Rules – Page 14 – The Rolemaster Blog

August 24, 2016August 28, 2016

Revisiting Spell Law: Spell Casting Mechanics Pt. 1

There has always been basic indications that the Rolemaster spell realms operate under different mechanics. Essence and Channeling are affected by armor, Mentalism by helms, verbal and hand gestures are necessary components of Essence but not so much Mentalism etc. At the same time, the general casting mechanics of 3 rounds for most spells were uniform across the three realms without any serious mechanical differences.

Most of these rules were more the result of built in game tropes, the need for “balance” and to facilitate gameplay (combat) than any rigorous attempt at realm differentiation. During our Spell Law rewrite (Project BASiL), we started from scratch—deconstructing the various spells, powers, categories and casting requirements and then rebuilding spells and realms in an intuitive and organic fashion.

A few questions, points & thoughts we had at the start:

Should each realm have better differentiation in spell powers? All three realms share a number of common lists: spell defense, movement etc. Wouldn’t it be better to have more unique & separate abilities for each realm? Do realms need better guidelines for spell power assignment?
Are Alchemist spells really “Essence” realm. The imbedding spells don’t really work as a typical Class I-III spells and imply a number of other factors (materials, crafting, time etc).
Do Symbols, Runes, Signs, Glyphs etc require different casting requirements since their casting depends on writing/inscribing?
Do Bard spells fit into Mentalism (or Essence) when their efficacy is based on a performance?
Do Illusions depend on the casters memory to properly reconstruct an image? How does that work into the SCR?
What is the verbal/hand component of spellcasting? Do spell books come in a variety of languages? Is the verbal component a native tongue or something else?
Should casting times be broader than 1-3 rounds?
Why can’t spell users learn spells from multiple realms? Does this really create a “balance” issue?
Do PC’s really need a realm assignment? Do PP’s really come in 7 varieties? (essence, ment, chan, ess/chan, ess/ment, ment/chan, arcane). Does that make sense? Do PC’s need separate pools of spell casting power for each of those? Do PP multipliers need to be tuned to 6-7 different power flavors? How does that tie into magic item creation? Why?
Why is Alchemy “Essence”? Channelers can’t make magic items? Should Mentalism powers be subject to imbedding?
How much of Spell Law is setting specific? How much needs to be?

Some of these issues have been partially addressed in companions or touched upon in RMU but these are all add-on rules that created one-off situations rather than a cohesive foundation for the Spell system.

For us the solutions mostly presented themselves. Our first step was to reclassify spell “Realms” based on the casting mechanics and the boundaries and scope of the realms powers. This required re-defining and expanding on the 3 traditional “realms”.

Realm	Scope of Power	Casting	Ancillary Skill
Essence (Conductive)	Elemental, physics, physical manipulation	Verbal, Gesture, sensitive to encumbrancde	Magical Language
Channeling	Miraculous, spiritual, spirit manipulation, lifeforce	Verbal Plea	Prayer
Mentalism	Single target, mind related, self enchancement	Concentration	Mental Focus
Imbedding (Investiture)	Imbedding magic into physical objects	Repetition	Power Points, maybe crafting
Written (Inscribed)	Wards, protection, summoning, defense, triggered	Quality, accuracy, durability of inscription,	Rune Skill: runes, glyphs, symbols, circles, wards, signs, tattoos
Performance (Rendered)	Mass effects, mood, behavior, control	Verbal, visual, sound, perceptual	Performance skill: music, instrument, singing, dance etc
Intrinsic (Natural Magic)	Setting/Ecology	At will, focus	Depends/none
Incidental (Cantrips)	Minor	Focus	None

Once we built this basic framework we could develop specific casting rules and create new spells that easily dropped into their appropriate “realm”. This also facilitates a scalable process of introducing new or unique lists, setting specific magic or even build new Realm categories as needed without trying to shoehorn into the limitations of the original Essence, Mentalism or Channeling paradigm. Some examples are Moon Magic, Warrens(Malazan), Blood Magic, Arcane, Spirit/Totem etc).

In Part II we’ll start with Essence.

August 22, 2016

Further musing on the skills system

I really like Brian’s take on skills where the number of ranks has an important role to play as well as the total bonus.

As I see it there are four types of skill roll in Rolemaster.

All or nothing.

This is the classic pass or fail test. You either heard the cocking of the crossbow or you didn’t. In RM2/RMC you need a total of 101+ to succeed in RMSS/RMFRP it is 111+ (which always struck me as a weird number if eleventy-one works for you then who am I to argue.)

Progress towards a goal

So you want to do something that is going to take time, you make your skill roll and depending on the roll and outside factors you get a result. That is how much of the task has been completed. if you get below 100 then you are part way through the task, over 100 and the task took less time than expected.

Opposing Skills

You are trying to hide and I am trying to spot you. Your hiding skill roll result would then be used as a penalty to my perception roll. The GM has to decide which way around to apply the rolls. Does my keen eyesight may your hiding more difficult or does your hiding position may my attempt to see you harder. I always go with the route of least rolls. If there is one hider and five seekers then I would have the hider’s one roll apply to the seekers five individual rolls.

Combat rolls

Here the result is not pass or fail, there is no straight hit or miss, and there is not really an opposing skill although the defender can use skills to make them harder to hit. You make your roll apply all the bonuses and penalties and look up the result on a table.

Now in most RPGs the combat rules take up a huge amount of space in the rule books even if combat doesn’t take up a huge amount of time at the table. Rolemaster in particular takes great pride in its combat system and we all love the critical tables and there blood splattered graphic descriptions. I am perfectly happy with my current version of the combat system and when I migrate to RMU I will junk the rules as written and insert my existing version. I have already rewritten all of the most commonly used critical tables so modifying the numbers of hits delivered and stretching them up to the new 175 cap will not be a massive endeavour. Some people think that Rolemaster combat can be slow or overly complicated but it doesn’t have to be that way.

I am not so sure about the all or nothing skill roll. In the rules as written (RAW) all or nothing skills have a partial success result which allows a second roll at a penalty. If we were to abandon the whole all or nothing concept and make all rolls as static or moving maneuvers anything else than a 100% success would be a graduation of that partial success. Results at or below 0% would be failures.

In the example of the cocking of a crossbow if you rolled your perception and got less than 100% as a result then you could allow a second roll with whatever the shortfall was as a penalty. If of course there is actually anything there to hear after the event!

The question is would this simplify the game and speed up play?

August 20, 2016August 20, 2016

Rolemaster Skill Bonuses and Skill Ranks

In our attempt to reduce skills to the absolute minimum possible AND to create a unified action resolution for all actions we’ve come up with a hybrid system of ideas from RM and RMU.

The basic premise is that total skill bonus is used for action resolution (MM, SM, combat, SCR etc) and # of skill ranks are used for “proficiency issues”. The following chart breaks down skills into 3 overall categories: Lores (knowledge), Vocations (job that represents a number of skills and disciplines) and General Skills (everything else).

Skill Ranks	Lore	Vocation	General Skills
1-10	Grade to High School	Apprentice	Basic knowledge and abilities skill and simpler sub-skill.
11-20	College	Journeymen	Broad abilities of skill and sub-skills
21+	PhD/Post Grad	Master	Advanced skills and sub-abilities
50+	Erudite Master	Guildmaster or similar	Singular mastery of skill and inter-related disciplines

Some will argue for a more robust break down — but again, we are trying to keep things simple. The breakdown is driven by our own rules on learning skills. Knowledge can be learned via tutoring, research or reading; vocations must be learned by doing (you can’t become a master sailor by being taught in a classroom or reading a tutorial) and the other skills are a combination of learning methods.

Now we have a visual relationship between rank/proficiency and the three overall skill types with qualitative labels for reference. Let’s use one of each for an example:

Lore. As cool as it is to provide obscure info to a player on Dragon mating habits, most GM’s are going to need to rely on skill checks rather than building a expansive wiki on their game world. Lores are simple–the # of skill ranks gives the player and GM a good idea of the players depth of knowledge and sets the boundaries for what the player could possibly know. A skill check using the skill bonus allows for success or failure.

Vocation. Most jobs utilize a number of skill sets–a sailor will have skills in sailing, weather, navigation, knots etc. The skill rank level is used to determine the players level of proficiency and determine if they have the right level of experience and training. A journeyman sailor won’t have star navigation but a Master or Guildmaster certainly would.

General Skills. Using my previous comment on the warrior with 20 ranks in longsword and a 130ob. The total skill bonus is used in combat and the 20 skill ranks is used as a modifier against various combat maneuvers (reverse strike, disarm etc). The shield skill: the skill bonus is used for shield attacks, the rank # is used for DB. Same as RMU.

We’ve folded many skills into “meta skills”. For instance Survival includes sub skills like tracking, traps, snares, weather watching etc. Acrobatics includes contortions, diving, tumbling etc.

There are still a few skills I’m tweaking but I like how its working so far.

August 7, 2016August 8, 2016

Rolemaster Player Challenge. Finding the perfect pairing

I thought I would skip my “Weekly Roundup” for a player challenge. The challenge: suggest an interesting, creative or clever RM profession/magic item combination. The basic guidelines:

One profession and one item.
Artifacts are excluded.
The combination should strive to make the “whole greater than the parts” or add an interesting dynamic or ability to the character.
Extra kudos to the player who comes up with the best combo using the least powerful magic item.

Of course I’ll go first as an example. When I’m not GM’ing, I’m almost always a Warrior Monk. (Caylis, who gets occasional mentions in some RM books). I think I like the simplicity of a non-spell caster and the minimalist nature of the Monk after the intensive, detailed process of being a GM. Playing a Monk goes all the way back to my earliest days of playing AD&D and our Court of Ardor campaign in ’83. I didn’t worry about hoarding gold, armor, losing items etc. I liked the self-reliance of a Monk in AD&D (Feign Death, hitting as magical weapons, immunities) and always strived for some of those same abilities in RM without opting for the Mentalist spell casting version Monk.

With that in mind, my favorite go to item for my monk is the “Ring of Free Action” or some iteration of it. This was an actual AD&D item that had far more expansive powers than an RM spell. In RM the closest is probably “Underwater Movement”, only a 5^th lvl spell on the Closed Mentalist list “Movement”. That’s a pretty modest item to get make into a Daily X item and frees the Monk to operate underwater and use martial arts without restrictions. It’s not an overtly powerful ability but can really add to game play, combat choices (if near water)and group abilities.

What’s your combination? I received a suggestion yesterday that made sense. What’s a contest without a prize? If we get at least 10 responses the winner of the best suggestion will get a brand new copy of the Iron Wind (the 80’s edition). This is “new, old stock” I bought from ICE when they were shutting down. Never been used but aren’t individually shrink wrapped. There may be the option to get the Cloudlords of Tanara instead but I’ll have to check to see what we have left.

Winner will be determined by the criteria above: originality in pairing, uniqueness, power of item (the lower the better) and of course the swimwear segment!

August 3, 2016

Gaming Group Size: Is “ONE” the loneliest number?

I was reading Gnomestew blog the other day (and linked to some on the Weekend Roundup) and started thinking about optimal party size for me personally as a GM. It’s certainly harder to put together any group as I get older—conflicting schedules and responsibilities of adult players creates significant barriers to game times. Right now I have 3 core players who can attend our bi-weekly game and another 2 that attend less frequently.

Certainly fewer players allows me to create much richer backgrounds for the PC’s and gives the players more time to “shine” during game play. More players and you run into group dynamics (distractions, leadership issues, group decision making etc). Here are my thoughts on the typical party size.

1 Player. Not for me anymore. When I was just starting out, any chance to play was good so having a GM and 1 player was better than nothing. (ignoring solo adventures). Now I’d rather not GM if I only have 1 player. It’s not rewarding for me for the work and effort needed.

2 Players. We had a few sessions with last minute player cancellation and went ahead with 2 players. The group was in the middle of a busy part of the adventure so I needed to carry the missing PC’s as NPC’s. I think the two players had fun in that session but didn’t enjoy the extra duties. What if it were just the 2 players? That might have worked but I’ve found that with only 2 players each wants to pursue individual agendas and goals. That’s easier to do now via PBM mechanisms between game sessions. (having magic items made, training etc)

3 Players. I like 3 players—decisions are made quicker, game flow moves and each PC can take an over sized role in the narrative. Since we use “NO Profession” there is rarely an issue with skill deficits or party balance. I can really focus on integrating the PC’s background, skills and the players interests into the narrative which makes for more personal “payoffs” for the group.

4 Players. Is this the standard trope? (Fighter, Thief, Magic User, Cleric). Even with us discarding professions the group still finds itself trying to create skill balances to emulate this traditional 4 PC party. I like 4 players for the added diversity but keeping the smaller group dynamic and efficiency.

5 Players. The majority of my groups have been 5 players. I do like the added energy and the additional power/abilities from the extra player. However, I’ve found with 5 players there is always 1 player who doesn’t quite fit in, has an over or under-sized role, or is a distraction to game play. I’ve found that to be the nature of the larger groups.

6 Players. I’ve had a few opportunities to GM 6 player groups. Not really for me unless it’s a “one-off” tournament style adventure. (Like the Lair of Ozymandias). Combat goes very slow, the group gets distracted easily, inter-player competitiveness becomes more pronounced and it’s harder to give every player “time to shine”.

What’s been your experience?

August 1, 2016

Refreshed and Reinvigorated

I have just got back from Iceland having done a riding tour from the northern coast up a river valley to the last farm before the uninhabitied high lands. The whole experience was amazing as was the riding and the horses.

My PBP game has been faltering recently as I was away, my players had busy lives and it had almost withered away. The day before my flight to Iceland one of my players contacted me and said he was back and able to play. This is great news as we can get the game up and rolling again.

I am also now starting to prepare the next face to face gaming weekend for my RMC game.

It is a real pity that none of my players’ characters are in the Frozen North as I have some great ideas and inspiration but no one to inflict it upon!

So what comes next? The weakest element of my face to face game is that the party are still very much acting as individuals who are traveling together rather than as a robust whole. I feel that if I was to test the party bonds then it would fall apart in a fit of self interest. I want to address that ‘weakness’ and try and knit them together somewhat. The danger is ofcourse that in trying to encourage them to bond I would have them rail in the opposite direction.

My mission tonight is to go back over every characters’ background story and try and write an adventure that furthers all of there individual goals at the same time. That should get them working together. From memory I think I have one idea I can use.

In my PBP game things were about to get really interesting just when the momentum failed. I am really looking forward to getting that going and as soon as I hit ‘publish’ on this post I will be writing an update for Riako the halfling monk.

When I have spent the week plotting adventures I will see what gremlins have popped up to cause complications!

July 28, 2016July 28, 2016

Shadow World Adventure Hooks: Taking your game to a new place.

One of my previous blogs discussed the “Many Flavors of Shadow World” and I felt like expanding on a few specific adventure environments that we’ve used that really enhanced our campaign.

Underwater adventures. Having your players adventure underwater can add a new dimension to your SW environment. Lost cities, shipwrecks and new races can all be encountered and the challenges of breathing, moving and fighting add a new strategic element to group tactics and abilities. My current I.C.E. module submission, Priest-King of Shade, is focused on water/underwater adventures and environments. It’s in edit/review and hopefully will see print in the near future.
Zero G. There is a sci-fi angle to SW, why not exploit it. Introducing your players to a no-gravity environment can be a lot of fun—especially if they don’t understand their situation. (they assume it’s a magical effect of some sort). I’ve includes a great Zero-G adventure in my second project, “Realm of the Black Dragon” that is part of a larger adventure thread but would work as a one-off tourney style module.
Skyships. I’m drafting a new adventure thread that takes place on a Skyship. It’s a bit of a clockwork/pirates of the sky/high adventure derring-do where almost all of the action takes place in the air with multiple aerial combats. The players will need to adapt to these new types of engagements and are limited by their environment (small Skyship), general lack of flying ability, and dynamic combat. The whole adventure is inspired by a random encounter my players had with a hijacked Skyship, a crazy old man and pursuit by the Eidolon air fleet. It was a side adventure, purely organic and events were driven completely by random dice rolls.

What were your most unique adventure environments? Share your game stories!

July 18, 2016

STRANGER THINGS: A tropey love story to the 80’s.

I thought I would go a bit off normal topics to discuss Netflix’s most recent series: Stranger Things. The series is a nod (actually more of a trope head-butt) to 80’s science fiction and fantasy and written and directed by brothers steeped in early fantasy gaming. The show starts with a group of boys playing D&D in their basement—the game narrative establishing the plot and structure of the rest of the series.

Unlike E.T., which depicted some type of RPG’ing, the boys in ST are clearly playing D&D and the show references the game several times—plus it contains a few D&D product placements as well. These young boys are the protagonists of the story, and while they are characterized as “brainy nerds that get picked on”, the show clearly frames them in a positive light. The values of trust, loyalty, friendship between the boys is clearly contrasted against the shallow friendships of the bullies and popular kids. In a longer story arc, character redemption is not portrayed as the nerd who triumphs and gets their girl but as the popular rich kid who learns the lessons of friendship and learns humility. (Pretty in Pink?)

Without tackling the technical details of filming, it seems that almost every shot is evocative of an 80’s movie. On the most basic level, the show is an homage to Spielberg, Carpenter, Stephen King and Cameron but tropes and references are so dense and wide ranging that they still keep popping in my head.

Just a few that struck me:

The sheriff driving the “Body” blazer in Jaws.
The Underneath evoking both Pan’s Labyrinth and Legend (the drifting debris/petals in the air)
Every time Jonathan pulled up in his car in front of his house I thought of Ash’s Delta 88 in the Evil Dead.
Will’s cocoon and “facehugger” screamed Alien(s).

There is no doubt that early 80’s gamers have become key players in Hollywood/TV myth making and this show is a love story to that era. I think it was a positive depiction of gaming and just maybe it will spur a few 40-somethings to get back into gaming or teach their kids!

What references did you pick up on?

July 15, 2016July 16, 2016

Revisiting Rolemaster Magic Realms

Rolemaster’s 3 realms (Essence, Channeling, Mentalism) creates conflicts and limitations. Certain spell lists never fit well in certain realms and casting mechanism were basically the same between realms even when the spell called for very different methods (alchemy imbedding, runes, circles, bard/singing etc). As part of our own Spell Law Redesign (Project BASil) we deconstructed the whole system and started from scratch. Step 1 was to define Realms into more specific parameters of effect and mechanism. During that analysis we found that we really needed to expand our system into more than the 3 standard realms.

The net effect has been a better delineation and flavor of magic between realms, the elimination of hybrid realms, more unique spellcasters and a better system for slotting in new spell lists. We also redesigned spells lists by power/similarity and not by a theme or Profession requirement. Our “realms” are: Essence, Channeling, Mentalism, Rendered, Notational, Investiture, Incidental, Intrinsic and Arcane Magic. Not all of these realms are equal: they vary in power, scope, ease of learning and accessibility.

Essence

Scope: Manipulation of physical forces, objects, the elements, overt manipulation of physics

Casting Mechanism: Requires verbal and gesture to cast

Casting Bonus: Magical Language Skill

Advantages: Very powerful spells; effective against multiple targets or area affects

Disadvantages: Costly to learn; Less effective on non-physical targets (souls, spirits, mind); affected by encumbrance; verbal/gesture required

Mentalism

Scope: Mind manipulation and extensive self-modification

Casting Mechanism: Thought, concentration

Casting Bonus: Mental Focus Skill

Advantages: No verbal or hand gesture, potent against single targets, no encumbrance issues, no casting time, cast and maintain multiple spells

Disadvantages: Limited target, no AoE, must concentrate to maintain effect, easiest to defend against

Channeling

Scope: Spirit, healing, qualitative, “buffs”, “miracles”

Casting Mechanism: Vocal component

Casting Bonus: Prayer Skill

Advantages: Most effective on living creatures, powerful healing, no armor/encumbrance issues, access to patron god, followers

Disadvantages: Few directed spells, powers may be limited by patron god, but maintain good standing with god (prayer skill)

Notational Magic

Scope: Written magic: runes, bladerunes, glyphs, sigils, symbols, signs, skin runes

Casting Mechanism: Drawing, writing

Casting Bonus: Rune Skill

Advantages: Broad utility, less costly to learn, “stored” spells

Disadvantages: Takes time to draw, subject to medium and materials

Rendered Magic

Scope: Performance based, large audience

Casting Mechanism: Song, dance, art, music etc

Casting Bonus: Performance Skill

Advantages: Varied powers, effective against multiple targets

Disadvantages: Target must be aware of performance, performance must be maintained

Imbedded Magic

Scope: Making magical invested items

Casting Mechanism: Repeated investiture

Casting Bonus: Spell List Bonus

Advantages: Make magic items!

Disadvantages: Long work times, costly, failure could destroy object

Incidental Magic

Scope: Small magical effects, cantrips, hedge magic

Casting Mechanism: Minimal

Casting Bonus: None

Advantages: Simple, easy to learn, utility

Disadvantages: Very limited, not powerful

Intrinsic Magic

Scope: Defined spell-like abilities

Casting Mechanism: Varies

Casting Bonus: None

Advantages: Intrinsic abilities

Disadvantages: None

Arcane/Primitive Magic

Scope: Elemental, Dimensional

Casting Mechanism: Wyrds, Rituals

Casting Bonus: Spell List Bonus

Advantages: Very powerful but hard to control or predict outcomes.

Disadvantages: Not subtle or focused. Can create undesirable side-effects or collateral damage.

We’ve found that at higher levels in RM2 there is a little differentiation between casters. By 20^th lvl casters can have almost all available spell lists in Spell Law. I prefer a system where casters have fewer spells overall and more defined abilities. Since we use a “NO PROFESSION” style in our SW campaign, mages-types have spells from at least 2 different realms and even fighter types pick up some spells. This makes for a very creative character creation process, broadens out the party’s skill sets and makes for “mages” with very specific and focused magic abilities. The advantages, disadvantages and costs of improving balance these abilities out.

If you want to see our revised Spell Law, we’ve posted early versions of our Channeling and Essence lists on the RM Forums and will have Mentalism up next!

The files can be found here, but need a Rolemaster Forum Account to see them and download them.

Channeling Lists . A compiled file is posted at the end.

Essence lists are here. Compiled file posted at the end

on a last note, there was some work done on this and an article written in the Guild Companion years ago but I couldn’t dig it up to link to.

July 12, 2016

RM Stats & Labeling. Quantitative vs. Qualitative

While Peter is off “riding horses” and drinking Earl Gray I thought I would toss this issue out and see if anyone had some thoughts on the subject. on a side note….(Peter is off to some mysterious locale, Peter is English, all villains have an English accent; ergo Peter is a villain up to some nefarious scheme!)

Anyway, I wanted to start off with a factoid I was told years ago that stuck with me. A friend of mine in the Navy said that the nuke dept. still used analog gauges in their instruments instead of more accurate digital displays. Why? Because while less accurate, we can better perceive “rate and severity of change” with a needle than a rapidly changing digital number output.

So this leads me to RM (and perhaps RMU). The RM system uses a number of qualitative labels as stand-ins” for actual numerical modifiers. This requires a GM or player to read the label and then look up a chart to convert the label to an actual number used in the game play. To me this seems horrible in-efficient and counter-intuitive. Plus it just adds to the “chart count”—an easy target and common criticism of RM. Let’s take a look at a few:

The most obvious one are maneuver difficulty labels: routine, easy, hard, very hard, absurd etc. While the words create a scale of difficulty, they are meaningless without the corresponding difficulty penalty. If you are using the original RM MM chart with individual columns for difficulties than this might make sense, but if you are using an absolute or partial success 100scale maneuver resolution than the labels are just proxies for the penalty modifier.
Walk, Jog, Run, Sprint etc. Again, while those labels have an intuitive meaning to us, for game play purposes they are just multipliers: 1x, 1.5x, 2x, 5x etc.
Creature stats have a speed (actually two I believe). Slow, Normal, Fast, Very Fast, Blinding etc. What does that mean? You have to look it up in a chart.
Creatures are assigned sizes: Diminutive, Small, Medium, Large, Huge, etc. Depending on your rule set, those sizes may have a material impact on combat and damage results.

When I’m writing adventures I find myself slowed down by that conversion process: either looking up labels/mods on a chart or the actual modifier needed to represent the challenge properly. It seems to me that all of these can be simplified:

If you are using a 100scale maneuver resolution than difficulty can be assigned by a penalty only. The added benefit is that you can set any penalty to a maneuver/challenge/trap etc. than the pre-set ones. Rather than write “pit trap, V. Hard to Detect” I can write “pit trap, -50d). This does not require referring to a chart to convert “V. Hard” to a number and it’s less text!
Isn’t easier to say you’re going to move at an x2 pace than to say you’re going to “jog” and then convert jog to 1.5? It’s a simple process but why add the extra step? With creature stat blocks it’s then easy just to assign a max multiplier, rather than assigning a max pace label.
We just apply a number to the Speed stat that is used for our d100 initiative system.
Using Beta 2 size rules, we use numbers and not labels for creature size from I-X. The difference in size sets both the hits and critical adjustments.

While our solutions depend on our own house-rules, it’s clear that many of these labels can be converted to a simple number. What’s the down-side? I think there is an argument that these labels offer flavor and texture to a game. Looking at a creature stat that says it’s “Blinding Fast” gives a qualitative attribute to the creature. But in the end, what’s important is how that label translates into game mechanics. Why translate at all?