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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Zinovia" data-source="post: 4400383" data-attributes="member: 57373">Wearing armor in Rolemaster can be a good idea, but you don't have to go that route if you don't want to.  Armor effectively acts as damage reduction, causing hits against you to be less severe than if you were unarmored. If you look at the tables, it's often easier to hit people wearing armor, but you only do small amounts of damage (and no crit) unless you get a very high hit roll.  Unarmored people are harder to hit, but when you do hit them, you'll hit hard (and roll on the crit tables).  Unarmored charaacters often have a high defensive bonus to help them dodge, and everyone in Rolemaster parries attacks with part of their offensive bonus.  Criticals are where the big damage comes into play, and can literally kill you in one unlucky hit.  Or else they have effects like burning your arm, or making you bleed, or breaking bones.  It all depends on what kind of weapon or spell is hitting you.  I like the division of magic in Rolemaster, but the way you learn spell lists is weird.  It works, but I never much liked that aspect of the game.  One thing to keep in mind with mentalism is that you can't wear a helm.  There are some crit results that say you die if you aren't wearing a helm because it was a bad strike to the head.  Those aren't all that common however.  Rolemaster is very simulationist.  It has a lot of rules for most everything, but definitely is better for combat realism than D&D.  Facing, parry, different weapon and armor characteristics, and different types of damage are all accounted for.  The one thing it lacks (or did when I played it) is a called shot mechanic.  I played Rolemaster for over 10 years before giving up gaming for quite some time when our group moved away.  We resumed with D&D because we wanted an easier system for a new player to pick up, but RM definitely has a lot to offer for those willing to try it.  Lots of math - our players routinely used calculators.  =)  Enjoy your game.</blockquote>

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