared towards those motions. However, it wasn't designed with Tightrope Walking in mind, or Leaping, Swimming, Dancing, Pole Vaulting, etc. We penalized accordingly.
And like Warl, we didn't want to tack on more penalties for wearing the armour. We had a few games where no one went above AT 12 (RM2) and players were just opting not to take heavier hitting PC's when we really could have used some. Paladin, Cavalier, would have been nice for a few sessions but we had to rely on NPC's for those times and NPC's are merely cannon fodder for our GM's
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This has been an issue in RM since the beginning. Most of my players never go above AT12, but there have been the few that did put on Plate. Here it was just a matter of knowing that there would be no chance of that person moving in quietly or sprinting across the open meadow to reach the wall.
-BP
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We always joked that AT 12 was the Armour of the Gods. I was always partial to AT 16, especially if I could get it in Mithril. A couple of players took plate for the fun and to be truer to the archetype they chose to play.
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How about applying penalties due to physical injuries to the Quickness portion of DB? It makes sense: you can't dodge as well on a broken ankle as you can on a healthy one. And we already apply penalties for things like broken ankles to a wide range of skills.
Now that would make armor very worthwhile.
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I always thought that injury penalties were applied to everything; that is how I have always played it anyway.
For me the armor penalties are a good way to enforce a bit of granularity on adventuring. You don't wear full-plate when dungeon delving because you never know what you are going to have to do: jump a chasm, swim an underground stream, etc... Now, if the adventure is about military style events then, sure, don that heavy armor to help you survive. So I like armor penalties that keep the PCs with lower ATs, it is more realistic.