3.5 vs Rolemaster

[Nightchilde-2]

I'm surprised nobody has brought up how much fun it is just reading the crit charts for Rolemaster.

Quoted for truth. Rolemaster had some of the BEST critical results, which would make me giggle. A lot.

As for more realistic...eh...I had a character once roll so well on a swim check thanks to the open-ended dice rules that he rolled well enough to swim up a waterfall...in full plate.

Rolled something like a 432....

 

[Arashi Ravenblade]

Honestly i wouldnt have even gotten this far.
I cant stand it when player whine about the current system your playing and try and switch you to a new one for the current game (like what one of my players did, he tried to get me to switch to OD&D for my last game).
I would tell this player of yours that if he has the books and if the players are willing you will play a few games and then as a group decide whether or not your going to switch to Rolemaster.

As for my experiences with the game i have a few books and have read a little. All i can say is that it's not really worth the effort. Its no more or less complicated than any other game ive played. but then again i tend to find games rather easy to learn (if only i could apply that to schooling).

 

[Rackhir]

As for more realistic...eh...I had a character once roll so well on a swim check thanks to the open-ended dice rules that he rolled well enough to swim up a waterfall...in full plate.

Rolled something like a 432....

For those of you unfamiliar with it, in RM if you roll (IIRC) 95-100 on d100 you keep rolling and adding that to the total as long as you keep getting 95-100. Rolling a 432 in other words I think represents the character temporarily becoming an incarnation of Aquaman or Posidon granting him a divine favor. So I don't have a problem with that.

RE: Healing/Healers and XP - You did get XP for sustatining crits and damage. Since there was a healer class that basically transfered the damage other characters sustained to themselves and then healed themselves, they would get XP for all the damage they "healed".

 

[Huw]

Rolemaster can be powergamer heaven if the gamesmaster isn't careful. Spell overloading, arcane magic, and some of the adrenal skills need watching. Creatures and Treasures also features some of the most potent magic items outside Stormbringer. Witness quickslayer, a +70 sword which does triple damage on any hit. In D&D terms that's a +14 longsword which does 3d8 base damage.

On the other hand, with good enough GM, it's a lot of fun. But that goes for most RPGs.

 

[Squire James]

The biggest problem I had running a Rolemaster game was that the players kept neglecting their defenses to enhance their chances of scoring "the big crit". This tended to result in high casualties on both sides, since they were no more cautious than the normal D&D player. I guess that can be fun in the short term, but as a DM I like to run campaigns, not little pieces of campaigns that turn out to be one-shots because 3-5 characters go down every adventure!

Imagine how Lord of the Rings would go if the Cave Troll took out Frodo and Gimli... to be replaced by two new elves in Lothlorien... Aragorn goes down with Boromir... a couple of guys from Rohan join the Fellowship... Gandalf gets killed (again) by the Witch King... Radagast happened to be nearby and joins in... the Nine that finish the movie not including any of the original characters... I think you get the drift!

 

[Bubbalicious]

I, regretably, haved gotten to play RM in about 17 years since I loaned all my books (and about 40 modules) to someone and never got them back.

Like anything, it is what you make of it. You can meta-game any system if so inclined. At the root of it, though, RM IS more realistic in that it provides much greater detail (hence all the charts). It gets alot more fun as a GM gets more familiar with it and doesn't have to slow up play by constantly fing the right chart. Once the system is learned, the chart-happiness doesn't necessarily have to get in the way.

Like with any system, a GM keeping challenges AND REWARDS at appropriate levels is of extreme importance (actually probably more so with RM)!!!! A 5th level character having weapons/armor/magic items they shouldn't even HEAR of until 15th level can really throw things out of balance (even more than in other systems). That being said, a big part of the beauty is the open-ended roll that makes it possible (though highly unlikely) for a 1st level magic user to slay an ancient dragon with one dagger thrust. Hey, if a character is receiving divine intervention why should he be limited to a maximum of, say, 16 points of damage delivered.

As for the hilarity of the crit tables, I'll just say that one of the greatest combat moments I had in RM involved my party stumbling into the lair of a dragon that was still considerably out of our league. We were about to have to flee or die when my Dwarven Rogue (Rogues in RM are sort of half thief half fighter) fumbled an attack to such a horrific extent that even though his severe groin pull left him useless for the rest of the fight the dragon was unable to act for 4 rounds because it was laughing so hysterically. This gave my party the opportunity to finish it off.

 

[Numion]

I, regretably, haved gotten to play RM in about 17 years since I loaned all my books (and about 40 modules) to someone and never got them back.

Like anything, it is what you make of it. You can meta-game any system if so inclined. At the root of it, though, RM IS more realistic in that it provides much greater detail (hence all the charts). It gets alot more fun as a GM gets more familiar with it and doesn't have to slow up play by constantly fing the right chart. Once the system is learned, the chart-happiness doesn't necessarily have to get in the way.

Why do you equate detail with realism? If the details ain't right, it ain't realistic! Charts weren't even well thought out. For example a small critter might have a trend where higher attack roll would result first in tiny-A crit, then tiny-B .. up till tiny-E, after that switching to puncture-A, then B .. etc. Since tiny-E is much more dangerous than puncture-A, the generally less dangerous and smaller common animals were more dangerous!

That being said, a big part of the beauty is the open-ended roll that makes it possible (though highly unlikely) for a 1st level magic user to slay an ancient dragon with one dagger thrust. Hey, if a character is receiving divine intervention why should he be limited to a maximum of, say, 16 points of damage delivered.

While swimming up a stream in full plate or falling into a coma from picking a lock (from the mental strain) might be divine (um, yeah), they aren't realistic. It's a common misconception in the RPG scene that more rules (more detail) = realism and more gore = realism. IMO that isn't necessarily true.

As for the hilarity of the crit tables, I'll just say that one of the greatest combat moments I had in RM involved my party stumbling into the lair of a dragon that was still considerably out of our league. We were about to have to flee or die when my Dwarven Rogue (Rogues in RM are sort of half thief half fighter) fumbled an attack to such a horrific extent that even though his severe groin pull left him useless for the rest of the fight the dragon was unable to act for 4 rounds because it was laughing so hysterically. This gave my party the opportunity to finish it off.

In Runequest someone calculated that if 10,000 men go to battle 400 will kill themselves accidentally. I wonder how RM might fare in this regard :\

 

[monboesen]

I remember the fumble result that had me rolling around laughing.

It was on the lance fumble table, and had the plate mail wearing knight doing a lance charge ending up polevaulting himself 30+ ft. into the air and then hitting the ground. Hard.

The enemies even took a moment to clap at the fine athletic display before killing the stunned and decidedly surprised knight.

 

[LostSoul]

We are playing D&D (D20) version 3.5 at the moment and I am happy with it.

One guy wants something that he's not getting out of D&D, but you are enjoying it. That can be rough. It can be a pain when people don't groove on the same thing.

Give Rolemaster a shot. Play a handful of sessions. If you don't like it, see if there's any kind of compromise that you and your buddy can come to.

All of the "this is what the game is about" is nothing compared to actually playing the game and experiencing it first-hand.

 

[Numion]

I remember the fumble result that had me rolling around laughing.

It was on the lance fumble table, and had the plate mail wearing knight doing a lance charge ending up polevaulting himself 30+ ft. into the air and then hitting the ground. Hard.

That's realistic. My favorite was ending up in a coma from a critical failure in a mental task

The good old days.