I suspect we’ll agree to disagree and that’s not meant to be an attack. But there are plenty of ways to further streamline play that doesn’t make the game “not Rolemaster”. As I’ve noted in other posts, I appreciate some of the simplification and think it serves the game well. There are other things that were kept in place that could be changed for a better and more relatable version of RM that some games like Harp, Lightmaster and VsDarkmaster for instance simply got better (I use those because they’re all based on the same RM/MERP engine).
Some things could have been deconstructed in a way that would make for better class/profession, skill and magic list structures. For example, there was not, as far as I read back, discussions on preventing future Profession creep. Since RM is ultimately a skill based game professions could have been minimized since players can essentially buy whatever skills and spells (based on access) they want. So maybe a path to really explore could have been to make a few base templates pure mage, hybrid mage , fighter, thief, semi fighter/mage (would encompass assassin/nightblade, Paladin, warrior mage, ranger), etc. then provide the packages that differentiate the types/professions/whatevers within those templates based on the skills and sometimes basic spells lists they begin with (or have access to) rather than manipulating the costs of the skill ranks, similar to what was done in the channeling companion. This would have been a far simpler and more elegant solution overall. And it would have made it far simpler for ICE to release new variants off of the professions. All the writer would have to do is come up with appropriate beginning skills and number of ranks for the chosen new profession rather than having to try to come up with some slight changes to the costs of skill categories to justify Necromancer, Sorcerer, Mystic, Magician, etc having a set of slightly different skills costs.
Keeping things like random stats and talents just seems very 40 years ago and character building should have just gone pure point based across the board. (I’ll still never understand the whole temp vs potential stat progression particularly since the DPs no longer are based on the stats, players could just start at their potential and if they want to buy up stats after charges make it absurdly expensive so as to make it something people rarely do).
I won’t even get into the simplification of the magic system again because there is clearly two separate camps on that as discussed in the other thread.
Simpler is always better.