The Rolemaster Blog

I’ve written often about the “gap” between the Rolemaster RAW and the Shadow World setting, but I’ve never touched upon some gaps in the Rolemaster rules themselves. I’ve been avoiding writing about rules in general, but this topic has come up recently and I thought I would dive into it a bit deeper.

So first, what am I referring to when I say “gaps in the rules”. Generally I’m referring to material that isn’t supported fully across the “Laws” or doesn’t have fully fleshed out rules to handle things. I think RMU made huge strides in addressing some of these gaps, clarifying fuzzy rules and tightening up language in the rule books. However it still feels like some items were missed or weren’t dealt with fully.

I think the most notable items are those around combat and damage. In my opinion EVERY combat damage type, effect or result should have a simple, working counter to offset it.

1. Stun. There has been some discussion on stun relief and mechanisms to counter a stun effect on Discord. To be fair, all editions of RM had Stun Relief spells and herbs that also provided relief and later editions of RM added “Stunned Maneuver” as a work around for Stuns as well. So this is less an issue with a “gap” and more of poorly designed solutions for the Stun effect. Why? Even a single round of stun can be a devastating disadvantage and while an instantaneous Stun relief spell seems to address the need for a quick response, it begs how the caster would even know that the target has been stunned and that a spell is required? Using a stun relief herb (while stunned) also raises some process issues. One person suggested that the players keep instant herbs in their mouth during combat that could then be swallowed if needed. Hmmm…that’s a novel solutions but I’m not sure as a GM I would allow that. So we have some counters to Stun, but they require a bit of jockeying to make them work cohesively.
2. Stagger (and Kock back or knock around) are new critical effects. Unlike Stun, there isn’t any real solutions barring 1 or 2 spells in RMU spell law. This is likely the result of combat rules being developed by different authors than the person working on the new Spell Law but it creates a common new critical effect without any real solution.
3. “Life Levels” and/or Stat drain. In my discussions with Matt & Mark, I asked them about mechanisms around stat drain but the conversation digressed into a discussion around level drain in D&D. That aside, Rolemaster had a stat drain mechanism in C&T (usually by Undead) but no spell to correct it. Shadow World has tackled the issue around Unlife corruption and one of the companions introduced the idea of “Life Levels”. All of these effects are trying to model the intangible draining of our “essence”, “spirit”, “will” or “lifeforces”. This is an important mechanism(s) but it needs some fine tuning. Additionally, there needs to be spells, herbs or rituals that can correct, cure or repair this damage.
4. Bleeding. While there are whole lists that tackle bleeding damage, to me it’s still a bit messy. Based on questions posted online, there is also some confusion around the bleeding relief spells. Some clot a bleeding wound that prohibits the target moving, some heal the bleeding instantly. It’s not clear if the spell cures a total # of hits/round or if it’s limited to a single bleeding wound etc. Luckily there are numerous herbs (and bloodstones in SW) that can reduce, clot or stop bleeding. I understand the need to scale spells in the spell lists, but I think the bleeding relief spells have always been “too little, too late”.
5. Pain. There are criticals that impose a general penalty due to pain or as a proxy for physical damage. That too was never wholly addressed in the Spell Law. Pain blocking spells and/or pain relief spells should be more common throughout spell law.

Clearly, even the original RM 1st edition had very detailed healing spells for burns, nerves, organs, muscles, tendons etc. It’s VERY specific, and quite frankly, needed given the nature and specificity of the critical tables. But those spell lists don’t address every critical effect or the solutions aren’t that elegant or executable.

These are gaps, and given the importance of critical effects, should have solutions and counters better integrated into the rules. I’ve developed my own solutions–I’m curious if anyone else has come up with their own solutions?

Zharyth over on the RM Discord server asked a good question:

Can someone help me understand the Priest Yarthraak? They pretend to be good priests but of what faith? Do the messengers pretend to be good?

There are a number of evil Priests (of the Unlife) in the Shadow World books that present themselves as benevolent priests and/or have actually infiltrated established religions. (avoiding spoilers here!). In fact Terry uses this situation quite a bit as the Unlife is meant to be a shadowy, mysterious existential threat. We’ve had endless discussions about the Unlife but Zharyth’s questions raises 2 distinct issues:

1. How do the Priests of Unlife hide their “evil nature”; especially within a hostile religious organization?
2. If they are representing themselves as a “good” Priesthood, who is their God, or who do they represent their God to followers?

“Veiling”. Clearly the Priest of Arnak or the Unlife should have spells that hide or block their evil nature. Terry never made that list but I have! (Dark Veils). I also vaguely recall that the Priest’s rings provided some type of protection against scrying, but I can’t seem to find that!

“Channeling, from whom?” In Priest-King of Shade I have a similar situation with the Cult of Morloch. Morloch is a powerful Demon that plays a role in Kulthea’s history and a following has grown up around him over thousands of years. Morloch is not a God, so who, or what, are his followers “Channeling” their power? In this case, the Cult is actually drawing power from Moralis, but this isn’t readily known by most of the Cult but instead one of the Higher Mysteries of the Cult.

In the specific case of the Priests of Yarthraak, what might be a working solution? As Zharyth notes, Terry never provided any details on what the pretend religion was. I would note that Shadow World has a lot of demi-gods, fey spirit and local gods; many quite powerful and able to provide some channeling power. It wouldn’t be unusual to the populace for an unknown or emergent God to suddenly appear–many people could be converted by a more concerned clergy than the often aloof Priests of Orhan? Clearly religions and Gods are not monolithic and the average Kulthean won’t be steeped in religious lore. Would they reject an unknown God represented by a friendly helpful Priesthood?

One solution is that the Priests of Yarthraak are just lying about their God. Perhaps they say they are Priests of Shaal (given their aquatic aspect) but ultimately their followers are seduced and are tapping into the Unlife.

Another option. The Priests just have a “False God” and their church is just a harmless cover for their more secretive activities. Their followers aren’t channelers themselves, so there is no need to explain where they are obtaining channeling powers.

While I don’t provide a specific response to the “Priest of Yarthraak issue”, I do discuss various aspects of Gods & Channeling in my Shadow World: Channeling Guide. (pages 4-8)

I’ve been following a discussion on realm limitations over on the Forums. While this was an RMU discussion, I’ve written extensively about realm access in my own rules (SWARM) and as a house rule in general for Rolemaster.

We’ve been playing without any realm limitations for years and haven’t seen any functional or mechanical issues. For instance, a PC with Mage lists can also be a High Priest and have access to Channeling lists from that religion. A Hedge Wizard or a Witch has spells lists from multiple realms as they are really dabblers of magic.

RM has allowed multiple realm access in it’s baseline: hybrid casters in the regular rules and the “Archmage” in the Companion. I don’t see much push back on those classes, and I attribute this to the basic theory that if someone writes it into the rules it becomes generally accepted and assumed to be “balanced”. Part of the problem is the idea that a PC is aspected to a specific magical realm, when a more useful perspective is that each realm is a different casting mechanic.

This circles me back to one of my pet peeves: the worship at the altar of balance. To be clear, balance is a personal construct that is usually driven by someone’s measure of over or underpowered character builds. Reality is that balance is purely driven by the GM in the way they run their game, the types of challenges and story lines they bring and their choices of mediation of rules.

The simple takeaway is that it’s really hard for a PC to develop multiple lists in multiple realms. It costs a lot. This is without some sort of balancing mechanism using higher skill costs, or talents, or some other arbitrary “balance tax”. Casters can either be narrowly focused and really good, or generalized with great utility. The specialist versus jack of all trades.

I thought about writing a more in depth and compelling argument for this, but it’s exhausting. I’m usually amazed at how much D&D DNA is still imbedded in our game system that really doesn’t make much sense!