| From: | shadowrn@*********.com (Achille Autran) |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Rolemaster and random damages (was: why callibres work) |
| Date: | Tue Apr 23 16:20:00 2002 |
>
>Not sure if Rolemaster is such an ideal system for realism, though. From >what
>I've seen (I really need to buy the rules for it someday), the criticals >are
>very cinematic and not all that realistic -- a good example would be what>
>someone in my group described from when his previous group played RM: som>eone
>dying from a single bite by a ferret in heat :)
All things considered, Rolemaster is not very realistic. Its basic
principle as far as damages go is rather sound, however, with a distinction
between concussion damage (hit points) and critical hits, which are the
serious wounds. Criticals are essentially random, you have tables with
severities A to E, the better the blow, the higher the critical and HP
damages are. If you suffer an A critic you'll be disabed if you roll a 100,
on an E you'll most probably be crippled on 50+, quickly bleeding to death
on 70+, and flat dead on 91+. There are a wealth of critics tables
depending on the weapon/spell/thingy, with Slash, Contusion, Perforing,
Fire, Cold, Plasma, Time, Stress, Shrapnell, Chaos, ad nauseam.
The tables themselves are prettty cinematic ("opponent reduced to bloody
pulp. Fetch a mop.") and most often extremely laconic ("weapon arm
disabled, -40 for 3 rounds, bleeding -8HP/rnd") but I like the principle of
the serious and lasting parts of an injury being quite unrelated to the way
the blow is given and damage resistance abilities of the target. It gives
combat much more tension, as any hit can be deadly. The implementation of
the system is quite another bag of flies.
Anyway, I think Rolemaster is quite cool for heroic fantasy, but it needs
some experience for smooth play and the GM can easily get lost in the
bloated parts of the mechanics - much like SR, to an extent (on topic, on
topic !) And I never laughed more than when my character half killed
himself while climbing over a 2m-high fence (those -300 rolls can be
deadly.... :-))
Molloy
