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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5509436" data-attributes="member: 42582">Yes.It's hard to talk in general terms, because (i) there are multiple versions of Rolemaster out there, and (ii) it's a game that, as much if not more than 1st ed AD&D, virtually no one plays without houseruling in some fashion.Roughly speaking, though, a PC might have something like 60 development points per level, and skill will have costs between about 1/3 and 3/7 (where the number before the slash is the cost for the first rank, and the number after the slash for the second rank, developed in a given level). Skill costs can in fact go up to 20/-, but it is very rare for a player to develop skills that are so expensive. Most skills that are developed tend to have a 1 or 2 cost, and it is rare though not unheard of to double-develop a skill with a cost greater than 1/5.Starting PCs get two levels worth of development, plus other bonus ranks from here and there.Skills give a bonus of +5 per rank for the first ten ranks, +2 or 3 (depending on rules variant) per rank for the next ten ranks, +1 per rank for the next ten ranks, and +.5 per rank for ranks over 30. There are also stat bonuses to skills that typically range between +5 and +25, and miscellaneous bonuses from class, items, spells etc that can range from +5 to +30 or more.Starting skill bonuses in skills that a player takes seriously can be anywhere between +20 and +50. At high level (10+), skill bonuses for good skills will reach or pass +100. A warrior or wizard will tend to spend more than half their DPs on developing fighting or magical skills as appropriate, but the available DPs and the "siloing" (in virtue of double-development costs and diminishing returns) mean that there is always going to be some diversification in skill development, generally increasing as levels are gained.Absolutely agreed. (And in RM, as various rulesets have grown the number of skills, they have also grown the DPs available to PCs.)Well, RM doesn't have the linear increase in bonuses that D&D does, because of the diminishing returns per rank. But as a general rule, the difference between a 1st and 5th level RM PC, or a 10th and 20th level one, is not so much the difficulty of a given challenge that can be overcome, but rather their resilience over multiple challenges, and in dealing with failure/injury.As to the +1/2 level bonus in 4e - in my view this is best seen as a technique to drive the story of the game forward. That is, assuming that a GM uses at least a good chunk of monsters more or less as published, then at the start of the game the PCs will be facing challenges involving kobolds, goblins and 10' pits on the mortal world, in the middle they will be facing drow, mindflayers and underdark chasms 20' wide and 100' deep, and at high levels they will be facing demons and efreet in the infinite vortex of the elemental chaos.There is no need, in my view, to also read the +1/2 per level in some literal sense as representing proportionate improvement in skill or difficulty of task.PC backgrounds, and also PC goals as revealed in actual play, also play a very big role in my game. And I agree that they provide a good way of driving skill challenges forward - I don't tend to use a lot of +2 bonuses, but narrate the situation and the result of any given check in light of the particular PC whose player is making the check.</blockquote>

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