Official ICE Forums
Systems & Settings => Rolemaster => Topic started by: ValGalad on February 13, 2023, 05:06:35 PM
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Very excited after many years of not playing Rolemaster, I've been looking forward to this new RMU, which overall I liked quite a lot. However, there are a number of issues on which I have doubts:
- Why have the TPs been removed, or will they be included in a companion?
- Same question for the Background Options, which I think gave a very interesting depth to the PC.
- What has happened to the XP tables - is it all at the GM's discretion now?
- The Health section is very good, but it leaves me with a huge question mark. When someone is bleeding and some Medicine, you can get them to stop bleeding unless the injured person does something more rigorous than walking, but for how long can they do nothing but walk? It doesn't specify?
- No more critical tables for large and super-large creatures?
- If a PC fails his Fear RR, a teammate (or several?) with leadership can try to convince him to return to combat, correct? But isn't it much easier to get a roll by adding the bonus with the Leadership skill than to pass any RR - wouldn't that unbalance the process?
- For me the most controversial issue: the BD. From what I understand, in a combat you can defend yourself in 4 exclusive ways. a) Using your OB plus your passive shield skill. b) Using your OB plus your passive dodging skill . c) Not using your OB but using your shield skill actively. d) Not using your OB but using your dodging skill actively. Is my interpretation correct?
- In any case, DBs are always going to be higher than before, so by using a MERP module should we increase the DB of NPCs by some amount?
I'm sure more questions will come up as I test the game, but I'd appreciate some answers to get me through that moment. Than you!
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1. A streamlined version of TPs will be presented in the Character Companion, but they aren't going to give big DP discounts the way the RMSS TPs did. The RMSS version really became mandatory because it made so much difference for the DP costs and even the maximum number of ranks, and we chose not to do that, for the sake of streamlining. The reduction in the number of skills also made them less necessary.
2. The sorts of things that were done with background options are done with talents instead. Additional talents along those lines will appear in the Character Companion. What they don't do is randomization.
3. XP is covered in chapter 12.4. But it's goal and event driven rather than skill and combat driven.
4. I'd probably treat it like the Clotting spell, so 1 hour.
5. See chapter 9.4 for the effects of size. There aren't separate Large and Superlarge critical tables, instead critical severity (and optionally damage) is stepped up or down, which permits a much wider range of sizes.
6. If the outcome is that the character fails their RR and then another character is forced to take action to assist them, then the fear had an effect. That seems ok. Leadership won't always work, either.
7. There are more possibilities than you list but for example:
* making a 4 AP attack, from which you can allocate some of your OB to to parry, and getting the benefit of your passive dodge or block
* do a full dodge or block (4 AP)
* make a 2 AP attack (at -50), which you can parry with, and also do a partial dodge/block (half of your dodge/block bonus as DB)
Combinations of partial dodging with combat will be especially common if you use Adrenal Defense skill.
8. I played MERP way too long ago to answer that directly. But it would be reasonable to give those characters some Running and/or Shield skill ranks which they could use for defense.
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Thank you very much for your answers. I'm looking forward to that Character Companion, which I understand won't be one of the first books to be published, so I'll have to wait patiently.
Otherwise, I want to focus on DB and NPCs.
- I have created a first level rogue PC and the combat values he has are Quickness +9, Scimitar skill 41, Shield skill 30 (2 ranks) and Running skill 38 (3 ranks). I understand that on the PC Sheet, under 'Defence' he would have Passive Dodge 3, Partial Dodge 19, Full Dodge 38, Total w/o Shield 38 (again?), Passive Block 20 (normal shield), Passive Block 22, Partial Block 44, Full Block 59, Total w/Shield 59 (again?) .
- Regarding the MERP NPCs, they could be from ShadowWorld, Heroes and Rogues or Races and Cultures: the DB values are always going to be lower than what you get in the RMU, so they don't apply to the new Rolemaster. It would be interesting to see conversion patterns for both NPC and PC from previous versions of Rolmaster, don't you think?
Thank you!
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The intention of Total is to give your total normal DB so you don't have to do any adding most of the time during combat (only when you choose to take a defensive action like partial/full dodge/block). Without the shield that's normally your passive dodge + your Qu bonus + any special bonuses (e.g. armor bonus DB), so in your example +12. With the shield, it's passive block + Qu bonus + shield DB + any special bonuses so +31.
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JDale, you mean Qu-bonus*3, right? It’s always 3*Qu-bonus afaik.
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JDale, you mean Qu-bonus*3, right? It’s always 3*Qu-bonus afaik.
I'm pretty sure he meant that, yes. By 'Qu bonus' we often mean total Qu bonus to DB, which is as you say 3xQu bonus.
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Ok, but according to Core Law, the RR gets only 1 time the stat bonus, that makes it a bit confusing tbh.
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Ok, but according to Core Law, the RR gets only 1 time the stat bonus, that makes it a bit confusing tbh.
Yes, that is right. RRs and attack rolls are different things. For a resistance roll, the defender only gets 1x the stat bonus, but the attacker only gets 1x stat bonus as well. Compare that to an attack roll, where both attacker and defender get 3x stat bonus (defender gets 3xQU, whereas attacker gets St+St+Ag or St+Ag+Ag).