Topic: What is the Essence of Rolemaster?

[Hurin]

Having heard the great news about the new, unifying edition of Rolemaster got me thinking: what is the essence of Rolemaster? Dungeons and Dragons is doing the same thing right now, as it tries to develop a new edition that unifies all the other editions. The answers to the question will of course help guide the developers in deciding what to keep, what to leave behind and what to modify in the new edition. So I'd like to offer this thread as a brainstorming session. What does Rolemaster mean to you?

To me, Rolemaster is critical tables. It is percentile dice. It is deciding for yourself, on each level up, which skills you want to emphasize.

A few other suggestions I'd personally have for the new edition:

--Cut down on spell preparation times. DnD 4e was onto something when they tried to give everyone a chance to do something fun each round. Turns that consist solely of 'I keep preparing' are not fun, and should be relatively rare. Some spells may need to be rebalanced, of course, if you do this, but I think it will make for a more fun game.

--Use the smoothed stat distribution from RCI and Privateers. The great thing about percentile dice is that they allow for fine gradations: a race can have a +3 or a +7 bonus to strength, rather than just +5 or +10. It means there is a difference between a 90 and a 94 strength score; it allows for characters to be more individualized.

--I have found DnD 4e's 'minor action, move action, standard action' turn system to be very helpful. I used it in a Rolemaster campaign and it worked perfectly. It helps to simplify what I personally believe to be an overly complex action turn sequence in the original Rolemaster, and speeds up the game.

Those are just some of my thoughts. What does Rolemaster mean to you?

[markc]

 I do not know but I think the system is done and in the final stages of layout and printing. But I could be wrong.
MDC

[intothatdarkness]

In a word....flexible. You can do pretty much anything you want with RM since the rules are so modular. I never saw a problem with spell prep times, at least in RM2. There were enough instantaneous spells that casters could always do something. Unlike some, I never had a problem with the RM2 action sequence. I really never cared for RMSS, so didn't use it that much. It seemed to me to add too much without context and simply bogged things down.

[Hurin]

The only problem I had with the RM2 action sequence was that spells always went first. I liked the idea of a quick thief or warrior monk being able to knock the Magician's staff before he had a chance to get a spell off.

[markc]

The only problem I had with the RM2 action sequence was that spells always went first. I liked the idea of a quick thief or warrior monk being able to knock the Magician's staff before he had a chance to get a spell off.

 I am with you here that IMHO it is important in my game that "actors" be able to do this.
MDC

[intothatdarkness]

And that's why we came up with opportunity movement. Using that or opportunity missile (or melee) gave non-casters a chance to mess up the casting process. And that could then include fighters or others with a high quickness or agility bonus (I always used the bonus instead of the stat for determining who moved first).

And that gets back to the flexibility of RM...

[Hurin]

And that's why we came up with opportunity movement. Using that or opportunity missile (or melee) gave non-casters a chance to mess up the casting process. And that could then include fighters or others with a high quickness or agility bonus (I always used the bonus instead of the stat for determining who moved first).

And that gets back to the flexibility of RM...

But would opportunity movement work on the first round of combat, when it really counts? Say the PCs open a door and find a Lich inside. First comes spell phase. Can anyone do anything before the Lich gets his spell off? The way we always played (and correct me if I am wrong) made that impossible. You can hold an action, of course, but you can't hold it before the combat has begun... and that's when it really mattered.

[intothatdarkness]

And that's why we came up with opportunity movement. Using that or opportunity missile (or melee) gave non-casters a chance to mess up the casting process. And that could then include fighters or others with a high quickness or agility bonus (I always used the bonus instead of the stat for determining who moved first).

And that gets back to the flexibility of RM...

But would opportunity movement work on the first round of combat, when it really counts? Say the PCs open a door and find a Lich inside. First comes spell phase. Can anyone do anything before the Lich gets his spell off? The way we always played (and correct me if I am wrong) made that impossible. You can hold an action, of course, but you can't hold it before the combat has begun... and that's when it really mattered.

It certainly *could*, depending on the situation. If the party's totally surprised, then I'd have difficulty allowing it. But if they're on guard, alert, and so on, then I'd say that a character with a RM2 QU bonus of +20 or more could use an equivalent of an opportunity attack to try to interfere with the spell. Another way I've handled this (if the party's moving slowly) is to allow characters to declare opportunity actions during normal game time. For example, if the party's moving slow enough a character with a crossbow could call opportunity missile, one with thrown weapons opportunity throw, ready swords opportunity melee, and so on. The catch, of course, is that their movement has to be slow enough to allow for the modification for opportunity actions (50% or so, depending on weapon and other considerations). There may be an associated OB penalty depending on the weapon being used. Typically my parties used the 50% mod and had at least one character toward the back with a "cocked and locked" crossbow (or ready dagger/javelin/throwing axe) and declared opportunity missile. It kept them at 50% movement, but also allowed quick attacks on pesky spellcasters.

[NicholasHMCaldwell]

I do not know but I think the system is done and in the final stages of layout and printing. But I could be wrong.
MDC

The various books are currently at advanced draft stage.

Best wishes,
Nicholas

[Hurin]

It certainly *could*, depending on the situation. If the party's totally surprised, then I'd have difficulty allowing it. But if they're on guard, alert, and so on, then I'd say that a character with a RM2 QU bonus of +20 or more could use an equivalent of an opportunity attack to try to interfere with the spell. Another way I've handled this (if the party's moving slowly) is to allow characters to declare opportunity actions during normal game time. For example, if the party's moving slow enough a character with a crossbow could call opportunity missile, one with thrown weapons opportunity throw, ready swords opportunity melee, and so on. The catch, of course, is that their movement has to be slow enough to allow for the modification for opportunity actions (50% or so, depending on weapon and other considerations). There may be an associated OB penalty depending on the weapon being used. Typically my parties used the 50% mod and had at least one character toward the back with a "cocked and locked" crossbow (or ready dagger/javelin/throwing axe) and declared opportunity missile. It kept them at 50% movement, but also allowed quick attacks on pesky spellcasters.

Those are some good suggestions, but it is all houserules, and somewhat complex. Personally, I prefer to keep initiative/actions simpler, and just have people act on their turn.

[Hurin]

I do not know but I think the system is done and in the final stages of layout and printing. But I could be wrong.
MDC

The various books are currently at advanced draft stage.

Best wishes,
Nicholas

That is great news!

[intothatdarkness]

Those are some good suggestions, but it is all houserules, and somewhat complex. Personally, I prefer to keep initiative/actions simpler, and just have people act on their turn.

We never had a problem with it being complex, actually, and it came across as being fair to all concerned. That was our biggest point. I'd be concerned with a system that lets fast warrior monks or thieves basically bypass the whole initiative system with no cost to them. But to each his own, again highlighting that flexibility is perhaps THE main point of RM.

[yammahoper]

The essence of RM:

1) critical based combat

2) all skills are learnable and cost is based on profession.

RM negatives;

1) table heavy

2) broken armor rules

3) poorly edited and explained

[jdale]

What Yammahoper said... both good and bad. Flexibility is also true, although his second point addresses that.

The structure of the spell lists is also a very distinctive feature of Rolemaster.

I think there is room to trim down some tables and some rolls that depend on them, and fix armor (including the combat tables), while keeping the essence of the system.

[markc]

I do not know but I think the system is done and in the final stages of layout and printing. But I could be wrong.
MDC

The various books are currently at advanced draft stage.

Best wishes,
Nicholas

 Great news.
MDC

[bpowell]

The essence of RM:

1) critical based combat

2) all skills are learnable and cost is based on profession.

RM negatives;

1) table heavy

2) broken armor rules

3) poorly edited and explained

The major drawback is almost hat makes it so good.  We all love the criticals and the tables that spawn them, but needed 3-4 charts to run a combat can be tedious.

[thirqual]

Well, it's 2012. Most of us have can bring a netbook/tablet/smartphone to the table, which can do table look up in a matter of seconds (including typing the values). I did so for criticals tables and attacks, it was neat (and I did that to teach myself python, qt and sqlite at the same time, so it is rather simple to program. I'd guess you would want java if you want to put it on a 'droid).

[Hurin]

The essence of RM:


2) broken armor rules

I'm curious... what about the armor rules did you find to be broken?

[VladD]

Let me pick up this gauntlet!

They are outdated.
For starters: the penalties received from wearing armor debilitate most players. Only a select few armor types, such as AT 15 and 16 and AT 19 and 20 would be worth your while to wear it, because AT 1 was so darn good that a 35 quickness bonus would yield better protection than all the other ATs. All the penalties for most armors should at least be halved to be on par.

Couple this to the copious amount of defense spells and a character could be neigh unstoppable. Most of my unarmored players' characters reach 75-100 DB easy at level 6. Add some spells that make people misjudge where you are and the occasional +50/+100 DB instant spell and RM is a lot less deadly.

One reason for wearing armor is if you decide to forgo any quickness, and don't mind moving slow, or make maneuver rolls for running and sprinting.
Another reason is that while wearing AT 1, IF your foe managed an OE roll, then you are *bleeped* pretty good.

Another reason for calling the old armor system bad is because it didn't have padded, scale, lamellar and combination armor incorporated.
Wearing a brigandine and maille hauberk was common for professional combatants between 1100 and 1350, but it wasn't in the charts. I resorted to giving it AT 19... which is probably overrated, but the armor was better than AT 18, without question.
This is but one example, but there are plenty more: Oriental lamellar armors, korazin, maille and scale/ lamellae or plate, rod and slat armors, and gambeson/ arming doublet...

So lets hope Unified RM will tackle some or all of these problems!

[bennis1980]

Well, it's 2012. Most of us have can bring a netbook/tablet/smartphone to the table, which can do table look up in a matter of seconds (including typing the values). I did so for criticals tables and attacks, it was neat (and I did that to teach myself python, qt and sqlite at the same time, so it is rather simple to program. I'd guess you would want java if you want to put it on a 'droid).

Or you could use Fantasy Grounds which basically looks up the tables for you (without taking away the control)