Topic: Revisting the Warrior Mage

[Zedul]

One of the things we always had trouble with in our campaign was the "Warrior Mage" class.  It's such a great class in concept but as it was in the original system (Base Lists in Companion 2) it was rather ineffective, especially considering how excellent some of the other semi spell using classes are (Bard, Monk, Ranger, Nightblade).  As a result in the past 25 or so years of our campaign there have been well over fifty Paladins and only one Warrior Mage.

The problem with the Warrior Mage is that their offense is horrific.  Paladins, Monks, Nightblades and so on have complimentary combat spells that are extremely effective and boost their arms capability but the Warrior Mage is stuck with either/or.  They can fight with a weapon but they are lucky to be 2/3 as effective as a fighter, and they can hit something with a firebolt but they are lucky to be 2/3 as effective as a mage.

Last year I revamped the Warrior Mage class with the idea of elements "supplementing" melee attacks.  I created a set of Warrior Mage elemental focus lists (Ice, Fire, Earth, Wind, Light) that are additive to their melee abilities.

In general the earth lists increase the defensive capabilities of the class - and grant "stone stance" and armor increases as well as strength boosts which enables the warrior mage to be extremely effective at resisting stuns and shrugging off damage but also slows them down significantly.  Fire really increases the damage and criticals dealt out (as weapons "flame on" and so forth), wind is great for ranged weapons, and ice based attacks are excellent for holding and slowing opponents.

The Paladin is still the king of the semi spell users if only because "Holy Aura" is so effective in our campaign world but my players take Warrior Mages more seriously.  In the old days a Warrior Mage NPC thrown at the party would only elicit laughter but now such encounters cause genuine concern.

[Zedul]

Adding a Sample of one of the new spell lists (Ice).

*note in our RM system all lists have been altered to have a spell at 1 to 20, 23, 25, 27, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50 (+ Lord Spells at 60, 75, 90, 100, and 120).

Ice Warrior                     
                     
Warrior Mage Base                     
PP      Area of Effect   Duration   Range   Casting Time      
                     
1   Freeze   10lbs/lvl   6 rounds *   touch   1      
2   Water Bolt I   1 target   -   100'   1      
3   Frost Armor I (+50 vs EAR)   self   1 rnd/level   self   *      
4   Icy Aura I (+10 all realms, +5 Chan, 15% PS)   self   1 min/level   self   *      
5   Frost Point I (+3 bleed, +2 crits, 10% slow)   1 target   1 rnd/level   self   *      
6   Wall of Ice   6'x10'x10'   1 min/level   100'   1      
7   Ice Bolt I   1 target   -   100'   1      
8   Frost Armor II (+100 vs EAR)   self   1 rnd/level   self   *      
9   Icy Aura II (+20 all realms, +10 Chan, 30% PS)   self   1 min/level   self   *      
10   Frost Point II (+6 bleed, +4 crits, 20% slow)   self   1 rnd/level   self   *      
11   Water Bolt III   1 target   -   300'   1      
12   Freeze X   100lbs/lvl   6 rounds *   touch   1      
13   Frost Armor III (+150 vs EAR / 50% dmg)   self   1 rnd/level   self   *      
14   Icy Aura III (+30 all realms, +15 Chan, 45% PS)   self   1 min/level   self   *      
15   Frost Point III (+9 bleed, +6 crits, 30% slow)   1 target   1 rnd/level   self   *      
16   Ice Ball   10' R   -   100'   1      
17   Armor of Ice   self   1 rnd/level   self   *      
18   Ice Bolt III   1 target   -   300'   1      
19   Triad of Water   3 targets   -   100'   1      
20   Icy Aura IV (+40 all realms, +20 Chan, 60% PS)   self   1 min/level   self   *      
23   Frost Point IV (+12 bleed, +8 crits, 40% slow)   1 target   1 rnd/level   self   *      
25   Triad of Ice   3 targets   -   100'   1      
27   Frost Armor IV (+200 vs EAR/50% dmg/-1 rank crit)   self   1 rnd/level   self   *      
30   Icy Aura V (+50 all realms, +25 Chan, 75% PS)   self   1 min/level   self   *      
35   Ice Ball III   30'   -   200'   1      
40   Frost Armor V (+300 vs EAR /75% dmg/ -2 rank crit)   self   1 rnd/level   self   *      
45   Icy Aura VI (+60 all realms, +30 Chan, 90% PS)   self   1 min/level   self   *      
50   Frost Point V (+15 bleed, +10 crits, 50% slow)                  
                     
Freeze:  Up to 5lbs per level mass of liquid or solid is frozen solid to a temperature of zero F over the course of 6 rounds.  It will hold this temperature for up to 10 minutes per level of the caster and then begin to naturally warm.  Caster must be able to touch the affected mass.                     
                  
Frost Armor:  Creates a barrior that makes the WM immune to all natural ice and cold effects, and is granted a 50% dmg reduction to Magical Cold and Water DMG.  At rank II cold criticals are reduced by 1 levels in severity, at rank III the cold and water damage against the WM is reduced by 75% and criticals are reduced by 2 levels in severity and suffer an addition -20 on critical rolls.   At rank V the WM is completely impervious to all cold based magical attacks and is even unaffected by the vacuum of deep space (the cold effect anyway).  In addition the WM is granted a +50 bonus per ranks I - IV,  and a +100 bonus for rank V against all other elemental attacks.  At rank III all base elemental attack dmg against the WM is reduced by 50% and all complex attacks are reduced by 25% dmg.  At rank IV base elemental criticals are reduced by 1 level in severity.  At rank V base elemental attacks are reduced by 75% dmg, and 2 levels of critical severity and complex elemental attacks are reduce to 50% dmg and by 1 critical level of severity.         
                     
Icy Aura:  Creates a magical aura of intense cold around the WM that absorbs mystical and mental energies.  Gives the WM a +10 RR vs Arcane, Essence, and Mentalism per rank, and a +5 RR vs Channeling per rank.  In addition it slows the effect of poison by 15% per rank.                     
                                          
Frost Point:  The WM imbues any piercing weapon wielded or thrown by hand (Spear, Harpoon, Rapier, Lance, et.) with a magical piercing and wounding frost.  These attacks cause extra bleeding damage per round depending on rank.  In addition the WM gains a +2 on critical strikes per rank, also any critical strike the opponent must save vs essence or be "chilled", slowing movement by 10% per rank of the Frost Point.  Finally maneuver penalties incurred by wounds done with the frost point are double in their effectiveness.                     
            
Wall of Ice: Creates a magical wall of solid ice that has 25 structure points.  (250 hits)  (fire is x3 dmg)
                     
Ice Encasement:  The WM is encased in a shimmering shield of ice, the ice reduces all incoming concussion hits by 75% and increases armor to AT:20.  However, the WM is slowed to 25% movement and may only full parry or cast instant spells.  This spell will automatically drop Frost Armor as they do not work in concert with each other.  However Icy Aura will continue to be effective.   

[Nders]

Looks interesting and how refreshing to see a post saying that warrior mages are not imba pawnlords. I do not understand why you find the wrrior mage to be sp useless though and find that your sample list is very powerfull.

[mocking bird]

Have you looked at the elemental champion in Fire and Ice?

[Zedul]

Of course in my posts when I am speaking of balance issues it is always in terms of our own campaign.  Any class is going to be different depending on the campaign you run and how you apply the rules.

In our case everyone at the table generally has 20+ years gaming experience and we have a pretty intense setting that is "Elric like" where the players are routinely facing powerful demons and demi-gods and so these spell lists are very suitable to our campaign but may be overpowering to very overpowering in other campaigns so I would assume that a GM would adjust accordingly.

One thing I like to do is use exotic spell lists as "treasure" so I am always looking online for a good alternate Rolemaster Spell List and I have not seen many posted so I just thought I would share with the GM's who would find it useful or are looking for ideas.

[Zedul]

Have you looked at the elemental champion in Fire and Ice?

No, what is "Fire and Ice"?

We capped Character classes some time ago but what we do is take new classes and just use their base lists or some ideas to make variants.  As an example in our campaign "Houri" lists and et. are available as alternate spell lists to Bards, the Warlock lists are available to Sorcerers and so on.  Keeps the bookkeeping under control will still allowing for more customizable characters.

[markc]

  Fire and Ice is a RMSS/FRP supplement that is like the Elemental Comp for RM2. It has a different take on the material and is not a reprint or adaption. It is an interesting read and has some good spell lists, IMHO.


MDC

[Zedul]

  Fire and Ice is a RMSS/FRP supplement that is like the Elemental Comp for RM2. It has a different take on the material and is not a reprint or adaption. It is an interesting read and has some good spell lists, IMHO.
MDC

Ah!  No wonder.  Our group just pretends those books don't exist... it's a sore point amongst all our veteran gamers as we lost half our crew when it came out and ICE stopped publishing the original books.  My RMSS books are gathering dust somewhere in my closet.   If I ever brought one out my players would hang me, staple the books to my hide and light me on fire! 



 

[mocking bird]

  If I ever brought one out my players would hang me, staple the books to my hide and light me on fire! 

May I suggest then buying the pdf so you may peruse the contents fore discreetly?  While the book is a little confusing and has numerous typos (there is a fairly complete errata) the rules on elemental corruption are quite interesting.  For example if you get corrupted by fire you actually need it to survive and are essentially become an elementa.  Or use the corruption rules for items to add some interesting twists.

Ironically we are the opposite - we used the RMSS core rules with virtually all the RM2 suppliments and used them as is.

[Spidey88]

FYI - if you do a search on the Guild Companion for "Warrior Mage Revisited", you'll get an excellent article from about 1999 that "fixes" the class quite well. In a nutshell, all that I recall being done was lowering a few of the skill costs (to be more in line with the Armsmaster, the closest equivalent), and shifting around the profession bonuses a bit. Minor changes to the class, major change in playability.    Definitely an "official" change in my books - it's quite elegant, without being overpowered.

[Zedul]

FYI - if you do a search on the Guild Companion for "Warrior Mage Revisited", you'll get an excellent article from about 1999 that "fixes" the class quite well. In a nutshell, all that I recall being done was lowering a few of the skill costs (to be more in line with the Armsmaster, the closest equivalent), and shifting around the profession bonuses a bit. Minor changes to the class, major change in playability.    Definitely an "official" change in my books - it's quite elegant, without being overpowered.

Yes I did read that some time ago and adjusted accordingly and that would probably work well for most but again for our campaign it doesn't quite fix it.  Besides I still find the Warrior Mage spells to be somewhat unoriginal and completely inferior to the Paladin spells.  I like to use Paladin as the benchmark of what a semi-spell user should be.

I keep using the term "our campaign" because the beauty of playing pen and paper RPG's is that there is no uniform or universal "balance" unlike muds and mmo's.  With the old fashioned RPG's you can go into any "Rolemaster" session across the world and experience not just a different style but a radically different game altogether and that's a good thing.

As an example... we do initiative like this:  Quickness Mod/10 + 1d6 and it completely works for us but it's not in the books because it's a variant of an option.

[Marc R]

How do you determine PP in your game?

How do you do SLA?

How do you deal with Casting in Armor?

How do you rule casting and melee in the same round?

How are you handling "Arms Way" and "Inspirations"?

I tend to find that with a few variations/house rules will jack the paladin up quite a bit, it's possible that the Paladin may just be very high end if your house rules favor them.

[kevinmccollum]

So you took a 4th level spell and made it into a 2nd level spell? Bravo. Monty haul lives.

[Zedul]

How do you determine PP in your game?

How do you do SLA?

How do you deal with Casting in Armor?

How do you rule casting and melee in the same round?

How are you handling "Arms Way" and "Inspirations"?

I tend to find that with a few variations/house rules will jack the paladin up quite a bit, it's possible that the Paladin may just be very high end if your house rules favor them.

I agree with you.

1.  Power points in our campaign are determined per companion I, level x pp (according to stat), x multipliers.  But they are "capped" per race just like base hit points.  Generally humans in our campaign are capped at 300 base pp and Elflike beings are capped at 500.

2.  SLA is a static action that takes place at the beginning/end of the round.  It uses 25% of the players total action for said round.  Generally a roll of 111 indicates the player can use 25% of OB, while a 311+ SLA roll indicates the player is operating at full offensive bonus.  Players used to ignore it but after the wrong ones got whacked by nightblade bad guy using utterdark it has become an "essential" skill for our fighters.

3.  Casting in Armor carries the appropriate penalties for any non instantaneous spell, channeling is affected the least by armor but most Paladins either have to skill up in transcend armor or aquire a magical set of armor that nullifies casting penalties (usually available after level 20ish).

4.  * spells require virtually no action so can be used in the same round as melee.  Class I - V spells require at least 50% action to cast and therefore cannot be cast if the character wants to engage in melee unless they are hasted, in which case they get to cast and use one melee attack/parry.

5.  Arms Way and Inspirations do not stack on the paladin in our campaign if that is what you mean.  It would be far too overpowering.

[Zedul]

So you took a 4th level spell and made it into a 2nd level spell? Bravo. Monty haul lives.

Just as a general rule I will never trade jabs with anyone on this forum, exchange insults, or participate in any borish behavior in any way.  This is about sharing for me, clarifying how I run my campaign and maybe incorporating alternative ideas.

If you want to rephrase your question in a more polite manner I will answer it, otherwise we really have nothing to discuss.

Have a pleasant day.

[Marc R]

heh, you're the only person outside my group that would assume SLA meant Spatial Location Awareness.

*I meant Spell List Acquisition.

I find that usually the costs of SLA* and PPD tend to hammer the Semi casters. . .you play without PPD, how do you handle SLA.

For those two lists, do they cast and use in the same round, or cast then use the next round. . .it's a common variation that makes those lists quite nasty.

[Zedul]

heh, you're the only person outside my group that would assume SLA meant Spatial Location Awareness.

*I meant Spell List Acquisition.

I find that usually the costs of SLA* and PPD tend to hammer the Semi casters. . .you play without PPD, how do you handle SLA.

For those two lists, do they cast and use in the same round, or cast then use the next round. . .it's a common variation that makes those lists quite nasty.

Any instant spell (*) can be cast and used in the same round.  However at no point can two spells be cast in the same round so if the Paladin wants to use Inspirations on the party he/she can cast it but then cannot cast his arms bonus spell until the next round (though he/she may still attack)  "unless" they have spell haste on them via an archmage or some artifact.

As far as spell list acquisition, because my players typically have high mods the old system was rather pointless so I dispensed with rolling spells altogether and just use a set cost to acquire a portion of the list.

This is our system:

Spell List purchase, restrictions and categories.
Type A spell pick:  1-5
Type B spell pick: 1-10
Type C spell pick: 6-10
Type AA spell pick: 11-15
Type CC spell pick: 16-20
Type D spell pick: 11-20
Type E spell pick: 23/25/27/30/35/40/45/50
Type F spell pick: 60/75/90/120
Type G spell pick: 150/180/240/360


List Restrictions Per Caster Type (As per Spell Law Semi Users are not allowed access to Closed Lists)
         
         Base Lists   Open Lists   Closed Lists     OC Base (same realm)
Archmage      B, D, E, F, G      B, D, E           B, AA, CC                 A, C
Pure Realm   B, D, E, F, G      B, D, E           B, D                    A, C   
Hybrid      B, D, E, F, G      B, D      A, C                    A, C
Semi         B, D, E, F        A, C, AA               -                   -


Spell Pick Costs.

                 A   B   C   AA   CC   D   E   F   G
Archmage       8*   6*   8*   16*   16*   6*   12*   24*   48*
Pure Realm      6*   5*   6*   ---   ---   5*   10*   20*   40*
Hybrid         10*   8*   10*   ---   ---   8*   16*   32*   64*
Semi                 12*   10*   12*   20*   ---   10*   20*   40*   ---

Semi Spell Users Choose 6 Base Lasts, either from their Class, or their Open Realm
Hybrid Spell Users Choose 8 Base Lists, either from their Class, or their Open and Closed Realms
Pure Spell Users Choose 10 Base Lists, either from their Class, or their Open and Closed Realm
Archmages chose 12 Base Lists, either from the Arcane Lists, or Open or Closed of Mentalism and Essence

[Marc R]

So does a semi pay 12 to just get the A pick part? Or is that 12 per level of the A pick? (so 12x5=60 for levels 1-5 of one list).

[Zedul]

No just the 12 for all 5 spells from that portion of the list.

As far as how cost work out through the levels - our level 44 ranger currently has 6 base lists to level, 2 open channeling lists to 20, and 1 to 10 (all he could afford and maintain high skills in other areas).

[Marc R]

That's fairly generous, certainly make semis in general more attractive.