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Grappling with Grappling, Part II: The RMU and D&D Approaches

In part I of this series, I explained how the first editions of Rolemaster initially tried to fit wrestling into their normal attack paradigm. They used specific attack charts (Sweeps & Throws, Grappling), which were tied to specific critical charts (Sweeps & Throws, Grappling); and they also offered a non-lethal option by capping results at 105 if you wanted to pull your punches (or grapples as the case may be). The main problem with this approach was that it forced would-be grapplers to choose between being bad wrestlers (since even a maximum result at 105 on the attack chart was unlikely to immobilize an opponent) or good murderers (since the higher results often ended in serious injury or death). In an attempt to solve these problems, the RM2 Companions and RMSS/FRP offered options that mixed different attack charts (Grapple, Sweeps, even Striking) with the different critical charts (Grappling, Sweeps, Unbalancing) almost interchangeably. The Companions and RMSS/FRP also added more skills, such that RMSS had separate skills for Sweeps and Throws; Tackling; Wrestling; and Blocking. But all this really did was introduce skill bloat. In RMSS, you literally had to switch skills three times (from Blocking to Tackling to Wrestling) if you wanted to stop an opponent from running past you and take him to the ground. And RMSS/FRP never solved the problem of the grappler’s Hobson’s Choice between bad wrestling and good murdering.

The final result, then, was still rather unrealistic. I wrestle with my 5-year-old son pretty much every day, but if I used the RM2 or RMSS grappling rules to do this, I would either be very bad at catching him (an attack table result of 105 is unlikely to give me a good grip on him, unless I get lucky with my critical roll), or I would have outright killed him years ago. But in reality I can catch him pretty easily, and the worst injury I have ever given him was a small red mark on his temple due to the fact that I had not cut my fingernails closely enough that day. The earlier editions of Rolemaster never gave me a system that allows me to wrestle him effectively without risking murdering him.

So what’s the solution? The new edition of Rolemaster gives us with some very useful new tools, and I think we can add to them a few ideas from Dungeons & Dragons. Together, I think these finally solve the problem of grappling.

RMU offers us a new system closely tied to earlier editions of Rolemaster. There is still a Grappling table and a Sweeps Throws table, and both still have their own distinct critical tables. But there are also clearer rules for subduing attacks, as well as a Subdual critical table (I think that is an RMSS innovation?). There is also a Wrestling skill, which is a specialization of the Unarmed skill, right alongside Martial Arts Strikes and Sweeps & Throws, where I think it fits well. But thankfully there are no separate ‘Athletic Games’ or ‘Tackling’ or ‘Blocking’ skills to bloat the RMU skill list.

But perhaps the most important change RMU makes is the reworking of the Grappling critical chart. It now includes numerical ‘Grapple %’ results alongside its descriptions of other effects. The Grapple% is a penalty that applies to all the target’s actions so long as it remains grappled. This penalty represents how good a grip/lock the grappler has on her opponent. So when attacked by a grappler who obtains a critical against you, you might suffer a result of ‘30% Grapple’, which means you are at -30 until you break that grapple. Breaking the Grapple is a 4 AP or full-round action, and you can use the Wrestling, Contortions, ‘or other appropriate grappling skill’ to perform it. The amount you roll over 100 is the amount by which you reduce your Grapple% penalty.

So far, so good. The discussion on the forums in recent weeks focused on an apparent oversight in the RMU rules about moving while grappled. In the RMU Rules As Written (RAW), any grapple% result stops all movement for the grappler and the grapplee until the hold is broken. This is a bit of a problem, because it means a Halfing gaining the slightest Grapple% (5%) on a Troll could rather easily stop him from moving altogether. Forum posters suggested various ways of solving this. My own suggestion was to add a stipulation that a grappled target takes on the added encumbrance (including body weight) of his/her grappler. This would mean that the Troll could rather easily drag the Halfling around, but a Halfling grabbed by a Troll would be more or less completely immobilized. In commenting on my suggestion, JDale coined our new RMU slogan — ‘That’s reasonable’ — so I am hoping this might be the solution the developers adopt.

Overall, I like the innovation of adding a grappling % to the critical results, and I think it is one of the keys to improving grappling, but I feel RMU still lacks a two things, namely:

–A controlled, consistently nonlethal Grappling option. In reality, as opposed to the RM grappling rules, a champion wrestler is able to put you where he wants you, and keep you there. That control is to me the very essence of wrestling. But this also means a champion is not going to hurt you inadvertently. Yet, the RMU Grappling attack table still inflicts concussion hit damage (even if it is low), and the RMU Grappling critical chart still causes broken bones, severe injuries, and death on even B criticals. So I still can’t wrestle my son within the RMU Rules As Written. I still have to choose between having less control than I do in reality, or being less effective than I am in reality.

–More standardized maneuvers with specific AP costs, such as ‘takedown/tackle’, so I don’t have to constantly houserule common maneuvers. RMU has thankfully done away with the skill bloat that gave us separate skills for Blocking, Tackling, Wrestling, and Athletic Games. We can now just use Wrestling for all these, and treat Blocking and Tackling as Wrestling maneuvers. But to do that easily, we still need exact AP costs and some basic guidance as to how to handle these as maneuvers.

Dungeons & Dragons offers some ideas for how we can solve these last remaining problems. Why bother with D&D? Well, D&D has a system that is in some ways simpler and better at capturing nonlethal grappling (for a good breakdown, see: https://www.enworld.org/threads/the-grapplers-manual-2-0-grappling-in-5th-edition.468737/ ). D&D is also by far the most heavily played and playtested system in the world, which means that there is a good chance your players are already familiar with it, and there are some lessons we can learn from the vast amount of feedback it has accumulated. The relevant aspects of the D&D system are these:

–Grappling is resolved by an opposed skill check (attacker’s Athletics skill vs. defender’s Athletics or Acrobatics skill) rather than a regular attack. Grappling therefore never does hit point damage. Its primary effect is to impose the ‘Grappled’ condition, which reduces the target’s speed to 0.

–Characters can make additional moves beyond the initial grabbing, most notably tackling/takedowns (the ‘Shove’ action).

–Size limits grappling. You can’t grapple a creature more than 1 size larger than you. And you can’t drag a creature you’ve grappled if it weighs more than your carrying capacity.

D&D thus offers quite a lot, namely: a controlled, nonlethal mechanic for resolving Grappling attacks (i.e. using skill checks rather than attack charts); clear rules for takedowns; and a detailed explanation of how size affects grappling.

In my third and final part of this trilogy of blogs, I’ll give specific rules for how similar measures can be implemented to improve grappling in RMU.

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Grappling with Grappling, Part I: The Problem

Rolemaster has never done a particularly good job of capturing the mechanics of grappling or wrestling. With the new edition of Rolemaster around the corner, discussion of RMU’s grappling mechanics recently came up on the ICE forums (before they went down). I thought this would be a good occasion to review these rules and offer a few suggestions as to how they can be improved.

In this post, which is the first of three I will make on grappling, I will just survey the rules for wrestling in previous editions (pre-RMU) of Rolemaster. This will get us all up to speed on how Rolemaster has tried to solve the problem of wrestling, and I think it will also make several things abundantly clear: The original Rolemaster’s system of attack charts and criticals never really captured wrestling’s effects very well, and subsequent editions merely added new skills without fixing the underlying problems, which resulted in a confusing proliferation of skills, and frankly a rather hopeless mess of mechanics. I think Rolemaster can do better than that.

Full disclosure: this is a topic dear to my heart. I actually wrestled a little bit (the real kind—what Americans call ‘amateur’ or ‘olympic’ wresting, as opposed to the fake ‘professional’ wrestling) in middle and high school. I love the sport. It is the hardest one I have ever done, for it demands every ounce of your energy and attention. And the list of UFC champions will testify that it is one of the most effective martial arts in the world.

The rules for grappling in RM2 were pretty simple. There was an attack table for ‘Grapple/Grasp/Envelop/Swallow’ (the picture showed a squid and a snake), which did relatively few hit points in damage and resulted in Grapple criticals. One unique thing about this table was the note at the bottom saying that for each round that a creature obtained a critical against its target, the creature got a +10 to OB against that target. This seemed to be an attempt to show a creature sinking in a deeper hold on its target. There was also a Martial Arts: Sweeps and Throws skill, which was meant to simulate martial arts such as Judo and Wrestling. Its attack chart too did relatively few hit points and resulted in Grapple criticals. There was a note that combatants trying to subdue an enemy without doing serious damage could roll on the Grapple or the Sweeps attack table, with a maximum result of 105; this was the cutoff for ‘Small’ attacks, with a maximum critical of ‘B’ severity, which ensured that the attack would be non-lethal… but also make the attack less likely to actually grapple or immobilize its target. On more severe results, the Grapple critical chart could inflict some serious injuries, including death. 91-5 on a C for example resulted in the target being stunned and unable to parry for 44 rounds (is that a record?) and at -95 afterwards. This forced wrestlers to make a choice between the lesser of two evils: play it safe and be a bad wrestler; or be a good wrestler and risk murdering your opponent. That wasn’t ideal.

I imagine RM2’s Unbalancing chart could also be used to represent grapples, but it includes lots of broken bones and very serious injuries, including death, so it isn’t ideal either for capturing two wrestlers in a sparring match.

RM2 also had the Subdual skill, but is was far more Vulcan Nerve Pinch than Rear Naked Choke, and it required a lot more setup than wrestlers did. It was more of a fantasy skill to render unconscious a foe that you approached unawares, and who had no armor on its upper body. You also had to develop the skill separately for different types of creatures. Mechanically, you had to roll 101+ on a skill check, and your bonus was halved if your foe was in melee, so it wasn’t really something a wrestler thought of doing. Even if you succeeded, the defender still got an RR versus your skill ranks in Subduing. To this day, I’m not quite sure what stat affected this RR (I am assuming Constitution?).

The RM companions did not add much more. Companion IV lamented the lack of ability to attack to subdue, and offered some additional options for that, such as changing lethal criticals to non-lethal criticals, provided the attacker accepted a penalty (-20 or more) to the attack’s OB, and that the attack was of a type that could be used non-lethally (e.g. yes for Grapples, no for Lightning Bolts). The Arms Companion added the ‘Melee Scuffle’ skill, which was essentially a tripping skill that used 40% of your activity for the round.

RMSS/FRP tried to solve the problem by adding many more wrestling-like skills. However, these skills seemed at times to overlap with and even contradict one another, and even then, they never really offered wrestlers any other option than the traditional ones of being either a bad wrestler or a good murderer. The RMSS core rules added a Tackling skill, which fell under the Martial Arts: Strikes category. The description of Tackling said it was the skill to use for bringing someone to the ground and temporarily immobilizing them. Tackling used the Martial Arts: Strikes attack table, but with results capped at rank 1, and the criticals were Grappling rather than MA Srikes. Confusingly, RMSS then added that if the contest continued after the initial tackle, then a separate ‘Wrestling’ skill was to be used (I guess no one was thinking of Greco-Roman wrestling here). This Wrestling skill was in the MA: Sweeps category rather than Strikes, and used the Sweeps attack chart rather than the Strikes attack chart, but again with Grappling criticals and a cap of rank 1 results. One problem with this was that the skill descriptions said Tackling had more of an intent to injure whereas Wrestling was just aimed at immobilization, but mechanically, both attacks used exactly the same criticals (Grappling). And those Grappling criticals resulted in lots of broken bones and even instant death.

To add further confusion, RMSS also had yet another separate skill called ‘Athletic Games’, in an entirely separate category (Athletic Games: Brawn), whose written description specifically cited ‘Wrestling’ as one of these games. The lesson here, kids, is that adding more skills is not the solution to every problem! RM2 had had a secondary skill called ‘Athletic Games’, but the description in Rolemaster Companions I and II never mentioned Wrestling, so I am assuming RMSS just added that in here.

RMFRP also redid the Grappling critical charts, changing some of the results. For example, it changed 00 on an E critical from crushing foe’s windpipe to crushing foe’s windpipe and literally ripping his head off. So much for sparring I guess.

The RMSS Martial Arts Companion added an optional rule that adjusted the maximum damage of Wrestling according to the difference in sizes of the combatants. That was kind of neat. It also offered a ‘Locking Holds’ skill, that used the Sweeps attack chart (again limited to rank 1 results) and a new ‘Locking Holds’ critical chart. Again, that was pretty cool. Unfortunately, that chart’s results included lots and lots of broken bones, so it wasn’t very suitable for wrestling.

The RMFRP School of Hard Knocks further confused matters (to me at least) by citing ‘wrestling’ as an example of its Athletic Games: Brawn skill, but then going on to talk mostly about ball sports. To further confuse you, the School of Hard Knocks’ description of the Tackling skill was illustrated by two figures that are clearly Wrestling.

So what does this trip through memory lane prove? To me, it clearly shows that adding a plethora of new skills will not solve the problem of realistically representing grappling. RMSS’s multiplication of skills just amplified confusion over how to resolve wrestling actions. The real solution – for me at least – lies in using existing skills and mechanics instead, and simplifying them to produce a more realistic and workable system. Wrestlers should not have to choose between being bad wrestlers or good murderers.

My next post will compare how two other systems can offer help in achieving these goals. The two systems are: Dungeons and Dragons, which offers a very simple and reasonably good method for resolving grapples (especially the non-lethal kind); and RMU, which presents a new Grapple critical table, new size rules, and a simpler action economy, which enable us to simplify the rules for grappling while at the same time making them more realistic than they have ever been. In my third and final post of this trilogy on Grappling, I’ll offer my own houserules for handling grappling in RMU.

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Nasty, Evil Plots!

I like to think of plots as a mix of two completely different ingredients. The first is a really simple structure making them easy to manage, even after the first contact with the player characters.

The second is just enough chaos, mayhem and evil doings to make the plot worthwhile in completing. Assuming most players characters and party’s are good, of course.

I have always been a fan of post-it notes. I have started to write my plot structures using five post-its.

  1. Plot Hook and initial barrier
  2. A non-combat challenge
  3. Obstacles to overcome
  4. A major final encounter
  5. An unexpected twist or gateway to further adventure

The point of the post-it note is that I can stick to the page of my GM notes at the place where there could be an interesting side plot.

If the characters stroll right on past the plot hook, it goes back in my folder for another day.

There are two big gains in this, from a campaign point of view.

  1. I can create adventures separate from the actual campaign’s overarching plot. Salt them into the game sessions and let the players do what seems natural.
  2. Tweaking a plot hook to make it seem new is minor, so unused plots can be reintroduced at a different point, at which time the characters may want to bite on the hook.

This is not railroading. I am not saying “I have written this and you will play it, like or not!” It is more a case of keeping fresh options open to the characters. Every session can easily offer up three or more side quests which may make perfect sense to the characters.

The actual structure is designed to behave more like a cake than like a recipe. It is not a step by step order of events. It is more like ingredients. Just as you cannot get the egg our of a cake once you have made it. So obstacles are an intrinsic part of a great adventure.

The structure means that most character professions, if you use them, can play a role. Only one element of the structure implies a fight or battle. It could be that your barbarian struggles with all the other elements except the fight, whereas you healer may revel in everything bar the battle.

Adventures should give every character a chance to shine. Using the structure as a remember to build more than just a list of combat encounters is a useful reminder.

I like to think of it as five opportunities to be horrible to the characters, just as they are likely to be horrible to your villain. Remember it takes a lot longer to create an evil necromancer than it does for the party to kill them!

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Your Voice

With the ICE Forums apparently self isolating, means there is no where for people to ask questions, sign post other fans to great/interesting/amusing resources or any of other things that we used the forums for.

To that end, I want to extend the blog to anyone who wants to use it.

A blog is not a forum, which makes it a little less wieldly but…

If you have a question to ask, something that is going to probably gather a lot of different opinions then just ask the question as a comment under this post. I am going to ‘sticky’ this post so it remains visible.

Each question I will turn into a post of its own, probably one per day if that seems like a suitable rate. The discussions will then grow in the comments under each question. The posts will remain for ever, as a resource to others.

Anyone who wants to write in a long-form. There have been a few people who like to share campaign information or ideas, for example. If you register with the blog and then use the Contact Me link and ask to be upgraded to a Writer. I will then give you the required permissions to write your own posts and respond to comments. Using your Forum username or something similar will make life easier for everyone to join the dots.

Blogging is a lot of fun. Unlike the forum, you can use a lot more rich media, you can upload images or files without having to wait for approval, which can take a very long time on the forums.

This blog was started to try and help promote Rolemaster, but now it can also work to keep the community together.

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3 Today!

Well, I am not 100% sure of the actual date but the Rolemaster Fanzine has reached its 36th issue, making it 3 years old.

Over the past three years the fanzine has changed quite a bit, but it has now settled down to a seemingly regular “An adventure plus some articles” each month.

The emphasis is very much that this is a Game Master fanzine, not for players so much. The reasoning is that the GM may well want to run the adventure and having the players read it first rarely makes for an exciting time.

I saw this month that ICE are looking for writers. If you have anything that you don’t think is substantial enough to put forward as a full on submission consider the fanzine.

I pay, on a commission share basis. I give everyone who contributes a share of the earnings through DTRPG. They deal with everything the instant each copy is sold. I suspect that there is no human involvement. You can spend you earnings as either account credit to get a discount on RPG books or withdraw it via PayPal.

When I started this blog it was just me. Over time I think we have something like 10 to 12 different writers. I would like to see the fanzine grow to have a range of voices.

In another development, fanzine-wise, I am getting all the back issues out as paperbacks on Amazon. The publication order is a little haphazard but only because the newest issues are paperback friendly. When I wrote the old issues this was not a consideration.

The current list of available paperbacks can be found on Amazon, here (UK) and here (US), and here (Canada).

It is my intention to grow this by at least two issues a month. I think I am about 20 issues behind, so I have my work cut out for me.

The point of the fanzine is that is by fans, for fans. I will accept pretty much anything from adventures, one-off articles or art.

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RMU: Pregenerated Characters of (Almost) Every Class

Bored at home? Looking for something to do? Check out these RMU characters I made by hand. You can find them in the Downloads>RMU dropdown menu above. They were done in Excel, on my own homemade character sheet. They include two of almost every class (at level 2 and at level 5).

I built these characters for several reasons. First, I wanted to have a stable of pregens for any playtestests I run, like the one I did at GenCon last year. I also wanted to include them in the introductory adventures I am writing. I find that one of the barriers to playing Rolemaster for new groups especially is the complexities of the character creation process, so having characters ready to go I think might entice more people to give the system a try. Another thing I wanted to do was to see which classes are viable in combat, and which might need help — and indeed this process was quite enlightening. Finally, I wanted to have a list of ‘Templates’, or a set of skills to buy for 60 DP (the allotment each character gets each level), as a guide to players for how to make a viable build. That too can be overwhelming for new players: not just making a character, but levelling her up.

I built characters of almost every class. I didn’t include the non-PC classes Laborer or Scholar, nor did I try my hand at a No Profession (though a heavy armor Mentalist semi would be a very good class indeed in RMU!). I also didn’t build a Dabbler, because I simply could not make a combat-viable one; I preferred instead to make my own (homebrewed) Warrior Mage, which is much more capable. I also didn’t make a Healer, since I think players already have lots of Healing options, most notably Cleric and Lay Healer.

A few things to note about my characters:

–‘RAW’ or ‘Kosher’ means characters built according to the RMU beta2 Rules As Written. Homebrew means I have included either my own new spell lists (for the Bard, Druid, and Ranger) or both my own new spell lists as well as my own new class (the Warrior Mage is one I made from scratch).

–I built these characters without using the Footwork skill or Knacks, since I don’t need or use either of those. I also didn’t much use the Grace skill, since the mechanics of it are still in flux, and I worry it is a bit overpowered. But I did use it for a few classes that I thought could make the most use of it.

–Some of the later costs for Combat Training skills are a bit of an estimate, since the released beta2 rules only include costs for the first four Combat Training skills.

–The full list of talents for each race involved a bit of guesswork, since the talents are changing as we speak (as Creature Law reduces the number of them). JDale was very helpful however in giving guidance on the talents for the new races I used (High Men, Hvasstonn, Idiyva, Nycamerith, and Sstoi), though, so those should be accurate,. Thanks very much to the always helpful JDale!

–These characters are built for combat. My players are classic Hack and Slashers, which means that in my group, any classes that can’t contribute in combat simply don’t get played. That’s why I needed to add new spells lists (many of which were reworked versions of old RM2 spell lists) for the Bard, Ranger, and Druid. Otherwise, these classes really did not offer much in terms of combat ability. If you play a more combat-light style, you would probably want to exchange some of the combat skills for more spells, and Lore, Crafting, and Social skills.

–I have built Clerics and Druids as both healers and as more battle-versions, so that’s why you’ll see multiple Clerics and Druids, with some focused more on healing and others fighting. I found that even the battle Cleric could still heal quite well though (the Druid wasn’t as effective at that, since he doesn’t get Lifekeeping/-Giving spells like the Cleric does).

–The characters are all Shadow World characters insofar as their languages and lore go, so as long as you are ok with some of the new RMU races being in Shadow World, these should be ready for Kulthea.

I have also added my templates for each class. You will find them in the Downloads>RMU>Templates for RMU Classes file. I also plan to blog soon on what I’ve learned about which classes in particular need help. But for now, enjoy!

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Micro-Campaigns

During this pandemic season, a lot of people are taking their games online in roll20 or Fantasy grounds. Some of these will be regular groups who cannot meet up just moving their campaign online. Other people are reaching out to join online games with people they have never played with before.

If you are in that latter group you probably don’t want to launch into a multi-year sprawling campaign. This is where the micro-campaign or campaign seed comes into its own.

There are two great formats for this.

Micro-Settings

The GRAmel model provides an introduction to a setting, a collection of setting specific monsters, so key NPCs, maybe some new equipment or magical items and any setting specific house rules. The third part is the a detailed multi-part adventure to showcase some or all of the above.

That package then forms about 30 to 40 pages. Enough to read through in an afternoon. The provided adventure is good for a few sessions and after that you can start to do your own world building to make the micro-setting your own.

The GRAmel versions are designed for their own RPG [Adventurers!] but there is no reason not to apply the same idea to Rolemaster or Space Master. It is only a document format afterall.

Within Without Beyond

The second option is called WWB and I believe originated with Warhammer WFRP. A world is described in terms of:

  • The Enemy Within
  • The Enemy Without
  • The Enemy Beyond

In fantasy settings particularly a characters access to information about the world can be extremely limited. This format works by explaining the characters view of the world and then describing the internal threats from within their own society or culture.

The Enemy Without are threats from beyond the physical borders. They could massed armies on the borders, or political threats from rivals or invading tribes of fantastical beasts.

The Enemy Beyond is where magical or divine threats are described. Those mad cultists trying to bring dark gods back, just for a laugh, or the alignment of stars that are going to set free the devoured of worlds.

A fourth section in this format is a list of Adventure Ideas. These ideas make use of the internal and external threats to create adventure hooks that you can expand upon.

Comparing Approaches

The GRAmel method is by far the more accessible. It is one step short of pick up and play. You do need to at least read it. Beyond that you have an adventure to run there and then and all the tools needed to make it work seemlessly.

The second method is one that has greater longevity. You could not possibly interweave every thread into a starting adventure without overwhelming new players and characters. What you can do is plant seeds that you can develop later and keep slowly building the complexity of the game world. You could choose just one element for your first foray into the campaign and as the characters world view expands you bring more elements into the mix.

I cannot say which is better. I don’t believe one is better than the other. I personally prefer the GRAmel method. They are more fun to plan and write for yourself. Most people can write that potted summary of their new fantasy world. It doesn’t have to a massive campaign setting source book. Just enough to set the tone. Once you have that you swap to making monsters, then NPCs and magic items.

This method is great fun to create. Nothing is overwhelming or to time consuming. You get to hop from one thing to another as your whim takes you.

If you prefer your fantasy more epic and sweeping, then I guess that the Enemy method is going to be more your style.

If you have time to kill, why not try making a micro setting. See if you enjoy it?

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RMu in Print?

I have recently been doing a lot of Print on Demand work recently and this set off a train of thought. Coupled with the fact that Ironcrown.com is broken again I started to think about physical copies of RMu.

Obviously, none of us have seen the final texts. Up until last week, it seemed that JDale was still open to making minor changes, based upon Hurin’s Gen Con feedback. So the books cannot be in editing if they are still in flux.

Assuming the text is finalized this week. Nicholas could get this edited in April.

May would be for commissioning art and final text changes.

June art would start coming back and the books could go into layout.

I would suggest that the earliest possible date to see RMu on the shelves is July 2020.

OK, I accept that that is an entirely arbitrary timeline. There is an awful lot of things that can slow it down. But assuming it not far off, we really could see RMu in 2020.

One of the things that got this thought into my head was a book I was preparing for Print on Demand. It was 123 pages and the printing cost would have been $13.12. It was my intention to sell the book for $14.99.

The print costs, in this case, were so high that I had to make a choice between increasing the sales price, to say $19.99 or making almost no money on the sale. The $1.87 profit would be split between DriveThru and me so I was really looking at less and $1.30 per sale.

The PDF has zero overhead costs and sells for $9.99.

The problem is that even selling at $19.99 I would make less money, not more, when offering a physical, and theoretically, premium product.

This book is almost exactly the same dimensions in page layout, page count and paper quality and weight as Navigator RPG will be. Selling a full game for $19.99 make more sense. I can see how that would be desirable. GMs love books.

But what would it cost to buy physical copies of the RMu books?

I am using the old Beta 2 page counts. I would expect the final books to have more pages than the beta books purely because we haven’t seen much taken out but there have been plenty of things added, Creature Law being the exception.

Arms & Character Law

The Beta is 188 pages. The final books will have art and we have seen a few more skills added. The books certainly needed some clearer explanations in places but the text held up pretty well. When I edit the page count often drops by about t10% and by the time you add in the art it typically grows by 10%. So going with the 188 pages there are two formats we could choose.

All previous Arms Laws have had black and white interiors, I have chosen the premium B/W paper.

The softcover, perfect bound Arms Law would cost $11.39, and in hardback, $15.89. That is the printing cost only.

Treasure Law

The next book is TL. It comes in at 339 pages and there have been very few suggested changes to this book, so I think we can go with that page count. Assuming that editing and art don’t shrink or grow it by much either way.

Softcover would be $19.21 and Hardback $23.71.

Spell Law

Rather like TL, I don’t think this will change much. The bulk of the book is the spell lists and even if they are all updated the number of them and format remains constant.

Softcover $26.26, Harback $30.76.

Creature Law

This is the big unknown. We all know that the book has been split into two. I believe I read somewhere that the ‘core monsters’ come in at 600 pages. This would leave about 300 pages left over for Part 2.

All the previous core monster books were about 200 to 300 pages. So it is really hard to estimate. If it is at the bottom end then the cost would be on a par with ACL. If it is up around 300 pages then it would cost about the same as TL. If it is nearer 600 pages, after art is included it would be:

Softcover $32.73 and Hardcover $37.73.

A Full Set

To buy the books you are looking at $75 to $90 simply to print them. Looking at the existing Print on Demand titles, all these figures hold up. The pricing model used by ICE is that they make a typical $5 profit on each physical sale, which adds about $7 to the purchase price. It looks like the full set in print will be a $100 investment.

Where ICE makes its money is on the PDF version of their books. Typically they are set to about 60% of the print cost, in the $15-$18 range. Where most publishers give the PDF for free with a printed book ICE doesn’t. They charge full price for the PDF even when bundled.

Given their [ICE] past pricing structure it looks like RMu will cost about $75 to buy as PDFs, $100 to buy as books and $175 to buy together. ICE would make between $20 for a full set of printed books, $50 for a full set of PDFs and $70 for a full set of bundles.

The last question is, how much money does RMu need to make to be a success?

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ROLEMASTER PROFESSION REVIEW: THOUGHTS ON THE MYSTIC.

I have to say that I was surprised at the lack of love for the Mystic in Hurin’s and Peter’s recent posts. Why? Because Mystics ROCK!!! I’m not sure I ever played one, I started GMing almost exclusively early on, but I’ve always been intrigued by the profession. Like the Astrologer, Seer and Alchemist, I thought the Mystic was a new profession concept in the early 80’s that upended the “boring” D&D classes I was accustomed to.

So what is the Mystic? Unless Terry or another original ICE developer weights in, we’ll never know exactly what they had in mind 40 years ago–but to me it’s clear that the Mystic is a pure spell caster Assassin/Spy. I’m not sure Peter or Hurin are picking up on that–and if you only look at the spells it might be tougher to see the “Mystic DNA”. First, take a look at the skill costs:

  1. Ok armor DP costs. That’s typical for Mentalists in general, but it implies a more combat oriented profession.
  2. Stalk & Hide: 2. That’s the lowest skill cost for any pure caster, and implies the stealthy nature of the class.
  3. Perception: 2. Again, this is only beaten by the Seer and matches the Illusionist.
  4. Ambush: 4. That’s not low, but it’s by far the lowest for a pure caster. The Mystic ambushes!!

Just based on those skill costs alone, we already have the basis for a stealthy, perceptive character whose primary attack is ambushing.

Base Spells. So there is not much appreciation for the Mystic spell lists, but let’s take a closer look:

Confusing Ways. This is a fantastic spell list with some great utility. The first 5 spells: Distraction, Confusion, Blur Vision, Fear and Stumble are all combat effective and still fall into the character concept. Most of the other level spells are as useful, although the lack of spells lvl 16-19 could be easily corrected.

Hiding. Again, this is another solid list with some cool spells: 3rd lvl Shadow, 7th lvl Screen, 10th lvl Shadow Mystic and 13th lvl Flattening. The combination of Hiding and Confusing Ways spells with some combat effectiveness makes the Mystic and formidable character class!

Mystical Change. The “piece de resistanance” of the Mystics spell lists, this allows the caster to change their appearance or impersonate other creatures or persons.

For me, those three lists and the skill costs are a great character template. I would also argue that the Mystic’s low level spells are almost all useful–which isn’t necessarily the case for other pure spells users (I’m thinking of you “Mr. Boil Water”!).

I think the confusion with the Mystic is with the other 3 spells: Liquid, Solid and Gas Alteration. Those spells seem off-brand, or perhaps another mentalist type given how core the skill costs and the other lists feel.

Personally, I would jettison the 3 alteration spells and maybe drop a weapon skill down to 4 and make a few small tweaks to some other skills. I’ve never been a proponent of a mandatory 6 base lists: a profession needs just the right amount of base lists, and often it feels like some base lists are just there to meet that arbitrary requirement.

A slight bump to combat abilities and those three lists makes for a great Assassin archetype. The Mystic is a great profession and one that deserves more respect!!!

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A Mystic Character (Pregenerated) for RMU (Homebrew)

As part of Mystic week here on the Blog, here is an RMU Mystic character, a level 5 Grey Elf, for your viewing/playing pleasure. You can view it in Downloads>RMU, accessible above (once Peter approves it).

 This is the best I can do for the Mystic. I don’t have a new take on the class, nor a supplemented or redone set of spell lists, nor really much of an idea as to what to do with the class. That’s not because I disagree with what Peter wrote; rather, it is because I pretty much agree with everything he said. The Mystic lists really are very unoriginal – as they have been since first edition Rolemaster – because they mostly reproduce spells other classes get on other lists. My players have been entirely uninterested in the class: I have never had a player play a Mystic or even ask what they were; in fact, when I started to build one for RMU as part of my project of building a pregen character of every RMU class for a set of introductory adventures, I had to look through the lists to see what they actually did, despite the fact that I’ve been playing Rolemaster now for over 30 years. Your mileage may vary of course!

 The definition of the class is really vague. And that isn’t just a Rolemaster problem: Dungeons and Dragons recently introduced a Mystic class (in a series of Unearthed Arcana articles), and its class definition is likewise vague. It pretty much does everything: it has elemental balls (Detonation), utility, skill boosts, defense, healing, even resurrection. And the DnD Mystic also seems to have an additional problem that the RM one does not: the DnD Mystic seems to be quite overpowered, at least at some levels of play. The general consensus seems to be that the lack of focus and the excessive power are closely related: the class is overpowered because it is just too versatile, often outperforming other classes in their primary role: https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/8378ac/the_full_mystic_class_has_been_out_for_a_year_now/  .

I can attest to the fact that the DnD Mystic is overpowered. We just finished a Princes of the Apocalypse DnD campaign, and in the final battle, the Mystic dropped a fireball for mass damage (Detonation), teleported herself and the entire party across the battlefield to the bad guys so that the fighters could instantly start going to town on their casters, then resurrected multiple party members when they died. I think the main culprit for the power imbalance in DnD is that the Mystic works kind of like a Rolemaster spellcaster in that she has spell points rather than slots. Thus, the Mystic can keep resurrecting till she runs out of spell points, where a Cleric could do only one or two res spells (since the Cleric has to use up high-level slots rather than just spend a number of spell points).

 If one wanted to unify the class, one might begin by considering the etymology of the word Mystic. What does it mean? It seems to come from words that mean hidden and mysterious, and are associated with secret or hard to acquire knowledge: ineffable, unquantifiable, experiential as opposed to rational and analytical. When we talk of medieval ‘Mystics’, we mean people who claimed to have visions from god or the gods, such as the Oracle of Delphi or Hildegard of Bingen. The visions were strange, cryptic, and at times terrifying. In many traditions, mysticism is also associated with ascetic practices, as in Christian monasticism and Muslim Sufism. But of course Rolemaster has Monks (and even Clerics in a pinch) for that.

So where does this leave the RMU Mystic? Well, in a similarly vague place as the DnD mystic I guess, but happily I think with less concerns about being overpowered. I think some of the old RM2 Astrologer spell lists, such as Holy Vision, Far Voice, and Time’s Bridge, could actually be resurrected to fit the classical definition of a Mystic, to give it that ‘Mystical’ element it seems to lack. But those old lists would need a lot of work, because they have more gaps than spells for long stretches, and RMU does a good job of requiring that there be a spell at every level of its lists.

So, unable to completely revamp the Mystic class, I focused instead just on making a single, combat-viable Mystic character. Because from my perspective, if a Mystic can lay some smackdown, I might not mind so much that she is a bit of a mess thematically, and my players might be intrigued by the class. I enjoyed taking on this challenge, even if I’m not sure if I succeeded, because trying to make classes dangerous is fun to my min/maxxing mind.

I began by asking myself: what advantage does the Mystic have over the Magician for having access to the Mentalism realm? To me, it seems the answer is things like: good self healing, including stun relief, as well as the combat buffs/enhancement from the very useful Open Mentalism lists. So I thought the class would work best as a light, stealthy DPS class that has the unique style of going invisible/unseen, sneaking up on a foe, unloading a deadly elemental bolt, and then escaping. That seemed intriguing. So I loaded up on Quickness (for DB), Directed Spell and elemental bolts for attacks, stealth/disguise/influence skills and spells to get the drop on foes, as well as movement and damage resistance spells/abilities to get out of dodge if the surprise bolt attack fails.

I have no idea if this will work in practice, because it does seem like a somewhat insane playstyle. But it could be a lot of fun.